35 months old...one more month until 3 !!!
Anna and her Peeps
This has been a busy few weeks for us with Anna. She is done with her first season of soccer and we are waiting now until maybe the fall to continue. She did love running around and was always excited to see her new friends. Dylan surprised us early March with a visit and we were able to have Amanda come home too for some family time. She always has a wonderful time with them! She misses them so much through the school year!
Spring Break came and Amanda and Dylan came back again. We enjoyed dinners and going places...Amanda, Mommy and Anna got to go to National Harbor In Baltimore while Daddy and Dylan went golfing. She loved the peeps store and had to bring some home! We also had some nice meals out and Anna has now officially added pancakes to her tiny list of foods! We were all very excited about this!! In fact for breakfast just yesterday, Anna had her very own pancake, bacon and freeze dried yogurt drops, and ate all of it!
The last day before Dylan left we went to the park and Anna had a fun time running around with her big brother! Overall a very nice time for all of us. We are still in talks with the public school system about adding speech to Anna's IEP. We have a friend, who is also an education advocate, and we are hoping she can help us get Anna what she dearly needs. It looks like she is over 25 pounds for good now and I'm thinking by her birthday she will be 3 feet tall!
Spring Break came and Amanda and Dylan came back again. We enjoyed dinners and going places...Amanda, Mommy and Anna got to go to National Harbor In Baltimore while Daddy and Dylan went golfing. She loved the peeps store and had to bring some home! We also had some nice meals out and Anna has now officially added pancakes to her tiny list of foods! We were all very excited about this!! In fact for breakfast just yesterday, Anna had her very own pancake, bacon and freeze dried yogurt drops, and ate all of it!
The last day before Dylan left we went to the park and Anna had a fun time running around with her big brother! Overall a very nice time for all of us. We are still in talks with the public school system about adding speech to Anna's IEP. We have a friend, who is also an education advocate, and we are hoping she can help us get Anna what she dearly needs. It looks like she is over 25 pounds for good now and I'm thinking by her birthday she will be 3 feet tall!
Spring...we are ready!
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loving finger painting now!
National Harbor sunset
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More snow brought more fun for Anna...She just loves it! We went to the horse farm and she did pretty well. She fed the pony and even brushed him. We aren't sure at this time if we will be doing hippotherapy since Anna has a small head and they were unable to find a horse riding helmet small enough for her. She loved making Valentine's for everybody, really enjoyed coloring all the cards. As you will see below, packages with grass and stickers were a hit this year for gifts! She is finally gaining her weight back from being sick and seems to be right about 25 pounds now. Woohoo! Her favorite game now is hide and seek and she loves to either doing the hiding or finding people. Her therapy is going great and they just added a new idea, she now gets to have social skills play with another little girl. They are having a wonderful time together and learning to share and take turns. She has gone on the potty a couple times when Amanda comes home, so we are hoping that is something we will pursue in the Spring. Soccer is about done now, a couple more weeks and we are not yet sure if we will continue. We are looking into other ideas for her to get all that extra energy out. She has added one new food, well she has eaten it twice, pancakes! That's amazing for us since it's has been two years without any new foods. She is trying things now. Even a lick or taste is an accomplishment. School is by far her favorite day of the week, she loves her friends and teachers there and gets so excited when she finds out it's a school day.
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An elephant from daddy for Valentine's Day
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Tea parties are always great!
Thanks for the stickers, Grandma
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34 months
She is loving the snow!! In fact she always gets really, really upset when we have to come in. She went to a birthday party a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it, but it's still overwhelming for her. We look forward to her party in a couple months. She is doing very well in school I am told and starting to use scissors, yikes! She also really enjoys painting and brings home pictures she has done often. She is beginning to put words together to try to form sentences, but it's very hard to understand what she is trying to say still. When she turns 3 I will push for some speech therapy through her school and hopefully she will get it. We have an appointment for an evaluation by a psychologist soon, hope she can shed some light and give us her opinion of Anna's delays and if she is autistic or not. Either way she will receive the same treatments, but maybe more. I am hoping to hear from the farm about the horse therapy soon too.
She is loving the snow!! In fact she always gets really, really upset when we have to come in. She went to a birthday party a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it, but it's still overwhelming for her. We look forward to her party in a couple months. She is doing very well in school I am told and starting to use scissors, yikes! She also really enjoys painting and brings home pictures she has done often. She is beginning to put words together to try to form sentences, but it's very hard to understand what she is trying to say still. When she turns 3 I will push for some speech therapy through her school and hopefully she will get it. We have an appointment for an evaluation by a psychologist soon, hope she can shed some light and give us her opinion of Anna's delays and if she is autistic or not. Either way she will receive the same treatments, but maybe more. I am hoping to hear from the farm about the horse therapy soon too.
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Anna is giving up naps now, slowly. It makes for a much earlier bedtime which is good for her since she always wakes about 6:30 every morning. We had her "Ninny" and "PopPop" over for dinner, they brought us chinese food! Afterwards they were able to play with Anna and she just loves dancing with her Ninny. Soccer is still an interesting challenge, but I think she is enjoying it so we will continue into the Spring session. She is putting her weight back on from the illness and looks a lot better and healthier again. Her new accomplishment is eating cereal with a spoon in a bowl. This is huge for her. She is currently using a measuring spoon I'm thinking because she doesn't drop as much cereal. Hoping to transfer her to a small spoon soon. But, for now whatever makes her more independent works for me!
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This is our Norm...
Things are different now. I see things that I never would have seen in the past, I am more aware. Every little thing is a moment, because when milestones are hard to come by, moments sustain you. Moments keep you moving from one day to the next with a smile on your face. I'm going to share one of my moments...
Every morning I wake up with Myanna looking down at my face, playing with my hair. I can usually get her to snuggle so mama can have just a few more moments before the sun comes up. Then she says "reary" which is ready in Anna language and off we go.
First thing she wants is to have a "dess" a dress so she can look like "rella", Cinderella. So I let her pick one out and help get her dressed. She drinks a little from her bottle and is on the go, always ready for what the day brings. She has more energy then anyone I know. Today is a school day. I fix myself a bowl of cereal and fix Anna's breakfast. We seem like a normal mom and toddler...except Myanna is eating a quarter cup of dry Cheerios and 12 freeze dried yogurt drops, and washing it down with tea that contains her medications and maybe a couple more ozs of her bottle. It's our norm.
Once we are done eating, I now mention that it's a school day and she is unable to contain her excitement, jumping up and down and screaming "cool" for school, over and over again. I smile, seeing her excited about something warms my heart. I fix her snack, a small handful of mini graham crackers and a few gerber crunchies and her bottle. I have to make sure since it's 7 degrees out that the dress she picked isn't short sleeves today; if it is I have to bargain for a different outfit, maybe one that someone might think I'm color blind for putting her in, but if she's happy...our day is perfect. We get shoes on and off we go to school.
Myanna goes to a special needs preschool, she loves it! She has three classmates with her teacher and an aide. It's perfect for her needs. I get a few hours to get a little errand or something done and then I'm back to pick her up. Some days she's happy to see me, some days not so happy. I think it depends upon what activity they might have been doing before clean up. I ask her where we should go, she responds "enera", Paneras is our place. A short drive later we arrive and she is all smiles. She's familiar with this routine, she feels comfortable with it. It's taken us a long time to be able to do this, this normal thing. I always do everything the same. I clean her hands with sanitizer wipes since we came from school and her immune system seems lower then normal; she gets sick so easily. I have to hold her the entire time or she will run around the restaurant, so I hold her while we order the same meal, go and get my tea and a small cup of water for Anna and then get her highchair. By then our meal is usually ready. I get an extra bowl and spoon for her. We sit at the same little round table by the window, it's nice because there aren't a lot of people around us and we have a view out the window of the cars coming and going.
We sit and have a relaxing lunch. It's our time. I talk about everything I see and she eats her French baguette. I put a small amount of soup in the bowl in hopes that she will try and taste it. Today is a good day, she takes a couple licks of the soup. I praise her and she smiles as she is so proud of herself, as am I. She continues to eat the bread, always biting the outsides in a certain way that she can put her fingers through like puppets. Then as the bread gets smaller it becomes a boat and floats along the table. I eat and just look at her in awe and wonder, amazed at the little things that amuse her so. She asks for her bottle, and I hand it to her always aware of the looks we sometimes receive. I smile back at those nameless faces. They don't understand my little girl, they have no right to judge and I don't have the time or energy to explain...I'm having lunch with my daughter, so I smile. Sometimes she asks for some Cheerios "susu" she calls for it, 'cereal'. I sit and help her eat if she needs help, I notice her eyes today, so different from when she was born...that dark sea blue is gone and they are a brilliant grey/green with brown flecks. Just lovely. She gets some crumbs on her dress and starts to panic, but I assure her it's ok and show her we can brush them off easy and poof, gone! We decide we are done, clean up our dishes while I hold her in my arms, put the highchair back with her in my arms and refill my drink as well. Then I put her down and we walk out the door with her waving and saying "bye bye" to every stranger she sees. They smile, some say bye in return. It's our norm.
At home she enjoys playing with her "tuttle", castle, and usually wants her dress changed at least three more times in the day. We have the basement made into a sensory gym for her with a climbing apparatus, slide, tunnel, trampoline and furniture she climbs on as well. Upstairs we can do more structured things, puzzles, blocks, and playing with her house or baby doll are her favorites. She is becoming more and more interested in my cooking and tries to help, but is very upset when she gets food on her spoon she is playing with. We have another snack around 3pm of Cheerios with her bottle. She has an abundance of energy and she uses it up constantly, so refueling is the key...besides she eats such a tiny amount at a time. Being a low volume feeder makes it extremely difficult to get everything she needs into her in a day. Her bottles are high calorie milk mixtures that add up to almost all her calories, nutrients and vitamins for the day. The little other foods she eats help make sure she gets everything and keeps her practicing on eating.
By dinner time, she is ready to eat. She gets in her seat and waits for me to get everything on the table. Her dinner tonight, a ritz cracker, a triscuit cracker, 2 veggie sticks and 8 goldfish. We offer her bites and pieces of our dinner that she pushes away with a firm, "no!" She has her bottle and her night meds in her tea as well. We relax and have a nice dinner. She eats and is happy, content. It wasn't always like this though, it's taken a long time to get her to sit for twenty minutes for a meal, restaurants are still hard. She still needs buckled in or she will run around the room. She starts to chant she's "done" and I try to coax her into just a few more bites or minutes so we can all finish. Usually we have the tv on in the family room so she can watch something and allow us to finish our meals. It's speed dining we jokingly call it...but its our norm.
Nighttime we relax with a movie, usually Cinderella or tinker bell. She usually cluster feeds with her bottle, that is she will drink 2 ozs every half hr from 6 until 7:30 or 8 in order to fill her belly for the night. Then as she yawns repeatedly, she tells me "ni nite" and she needs help getting in her pjs. She grabs her Minnie Mouse or doll and tells daddy and "coco" Kodi our dog goodnight. She turns on the light and jumps in bed, her crib attached to our bed becomes a mini trampoline for a few minutes while I get ready. She has trouble winding down, as tired as she is. I'm still surprised at our sleeping quarters, I never thought I would co-sleep, but here we are. It's working for us, it's working for her. She still wakes up a couple times at night looking for me, looking for the comfort and security of my arms. So, I am there for her.
In bed we say our prayers, I say God Bless and she says peoples names. It helps her practice talking and she's excited saying names. "Dyn" Dylan, "Adada" Amanda, "Ninny" Nanny, "PopPop" PapPap, "Empa" grandpa, and "Emmah" grandma. We pray for family and friends with many more names. I give her kisses and say love you, she responds with "of u". We listen to Jim Brickman and his piano sonatas, as she takes turns with different blankets trying to decide which one she wants to have on top of her tonight. She usually loses her Minnie or baby doll once which becomes a frantic scream as she looks for them. Then as she's relaxing, her last thing she does is roll over towards me, grabs my neck in a tight squeeze hug, kisses me and then relaxes with her head upon my chest. After a moment she rolls onto her pillow and the sweetness is asleep. I sigh...so many moments happened today. Everyday. This is our norm...
Things are different now. I see things that I never would have seen in the past, I am more aware. Every little thing is a moment, because when milestones are hard to come by, moments sustain you. Moments keep you moving from one day to the next with a smile on your face. I'm going to share one of my moments...
Every morning I wake up with Myanna looking down at my face, playing with my hair. I can usually get her to snuggle so mama can have just a few more moments before the sun comes up. Then she says "reary" which is ready in Anna language and off we go.
First thing she wants is to have a "dess" a dress so she can look like "rella", Cinderella. So I let her pick one out and help get her dressed. She drinks a little from her bottle and is on the go, always ready for what the day brings. She has more energy then anyone I know. Today is a school day. I fix myself a bowl of cereal and fix Anna's breakfast. We seem like a normal mom and toddler...except Myanna is eating a quarter cup of dry Cheerios and 12 freeze dried yogurt drops, and washing it down with tea that contains her medications and maybe a couple more ozs of her bottle. It's our norm.
Once we are done eating, I now mention that it's a school day and she is unable to contain her excitement, jumping up and down and screaming "cool" for school, over and over again. I smile, seeing her excited about something warms my heart. I fix her snack, a small handful of mini graham crackers and a few gerber crunchies and her bottle. I have to make sure since it's 7 degrees out that the dress she picked isn't short sleeves today; if it is I have to bargain for a different outfit, maybe one that someone might think I'm color blind for putting her in, but if she's happy...our day is perfect. We get shoes on and off we go to school.
Myanna goes to a special needs preschool, she loves it! She has three classmates with her teacher and an aide. It's perfect for her needs. I get a few hours to get a little errand or something done and then I'm back to pick her up. Some days she's happy to see me, some days not so happy. I think it depends upon what activity they might have been doing before clean up. I ask her where we should go, she responds "enera", Paneras is our place. A short drive later we arrive and she is all smiles. She's familiar with this routine, she feels comfortable with it. It's taken us a long time to be able to do this, this normal thing. I always do everything the same. I clean her hands with sanitizer wipes since we came from school and her immune system seems lower then normal; she gets sick so easily. I have to hold her the entire time or she will run around the restaurant, so I hold her while we order the same meal, go and get my tea and a small cup of water for Anna and then get her highchair. By then our meal is usually ready. I get an extra bowl and spoon for her. We sit at the same little round table by the window, it's nice because there aren't a lot of people around us and we have a view out the window of the cars coming and going.
We sit and have a relaxing lunch. It's our time. I talk about everything I see and she eats her French baguette. I put a small amount of soup in the bowl in hopes that she will try and taste it. Today is a good day, she takes a couple licks of the soup. I praise her and she smiles as she is so proud of herself, as am I. She continues to eat the bread, always biting the outsides in a certain way that she can put her fingers through like puppets. Then as the bread gets smaller it becomes a boat and floats along the table. I eat and just look at her in awe and wonder, amazed at the little things that amuse her so. She asks for her bottle, and I hand it to her always aware of the looks we sometimes receive. I smile back at those nameless faces. They don't understand my little girl, they have no right to judge and I don't have the time or energy to explain...I'm having lunch with my daughter, so I smile. Sometimes she asks for some Cheerios "susu" she calls for it, 'cereal'. I sit and help her eat if she needs help, I notice her eyes today, so different from when she was born...that dark sea blue is gone and they are a brilliant grey/green with brown flecks. Just lovely. She gets some crumbs on her dress and starts to panic, but I assure her it's ok and show her we can brush them off easy and poof, gone! We decide we are done, clean up our dishes while I hold her in my arms, put the highchair back with her in my arms and refill my drink as well. Then I put her down and we walk out the door with her waving and saying "bye bye" to every stranger she sees. They smile, some say bye in return. It's our norm.
At home she enjoys playing with her "tuttle", castle, and usually wants her dress changed at least three more times in the day. We have the basement made into a sensory gym for her with a climbing apparatus, slide, tunnel, trampoline and furniture she climbs on as well. Upstairs we can do more structured things, puzzles, blocks, and playing with her house or baby doll are her favorites. She is becoming more and more interested in my cooking and tries to help, but is very upset when she gets food on her spoon she is playing with. We have another snack around 3pm of Cheerios with her bottle. She has an abundance of energy and she uses it up constantly, so refueling is the key...besides she eats such a tiny amount at a time. Being a low volume feeder makes it extremely difficult to get everything she needs into her in a day. Her bottles are high calorie milk mixtures that add up to almost all her calories, nutrients and vitamins for the day. The little other foods she eats help make sure she gets everything and keeps her practicing on eating.
By dinner time, she is ready to eat. She gets in her seat and waits for me to get everything on the table. Her dinner tonight, a ritz cracker, a triscuit cracker, 2 veggie sticks and 8 goldfish. We offer her bites and pieces of our dinner that she pushes away with a firm, "no!" She has her bottle and her night meds in her tea as well. We relax and have a nice dinner. She eats and is happy, content. It wasn't always like this though, it's taken a long time to get her to sit for twenty minutes for a meal, restaurants are still hard. She still needs buckled in or she will run around the room. She starts to chant she's "done" and I try to coax her into just a few more bites or minutes so we can all finish. Usually we have the tv on in the family room so she can watch something and allow us to finish our meals. It's speed dining we jokingly call it...but its our norm.
Nighttime we relax with a movie, usually Cinderella or tinker bell. She usually cluster feeds with her bottle, that is she will drink 2 ozs every half hr from 6 until 7:30 or 8 in order to fill her belly for the night. Then as she yawns repeatedly, she tells me "ni nite" and she needs help getting in her pjs. She grabs her Minnie Mouse or doll and tells daddy and "coco" Kodi our dog goodnight. She turns on the light and jumps in bed, her crib attached to our bed becomes a mini trampoline for a few minutes while I get ready. She has trouble winding down, as tired as she is. I'm still surprised at our sleeping quarters, I never thought I would co-sleep, but here we are. It's working for us, it's working for her. She still wakes up a couple times at night looking for me, looking for the comfort and security of my arms. So, I am there for her.
In bed we say our prayers, I say God Bless and she says peoples names. It helps her practice talking and she's excited saying names. "Dyn" Dylan, "Adada" Amanda, "Ninny" Nanny, "PopPop" PapPap, "Empa" grandpa, and "Emmah" grandma. We pray for family and friends with many more names. I give her kisses and say love you, she responds with "of u". We listen to Jim Brickman and his piano sonatas, as she takes turns with different blankets trying to decide which one she wants to have on top of her tonight. She usually loses her Minnie or baby doll once which becomes a frantic scream as she looks for them. Then as she's relaxing, her last thing she does is roll over towards me, grabs my neck in a tight squeeze hug, kisses me and then relaxes with her head upon my chest. After a moment she rolls onto her pillow and the sweetness is asleep. I sigh...so many moments happened today. Everyday. This is our norm...
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dancing even when she isn't feeling well...my little elf!
Christmas Vacation came and went too fast, as usual. But Anna has some great memories of Dylan and Amanda visiting and lots of family. We started off with our family Christmas party and continued onto Christmas Day, then we had Christmas with Nanny and PapPap and finished our holiday with Christmas in New York. Lots of Presents and smiles later. Myanna really was able to enjoy Christmas this year. She loved opening the presents and playing with all her new toys, she also just really enjoyed being with everyone. We did find it hard to take photos that were not blurred, she seems to move too fast for the camera most of the time...she gets so excited! Thank you everyone!
Unfortunately, Amanda was sick on Christmas day, Mommy a few days later and Anna throughout the New Year. She was feeling much better when the snow came and had a blast running around the yard making footprints and clearing snow off of everything.
Unfortunately, Amanda was sick on Christmas day, Mommy a few days later and Anna throughout the New Year. She was feeling much better when the snow came and had a blast running around the yard making footprints and clearing snow off of everything.
Waking up big sister!
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Tea Party with big brother!
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Puppy from Nanny and PapPap
Had to put on the princess dress and accessories immediately, of course!
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Daddy and Anna playing with the doll house
New York cousins
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