Puzzle fun

Now that Matthew is home alone with me for a couple of hours every morning, we're finally getting some time to do things together again. His favorite activities include building really tall towers out of cardboard blocks and knocking them down (a toddler classic, right?), playing with water and pots and pans in the sink, and putting together puzzles. He can put together a giant fire truck floor puzzle pretty much by himself, with only minimal assistance. Here he is putting the final touches on:

Making pizza, walking (some more), and piles of paperwork

We had low-key fun this weekend...like, what do you do to entertain the kids while you're trying to make dinner? How about giving them their own little ball of dough to make into their own pizza? Alleluia Boy and Jubilee Girl loved it:



And The Music Man continues to enjoy his walker...seen here in the drizzle, without AFOs because he popped a screw on one of them from working it so hard. The day after this video was made, he actually popped one of the side wires. You can see why--he works it hard!


What else...if things seem a little quiet on the blogging front, that would be due to the fact that I am home with two very needy little boys right now. The Music Man wants to be constantly engaged, which isn't surprising and is probably a good thing, given his traumatic past and lack of human interaction for the first six years of his life. His language is REALLY exploding; sentences are a more and more frequent phenomenon. We think his English is probably better now than his Russian ever was, if our observations in Ukraine are any indication. Certainly he is talking way more than he ever did there.

And Alleluia Boy is needy because he is three, and because The Music Man soaks up so much attention from me and any other adult around. He shows very clear signs of sadness, anger, and jealousy, which are both natural and also deeply saddening to us as his parents. It also keeps me very busy; I often have both of them hanging from me, or requesting the same thing from me. We have a good friend who has been donating three hours a day to help watch them -- and I don't want to imagine where I would be now if it weren't for her help -- but we won't have "official" personal care attendant services for The Music Man for at least another week or two. Also, TMM will be starting preschool for 2 1/2 hours per week starting the week of Oct. 22, which should help. Until then, dealing with the boys takes up literally all of my time during the day. I can get grocery shopping done (in a harried sort of way), but that is about it.

The other factor is the continuing avalanche of paperwork and phone calls and planning related to getting The Music Man set up with what he needs. It is literally like a part-time job. I have a two-inch binder that is literally bursting with paperwork and forms. Every organization we deal with wants signed releases for every other organization we deal with. The paperwork for enrolling him in school is compounded by his complicated IEP, for which we wrote a six-page plan (and his speech therapist wants us to record a 50-utterance speech sample). There is more paperwork (all of those intake surveys), phone calls, and scheduling involved in his complicated medical care. There has been a ton of paperwork involved in getting him signed up with Medical Assistance (for a sizable monthly fee), without which we'd quickly go broke (his AFOs -- those little plastic foot braces that broke after two months -- cost $3,500 all by themselves)...but that has involved tons of paperwork (including yet another copy of our cursed 2011 income tax return), as well as ongoing reporting. Setting up PCA service has meant researching the various agencies and options, finding and talking to potential PCAs to hire, coordinating the paperwork necessary to hire them, filing more paperwork with the county and the state, meeting with the "qualified professional" who will supervise the service on behalf of the agency as well as the public health nurse and social worker from the county, setting up a schedule, creating a care plan, and reading up on all of the regulations around PCA services. We have to get his passport back to the Ukrainian consulate, and deal with some insurance and medical billing issues. And we have more than half a dozen medical appointments for him (three at Gillette Children's, one at the International Adoption Clinic, one at Gundersen-Lutheran Orthotics, his first-ever dentist appointment, several intake screenings with his therapist) scheduled over the next four weeks -- and that doesn't include his weekly physical therapy appointments.

Did I mention that I have been frantically building an accessible raised walkway from our garage to our house before winter sets in?

Am I whining? I guess I might be, but I'm also just putting this out there as a heads-up for why we've been less available than usual lately.

On the bright side, much of this huge rush of work is a one-time deal -- and ocne we are set up with school, PCA services, and a comprehensive medical care plan, things should settle down to a more reasonable level.

Also, we can be extremely grateful that we have access to such comprehensive services, provided cheerfully by so many competent, helpful people. I'll leave you with a shot of some of them -- the folks who attended The Music Man's IEP meeting:

From left to right around the table: TMM's teacher/case manager; the district's
coordinator of services for disabled students; the speech therapist; the occupational
therapist; our amazing volunteer PCA; the school psychologist; the
physical therapist; the county public health nurse; the county social worker;
another of his soon-to-be PCAs; Starling (mom). And there were people missing!

Happy birthday, Alleluia Boy!

Guess how old Alleluia Boy is? If you ask him, "How old are you?" he will probably respond, "Good!"

Among his latest accomplishments are learning to count to twenty, learning basic (very basic) addition, an ever-expanding vocabulary ("What is that called? ... Oh!"), and using the potty (most of the time, anyway).

Alex gets to walk...and kinda run!

So...the day after his birthday, Alex got a great birthday present from the physical therapist at the school he will be attending. She was in the early childhood classroom doing some work with him and offered to pull in the reverse walker to see how he would do in it. Here is the result:



She offered for us to take it home, and boy did he take off! He spent maybe an hour and a half total out on the sidewalk in front of the house:


And here without anyone holding onto the walker:


I don't think I've ever seen Alex so thrilled as he was while on that walker...it's like he's been waiting for this opportunity to walk for six years! In fact, he protested very loudly when it was time to quit (to go pick up his siblings). Here he is in the car, pointing and saying, "I want to walk!" over and over:

The good news is he perked up when he was assured he'd get to try it out again!

Happy birthday, Alex!

When Alex turned five on this day one year ago, he was just getting used to a new institution, having recently been moved from the only home he'd known since he was a baby.

Today, Alex celebrated his sixth birthday with his forever family. The book that our seven-year-old daughter made for him says it all. Here is the cover:

The book is titled "The Boy Who Loved His Family"

And here is the last page:

And the last page says, "We love you!"

And here is how the birthday boy spent his big day:

Just after waking up...bed-head! "Good morning!" he says.

Eating homemade cinnamon raisin bread in the car.

Playing outdoors on a beautiful day with our good friend who has volunteered
to help care for Alex three hours a day, gratis. Once we get approved for a PCA,
she will be paid.

The big hit of the day: a nice new balloon! It went everywhere with him.

Folding hands to say grace before dinner (bread, cantaloupe, black bean soup).

Wearing the traditional Windley-Daoust birthday hat while preparing to blow out
the candles. Actually, he had no idea about blowing out candles, so someone else
had to do it for him.

Let him eat cake! With his hands!

Cake face. He actually quit eating before he was done with the cake...guess he filled up on that
good cantaloupe.

Asleep with his new stuffed animal at the end of a busy day. He loves that alligator!

Alex has made incredible strides in the three months he has been home with us.

He now uses English more often than he uses Russian, and he probably knows a couple hundred English words.

He has just recently learned the joy and art of giving and receiving hugs, and does so enthusiastically, and with a big smile on his face.

He asked to try to use the toilet today, probably inspired by the sight of his little brother potty training (and getting candy as a reward). He didn't actually go -- and actually he kind of fell off while trying to close the door -- but he got a piece of candy for his effort.

He knows how to say "please" and "thank you" and "I want."

He knows some of the words to his favorite songs on our Standing on the Rock CD.

He asks to "read" a book, and enjoys looking at the pictures.

He is up to wearing his foot braces almost all day, and is getting better and better at standing and walking (with support).

He has grown several inches, and gained several pounds.

And, he is learning to drive:

Here he quite literally turned to me and asked, "Can I have the keys?"

Did I mention that he has chutzpah? Keep going, Alex -- keep going!

Deck destruction

Have you ever woken up one day and said to yourself, "Hmm, maybe it would be a good idea to tear out our monster deck and build a raised walkway to the garage before winter comes and we're forced to walk single-file down the very narrow and icy/slushy sidewalk for seven months again"? No? Well, you're missing out, friends.

Seriously, this has been on my mind since the moment we decided to adopt a special needs child -- maybe it's the practical male in me, but it seemed obvious from the get-go that we'd need better access to the house, especially in the winter. Problem is, I hate major carpentry projects, probably because of the potential to seriously screw things up. Fortunately, I have a number of friends who are not so intimidated.

So for the past week or so, we've been tearing apart the deck -- or rather, carefully deconstructing it in order to re-use the pieces in the raised walkway that we're building to the garage. Tonight we had sixteen people come over to help move the deck off its trusses and down onto a new site (over our concrete patio) closer to the ground. It is now the first twelve feet of our raised wooden walkway.

Our friend Eric using a saws-all to cut the deck in half.

Our friend Brian using a table saw to cut the deck in half.

Moving the smaller of the two sections, which will becut in half to become
the rest of the walkway.

Moving the larger of the two pieces of the deck, which will be the first twelve
feet of the walkway, as well as a sort of wooden patio.

This is what community looks like. We have neighbors from down the street,
as well as friends from ECFE and church and book club, all having fun helping out.

Now all we have to do is reattach the posts and railings, build new stairs, rewire the electric, cut up the leftover decking, and create the rest of the walkway. Should be easy, right?

Horse camp

Yeah, we've been away from Gracewatch for a while...something about an adoption or something....

Anyway, catching up on our backlog...some pictures and videos of the girls at horse camp, one of the highlights of their summer.

And BTW, the first day of school today went great--smiles and good reports all around.