Busy schedules

We've been having a lot of appointments lately. I feel as if we are doing a great deal of running around. I can't imagine how all you ladies that TAKE your children to therapies and school feel! GEE WHIZ! I definitely have it made in the shade in comparison.

I don't have to get the kids up at a certain time for school, get them out the door, or bring them to school. We just get up and start our day whenever. I know, that's not very disciplined of me, but it works for us and if it ever stopped working I'd change it, but as of right now, it works just fine, so why fix it if it isn't broke, right? I think having this style has helped my children be very flexible with life in general. I can pick up and go at any time of day to any place and I rarely have a meltdown or any type of issues. So I guess my haphazard type of schedule works, at least for the children that God has blessed me with. I'm sure it wouldn't work for others.

Anah will have her official evaluation by the school district on Friday, then we'll see what type of services they plan on offering her. I also set up an appt. with our hospitals Dept. of Developmental Disabilities. They do all kinds of evaluations for the kids and offer other options that might work regarding therapies and things that may not be covered by the school district. We got the earliest available appt. (other than the one in July that we can't make), it's for mid August! I'm sure glad we aren't counting on that to get us started! That just goes to show what a need there is and how busy they are. Jonathan's follow up with them is in June, can't switch with him because his is a quicker f/u appt. not as long as Anah's needs to be for an initial eval.

I've already started some basic things with Anah. We are working on pretend play with her dollies, it seems like a relatively new concept to her, but she's catching on fairly well (she is used to caring for real babies, so the behaviors are similar). We have been coloring with crayons. At first she was just scribbling, she still is pretty much, but today she seemed like she was trying to stay in the lines a bit more today. I have shape blocks used for math, she likes to stack them, build with them and lately she has been putting them into "like" piles, progress. Memory cards, she just kind of puts them neatly in rows, not really matching them too often, but she is starting. She likes play dough, not so much to make shapes as to break into very small pieces, but at least it's working on her fine motor skills. I don't think she was very used to stairs, but she is getting much better on them now, both up and down. We've been reading some books. I actually like to limit it at this time to a few familiar ones to help build her language skills, we'll progress with time. She can toss a ball, but has trouble catching it, she can put some shapes in the shape sorter, but gets frustrated, I really don't think she had a lot of experience with such things in the orphanage, if at all.

Jonathan is taking about 7-10 steps fairly regularly, if he wants to get from one person to another. He can actually push himself up to standing from the floor and then take off. He seems better moving than trying to stand still (without help, or holding on). He's improving with his eating skills, he can feed himself some things and is working on using a spoon, he is drinking from a straw!! He can use a sippy cup somewhat but it drools out his mouth somewhat. In one year this baby has come so far, from being like a new born at 22 mos. to crawling, walking, eating all kinds of foods (he had a total oral aversion) and playing with everything. He had a totally flat affect and we thought he might be autistic, no eye contact or anything. Now he makes eye contact, talks, laughs and is so interactive, what a blessing!

Joseph is adapting well to his new sister. He just said to me tonight, "Mom, I hope I'm rich when I'm older." I asked him why, and he said, "So I can give you a million dollars so you can adopt a lot more kids that need families". AWWW And at every meal he prays for his brother, sister, niece (with DS) and for Myung Bo (our "son" we couldn't bring home from Korea with DS). He takes such joy in each of their accomplishments, no matter how small, he is always clapping and hooraying for them, he really is a blessing to them and to us.

Well, I guess that's my brag/sharing for the day. Praying you all are well and safe with this crazy weather we've all been having, we've had almost a foot this past 24hours, yuck!