This is a continuation of the last 3 posts so if you haven't read those yet it will make much more sense if you do!
The first details we got on this boy were minimal. Basic special needs and that's about it. Enough for us to be willing to learn more. The next bit of information we got was the profile emailed to me with the picture. There were some things in there that were concerning to say the least. Once the initial feelings of falling in love with a picture wore off the reality of what this child faces set in fast and furious. I call it "freak out mode". It is that time when you have to come face to face with some harsh realities about why children come into state care. These kids aren't there becuase they came from great situations. This child's family has done some things that will impact him for life physically and psychologically. On top of that he has a handful of special needs that are very different than what we have handled before. We both needed time to thoroughly research each and every thing that was presented to us so that we could go into this as knowledgeable as possible. It even turned out that Anya had a doctor's appointment this week so I was able to show it all to our pediatrician and get her take on it. She pretty much had the same questions we did and warned us about the same things we were already concerned about. In the end she was a great encouragement to us and had full confidence that if we chose to move forward we could handle it. I got on the phone with some friends who have children from similar back grounds, and I've lived on the internet searching anything I can on children who live with the things this sweet boy is living with.
Finally, one day I sat on the phone with a friend and we had a great discussion about faith and life. We got into a discussion about God giving good gifts. In the discussion we talked about the HARD things God had put us through and how in the past we had seen "good" as equal with "easy". Now we better understand that good can be very, very hard but it is still truly a good gift from God. I shared with her that this child could grow to be 18 and Larry and I could look at each other and say "Why did we ever worry? This child has been such an incredible blessing to us!" Or we could be looking at each other and facing that fact that we have a child who is walking the same path his biological parents did, and he could cause our family a lot of pain. Either way, if God chooses this boy for our family, we know that he is a GOOD gift from God. We can't spend our days on the "what ifs". We need to be educated and we need to be aware, but we don't need to fear what God has planned for our family. Some right perspective is always good for snapping me out of freak out mode!
Now we wait for our social worker's next visit on Wednesday. We are anxious to see if she has any other information for us at all.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Friday, May 10, 2013
Our new journey part 3
After reading the email Larry looked at me and said "What do you think of this?" I said "If this were a girl we'd be all over it." His response was "Then why aren't we all over it?" I reminded him that we don't have room space for a boy. He told me that Anya could share with a boy still for a few years and at that point we could re-evaluate, but he felt that we needed to inquire more about this boy. I got my answer.
We both decided that since this was the first time we were adopting a boy we needed to talk to our boys about it and get their thoughts and feelings. Both boys were very open to it and said they did not care at all what gender the child was. That was another open door.
That night I did not sleep at all. Our social worker was coming the next morning and I could not wait to tell her but I was also struggling with what in the world we were going to do about the girl with CP. How would God work it all out? What if they chose us for the boy and we still had the girl. What if we were supposed to take the girl and not the boy. What if, what if, what if....you get the point :). Finally I told God that I had complete trust in our social worker and I asked Him to give her the wisdom to make the right path for us clear.
The next morning our social worker came in and asked how we were doing. I said "We want to consider the boy." She got a big smile on her face. I asked if she was surprised and she said yes she was and she almost didn't send us that email last night. She remembered, however, that we had said we would at least pray about it so she went ahead and sent it to us. My next question was "What about the girl?" Her response was "They found another family to take her. I just got an email the other day asking for more information about you becuase they were deciding which family would be the best placement." I said "So what do we do now?" She replied, "I will email her social worker today and tell him to give her to the other family. I just don't have time to have you licensed before she is discharged." Another clear answer.
After she left that day I ran to the grocery store with Anya. I checked my email at one point and saw another email from our social worker. The boy's case manager had put togther a more complete profile on him with a picture and sent it out to all of the agencies in the area asking them to look for a family. I quickly opened the picture and almost died from the cuteness! I read the rest of the medical info and I'll just say it is not easy stuff. I sent it to Larry and asked him if there was anything on it that made him think we might need to reconsider. We both agreed that despite the report we could not deny that God had been throwing doors open for some reason. We have no idea if it is to make him ours or not. All we know is this is right where God wants us.
The report indicated that they were giving until May 28 for all interested families to submit their homestudies. At this point we have no idea how many families will come forward. We have no idea if he will be ours. We have no idea what to expect at all, but we are walking forward in obedience anyway. If he is not meant to be ours then we will just jump back on the foster care route that we started on. Still, we can't help but wonder if this might be the reason God put us on this journey in the first place.
The next day our homestudy was ready and being sent off to be reviewed by our social worker's supervisor. Once it is reviewed it will be turned in to be considered for this sweet boy. Our social worker comes for her last visit next week but for now we are just waiting for any more news. We will have to take some more training classes at some point, and we are anxiously awaiting May 28th to see how many homestudies were submitted.
That catches you up to date, so it will end the "Our new journey" posts, but my next post is going to be a bit more about the emotion of all of this. This boy has some complex medical needs and quite a few unknowns. I won't be sharing any details of that here since this is a public blog, but I will share how we are processing it all.
We both decided that since this was the first time we were adopting a boy we needed to talk to our boys about it and get their thoughts and feelings. Both boys were very open to it and said they did not care at all what gender the child was. That was another open door.
That night I did not sleep at all. Our social worker was coming the next morning and I could not wait to tell her but I was also struggling with what in the world we were going to do about the girl with CP. How would God work it all out? What if they chose us for the boy and we still had the girl. What if we were supposed to take the girl and not the boy. What if, what if, what if....you get the point :). Finally I told God that I had complete trust in our social worker and I asked Him to give her the wisdom to make the right path for us clear.
The next morning our social worker came in and asked how we were doing. I said "We want to consider the boy." She got a big smile on her face. I asked if she was surprised and she said yes she was and she almost didn't send us that email last night. She remembered, however, that we had said we would at least pray about it so she went ahead and sent it to us. My next question was "What about the girl?" Her response was "They found another family to take her. I just got an email the other day asking for more information about you becuase they were deciding which family would be the best placement." I said "So what do we do now?" She replied, "I will email her social worker today and tell him to give her to the other family. I just don't have time to have you licensed before she is discharged." Another clear answer.
After she left that day I ran to the grocery store with Anya. I checked my email at one point and saw another email from our social worker. The boy's case manager had put togther a more complete profile on him with a picture and sent it out to all of the agencies in the area asking them to look for a family. I quickly opened the picture and almost died from the cuteness! I read the rest of the medical info and I'll just say it is not easy stuff. I sent it to Larry and asked him if there was anything on it that made him think we might need to reconsider. We both agreed that despite the report we could not deny that God had been throwing doors open for some reason. We have no idea if it is to make him ours or not. All we know is this is right where God wants us.
The report indicated that they were giving until May 28 for all interested families to submit their homestudies. At this point we have no idea how many families will come forward. We have no idea if he will be ours. We have no idea what to expect at all, but we are walking forward in obedience anyway. If he is not meant to be ours then we will just jump back on the foster care route that we started on. Still, we can't help but wonder if this might be the reason God put us on this journey in the first place.
The next day our homestudy was ready and being sent off to be reviewed by our social worker's supervisor. Once it is reviewed it will be turned in to be considered for this sweet boy. Our social worker comes for her last visit next week but for now we are just waiting for any more news. We will have to take some more training classes at some point, and we are anxiously awaiting May 28th to see how many homestudies were submitted.
That catches you up to date, so it will end the "Our new journey" posts, but my next post is going to be a bit more about the emotion of all of this. This boy has some complex medical needs and quite a few unknowns. I won't be sharing any details of that here since this is a public blog, but I will share how we are processing it all.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Our new journey part 2
The next week our social worker came out again. At that point they had us fast tracked so our visits were basically back to back. On our second visit I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. I was DYING to hear if she had any more info on the pre adoptive placement. When she arrived she informed us that she did not have more info but wondered if we would be willing to take a girl that has CP and needs a placement after she is discharged from the hospital. It turned out that the child with CP was at the same hospital where my girls get therapy and I was going to be there that afternoon. She even suggested seeing if we could meet her. Our heads were spinning. We had thought we would not have a placement for about a year and we had just been presented with 2 children and one was a permanent placement! We asked about taking the girl with CP and how that might affect the pre adoptive placement. She told me she would get more info on both of them to help us decide what to do. She even asked if we would be willing to take both. We told her we would need extensive info on their needs to consider that.
She left our house and called us back 10 minutes later with info on both placements. The pre adoptive placement was a boy. I reminded her that we really don't have permanent room for a boy, so we would likely not pursue him, but we would be willing to pray about it. She also told us more about the girl and I told her it seemed likely that was the route to go.
That afternoon as I was pulling up at the hospital my phone rang and it was the girl's social worker. I told him I was at the hospital and he said he'd be there in 5 minutes to meet me. WHAT?! I was a nervous wreck but I sent my girls off to therapy and next thing I knew I was sitting by the bed of a beautiful sleeping little girl. Her nurse gave me more info about her and there seemed to be a lot of confusion about when she would be discharged, plus the pesky little fact that we were not even licensed yet! No one knew if we could even be licensed fast enough to get her.
The social worker at the hospital came to meet me and she started talking to me about coming to get training on her g tube feeds and asking for my pediatrician's name. I told her we were not licensed yet, which had not been communicated to her, but everyone was moving forward like this was going to happen. They decided to keep her over the weekend so I waited for a call on Monday with some news and heard nothing. Our social worker was coming Tuesday morning so I figured that we'd know more then but in the meantime I was mentally preparing myself for being ready to take this girl.
Monday night I was at Bible study when I got an email from our social worker. She was forwarding me information about the little boy who was a pre adoptive placement. I read it and my first thought was "If this was a girl we'd be all over it." I sat for a moment and prayed over the situation. I finally told God that I would go home and show it to Larry. If his response was "We aren't taking boys we don't have room space", I'd drop it and move on. If he was interested or came up with a suggestion for our room situation I would take that as God telling me we should consider him.
When I got home I handed him my phone and asked him to read the email. It felt like and eternity while I waited for his response.
To be continued.......
She left our house and called us back 10 minutes later with info on both placements. The pre adoptive placement was a boy. I reminded her that we really don't have permanent room for a boy, so we would likely not pursue him, but we would be willing to pray about it. She also told us more about the girl and I told her it seemed likely that was the route to go.
That afternoon as I was pulling up at the hospital my phone rang and it was the girl's social worker. I told him I was at the hospital and he said he'd be there in 5 minutes to meet me. WHAT?! I was a nervous wreck but I sent my girls off to therapy and next thing I knew I was sitting by the bed of a beautiful sleeping little girl. Her nurse gave me more info about her and there seemed to be a lot of confusion about when she would be discharged, plus the pesky little fact that we were not even licensed yet! No one knew if we could even be licensed fast enough to get her.
The social worker at the hospital came to meet me and she started talking to me about coming to get training on her g tube feeds and asking for my pediatrician's name. I told her we were not licensed yet, which had not been communicated to her, but everyone was moving forward like this was going to happen. They decided to keep her over the weekend so I waited for a call on Monday with some news and heard nothing. Our social worker was coming Tuesday morning so I figured that we'd know more then but in the meantime I was mentally preparing myself for being ready to take this girl.
Monday night I was at Bible study when I got an email from our social worker. She was forwarding me information about the little boy who was a pre adoptive placement. I read it and my first thought was "If this was a girl we'd be all over it." I sat for a moment and prayed over the situation. I finally told God that I would go home and show it to Larry. If his response was "We aren't taking boys we don't have room space", I'd drop it and move on. If he was interested or came up with a suggestion for our room situation I would take that as God telling me we should consider him.
When I got home I handed him my phone and asked him to read the email. It felt like and eternity while I waited for his response.
To be continued.......
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Our new journey part 1
It has been a long time since I have blogged and it's not for lack of things to blog about, that's for sure! Let me share a bit with you about the new journey we are on. Back in early March we decided that we were interested in adopting again. I called a friend who is a social worker and told her that we wanted to do a domestic adoption. She informed us that there is a big need in our area right now for foster parents for medically fragile children. I told her absolutely not. We were not at all interested in that. One of our many reasons was that we did not have the childcare or time to do the 30 hours of training required that we had already done in Arkansas.We did some research and decided that we would do a private domestic adoption of a child with Down Syndrome. We called our social worker to tell her that we wanted her to update our home study and she said they have a policy that you can not update until your child has been home a year. We were not thrilled. We prayed and ended up deciding to ask that they make an exception for us. Whatever their answer, we would be content that it was what God wanted for us. After talking to her supervisor, our social worker said we could start again in 9 months, which would be July. So we setteled in for a wait.
In the meantime, foster care came up over and over and over again. Everywhere I looked, and every conversation I had seemed to point to foster care. It eventually got so crazy that I said "FINE GOD! I will talk to Larry about it!" Larry was not 100% on board but was certainly willing to pray about it. A bit later he told me to go ahead and just call and get info. We both knew that with the speed the state works at we likely wouldn't have a placement for a year or so. Our plan was to foster, knowing that at some point a child would become available in our care and we would be open to adopting at that point.
I called the agency we are working with and on March 26th they returned our call. As we talked she told me she was pretty sure that the training in AR and in MO are the same. If that was the case we wouldn't need to go to training. She was right, and we were in shock and overjoyed. We saw this as an open door to move forward. So we skipped a pretty large part of the process and went right into the next step. We were assigned a licensing worker. She talked to us briefly, sent us some paperwork, and set up a time to meet.
One month later, on April 25th we met our licensing worker for the first time. By the time she came to our home we had already taken CPR training and done 90% of the massive packet of paperwork she sent us. By the end of that visit our checklist for becoming licensed was almost complete but she still needed to do 3 more visits with us and there were lots of loose ends to tie up.
At that first visit she told us that there was a child who needed a pre adoptive placement and they were interested in telling us more about this child. We were shocked. A pre adoptive placement? Despite our surprise we were willing to learn more. The first thing we wanted to know was is this child a boy or a girl. The only room space we have now is to share with Anya. That's fine for a boy temporarily but knowing this was going to be a permanent placement we likely would not be able to take a boy.
To be continued.................
In the meantime, foster care came up over and over and over again. Everywhere I looked, and every conversation I had seemed to point to foster care. It eventually got so crazy that I said "FINE GOD! I will talk to Larry about it!" Larry was not 100% on board but was certainly willing to pray about it. A bit later he told me to go ahead and just call and get info. We both knew that with the speed the state works at we likely wouldn't have a placement for a year or so. Our plan was to foster, knowing that at some point a child would become available in our care and we would be open to adopting at that point.
I called the agency we are working with and on March 26th they returned our call. As we talked she told me she was pretty sure that the training in AR and in MO are the same. If that was the case we wouldn't need to go to training. She was right, and we were in shock and overjoyed. We saw this as an open door to move forward. So we skipped a pretty large part of the process and went right into the next step. We were assigned a licensing worker. She talked to us briefly, sent us some paperwork, and set up a time to meet.
One month later, on April 25th we met our licensing worker for the first time. By the time she came to our home we had already taken CPR training and done 90% of the massive packet of paperwork she sent us. By the end of that visit our checklist for becoming licensed was almost complete but she still needed to do 3 more visits with us and there were lots of loose ends to tie up.
At that first visit she told us that there was a child who needed a pre adoptive placement and they were interested in telling us more about this child. We were shocked. A pre adoptive placement? Despite our surprise we were willing to learn more. The first thing we wanted to know was is this child a boy or a girl. The only room space we have now is to share with Anya. That's fine for a boy temporarily but knowing this was going to be a permanent placement we likely would not be able to take a boy.
To be continued.................
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Radio Show
I had a crazy, nerve wracking, and fun experience last week. On Wednesday night I got an email from our social worker telling me that a radio station that their agency is sometimes on was featuring adoption the whole week. She said that the station contacted them because they had someone back out of a program that was supposed to be devoted to international adoption and needed someone else to step in. They asked my social worker if she knew of anyone and she thought of us. The catch was that the program was the next day! My immediate reaction was "ABSOLUTELY NOT" but my family talked me into accepting. I told her to call me in the morning to tell me more.
When she first called she said her supervisor may have found someone else and I might be off the hook. I was relieved! Then she called me back 5 minutes later and said I was going to be on and she was going to be on with me! At 11am I got a call and I was sent through to the studio to do a radio interview on international adoption. I was so, so nervous! I was shaking through the whole thing. It was nice that they also had my social worker on speaking from that perspective so I wasn't "on" the whole time. It was an hour long broadcast but if you have time and are interested you can here it online through this link:
http://www.kfuoam.org/2013/04/04/faithnfamily-12/
When it was over I was so relieved and I am really glad that I had the opportunity to share our story!
When she first called she said her supervisor may have found someone else and I might be off the hook. I was relieved! Then she called me back 5 minutes later and said I was going to be on and she was going to be on with me! At 11am I got a call and I was sent through to the studio to do a radio interview on international adoption. I was so, so nervous! I was shaking through the whole thing. It was nice that they also had my social worker on speaking from that perspective so I wasn't "on" the whole time. It was an hour long broadcast but if you have time and are interested you can here it online through this link:
http://www.kfuoam.org/2013/04/04/faithnfamily-12/
When it was over I was so relieved and I am really glad that I had the opportunity to share our story!
Friday, April 5, 2013
Anya update
Anya has been home for 5 1/2 months now. Honestly, it feels like she has been here forever. Let me share a bit with you about Anya. This is how I describe her to people: Anya is the sweetest, most affectionate, funniest, most disobedient, rotten kid I've ever met in my life! Seriously, I adore her and she drives me insane. When I try telling people how difficult she can be they always respond "But she is so cute." It's gotten a bit old. I'm going to start saying "Yes, she is a beauty queen and her sash says 'Miss Disobedient'"! Here are a few bullet points to tell you more about Anya:
-Yes, her behaviors do consume a good part of my day but she is the sweetest little thing. Just when we think that we are ready to lose our minds she will give us a huge hug and kiss right smack on the lips! She is the only child we have that will do that and I love it more every time she does it!
- Having said that, if it's off limits that's where she is. If it is a "no touch" that is what she is touching. If it is not allowed she is doing it. That sums up Anya!
-Her communication is coming along nicely. She is getting an hour of speech therapy a week. She ADORES Signing Time and has picked up some signs from there that I didn't teach her (including Hopkins:) which is very encouraging. Since having her ears cleaned out she is approximating more sounds though she isn't taking off verbally like I thought she might. She is also much more fearful of noises. She does babble more. So she will say "Bah de mo gu adah go chee" and then at the end she says something that sounds just like she is saying "OK?!" We like to translate for her and say something like "I am leaving now and I am going to take over the world. OK?!" :)
-Speaking of her love for Signing Time she spends her days wanting to hear the "Silly Pizza Song". She even "sings" the tune of some of some of the songs. There are few sounds I love more than hearing her sing!
-I registered her for Kindergarten and I should be getting a call by the end of the month for her to be evaluated by the school. I find this interesting. She is still so toddler like that the thought of sending her to school seems a bit silly to me but oh well. This is what I plan to tell them at the IEP meeting..."You must find her a para who will not be taken by her cuteness. If her para thinks she is too cute to make her behave I promise you that one day you will find yourselves locked in your rooms and Anya will be sitting at Dr. Yerke's (her principal) desk with her feet propped up eating pizza!" Do you think they will listen then?
-She calls everyone mom...everyone. It took us 5 months to get her to stop calling everyone DUHBAH so I guess this is improvement.
-Which sort of leads me into bonding. It's very interesting with Anya. I think she knows we are her caregivers and she likes us but I know she has no idea at all that we are mom and dad or that we are her family. I really still think that if she went to another family tomorrow she'd be just as affectionate and just as happy with them. That's to be expected after 5 months to some degree but I really don't see it changing anytime soon.
-She is getting her own room....hopefully sooner than later! Our original plan was for her to share with Oksana but we started with her in our room. She is still in our room. We learned that she can be a loud sleeper and that she will randomly wake up at 5 am singing and yelling for someone to wake up with her. Oksana NEEDS her sleep. We will all pay dearly if she is woken up like that so we are building a new room downstairs and Evan is giving up his room upstairs for Anya. We are in drywall right now and it can't come soon enough considering that I've been up since 5 am this morning.
-She is a great eater but has decided she doesn't like meat! I'm still trying to figure out what to do about that. Her diet is so restricted as it is because of her celiac disease that I hate to lose meat.
I'm sure I'll think of more later but for now that sums up where we are. Here are a few pictures to finish up her update!
-Yes, her behaviors do consume a good part of my day but she is the sweetest little thing. Just when we think that we are ready to lose our minds she will give us a huge hug and kiss right smack on the lips! She is the only child we have that will do that and I love it more every time she does it!
- Having said that, if it's off limits that's where she is. If it is a "no touch" that is what she is touching. If it is not allowed she is doing it. That sums up Anya!
-Her communication is coming along nicely. She is getting an hour of speech therapy a week. She ADORES Signing Time and has picked up some signs from there that I didn't teach her (including Hopkins:) which is very encouraging. Since having her ears cleaned out she is approximating more sounds though she isn't taking off verbally like I thought she might. She is also much more fearful of noises. She does babble more. So she will say "Bah de mo gu adah go chee" and then at the end she says something that sounds just like she is saying "OK?!" We like to translate for her and say something like "I am leaving now and I am going to take over the world. OK?!" :)
-Speaking of her love for Signing Time she spends her days wanting to hear the "Silly Pizza Song". She even "sings" the tune of some of some of the songs. There are few sounds I love more than hearing her sing!
-I registered her for Kindergarten and I should be getting a call by the end of the month for her to be evaluated by the school. I find this interesting. She is still so toddler like that the thought of sending her to school seems a bit silly to me but oh well. This is what I plan to tell them at the IEP meeting..."You must find her a para who will not be taken by her cuteness. If her para thinks she is too cute to make her behave I promise you that one day you will find yourselves locked in your rooms and Anya will be sitting at Dr. Yerke's (her principal) desk with her feet propped up eating pizza!" Do you think they will listen then?
-She calls everyone mom...everyone. It took us 5 months to get her to stop calling everyone DUHBAH so I guess this is improvement.
-Which sort of leads me into bonding. It's very interesting with Anya. I think she knows we are her caregivers and she likes us but I know she has no idea at all that we are mom and dad or that we are her family. I really still think that if she went to another family tomorrow she'd be just as affectionate and just as happy with them. That's to be expected after 5 months to some degree but I really don't see it changing anytime soon.
-She is getting her own room....hopefully sooner than later! Our original plan was for her to share with Oksana but we started with her in our room. She is still in our room. We learned that she can be a loud sleeper and that she will randomly wake up at 5 am singing and yelling for someone to wake up with her. Oksana NEEDS her sleep. We will all pay dearly if she is woken up like that so we are building a new room downstairs and Evan is giving up his room upstairs for Anya. We are in drywall right now and it can't come soon enough considering that I've been up since 5 am this morning.
-She is a great eater but has decided she doesn't like meat! I'm still trying to figure out what to do about that. Her diet is so restricted as it is because of her celiac disease that I hate to lose meat.
I'm sure I'll think of more later but for now that sums up where we are. Here are a few pictures to finish up her update!
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| In her brother's riding helmet. She knows he hates it when she puts this on....see what I mean ;)?! |
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| Digging through mom's purse while she waits for the brothers at the dentist. |
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| In mom's coat! |
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| This is for all those people who say "She's always so happy!" HA! This is what she looks like a good part of her day. Anytime life doesn't go her way this is what we get! She often growls at us at the same time. |
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| Shaving Cream! |
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| This is how she came out of my room when I told her to find her shoes! |
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| Waiting to get her ears cleaned out. They had to puther under because there was 5 years of wax caked in there. They also thought they might have to place tubes but her ears looked great when they could finally see in there! |
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Oksana update
Yesterday Oksana turned 8! I think it is time for an update about her, and most of the reason I want to give this update is because I'm so thrilled to have good things to report! First, let me share about her birthday:
Those of you who know Oksana know that no celebration is complete without balloons. She has literally talked about the day she would get an 8 balloon since the day her 7 balloon deflated last year! This was by far the highlight of her day!
Anya's birthday is in May so in a couple of weeks they are having a combined birthday party for friends and family at a place with inflatables.
So now a quick update. Oksana recently had an increase in her medication and it has made a huge difference! She is doing great! First let me tell you about school. The week before her med increase her teacher documented every instance of major behavior and/or aggression. There were instances daily, sometimes multiple times a day. The week we started the meds it went down to 2 instances in the whole week, and the very next week she had ZERO.....ZERO instances of significant behavior or aggression. WOW! I don't expect that this is a miracle cure and I know she will still struggle some days but what a difference! When I think about where she was last year I'm just in shock at the difference.
At home we've seen a difference too. She is accepting correction better, she is handling her anger better, she is regulating herself better, she is apologizing for her misbehavior, she is happy, she is less frustrated, she is gaining new skills, she is proud of her accomplishments. Big stuff.
The other day we were at therapy and a little girl said "Where is your mom?" Oksana ran over to me, threw her arms around me, and said "This is my mom!" Then she squeezed me and smiled the biggest smile at me. Big stuff.
I could also share many areas where she is still struggling but if you don't mind I just want to enjoy telling you the progress because this has been a long, long time coming. I'm so proud of her!
Those of you who know Oksana know that no celebration is complete without balloons. She has literally talked about the day she would get an 8 balloon since the day her 7 balloon deflated last year! This was by far the highlight of her day!
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| She got a Strawberry Shortcake RC car that she saw at Nina's house and has talked about non-stop since then. |
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| She got a lycra tube. All of the kids love crawling through this. Actually, I do too :). |
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| She got her lycra sheets which she calls "Squeezy sheets". She slept with them for the first time last night and loved them. Evan loved them too and he is going to put Anya's on his bed tonight to try it out and see if he might want some too! |
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| Her dinner of choice was chili and her birthday treat choice was brownies and mint ice cream!
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So now a quick update. Oksana recently had an increase in her medication and it has made a huge difference! She is doing great! First let me tell you about school. The week before her med increase her teacher documented every instance of major behavior and/or aggression. There were instances daily, sometimes multiple times a day. The week we started the meds it went down to 2 instances in the whole week, and the very next week she had ZERO.....ZERO instances of significant behavior or aggression. WOW! I don't expect that this is a miracle cure and I know she will still struggle some days but what a difference! When I think about where she was last year I'm just in shock at the difference.
At home we've seen a difference too. She is accepting correction better, she is handling her anger better, she is regulating herself better, she is apologizing for her misbehavior, she is happy, she is less frustrated, she is gaining new skills, she is proud of her accomplishments. Big stuff.
The other day we were at therapy and a little girl said "Where is your mom?" Oksana ran over to me, threw her arms around me, and said "This is my mom!" Then she squeezed me and smiled the biggest smile at me. Big stuff.
I could also share many areas where she is still struggling but if you don't mind I just want to enjoy telling you the progress because this has been a long, long time coming. I'm so proud of her!
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