Testing 1, 2, 3....

That is my life right now. I feel like Grace is testing me more than usual. She is hitting her stride in the terrible twos and she may well get an award for her efforts. I know that consistency is the key, but it ain't easy, and she invents new ways to test me all the time. She spends enough time in time out that she puts herself there, crying loudly with big crocodile tears pouring down her face. While she is in time ou she looks at me with one eye to see what I am doing, and if I am not watching she has been known so sneak out. the little bugger.

We had also had out first meeting with Grace's speech therapist. The jury is still out on how I feel about her. She thinks Grace has some sensory issues and I agree, I have known that all along. While I think they are mild, you have to really look and know what you are looking for to see them, she called her a 4-5 out of a scale of 1-10. That is a rant for another time, but I am confused as to where she thinks all these sensory issues are. We're going to talk about it in more depth next week. No, I'm not hiding my head in the sand I have a Master's in Education and I took quite a few classes that dealt with sensory issues. I'm aware there is an issue, but as I see it, it's minor. Oh well by using this gal she fills out Grace's paperwork to get her speech through th school district once she's three, so there is a plus.

It's time to get the Princess up from nap, she is fully potty trained and stays dry at nap, we even ordered her big girl bed so she can get out if she needs to go to the bathroom. Soon there will be no baby stuff in the house, it will be weird after nine years.

Home 6 Months Today!!!

Grace today
Grace 6 months ago

Grace today


I cannot believe that Grace has been in our family for 6 months. At first there were days that were like what did we do?!?! Mostly though it was just that crazy excitement and everything was new, and different and thrilling. Now, we've morphed into regular life, things are how they are and we' re happy and content. It's scary to think how quickly she went from being new to just being one of the gang, I thought it would take longer for here to just feel like one of us. I have to confess the girl part is still special to me and I love choosing her clothes, I mean Valentines day clothes, pink and hearts I'm in Heaven and then comes Easter, I'm already drooling over dresses.

Here is a little snapshot of where Grace is at 6 months home:

Sleeping

Sleeping has never been a problem with Grace, she woke up a couple of times the first week home, then she slept 11 hours at night and took a 2+ hour afternoon nap, and she still does both of those things.

Eating:

Grace started out eating until you took food away, she would cram her mouth full until you worried she'd choke. And this was a chubby well fed kid. She also had a fit if anyone ate and she wasn't eating. Now, she is a bird. She eats very little, she'd rather get down and play. She has also turned toddler picky which we aren't concerned about. She eats just like her brothers did at this age so we know she is fine.

Potty:

When we got Grace she was sitting on the pot at the Baby house, but not potty trained. We left her in diapers and waited to potty train until she showed us she was ready. At Christmas she was saying poopy and pointing to her pants and then going, so we took the plunge. Grace is fully potty trained, we can leave the house with her in panties and she also stays dry through nap. She isn't going poopy there yet, but she's getting close. She is still in a diaper at night, but I think she'll be out of that soon too. All of this potty stuff has us moving her to a big girl bed in a month or tow, she needs to be able to get out if she has to go potty.

Social:

Grace loves other kids (she lives in a herd) so she does great with them and loves to be around them. She doesn't share worth a hoot, typical for a two year old, but she'd probably more extreme than your average two year old. We're working on sharing and she's getting a tiny bit better, it will come with time.

Attachment:

This is the biggy, as an adoptive parent, I was worried about. They have you so concerned about that you look for signs everywhere. I'm sure we didn't need to pay quite so much attention, but it's good to notice, plus I've seen amazing growth here when I pay attention. If you had asked me three weeks ago about Grace's attachment I would have said very secure, she i really attached and we don't worry about it all. I started to notice little things that she is doing lately that show me her attachment to us deepening even further, it really is an evolving thing. Grace now comes and wants to be held, just to b held. She's always been willing to be held if you just pick her up or are carrying her somewhere, but now she just likes you to hold her. She has always been happy to sin in our laps for quite a long period of time and she looks in our eyes for eye contact a lot. Now she really snuggles into you. she is also coming to us for kisses all the time, before she would kiss when asked or if she was sitting on you and you kissed her head she'd come kiss your mouth. Now she walks up to you all day and makes the kissing sound and says ki, very sweet. So I say she's really attached to us, but it's always evolving and she'll grow even more attached as time goes on.

Speech:

Grace has been diagnosed with a speech delay, so she'll be starting therapy tomorrow! We are thrilled that she qualified and that she'll get the extra boost she needs so she can communicate with us better.

All in all, this has been a fairy tale, not without it's ups and downs, I mean she is a stubborn drama queen who'd like to run the show. She has added so much to our family and there isn't a person in it who isn't thrilled sh joined us. Happy 6 month homeiversary Baby Girl, we love you to the moon and back!

Keeping things even and the only test you WANT your kid to fail.

I'll start with the happy stuff, although the second part isn't sad, just not flat out happy. When B was born I found this lady who made a ceramic plaque of your kids hand and feet prints, she put their name and you could put a picture on them and they were to die for sweet. Since B was our first and we so thrilled and proud, we bought the most expensive option, it was a keepsake! Then we had number two and we had to get him the same thing. And, being close to insane it had to be at the EXACT same age as B's was. So you can see where this is going, all four boys have the same plaque done at exactly seven weeks of age hanging in their rooms, next to the cross they received on their Baptism. (yes I am the youngest child and I try to keep things as fair and even as I can. I am aware that its a sickness and not always possible, but I give it my best shot)

Cut to today, we have our wonderful Grace, but she was in Russia at seven weeks so no plaque that is just like her brothers. I was very concerned about what we would do, to keep things even, the boys were so small when we had theirs done so both of their hands and feet fit on the plaque, there was no way Grace's would. Being a worrier and a borrower of trouble I confessed to Scott that I was pretty sure that when Grace a teen she was going to throw the lack of the plaque and baby book in my face and go on a rant about not being loved as much since she was adopted. He laughed.

I have now solved both problems, and although things are not exactly the same I am thrilled that we will have these special keepsakes for Grace. I scrapbook, but I decided that I would order her a write in life book, that is like the boys baby books, I still scrapped everything too. She will have two records of our journey to her. Then on Saturday we went to make Grace's plaque, and much to my surprise she is small enough that we could make that same style the boys have. I look at her size 5.5 feet, small for her age, and they seem huge compared to the boys 7 week feet. But hey at 16, she won't be tossing these things in my face, she'll have to come up with some thing else!


Now on to the test. On Friday we had Grace tested through our local birth to three. I know it seems late, but I have been trying to get in since September. The only concern we have is her speech, she is not up to par, and while she is picking up new words, my Mother's inutition said she needed a little boost that we couldn't give her. I was fairly sure that she would just barely miss the cutoff and we would be sunk, but she is low enough to be accepted. The Speech Therapist said she low tone in her mouth muscles, so I fugured at that point she was in. Now my brag, when Grace came home she couldn't climb anything and she couldn't walk 10 feet without falling. She was above the 2.5 year mark for motor skills! We have had her running and climbing as much as we can to try and get her skills up, and to keep her from hurting herself. So next week we'll get a call from our family coordinator and we'll start. I am so thrilled that she will get the boost she needs so she can let her needs be known easier. An added plus, maybe it will help her frustration level and stop the biting!

Happy New Year! (late), a special day and potty training

It was a very Happy New Year, indeed. 2008 will mark Grace's first full year with our family, I can't wait to see the changes in her in the upcoming year. I asked Scott what we were doing this year to top adopting and travelling to Russia twice last year. He thinks we ought to try and ramp it down many notches. We'll see...

Yesterday was one year since I filled out my application to adopt from AIA. We fill it out not knowing for sure whether we would go through with anything, but feeling like we would. We were so nervous and unsure about what the future would bring, how long would we have to wait, who would be our child, how much was this going to cost us? So many unknowns on that day, but lots of faith that we were doing what we were meant to do, and look it turned out great! I remember last Christmas praying that we would have a daughter by the next Christmas, and miraculously we did. She certainly was our best gift of the year.

Potty training, ugh! I've trained four boys and frankly I'm just don't want to train anyone else! Grace has the "potty" part down, but I'm still scared to take her out in panties. She doesn't tell you she has to go potty, she just goes in and takes care of it or she points and we go, so going out seems like such a scary thing. We are hard core around here for the potty training, once you start you wear undies only, except at night and nap, and nap goes away within the week. It has worked four times, so I don't know why I'm such a wimp with Grace. The number 2 thing, we're still working on. She can't tell it's coming, so she comes to you after it has started, so part is in her undies and part in toilet, so I still have two messes to clean up. I'm just keeping my eyes on the prize of diaper free living!

Grace's First Christmas

The pictures are
#1 Grace in ALL the jewelry Santa brought her on Christmas Eve, she had every single piece on
#2 All 5 in matching jammies, right before bed on Christmas Eve
#3 Grace and J opening their stockings
#4 Grace and Bitty Baby
#5 Grace and Bitty baby and the bitty baby bed

Grace had a wonderful first Christmas. She loved all the cookies and treats and loved going to look at lights, she would point and say ooh. She was into doing any activity her brothers were doing so she made and decorated cookies, saw Santa, sat with Santa when he came to our house, colored, wrapped, and put bows on presents.

The presents were the only hard part of the day for our Princess, she wanted open them all and when she was told no, there was a tantrum. As a result, she spent some time on the stairs. When she opened gifts that she could play with right then, she was happy for a bit, but she wanted to open more presents!! (who can blame her, isn't that what everyone wants?) She loved all her gifts and let me tell you, she knows which ones are hers and if one her brother's touches one of her new toys she goes screaming after them, MINE! We're working on the sharing, she has no problem playing with their stuff, lol, but she'd rather they leave her toys alone. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Santa brought Grace a Bitty Baby, who goes everywhere with her. We have spent a lot of time changing her clothes and putting her to bed. She practically throws the poor doll into the crib, which prompts Scott to say, SLEEP BABY in his meanest voice. What a hoot.

All in all a wonderful holiday for everyone, filled with lots of gifts, food and love, and couple tantrums for drama.

Scenes from the Christmas season

I have had too many parties and guests to post much lately, so I will put up some pictures from some of our Christmas celebrations. Grace loved Christmas and only went to time out three times while we opened presents :-). She would like to own it all and sharing doesn't rank high on the list of things she likes to do, but drama does, so she chose to throw herself on the floor in very dramatic displays of displeasure, hence the stairs. She's been home five months and throwing these tantrums almost that long, and I still have to turn my head so she doesn't see me giggling. Hope every one had a very Merry Christmas!

He's making a list, checking it twice, gonna find out who's naughty or nice....

Our Christmas card. Merry Christmas!!