Awana

The kids just recently completed their Awana year. They end the year with a small program for the families. The Cubbies (preschoolers) usually sing a couple songs and get their awards and goodie bags. Then the Sparks (K-2) sing their song and get their awards. Elijah and Josephine both did a great job and finished their first year book with about a month to spare. Throughout the year, they get the patch, wings, and jewels to put in their wings, as they complete the sections in their book. At the end of the year they get a green ribbon for their accomplishment.

The T&T group (Truth & Training, grades 3-5) doesn’t do songs for the group, but they ask for volunteers to share a favorite Bible verse. Kaylen volunteered to participate, but couldn’t decide between two verses. Her leader told her to just do both, but at the ceremony they only had one up on the screen, so it was a little awkward for her. She had it memorized anyway and had practiced saying it really slowly, so she did a great job! Then she got her award for completing her year-2 book. For T&T this is quite an accomplishment, as they have to learn more and longer verses, as

So proud of my big kids! They used to do cookies and treats for the kids after the ceremony, but they didn’t this year, so we took the kids to Dairy Queen for treats. They all really enjoyed their ice cream – even James gobbled down his Dilly Bar – and his only accomplishment was sitting through (most of) the ceremony!

Easter

We decided to go out of town for Easter, even though it was the weekend, right before I went back to work April 1. We stayed at my Dad’s house, even though he wasn’t back from his winter travels yet. Luckily some other relatives that live nearby turned the water and the heat back on in the house for us! We missed them, but still had fun with my sisters and families. And the Easter bunny still found us at my Dad’s house.

We did the little Easter basket hunt in my hometown Saturday morning. They don’t do an egg hunt, per se, but they give you a number, and you walk around to look for your number on an egg on the storefront windows. If you find your number, you go inside and they give you a goodie bag filled with candy and a pencil. They also gave each child a Easter-themed book, which is really nice!

As we walked up and down main street, we found Elijah’s number first, then Kaylen’s and James’. My hometown has a main downtown, and then just a couple businesses that are a little bit down the street. Josephine was so upset that we didn’t find her number, and we tried our best to reassure her as we got back in the car. She was SOOOO happy when she finally found her number at the vet clinic on the other end of town. And they let her pick her goodie bag from a big box, so she got to pick what color of pencil she wanted.

We spent the rest of the day at my sister’s house, preparing food for Easter. We also helped color eggs. This was James’ first experience with coloring eggs, and he did a pretty good job with it, once he understood what he was supposed to be doing. I think this was also my nephew Bo's first time coloring eggs as well. He got a cup all to himself with one egg, which was thoroughly cracked and crushed by the time he was done - too funny! He sure had fun with it!



The kids played together a lot. I love this photo of James and Caden in the background playing catch with the football. This was the first time Caden met James , and it was so sweet of him to take time to play with just him when we first arrived! Elijah and Kaylen even enjoyed playing outside a little bit as well, despite the gloomy weather.

My sister Karen cut some hair, as seems to happen at family gatherings now that we have a hair stylist in the family. No rest for the weary! I was so glad to get my hair cut when we were there - it'd been too long!!!

I also helped chased a cow who’d escaped from her pen. Apparently there is one cow that regularly gets out, and they just let her wander around.  I must have told them there was that same cow out 3-4 times, and kept getting the response, "Oh, that's the one that's always out and we just leave her alone."  But later, we saw a different one that four of us helped corral back into her pen. This brought back memories of growing up there – too funny!

As usual, we had too much food, and enjoyed many of the family’s traditional recipes –meatballs/ham balls, cheesy beans, sweet corn, mashed potatoes, cottage cheese salad, deviled eggs, and Graham Cracker Dessert! Yummy!!!

Spring Break

Over spring break, we decided to do a mini-vacation. We looked into going to Omaha, to the zoo and the Children’s museum. We wanted to make a long weekend of it, and stay in a hotel with a pool. But now that we’re a family of 6, we need a hotel with suites, and there weren’t any available in the area we were looking. So instead, we decided to head to the Mall of America. Some friends of ours joined us for part of the weekend as well. They hadn’t met James and we hadn’t seen them since last fall, so it was fun to re-connect.

We were planning to leave Friday morning, and return Sunday evening. That way, Jock would only need to take one day off work. Thursday evening, though, Kaylen threw up while we were at our Bible study group. Poor girl was so embarrassed! She got sick a couple more times in the night, so we contacted our friends to let them know that we probably wouldn’t be coming up. We just didn’t know what the weekend would entail knowing that the rest of us could catch it quickly as well. However, Friday morning already, Kaylen was able to keep food down and was feeling some better. By afternoon, she was mostly back to normal, so we decided to head up to Minneapolis anyway. She was pretty careful what she ate for supper that night (chicken soup and some mashed potatoes at Ikea), but by the time we met up with our friends Saturday morning, she was pretty much back to normal.

Saturday we met our friends and toured the aquarium inside the mall. We got our tickets and then waited in line to get into the aquarium. James had a little melt-down, not wanting to be in the stroller when it wasn’t moving, but once we got inside, we all enjoyed seeing the Sea Life.

We had lunch at one of the food courts, then wandered around the mall the remainder of the afternoon, doing a little shopping, eating ice cream, and then parted ways with our friends before dinner, as there was no way we’d have gotten seated with 11 of us! We had wanted to eat at the Rain Forest Café, but the lines were WAY too long, so we ended up at Bubba Gump’s, before crashing back at the hotel.

Sunday morning, Jock took the girls for an early swim (Elijah didn’t want to go), while I took the boys downstairs for breakfast at the hotel. Then Jock and the three bigger kids got wristbands and rode rides for several hours. James and I watched while they rode their first ride, but he was NOT happy not getting to go on rides with them, so we decided to get on with our shopping.

I’d thought about getting James a build-a-bear animal, since he couldn’t go on the rides. A friend and fellow adoptive mom, whose son is still at James’ orphanage, also came out and made one for her son. I was reluctant to set anything up to meet people there, not knowing what our schedule was going to be with a sick kid and meeting friends there, but I’m glad it worked out for us to meet and chat while we waited in line to make our monkeys for our boys!

Jock and I met up again for a late lunch. Then we went back downstairs so Jock could take Kaylen and Elijah on a couple rides that Josephine didn't want to try. After a few more rides, we headed over to Claire's to give Kaylen a surprise that we'd planned for her - getting her ears pierced. She was a little nervous, so I didn't get any photos of her having it done, so will have to take a couple photos of her earrings soon. We then picked out a couple little things for both girls at Claire's before we headed for home.

None of us were very hungry, but we had a big bag of Doritos in the car. We had brought a couple ice cream buckets just in case, and used those to share the big bag of Doritos to the 3 rows in the fan. Those buckets came in handy, when Elijah got sick on the way home. He’d said he had a headache about 20 minutes into our drive, and then fell asleep. But then all of a sudden, I heard a weird noise and turned around to see Elijah had thrown up. He must have woken up just in time to look around and find the bucket sitting between his and Josephine’s seat, and threw up right into there. We’re so lucky that he didn’t get it all over and we didn’t have to smell it all the way home. We stopped at a gas station, and Jock cleaned out the bucket in the snow.

We were pretty luck the entire weekend though, that we got to enjoy the weekend away without any illness while we were there. We didn’t know if Elijah was coming down with the Flu bug that Kaylen had a couple days earlier, or if he was just motion sick as he gets sometimes in the car – plus the rides he’d been on that day. It must’ve been the motion sickness though, because he was fine that night and the whole next week.

The rest of spring break, we didn’t have much planned, which was good, because I came down with the stomach flu on Tuesday night. I was up most of the night, felt pretty crappy most of the day Wednesday. Jock stayed home from work on Wednesday, to keep the kids occupied. This helped break up the week, but otherwise, we pretty much bummed around home. We did get a day or two to play outside in the (relatively) warm 40-degree temps.

Potty Training

James is just starting to figure out the whole potty concept. There were a couple times in early March, when he’d ask to sit on the potty while I was going (yes, mom can’t even go to the bathroom by herself!) , but didn’t seem to have the slightest clue what to do on the potty, except to fart. I suppose that’s a good start, though! Then a couple times later in March, where we’d be changing his diaper at an opportune time, realize what he was doing, and sit him on the toilet just in time. Big rewards ensued after those times. However, James then stopped asking to go potty when I was going. I started asking him if he’d sit on it before his bath or randomly, and he seemed to start being afraid of the potty. He would either only sit there for a few seconds and want to be done, or cry when I even asked him if he wanted to go.

The past week or so, we started having more success with getting him to at least try, so we’re trying to be more happy/excited about it when we ask. We’re also trying to make it more of a routine to go potty after meals and before naptime/bedtime. We’re having some more success of him being able to go when we take him. And if we catch him after a meal, sometimes he’ll go both! We’re rewarding him with a couple skittles each time he actually goes on the potty, and he really enjoys the “tanny” (candy)!

Somewhere between 7 and 9 AM, is when James usually poops, and sometimes after supper a little bit as well. So we’re making more of an effort to have him go potty right after breakfast and supper. One morning, I told him, let’s go potty. He started whimpering a little bit about not wanting to go. So I waited a few seconds, and then mentioned it again a couple times trying to make it sound fun/happy. Then he finally said, “Potty?”, as if it was his idea and he was happy about it and eager to go. So funny! I’m not sure if he thinks he doesn’t have to go but then after he thinks about it for a second he realizes he does have to go, or what, but at any rate, that seems to be our new routine with getting him to! He usually will go pee at those times, and sometimes will do #2 as well, which we’re really happy about – less clean-up!

He’s not to the point of asking us to go, so we’ll probably wait until that comes before we break into pull-ups instead of a diaper, and having them start taking him potty at daycare. Plus, he’s so busy at daycare, I don’t think he even notices when some of the children further along in their potty-training ask the teacher to go potty, so I’m not ready to push it there.

Missing Teeth

Before spring break, Elijah had a few teeth that were loose – his two front teeth on the top, and one on the bottom next to the middle teeth he lost last August. Josephine also had one of her bottom ones loose. They sat on the steps one day wiggling their teeth, and James decided to join in. No, luckily no loose teeth for James yet, but he thought it was fun to be a part of the group!

One of Elijah’s top permanent teeth had already come in behind his baby teeth, and was pushing one of his baby teeth forward. He looked pretty funny for a while, and we kept reminding him to wiggle them and get them out! The Monday of spring break, Elijah and James were wrestling around in their room, right when they woke up (I wasn’t even out of bed yet!). Suddenly Elijah ran into my room, hand over his mouth, whimpering. I could see the blood and was afraid of what had happened… until I saw tooth in his hand and realized that’s what he’d been trying to tell me. Yay!

I got him all cleaned up, and then saw that the other loose tooth was now hanging by a thread, so I asked his permission before yanking it out as well. It was nice to have both of them gone. Both permanent teeth were already there, they just moved forward to their correct spots after the baby teeth were out. So he never really could have sung the “All I want for Christmas” song, as he didn’t really have the “two front teeth” missing space.

The week I went back to work, we all came down with colds and/or strep throat. We ended up staying home and watching our church service live on the internet (love that option when we need it!). During that service, while sitting still and (probably not) listening, Elijah took the time to wiggle out his next tooth. So he has lost 5 teeth so far.








Since Josephine and Elijah both had the same tooth wiggly, she was pretty upset that she lost the “race” to get that tooth out. But hers was out within a few more days as well. This is the third tooth she’s lost so far. She lost her 2 front bottom teeth last fall. I think her top two middle teeth are just starting to get wiggly.

The tooth fairy has been busy with trips to our house the last month!

Daycare

Well, we are in our fourth week of me being back at work, the big kids being back at daycare before/after school, and James being in full-time daycare. The first week was rough. James was so tired from playing busily all day with other kids (his teachers comment that he’s always on the go)! Before I went back to work, when we got home in the afternoons, the first thing we did was snacks. So now, at 5:00 when we get home, I’m preparing supper, but James wants a snack! He’d get really fussy and even mad or throw a little tantrum when he didn’t get one. At the same time, the big kids are trying to work on their reading homework. Not too easy to concentrate on sounding out words when your little brother is screaming! But we got through the first week OK, and James has been better the last couple weeks. Now that we’re in week 4, it’s pretty routine for all of us again.

James is really enjoying daycare. When I drop him off in the morning, we hug the big kids first, as their bus for school leaves right away. Then I take him into his room, hang up his coat and give him his hug/kisses. His 2-year-old classmates are in the 3-year-olds’ room for about a half-hour until enough are there to split, so when I walk him into the 3-year-olds’ room, he says hi to his teacher and friends and doesn’t look back. Only once has he been a little clingy in the morning, but when his teacher took him from me he didn’t cry, and waved “bye-bye” as I went out the door. It makes it so much easier that he enjoys daycare and doesn’t cry when I leave him there.

I haven’t really heard any issues with daycare. It sounded like it took him a few days to learn the routines and to participate in the little activities they do – especially the group sit-down time. He was too busy exploring all the new toys to sit down and listen to a book the first couple days. But otherwise, he does great with lunch, activity time, puzzles, playtime. He is learning to walk instead of run with his classmates, which I understand is a common reminder that’s given in his class, especially with the boys. Also, the first day or two at naptime, he got up from his cot a couple times, but knows that routine now as well. When I arrive to pick him up in the afternoon, he asks me, “Ann ale?” (Let’s go?) I respond yes, and off he goes to get his coat, telling his teachers and friends, “Bye-bye” on the way out the door.

When we get home from daycare, around 5:00, I tend to have the older kids sit down and do their homework/reading. Elijah and Josephine read/practice their book on their own for a bit while James tells me all about his day (in Creole – really funny!). Since Elijah and Josephine have to be listened to, I sometimes have them read in the kitchen one-at-a-time while I’m fixing supper, while the other plays with James to keep him occupied. Kaylen usually reads a half-hour each day after school, and sometimes has a math worksheet to complete, so she usually keeps busy until supper.

When I was home, we usually did snacks then the same homework routine as above, but it wasn’t near as rushed, as we were home from school around 3:15. We usually had homework done and dinner ready by the time Jock got home from work around 5:15. And sometimes we also had a few small chores (laundry, dishes, cleaning) done in that time as well. This made the rest of the evenings much more relaxing. I’m really missing that relaxation/play time with the kids in the evenings. Now it’s filled with rushing to finish homework, dinner/dishes, and showers in the evenings. Chores, except for dishes, usually have to wait for the weekend.

Our evenings have always been like this, though – a mad rush to get things accomplished before bedtime. The kids go to bed between 7:30 and 8 (unless we have an activity that goes later), because we have to be up around 6 to get out the door by 7. It just seems much more cumbersome now. I’m not sure if it’s really that big of a change going from 3-4 kids, but probably just that it’s more noticeable now that I’ve spent time as a stay-at-home mom for a short period of time. Honestly, I’d LOVE to change to a part-time work schedule, but I don’t think that’s in the cards – at least for now.

Is it Spring Yet???

We’ve had quite a cold spring. So every chance we got, I tried to get the kids outside. Especially since I was at home with James, I tried to get him out of the house some too. If it was dry and warmer than 40 degrees, I’d bundle James up in the stroller, and we’d walk to pick the older kids up at school. We had a couple fairly warm days during spring break or on a weekend, so we walked or drove to the park those days.

I really wanted to give James the experience of climbing on the play equipment and going down the slides for the first time, before he went to daycare. He was a little tenative at first, and still doesn’t particularly like two of the really tall slides at the big kids’ elementary school, but he likes most of the slides now, and even the wobbly bridge.







It took me forever to get this photo of the kids on these things. I set James up there, and wrapped his legs around the post. But then his legs came apart because of those big bulky boots, and then he nearly fell off backwards a couple times! Then the kids were looking at him instead of me, and his hat kept covering his face. Oh well, still thought it was cute. We were trying to make the most of the RELATIVELY warm day to enjoy the outdoors.


We have had our trampoline for almost 5 years, and it’d seen better days. Actually soon after we got our first trampoline we had a bad storm and had to replace it. We kept what parts we could from the destroyed trampoline, but we still have to replace a piece or two each of the last couple years. Last year we replaced the net – it had torn badly at the bottom and wasn’t really able to hold the children in if they got too close to the edge. Last year the padding around the edges on top of the springs, and the padding on the net posts were pretty well shredded, but we held out until this spring to fix them. We got them ordered, and I got them installed with a little “help” from James, when we had a nice warm Saturday.

Once we got the repairs made, James got to enjoy jumping on the trampoline by himself for a little bit before the rest of the kids came up from the basement where they’d been watching a movie and realized they were missing out on the fun. Then it became a pretty rough and tumble time on the trampoline with 4 kids. I stood right there, making sure they were jumping gently to save us from injuries. It was so fun to watch, though. James was laughing and giggling the entire time!

We're looking forward to lots more time outdoors now that it appears spring is going to come and stay. We even got a little bike and bike helmet for James. He's been having fun wearing it inside... even before we had the tags cut off of it! I'm sure we'll have more photos of him wearing that helmet with the tags off and actually riding his bike soon. :)

James' Adjustment

I wrote a while back on a few things relating to James’ adjustment. Looking back at those posts, I thought I’d give an update, as James has changed so much in the 3+ months he’s been home!

Bedtime was a little bit of a struggle for us with James, more so than for the other kids following their homecoming. He was very scared to be away from us for quite some time, and wouldn’t stay in his bed if we weren’t in the room with him. He would either come running out after us, or climb in with Elijah, keeping him up at night. So we moved his bed into our room for several weeks. This helped us still be able to sleep in our own beds (saving our backs!), but he was still comforted being near us. We stayed in the room with him until he fell asleep. We stayed in the room with him until he stopped waking up and needing comfort in the night, when we’d quietly sneak out after he fell asleep. After a while, we would even try to sneak out before he was completely asleep, and he was OK with it.

The week before daycare, we decided to move James’ bed back into his bedroom that he shares with Elijah. The transition went very smoothly. He was fine going to bed in the same room as Elijah – although we did have Elijah switch to sleeping at the other end of his bed, so James could see him from his bed. It’s still working out very well.

Naptime is still a struggle, though, since James is our only kid (usually) that takes an afternoon nap. Since it’s only on the weekends, it’s not a huge deal, but James does NOT like going to bed in his room by himself for naptime! Just this past weekend, I’ve gotten him to stay in his bed by himself, by leaving the door open, while I was working on laundry or other tasks upstairs. The good thing is that he’s taking 1½- to 2-hour naps on the weekends because he’s so tired from being busy all week!

Here’s a cute picture I couldn’t resist taking one night the first week he was back in his room. I checked on the boys each night when I went to bed to make sure they were in their own beds. James had fallen out, and was sound asleep on the floor next to his bed. I purposely turned his toddler bed backwards in the corner of the room so that there’d be less likelihood of him falling out. He still found the opening! LOVE that he still sleeps like an infant with his knees pulled up under him and his butt up in the air!

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James’ tantrums have pretty well ceased. Now, not entirely, but the massive ones he was having after we came home and started disciplining, have gone away. We really only have the usual 2-year-old tantrums, when he doesn’t get his way and throws himself down on the floor crying. They don’t last long, though, which is nice. We can usually distract him, or when we ignore them and don’t give in, he gives up pretty quickly.

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James’ vocabulary is coming along quite nicely. Don’t get me wrong, he still goes into the long stories at times, and talks your ear off in Creole/toddler gibberish. But he’s saying more and more phrases, and mixing English words into his long ramblings as well. His teachers at daycare are also understanding him more and more each week. He’s still repeating our every word, and now starting to repeat 2-3 word phrases instead of just the last word we say. It’s fun to hear his language skills improving so quickly!

Blogger Slacker!

Wow! It's been a long time since I've written!

A few other adoptive moms, who'll be bringing their children home soon, who are close in age to James, asked me for some adoption-parenting advice recently. I referred to some things I've written here on my blog. So while looking for some text to not re-write myself, I also noticed that a lot has changed in the past couple months! I need to post some more updates for you other soon-to-be parents (physically at least!) who I know look to the experiences of those who've gone before you, to help prepare yourselves for your own experiences - as I did/still do!

Also, I was looking through some photos on my phone this week, to clear some space and also find some good ones to include with our 3-month post-placement report. In doing so, I've realized I've got some fun updates I should probably post on the blog as well. Things have been pretty hectic, with me being back to work, that I've gotten WAY behind.

Seems to be a recurring theme on here, huh?!?!

So, now that we seem to have settled back into the routine of me being back at work, the taxes are done, and the weather (Grrrr!!!) isn't yet such that I'll be busy spending extra hours outdoors, exercising and gardening... I'll be working on blog updates. Stay tuned!

And just for fun...