First Steps Program

When we first took Gracie in for her appointment with her pediatirican I asked her about Grace being evaluated by First Steps, which is an early intervention for developmentally delayed children under 3 years old, program that's run by our state. Every state has a program like this, and ours is called First Steps. The pediatrician told me that she had to fill out some paperwork for First Steps, and that they shoud be calling me to see about setting up an appointment to have Gracie evaluated. The evaluation is free, and I wanted to find out the level of developmental delay, if any, Gracie might have due to being in an orphanage for the first 10 months of her life.  That was about 5 1/2 months ago.

So I waited, and nothing. I don't know what happened. If the paperwork was lost, if the pediatrician's office never sent it in, or what went wrong. I didn't really think about it much after that, but then when we had Grace's 6 month post-adoption follow-up visit with our social worker, she asked if we'd had Grace evaluated in the First Steps program. I told her the story about the pediatrician's visit, and she said First Steps had offices in each county in our state, and I could just look up their phone number in the phone book and call them directly.

The next day I looked up the number on whitepages.com and called. The number I called was not for our county office, but for our state, which was fine. The not-overly friendly woman I talked with asked a couple of questions, and told me that I'd be getting a call from someone in our county to get us signed up. The next day I got a call from Alecia. Alecia explained that she needed to have a few things from us before the evaluation could happen: a copy of last year's 1040 tax form, a copy of Grace's health insurance card (front and back), and her social security number. Okay, no problem, I made an appointment to have Alecia come out to the house to give her the information she asked for and to get us signed up.

That very afternoon, I another call from Jenny to make an appointment to have Gracie evaluated on her speech development and her gross motor skill development. Boy this agency works fast! Alecia was out at our house yesterday to explain even further what is going to happen in regards to having her evaluated and if she qualifies for having any early intervention developmental therapy what would happen. Alecia was kind and friendly. I have to tell you, that so far I'm impressed with this government agency! Everyone, with the exception of the first woman that I talked with (the state lady), has been warm and friendly. They also have gotten back to me in a timely manner, and have been accomodating to our schedule as much as possible.

Who'd have thought that with so many goverment agencies where you can get caught up in red-tape with people that don't really seem to care, that there is such a gem of an agency! I'll report back to let you know if I still feel this way after Gracie has her evaluation, but for now IMHO this agency rocks!

This book is a keeper!

I think I mentioned this book before, or maybe I mentioned the doctor that wrote this book. But I wanted to say specifically that this book, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, by Dr. Richard Ferber, is the book that changed forever how we get DD3 to bed. When we first got DD3 in China, of course, she slept in a crib in our room. So there were times when it seemed only natural to bring her into bed with us to get her to go to sleep. It made it easier for us to sleep to. Then when we got back home, we had DD3 stay on the same bedtime routine and schedule.She'd go to bed with a bottle and one of us would lay down with her in our bed unti she fell asleep. Then we'd move her into her own crib where sometimes she'd sleep through the night and other times she'd wake up several times a night, whereupon we'd repeat the routine. As time went by, this method become more and more demanding and less and less effective.

One day, I was reading a post on our travel group's Yahoo group. One of the women had asked for help to get her adopted daughter to sleep. It seems her and her husband were having worse problems than we were with getting their daughter to bed, sleeping all night, and sleeping in her own bed. Well, one of the pieces of advice that she got was to read Dr. Ferber's book and try out his method. This woman claimed that it solved their sleep problems with their daughter. I got to thinking about that, and decided that even though our sleep issues weren't as bad as this woman's experience, I'd give it a try.

So I borrowed the book from our local library, read most of it, and with support from DH, decided to give it a try. I have to say, that I think one of the most helpful sections of the book was where Dr. Ferber describes the process of sleep. I knew very little about how we sleep, and how we mature in our sleep as we age. I knew that there were stages of sleep, but I didn't know that we move in and out of these stages at regular intervals throughout the night. Of course, once I understood better how sleep works, following the Dr. Ferber method was pretty easy.

We followed the method pretty religiously, and by about the 5th night DD3 was going to sleep by herself at bedtime and naptime, and sleeping through the night. It's been great! I highly recommend this book!

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DD2's Well-child checkup

DD2 had her well-child checkup, since she turned 11 years old on Monday, yesterday at the pediatrician getting a two-thumbs up on her health. She is tracking just below the 5th percentile for her height and 30th for her weight. That's right where she was at last year at her 10 year checkup. The pediatrician is very happy with how she's grown.

The pediatrician has been concerned about her height and weight for the past several years. Since she was about 18 months old she's been just below 5th percentile for her height, and 70th for her weight. So much so that DD2 was referred to a endochronologist to see if growth hormones were in order. Priase God that growth hormones weren't even an option, but we did find out that DD2 is most likely going to be short. Between 4'10" and 4'11". DH still thinks that the doctors are wrong because he was a late bloomer, not getting his greatest growth spurt to get hime to 6'2" until he was a senior in high school. But at any rate, it's obvious that God has made DD2 just perfect for her height and weight. She has a spunky personality to match her height, and everyone thinks she is cute as a button (which is true!).

So, anyway, DD2 is staying on track for her height and is slimming out.. I asked if she was on track to hit 4' 11". The pediatrician wouldn't say for sure, but she did say that she's got at least 3 or more years of growth to go. And since she hasn't seen DD2's growth spurt just before she starts having periods, that she's got a good chance.

Besides that DD2 is very healthy all around, and we are blessed that this is the case!

Happy Birthday DD2!

I know this is a day late, but I'm still going to post a most Happy Birthday to DD2! She turned 11 on the 14th. We didn't have a party for her because she chose to get her American Girl Doll instead, but we did celebrate yesterday by going to the local arcade to eat pizza and play the arcade games. The only problem was that the restaurant part of the arcade was closed. I guess that's because it is winter (they also have outdoor miniature golf there), and it was a weeknight. Anyway, DD2 chose Subway to eat at because it was just down the street, and well, let's face it, all she really wanted to do was play the arcade games.

So after a quick sandwich we all drove back to the arcade where she and DD1 played games for about an hour. Gracie didn't play for obvious reasons. DD1 graciously donated her winning tickets to her sister (only after she bought a Twix bar with 100 tickets!), and DD2 chose a variety of junk from her 300+ tickets that she won.

And that was it. DH went to work and the girls and I went to Walmart to get some groceries. Not a very exciting birthday I'm afraid, but DD2 didn't complain. We are having a family party for her on February 2nd with some of her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandpa, so I think that's why she wasn't too disturbed that we didn't do much last night.

With that said, I'd like to reflect a little bit on what kind of daughter my sweet DD2 is. She's the kind that takes the song "4 Hugs a Day, That's The Minimum" to heart. She is a snuggler, and always has been. She also doesn't complain too much about having to do her chores, although she does have to be reminded that she has chores sometimes:-)! Her attention span is short. She can take her shoes off upon entering the house, and have absolutely no idea where she's left them 10 minutes later. Those things are just not important to her. Much more important are relationships. She is our lover, whereas DD1 is our thinker. She is most always quick to jump in to help with Gracie. She smothers the poor baby with love sometimes! But it is so sweet to see the two of them together. DD2 can make Gracie laugh louder and hardier than any of the rest of us. Gracie knows a good sister when she sees one! There's so much more I could tell you about DD2, but I'll save that for another time. Just suffice it to say, when she came into our lives, she brightened it forever!

I was going to do then and now photos of DD2, but our scanner is not working. So I can't scan in any old photos of her to show how she's changed. So for now, I'll just post a few photos to show what a joy she truly is! She's the short blond one in the all the photos.

 

American Girl Doll Place

I think I've already posted that on New Years Eve, that DD1, DD2 and I went to the American Girl Doll Place in Chicago with my SIL and her two daughters. DD2 was to buy a doll for her birthday, which is tomorrow, and boy did she have a hard time choosing which one to buy. Anyway, after finally choosing Nelly, we took a couple of photos there.

 

A few, very few, Christmas 2007 photos

I wanted to post some photos of Christmas, but I don't really  have many. The reason is that we didn't take many photos at all. We took mostly videos, and DH hasn't shown me how to download (or is it upload?) videos off of the camcorder yet. So without further adieu, here are a few photos of our Christmas 2007.

As you can see, most of these photos are of Gracie, no surprise there, as this was her first Christmas. These photos were taken with DD2's early Christmas present of a Sony digital camera. We gave her the camera early, so she would have it for Christmas day, but we didn't give her a memory card. So she quickly filled it up. Since then we got her a 2Gig memory card. So she won't have this problem any longer. I'll try to get DH to show me how to upload the video and get that posted soon.

 

Okay, I'm going to try this again

I tried to post this entry the other day, and for some reason couldn't get the photos to come up the way I wanted them to. So I'm going to try again.

Today we had a visit from our social worker for our 6 month post-adoption follow-up visit in order for her to write her report and send it into our adoption agency. All 5 of us were here. She asked us several questions about how Grace was adjusting, what milestones she's had since coming home to us, how we bonded with her in China, how she's bonded with her sisters, and a few questions about daycare, our jobs, the older girls school, and things like that. It took about and hour. We have to send her a copy of Grace's US Certificate of Citizenship and gave her 4 photos of Grace (one of which had to be all 5 of us together). I want to post the photos that we gave to our social worker to send to the CCAA with her report. Here they are.

 

Oh, and here's one more that we took but didn't use for the 6 month post-adoption photos, but I like it too.

It's official - Grace now has a US Birth Certificate!

Well, our journey to have Gracie fully integrated as a US Citizen is almost at an end. Today we received copies of her state birth certificate. We had hired a lawyer to file our adoption paperwork within our state back in September, and paid her to get us copies of Grace's state birth certificate. She filed the paperwork with the court,  and we received a copy saying it was filed in October. According to Rebecca, our lawyer, the state has slowed down in getting birth certificates out from 2 weeks in the past, now to 3 months. So we were expecting get the copies this month, and they came in the mail today! We had a little opening ceremony and took some photos to commemorate the event, and then filed them away in our fireproof box. And that was that. Gracie can start school with her very own US birth certificate.

She now has her US Certificate of Citizenship, her Social Security Card, and now her US Birth Certificate.The only thing left for us to do to close out this chapter in her life, is to apply for and receive a US passport.

Gracie's Finding Ad

In China, before an orphanage can put a child in the pool to be adopted, they have to print a "finding ad" in the local newspaper to see if there are any relatives that would like to claim the baby before they proceed with the adoption. For Christmas, DH bought me a copy of Gracie's finding ad. Brian Stuy has adopted 3 daughters from China, and has made it his work to find out information on children that have been adopted from China for families that are interested. Brian is where DH got the finding ad.

I cannot tell you how precious this pboto is to us and I'm sure will be to Gracie when she gets older. This is the earliest photo we have of her. The date of the newpaper is October 26, 2006, so Gracie was just 25 days old. And as you can see she was VERY tiny. When Gracie went in for her 15 month checkup yesterday, we were talking about her development, and I showed this photo to the pediatrician. She said that she looked like she was born at just 28 weeks justation based on how she looked and her birth weight. What a fighter our little Gracie is, to be so small and to be so premature. She surely was meant to be part of our family with having so much to overcome to survive!

I don't know everything that the add says, as it is in Chinese, but the important thing I wanted to share here was the photo. What a wonder our little girl is!
 
And know here's the photo.


The other thing that strikes me when I see how tiny she is, and how vulnerable she must've been is how well she was taken care of at the orphanage to have made such strides. Comparing this photo with her referral photo, i.e. the one we first received from the orphanage when we learned who she was, she not only survived, but she thrived. She obiously was very well taken care of and loved, and for that I am eternally grateful to the orphanage director, her nannies, and to God for watching over our little girl.

Guess who's sick now?

Okay. So I was feeling pretty smug with everyone around me dropping like flies to this cold/flu thing that's going around. That was until yesterday. I woke up with an awful headache, stuffed up nose/head, and slight sore throat. DH also woke up with similar symptoms. Since Gracie didn't need to be to daycare until 9, and the older girls didn't have school, he went back to bed after I left for work. I told him that I would've stayed home if I'd had my work laptop at home, but it was at the office. So I schlepped into work feeling terrible. After I got to work, I took an Airborne and felt a better. I never got rid of the headache though. So last night after work I lay down to rest while DD2, DD3 and DH all ate dinner. DD1 was at a friends house. I got up after about 1/2 an hour, feeling a little better. Today though I've still got the headache and stuffed up head. Being home from work today was a blessing, as I was able to lay down for about 2 hours this morning. I now feel better, but still have a headache. What's up with that?

Anyway, DDs are all home, so DD1 watched the other two. This afternoon DD3 has her 15 month checkup with the pediatrician. I'm kind of anxious to hear how much she's grown, as I know she's put on weight. Also, I want to ask about her development. She's not talking too much, but seems to understand everything. She's walking with a walker all over the place, but her little legs just can't seem to hold her up on her own beyond about 5 steps. I don't know if that's within the normal range or not, so we'll see. Besides that I think that she's right where she needs to be developmentally.

I haven't heard from DH to know if he's feeling better, as he went into the Y to work. I'll have to post another entry on the blog to tell all about his new temporary job at the Y while he's on leave from his airline job.

Hope everyone stays well, and if you're aren't well, I hope the bug leaves you soon!

Happy New Year 2008!

I know it's been a few days since I posted about Gracie's fever, but it turned out to be not much to tell about it. After giving her Tylenol exactly two times over the course of two days, her fever disappeared. This leads me to believe that maybe it was teething related, as she is cutting two more front teeth, but whatever caused the fever seems to have left her little body. So that's good.

Now to get caught up on some other happenings in our family. I wanted to post about getting Graice to give up the bottle and sleep in her own bed before I forget about the whole experience, but I'll save that for the next post. For the rest of this post, I want to post about our final days of the year 2007 and our New Years celebration, so as not to forget that either. So here goes.

Late last week, we weren't sure if we were going to go to Chicago or not to celebrate ringing in the new year with my brother and his family because of Gracie running a fever, but since the fever was gone by Saturday we decided to head on up to Chitown. I was surprised to find out that my father was there too, albeit pleasantly surprised, when we arrived around 2 p.m. Basically we sat around and chewed the fat, getting caught up on everyone's goings on the rest of the afternoon. The guys watched football of course, and then we headed out to Sweet Tomatoes for dinner.

On Monday, New Year's Eve,  my brother fixed us his world famous pancakes for breakfast on his brand new griddle that Santa brought him and then the girls in both families (with the exception of Gracie who stayed with her dad) headed downtown to the American Girl Doll Place for DD2 to pick out a doll for her birthday. Her 11th birthday is on the 14th of January, and I told her she could either get a doll or have a birthday party with friends, but not both because it was too expensive to do both. She chose the doll. After snagging a metered spot on the street close by, we walked to The Cheesecake Factory, foolishly thinking we'd have no problem getting a lunch table for 6 on New Year's Eve. After finding out that the wait was 40 minutes, we decided not to wait and headed out the California Pizza Kitchen in Water Tower Place. We were seated right away where our waitress took our order quickly and brought our drinks. Well, then we waited, and waited, and waited some more. After my SIL noticed that several other tables that were seated after us were getting their food, she called the waitress over to ask why our food had not come out yet. The waitress came back saying that there was some mixup with the greek pizza order, and that the children's meals would be out in 5 minutes. The part about the children's meals coming out quickly was true, but we waited and waited somemore for the pizzas. So my SIL called over the manager to tell him our situation. He went to check with the waitress, came back with her and informed that our pizza order was put in 12 minutes ago, and would be right out. Well, for our order to be put in 12 minutes ago, when we'd been sitting waiting for over 45 minutes, something just wasn't right. In the end, our waitress was not happy with us, we weren't happy with her, and we got our pizzas free along with a single dessert free. I paid for the kids' meals, and left a 10% tip, which my SIL thought was too much. She was prepared to leave without paying a tip because she felt like the waitress had lied to us by telling us there was a mixup with our order, when in reality she had just put the order in. Although I wasn't happy with the waitress either, I felt a little bit sorry for her because her section of the restaurant was very busy. At any rate we got  the AGP at around 2. My SIL ran back to put more money in the meter, and the girls and I looked around the store searching for just the right doll for DD2. If you've never been the the AGP, then this doesn't sound like such a big deal, but if you have, you'll know that there are many dolls to choose from, and for a 10 year old girl surrounded by all these choices, it's tough. In the end she wisely chose, Nelly, Samatha's friend. I say wisely because Nelly's hair is fairly short at chin length, and will stay relatively untangled. DD2 has Kaya at home, and her hair is very long causing all sort of issues with trying to keep it untangled and nice looking to the point of Kaya needing to go to the AGP hospital for a new head! DD2 also picked out a couple of outfits for Nelly using her Christmas money from Grandma to pay for them. My two nieces each got an outfit, and DD1 at 14, opted not to get anything from the store. We headed back to the suburbs at about 4, and the weather turned nasty causing us to not get back until almost 5:30. This was significant because we needed to get to a fovorite local restaurant by 6 before they closed for the holiday. The restaurant was right down the street, so that posed no problem, with the exception that it was snowing profusely causingour minivan to have trouble getting up the hill in my brother's cul-de-sac. Of course my brother didn't have any problems because he has an SUV. Anyway, we had our New Year's Eve dinner which was delicious, and was graciously paid for by my father (Thank you Dad, if you're reading this!) and headed back to my brother's for a fun evening of Scattegories and Catch Phrase. At about 11:30 p.m. we turned on the tv to watch the ball drop in Times Square at midnight, and shortly afterwards headed to bed.

Yesterday, New Year's Day, after breakfast we headed home in bad weather. There was about 6 inches of snow on the ground where we were, and the wind was blowing snow most of the way home. DH drove while the girls slept and I listened to music on my mp3. Even though we had bad weather, with the expert driving on DH we made it home safely.

The weather here in the midwest has turned bitterly cold, and this morning it was 1 degree at our house! However, I bundled up to drive into work and experienced no difficulties. And so the new year begins!