Catching Up... Again

Two years later... how time flies!  Over the last two years I have re-entered the nursing program at the University of Utah. I have one semester left and will graduate in May 2013.  I have already started applying to graduate schools and hope to start a doctorate of Nursing Practice program by August.  Fingers crossed.  Isaac has been working in home health care over the last two years. He has also had his hands in a few small businesses and is still looking for the right opportunity to start his own business. We moved from West Jordan to Holladay to be closer to his work, my school and Elena's school.  She used to be on the bus from West Jordan to the school for the deaf for an hour and a half each way! Now she is only 10 minutes from her school.  It is so much closer for all of us which allows us more time at home. 

We bought an older home in Holladay. It was okay the way it was but we've remodeled it quite a bit anyway. Isaac gutted the basement a week before we moved in when he noticed there was no insulation in the walls. We replaced all of the electrical wiring, vents and plumbing in the home. All five of us were sleeping in the living room for the first couple of months. Isaac's mom Dora is living with us also and we put her in the only bedroom. Isaac did a great job remodeling the basement and half of the upstairs. The home is much more comfortable now. We still have some details to finish up, but we are getting there. I fell in love with the home's landscaping. Isaac kept reminding me we wouldn't be living in the yard, but it drew me in anyway. After a summer of yard work, I am on board to sell it if we end up moving away for grad school. I still love it, but it is SO much work!

The girls are all wonderful. Elena will be seven in two weeks. She is in first grade at the school for the deaf. She can hear almost perfectly with the cochlear implants, but she still doesn't understand very much. Her sign language is progressing rapidly, much faster than mine. We are trying to stay up with her to maintain effective communication. She is very smart. She is great at math, counting and is learning to read. She is a happy, smiley girl. People fall in love with her wherever we go. For the most part she is very laid back and easy going. She does have her stubborn streak, though, and when that comes out, she is the most stubborn of the three. It's good that she has strength of character and spunk despite her challenges. She is on growth hormone to help her grow, requiring injections every night. She is even a good sport about that, reminding me to give it to her if I forget, and half laughs, half cries through each injection. But she always gives me a thumbs up and a smile as soon as it's over. She'll most likely need the injections until she is about 18 years old. I love Elena's sweet spirit and strong instinct to overcome anything.  I feel so blessed to be a part of her life and I love being her mother.

Maria.  Maria is such a sweetheart.  She is the sweetest child I know.  I keep wondering how we got so lucky to have such a wonderful child in our home.  It really was a miracle that she was even allowed to be adopted into our family.  Ecuadorian law only permits children with special needs or children over four to be adopted to the United States.  Another family from Ecuador tried to adopt her a few months before we did.  In the orphanage she was Elena's little guardian, even being 9 months younger.  She recognized Elena's need for help and was by her side always.  She waited for her when she fell behind, she helped her up when she fell down and Maria was the only other child Elena really tolerated in the orphanage.  When the Ecuadorian family took Maria from the orphanage, she continued to cry for "Chio" - Elena's nickname at the orphanage (her first name is Rocio).  She was so distraught over not being with Chio, that the family brought her back to the orphanage explaining that Maria was not adjusting well.  About the same time, I asked the directors of the orphanage if there was anyway I could adopt two children rather than just Rocio alone.  They felt like it was the answer to their prayers for Maria.  The social worker went to the judge explaining that the separation was traumatic for both girls and asked that Maria be allowed to be adopted into the same family with Rocio.  The judge agreed.  The day we went to pick up the girls, the "tia's" at the orphanage introduced Maria to her "new mom and dad".  Maria eyed us warily and said, "Chio's mom and dad too?"  The confirmed that we were also Chio's parents.  Then she gave us big smiles and hugs and has always been generous with her affection. She was only two years old, but even at that young age showed empathy and concern for those around her. 

She still does.  She is always concerned about the welfare of others.  She is very service oriented and obedient.  She has a very strong sense of what is right or wrong.  She always strives to choose the right.  She is a favorite everywhere we go.  She plays well with anyone, being willing to be either a leader or a follower.  She does get her feelings hurt easily, due to her own sensitivity to other's feelings, but even after being snubbed, she is always kind and welcoming to anyone that might have hurt her feelings.  Maria is very smart.  Her favorite presents and toys have always been notebooks to write in, even before she knew how to write.  She would have pages and pages of neat lines of circles or squiggles.  She now copies words from books or writes to 100.  She is always writing or coloring.  She loves to learn and apply new knowledge.  We are so blessed to have Maria in our family, I love her so much!   

 
Arianita.  Ariana is a handful.  A wonderful, beautiful, fun, handful.  She is hilarious and stubborn and willful.  She is very smart and a fast thinker.  Whenever she might be in trouble for something, she makes a joke or gives one of her sweet smiles and melts the anger away.  If that doesn't work she cries desperately and acts the victim.  She loves to dance and sing.  She narrates her whole life through song and choreographs dances to go along with it.  She is very sweet, when she wants to be, which is most of the time, fortunately.  She reminds me a bit of the old nursery rhyme, "There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid".  While I wouldn't straight out call Ariana horrid, she does like to test my patience.  But I'm sure she feels I do the same to her.  When I put her in time out, she may say things like "You are ruining my life! I can't take it anymore!" It's all I can do to not laugh outright at her expressions, as they take me completely by surprise everyday.  When I ask her why she is not in bed well past bedtime, she drops her head and then pretends to wake up - "Oh! I must be sleepwalking!" She's so funny and quick witted, she really keeps me on my toes.  I am just praying I can lead her in the right direction and give her the foundation she needs to survive adolescence.  She is loving and shows the desire to choose the right. I love her so much and I feel so blessed to be her mother.

We are so grateful for Dora, Isaac's mom, who has been staying with us while I finish school.  I can't imagine doing this without her.  She is a great example for me and for our girls.  She has more energy than I do.  She does so much for us, cooking, cleaning, laundry.  But what I am most grateful for is the sweet, loving affection she provides for the girls as I am away so much.  I think her quiet presence as helped them adjust to having me out of the home.  They love her and appreciate her as well. 

We are so blessed in our lives.  We are doing great and are looking forward to the adventures to come.

 

Catching Up!

What a slacker! Since Halloween, blogging has been about 20th on my priority list and for some reason I usually can't even get past number three! A ton has happened, every time something funny or interesting happens I think, "I'll have to blog that", yet sitting here blogging, none of it comes to mind, lol.

I just returned from Ethiopia. I'm still trying to get my days and nights back on track, but it was a good trip and I feel like I got something accomplished. I was lucky enough to get three days in Paris out of my layovers too, that was fun. Fortunately I was with great company both ways which made it even better. Isaac had spring break so he was able to stay home with the kids (do I not have an EXCEPTIONAL husband??). They did great and the kids didn't even seem to have missed me that much. Ariana is actually a little calmer and is playing a little nicer. I use a lot of time outs with her (she lives in time out more than she is out of it) every time she is taking things away, hurting her sisters or just being disobedient. Isaac tends to only use time out if she is hurting her sisters and he generally just lets them fight-out/work out their sharing issues on their own. I'm an intervener/referee/peace-keeper. After seeing the changes in Ariana, just after two weeks of not using my parenting techniques, I think I've got to admit that maybe Isaac's techniques are better. I'm trying to use less time-outs now. We'll see how it goes...

Rocio had Cochlear Implant surgery in the beginning of March. She had one ear done; they will activate it in a few days. They wait a month for all of the internal swelling to go down. She will be able to hear immediately upon activation but it will take a few months for her brain to make the auditory connections it needs to understand what she is hearing. So while it is exciting that she will hear, I am anticipating a few months of her being a little irritable due to the constant noise that she is not used to and won't know how to interpret.

Maria is a saint. She is just such a great little helper. She shares well (with Rocio, she still struggles sharing with Ariana a little) and she always comes running when Ariana is getting into something she shouldn't. She's affectionate, nurturing and loving. She's very orderly too.  I included a picture of her toys that she organized before getting out of the bathtub.  It always cracks me up how she lays them out before getting out. We are so lucky to have her in our family! She recognizes all of her letter sounds now (Thanks to The Letter Factory, that is such a great tool!) I've been amazed at how quickly she is picking up on her letters and numbers. I'm debating whether to put her in pre-school next year or keep her home with me another year. Having spent her first two years in an orphanage (although a good one with a lot of love and affection) I tend to think it is more beneficial for her to have another year of "family life" before she starts the long road of school. We've now had the girls for a year, I can't believe how time flies!

Ariana is active! And artistic. We've finally (mostly) finished our basement and the girls now have a huge playroom down there. And there is a ton of Ariana's artwork bordering my freshly painted walls right at her level. I decided I would just let her get it out of her system down there, she knows it's a no-no to do it upstairs. I figure that's their space, I can always repaint. She also loves finger painting - with her poop. It's so claylike, who wouldn't? A few weeks ago I put her down for a nap only to hear her knocking on her door 15 minutes later saying “mommy, look!” I open the door to see her flexing her poo covered fingers and saying “look mamma, pretty”. She was pointing to the mirror that was so decoratively painted. And the door. And the wall. I’m just thankful her artistic streak didn’t include the carpet (which she finger painted with a pint of HONEY a few days earlier). I've had to start putting her PJ's and onsies on inside out so she can't undress. Hopefully she will phase out of this one soon...

Christmas and Birthdays

It's been a few months since I posted, so unfortunately, this will be a pretty condensed recap. 

December was a busy month getting ready for Christmas and also celebrating Rocio (Elena)'s birthday on the 5th and Ariana's b-day on the 25th.  This was our first Christmas with Maria and Rocio, it was so much fun! And of course Ariana appreciated the gifts more this year than last.  Last year she liked the paper more than the gifts.  She's funny though, every house we went to pre-christmas she grabbed wrapped gifts from under the tree and tore them open.  Several times.  Then on Christmas morning, I give her free reign to tear her own gifts open but she decides she doesn't want to.  She wanted to open Rocio's and Maria's of course, but not her own.  Does this not sound like the epitomy of the "strong willed child"?  Everything's a power struggle.  She's so fun though.

Rocio and Maria loved Christmas! Maria still packs around three purses at a time with them stuffed full of things from Christmas. 

On Ariana's birthday I was too tired to make a cake, so we grabbed one of those big pink sugar cookies from Chevron and stuck two candles on it.  She didn't care.  I'll add those photos later, I forgot my camera that day, so I need to get them from my sister-in-law.

My little "homeless" child, with the cut finger tips and all...

Wow! What Did I Just Do??!!??

So I'm leaving for Ethiopia in about 12 hours, but it is one a.m. right now, so there is still not really time to fix what I just did.  For the last three-ish years I have been going fairly regularly to have my hair done at a salon.  Before that I always got the store bought stuff and had my sister do it.  I've never had any  major disasters, the stylist I use now even talks me a little more out of my comfort zone each time I go and I've been trying new things.

Right now things are tight.  So I decided I've seen this done enough, there is no real science to it.  We don't have the extra cash for me to pay $100 for my hair but the grow out is about 4 inches now and it just can't be ignored any longer.  It was time to learn how to do this myself.  How hard could it be?

 I knew I wouldn't be able to do it by myself really, because I have zero upper arm strength and I have to rest my muscles just curling my hair.  So, yesterday I bribed Isaac that I would spend a few hours doing some of his tedious CIS homework if he would dye my hair.  He agreed pretty quick but after the homework was done and the gloves were on, he was having some serious second thoughts.  He made some pretty nice efforts to try to talk me out of it.  I should have listened.

I have a dark shadow box underneath and then peroxide highlights on top, so I figured the safest thing would be to copy that since I didn't know how the dark would handle light hair color.  I bought a dark auburn and "lightest natural blonde", I wanted to give my hair a peroxide vacation for a while. I also decided rather than highlights to just fill in all of the grow-out.   Isaac was a really good sport, very patient, thourough and methodical.  He said he would never do it again.

When I went to inspect it after blow drying I was prepared for the worst and hoping for the best.  It was somewhere in-between. I don't know if it was the colors I picked, the amount of time we left it on or the lack of expertise (probably all of the above), but I ended up with four colors and a few very distinct lines.  My crown was a strawberry blonde, the area that was highlighted before was actually a nice light blonde color.  But of course there was the distinct ring of where the grow out began.  I guess only peroxide could actually blend it? Then underneath, most of it was dark, although not as dark as I had hoped.  And in the center, and unfortunately my temples, it had the strawberry blonde at the root and the dark auburn at the tip with a very straight line seperating the two colors.  wow.  crap. 

That was better than what followed. 

I glanced over and saw I still had half a bottle of dark auburn.  I've always wanted to try dark highlights instead of lighter ones...why not see if I can try that to see if it blends the four colors together a bit.  I think it probably wouldn't have been a bad idea for someone who knew what they were doing.  I didn't.  I did have a highlighting comb though. 

I started combing it through.  The first few strokes I actually got excited about the idea and felt like it was a great solution.  As I continued, I noticed that the color would stick to the root and a few inches further but then I would run out of color on the comb (why I didn't just do the whole aluminum thing they do in the salon? Didn't occur to me until just now.  That highlighting comb looked so easy...).  I was noticing that because it was only coloring the top four inches, it looked like I was recreating my grow out! Aahh! Good thing I started a few layers down.  I turned to the other side to see if I could do any better there.  I started the same, and of course, no color halfway down the shaft.  So I decided to start the next combfull of paint where the first one left off.  I did that a couple of times and then noticed I was getting polk-a-dots where I was starting mid shaft.  Crap!  Then I chucked the highlighting comb and tried to smooth things outwith my fingers (dipping them in the dye first, since the dye on my hair was already dry).  Bigger polk-a-dots. By then I was at the top layer of hair frantically finger brushing dark auburn dye through the strawberry blond/light blond seeing if I could get anything to blend.  I got zebra stripes and polk-a-dots. 

I decided the only possible solution was to dye my whole hair one color, the only option being the rest of the dark auburn.  Then reality kicked in and I realized the only REAL option was to jump in the shower asap and pray that none of it was on long enough to stick. 

I can't tell you what happened yet, I am actually sitting here with the towel wrapped around my wet hair.  I'm afraid to look.  I think I'll just call it a night and see if things look any better in the morning light.  I'll post a comment below with my results. 

At least something got me blogging again.  I have been putting off Christmas, birthdays, surgery, etc. but there's nothing like a hair disaster to make one reach out.

Happy Halloween and More...

The Three Little Princesses for Halloween

Maria, Ariana, Chio, cousin Elyn

Hat Day

Our new Bunkbeds (changing table that the kids LOVE playing on)

We had a fun visit from our friends Luis (in the pic) and German Rojas de Panama

Story time with Daddy

Life is good. The girls have all settled in well and seem much more secure and confident. They seem to be fighting less, although I think that has alot to do with Rocio being in school now. Maria and Ariana play better together when it is just the two of them. Maria feels the need to protect Rocio from Ariana when they are all together, even though Rocio is learning to defend herself pretty well on her own. Rocio is at the deaf pre-school 4 times a week and even though school is only four hours long, she has an hour and 15 minute ride each way, so she´s gone 6 and a half hours. It´s weird having her gone so long, but it is also nice to have a calmer home environment.

Rocio

Hmmm...I don´t think sponge rollers are the way to go for Chio

Rocio is learning sign language well. She is such a happier child now that she can express herself. Most of her behavioral problems she had before have resolved themselves with communication. It was so frustrating before, for me, but even more so for her when we couldn´t communicate well. She loves school and the therapies they do with her there. She is scheduled to have the cochlear implant surgery in Feburary. I wish it could be earlier, but the insurance requires that she use the hearing aids for six months, even though she recieves no benefit from them. But in the meantime, we are continuing speach therapy and signing.

Maria

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARIA 3 Yrs Old on Sept 30th

Maria is a sweetheart. She is still very motherly to everyone around including to me. She is totally fluent in Spanish and English now, and as fluent as I am in Sign Language. She´s learning her alphabet and numbers in all three languages too. She´s a smarty! Everytime I dress her to go out, she always says, I so cute mom! I so pretty! She´s definately not lacking confidence. She also helps me dress when I am trying on outfits, ¨That cute mom... that not cute... ew, no mom, you not pretty in that¨. She seems to have a good sense of style.

Ariana´s true colors ;)

Princess Ari, not just on Halloween

Ariana. Whew, Ariana is a handful. An adorable one though. She is so curious, loves to tease and is becoming very independent. Her favorite phrase is the two year old classic, ¨I do it¨. She is talking a TON, already forming sentences. She repeats everything that Maria says, and most of what I say. Sometimes I don´t understand what she is saying, but she uses sign language for almost everything also, so it helps me know exactly what she is asking for. Her advances in communication is also helping with her tantrums, but she is still quite dramatic, and uses the other two year old classic of throwing herself on the floor kicking and screaming if I tell her no. Or she stick her finger out at me and say no back. How do you unspoil a spoiled terrible twoer? It´s a good thing she is so irresistable and adorable.

Overall, we are all happy and healthy!