A girl after her Daddy's heart!
Would she feel the same way if she were not floating on a sea of grass?
Elainea and her Mimzi.
Hannah at her first day of school.I am ashamed when I look at how long it has been since I posted. So much has happened and every moment is worth sharing. Hannah started kindergarten and loves it. In fact she comes home in the afternoon and wants Mom to continue her school day. I really like the idea of all day kindergarten. She keeps telling me that she can not wait to start first grade so she can have more school in her day. What a difference from the scared and clingy little girl at kindergarten roundup in May.
She has an awesome teacher that we really like. I feel good that she is with Mrs. Shelley when she goes to school. The transition for me has been easier than I thought. I only cried once and that is when I put her on the school bus for the first time. Every protective Mom instinct came out and I had to force myself to let her on the bus. It felt strange to hand her over to people I did not know(the bus driver and assistant). Hannah had an adventure the first time she rode the bus home. She has a regular schedule, but she does not ride the bus home every day. On Mondays and Fridays either Joe or I are home and so she can ride the bus. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays she is picked up by her daycare. Well the first full day of Kindergarten was on a Wednesday, and they put her on the bus to come home. I was in Ogden with my Mom getting eye surgery and I get the phone call. One of the school secretaries ask me "Where would she go?" I felt the blood drain from my face. I pictured our daughter roaming the streets by herself crying and feeling abandoned. Luckily Hannah has memorized her parent's cell phone numbers. What a smart little girl we have. She was calm the whole time and requested the bus driver to call me. How grown up is that! Well when she called I was already on the phone with the secretary. Fortunately they felt they should take her back to the school where her daycare was waiting for her.
Elainea is doing well. We had her evaluated by early intervention because she is struggling with her speech. I see her get frustrated when she wants to have a conversation and she only can say certain sounds. She is making up signs to communicate words to us, but I can tell that she wants to express her thoughts and ideas. We were quite proud when she was evaluated on target or advanced for most areas, but her expressive language skills she falls short. They tell me she is on the level of a 14-month old. We start speech therapy this month and that should help her catch up.
Elainea is doing pretty well physically. She is only in the 25 percentile in height and in the 50 percentile in weight (she is totally American!) Her immunizations are finally caught up. The monthly trips to the clinic were starting to wear on me. Now for the interesting stuff. Utah has had a HUGE outbreak of a nasty parasite called Cryptosporidium. It is a fungal protozoa that is passed through fecal to mouth contact. Well these little parasites are in a protective hard cyst when you pass them through your system until someone swallows it. Then in your intestines it starts to break out of the cyst and make the poor victim sicker than sick. Well every public pool in Utah has been infected, and because they live in these little cysts, the normal water chlorination does not kill it. Needless to say we went swimming at our local pool and poor Elainea got infected first. This sickness is horrible as it gives you severe diarrhea and makes you throw up. Our poor daughter was so ill and so lethargic! It was strange to see her want to lay down instead of getting into mischief of one kind or another. She got so dehydrated that we took her to the doctor where they took a sample and verified that she had the parasite with a lab analysis. Joe was the next one to go down. Luckily he has a strong stomach so he was mostly just inconvenienced by the whole deal and had to cope with the cramping and eating near a bathroom.
I got a get-out-of-changing-the-stinky-diapers free card being that I was already fighting dehydration with my morning sickness. Yes you read that right. Joe and I are now part of that infamous statistic group where you adopt and then get pregnant. Despite our best efforts to avoid me getting it, I just came down with it. Boy is this awful! I had to go to the emergency room to get an IV because I could not even swallow without getting sick. We called my midwife who made an appointment for me to come in yesterday. Our midwife did an ultrasound and determined that the baby is no worse for the wear, but Mom is miserable. Baby is now due on April 6th. This would be fun because he or she would share a birthday with one of Joe's sisters.
My Mom did well with her surgery. The hole in her retina was surgically maintained and she has been positioning for two weeks now. Positioning involves holding your head down to the ground so the air bubble inserted into the eye settles over the hole letting it heal. This doesn't sound bad until you consider that you have to do it for 50 minutes of every hour! She has endured the trial remarkably well. We managed to borrow a massage table and put a flat screen TV underneath it. She has many friends and neighbors that brought in food. I had to keep a distance because of the outbreak at our house. My oldest sister stayed with her for the first three days and we are so grateful for her efforts. I call her daily and we are so fortunate that so many people love to help take care of her.
I have rambled on enough for one night. Take care and God Bless!
She has an awesome teacher that we really like. I feel good that she is with Mrs. Shelley when she goes to school. The transition for me has been easier than I thought. I only cried once and that is when I put her on the school bus for the first time. Every protective Mom instinct came out and I had to force myself to let her on the bus. It felt strange to hand her over to people I did not know(the bus driver and assistant). Hannah had an adventure the first time she rode the bus home. She has a regular schedule, but she does not ride the bus home every day. On Mondays and Fridays either Joe or I are home and so she can ride the bus. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays she is picked up by her daycare. Well the first full day of Kindergarten was on a Wednesday, and they put her on the bus to come home. I was in Ogden with my Mom getting eye surgery and I get the phone call. One of the school secretaries ask me "Where would she go?" I felt the blood drain from my face. I pictured our daughter roaming the streets by herself crying and feeling abandoned. Luckily Hannah has memorized her parent's cell phone numbers. What a smart little girl we have. She was calm the whole time and requested the bus driver to call me. How grown up is that! Well when she called I was already on the phone with the secretary. Fortunately they felt they should take her back to the school where her daycare was waiting for her.
Elainea is doing well. We had her evaluated by early intervention because she is struggling with her speech. I see her get frustrated when she wants to have a conversation and she only can say certain sounds. She is making up signs to communicate words to us, but I can tell that she wants to express her thoughts and ideas. We were quite proud when she was evaluated on target or advanced for most areas, but her expressive language skills she falls short. They tell me she is on the level of a 14-month old. We start speech therapy this month and that should help her catch up.
Elainea is doing pretty well physically. She is only in the 25 percentile in height and in the 50 percentile in weight (she is totally American!) Her immunizations are finally caught up. The monthly trips to the clinic were starting to wear on me. Now for the interesting stuff. Utah has had a HUGE outbreak of a nasty parasite called Cryptosporidium. It is a fungal protozoa that is passed through fecal to mouth contact. Well these little parasites are in a protective hard cyst when you pass them through your system until someone swallows it. Then in your intestines it starts to break out of the cyst and make the poor victim sicker than sick. Well every public pool in Utah has been infected, and because they live in these little cysts, the normal water chlorination does not kill it. Needless to say we went swimming at our local pool and poor Elainea got infected first. This sickness is horrible as it gives you severe diarrhea and makes you throw up. Our poor daughter was so ill and so lethargic! It was strange to see her want to lay down instead of getting into mischief of one kind or another. She got so dehydrated that we took her to the doctor where they took a sample and verified that she had the parasite with a lab analysis. Joe was the next one to go down. Luckily he has a strong stomach so he was mostly just inconvenienced by the whole deal and had to cope with the cramping and eating near a bathroom.
I got a get-out-of-changing-the-stinky-diapers free card being that I was already fighting dehydration with my morning sickness. Yes you read that right. Joe and I are now part of that infamous statistic group where you adopt and then get pregnant. Despite our best efforts to avoid me getting it, I just came down with it. Boy is this awful! I had to go to the emergency room to get an IV because I could not even swallow without getting sick. We called my midwife who made an appointment for me to come in yesterday. Our midwife did an ultrasound and determined that the baby is no worse for the wear, but Mom is miserable. Baby is now due on April 6th. This would be fun because he or she would share a birthday with one of Joe's sisters.
My Mom did well with her surgery. The hole in her retina was surgically maintained and she has been positioning for two weeks now. Positioning involves holding your head down to the ground so the air bubble inserted into the eye settles over the hole letting it heal. This doesn't sound bad until you consider that you have to do it for 50 minutes of every hour! She has endured the trial remarkably well. We managed to borrow a massage table and put a flat screen TV underneath it. She has many friends and neighbors that brought in food. I had to keep a distance because of the outbreak at our house. My oldest sister stayed with her for the first three days and we are so grateful for her efforts. I call her daily and we are so fortunate that so many people love to help take care of her.
I have rambled on enough for one night. Take care and God Bless!
