General Family Updates:)

We have had some good news around here. I like good news lol!

I talked with someone who helped me develop a plan for teaching JJ how to read. He is doing awesome! I am much more confident about how he is reading and he is making quick progress. In Speech he is also making quick progress. He remains the most stubborn child ever - but he wouldn't be him if he wasn't;) We have had him tested and desensitized to two more items since my last post. Last week was vegetable oils. I realized that the essential oils that I use on him were actually something he was sensitive to:(  Today he tested sensitive to artificial sweeteners - so that was natural sugars and artificial sweeteners that he is sensitive to - for a kid who likes candy (but not chocolate;) We will see how this desensitization process continues to progress. The first week his vomiting improved, but the second week there wasn't additional improvement;(

Faith - we have had huge struggles with her for about 18 months. We have tried all kinds of things but the beginning of this month we did an intervention that seems to have softened her heart. This month has been much, much better and I think it is genuine. It has been such a blessing - she is such a blessing:) Thank you to those who have, and continue to pray for her! Allergy season is upon us and with Faith always has a terrible time with them - with the asthma making everything worse. We have been doing the desensitization with her and this has, by FAR, been the best year for her. Buddy did the desensitization last spring and did well in the fall and is doing well this spring so far. I am hopeful that they will continue to do well as they are the 2 kids who are usually totally laid flat by allergies.

Grace - ah, Grace. She is so creative! Each of the Middles have a bathroom to clean once a week. I am NOT a decorator.  At all. However, my husband had bought some decorative something or another at a garage sale a couple of years ago and stuck it in the bathroom. I have noticed that every time that Grace cleans the bathroom she moves the decorative things around into a new arrangement. It would have never even occurred to me to do such a thing, but she is really talented at it! Maybe she will make a good window dresser someday when she is not busy making new hairdos!

Superman has been having a great time watching college basketball. He loves to watch sports. I have had to laugh at he and my husband. I have known my husband for 25 years. I grew up in a home where my dad did not watch sports, or hunt or fish. My husband does all of those things and I had to learn to adjust. Now I love to watch football and...my husband doesn't! But he sure has been glued to the tv watching the lead up to the Final Four with Superman lol! It just goes to show that people can change...even after 25 years;)

We babysat a 9 month old last week. Buddy was so good with our kids when they were babies but he hasn't been around one since. Last week I asked him to help me some when I had to be out of the room. It was very cute to watch him "watch" the baby by sitting on the floor and looking at the child...while the child just sat and stared back at him the whole time lol! Maybe it was the big hair;) Today  I asked him to help me with JJ's school while I made them lunch. He read him his Bible story using funny voices. I love getting to see the soft and sweet side of this 16 year old that he doesn't let many others see. He is intrigued by Asian culture and actually showed an interest in a flyer we got of a play called Shen Yun. He rarely shows interest in doing things in public settings so I got us tickets to go. He is excited to go...but not thrilled about the fact he has to wear a suit lol!

I have had a very productive time this past couple of months. My energy level is high. My motivation level is high. I have been very happy with my progress. I have been working out 7 days a week. After the work outs I have been "jogging" on a small trampoline (to minimize the stress to my knees and lower back) to finish out an hour+ of exercise. I have lost some weight. It has been good. However, over the course of the past couple of weeks my back has been more and more sore. Last week we had 2 days on bleachers at kids basketball games - always very bad for me:(  When I work I sit for 12 - 14 hours straight. I am getting more and more sore with sitting even though I make myself get up and walk briefly every hour. I have tried to be careful about the chairs I sit in (only hard backed) and I never cross my legs as that makes everything worse. But...apparently between all of the sitting and the working out I have stressed it again. So my pain levels are back to where they were 6 years ago. NOT as bad as 6 years ago yet, but I never want pain like that again so I am trying to back off of everything. I hate how the pain levels exacerbate everything so I feel like I am going through my day with the daily reality of the interactions of my family feeling to me like I am listening to fingernails on a chalkboard.  So I am quite irritable. I really feel for chronic pain patients. Just being totally real with you, the amount of energy I am expending in a day to just not respond in anger is significant. I am so thankful for an understanding husband who is taking point on the kids right now. Hopefully I can get an appointment with my chiropractor tomorrow (he is closed on Thursdays so I couldn't get in today) and after traction and an adjustment I will be better.

To make it even more fun just yesterday I started losing my voice. I think it is allergies. I normally don't get allergies but I know that this year is a extra bad year for them. No voice makes it hard for me to intervene with the kids when they can't hear me over their own...noise. So I am carrying a bell so they know to be quiet when they hear it so they can hear me lol! I slept until 9 this morning, took a nap this afternoon, and could head back to bed already for the night. Hopefully this sleep will help heal me up so I can get back to doing what I have to do for my family:)

JJ Eating Update: it has gotten worse again:(

After all of the testing last year and the diagnosis of why JJ was vomiting into his mouth many times a day we did some alternative medicine interventions and he improved significantly. He was down to about once a month. However, recently (and most notably since we returned from Disney World) he has worsened to many times a day again:(

Yesterday our 2 kids who attend the Christian school did not have school since 1/2 of the kids were out with Influenza so I decided to take the kids back to the chiropractor who did the desensitization and see if he could help with JJ's vomiting and Faith's terrible spring allergies that lead to a worsening of her Asthma.

Last time the kids were desensitized for Faith - cats. JJ - calcium.

This time we worked on trees for Faith. However, JJ tested positive for vegetable oil and sugar mix.

Sugar? Like glucose, fructose, etc.

So, I got thinking. JJ didn't have these vomiting issues until he was over 4. He was very easily car sick, but it was usually after drinking a bottle (calcium I am now realizing). But he didn't really EAT until he was close to 4. I think he wasn't getting enough in him for this sensitivity to be an issue. Do you remember how I would talk about how he would, at times, act like he was hungry but as soon as he had a bite he looked like he was going to be sick and refused to eat more? His mom has told me that she has the same kinds of issues and has seen tons of specialists with no answers. However, once he started Speech he actually started eating, and then he started vomiting. Learning now what his sensitivities are I am not surprised anymore the timing of why things got worse.

But now? Well, when we got back from Disney World and I actually had time to buckle down and find a way to get him to comply with school I decided that Smarties was a good bribe, oh, um, reward for compliant school behavior;)  Very few things are enticing for JJ, especially food things. He will just refuse (I have never had a more stubborn kid than him - and if you have read my blogs you will know that says A LOT!) So, smarties are small, many in a package, he likes them so they are rewarding to him so he would actually work on his school, it seemed to work great.

But the vomiting increased:(

Now I realize it is because my "reward" significantly bumped up his sugar intake for the day and...with his sugar sensitivity it increased his vomiting:(

AND, all we use is Olive Oil in our house to cook with so his sensitivity to vegetable oils is also triggered.

Yesterday we desensitized him to the sugars. It remains to be seen if it will help or not. The good news is that they retested him for Calcium and he did not test sensitive to it:)

But, that isn't the point at this time. The point is that...we have to keep him away from the desensitized items COMPLETELY for 25 hours. !!!!!!!!!!

Let me say that again.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Essentially the kid has been able to eat (well, the list of what he is able to eat is much larger than what he is willing to eat) protein. Which for JJ means eggs, chicken, and shrimp. And popcorn. Until supper tonight. And only water to drink (instead of milk which is all he usually drinks).

He was one unhappy camper. When I told my husband he said "Uh, I have somewhere to go. See you tomorrow night!"  lol!

No dairy. No carbs. Absolutely nothing that is his normal food.

And he was still vomiting last night. I am hoping that it was because his body is detoxing...

Anyway, I am hoping that he sleeps until 5:30 tonight so I don't have to deal with what is to come (just kidding, sort of).

In that vein, his sleep is soooooo much worse again. If I have him asleep by midnight it is awesome, but he doesn't make it very long. Last night he made it about 10 minutes - and he was sleeping hard when I left him in his bed:( I made him sleep on my floor instead of my bed just so I could get some sleep and he made it there until 6 so that is something:) He just keeps saying he is too scared (even though he has a sibling in the room with him).

He came home from Awana Wednesday night PUMPED UP about going to overnight church camp. I looked at him like he had 7 heads. I told him that he had to figure out how to put himself to sleep and stay in his own bed all night long every night before he could go to camp. He assured me he could do it. Thursday night he had me stay with him (like usual) to fall asleep. But when he woke up in his own bed Friday morning his first words were, "I made it 1 night!" Then...last night was a bust.

Hey, if his desire to go to camp helps him figure out how to confront his fear and sleep all night in his own bed I will send him every week all summer lol! Somehow I don't think it is going to happen though:(

Anyway:
Jesus, you know what is going on in JJ's body. You know what he needs. Give me wisdom to know what he needs and how to help him. Give me patience with his quirks. Heal his body. Give him courage. You are sovereign over all of this, I trust you. Amen.

A Thoughtful Conversation With JJ, and a Speech Update

Today my husband and I took JJ to eat at his favorite Chinese restaurant. In order to get him to be compliant with doing school (and knowing that it is extra hard for him to learn to read) he gets candy. I have pre-bagged his favorite candy into 20 bags (that are given to him for diligent work) and he was told that when he completed 20 days of school without complaining we would take him out for Chinese. That happened to be today right after his first session of speech therapy with his new Speech Language Pathologist. He completed the evaluation the last 2 sessions and today they started working. She is much different than the last agency we worked with, but we are very excited about the results of the language testing (he scored at or above "average" in all areas except for how he arranges words in sentences - the "Yoda speak" that we joke about). However, Language is different from Speech (I never knew that until I had kids with learning disabilities) and he obviously is very delayed in speech articulation. Despite that, she was very encouraging after even 1 actual speech therapy session today that he picks it up very quickly and will learn fast. She said that since he did not start talking until he was 4 he has to play a lot of "catch up" and if we thought about what we would expect from the speech of a 3 year old (with a child normally beginning to speak at age 1) that he would be on target.  Now that we have this evaluation we have started speech therapy again, and will develop a new plan for how to teach him how to read. That will mean more candy...and more Chinese food;) She did agree with the continued diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech but it is very mild at this time - he has progressed so much!!

My husband and I love to take JJ to the Chinese restaurant because he actually eats a ton of food and, for some reason, that place makes him stop and think - and ask deep questions. Part of me was so proud of him for thinking through issues in a deep way that is outside of the box. He obviously takes time to consider issues and I marvel at the way his brain contemplates things. Another part of me, though, is so sad about the topics that he has to spend time thinking about...

Today part of our conversation sounded like this:

JJ: Dad, why did you choose Mom to marry?

Dad: Because I loved her.

JJ: Oh.

Me: We loved each other so we chose each other to get married to. Just like we loved you so we chose you to be our son.

JJ: No you didn't. God did.

Me: Yes, you are right.

JJ: Why did my mom not raise me?

Me: Well, she didn't have a daddy to help raise you and she didn't feel like she had enough money and people to support raising you the way she wanted you to be raised. She loves you very much so chose our family to raise you the way she wanted you to grow up.

JJ: Why did you keep Beautiful and Buddy? They were in your tummy and you kept them.

Me: Well, I had Dad to help me raise them and we were blessed to be able to have enough money to provide for them.

JJ: And Superman, and Faith, and Grace. That is a lot of people! That must take a lot of money!

Me - laughing: Yes it sure does. You are all gifts from God and we love all of you.

Me: Your mom is married now and I just saw on fb this morning that she has had another baby a couple of weeks ago. So now you have 4 other siblings.

JJ: What is the baby's name?

Me: I don't know, she didn't say.

JJ: You should ask her.

Me: I will.

JJ: When do I get to meet my mom?  I know she lives a LONG ways away.

Me: Ummmm, some day we will go and meet her. We would have to fly there so it wouldn't be soon that we could do that.

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Later at home when I showed him the picture of his new baby brother

JJ: Where is a picture of my mom?

I showed it to him, her husband was in the picture too.

JJ: Is that my dad?

Me: Ummm, no. That is her husband and the father of your youngest 2 brothers.

JJ: How is her husband not my dad?

Me: Well, she was not married to him when you were born. You have a different dad. The same as your older sister.

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JJ has asked questions before but not quite like this. And he has never asked to see his mom before. This topic is so complicated. Flying across the country to go see his mom would be a nice experience for him (I would hope). But then there are 3 other kiddos in the house who don't get to see their moms. I often second guess myself on what I am "supposed" to be saying to the kids, because each of their adoption stories are very different and I don't want one to feel worse than another from the story that I tell them. Hard stuff.

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In other news: JJ is doing awesome in math and moving quicker with putting consonants and vowels together than he did learning the sounds in the first place. I am hopeful of his continued progress.

He is still not sleeping well. In fact, since we have gotten back from Disney World it has been much, much worse. It is like he is terrified at night. He barely makes it a few hours in his own bed then he is back in ours with his arms around my neck like he is scared I will not be there. He used to crawl in our bed, warm up (he hates blankets and kicks them off all.the.time. Yet he complains when I make him wear warm clothes to bed in an attempt to keep him warm enough to stay in his own bed longer...) and fall back asleep without touching us at all. It is odd. I just know that I.am.tired lol!