Prayers for Manila

Hard to believe we were in Manila one month ago yesterday and now the city and the surrounding areas have been hit with catastrophic flooding. To the best of our knowledge the island of Palawan where Shella May lived has not been affected by this storm. But Manila has been hit with the worst flooding in 40+ years, enough so the governemnt has declared a "State of Calamity".



Though we spent but 2 days in Manila, we were shown around town by "Our Fairy Godmother" ~ who Julie just informed me she never blogged about ~ and to see the streets flooded like rivers now is difficult. Please pray for those dealing with this awful situation.

~Ryan

One month

Shella May has been home with us a month now, but it feels like she has always been here. She is really fitting in nicely and we all love her so much. Here's our month in review.
Sleeping: I'll start with the topic that makes or breaks a person, sleeping. She has been a great sleeper since day one. She has always slept in her own room, in her own bed. She falls asleep quickly and sleeps 10-12 hours a night. She doesn't wake during the night ever and wakes up when we wake her, usually has a smile on her face. This is all good since I feel we have lost enough sleep with Lance's sleeping habits.
Eating: She loves a lot of foods we have given her to try. She will try everything on her plate, but usually doesn't eat the vegetables. Seems to be a common theme with our kids. Currently some of her favorite foods are; roast beef, baked beans, and pizza. Of course she loves her rice and bananas also.
Meltdowns:Most meltdowns occur on weekends. Her typical meltdown is withdrawal. She gets very quiet and kind of fades away. At this point we go and pick her up and hold her. Sometimes she cries, other times she just sits in a trance like state. Her average time of meltdowns is an hour. She doesn't say anything during them or do anything except maybe cry. Then suddenly she will look at us and just be done with it. We talk to her the entire time and rock her. Tonight we had a major breakthrough because at bedtime she told Ryan the cause of her meltdown she had this afternoon. She also told him that it helps her when we hold her and talk to her during them.
Bonding:We are all developing good bonds with her and they are all unique. She sees me the most and I am the one she talks to the most now. Ryan of course is the fun parent and she still loves give him hugs all the time. Liam is her best friend, they even fight like siblings that have lived together forever. He can make her laugh the hardest and he was the first one she talked to. Lance is very much her big brother and those boys that want to date her better watch out someday. He is always looking after her and making sure she is safe. When she is in a new place or with new people, she comes to Lance and grabs his hand. (The way Lance is growing, he will be the tallest in the family soon, maybe that is why he looks like a protector).
School: She has been in school for 3 weeks now and loves it. She likes learning new things and enjoys going every day. We are all still trying to figure out what she knows academically and as she begins to talk more it will get easier. She is still working on making friends at school, but they have a busy day so there isn't too much time for just hanging out with friends. She loves it when we see her classmates outside of school and always yells "hi".
Overall everything is going great, knock on wood. She seems to be adapting to our lifestyle well and we seem to be meeting her needs. Thank you to all of you for your love, prayers and support.

Baby steps to being part of the family fun

One of our challenges has been to get Shella May to play board games with us. We love to play games and we want her to enjoy it also. We usually play and let her watch and she says she doesn't want to play. Then our friend game her the best hand me down game ever. She gave her Pretty Pretty Princess. We have never played this game, but Shella May jumped in the very first time we played it. You spin and move and put on jewelry if you land on the right square. The winner is the first person with all their jewelry and the crown. Here is Shella May dressed up in ALL the jewelry from the game and her cool wig.

Showering of gifts-Thank you

So many people have given us wonderful gifts so Shella May both before we had her home and after. We appreciate everything that you all have given us, even though you may not have received your thank you card yet. (Sorry on my list of things to do this week). Your gifts have been so thoughtful and appropriate and not overwhelming, thank you once again for thinking of us. With the adoption of our 3rd child we have had two showers. My friends threw me a shower back in June when we thought we were leaving soon and Ryan's co-workers threw him one last week. We requested winter clothes from Ryan's co-workers since we only have summer clothes right now. Ryan decided it would be fun to have Shella May model all her new clothes the other night, I was at work so this is all him. (Maybe we are watching too much America's Next Top Model)

I love handmade gifts!! This quilt was made just for her and it is beautiful. The handmade scarf it so pretty also and she is working on a hat to match also!


Shella May loving the ballons that came home from the shower.

Camping

Our first family camping trip with Shella May. (Picture taken right when we woke up on day 3)

Just hanging out with the girls.

Sitting around the campfire waiting for food:)

We left on Friday after Ryan got home from work. I had the van all packed to the top, plus our friends took some of our stuff. We went to a state park about an hour from our house. When we got up there we found out we had to park and carry our stuff into our site about a hundred yards. Not the end of the world, but we had a lot of junk. Our friends had already set up our tent when we got there (thank you B. family) so we just unpacked. We went with 3 other families and it was so fun to just relax and hang out with them. All we basically did was eat and hang out, isn't that what it is all about? Friday night went by quickly since we got up so late, it was dark before we knew it. Shella May had her first roasted marshmallow and thought it was great. We didn't get to bed that night until 10:30 which is really late for our kids. We brought a crib mattress for Shella May to sleep on so that she would get perfect sleep, which she did.

The next morning we went to the lake. I didn't like this beach because it had goose poop all over it, but the kids didn't seem to mind. They swam, played in the poop sand, and fished. We also rented a canoe for a few hours and all the kids got a turn going out on the little lake. We were there for about 5 hours and everyone was wiped out. We went back after our picnic lunch because I was worried that we were going to have a meltdown. Shella May was getting really quiet at the beach and beginning to become non-responsive, which indicates meltdown. When we got back to the campsite we decided to go on a hike before dinner. We love to go on little hikes, but this one was not so great because it was boring. It was just a mile of prairie walking, we never hit any woods or hills or anything. It was probably good because Ryan and I were the only adults with 9 kids following us. We looked like the Pied Piper. When we came back dinner was already started (I did tell the kids to walk slowly, this was my plan!) We ate dinner, made homemade ice cream and s'mores. That night there was an astronomy talk by the U of M that everyone in our group went to except us. It was late and we needed our kids to go to bed. Shella May asked to go to sleep at 9:00.

The next morning we got up and cleaned up. Overall it was a good trip because it was really uneventful. We had nice warm weather and no rain. The kids were all really good and played nicely also. We all had so much fun just talking and hanging out. The only two things I can complain about are the amount of mosquitoes (I have bites up and down my body that itch endlessly) and all the noise (only because I'm a light sleeper). You know it wouldn't be me if I didn't complain about something.

Shella May was so happy to be home and we let her have the first shower also, which really made her happy.

First Day of School for Shella May

Well today was Shella May's first day of school. We go to a year round school, so it started on Aug.3rd. The other kids were pretty much in their routine already, but Shella May just jumped right in. She says she had a great day. She is doing half day kindergarten. My plan is to hang around school and volunteer the 3 hours she is there each day. I'm not in her classroom, just in the building if needed. She said she did math and they read a book. She came home with an art hat on her head and a proud smile on her face.

Meltdown

This morning I woke up feeling ill, so I stayed in bed all day. Dad was in charge of food and fun for this day off. All was going well and then they started playing a made up game with little cars and a track. He said they were taking turns putting the cars down the track and then suddenly Shella May wouldn't take her turn. He tried to see if she just didn't understand the game or what the problem was. He said she just kept pulling away and he took her downstairs to try to find something new. Finally he wasn't getting anywhere and he brought her up to see me. She started really crying hard up the stairs. He set her on the bed and I asked him to lay her next to me. I told him it was okay to leave the room and go play with the boys. I just rubbed her back and told her that it was okay to be sad. I told her that she could talk to us about what makes her sad and that we love her and will always be there for her. I just kept saying things like that and rubbing her back while she cried. Then suddenly after about 15 minutes of crying she just sat up. It was like she was just done with it and ready to move on. We don't know what caused the sadness, hopefully someday she will be able to tell us. I gave her some choices of things we could do (taking a nap being my favorite). She started picking at her skin, her nervous thing. I told her that she shouldn't pick because that is how she got the ouchie on her arm. Then she started picking at her fingernails. I asked her if we should change her nail polish and then I got a big smile. We came downstairs and I did her nails and all was good. This was the first meltdown that we have had since we have been home, it has been two weeks since our last good cry. We are hoping that she understands that even though she is sad, we are here to hold her and help her through it.

Just got to blog

As you know we have been waiting for the honeymoon to be over any day, expecting the worst. I would say the honeymoon is over today, but it went the opposite...to super great!
Yesterday we did some fun things and spent the day at home. We baked some cookies, went for a tour of the classroom and met her teacher, and we made our own word wall with the words she got from the teacher. One little thing we did yesterday was to learn "excuse me" after we burp. She tends to burp a lot and I thought she should learn to say it.So today...it is only 9am and we have grown leaps and bounds. She has burped several times and says excuse me with a smile. We got the laundry and sorted it,with a smile. She has been copying my words when I say random things like "good job" or talk to the dog or something. Really huge since she hasn't spoken much at all. Then I got the biggest smile ever this morning. We have been practicing the 4 words that her teacher gave her as flashcards. Yesterday we taped them all to the closet door. Last night every time we went by them we both read them. This morning she read them to me without any help. Then we sat down to read the small books the teacher gave her. I read them and she repeated after me. Then she read the books all by herself. I have never seen such a huge smile!!! She was so proud of herself for reading those books all by herself. Of course they weren't hard books, but we have to start somewhere. I wish I could describe the smile I saw, I almost started crying (and if you know me I'm not one to show much emotion).
I just wanted to share our wonderful milestone in learning and we look forward to many years of happiness coming from learning new things.

Getting into the routine

We have just been living day to day these past couple of days. Ryan went back to work yesterday, so that means it's just us girls home during the day. The only problem we are having is she still throws up once in a while. We are looking for a common thread and a friend emailed today with a few ideas that we are going to investigate. So far the only common link we have found is watermelon, but we don't know if that is the cause or a coincidence.

Yesterday our big outing was to the school. We met with the principal and the lead special education teacher. The three of us decided that half day kindergarten would be the best fit for her right now. We also decided that we would try to start school next Wed. The kids have Mon and Tues off next week. Lucky for us a kindergartner just dropped out of our school last week (don't worry I'm sure the child didn't drop out forever, just changed schools,haha) so there was an opening for her, so we are grabbing it. She seems like she is ready for school, but we'll see what changes that brings. Now we have to find uniforms this weekend (thanks to the friends that have "donated" jumpers to us). We are going to officially meet the teacher tomorrow and have a classroom tour. I will stay at the school the entire time she's in class in case there are any problems. I'm sure I can find somewhere to donate my time there:)

Today's outing was not as successful. We packed her backpack with all of her favorite things and set out for mommy's work. She was all excited and I told her she could even watch a movie. When I got to my school, she dragged her feet coming in and then she just sat in the corner as small as she could. I tried to give her a tour of my classroom and asked to sit at the table next to me. A co-worker was just leaving, so we were the only ones in there. She wouldn't come to the table so I did what I needed to do as quickly as possible and we left. I might bring her back some time when I have the boys with me, they love it there because they can write on the white boards and other exciting stuff. I won't need to bring her often, so I'm not too worried. Whatever didn't get done today can wait I guess. I start teaching again on Tues. I'm only working evening classes this year.

I still want to post the 3 days that I missed in the Philippines, so stay tuned for retro posts when I get around to it.