Daddy Boot Camp

Having a husband is great.  Having a dad is great.  He is such a blessing to us!

The Panda is eating more.  He's down to 2 bottles per day, and I've ordered straw cups, which I hope he'll transition to (at least mostly).  It is still very time consuming.  We have to find the right reward to suit his mood.  Bath?  App time on Ooop?  Singing?  Tea?  Panda chart?

He is consistently willing to eat a stage 2 baby food in 15-20 min now.  I have actually gotten the spoon in his mouth like a normal "bite" of food for a baby quite a few times.

For stage 3 baby food or homemade baby food, it is still about 90 min. per feeding.  He is still licking the spoon instead of letting it into his mouth.

We went away for a long weekend at Massanutten resort.  Very nice.  The indoor water park was really fun.  Having great friends along for the trip was the best part.  The only bad part was that the Panda refused to eat a single bite when he wasn't in his own booster seat in his own kitchen.  Matt did get him to eat in the church nursery yesterday though, so that's something.

The Bunny is enjoying workouts with dad.  The Penguin is enjoying the new glass baby food jars, which can apparently be made into many crafts.  The Puppy has enjoyed the recent snowy weather.  I am enjoying Matt's help with the decluttering I started before he came home.  It is amazing how attitudes and obedience improve with dad around, too.

Feeding Progress!

Matt spent a week in Norfolk, and came home for good on Friday at bedtime.  Great time for daddy to come home... :)

Since the Panda has been licking and consuming solids a little more readily, daddy decided to kick things up a notch.  I showed him what we've been doing, and he's gotten the panda to eat an entire little tub of baby food!  He actually ate 2 tubs for Matt yesterday and 2 for me today!  He won't let a spoon into his mouth, but he'll lick the food off the spoon.  It's going in!  Maybe someday we'll move to textured baby food.  Real food.  Actually chewing food....  the possibilities are endless.  The first day took me 90 min.  Sunday, Matt took about the same.  Yesterday, it was a little faster, and today, it might have been about 45 min.  This is really good news, because I don't actually have 4-5 hours every day to spend feeding a panda.  We are very happy at the recent breakthroughs!  A whole tub of baby food is at least 10 times more than he'd ever eaten before in one sitting.  Huge.

We are still getting Matt moved in.  He's decluttering his old stuff, since a year without my cooking has resulted in the loss of an entire panda and the gain of a different wardrobe.  :)

The Bunny had a lunch time choir concert at our homeschool co-op, featuring the music of Stephen Foster.  It was a good time.  Since she is a musical novice, it has been a great experience for her to sing this year.  Having daddy home to see her concert was really great!

The Bunny and I participated in IJM's Stand for Freedom this weekend.  Our church didn't have anyone who was up for standing for 27 hours, so we took it in 3 hour shifts.  Did you know that there are 27 million slaves in the world today?  That is more than there have ever been in history!  About a quarter of slaves are children.  I didn't know these things until we adopted.  The sad and scary truth is that children who age out of the orphanage systems around the world often fall victim to human trafficking.  I was honored to hold a sign that said "Humans are NOT for Sale!" for those 3 hours.  The Bunny held "Honk for Freedom!".  We got 78 honks in 3 hours....  There is far more that we can do to end slavery and injustice.  Please check International Justice Mission's website to learn more about what you can do.

www.ijm.org

He's Home!

Matt's home!  We had a nice (late) lunch and celebrated with cake.  Everyone got presents and we visited.  Everyone else is downstairs hooking up the X-box we got for Christmas.  :)

There was so much stuff in his car, it was a true feat of engineering.

Some dads get big "Welcome Home!" posters.  Matt got this:

Here's a video.  I hope the excited children didn't say too many awful things to each other while they were scrambling to get ready for the "surprise" poppers and confetti for dad.  I was outside greeting him...

Matt also had a reunion with his cat, Belle.  She doesn't really like us, but she loves him.  Cat reunions are really not as exciting as dog and kid reunions that you might see on you*tube when people come home from deployments.

He only gets to stay about 24 hours, they has a week of outprocessing in Norfolk, and then he will be home!  Hooray!

And more pictures:

One Blog Per Month

Ok, I'm not keeping up with blogging....  But good news!  Those little penguins at the top of my blog are wrong.  ETA is March 8!!!  Two weeks!

2


So, I've been busy de-cluttering.  Basement is done.  Boys room is done.
Main floor?  Master bedroom?  Maybe I won't be blogging much over the next two weeks....

Homeschooling is just really taking more time this year than it ever has before.

The Panda is doing amazing new things.  He is biting crunchy foods.  Not biting through them, or chewing and consuming, but it is still progress.  He just started really licking a spoon (or spoon like feeding tool) consistently two weeks ago.  Right at the  end of a therapy session, where we had not convinced him to lick anything at all (and were feeling discouraged), he said "bath!".  I told him he could have a bath if he licked, and the little tongue came right out and he licked the baby food.  Wow!  He got that bath right away!

The next week, our wonderful feeding therapist came, armed and ready, with a new little chart.  It had 5 velcro pandas and a velcro bathtub.  We told him to lick 5 times and he'd get a bath.  We bribed him in between bites with "ooop" (his name for my phone).  He got to pop a few bubbles on this silly little app he loves.  We also bribed him with sips of my tea.  He was resistant at first, but when he realized that licking got a panda, and pandas meant bath, he hurried up and licked the food.  It seems so strange to reward him with tea from a spoon for taking food from a spoon... the reward is so similar to the thing he fears....

*I guess I didn't blog about our big achievements with drinking clear liquids from a spoon.  He likes to sip water and tea from a spoon.  Sometimes chicken broth.  Never something opaque like coffee with cream, or creamy soup.  Still, considering how terrified he used to be of a spoon approaching his mouth, this is huge.*

Today, we told him he'd have to get 10 pandas.  He got them so fast, that we told him that for the last 2, he'd have to let the feeding tool into his mouth, not just lick.  It didn't take much convincing... just a little... and he let me put it all the way in his mouth and he closed his lips!

In the last month, the Panda has had another language explosion.  He's talking much more, using more 2 syllable words, and stringing 2-3 words together.  Some words are still hard to understand, and I think this is due to his cleft.  He's learning so much, so fast!  He's also learned to 2 footed jump.  This might be the first physical milestone to which he's beaten one of his siblings....  :)

I'll see what silly pictures I can find...  I know there aren't any from Chinese New Year.  All 4 kids got their silks on.  The Puppy squeezed into the largest boy silk and it was highwater.  The Bunny also wore the largest size girl outfit I bought.  We had to do some damage control- very unexpectedly high slits in the legs....  Hooray for spandex leggings....  I can't believe how much they've grown!  But anyway, as soon as the huge, stuffed dragon puppet thing came out for the dragon dance, the Panda (with his big fear of stuffed animals) peed his pants.  And mine....  So, no pictures.  The Chinese classes from our local high school did an amazing job hosting and performing.

 Bedtime... very calm play...

 The Panda tries out some mascara....

Two More Weeks With Daddy

Well, our last 2 week visit to Matt is coming to an end.  There were some amazing parts, and some not so great moments.  The not so great moments included a dragging week of the flu, complete with every unfortunate symptom.  Matt and the Panda were spared, thank God!

We arrived in FL and took a day to recover.  Then we had a great time at Universal Studios.  The Puppy was finally tall enough to ride most things, and the Penguin has become quite the brave roller coaster rider.

We had an amazing Christmas Eve with friends of Matt from work.  We were strangers to this family, but they had that amazing gift of hospitality that makes company feel so welcome.  They included us in their Christmas traditions and it was a wonderful night!  The kids got to do Christmas crackers, and pulled them apart and wore their crowns for dinner.  They even made our Christmas day special by sending us home with gifts of board games, which is just what we needed for fun in Matt's apartment.

We played with our big Christmas present, the Kinect, and our board games all day Christmas day.  Then, Christmas night, the illness began.  The Puppy went first, then the Penguin and I, and last the Bunny.  It was ugly.  As much as I feel bad that we spent most of our visit with Matt totally sick, I am also thankful that he was here.  The Puppy and I would have had a hysterical trip to the ER without sensible, calm dad.  Every time the Puppy woke up, I shoved the bucket in front of him.  The second night of illness (which was my 3rd night without sleep because the Panda had a night terror and then the Puppy got sick), the Puppy coughed over the bucket and when he was done, the bucket was filled with blood.  I started to freak out.  Adrenaline surged.  Matt came out, laughed at my heroic flight toward the hospital with "dying Puppy", and told me it was a nosebleed.  Then Matt and the Puppy watched me roll on the floor with inappropriate laughter.  The Puppy asked, "What's wrong with mommy?"  Matt just laughed and put him back to bed.  Probably didn't help that my fever had started....  :)

And so a week passed...  we had a nice day at Busch Gardens once all the fevers were gone.  The Penguin's new found love of serious coasters increased.  The boys and I were glad there are lots of animals to see at Busch Gardens.  We also visited Heritage Village yesterday, which is a settlement with interpreters about life here in central FL in the mid 1800's.  It was fun to see many old things- non-electric lawn mowers, washer/ringers, ice cream machines, ice boxes, carpet sweepers, stoves, etc.  The homes that are on site are beautiful.  The House of Seven Gables shows how the wealthy lived, and it is a mansion sized work of art.  The Log Cabin showed how the "middle class" lived- it belonged to a mom of 11 who became a midwife during the pre-Civil War and war time.  She ended up with 30 children to foster, since she took children whose mothers died giving birth.  The Penguin was thrilled that the interpreter here was spinning wool with a wheel.

As we leave for home tomorrow, I am SO glad that in 10 weeks, this deployment will be over.  I'm also glad that Matt feels like he has made a difference in the job he's doing and likes it.  I'm glad that the next time we see him, it will be at HOME!  (or maybe Norfolk... but still....)  I am really looking forward to another visit with our wonderful "family friends" in Jax.  For someone who didn't have any sisters, I have been blessed with so many amazing friends who are as good as sisters.

Here's what the great thing about the military life is.  Old friends who "get it".  Civilian old friends who also get it and are willing to walk through it with you and open their homes to you.  New friends who take in a family of strangers for Christmas and just bless them.  Nothing can make a deployment feel "worth it" to me- a year is too long to be apart, and it has been very hard for the kids.  These things make it special and bearable, though.

I am not looking forward to that drive.  But I can do it one last time.  I get home late Sunday night, and life starts full force on Monday.  I'm not sure I'm going to make it.  Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!

I also realize that being sick caused me to take almost no pictures of this visit.  :(

Trip to Visit Daddy

We leave in the morning to head home from a lovely 2 weeks with Matt.  While we were here, we found out that his deployment would be re-extended to a full 12 months, instead of the 9 months it had been changed to, so instead of 1 month left, we now have 4.  This is pretty tough for me to swallow.  I keep telling myself that we went into this expecting one year, and that 9 months would have been so much better than expected, but I let myself get my hopes up...

We spent 4 of our days at Disney parks, which was really fun.  The big kids have been many times, but it was the first Disney trip for the Panda.  He did better than I expected.  He is still afraid of fireworks.  The Haunted Mansion was the only ride that scared him at all.  He had one night terror for the whole 2 weeks, but it was not after a Disney day, so I think he really did enjoy himself.

Matt tried valiantly to get the Panda to eat, but we are still stuck at the "will lick a tiny amount of food, but then all done!" stage.  Oral aversion is really a tough situation.

The Panda said his first consonant blend today.  "Bl"  I was so excited!  It is obvious that his expressive language is much more advanced than his expressive.  I really can't wait until he can communicate better.

I am SO THANKFUL for our friends here in FL who are willing to take in "the Zoo" for a couple nights when we are travelling.  Military kids who spend a few duty stations together and a few apart form such tight bonds, and being able to get them back together is priceless.  They stuffed us for Thanksgiving, and help with the Panda's therapy ("dad style" therapy is different and more fun than "mom style"...)

My big news for this trip:  I got a smart phone.  I can text!  Check email.  Take pictures.  Wow.  I really want to figure out how to do coupons on the phone...  Bad news is that my contacts wouldn't move from my old phone, so please send me a facebook message or email with your numbers and addresses if you want me to have them!!!

Pictures

The Panda has just passed the one year mark as an official Matthias.  Hooray!  I clearly haven't posted any pictures for months...  so here it goes: