The Daily Planet

Toothless

2012-02-11T01:52:00.001-07:00

(wants to be toothless)

What To Do WIth Preschoolers? {part 2}

2012-02-09T01:40:00.003-07:00

These apples were given to me by a friend. They look like the type of thing someone might use to decorate a wreath or something. Conveniently, they came in 2 colors - perfect for a toddler who might be ready to learn to sort. Turns out no sorting was done, but Ally sure enjoyed putting the apples in the different little baskets I gave to her. Anya also spent some time checking out the apples. I gave her my silicone baking cups as well. All of my children adore those things - they were worth every penny, though I rarely use them for cooking anymore.

Another activity all the kids have loved is straws in a bottle. I simply cannot explain the attraction of this activity. My only idea is that they like the salad dressing bottle I give them to use because it mom's "for real" one? Whatever the reason, this activity has been a hit with all three of my toddlers, and I am sure Anya will like it too one day ;)

Wow.

2012-02-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

I have never really paid Francis Chan much attention because he spent a long time as the fad theologian of choice - that was a mistake. The actual sermon is about 35 minutes.

Vareniki!

2012-02-06T01:44:00.001-07:00

So for many months I have been scouring and stalking Amazon to find a good Ukrainian cookbook. I really enjoyed a lot of the food while we were in Ukraine, plus I wanted to make some for the kids so they could try it. So finally after months of searching I bit the bullet and bought Ukrainian Cuisine With An American Touch and Ingredients:

Now this book is a little spendy, but it is 800 pages of recipes - IN ENGLISH! There are lots of explanations of Ukrainian words and terms. There are some black and white photos too. I consider its purchase an investment ;)

In Ukraine I lived off a dish called Vareniki. Vareniki are basically dumplings stuffed with all sorts of things beef, chicken, cheese, cherries, and my favorite, potato. Why was potato my favorite you ask? Mainly because I knew the Russian word for potato: kartoshka. So everywhere we went I'd point at the vareniki and say, "kartoshka?" It became quite humorus, if I do say so myself.

So when I got this book, the first thing I wanted to make was vareniki and I did! It turned out great! I made chicken, potato and apple vareniki. It was so fun to make it for the kids and tell the story about why I like it so much. And they even liked the food!

What is Occupational Therapy Anyway?

2012-02-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

Of all the things we do with Anya, occupational therapy is the thing people most want to know about. I have to admit before Anya joined our family, I had very little idea what it is myself. We use OT to address Anya's huge sensory deficits, fine motor skills, and general life skills.

Before I begin to explain what we do, I must paint a picture of where Anya is - and where she came from. This is pretty hard for me to do, because I get kind of mad. You see, 8 months into having her in our home the neglect she experienced is WAY clearer to me than it was when we first got her home. For example, Anya has just recently begun to learn to tolerate swinging, an activity most children adore. Why didn't she enjoy it? Probably because she was picked up so seldomly her vestibular sense is almost non-existent. Sometimes the vast improvement she has made is the tip-off to how badly she was neglected. For example, when we first met her she could barely get both her eyes focused on an object for a second or two. Eight months later we barely notice her occasional eye crossing. Why do you think her eyes didn't focus before? Probably because she laid in a crib or on the floor every day all day for 4.5 years.

In the last 8 months she has had to learn to chew, walk, feed herself, communicate, tolerate the hustle and bustle of a family, and start to learn how to play. The very idea that she has to be taught to play makes me mad. But nevertheless, it is the case.

Enter occupational therapy.

I have heard many people say that occupational therapy looks like it is just playing with toys. And I suppose, really, there is some truth in that. Although in our case Anya rarely is actually playing. Usually the therapist and I are working our behinds off to try and get her to do whatever it is we want her to do. Sometimes, we pretty much force her to do it. For Anya, results usually come in teeny tiny steps made almost every day. We have had a few major leaps, but mostly we look back over a few weeks and that is when we see the progress.

Before, I explain what we do, I want to say a word about our therapist, Lindsey. Lindsey is the BOMB. We feel SO fortunate to have someone who as competent as Lindsey to work with! She explains everything.

"Lindsey, why are we spending so much time stacking these blasted blocks?"

"If Anya lacks the arm strength and precision to stack blocks, she won't be able to have the strength or precision necessary to make and use the pincer grasp or develop general fine motor skills."

There are several of these type exchanges every week, although usually I do not have to ask the question she just explains how every activity she selects fits into the "master plan" of our goals for Anya.

I am going to interrupt myself here to say another word about functional play. Play is weird, it can kinda be taught but kinda not - some of it kids do have to figure it out on their own. We are trying to give her the skills to play, but she will have to figure out how to make it fun. For Anya we had to start all the way at the beginning: cause and effect. 6 months ago we started working with cause and effect toys in OT and also at home. She never enjoyed it, but cause and effect is an important concept to learn whether or not she ever learned to enjoy playing with cause and effect toys. I figure it took her a month or 6 weeks to really get the concept. We moved on to other things in OT. But in the last few weeks, she has been seeking out the simplest of cause and effect toys ON HER OWN FOR FUN!!! It is thrilling to see her having fun - playing. What we are hoping for of course is that as she becomes more practiced with the skills we are working on it won't be so much work for her to use them and she will use them not only for function, but for fun!

So what have we worked on?

simple play patterns - shake shake, bang bang
Stacking blocks - arm strength and precision
Putting things into a container - arm strength and precision
Simple puzzles - arm strength and control, spatial reasoning, attention
playing with a ball - throwing, fun!
pop beads - arm strength
iPad - fine motor, practice using a device that will probably be a central teaching tool
pegs in a hole - fine motor, strength
pom poms into a small jar - pincer grasp, arm strength and control
stacking rings - arm strength and control, attention
putting socks on
putting pants on
putting shoes on
zipping
We are just starting to work on filling and dumping - another simple play pattern

Are you seeing a trend? Anya has very poor arm, hand, and digit strength which makes it difficult to manipulate things to play with them. In fact when we first got her, all she could do was throw things - that was her way of interacting with toys. We have come a long way!

We also have been addressing some of Anya's many sensory issues and her self-stimulatory behaviors (aka self-stim, stimming) in OT. Because Anya laid around all day every day for years, she has a lot of weird behavior and she also does not tolerate a lot of sensory input. Her self-stim behaviors include head banging, laying on her right side and twiddling her fingers, and constant smacking of things. Her sensory deprivation is across all senses. Think about how it must feel to go through life barraged with a new sensation every 10 minutes. So we try to address this deprivation by increasing her "sensory diet."

rice play
play doh (which also is great for finger and hand strength)
we worked for a LONG time on getting her to enjoy swinging - vestibular stimulation
sliding -vestibular stimulation
balance ball - core strength and balance
Wilbarger brushing protocol
joint compressions

So that's what OT is about. We have seen really great and steady progress. I think it might be the most valuable hour in the week where Anya is concerned. I usually leave the hour encouraged by what she can do, and full of ideas for things I can do at home.

Knowing I was going to write this post, I asked Lindesey what she would recommend for people who had not had a good experience with their OT. She said that a really important part of being a good OT is explaining what you are doing and where it is leading. She also recommended that parents ask a lot of questions. On a personal note, I will say that Lindsey and I work together to determine our top priorities for Anya - so if your therapist isn't listening to you about this, that is a major problem. Sometimes, a goal that I really want to see worked on has to wait until we work on some other skills first because they are "building blocks" to the bigger goal. All of this requires a lot of communication. Generally Lindsey and are talking about things the whole time she is working with Anya.

Finally, I wanted to point out two resources I have used with all of my children, but that have been especially helpful with Anya:

These two books are basically a curriculum for OT at home. I can't recommend them highly enough.

So I hope this helps answer the questions of those of you that have asked. I also want to say to my readers: Anya's struggles are about 90% related to the 4.5 years she spent in an orphanage and about 10% related to the fact that she has Down Syndrome. I also humbly encourage and remind you that there are things you can do to prevent this from happening to other kids. Please consider what you can do. Please check out Reece's Rainbow for more information.

And Now the Blog You've All Been Waiting For...(Right?)

2012-01-22T09:59:00.000-07:00

I really do blog in fits and starts don't I?

Well this one will end up epically long, I'm sure, so hang on to your hats!

Before I get to the general update, I should say I did write a few blogs in December but never published them. But here's the gist: the joy of celebrating Anya's first birthday and first Christmas was really tempered by thinking of all the kids who still have no idea what Christmas and birthdays are - kids we saw with our own eyes. They are sweet and loving, but more than that they are created in the image of God and are of infinite value to Him. I don't want them to end up like this:

Please consider adoption of a special needs child. You are the only thing that stands between these children and hell on earth. Can you look at this picture and tell me I'm exaggerating? For more information, please watch this story ABC News did over the Christmas holidays. It features the Cox family, whom I met in Kyiv. The Cox's are wonderful people and I think ABC did a pretty great job on the story.

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First, we want to say thanks to all of you who have prayed for us and for Nathan's brother Dave. Dave is recovering well and is learning to walk again. He has progressed all the way to using crutches! We are so thankful for all his wonderful progress and for all the wonderful people who have come alongside of Dave and Emily!

Next I want you to remember what I posted here about our friend Adam going to help my friend Susanna bring home her precious Katie-bird. Katie is home and has changed so much, PLEASE go check out their blog and see the pictures for yourself!

Finally, you may also remember the K family from our time in Kyiv? They were part of the MFA? They completed the adoption of a precious little boy this summer and are currently back in Ukraine adopting two other children they met while they were there this summer. We are so happy for them! If you think of them will you kindly remember them in your prayers?

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Ok, finally the family update! So here's the truth: The months of September - November were hands down the hardest 3 months in my whole life. Nathan concurs. There was a lot going on and ~~most~~ all of it was out of our control. We were just reacting to what was going on around us. And if you know Nathan or myself, you can probably see where we weren't big fans of that. And while I am not going to go into details here, suffice to say we had issues in multiple areas: health concerns, things breaking, Dave's accident, insurance snafu's, and on and on. Whew. I breaking out in a sweat just thinking about it.

But as that weirdo monkey in the Lion King says, "It doesn't matter, it's in the past." So, without further adieu (and I have to admit there was a lot of 'adieu' in this post already!) is the family update:

Nathan - Got a new job! He has now moved into a job where he is managing people and bridge projects. It is very exciting as it is very different from his old job where he really spent all of his time on design work. He has been BUSY!

Drew- Is in Kindergarten. We continue to homeschool and I must say we couldn't be happier with the results! Our whole family is have a great time and Drew is doing swimmingly. He has started reading and is light years beyond Kindergarten in math and science. He also started Karate in October and really enjoys it. And he lost his first tooth!

Cooper- At his insistence has started doing much more big-boy preschool work. We are having a lot of fun together. He has had a growth spurt these last few weeks and is rapidly becoming a BIG boy. We have taken the training wheels off his bike, again, at his insistence. He has taken especially good care of Anya as she has adjusted to our family. We continue to just enjoy the heck out of Cooper as he is the lovingest, happiest kid that ever was.

Ally- Has cuteness dialed in. She is learning to talk, and talks rapidly most of the time. Most of the time she is a sweet helper who follows me around. She loves her sister Anya and smothers her multiple times a day with hugs and kisses. There is no cuter sight in all the world than those two giggling and laughing together! She had some health issues in the fall, but thankfully they were resolved without surgery, though she continues to be on long-term antibiotics.

Anya - wow, this should probably be a post of its own. She continues to make steady forward progress. She is about 50% potty trained, which is HUGE. She has about 30 signs. She is starting to attempt to verbalize. Last week we are about 85% sure we heard her trying to say 'all done.' Her strabismus (eye crossing) has also improved greatly, just for having something to focus on. She has started to smile and laugh spontaneously, which is amazing!! Perhaps most gratifying to me is watching her learn to play. When we brought her home, she had no idea how to play. Because she just laid around for 4.5 years, she did not know what to do with toys. At first she just threw everything we gave her, then she progressed to just looking at it, or maybe picking it up to check it out. But finally in the last few weeks, she has started to PLAY. Words fail to describe the joy and excitement of this victory.

Whew! As always, thanks for reading, and for all your wonderful love and support! I am sorry there are no pictures this time, This took me forever to write, so pics will have to wait until next time!

Washington Trip: Day 3 and the Drive Home

2011-10-06T01:00:00.001-06:00

Ok I should have mentioned this before I added the pics b/c now Blogger isn't cooperating, but on the third day I took all our kids to the Seattle Aquarium while Nath visited Dave. This was a monumental victory for me - I still can't believe I did it! Also, happily the boys appear to be absorbing my love of aquariums!

There is a diver on the other side of the glass which mesmerized the boys.

Pretty girl was such a good sport though I know all this traveling has been tough on her!

Transfixed by the fire boats on the Seattle waterfront.

Visiting, for the second time that day, their favorite aquarium inhabitant...the octopus. Seriously, they can't learn enough about octopi. I am glad I had a reason to use the word 'octopi' although we were told that the actual plural is octopuses!?

Nath and Dave

I absconded with Dave and drove him all over the hospital. Harborview is an astonishingly large place.

Breakfast

Bobo's the navigator.

Washington Trip: Days 1 and 2

2011-10-05T21:10:00.000-06:00

Ruston Way with the Grandparents, and Woodland Park Zoo with the cousins! Doesn't get much better than this!

Only God Could Do Something This Cool

2011-09-28T10:07:00.001-06:00

Meet my friend Susanna. Godly woman. Mother of ten.

That baby she is holding, that's Katerina - her 11th child. Susanna is headed soon to EE to finalize her adoption of precious "Katy-bird." Katie weighs 11 pounds. She is 9 years old.

Meet Adam. Part of the MFA, (i.e. other adoptive parents I met and had a great time with in Ukraine). Father of ten. Adam is also an ICU nurse.

You see Katy is going to need some help on the way home. She is starving. So Adam, though he has never met Susanna, is going to go with Susanna to help pick up Katy and get her back to CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia).

Now I had nothing to do with connecting these dear friends to each other, but as I know both parties, pray almost daily for both families, I am so excited they found each other and eager to promote their cause. We need to raise about $1500 for Adam's airline ticket. Can you help? By giving just a little you can be part of the AWESOME story God is telling!! Thanks in advance friends!!!