Cindy, I'm giving you a kiss!

Hey, where do you think you are going???

Mama! Did you see how my CindyCat just left me!

I got this climbing thing going, why not...see my leg...I'm ready!

I guess Mom should jump in and save her before disaster strikes.

I love this picture, even if it is horribly centered, I just barely got her in it! Isn't she a cutie!

Today we started Mia's new class at school. It does seem to be a better fit for her, so I think we will be staying there, but I wanted to see what the teacher in the class thought after Thursday, if she agreed or not. It was a bit less structured than our other class, and so that was different for me, it will just take a bit of getting used to and getting to know new people. :)

This afternoon we went to our first speech therapy appointment and that went really well. It was mostly just playing with the therapist, so Mia could get to know her and get used to being around her. What struck me the most though, was that there was a lot of repetition of phrases. They would play with a certain toy and she would repeat the same phrases, like 3 times, over and over again. She said that after awhile, kids pick up on this and naturally start producing those same words/phrases. So, we'll see what happens. We have noticed Mia using her mouth more, like she wants to say something, but nothing comes out, so please continue to pray for her in that area.

Wearing the glasses is going great, for the most part she keeps them on, usually when she sees her reflection in something (like the fireplace or dishwasher), she will try to remove them, but otherwise they stay on. I noticed her trying to take them off the other day and I said, "Mia No.", in my strong firm parent voice (I have no clue when I developed that...hehehehe), and she fussed a bit and looked at me, but kept them on. So, she definitely understands!! Praise God!

Oh, and sleeping with her hip brace, she actually sleeps better with it than without! For the last several nights, she's been making it all the way to the morning, it is so awesome. I think it's because she can't get on her knees, it forces her to stay lying down and so then she eventually falls back asleep when she wakes up. I told Brad that we've found the secret to getting your kids to sleep through the night and if we have any more kids, we'll put them in the brace if we have to! Probably not, but it is kind of humorous to us that this is what it took to get her to sleep through the night. Praise God for uninterrupted sleep!

More Therapy

So, Mia got evaluated for speech therapy today and we are now signed up to go twice a week. Today there wasn't a lot of therapy, just mostly talking about Mia's history and assessing the need, which we know she needs, next week the real work begins. It will probably be fun, her speech therapist seems like a very nice gal and she already seems to get along well with Mia and it's only been 1 day, so I'm encouraged and hopeful that we'll begin to make some more progress in that area. Please pray for that! Please continue to pray for more leg strength also as that will be what eventually gets us to walking.

Next week we are starting our new class at school, it will be a trial run for a week, just to see if it fits Mia's needs better, but I have a feeling that it will. So pray that we would transition easily (for Mommy and Mia) to a new teacher. We've only had 1 teacher our whole time there and we LOVE her, so change can be hard, but we are excited to get to know a new teacher and are sure that she'll be just as great as our Miss Carmen. :)

Hip brace wearing is going really well, she has been sleeping pretty much through the entire night with it, she will occasionally wake up around 4-5ish, but today she made it until close to 7, so praise God for that progress! We have a few more months before our next check up and I'm hoping her ball and socket will be just where they are supposed to be and that we won't have to do this anymore...I can always hope and of course pray, right?!

As always, thanks for praying!!!

Every Girl Needs A Horse Of Her Own, Right?

Some dear friends of ours were trying to find a home for their rocking horse, apparently the kids who used it had grown out of it and there wasn't much space, so they asked us if we'd like to house their horse and of course we said yes, because every girl needs a horse of her own, right? Anyway, the horse is beautiful, one of their family members hand crafted it themself! Amazing! So, Mia has been enjoying her new rocking horse, little by little she gets more and more used to it. Today when I put her on it, she tried to get it to rock herself. :) Here's a picture of both darlings!

Holland

I've been preparing to share about Mia at Bakersfield Christian High School in October. As a result, I've found myself going through old emails that were sent out by our dear friends, the Norsworthy's, during those first few weeks. In one of those was a beautiful piece that my sister-in-law Rachel found about a woman named Emily Kingsley who had a child with Down Syndrome. Let me share this with you.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by Emily Perl Kingsley.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.


Just this morning I was thinking about how I've been blessed in such a different way than other Mommys. Many mommys don't realize exactly what it entails to go from crawling to walking, it's quite a process. I would have never known these tiny intricacies of development if we hadn't landed in Holland...like that you first pull to stand and get down by falling on your bottom, but then learn to get down using one knee. I've been able to find so much joy in Mia's progress with these tiny details. Some days are still hard, I would be lying to you if I said I never wanted to be in Italy, but I'm learning to appreciate Holland. More so, I think most days I love being in Holland, in all of its differentness, it is truly beautiful.