Dear Lila, Please return to Sender. Thanks, Your Cousin

My youngest daughter is three. She will be four on October 5th. My oldest gave up her paci at 11 mos and all naps just after her 3rd birthday. My second born gave up pacis around just before she was 2 and all naps around her 3rd birthday. Hootie hasn't had a paci at night or any other time in months and months. But I kept 2 and let her have one at nap time. She has napped longer, but had her paci longer than her sisters.

I noticed her front teeth were starting to shift and she was going to end up looking like a beaver or a mouse if she had her paci for too much longer. While she is napping with her paci, the older two and I watch movies. Well, OK, they watch them while I try to sleep on the couch with them climbing on me. But still, usually I can sleep or doze at least 20 minutes. Just enough to recharge and make it through their bedtime.

So Monday of this week at naptime, I told Hootie that this was her last nap with her paci. I asked if she wanted to mail her pacis to AZ for her baby cousin, and she was very excited about that idea. So Tuesday morning, she drew a picture, took one last suck on her beloved pacis and dropped them in the envelope. We wrote 'LILA' on the outside and stuck it in the mailbox. She put up the flag, and told her pacis to have a nice trip. She skipped back into the house, happy as a clam. 

Nap time rolls around. She gets her blankies and heads to her bed. She lasted 15 minutes before she came out and announced she was done 'sleeping'. 

Today at nap time, I gathered her blankies and she looks and me and says, "I want to stay out there with you." Oh, snap. I guess the glorious paci made it worth missing the movie time. I told her it was too bad- she needed to rest. To which she said, "Well, then, you better find me a paci." "There are no more; you mailed it to Baby Lila." At this point she just growled at me and flopped on her pillow. I turned on her CD player and ran from left the room. 

Five minutes later, Hootie walked out. "I can't nap without my paci. I'll just watch a movie with you guys." 

Her naps are over. My last bebe has moved on. It's time, and after a while I will enjoy the freedom. I will figure out to go to bed earlier. And between now and then I will have to deal with her meltdowns at the dinner table and in the bath because she is in that awkward stage where she is tired but too old to nap without beign up til 11 o'clock.

And maybe the hubs will learn how to handle MY meltdowns at dinner, too.....

I just couldn't pay for 2 years in braces because I just HAD to nap......

One day I'll have to delete this, or hide it REALLY well..........

I feel like I am always blogging about my middle child. One day, when she is not 5 and is online and can, ya know, READ, I'll have to delete most of this I suppose. Until then, I will enjoy having somewhere to rant about the challenge that is parenting the Bean. I am also hoping that someone else will read this, and say, "Oh, girl. I have to do the saaaame things with my daughter."

First of all, I give up getting her to stay in bed all night. Thanks to our new BFF melatonin, she is now falling asleep with less jerking, twitching and tossing. Like 30 min less. And to be honest, most nights I don't even mind sitting with her while she goes to sleep. She's a good cuddler. And she makes really cute faces when she catches me peeking at her to see if she is awake or not. (And in case you're wondering, I DID try the Super Nanny method. To the letter. And I am convinced that even Super Nanny herself couldn't get it to work on Bean. And if she reads this and wants to try, she's welcome to my home.)

But I digress......she goes to sleep, but she doesn't stay there. And when she wakes up, she does try to fall back asleep, can't, and then gets in bed with me. I have tried charts, bribes and begging. I just tell myself that if I were in Europe, this would be normal. So I give up. Maybe when she's 18 and she's still coming into our room, I'll get her professional help. Until then, I'll just be grateful we now have a king sized bed.

So there's the update on sleeping. Oh, rooming alone was a great idea, but didn't help either. It helped my friend's child who is A LOT like ours, so there must be truth to the idea somewhere.....


The other thing that has been a source of challenge for us lately has been her playing soccer. She begged for a year to play, and I didn't sign her up last spring because I didn't feel like she was ready. She was still having a lot of anxiety, and Gabe and I both felt like it would be setting her up to fail. This spring, we thought she was ready.

She will not go out on the field without me. Period. She cries, shakes, gets clammy, the whole 9 yards. And it's not like the dropping her off at her church class where she gets over me leaving in less than 30 secs. I guess because there is more going on and more people 'looking' at her, so the pressure is more than she can bear. It's a terrible thing to see. I really feel awful for her. Her coaches are soooo nice and always give her lots of encouragement. And they are okay with me being on the field WITH her. As in running up and down the field during practices AND games. The first game Beanie had a death grip on my hand, and I really thought she was going to crack my little finger. She has eased up a bit and now I can just be near her but as SOON as the play is over, WHAM, back to my side she comes.

We considered dropping out, but she REALLY likes it. She gets excited about her games and begs me to play soccer with her at home. And she's actually pretty good when she is focused on the game and not upset that I am not as close as she wants.

And I'm going to be honest here. I hate being out there with her. I feel out of place and like the other parents must think I am over bearing or over protective or both. It's embarrassing, honestly. It's the feeling you get when your kid has a meltdown in public and other moms are watching (and probably judging), but it lasts for 45 min. Every game I pray I won't have to go out there with her. But I do. And tonight she was in a terrible mood/funk, and wanted me to hold her hand. Being close wasn't enough. I try and be nimble and get out of the kids' way (and I NEVER kick the ball or interfere), but I tried to scoot one way and she stayed put and we managed to clothes-line a couple of kids from the other team. It was awkward.....

During Saturdays game, I tried every trick in the book to help her be calm. I let her spin, I squeezed her (where she thinks it's a big, silly bear hug but really I am trying to put pressure over her whole body) and while she was drinking water waiting to play I squeezed a pressure point on her hand. (I have no real proof that helps anyone other than my kid, but I can tell it helps her chillax.) Nothing. It helped for about 15 seconds and then she was back to her borderline panic.

So I am at a loss. All I can do is what I know to do and pray one day she will be past this. I'm grateful every day that her issues aren't worse. And I'm pretty sure if I couldn't home school her, she'd be on medication. And I hope one day she will look back and think "Wow. My mom did that? How cool is she?!"

That will be about the time I have to delete my blogs ;-)

Clingy *MAY* be a Understatement

In the days since the giveaway fundraiser has ended, I have found myself thinking more and more about Ksenjia. I have reexamined all the pictures my friends took on their mission trip of her. I learned when her birthday is (mid March) and what her last name is. I can't pronounce it, but I know it, lol. All these things make her more real to me.

But what am I to her? She has no idea there is a family 4,000 miles away trying to raise the money to get her here. She asked my friends what it would take for her to come to a family, but she has no idea that we are working on 'what it takes' to get her here, even if it is just 5 weeks. Her life hasn't changed- she is still hoping and praying someone will love her. She doesn't know someone does- not yet. They won't tell her until the last minute that there is a family in America she can go to for the summer. That's still several weeks of not knowing! And when you're 11, it's got to seem longer.

I have been told that she loves to be hugged. Craves it. So I am expecting her to be somewhat clingy and affectionate once she realizes that it's okay to be that way. She has a lifetime of hugging to make up for, and I intend to put a dent in that deficit! All my kids are affectionate and, um, clingy-ish. Okay, honestly, if one of them could surgically attach herself to me, she would. Her love language is physical touch/quality time and as one of my friends wrote about her own daughter "her love tank has a perpetual leak". Which fits my middle child. To. The. Letter.

So tonight I started laying the ground work for the change that is coming. Translation: I began to warn my needy one that there is one coming who is even needier, and she is going to have to buck up and share me. It went over really well. I brought it up casually as I was helping her with her jammies. It seemed to click. Seemed to click so much that after we all prayed and started to head for beds, she said, "Mom, you can go. Dad can snuggle with me tonight." I thought I was in the wrong house. Then I thought once G laid down with her to help her go to sleep, she would change her mind, but she didn't. Wow.

We'll see how other talks go, but it was a huge relief that at least the initial talk went so well. In the meantime, I'll pray and hope the next few weeks go by really quickly for Ksenjia, and that God starts to prepare her for our family, and our family for her.

Giveaway Winners

This giveaway has been a joint effort (us and the Helf's) from the start.....and tonight we jointly did the drawing (with random.org) before we even ate dinner together! Brooke H. and I were so nervous/excited, we were shaking and I thought I  might throw up, LOL!

We have each learned a lot of personal lessons through this giveaway, and we have seen so many people give when it would have been just as easy not to give. Times are tight, and we have truely appreciate each and every donation, prayer and repost. So from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you. And on behalf of J, M and K who will be here this summer, we thank you.

And so the winners are:

 Amazon Gift Card ($20) - Joanne Reddell
 Hair bows by Doodlebug Boutique - Kayla McDermitt
 Kohls Gift Card ($75) - Sara Jones
 IPAD2 -  Leslie Popelier

We raised almost $3000 on behalf of hosting the kids, and we are thrilled. Again, HUGE thanks to everybody!!!! 

Matt 25:40

"And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'

Got the Word- Woot Woot!

Today we got the official word that we will be able to host the little girl that we had our friend met on his mission trip!

She is eleven, has no siblings and plays the accordion. She has a lot of hurt, and is aching for love and attention. Please pray for her (and us) as we prepare to bring her here the end of June.

Summer Hosting Update!

Alrighty- I promised a hosting update, although for now I can only give you a partial update.

Even though we will STILL BE HOSTING THIS SUMMER, we will NOT be hosting the girl we told you about. It is a really long and kind of complicated story, and I can't really go into all of it. The bottom line is, she is being pursued for adoption by a family from the northeast, and that means they will need to be her hosting family this summer. They already know they're adopting her, so her spending her summer with us would be pointless- she needs to be with what will be her forever family.

While her forever family was learning about her, we were (by the hand of God) learning about another child. Her story broke my heart, and even though she wasn't even on the original hosting 'roster', we felt like we were lead to her to host her this summer. This was all confusing to me, because we had already agreed to host Alina. I thought maybe we were supposed to host both girls, althought I had NO idea how in the world that was going to happen, or where everyone would fit, or sleep or ride!

Turns out we can just host one, and it will be the 'grace child' we learned about on Wednesday. I am confident enough to announce that, but I don't want to put a picture or name up until later.

Please continue to pray for 'A' and her new family- they have a lot to work through and hurdles to jump through, and please pray for our 'new' girl, that all the details will continue to work out.

And of course, if you want to donate or repost about our fundraiser/giveaway, that would be an awesome help also!