Our oldest daughter's wedding is in 9 days!
Oh my goodness.
We are so excited and happy
for this special day!
We love you Abigail and Eric!
Thursday, October 26, 2023
CONGRATS TO OUR GUYS!
Yesterday was a big day for our two guys.
1. BEN: I had an amazing IEP meeting yesterday for Ben. The reports I got from his teachers and speech therapist is that Ben is a very hard worker and very determined to get the work done! He is very smart and is moving ahead in his reading, writing, and math. He is responsible and quite self-independent. He is also being socially appropriate most times at school. It seems like Ben's use of his speech device has been a great help for him in communicating when he is nervous or can't pronounce the complex words he want to say. That's wonderful to hear! And it seems like people at school really enjoy having Ben around. We are so proud of Ben!!!!
Ben also got discharged from occupational therapy at school after 7 years! His handwriting (not his grip, haha- still painful to watch) has greatly improved and his keyboarding skills (hunt and peck) are continuing to move forward.
2. JONAH: Jonah got discharged from outside physical therapy after 2 years of working on his walking (toes pointed in) and his overall core/leg strength to help with his "slippery" knee caps. Because no amount of therapy will be able to correct his knee caps, we are at the point where he has gotten very strong in his muscles and hopefully with that increased strength plus his knee braces, his knees will be safe.
SPOILER ALERT: it's looking like boys will also be discharging from outside speech therapy soon. This one is going to be very hard for me because, especially Jonah, has been in speech therapy since 3 weeks old- that's 13 years at Rehab Resources! They are like family. Of course, it's a blessing to not need therapy anymore, but it's always hard to end the connections you make with your wonderful therapists. I will be meeting with our outside speech therapist in a few weeks to discuss discharge, but school gave me the green light that they agree the boys are ready to only get speech support thru school at this point.
We celebrated the boys' accomplishments yesterday by- you guessed it- Culvers!-and also a donut for Ben. Of course, right?
Please look at the way Ben grips a pencil. Because Ben did not have any occupational therapy during his 1st six years of living in the orphanage, he never learned the proper way to grip a pencil. The occupational therapist at school worked YEARS (2016 to 2021) to try and correct his grip. Slide-on grippers on his pencils work, but using those 100% of the time on all of his options for writing utensils isn't realistic. What we finally decided as a team is to just let him hold his pencil however he wants. Surprising, oer the years, His handwriting has been become quite legible. Plus the other concern with improper grips like Ben's is it will cause the kiddo to have hand fatigue after writing for long periods of time. However, Ben's writing capacity is probably 2-3 sentences at the most. And any longer writing sessions would probably be something that he would be encouraged to type on a keyboard so fatigue is not really a concern.
It is not a pretty grip to observe, but it gets the job done!
Jonah saying good-bye
to his physical therapist.
Thursday, October 19, 2023
THEY'RE LOSING SOCKS AND I'M LOSING MY COOL
Just need to vent.
When you have two boys who
1. Live in the moment
2. Live to have fun all the time
3. Don't have a concept of time to help you understand a few hours ago
4. Have an active imagination
5. Have a hard time with the concept of telling the truth
It makes losing things very frustrating...
Our boys are usually absolutely NO HELP in trying to find something they lost. They look in the most obscure places- like when looking for a shoe, they lift up one of our table lamps! Not much help.
They also answer yes to every question you ask them in trying to figure out where the missing item must be:
"Is it at school? YES. "Is it in the car?" YES "Is it in Antartica?" YES.
Every once in a great while, the stars align, and one of them will immediately know where something is, and thank goodness, because it's usually in the most unexpected place- like a DVD inside our piano or a placemat in our fireplace vent!
Lately they have been misplacing socks. This is because when Jonah gets undressed he has the horrible habit of just throwing his dirty clothes anywhere but the hamper. I have found shirts hanging from the bathroom cabinet and pjs in the bathtub. I am working very hard to get him to nicely put his things in the hamper, but please note I am not only battling mischeviousness but also some OCD tendencies. For Ben, he frequently gets hot so he will just toss his socks wherever he is when he gets his hot flash- I actually can relate to that...haha.
Now lost socks have been a plague of humanity since the beginning of time or sock-wearing at least. We all have the unexplained of phenomena of a sock that goes in the dryer but doesn't come out- it's the magic trick you never wanted to work. While it's weird and slightly annoying dealing with these MIA socks, it's never been something that made me grit my teeth in frustration.
But the boys' losing socks is a different matter. Because when no-show socks slide right off your feet and you don't have the dexterity to manipulate a crew sock over your heel and up, meaning your mom has to help you put on socks but you offer absolutely no help with your foot/leg to help get that sock on, finding and keeping the easiest socks in the world to get on is very important to us! So losing some of these "miracle" socks really bugs me. Over reaction on my part- probably, but somewhat justified, right?
For those of you in my age group, does my quest for the perfect sock at all bring up Seinfeld's Mr. Pitt and his sock drama? SEE BELOW!
To top it off, we are currently trying to find Ben's glasses. Usually Ben is very careful with his things, beside socks. This isn't quite is MO to lose something so important. I'm suspecting his little brother may have played a role in this...
The problem is when I asked Ben where they were he said his teacher took them (LIE). He also looked in his sock (oh, the irony!) for the glasses (NOT A HELP).
* UPDATE: Ben's glasses were found late yesterday afternoon. They were actually in a very logical and expected place: next to his computer at school that he uses during his gaming club on Wednesdays after school. I guess we overthought the possibilities of where they might be and overlooked the simple- our boys keep us on our toes. Plus, the little brother had nothing to do with the disappearance- I'm sorry we wrongfully suspected him.
“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”- Corrie Ten Boom
I guess the boys are trying to teach me a very important life lesson. And it's only socks, and glasses, and shoes, and books, and DVDs, etc- haha.
Of course, they are awfully cute!
Click HERE for Seinfeld "Mr. Pitt's Socks" video
I'm not sure if I'm Elaine or Mr. Pitt...
Sunday, October 8, 2023
Thursday, September 28, 2023
THREE STRIKES and YOU'RE OUT
Jonah had strep throat in February 2023 as explained above. He also had strep throat in June 2023. Now he just finishing up a 10-day regimen of antibiotics after testing for strep on 9-20-23. The standard of care is after 3 "strikes" in short period of time, you get referred to ENT.
Our ENT has since retired since last seeing him in May 2020. Jonah was dismissed from his care when his ear infections stopped when Jonah was home quite a bit because of Covid shut downs and then Jonah's kidney/bladder issues- unexpected blessing.
So in December we see a new ENT.
TIME TO CATCH UP
:How are we already almost done with the month of September?!
Time flies when you are busy having fun.
One of Jonah's favorite movies continues to be Home Alone.
In early September, we visited Stephen at Loyola in Chicago and made a stop at the ACTUAL Home Alone house in Winnetka, IL. Jonah was beyond thrilled!
The boys got to experience true Chicago by riding the bus and the
elevated train from Loyola to Lincoln Park Zoo.
Then on 9-16, Lydia and I hosted Abigail's bridal shower for my family and her friends. It was coffee themed- "Love is brewing". What a fun and special day!
My beautiful girls! I love them so much.
After the shower, Lydia continued the festivities by hosting a bachelorette party.
Then last week we sent the boys off to school each day and were able to relax at our campsite at Harrington Beach State Park. On this day, we spent the morning in beautiful Port Washington, enjoying breakfast, coffee, croissants, and the lake.
So much fun!
We don't get many dates so we were very excitedto have this time to ourselves.
Note: our first day "alone"
Jonah was with us because he came down with strep throat :(
Sunday, September 17, 2023
OUR FINAL TEENAGERS
Since Ben and Jonah are the youngest in our family, these two will be our last run at parenting teenagers.
Ben turned 13 in June, and Jonah turned 13 last Thursday.
What a wild ride it has been so far with this dynamic duo!
From this:
Arriving at the orphanage,
Ben at 3 wks old so around 7-15-10
Jonah at birth, 9-14-10
To this:
Ben's 13th birthday, 6-21-23
Jonah’s 13th birthday, 9-14-23
Ben experienced orphanage life for 6 years. At 18 months, he went through open heart surgery all by himself, no family to comfort and care for him. Then at 6 years old, he met Andrew and I for the first time. For one week, we would come visit him at the orphanage for a few hours each day. At the end of that week, we went before a Lithuanian judge and were ruled to be his family. We headed to the orphanage and packed up his things from the past 6 years which filled only a grocery big (humbling…) We loaded him into a taxi and took him to our apartment. Please remember, he had only known us for 5 days. He had never lived anywhere except an orphanage or with anyone besides other kids and the orphanage staff. He had never eaten anything except orphanage food besides candy and treats from orphanage visitors. He literally trusted us 2 strangers with his life. And then to top that, after a few more days in Lithuania, we took him on his first airplane ride ever to the US, where EVERYTHING was new to him: people, language, food, living situation, customs. When I think about the amount of faith this little boy had to survive 6 years watching out for himself and then joining our family who were complete strangers to him, it baffles my mind with how well he has adjusted to everything over the years. He is my hero- brave and courageous and determined to survive!
We were there for Jonah's birth, and he came to live with us at 3 weeks old. So a very different experience for Jonah than Ben's experience of joining our family. Jonah's biggest challenges over the years have been health-related. He was hospitalized at 6 months old for a very serious case of pneumonia, then again for the same thing at 9 months old. At 13 months old, he had 5 hour surgery for a kidney/bladder congenital defect. He experienced complications from this surgery and so his total hospitalization time during all of this was almost 3 weeks! The next years were spent trying to keep him healthy due to reactive airway disease and frequent ear infections. Then at 8 years old, Jonah had surgery to remove his thyroid due Grave's disease that wasn't able to be handled by medication. After surgery he experienced a scary breathing episode coming off the anesthesia. Then in 2020, kidney/bladder issues reared their ugly head requiring surgery to have a stent and catheter placed. This catheter was in place for 9 months instead of the planned 2 weeks. Jonah suffered from several kidney/bladder infections during his surgery recovery time. It was a rough period for him. Finally in January 2023, we got the good news that Jonah's left kidney was back to normal size. What a three year ordeal! In summer of 2022, Jonah started to have his knee caps slip out of place quite often causing him great pain. This necessitated him wearing knee braces almost full-time. Oh and he also got Lyme's disease in the summer of 2021. And on top of all these health issues, Jonah didn't really start talking using more than 2-3 words until 2020/2021-age 10/11. He has worked VERY HARD to become verbal. This kid is also my hero- he is also brave and courageous and determined to survive!
Now in regards to all of these boys' adventures these past 13 years, I'm really hoping and praying that their teenage years are very quiet, boring, and uneventful! We're older parents, and I don't know if we have the energy anymore to deal with difficult teenagers...
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