Still around, just busy!

I just thought I'd better write to give a quick update! Still no jobs for hubby, but we've been keeping really busy with getting the basement suite ready to rent. My Mom came for a week long, um, I'd like to say 'visit', but we just worked a lot! Not much visiting! But the suite is painted, and we have had several people come by to look at it. A couple girls have said they'll be by with a damage deposit and first month's rent for tomorrow, so I hope that happens!

Other than that, we've all been fighting some colds here, but are on the mend. I'm bushed, but will have more to write soon!

Reflections

Reflections

Just over 2 years ago, we brought home our sweet daughter from Ethiopia. I wish I could say it was bliss from the moment we stepped back into Canada, but in reality, they were tough times! It was a big adjustment for all of us, and especially for her of course. Not an easy thing for a toddler to leave all she knows and coming to another country to live with strangers! She did amazingly well though, and has blossomed into a bright and happy child.

Watching baby J grow through infancy has been a continual reminder of so many precious moments I've missed with E. I wish I could know what she weighed at birth, how old she was when she first smiled, and crawled. I wish I could have seen her first steps. It's made me treasure what I've gotten to experience of her childhood all the more.

I did have the painful joy of watching some of her early days through pictures as she grew up in the orphanage. She was brought there at about 7 months of age. This is the first picture I saw of my darling daughter. My first thought when my husband surprised me with the photo was that it was an advertisement for Ethiopian adoption - she was just too adorable!

As the months passed, we received several more pictures (I think if you click on them, you can see them bigger). Here she is wearing a little outfit we sent for her. A couple months later, a friend who went to pick up her son from the same orphanage told me she had started walking! At least I know that she started walking when she was about 12 months old! These occasional photos and tidbits of news were like finding tiny pieces of gold in a murky stream. The eight months we waited to pick her up were brutal!

Another friend who went to pick up her child did something just amazing for us. Along with taking several new pics of E, she also took a video of her walking! What a treasure!

Of course it didn't compare to seeing the real thing, which didn't happen for a couple months after. We finally met our daughter on December 25, 2007. At the orphanage when we met her, it wasn't too difficult to make her smile. She loved to play peekaboo - or as they say in Ethiopia - 'aieeeeee!'

While we were in Ethiopia, we had the amazing privilege of meeting with some of E's birth family, and even seeing her grandma's home where she was born.

So while I grieve the moments I missed with my daughter, we treasure the amazing journey that brought her to us, and celebrate each moment that we have with her now (well, except for those whiny and otherwise unmentionable ones that come with the toddler years that in times of reminscing we tend to blissfully ignore!).

The photo on the right about 2 weeks after she came home, and the one below from about a year ago.

Isn't she sweet!!!

A couple steps caught on video!

A short video catching some of those first steps. Sorry for the nasty quality. The lighting wasn't good, and I taped it using my camera as figuring out how to get movie from the video camera onto the computer is far beyond me. You'll just have to believe me that he's able to take several steps consecutively than I got on tape! Maybe it's something to do with the ear to ear grin on my face when I see him walk, but he always laughs and falls down especially when I've got the camera!

D's been quite the helper with his little brother lately. He gave me a bit of a surprise today, telling me he knows how babies are made. News to me, as we've not gone there yet! When I asked him how, I was relieved by his answer. "You take some bones and glue them together, put some skin on, and drop eyeballs in!"

Whew :)

Baby J walked for mommy :) The next morning after I missed his initial show, he did a few steps. He finds it quite funny that he's walking, and starts to laugh after he takes a couple steps, which of course makes him fall! Making progress though - he took a good 5 steps this evening!

My first post on this blog was about us waging a war on his night waking. I wish I could claim victory, but alas, we all got sick and I just can't let a sick baby cry very much. Once he's cleared up, which always takes a while as he struggles with fluid in his ears, we'll be trying again. I can't really complain too much as he only usually wakes up once a night, but it needs to end because he's not the only one who's waking me. E sometimes has bad dreams and needs me, and she also has this strange habit of needing to come and inform me when she wakes up to use the potty.

And then there is the stupid cat. If I put him outside, at some point in the night he scratches at my window to come in. If I leave him inside, he scratches at the carpet under my door to go out. Of course I jump to do his majesty's bidding, because I don't want the house wrecked. I think I need to start locking the cat in the shed outside at night.

On another topic, while our family still remains in the ranks of the unemployed, we're tending towards taking a lesser paying job in town and looking at other ways of making ends meet in order to avoid moving. Even though I'd love to be closer to my family, the cons of moving seem to outweigh the pros. Current options are:
-rent out our basement
-take in a couple international students
-do some after-school daycare
-I could start working evenings/weekends

Of course nothing is decided until there is some sort of job offer on the table, so we're still in wait-and-see mode here.

My baby took his first steps....

WITHOUT ME!!!!

While I was off taking D to his gymnastics class this evening, baby J took 3 steps.

So maybe it's the recent lack of sleep combined with all the stress of the uncertain future from our unemployment situation causing me some emotional dysfunction, but bursting into tears probably wasn't the normal reaction to hearing your baby boy turned into a toddler in the rare hour you weren't around him.

I shouldn't be jealous I guess. I did have the joy of changing his first poopy diaper, being the first to be puked on, peed on, wipe his first snotty nose, giving him his first bite of food and being the first to have it spit back at me, and so many other such firsts. So missing one little tiny milestone like first steps shouldn't be a big deal.

I do think though, the hubby should have forgotten to tell me it happened (seeing as he didn't get it on video, how would I ever know?). Or maybe he could have told me tomorrow after a good night's sleep! A little bit of omission would have been forgivable here.

Or maybe not, because if I ever found out, then I'd be mad. Poor guy had no options.

Despite missing it, of course I'm immensely proud of my little man. At 10 months, 3 weeks and 3 days old, (which is 2 months and 1 week and 1 day since after he began crawling. Not that I was really keeping track or anything....) my baby boy took his first few steps!

He'd better do it again tomorrow!

Home schooling ups and downs

I just got an email from the school we have D registered with - portfolios are due at the end of the month. I started homeschooling my little man in November, so this is my first go at this. I'm sort of nervous! I mean really... I don't think I can mess up Kindergarten too extensively. He wasn't enjoying the school he was in, and mostly, I wanted to keep the natural love of learning alive in him. I think I've at least accomplished that goal, as aside from his writing practice, he often asks to do school work. How could a guy be miserable when your hotwheels cars help you do your math??

So other than the fact that I've switched around our curriculum a couple times figuring out what would work best for him, I think I've been somewhat successful. Of couse there's a learning curve on my end as well for figuring out how to homeschool, with my poor son as the guinea pig. I guess the portfolio feels like a bit of a test, and I've never liked those. The teacher will be at our house Feb 3 to look over what we've done.

On a very positive note though, his school approved him for $1000 towards occupational therapy! He's been slow with his fine motor skill development, and was seeing and OT prior to starting K. Once they start school, it's no longer funded and is in the hands of the school. I was told he probably wouldn't get help if he were in public school, as he's capable enough to get by, and not in the special needs catagory. Therefore, he'd be in the slip-through-the-cracks catagory. Not good. Well, within a week of mentioning some concerns to his distance learning school teacher, funding was approved. We'll be getting bi-weekly home visits till the end of the school year with the therapist he was seeing previously! Such a blessing!

Sweet little monster

I would be remiss not to post this pic I took today. Baby J wanted the apple I was eating, and he sure had a great time with it!!