Day 14

Another interesting fact about Jack – he likes to dress up.  If it’s not his stuff – even better.  I found Ty’s Halloween costume and guess who wanted to wear it??

Can you guess what he is?  Yep, he’s a ninja!  The mask is great, right?!

Difficult post….

This is why we feel such a pull to go get our beautiful Dashlyn.  Do you see this lovely doll in the pic above?  She lived in an orphanage in EE.  She was waiting for a family to claim her.  Waiting for a mommy and daddy.

Her waiting is over.  Sweet Anne Marie has passed away.  I’ve been broken hearted all day.  There are not enough words.  Please read more about her here. 

Day 12

So here is a little essay that someone posted on one of the forums I enjoy. You've probably read it before as I have but it's totally worth reading again. :)

Who Mothers the Children with Disabilities?
By Erma Bombeck
This year, nearly 100,000 women will become mothers of children with disabilities. Did you ever wonder how mothers of children with disabilities are chosen?

Somehow I visualize God hovering over the earth selecting His instruments for propagation with great care and deliberation. As He observes, He instructs his angles to make notes in a giant ledger.

Finally, He passes a name to an angel and smiles, "Give her a child with a disability."

The angel is curious. "Why, this one, God? She's so happy." Exactly smiles God.

"Could I give a child with a disability to a mother who does not know laughter? That would be cruel." "But has she patience?" asks the angel.

"I don't want her to have too much patience or she will drown in a sea of self-pity and despair. Once the shock and resentment wear off, she'll handle it.

"I watched her today. She has that feeling of self and independence that is so rare and so necessary in a mother. You see, the child I'm going to give her has his own world. She has to make him live in her world and that's not going to be easy."

"But Lord, I don't think she even believes in you." God smiles, "No matter, I can fix that."

"This one is perfect. She has just enough selfishness."

The angel gasps, "Selfishness? Is that virtue?" God nods. "If she can't separate herself from the child occasionally, she'll never survive. Yes...here is a woman whom I will bless with a child less perfect. She doesn't realize it yet, but she is to be envied. She will never take for granted a 'spoken word'. She will never consider a 'step' ordinary. When her child says "Momma" for the first time she will be present at the miracle and know it!"

When she describes a tree to her blind child, she will see it as few people ever see my creation."

"I will permit her to see clearly the things I see...ignorance, cruelty, prejudice...and allow her to rise above them. She will never be alone. I will be at her side every minute of her life because she is doing my work as surely as she is here by my side."

...Erma Bombeck

I would very much love to be that woman. I'm still working at it. Good to know that God didn't expect me to be perfect! I'm good at not being perfect. Hard to believe I was blessed with our little man - I must have done something right.

Day 11

So today I'm thinking about sign language. Jack uses many signs, enough that I lost track of how many. We learned most of them from various Signing Time videos, either ones that we purchased, or rented from the library. Also there's several signing websites that I look at when we want to find a sign. I like this one because you can look up words pretty easily and a little video accompanies each sign.

One of our favorite things to do when Jack and Braska were a little younger was sit them side by side and have them sign words - so cute! You can see a little of that on Braska's blog.

Jack is starting to use more spoken words, but he still doesn't use words that are understandable all the time. Today he signed water to Andrew while holding his cup, and when Andrew asked "you want water?", Jack started to sign milk and corrected himself to sign water. He's really getting it! So for us, signing has been an excellent way to bridge the gap between no communication and spoken dialog. AND, it's been fun and so cute to see him sign words!

Day 10 - the birth!

So I was under the impression I had posted yesterday because I sent a post from my phone and it said my message had been sent. But here I am and there is no post. How annoying! Anyone have any ideas? So I'm skipping Day 9 for awhile until I find out where that post went.

Here is Jack's birth story for today. I actually wrote this a couple of years ago, but it's that month again so I'm re-posting! I skipped the shower story and may go back to it. But I think this is more interesting for now.

Okay, so we had the baby shower and I'm thinking I have about 4 weeks 'til our little guy makes an appearance. However, he was in a big hurry, and I ended up going to the hospital, Fri., morning on Oct.27th. About 3 weeks early. This was after I called another mom to take over the Halloween party in my daughter's class, after I called my mom to tell her to drive the 3 hrs here, after I was freaking out 'cause I wasn't ready, and after I called my MIL who wanted to come with us and was out of town. They tortured me for awhile, and then sent me home. I won't specify what sent me there in the first place because really, it's TMI. So my mom came in town anyway, my MIL came home and we sent her back, and M (who wanted to see Jack being born) missed her Halloween party. I called my friend Jenny and we all went to lunch. Now, I'm sure anyone who has given birth at least once will back me up and agree that when you're in labor, you're in labor. So while we're having lunch I'm thinking, "yep, there's something going on here" but I held out as long as possible so they couldn't send me home again (HA) and finally at 8pm I announced it was time to GO. We packed everyone up, dropped the boys at Jenny's, and drove off to the hosp. I got all hooked up to all that crap they hook you up to, and then things really started happening. My first 2 babies were born while I had an epidural and Ty wasn't (he was the 9lb 5oz-er!) so I had been planning no epidural with Jack too but the pains became pretty darn intense so we called for the epidural, but before the guy showed up, it was time to push. Actually, it was time to NOT push 'cause they weren't ready (again, HA) but Jack came out anyway! The Dr. was the one on call and she came in putting on her gloves, and only got the one on before she had to catch! We got a neat pic of Allan cutting the cord.

(M took it!) Then we got to hold him while they were looking for a room for me. My MIL finally showed up (she had gone back out of town) and we all congratulated ourselves on having a gorgeous baby. Yes, we saw (well, I saw) the Down Syndrome right away. The thick neck, squinty eyes, big space between the big toes and the rest of the toes - it was all there. But you know what? I didn't care. Not one bit. I wanted to hold that teeny little bundle of warm baby and stick my nose in that space between his jaw and neck and just nuzzle. It was great. We got to keep him quite awhile until they took him down to the nursery to finish cleaning him up and all that. That will be the next installment - the trauma of finding out your tiny, little, sweet, yummy new baby would need open heart surgery.

Next time - brand new baby pics!

Day 8

What's Jack doing now?

Jack can run and jump. His jumping is great. He can come straight off the floor and goes several inches into the air! He jumps off curbs and lands with both feet. He jumps off the couch too (which I'm not too crazy about). These are his strong points. He's starting to say words and use them appropriately. I don't know if you would recognize them if you heard him, but we do! He still eats well and uses a fork and spoon. It occurred to me the other day that we should be trying an open cup so that'll be fun. We spend lots of time with Braska and Kinlee. Hopefully he'll like his little sister as much as those 2!

He started school again. He goes 4 days per week, 9 to noon. 2 days are "big" class days and 2 are "small" class days, when only kids with IEPs go. On small class days there are only 2 kids in the room! How cool is that? Unfortunately, Miss B is not in his room this year :(. But since both classes are pretty small on small days sometimes they get to see each other anyway, on the playground or for activities. Last week Jack's classroom buddy was sick so Jack got to spend the whole day in B's classroom!

They do so many fun things at school! I need to make a list of all the things I've seen this year. (IEP post coming soon.) One day when I dropped Jack off they had this big tub of spagetti on the table. Some of it was cooked, some not. I had to take a pic since I thought that was such a neat idea! He loved it!

Day 7

Nicknames....

We named Jack after Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. But since the other kids have names that can be shortened, he got one too. So he's Jack and Jackson. Also there are a lot of names that just happen. Bub, Munchkin, Goofball. I've been calling him Ubu a lot too. You know, as in "sit Ubu, sit". We also call him stuff depending on what he's wearing or doing. Milk boy, snot boy, hat head, all those kinda things. All of them are given in love. He's busy, he's funny, he can be a royal pain (like when he's digging the dirt out of my flower pots on the deck). But he is so loved! And no matter what we call him, we call ourselves lucky to have him!