We can't believe it's been almost 10 months since we arrived home with Grace. Before we know it, we'll be celebrating our one year anniversary together. After talking to some more seasoned adoptive families recently, we realize that we are still in the "first year is all just a blur" stage. We feel like it's been a long time, but someday we'll probably look back and realize that things were just starting to gel for us as a family at this point. Between the bonding and the speech and the surgery, we've barely begun to get to know each other in many ways.
All the girls are doing well. Today was Lily's last day of school and I can't say that she was heartbroken about it. She's actually looking forward to being home with me even more this summer. I think the whole adoption has really hit her the hardest, and just recently become a reality to her. She's not as interested in playing with other kids right now, just wants to stick close to home and seek out as much one-on-one attention as possible. We're doing our best to give that to her, but of course that's not always easy. Sophie still has two more weeks of school and doesn't need those weeks to go by any too soon. She is very attached to her school friends and loves every minute of Kindergarten time.
Grace has carved out her own little spot in our family and is making herself right at home. This past weekend marked a milestone in that she finally moved into her own room. Our family now inhabits every bedroom in this house, but fear not; if you're coming for a visit we've got all kinds of beds and have plans for every possibility. The guest room is now Grace's room and she is very proud of her space. Sophie and Lily are also happy to have rooms where they can spend some "alone time" when needed. Grace's room has a twin bed and a crib and she is very eager to make the switch into the big-girl bed (every night she climbs in and pulls the covers up to her chin) but Mom and Dad are not quite ready for that yet. Any sanity increasing measures in this house are not to be messed with. Grace is loving being able to play outdoors, as are all the girls. We live in a kid infested, outdoor loving neighborhood, so any time from school to bedtime, they are assured a minimum of several playmates. Soon the pool will open and they will all be in heaven.
Grace will continue speech therapy over the summer. We are still seeing modest gains in speech but nothing ground breaking. Her newest consonants are "G" and "P". They still don't lead to any new words, but our speech therapist assures us that they will. The lack of speech is definitely a hurdle that we had not anticipated, and it is also the one thing that is probably making the transition the hardest for everyone. This past weekend, Grace was particularly vocal, but as usual, it was a constant stream of "eh's" and "ah's", usually to say, "look at the sign I'm doing," or "look what I have," or "what's the word for this thing?" or simply "pay attention to me!" As a completely anecdotal experiment, I decided to count the number of times she said "eh" in a 15 minute period. Like I said, she was being particularly vocal, but even I was surprised to reach 76 (!!!) in that time period. For kicks, Dave got out the calculator and extrapolated our scientific data, factoring in naps, and night-time, and came up with 3,200 "eh's" that we are required to attend to in one day. Now, that's not really valid, as many quiet stretches go by where she is content and not nearly so vocal, but even still...that's a lot of whining. As we continue to become more familiar with the world of apraxia (see several posts ago if you missed it) we are still convinced that she will talk and probably with no hint of a problem, just not anytime in the next few years. So we're putting on our patient hats and digging in for the long haul. It's just too bad for the girls, because it's much harder for them to make a strong connection with her, without the benefit of speech, and it's certainly harder for them to endure the large amounts of noise without words that she makes.
Anyway, recent pictures are included. We all watched a Robin family build their nest on our front porch, hatch four eggs, and send their babies off into the world. The girls were cheering them on every step of the way and even got to see several of the fledglings up close during the few days that they were learning to fly (no obvious disasters or lessons on the cruelty of nature, so that was good, too)
Good news for us: our former exchange student of five years ago has informed us that she is coming back to stay for a while this summer. That means one whole month of mom having grown-up reinforcements, as well as positive mental support. Yay Barbara!!!!! The only thing she didn't know yet was that we just gave her room away to Grace. Barbara, if you're reading this, we'll fix the basement up really nice for you :-)
All the girls are doing well. Today was Lily's last day of school and I can't say that she was heartbroken about it. She's actually looking forward to being home with me even more this summer. I think the whole adoption has really hit her the hardest, and just recently become a reality to her. She's not as interested in playing with other kids right now, just wants to stick close to home and seek out as much one-on-one attention as possible. We're doing our best to give that to her, but of course that's not always easy. Sophie still has two more weeks of school and doesn't need those weeks to go by any too soon. She is very attached to her school friends and loves every minute of Kindergarten time.
Grace has carved out her own little spot in our family and is making herself right at home. This past weekend marked a milestone in that she finally moved into her own room. Our family now inhabits every bedroom in this house, but fear not; if you're coming for a visit we've got all kinds of beds and have plans for every possibility. The guest room is now Grace's room and she is very proud of her space. Sophie and Lily are also happy to have rooms where they can spend some "alone time" when needed. Grace's room has a twin bed and a crib and she is very eager to make the switch into the big-girl bed (every night she climbs in and pulls the covers up to her chin) but Mom and Dad are not quite ready for that yet. Any sanity increasing measures in this house are not to be messed with. Grace is loving being able to play outdoors, as are all the girls. We live in a kid infested, outdoor loving neighborhood, so any time from school to bedtime, they are assured a minimum of several playmates. Soon the pool will open and they will all be in heaven.
Grace will continue speech therapy over the summer. We are still seeing modest gains in speech but nothing ground breaking. Her newest consonants are "G" and "P". They still don't lead to any new words, but our speech therapist assures us that they will. The lack of speech is definitely a hurdle that we had not anticipated, and it is also the one thing that is probably making the transition the hardest for everyone. This past weekend, Grace was particularly vocal, but as usual, it was a constant stream of "eh's" and "ah's", usually to say, "look at the sign I'm doing," or "look what I have," or "what's the word for this thing?" or simply "pay attention to me!" As a completely anecdotal experiment, I decided to count the number of times she said "eh" in a 15 minute period. Like I said, she was being particularly vocal, but even I was surprised to reach 76 (!!!) in that time period. For kicks, Dave got out the calculator and extrapolated our scientific data, factoring in naps, and night-time, and came up with 3,200 "eh's" that we are required to attend to in one day. Now, that's not really valid, as many quiet stretches go by where she is content and not nearly so vocal, but even still...that's a lot of whining. As we continue to become more familiar with the world of apraxia (see several posts ago if you missed it) we are still convinced that she will talk and probably with no hint of a problem, just not anytime in the next few years. So we're putting on our patient hats and digging in for the long haul. It's just too bad for the girls, because it's much harder for them to make a strong connection with her, without the benefit of speech, and it's certainly harder for them to endure the large amounts of noise without words that she makes.
Anyway, recent pictures are included. We all watched a Robin family build their nest on our front porch, hatch four eggs, and send their babies off into the world. The girls were cheering them on every step of the way and even got to see several of the fledglings up close during the few days that they were learning to fly (no obvious disasters or lessons on the cruelty of nature, so that was good, too)
Good news for us: our former exchange student of five years ago has informed us that she is coming back to stay for a while this summer. That means one whole month of mom having grown-up reinforcements, as well as positive mental support. Yay Barbara!!!!! The only thing she didn't know yet was that we just gave her room away to Grace. Barbara, if you're reading this, we'll fix the basement up really nice for you :-)
