Congratulations, Kate and Jeff!

We are so very happy and excited for Kate and Jeff! They finally received "the" phone call they have been waiting for for over 14 months! A beautiful baby boy is waiting for them in Ethiopia! He was born on December 22, 2008... Kate and Jeff will welcome him home in August or September. We love you very much and are so happy for you and your "family"!!!

Three Years Old

OK, so it has been quite a while since I have posted in here. Things have been very busy to say the least. I really don't even know how well I will continue to keep up on here, as the end of the school year is approaching and the craziest times are ahead!

Of course I just had to come in and say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my first born precious daughter, Jaymie. 3 years? How can it be? This time 3 years ago, I had just arrived in labor at the hospital in Boston. I thought for sure the doctor would send me home, but upon seeing my labor in progress, he promptly announced that it was "baby night". Jaymie Antonia arrived via c-section at 11:38pm on May 20, 2006. The first 3 weeks of her life were a complete whirlwind: a 13 hour surgery, life in the Childrens Hospital NICU, ventilator, tubes, wires, PIC lines, IVs, everything. I don't think I will ever forget the sights and sounds of her first weeks of life, nor will I ever forget the pain of watching my baby girl go through everything she has gone through.

And now here we are 3 years later, after surpassing many other medical obstacles... a beautiful and healthy 3 year old girl. Though lately Jaymie is testing my patience in every sense of the word, I still say my prayers each night and wonder how I was blessed with such an amazing child. There are frustrating days; wonder of why you deal with speech issues, possible attention issues, and seemingly always getting sick... but as my mother said to me the other day... "So what. She (Jaymie) is a miracle herself... the fact that she is even here with us after all she has been through." That is the truth, the absolute truth.

"Baby" Jaymie... Mommy loves you so much that her heart aches just typing this. I hope you always know and feel my love and admiration for you and all you have been through.

I love you, Jaymie... Love, Mommy

Jaymie's Speech Evaluation

Yesterday, we arrived promptly at 8am and were greeted by the SLP. Jaymie was supposed to go into the room and do the eval without me, but as I suspected, that didn't happen. In Jaymie's defense, the only time(s) she has ever been taken from me has been in a scary medical setting, and I explained that quickly to the SLP and she didn't want to provoke any anxiety, so I just sat quietly in the room and watched. Jaymie is "busy", I guess like a typical 3 year old. She did focus for a while and was easily redirected at first. After about 45 minutes, she was pretty much done and just wanted to do her own thing. But at that point, the SLP had already done a ton with her. I was amazed at how well Jaymie answered questions outloud, or about pictures, determining the actions in pictures, boys from girls, purposes of objects. The only thing she did poorly on (answer-wise) was identifying big from bigger and biggest, etc. The SLP showed her 2 pencils, one small and one big and asked Jaymie which one was bigger. Jaymie quickly said "This one is TOO BIG, but this one is JUST RIGHT!" (pointing to the smaller one) Anyway, when all was said and done, I asked if the SLP thought Jaymie would require services and she said DEFINATELY. Basically, Jaymie is a VERY SMART little girl, with a huge vocabulary and great comprehension skills, but a lot of her sounds have errors, and even more complicated was that a lot of her sound substitutions were very atypical. She gave me some examples, but I forget most of them. Like subbing "L" for the "N" sound. Lion was Nion. Stuff like that. I go back on the 14th for the IEP meeting and to see what they recommend for services. I will be curious to see if they just recommend speech therapy or if they recommend also coming to the preschool. So, all in all, I am happy. Happy that someone finally validated my concerns with Jaymie's speech and that she will get help. Her services won't start until September still, but I will possibly look into private therapy for the summer if that is something that the TEAM recommends.

Ballerina Jaymie

My friend Michelle came over yesterday for a visit, and also brought another 3 bags of clothes to pass on to the girls. (Thanks, Michelle!) Well, included in the bags of clothes was this Barbie "ballerina dress", which Jaymie has only taken off to take a bath in the last 24 hours. She is IN LOVE with it, and keeps asking to go to ballerina school. Here are some pictures, posing, twirling, and even doing an arabesque!

I can hardly believe "Ballerina Jaymie" turns 3 in less than a month. The time really has passed by so quickly!

Happy 8 Months Old, Arianna!

Nursemaid Elbow

I had just commented the other day that this time last spring, we had been to the hospital 3 times (stomach viruses) by this date... how pleased I was that we had managed to stay away this year.Nope. Jinxed myself apparently.But this time, it was an injury and not a virus/sickness/surgery!Last night, Jaymie was sitting on the kitchen floor. James went to help her up and was holding her by her left hand. All of a sudden, I hear the most horrific "pop" noise. I just knew it wasn't a normal crack sound. Jaymie immediately started screaming and crying. While I had hoped that a kiss would "make her boo-boo better", she just kept crying and telling me, "Ow, ow! It hurts Mommy!" This was almost 7pm, so I was in my pajamas, but I threw on my sneakers and grabbed the diaper bag. I left James home with Arianna and drove the looooongest 25 minutes of my life to the hospital. My Dad just happened to be there getting bloods drawn, so he met me over in the ER with Jaymie. We got registered and they did vitals and forced down some motrin, because clearly, Jaymie was in a LOT of pain.Finally, at about 8pm, we got back into Express Care, and the doctor came in to see us. Upon my description of what happened, he immediately knew it was "nursemaid elbow", or a dislocated elbow. I assumed she had broken her arm because she was holding down by her wrist when she was crying, but apparently that's where a lot of the pain radiates when your elbow is out of it's socket. The doctor held her arm, twisted it, and the did some quick move, and I heard that horrible "pop" sound again... elbow back into place.They made us stay another hour or so to make sure she would start using the arm again, and sure enough, within 15 minutes, she was back to using it again and happily eating a popsicle that the nurse gave to her. My dad was a LIFESAVER being there entertaining Jaymie and taking pictures of her with his cell phone camera. She was just THRILLED that Grandpa was "helping her get better" and so amused that Grandpa had boo-boos on his arm too (where he had his bloods drawn).Finally home close to 10pm and got Jaymie to bed. James, of course, felt HORRIBLE about the whole situation. But it was an accident. A totally honest Oops. What can you do? Stuff like this happens.But my Public Service Announcement for today? NEVER, NEVER pick your kids up by one arm, or even swing them between you and another adult, or help them up by 2 arms... always go for the armpits, etc. It was scary and obviously VERY painful.Here are 2 pictures from my Dad's cell phone onceher boo-boo was all better!

Happy Easter

This morning, Jaymie was so adorable. I put out 10 plastic eggs filled with Sour Patch Kids (her favorite!) and a few chocolate bunnies, a new jumprope, and a new pad of paper for her "egg hunt". She was SO excited and spotted the eggs so quickly! I was amazed at how well she did it and how much fun she had! Miss Arianna was quick to get into the action, too. She wanted to get her hands on those plastic eggs, and even got a taste of a Sour Patch Kid when Jaymie left one on the ground.