Christmas letter '07

A very warm welcome to all of you who are checking in here because you received our Christmas card. Perhaps you've visited us before, back when we were in China to adopt Grace, but you didn't know that I had continued to slog, I mean blog, through the last year as well. Although it's been somewhat sporadic, I have made an effort to record a few events here and there and am now taking a stab at distilling our lives from 2007 down into one post. If you're super ambitious, you can scroll back through the past posts and feel confident in your Hojnacki trivia knowledge. Or you can just read this letter and hope that there is no pop quiz. Either way we'd love to hear back from you in the comment section at the bottom. It's always fun to see who is checking up on us.

Last Christmas was pretty quiet since Grace was still recovering from her cleft palate surgery. She had been on a strict liquid diet for three weeks and was able to have her first taste of stage-one baby food on Christmas day, which was definitely her favorite present. Once she recovered from that procedure we were able to start with speech therapy which is ongoing and is finally beginning to show some results. Grace turned three on Dec. 1st, and is just now beginning to use words on a regular basis to communicate. She did learn quite a few signs along the way and was using those before she was talking. Now that the words have taken over, the signs have fallen by the wayside, but they were extremely helpful in keeping everyone's frustration levels in check as she learned.

Aside from her speech struggles, Grace has adapted unbelievably well to her new life with us here. She is a very resilient, happy, independent girl. Imitating her big sisters is her favorite pass-time and she is extremely determined to do everything by herself. She puts on all of her own clothes (often backwards, but usually matching) and sometimes I can hear her in her room grunting and almost crying as she puts everything on, but once she gets it (which she always does) she comes running out to show us and is so proud. The Hojnacki household is also very happy to be diaper free for the first time in seven years.

Sophie and Lily are both in school; Sophie all day in first grade, and Lily half-days for "Young 5's." Sophie loves school and is lucky to have had the same great teacher for Kindergarten and First Grade. She leads a pretty charmed life as her two best friends (twins) moved in down the street this summer and are in her class at school. Lily is getting ready for Kindergarten in her pre-K class, but still much prefers her unstructured, imaginary play time. Although we no longer have a dog, there is a water bowl on the floor of our kitchen for "Cindy," the cat which Lily pretends to be on a regular basis.

All three of the girls are typical sisters in that they careen wildly from idyllic, loving, giggling playtime to all-out warfare complete with screaming and crying all in the blink of an eye. It's sort of like the old adage about the weather; if you don't like the kids' behavior, just wait a while, 'cause it'll change.

Dave has faced the distinct challenge of surviving a corporate takeover/bank merger this year. LaSalle Bank, which was formerly owned by the Dutch Bank, ABN Amro, was sold as a pawn in ABN's takeover battle to Bank of America. So Dave now works for "B of A" (as you must call it, if you're in the know) and has been one of the lucky ones to have kept their jobs this Christmas season. While it hasn't been an easy transition and will continue to present challenges while everyone figures out an entirely new operating system, we both are extremely thankful that that is the only thing we have to worry about.

I have taken on a new role this year as a basketball coach in our school district. I coached the eighth grade girls team in the Fall and am currently coaching the girl's JV team at the high school. It's made for a busy schedule for the family, but we have found a wonderful babysitter who is holding down the fort in my absence. I've really enjoyed getting out a bit and having something to wrap my brain around other than "what are we gonna do today?" and "What's for dinner?" Sophie and Lily get to come to a lot of the games and practices and adore the "big girls" on the teams. The 8th graders were a very good group with lots of talent and even better attitudes. We ended the season at 10-2 and I can't wait for them to get up to the high school next year and start contributing to the program right away. The JV squad has been in a state of flux since our leading scorer was moved up to Varsity and our starting center injured her back. But several other players, including two Freshmen who have moved up, have stepped in and we just got our first win in the new configuration tonight. We are currently 3-4.

As a family we took our first big camping trip this summer, renting a pop-up camper and driving out East to the Maine coastline. Our former exchange student, Barbara, from Germany, joined us for a good part of the summer, including our trip and will therefore probably put off having children for quite some time. We were happy to have her along.

Those were our big highlights this year. You may now consider yourself a semi-pro in Hojnacki trivia. If you'd like to extend the breadth of your knowledge, you may continue to browse the other entries from this year. We all wish you a happy and healthy 2008; may you survive this election year unscathed and unjaded and continue to appreciate all that is wonderful and wondrous in your life.

can my competition-mongering self be saved?

So I've got all these other blogs that I keep track of, mostly of other moms with some semblance of a relationship to my own situation, and I think that at times it is a very bad and dirty habit that I need to quit. There are several types; one is the rubbernecking, car-crash variety that I cannot drag myself away from because these people put each and every tiny element of their lives up there and, let's be honest, even if someone relatively smart did that, we could find things to be snide about and laugh at. But when it's a more mundane, white-bread suburban type who thinks they've got everything figured out and that we should all hear about it...I mean come on! Call the ambulance and alert the personal injury attorney 'cause that's just way too entertaining.

Also there is the flip side, which is the super-cool mother with the job I want, who writes like she's already been published in the New Yorker, who just so happens to have had her blog discovered and turned into a book, who just drops in little tidbits about her four-year-old beginning to read and all the super-cool, non-princess worshipping things she does, and I have to admit I'M JEALOUS!!! The mom has this uncanny ability to brag about her child without ever coming off as bragging so I must study her some more in order to effectively carry out the same slight of hand.

So all that being said, I am going to proced to shamelessly brag. Feel free to stop reading if you are not a close friend or Grandparent. If you are one of these, please leave a comment about our profoundly amazing children, as it just completes the whole self-gratification circle.

First the backstory: Sophie's big weakpoint so far in first grade has been her hand writing. Her teacher has been wonderful about first pumping us up with all of the talk about the deep content of her writing and her contributions to class discussions (first grade style!) The phrase she used, which I keep going back to, is that, "Sophie really gets it." Unfortunately her handwriting can be so illegible that nobody has any idea what she's getting. Her teacher (again, can't say this enough, love her) is careful not to emphasisze the handwriting so much that we squash her boundless enthusiasm for writing, and to some extent believes that she is so ambitious in her storytelling that she can't get everything out of her head and down on paper fast enough.

So with the thought that she could use some practice, we set her up with a lap board and some lined paper and asked her to write us some letters at night before she fell asleep. She chose to write poems. Each night she writes between four and five of them and each one takes her about ten minutes to write and illustrate. So now, without further ado, I present for your reading pleasure a poem by Sophie: (all spelling and punctuation in the original)

To Mom
From Sophie

a bowom by Sophie Hojnacki.

I was bon in Shcocol.
Lily was bon in Mishcan.
Grace was bon in cina.
You and Dad wr bon in indeino.
But naw we ol lef in the sam haws.
and that is ol that matrs.

In case you didn't quite get all of that, it goes like this:

a poem by Sophie Hojnacki

I was born in Chicago
Lily was born in Michigan
Grace was born in China.
You and Dad were born in Indiana.
But now we all live in the same house.
and that is all that matters.

Its companion poem from the same night is as follows:

to Mom

I am 7 ues old.
Lily is 4 1/2 ues old.
Grace is 3 ues old.
Dad is in the 20es
you are in the 30es.
We ol are dofrit acis,
But we ol liof togothr
and that is ol that matres

Translation:
I am 7 years old
Lily is 4 and a half years old.
Dad is in his 20's (hilarious!)
You are in your 30's.
We all are different ages,
but we all live together
and that is all that matters.

That is just a taste of the literary wonders that await us every night. As you can see, there is a distinct pattern and the subject matter is most always family related, but hey, they say to write about what you know. I'll leave you today with a few more deep thoughts by Sophie

To Mom
crismos sprcs

what a spris win I oping up my iac
to see ol of the prucis.
we sit togathr.
we plue games togathr
and that day is a spris for Grace

Christmas surprise

What a surprise when I open up my eyes
to see all of the presents.
we sit together.
we play games together
and that day is a surprise for Grace.

ocis are frooets. just like bnanas.
cade cas are a swet. just like cookes.
cracrs are populr. just like froot snacs.
foods are got for you.

oranges are fruits just like bananas
candy canes are a sweet just like cookies
crackers are popular just like fruit snacks
foods are good for you

Grace at Two and Three

I saw another adoption blog where the mom had put up pictures of her daughter from one year ago and thought, with Grace's birthday here, this would be a good time for us to do the same. Not only did we have a birthday one year ago, but Dec. 5th is also the one-year anniversary of Grace's cleft palate surgery. Although it's not necessarily an event that we remember fondly, it is remarkable to recognize how much progress she (we all!) have made since then. Prior to surgery Grace couldn't drink through a straw. When she ate, food came out of her nose. She couldn't blow bubbles. And, of course, she did not speak at all. Today she can do all of those things. At speech this week we started a list of all the words that Grace uses spontaneously (with no prompting) and although we haven't gotten them all, we're already up to 63. Although she hasn't grown a whole lot physically, I think she looks much older in her face and is definitely acting like a much bigger girl. So here are a few reminders of how far we've come in the last 12 months.

11/06 This coat and hat don't fit any more

12/2/07 sporting her new 3T sweater

11/06 still in the high chair

11/07 More 3T duds

11/06 Head just barely above the piano

10/07

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

Gotcha Day 7/31/06

One year later

12/5/06 coming out of surgery

One year later!

Thanksgiving

If you've never experienced Thanksgiving in South Bend, IN with 37 people, two turkeys, some polish sausage, noodles, green beans, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, about 50 rolls, various salads, jello, and lots and lots of beverages...I highly recommend it! The kids had a blast. It was the first time in a while that all of the Hojnacki's and all of the Klein's kids were together for a holiday. That made 13 kids in all: three boys and ten girls. Several of the older girls did a great job of entertaining the younger ones (something that I less-than-subtly tried to encourage.) One of the coolest parts was that in the evening it started to snow and all the kids ran outside (some in their p.j.s) to experience the first snow of the year.

We got a lovely package from Grace's foster family in China this week. They sent the dress that she is wearing in the Thanksgiving Day pictures in addition to lots of other clothes and some wool scarves for us. It was an early birthday present as she's turning three this Saturday. We're going to have a little party here at home for her with some kids from the neighborhood. In some ways, she seems so much younger than Sophie and Lily did at this age. Probably because she's still not talking much, but in other ways she is much more capable than they were when they turned three. She can dress herself, put her own shoes and coat on, cut with scissors and do puzzles. Some of those things Lily is still working on!

The other plus is that she is officially potty trained outside of nights and nap time. When we first started she was going every fifteen minutes or so, but as the novelty has worn off, she's spacing that out a little. I suppose that means it's about time to move her out of the crib and into the big girl bed, which of course both of the other girls were long into at this age, but I just can't bring myself to enter into the land of getting up whenever she wants and not staying contained at nap time.

I had my first JV basketball game tonight and was very pleased with their performance. While we didn't play the strongest opponent we'll see this year by any means, we won 50-28. They really picked up their intensity on defense and ran the fast break well. Dave says he'd hate to play for me because I've been coming home from every practice complaining about how much work we have to do and then he came to the game and watched them really blow out the other team. I guess all those bad practices just convinced them to finally step it up and get to work (either that or all the yelling I've done lately.) Sophie came to the game and sat on the bench tonight. She said I did "a lot of yelling and stomping my foot" but she has the final score memorized and is finally paying enough attention to report who won the game when she gets home.

Off to bed now. The Christmas Tree is up!

Halloween

According to Sophie, this wasn't the "best Halloween ever!" (her usual proclamation) But it was still pretty good. Trick-or-treating started officially at 6:00, which meant that at 6:05, after being clear and dry all day, it started to rain. Once all the kids and out-posted parents were nice and wet, it stopped, but it didn't make for a good start on the evening. As you can see from the photo, Sophie and Lily were Brides this year, while Grace got to be the third inhabitant of our Black Cat costume. Everybody else in the neighborhood was an Island Princess...or maybe it just seemed that way. The girls lasted a proportionate time to their age and straggled back one by one to help hand out candy.

Both girls had a party at school where they got to wear their costumes. Luckily, my parents were able to come up and help out, or I don't think I would have ben able to be everywhere all at once. My mom accompanied Lily with her class to go trick-or-treating at the retirement center; a place so nice, she said she and my dad might just move in someday. My Dad and I went to Sophie's school where I was in charge of her party. Her school has a huge parade of all the students in their costumes and then each class has their own little party. I wowed the under-7 set with my extensive guitar prowess (I think it's up to about 5 chords now) and then we had a healthy snack and a crossword puzzle (boo! hiss! where are the fun games and candy?)

Then Dad and I were off to my last 8th grade basketbal game. We were 9-2 going into the game, and really hoping to get that tenth win, which we did. It was actually one of the best games they played all season, so it was a great way to finish things off. I have to say, it was one of the most enjoyable coaching experiences I've had. This group of girls was just about everything you could ask for in a team: they were hard-working, respectful, coachable, they got along with each other, they actually listened to what I had to say, and they had talent! I'm really looking forward to working with them over the next few years at the high school. I'm sure several of them will move up to the JV level next year as Freshmen, and the rest will be along the following year. Of course there's always the possibility that they skip right over me and go straight to Varsity, but that's probably only a possibility for one of them. Here's a picture of them after one game when Lily came along and sat on the bench

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I don't know who was more interested in whom when Sophie and Lily came to the games. The players always made a big fuss about the girls, and the girls were, of course, star-struck by the players. Both Sophie and Lily go back and forth between calling them teen-agers and baby-sitters (in their minds it's one and the same.) We had team shirts made up and each of my girls got one with "Ass't Coach" on the back. They were always a big hit.

Now it's high school basketball season and the JV practices have started. Because of a scarcity of gym space at the high school, we end up practicing most nights from 7:30-9:30. It works out o.k for us, because the kids are almost in bed by the time I leave, but it's pretty late for the players. Anyway, this group may not be quite the joy to work with that the 8th graders were, nor will we have the same record, but they're still a good group, even if they are all jaded at the advanced age of 15. We did move up two Freshmen, so they will help us retain that youthful edge!

Gotta go, we have out first scrimmage tonight. It will tell me a lot about where we stand and what we need to work on. I'll keep you posted

.

Harvest Festival

So we have been having this ungodly scary warm weather this Fall, including a 90 degree weekend in which we decided to attend a local harvest festival. In between searching out patches of shade, we went on a very hot hay ride, played old fashioned kids games like rolling a hoop with a stick, did crafts, had doughnuts and cider, and basically did a lot of sweating.

Sophie's team winning the tug-o-war

Sweating it out on the hay ride

Trying out stilts

School Time

Sophie

Since I last posted, all of the girls have embarked on a new chapter of their school journey. Sophie started first grade, which means all day, every day. The best part for her, was that her Kindergarten teacher moved up to the first grade this year and Sophie was able to stay in her class. In addition, her best friend from last year actually moved onto our street just a few doors down and is also in her class again this year. So life is good for Sophie. She loves school and even though the first few weeks were a little rough with some "after-school fatigue," she has already adapted and is doing well. This year brings some new school experiences such as spelling tests, Spanish class and, best of all, having her own locker.

Leaving for school on the first day: Brianne, Sophie, Brooke and Lily (neighbors down the street)

The gang walking to school

With Don, our local Professor, going to school, too.

Sophie's new lunch box.

Lily
Lily started "Young Fives" at a Catholic school near our house. Michigan's age cut-off to start Kindergarten is December 1st. So her Dec. 24th birthday puts her just past the age limit. She was also too young to attend the Young Fives class at the public school since that is also just for the younger kids who still made the cut-off. But the parochial school had a class that took all kids who would turn five during the school year, so that worked out well for her. This way she will definitely start Kindergarten next year.

Her class meets every day in the afternoon for three hours and that has been a bit of an adjustment from pre-school. Her class only has 10 students so she gets lots of attention and definitely enjoys it. There are five boys and five girls and all of the girls seem to get along well. She talks about all of her friends at school and we've had a few over to play at our house. Still, there are quite a few days when she doesn't want to leave home to go to school.

The effects of the adoption on her continue to make themselves apparent in an increased clinginess and general ramped up anxiety level. Her feelings about Grace fluctuate wildly from, "she's a pain and I don't want her around me!" to "Awww, isn't she so cute, Mom? I'm glad we adopted Grace." Really, perfectly normal stuff for a new sibling, but it's hard not to miss the little girl who was so talkative and animated, who now is too shy to talk to most people. I think school is actually very good for her right now, because she gets away from home and me, and has her own, very structured time for three hours.

Of course things aren't always so hard. As I write this, Lily has a friend over to play and they are having a wonderful time, all dressed up in their princess outfits complete with high heels on their bare feet and bridal veils on their heads. There is some sort of wedding procession going on involving a wagon and some big, flashy (literally) rubber rings out on the driveway. I had to stop what I was doing to go out and record it for posterity. I believe that they have married each other and are calling each other, "honey."

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Lily's first day of school



With Daddy

At school

Grace

Grace has moved from the Early Intervention program in our county, to the Special Ed. Dept. at our local school district. They provide one hour of private time a week with the speech therapist and a one hour class (which actually only involves one other student). Plus we have a private speech therapist who comes to the house once a week. We are seeing slow and very slight, incremental progress, but progress none-the-less. Since our camping trip, her language usage has become much more self-motivated, meaning that instead of us always saying, "Say more Gracie," and having her repeat it, she will just ask for more when she wants it. She says "Hi!" to people on the street all the time and calls for mama when she needs something instead of just grunting to get our attention.

Although it's a difficult diagnosis to make, everyone involved with her care seems to feel that the term "Apraxia" does apply to her. It's become obvious that there is more at play than just the cleft palate in her case, but we were never sure if the palate was just mimicking the symptoms of apraxia. While apraxia is a neural pathway deficiency that makes it difficult for the brain to tell the mouth and tongue what to do, it was always possible that having a relatively late repaired palate had not given the muscles in her mouth the chance to develop normally. But apraxia also causes sequencing problems and makes it difficult to string multiple, previously-mastered syllables together, and that's what we're seeing in Grace right now. Even though she's plowing through set after set of new consonants and vowels in speech therapy, combining two different sounds in a row proves difficult.

For example, she can say Dada and bye-bye all day long. But if you ask her to say Bye-bye Dada, it comes out something like Dada da ba da ba ba. Another symptom of Apraxia is that someone may master a word once or twice and then not be able to repeat it for quite a while. Grace, for example, hasn't been able to say baby very well. She says baba or baybay or beebee. The other night she was looking at a book with Sophie and came out with a perfect baby while pointing at a picture of one. We all got very excited and immediately began saying it back to her to get her to say it again, but she has yet to reproduce it. And that was several weeks ago. The good news is that our therapist works with several kids at the elementary school who have apraxia and all of them are up to the point of only working on a few articulation issues. So we're hopeful that someday, this will all be a thing of the past.

One another note, Grace has finally started to grow. For the whole first year she was putting on weight but never getting any taller. After about fourteen months of wearing the exact same clothes that she wore in China, I have finally had to retire the 2T outfits and break out the 3T. I've talked to several other adoptive China families who all said the same thing happened to them. Our pediatrician, who has also observed the same phenomenon, thinks that it takes that long for the body to adjust to extracting nutrients from a different kind of diet. Whatever the reason, Grace is now exactly 3 feet tall!

Still not tall enough to look through the telescope at Meijer Gardens

Rolling down the hill by the DaVinci Horse

Camping Trip

Well, obviously it's been a while. But life goes on, and since school has started, there has been a minimum of time for blogging. The important stuff, though, is all in full swing and getting our full attention. So here's a recap: We marked Gracie's one year anniversary with us without a whole lot of commotion. In fact, I think she was at her Grandmother's house on the actual day. Then we had Sophie's 7th birthday, celebrated at the pool with friends. Our friend Barbara from Germany came to stay with us in August, and we set out on our first ever family of five (plus Barbara) cross-country camping expedition. If it sounds daunting to load your three children into the mini-van while hauling a pop-up camper and drive from Michigan to Niagara Falls, then the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and then Acadia National Park in Maine, it was! But we were blessed with nearly perfect weather and had some wonderful experiences at each location. The pop-up was definitely the way to go. We also took along our two-man tent, which basically served as Grace's port-a-crib. Dave slept in there with her, and Barbara and the rest of us slept in the pop-up. It was also perfect for hauling all of the gear necessary to a trip with kids.

We only had one minor mishap just outside of Rockport, Maine when the electrical hook-up to the camper from the car was left dragging and wore completely through all of the wiring. (You'll notice the intentional use of the passive in that last sentence, as we don't need to get into blame on this issue, now do we) That was quickly fixed by the nice men at the trailer supply store in Rockport and we were on our way again with tail-lights intact. Our last stop was in Hartford to visit my Aunt. We had a lovely visit there and then hit the road again for the final 15 hour drive back home. We learned several things on this trip, not the least of which was "driving with sleeping children is always preferable to driving with those who are awake." We arrived home at around 3:00 a.m.

There is much more to catch up on, but I will try to break it up into smaller posts. My goal for the near future is to try to do a weekly update to the blog, if only for my own record-keeping. Below are some pictures from the trip.

Before boarding the Maid-of-the-Mist at Niagara Falls

Inside the pop-up

Hiking in the White Mountains

Echo Lake Beach at Franconia Notch State Park. The site of Sophie's first lost tooth!

Sophie began keeping her first journal (all invented spelling!) on our trip

We finally made it to the Coast and got to check out some tidepools in Maine

Beautiful New England Coastline at Acadia National Park

Exploring the rocky shoreline near our campsite

Barbara sporting the "Sophie Look" on our Whale watching trip

On the way home, getting some fresh air at a rest stop.