Obsessions

Grace has some new obsessions, the shoe fetish still continues, but she has now added silky pajamas and Cinderella to her repertoire.

A few weeks ago I got out some polyester Jammie's I had bought for her. All her Jammie's have been the 100% cotton Carter's ones in the past, but these new Jammie's were wide legged Capri's with a tank style top and Grace loved them. After wearing the Jammie's once Grace now will strip at any hour of the day and dig through the dirty clothes basket to find these Jammie's and change into them. It doesn't matter what time it is or what the temperature is Grace will change into the Jammie's. We've found that if we have someplace we need to be, that Grace had better be in our eyesight for the last 15 minutes to make sure she is still dressed, I've been caught off-guard a few times needing to go to the bus stop and Grace is in her Jammie's. (it snowed here last Saturday, so summer Jammie's outside aren't going to cut it) I finally found another pair of similar Jammie's, which she will wear in a pinch, but she does prefer her bug Jammie's.

Grace has also discovered Cinderella, or Rella as she is called here. It started with a Disney Princess story book and has now taken on a life of it's own. Scott brought home a pack of Rella figurines for her and they are her constant companion right now. I gave her a Rella Barbie, but there was an unfortunate incident with a glass slipper in the toilet and Grace diving in after it and getting her head in the urine filled toilet, so barbie has been banished. She will sit and watch the movie, with her figurines, and never move. She won't sit still for much else, so the movie is gold to me right now. Last week she spotted a girl with a Rella sweatshirt and I was afraid she was going to take her down and steal the sweatshirt. When she sees Rella, she screams her name so we can all see too, so I didn't miss the sweatshirt or the dragging of me to get a closer look at the sweatshirt.

I have to say, after living through the truck, train, airplane obsession four times, the lego obsession three times, the video game obsession 3 times and now the Pokemon obsession, these new obsessions are great fun and I am all about encouraging them!

Happy Birthday Scott

Last year my wonderful Hubby hit the bi 4-0. It was quite a day, but not because Scott was having a milestone birthday. On his birthday we received a wonderful gift courtesy of some great people who had just returned from Magadan. They got to see Grace and the sent us these pictures. This was the first time we had seen Grace as she was, not a picture from a year past. I remember looking at her and thinking she does not look like my daughter. Today we were at Costco and were asked if she and J were twins, so obviously she does look like our daughter. (and I can't imagine her looking any different)

An update to my speech post. Grace is seeing a speech therapist, through Early Intervention. We don't care for the gal who is Grace's therapist, but after all we had to go through to get the thing started and the then adding the fact that her services end in June we're sticking with who we have. I'm not saying we completely disagree with her, we don't, but we are trying to take what she has said with a grain of salt. We've been doing a lot of research since Tuesday and while Grace does meet some of the criteria for CAS, she definitely doesn't meet about half. It will be interesting to see where this all takes us. Our current plan is to send Grace to our Church's pre-school as scheduled, then she will have speech through the school district. We will then be able to get her additional speech therapy through a private practitioner using our insurance. She is being tested for developmental pre-school, but at this point Scott and I would rather not go that route, 10 hours a week gone from home seems like too much for a 3 year old, and they have told us she will get the same amount of speech there that she would if we just took her in to the school, so if she qualifies at four we'll see. So for now that is the plan. I'm still sad about her diagnosis, and still trying to figure out if it is correct, she seems to be making such huge progress right now, to have the therapist tell me this, just sucked the joy right of me.

I know that Scott and I will advocate for all the best help for Grace and that, that will help her have the best outcome she can, but it is taking me awhile to shake off the sadness because just like all Mom's everywhere, we just don't want our babies to have to struggle.

Childhood Speech Apraxia

That is the diagnosis they have pinned on Grace. I had an entry all planned out about Grace's speech and how much she had been improving lately and how thrilled we were. I was also going to mention that whenever she made a great stride in language we were treated to a few days of horrid behavior as she made her developmental leap. I was also going to mention that although I had once longed for a label to explain why she wasn't talking like I thought she should be, I was okay with it because she was making such progress and I was confident that she would be caught up in a year or so.

Now, she has the label I once longed for and I have a deep sadness. When I read about CAS, as it called by those in the know, the picture isn't always that grand, it can mean that Grace will always struggle with language based activities, like reading and writing. My heart breaks with the strong possibility that she will struggle in school. Partly because she is one sharp cookie and I would hate to see anything dampen her spark, and partly because reading is one of my great passions in life and the thought that she may not love it like I do ( and the brothers that can read do) is really heartbreaking.

I am also struggling because yesterday we had an academic plan in place that I was quite comfortable with, today I don't know for sure what to do or what is best for her.

As a teacher I have always hated labels on kids, I've always felt like it limited them, and I avoided labels as often as I could. When I was dying to have a label for Grace's speech delay Scott was laughing at me, he couldn't figure out why I needed that so badly. I thought that if I had a label that there would be some mythical exact plan in place to FIX the problem. HA, turns out I am much happier without the label, we'll still be doing all the same things for Grace that we currently are, but now I have this looming concern for the future that wasn't there yesterday.

I'm just going to try and concentrate on how I felt yesterday, Grace will talk and she will be fine, and we will do all that we can to help her get to the top of her potential in life, just like we do for her brothers.

But just for today I am sad, so I'll go eat some cookies!

A year ago today.....

I woke up and got four kids ready for the day. I dropped two off at the bus and one off at pre-school and then I took the last one with me to Bible Study. I didn't tell anyone that the day held the promise of being a very special day. I just sat and prayed for peace. When Bible Study was over I had to wait 30 minutes before I could pick up boy #3 from pre-school, I doubt anyone knew how anxious I was to get home. After we left pre-school I must have driven the 20 minutes home like a mad woman, but I can't recall that part of the day at all. Once home I had to feed the two boys lunch in a hurry, we had to be at the elementary school for a play and we were meeting Daddy. I got the boys all settled and raced to the computer. There sitting in my in box was a line that said RE:referral. My heart stopped and I was honestly a bit afraid to open the email. When I did, I was greeted with this


Truth be told I'd seen this face many times, as I been perusing the data bank wondering who would be our little girl, and from day one I knew that this one would be ours. A year later she is ours, ours in ways we could never have imagined. She has worked her way into the fabric of our hearts and family as though she has been here always. We love her more than I might have thought possible (I thought it might take a year or more for her to feel like ours). Today Grace is one of the gang, she fits us like a glove, and we are so blessed that she is part of our family. I look at the picture we received a year ago and I don't recognize that girl, I didn't know her. But when I look at her eyes I see a familiar sparkle and hint of her piss and vinegar and then I see our girl.

Today I woke up and this is what I saw

Grace, we are so happy that we listened to our hearts and went to get you, our family is richer because you joined it.

Happy Easter

Grace making a purple egg, before dipping her fingers in to taste the dye
the five
the five
oops thought I turned this onw. The tantrum after being denied unlimited access to candy in her eggs
The beautiful (in my opinion) and sassy Grace. She did charm all she saw Church.



Last Easter happened two days after we got our referral for Grace (remember Easter is a roving holiday) I remember reading Tonya's post and seeing the pictures of the adorable Lyra's first Easter and the story of Lyra wearing the green dress Tonya bought after waiting so long to be able to buy. I also remember crying when I looked at the picture's of Lyra. Was I soo looking forward to today, I'm not sure, but cry I did.

Jump to this Easter, I have darling dress for a very cute girl and the boys all have these very handsome shirts to wear. We were going to visit my parents in Eugene so they could show off their Grand kids in all their finery (and supposedly their best behavior too). But if you backtrack to Thursday when Scott called from work to say he didn't feel well and was coming home, you can see where my wonderful, perfect Easter started to fall apart. Scott never stays home from work, but even less than never, does he leave early, so I should not have assumed that he was run down and just wanted extra rest before leaving for the weekend. Scott went to bed at 11:30 Friday morning and got up today at noon to pretend to eat dinner with us. We did not go to Eugene, the kids did sob about this fact. So I tried to make it a great Easter. I failed.

Scott is sleeping, but not well. I tried the couch and is just wasn't working so I went back to our bed (where I swear I should have been wearing a mask to save me from his germs) Scott is tossing and coughing and generally keeping me awake. I am now very tired, and cranky that my plans are falling apart. Staying in town meant taking the boys to all the sports practices that they were going to miss, that all overlapped time wise. So in three hours on Saturday I had J and Grace in and out of the car seat 8 times. Did I mention they are both still in 5 point harness seats. On Thursday night I had one piano lesson, one soccer practice and an HOA meeting, in 3 hours, and it rained. God bless baseball, at least they cancel that when it rains, not so much soccer. I forgot to mention, the kids didn't have school Friday, so they were home, ALL DAY.

Saturday afternoon I decide that Easter must go on so we dyed eggs. Who decided that you dye eggs the day before Easter, the kids get the dye on their hands, and it is still there on Sunday. Yes I bathed them Saturday night. Grace got the dye on her hands because she would dip them in the dye and lick them, which is better than the toilet, which she has also been known to do. Last night at 10 Scott asks for saltines and 7-up, which we don't have in the house. So I run to Walmart, it's the closest big store, because I'm feeling bad about Easter sucking I decide to add to the baskets and get more plastic eggs. 100 bucks later I go home. It's now 11:15 and I'm stuffing eggs, and exhausted, and frankly pissed off at Scott. He has a habit of getting sick at holidays. When I went to bed all I could pray for patience to get through today.

I didn't so much get them. You see holidays with sugar make boys very hyper, even when you haven't let them have any of the sugar yet. Getting ready for church involved yelling, and threats. Church went well. Dinner after, not so much. Grace was removed from the table and put to bed ( she was not happy that she wasn't allowed to just sit and eat the candy out of her eggs at will she would not let it go), the boys ate literally nothing.

Best part of the day, watching Enchanted with Grace snuggled up on my lap, she hates movies and isn't normally one to sit on people for 2 hours, 20 minutes sure, but 2 hours. At one point I had my feet resting a pillow that was on the coffee table, Grace climbed down and put a pillow on my legs and layed with her feet out a pillow too. When I remember that the day doesn't seem so bad.

(I know te been so much worse but exhaustion does lead you to believe the your situation is the worst one, in.the.world!)

Happy St. Patrick's Day, I managed to get every family member in green, no easy feet. I said to Scott that since we're Danish/Russian we should protest this holiday and wear red, as you can see, I lost. (I know Grace is in mint, but all her real green was too springy for our crappy weather)
Testing a new hair style, Daddy is on the fence, I think it's cute. What do you think?
More new hair
Grace vs. Milkshake, milkshake wins. I could hear the noise that sounds like blowing, but can also be the slurping at then end of the shake, that's what I thought I heard, I was wrong.
Two cuties in pink before church. A, was not too thrilled to match his sister, she's a GIRL you know.

Motherhood.......by Grace

Hi Baby, want to lay down so I can feed you?
How about some grapes? I know you don't have teeth yet, but it's the best I can do.
Oh, you were thirsty, well too bad , I'm thirsty too!
Okay, okay, I'll give you some juicy.
How about we finish off with a story
I used to watch her with her dolls and wonder if she was mirroring our parenting. When she was hugging them and kissing them I was quite confident she was getting her nurturing side from me. When she started throwing them across the room, I did blame Scott. Now I realize it's all random, and I just watch and wonder.