JJ Update

JJ continues to be a child that brings us much joy and delight. He is infinitely precious, funny, smiley, cuddly, loving, and silly. Of course, he is a momma's boy and with that comes lots of extra opportunities for me to feel treasured by him:) He is at the fun stage where he loves to pull everything he can reach out of drawers, off the table and counters, and use "stepping stools" out of whatever he can find to get himself higher...and create a bigger mess:) Some of his favorites are pulling out the kitchen chairs and getting on the table, and pulling the cushion off of my glider rocker so he can get is little knee up and climb into the chair and feel "big." He LOVES to laugh. He will look at someone and start giggling just to get them to laugh so he can laugh some more. His giggle is adorable and he can go on for a long time. He emits joy and it is hard to not stop, smile, and engage him. He is an amazing gift!

He is also at the age where he is wanting a bit more independence. Thus, pointing and "insisting" on getting his way is a new tactic. He wants to try to feed himself with a bowl and spoon, which is very messy but cute:) He will run to something that he knows he is not supposed to do (like climb the stairs without us with him), then do is slowly while watching us to see what we will do. He thinks the mouse on the computer and the on/off switch on the power strip to my computer are especially fun things to explore!

JJ continues to be sickly and we appreciate that he continues to be such a joy and so much fun despite his frequent illnesses. After we started the supplements with him he did improve. He only got sick about once a month and they did not include the high fevers. However, he HATES taking the supplements and it is always a major fight. A week before Christmas I weaned (at 15 months) and he has not been well pretty much since then. We had him on antibiotics for congestion/lung congestion right after that. He always has head congestion (without a runny nose) and I don't know that he has ever not had that. Then 3ish weeks ago he came down with the stomach flu after 3 days of increased head congestion, we all ended up with it and he ended with another bout of it. His congestion increased after that and he did not want to eat for about a week. We took him to the chiropractor and his eating improved significantly, but the next day a fever started. After 4 days of fever, poor sleep, and much grumpiness he was again started on an antibiotic and today will be day 4 on it. Grace and Faith are also on antibiotics for the lung crud. We have seen a decrease in clinginess, fever, agitation, and the terrible coughing fits that often resulted in his bottles being all over me instead of in his stomach.

During this last bout we "wore" him a lot in my Ergo carrier. It got to the point that if he was not in it and saw it, he would drag it to us and indicate he wanted it put on and to be worn:) He is so cute:)

He continues to drink mostly from a bottle. He does not like cups and with the problems we chronically have with his weight (he has lost another 1/2 lb since his last weigh in 2 months ago) we don't even fight it. We do whatever it takes to get food into him. His appetite is just not strong at all and he has no interest in eating if he is not hungry. Mostly his eating involves him seeing me eat and climbing up on my lap to feed him from my fork and plate. He has no "favorite" foods that will work all of the time to get into him...except ice cream:) Again, with his weight issues (He is 17 months and 21 lbs 0 oz - with the biggest problem being the weight loss when he is sick, and obviously he is frequently sick) we just do what we can to get food into him. We are VERY excited when he has actually drank enough the previous evening to wet the bed in the morning. It doesn't happen often but that is kind of our benchmark on if he is finally drinking "enough" and that is usually when we see actual weight gain with him.

His sleep is much improved over a few months ago. He continues to wait until around 11:30 to want to sleep. He always goes to sleep in my arms in our bed. Then we transfer him to his bed. It is a good night when he sleeps 7 consecutive hours in his crib:) Then he usually wakes and wants to cuddle up and fall back asleep for a few hours.

JJ shows significant fear in most situations. He is always with my husband or I (or brief times with Beautiful). He is scared to death of church nursery or any separation from us. That is OK. We don't push it. When a possible separation is impending it is clearly a fear response from him and not a "I want my way" temper tantrum. So, we continue to keep him with us all of the time and hope over time he understands that he is safe even without us. It is amazing how separation issues occur for adopted children even when they are adopted at birth...

JJ is totally different on every level from our other 5 kids. There are plenty of trials with his frequent colds/coughs/congestion/fevers. However, he is amazingly precious and I adore him. I could not imagine life without this precious gift that is...my son:)

More Home school suggestions!

If you checked out the ipad apps State the States and/or State the Countries you will LOVE Presidents vs. Aliens! It is made by the same developer? Author? What do you call people who make apps??? Anyway, it is focused on learning the presidents of the USA, their nick names, the order in which they were president, famous quotes, famous historical events during their presidency, etc. I love it! Oh...I mean...it is very educational for the children lol!!! It is very user friendly. Instead of stacking states when you answer a question correctly such as "which president was nicknamed Young Hickory" or "which of the 4 shown presidents was from the Republican-Democratic party?" you get to launch the head of the president into a bunch of alien heads - winning the round when all of the alien heads have been knocked down:) Pretty creative:)

Highly recommend it! I am learning way more from this game than I ever learned about the Presidents in school...and hope my kids learn a lot too lol!!!

I also want to highly, highly, highly recommend Navigating The Worldviews of Egypt by Isaac Botkin and David Noor. It is part of the Navigating History Project that Vision Forum has in their curriculum section. I don't think anyone can go wrong with any purchase by Vision Forum - I love their conservative, Biblical, and challenging perspectives. I love their mission. I love their products! The book and accompanying DVD's discuss the mysteries of Islam, the Early Church, and Egypt. It explains Islam very well as well as the early clashes between Islam and the Early Church - and how that has resulted in what it looks like today. It is a high school level course and expects a level of deep thought on these topics. However, I think that in light of the state of the world today...we should all have some deep thought on these topics.