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.