It’s been over a month since my last post, so there is lots to catch up on. My goal with this blog is to post at least once a month, ideally more. But life has been pretty busy, so carving out blogging time has been difficult. But here’s the scoop:

ZZ’s medical status: On October 12, ZZ had his casts removed. We thought he’d be happy about this, as he found his casts a bit uncomfortable at times, but he was actually a bit freaked out. I think he got used to having them for support. Plus, the casts desensitized his legs a bit to external stimuli. Finally, he never had a chance to experience his feet post-surgery until now. Given that they are in an entirely new position from before, he was unsure what to make of things. Anyway, he spent the first week post-casts very nervous and still. He didn’t crawl around a lot, and he pretty much wanted to sit on the floor or in our lap. He hated having things touch his legs, such as pants and socks. But over the course of the past few weeks, he’s back to his normal self. In fact, his mobility is even better than before due to his feet being in proper position, the physical therapy that he started a few weeks ago, and his new lower leg braces. He has a lot of muscle weakness in his glutes, quads, hamstrings, and lower legs, so he has a long way to go before he is walking on his own, but he’s been making a lot of progress. He’s learning what it means to put weight on his feet and he’s using his feet when he climbs up steps, stands and walks with our assistance, and pulls himself up to standing while holding onto the side of a table or chair. This past week, he especially made a lot of progress in these areas. We are very excited to see him pull himself up into standing position as well as “walk” by putting one foot in front of the other, as opposed to move both feet forward at the same time in a sort of mermaid fashion (which is what he used to do). In terms of braces, he wears a pair of splints for 12 hours at night that help to stretch out his ankle and calf tendons. Then he wears day braces that supporthis lower legs, enkles, and feet. Once the day braces are on, he puts shoes on over them. So ZZ is wearing shoes for the first time in his life.

Other developmental milestones: ZZ continues to expand his language ability daily. Everyday, he uses at least one new word, so we’re pretty sure he’s speaking about 300 words. He’s also using two word phrases regularly. his most common ones are “Mama, [insert noun or verb here],” “Baba [insert noun or verbhere],” “Drive Car,” “Ride Bike,” “Hot Tea,” and “Big Car” (which is what he calls trucks and busses). In general, he’s a very talkative kid and is getting more talkative. He always narrates what he sees when we are out and about (“Mama, car!” Mama, doggie!,” Baba, tower!”). He’s often singing or babbling random sound and words to himself, and he likes to sing and dance a long to his favorite songs. He can also answer questions, although sometimes he knows what we are asking ,”Zhengzheng, do you want more water?” “Uh-huh” or “ZhengZheng, do you want more egg?” “No!”). Other times, however, it’s clear that he doesn’t know what we are asking. In these cases, he still goes “Uh-huh.” We can ask him some pretty funny things and he’ll say “Uh-huh” in response.

ZZ also continues to grow. He now weighs between 22 and 23 pounds and he’s between 30 and 31 inches in length. He’s still not on the growth curve yet, but he’s growing at a rapid pace, so hopefully within the next year he’ll be on the chart. Even though he is still small, he looks bigger and older. We’re pretty sure that his legs have gotten longer, as they dangle more and look more in proportion to his torso. Also, now that he is wearing shoes, he looks like a little boy instead of a baby.

Our daily scheduleAt the beginning of the month, Paul and I officially went back to work part time. We hoped to do so in September, but all the medical stuff made it impossible. Since we are both on 50% family leave, we have no classes to teach. So our time is spent on research, advising our graduate students, attending committee meetings, etc. We split our workday in half: Tw days a week, I hang out with ZZ from 8-12:30 and then go to work from 12:30 to 5:00. Paul is on the reverse schedule. One other day, we switch shifts. The other two days get divided a bit differently so that I can attend a yoga class at noon. It’s working out pretty well, but it’s always a bit hectic at the transition moments. ZZ is still going to music class on Monday mornings and a library reading and play group on Thursday mornings. now we have PT twice a week.Once the music class ends next month, we’lll probably start up with swimming lessons instead to help with his leg rehabilitation. Swimming is a good physical activity for kids with club feet because they can build up strength without too much impact.

HalloweenToday is Halloween, so ZZ had his first trick or treating experience that we know about (I’m not sure if they do Halloween in China). We bought him a bee costume, and he was very cute in it. Milwaukee’s official Halloween hours are from 1-4 (it’s pretty silly) and our neighborhood tends not to have many residents who participate, so we went to 8 houses or so and then went home. We taught ZZ how to say “trick or treat,” so he’d say it when he got his candy. He says “Twick tweet” and it is sooo cute. Two nights ago, we also did a pre-halloween celebration at the zoo with our friends Kuangchi, Robert, and their daughter Theresa. The zoo had different activities and stations set up for the kids. And last weekend, we went to a farm to buy a pumpkin and wander through the haunted corn maze. That was fun, too. Basically, we were happy to finally get to celebrate Halloween as parents. In that regard, we may have enjoyed it more than ZZ.