Apollo & Mama's Day Of Fun

Woowee, we had a spectacular day from start to finish. There were happy tears, giggles galore, treats, carousel rides, birds, boats, sand, dancing, train rides, and a nap on-the-go in the stroller. I feel like we covered it all!

Yesterday we received wonderful news that another room opened up in the other patient housing building so we packed up again this morning! Then we hopped on the train to attend Apollo's first Sunday mass. As much as I would've liked for it to be at home as a whole family, it was absolute perfection. We were greeted by the pastor as we entered St. Joseph's and he asked about Mr. Apollo. After listening intently to our quick story, he placed his hands over him and gave a blessing. Cue the tears for Mama and they continued throughout the entire mass. This dear priest mentioned Apollo by name twice - at the end of his homily and at the closing of mass, asking for prayers for his surgery. As he came around to bless the congregation with holy water, he stopped and showered Apollo several times. Finally, as he processed out at the end, he stopped and held Apollo's face in his hand. Cue Mama bawling. It was just what I needed and my little squeeze made it throughout the entire mass (to my shock and admiration).

We were set to venture out to the harbor for an afternoon packed with hour after hour of fun. I'll let the pictures do all of the talking!

And back at home, the girls and Magnus are having a blast. Today was extra fun at their cousin's house as always!

We are praying hard that we find out what our week will look like tomorrow and where we will be - Boston or St. Louis?! Please let it be

so a little, broken heart can begin to grow stronger! ❤

Here Fishy Fishy

We really enjoyed ourselves and had such a great day since we had the whole day to have fun and not worry about hearing back from our cardio team. Apollo is changing his hours a bit to staying up late at night and sleeping in come the morning. I had to make a racket in our room to get Mr. Sleepy Pants going this morning to meet our friends for an aquarium outing. He was not thrilled in the least bit and kept saying "boo fish" and "boo good morning". You just can't help giggling at him! After a long breakfast date in the shared family kitchen, we trekked over to the New England Aquarium. I had heard many great reviews by other parents with children at BCH so my expectations were high and it did not disappoint!

The main attraction was an enormous tank shaped like a cylinder with hundreds of fish, sharks, turtles, and who knows what else inside. A ramp took you up 4 levels and each level was also filled with individual exhibits with different underwater habitats. Just as we thought the next one would have some ordinary fish, our jaws dropped at the beauty of God's creations. We couldn't believe these creatures were actually real! I should've taken more pictures but I was busy making sure a little busy body wasn't doing anything he wasn't supposed to...like throwing a squishy toy frog into the penguin exhibit from the 3rd floor ramp. True story! About 50 sets of eyes were on us accompanied by multiple gasps. I shouted down an apology as I began to sweat and a kind employee who was in the exhibit with the penguins grabbed it quickly and smiled at us to my huge relief. Sadly, I'm sure that frog is seeing the bottom of a garbage can now (sorry Mom, it was a great gift that he loved). 

We stayed for several hours until both little ones were done and headed back for some lunch. A glorious, long nap followed and then some play time in the playroom while it sprinkled outside. Apollo kept asking to feed the birds so we went out on a mission to find them. No birds but we found a playground tucked away and played with another little boy and his parents. They wanted to know our story and were moved to tears by our miracle boy. It turns out they're both physicians and had great suggestions for more playgrounds, restaurants, and attractions for kids. The mom even offered her phone number if we need anything! There are such wonderful people in this world and I'm so grateful for connecting with two of them today.

From their recommendation, we headed to a little shopping area and picked up dinner from Trader Joe's. Google Maps says there's a Gap in that area as well so we may venture back for some retail therapy. There may be some scattered showers tomorrow so hopefully we can reach the Boston Harbor after church. I wish Apollo's first mass was at home but this mama needs it so I'm hoping he can give me the gift of peace tomorrow morning! I won't hold my breath!!

Everyone Limbo...Or Maybe Just Us!

You may have guessed it - we're still in Boston and have no clue what's going on. I so wish I was kidding! I really thought we would hear today but the sun rose and set with no definitive news. If Apollo and I weren't having such a grand old time, we would both be sobbing right now. Thankfully, he is doing really well and we're definitely growing closer and building our bond together even though he keeps asking to go home. I wake up and fall asleep to "Wo ai ni, mama, I love you" and I melt. Then he tells the geese we've been feeding for 10 minutes that he loves them too. Welp, I'll still take it!!

We have quite the little bird man in the family as he fed more geese than we could count today. On our way to a park playdate, we found 3 families of geese. Luckily, I packed rolls from dinner last night so the geese had a breakfast feast. Apollo was crazy excited and even pet one of the babies - omg. I can't believe the hissing mama goose didn't go in for the attack. I couldn't stop him in enough time and his face exhuded pure elation. So honey, please look into if geese make good family pets. You would win major Daddy points with your oldest son!

After playing at the park, I called patient housing and was told they had a room available for 2 nights. Hallelujah, we'll take it! We scurried back to our hotel, packed up and Ubered it to our new digs for the weekend. We're so thankful to be back at one of the family homes (similar to Ronald McDonald houses) like we were last year with Magnus. Apollo loves the play room and I'm thrilled to have some adult interaction, especially with another sweet China mama. After a failed nap (I wanted one so badly!), we headed out to check out Fenway Park and stroll the aisles of Target. It had been too long (aka a couple days) since I'd been in one of my fav stores so I happily made the long walk on a bum foot. We took the scenic route and Mr. Stinkerpants zonked out a couple of blocks away from the ballpark. My sweet boy!

We're loving that the 4th of July is close since its extra meaningful for one of the newest American citizens and his family.

After we literally loaded the stroller down with groceries (ya know, the essentials like Mickey Mouse waffles, watermelon, Danimals yogurts, chips and salsa, clausen pickles, Pepsi, bread for more birds, and much more), we headed back and ran into more geese. I'm sure Apollo was thinking, "jackpot!". We happily stopped in the middle of a very busy sidewalk, shared our bread with a little girl, and told these geese we loved them too. He was quite generous and only gave himself a bite for every 5 to the geese. He was so very happy and is already planning on finding more tomorrow. Good thing we bought a lot of bread!

We have absolutely no idea if and when Apollo can get scheduled this week. We're guessing that they're really trying to make it work since it wasn't a quick "no". In the mean time, as we play the limbo game, we're going to enjoy our time here as we say lots of prayers for God to move a couple of mountains. Up next tomorrow - fish! We're headed to a fabulous aquarium with our friends. A little warrior fell asleep talking about the fish he's going to see. He's gonna LOVE it!

Do We Stay or Do We Go?

I fell asleep with a certain little one after a full and exhausting day so a 2am post is going to look a lot different which really means very short. Apollo did great today as he was poked and prodded to understand how his amazing little heart works. And the conclusion...they need more testing. Argh!

In order to make the best decision for his surgical plan, Apollo will need to have a sedated heart catheterization. Since we're at the top pediatric hospital, their schedule is jam-packed and they're canceling patients on the OR schedule often to accommodate the most severe cases. Well, little man is one of those cases so they are trying to get him into the OR next week! I was shocked and may have teared up when our cardiologist told me. We were supposed to find out this afternoon if it was possible but we still don't know. Craziness!! So we will hang out and enjoy Boston tomorrow until we hear what we're supposed to do. We have a park date with an amazing little Chinese heart princess and her mama whom I adore. I'm so thankful for the special friendships I've developed because of adoption. We have immediate and deep connections with each other that are priceless.

After all of our visits today, Apollo and I crashed with an afternoon nap only to be woken up an hour later by a telemarketer who I thought was our doctor. Not a happy mama bear! Apollo said he wanted to go "bye-bye" (which really meant he wanted to go home) so we headed out for the afternoon to explore. He keeps asking for Magnus, his sisters, Daddy, and his grandmas which is so sad but beautiful that he is already bonded to them. We really enjoyed ourselves and the gorgeous day! After a stressful morning, he was so happy to toddle down the street, singing lots of nursery rhymes and saying "hello" to random people. Instead of detailing it all, here's the photos!

Goodnight Boston, we hope to stay here for awhile to fix one very special and complicated heart!