Miss Me?

OK, so it has only been like 4 months or so since I have blogged. Sorry- no excuses, no explanations. Here I am though- did you miss me?

So the BEST thing in my life for the last 4 months has been these cuties:

As much as I may have wanted to hit pause on life lately for a chance to get my bearings again, these 3 have been full steam ahead. Makenzie had a birthday, and so did Mason.

Mackenzie's second birthday- July 17

Mason's fifth birthday- September 22nd.

Ashtyn and Mason both had their first day of school- still going really well for both of them.

We spent lots of time at the beach, and at the pool, and hanging out with friends...

Playdate with Scarlett and Alex

Hollywood Beach- our summer home ;)

Butterfly World with Nola

It was a busy summer- sorry I failed to blog it...I will try to do better.

My Favorite things

Things I love about summer:

Sleeping in

kool aid smiles

Popsicles

sprinklers

slip-n-slides

swimming

Flip flops

grilled hot dogs

days at the beach

theme parks (with water features)

sleepovers

free family movies

ice cream

s'mores

the smell of sunscreen

baby girls is bathing suits :)

International Night

Ashtyn's school had an international night a few weeks back. She insisted that she and Z wear their Kyrgyz dresses. Here they are all decked out.

Another rainy day...

Well, the rainy season has come early in Florida this year. I suppose when you compare this to the brushfires we have had the past few years, I will take the rain. But as the kids run circles around the living room and kitchen....I do wish I could just send them outside. Right now they are building a couch cushion fort. Ashtyn and Mason made up a variation of the old tune "It's raining, it's pouring, it's so-so-so-so BORING!!" I agree :)

School is winding down now. We have one week left. I don't know if Ashtyn is more excited or me! I am looking forward to summer. A few months with a bit less structure will be nice (assuming the sun pokes through the clouds once in awhile so we can swim a little bit). Mason is doing really well with his swimming- he can go for quite a little bit, and with his head above water even. He will swim underwater if we ask him too. He coaches the other kids in his class like he is such and expert :) Oh, they are in trouble when he starts preschool. He thinks he knows everything already. We finally got him signed up today...I was getting pretty tired of the hoops with public school, so we finally settled on a private Lutheran provider today They offer VPK (a state run voluntary pre K) so it is still free. He had a little tour today, and seemed to really like it. So while Ashtyn is excited for summer...Mason is wishing it were fall already (his birthday falls in September, too, so there is another reason it is his favorite season).

Kenzie is doing pretty well. She keeps me on the edge of my seat. She has really mild symptoms of all sorts of things pretty much all the time, so I am always second guessing myself thinking I should take her to the doc. She has off and on nasty diapers...then as soon as I make an appt, they go away. The nose gets a little icky...and then nothing...She isn't eating really well, but I think that is just her being almost 2. I am really not sure what to do with her. She will have a post-op appt, but not for a few weeks still. They plan on running another hearing test, so I am eager to see those results. And...we are still jumping through hoops trying to find a speech therapist for her within a reasonable distance. I have to say, I am getting pretty frustrated with that. She should be having services by now! Aside from her little health issues, she is great- sweet, funny, always wanting to be with the big kids. Her birthmom had a birthday on Sunday, so she has been on our hearts a lot in the last few days. We have also been thinking about the waiting families a lot, too. There are meetings today and tomorrow in DC...I really hope the mountains start to move. I cannot even imagine how difficult it is for these families, my heart is really with them.

Recovering

Today began before dawn (that does not happen often for me). Z slept most of the way there, and was in a great mood while we waited to be called back. She did sign Eat a couple times, but with Grandpa there, she was easily distracted from thinking of her tummy. All of the nurses and doctors were great at POPS. The surgery itself was incredibly quick. I had just run out to the car to put away some papers and the doc was done. All went well. He said there was a lot of fluid built up in her ears, and that he expects her to hear much much better now. In fact he told us to kept it quiet around her as she might find it strangely loud suddenly. She was still sleeping when they brought her into the recovery room, so the nurse woke her. I think the meds they gave her turned her into the Hulk. Seriously, I have never seen her so strong and so upset. She was not happy, and had no idea what she wanted to do about it. She pushed me off, but reached for me if I laid her down. She didn't just push away drinks and pacifiers offered to her...she threw them. Once, she even smacked me. Poor, poor pumpkin. She was pretty miserable. And this was a very minor surgery (ear tubes and adenoids out)...I have no idea how you all handle it when they are in for something more serious. Really- you are my heroes. We were on our way home before 10, and she did fall asleep again. When we got home, she was a little grumpy when she woke up again, but she was much easier to calm down then. She ate a little watched a little TV, played a little (grandpa's medicine delivery actually got her a bit wound up:). I think maybe they dosed me with some of those meds too, because when she went down for her afternoon nap, so did I. That was like 3 hours ago...she is still sleeping. Hopefully she will be in a good mood when she wakes up this time! Thank you all for your good thoughts and prayers. All is well. Praise God.

Baby Loves Sign

So, as far as I know we are still on schedule for this Thursday's surgery. In the meantime, I have been working with our family care coordinator to try to get speech therapy started. Unfortunately, there are no home care providers available in our area, and so far the best she can offer me is clinic setting an hour away from us. Not ideal for half hour weekly sessions. We are still looking. So today's library picks included a lot of books on Baby Sign. I have to say, I am really impressed and encouraged at how eager Mackenzie is to learn new signs. She will mimic them almost immediately, and eagerly repeat them over and over. I will have to be diligent about doing them regularly to make sure they stick, but I am motivated. The best part is...when I sign, I always say the word...and she is way more likely to try to vocalize a new word if there is a sign associated with it.

In other news, Mason starts swim lessons tomorrow. He has been doing so good swimming so far this year. In his Easter basket, the bunny left goggles and a mask and snorkel set, and it is amazing to see the transformation those tools and a little practice and encouragement have made in him. The same child that was terrified a year ago to get his face wet will now dunk his entire face with enthusiasm. He really has all of the skills in place to swim on his own...in fact he has swam a couple of feet between me and the wall several times. Now we just need to strengthen that skill.

Ashtyn lost another tooth the other day. The tooth fairy in our house seems to be very lazy. On several previous occasions, she has forgotten to stop by our house while making her rounds until the second night. So again, with this tooth, she flew right on by on night one (to be fair...the toothless wonder didn't even remember to put it under her pillow). On night two Ashtyn carefully placed an envelope addressed to the tooth fairy under her pillow, and awaited her arrival. The next morning, she came to my room, and then realized she had forgotten to check for the fairy, so she began to rush back to her bed. I tried to distract her by asking her to check on the baby, but it was no use...that lazy fairy didn't make it. I sympathized with my disappointed girl, and gave her a dollar myself, promising to write a letter of complaint and mail it off to her fairy boss pronto. Ashtyn lamented that maybe the little fairy had quit her job, and Mason piped in with "There IS no tooth fairy." Somehow, my optimistic angel found the hope to try one more time. Before bed that night, we read from "Throw your tooth on the roof...Tooth Traditions from around the world." We laughed at all of the different traditions...from our familiar fairy to El Raton the mouse who performs much the same function (I told her no little mouse better be sneaking into MY house to steel her tooth while we slept)...some countries feed the tooth to a dog...others make sure a dog cant get near it, because who wants yellow teeth like a dog...better nice white teeth like a mouse. In some places they feed them to birds, in others they plant them east of a tree...some people throw it under the bathtub, others on the roof (even with cow dung!)...it is a pretty cute book (complete with Kyrgyzstan, where the tradition is to wrap the tooth in bread and feed it to a mouse- not a dog). The traditions are quite varied. So, we decided that since placing the tooth under a pillow was not working out for us, maybe we would try another approach. We put the tooth in a glass of water on her bedside like they do in Sweden, and lo and behold the next morning that fairy had taken the tooth and left behind some shiny new quarters. Maybe we wont have to fire her after all. I still think it would be easier to feed it to the gerbils next time.

Quick Update

So, I really only have a sec (since I just spent so much time already reading all or YOUR blogs :)...but I wanted to give you a quick update. Mackenzie is doing great- actually picking up new words pretty rapidly these days...cookie being her fav. She did have the evaluation with Early Steps (love them...if you have a concern about your little one, please don't hesitate to have them checked out), and she is going to get speech therapy once a week. Hurray! I am so glad. I am fully optimistic that her delay is a temporary setback from switching languages (I realize no 6 mo old is talking...but they are learning) and from all of the hearing issues. Even so, I am so glad that she will be able to get some focused help in catching up from someone who really knows what they are doing. And...her surgery is scheduled for May 14th. So, I am expecting great things.

And, yes, my friend, I promise to look into ISR further...