Mila LOVES Preschool!

Shawn picked Mila up after her first day of preschool and she didn't want to leave :) The teacher said she had a great first day! Today it was so strange just dropping her off and saying goodbye! It was just Sofia and I for a bit and we enjoyed our time together! I couldn't WAIT to pick her up and when I pulled up, they brought her out and instead of her usual "OH my goodness I missed you so much mama" squeal, she turned and tried to walk away from me back into the school! So I scooped her up and she promptly slapped me across my face because she was not ready to leave school!!! 

Now I know what you're thinking, you'd be so broken hearted if your child reacted that way right? Not me! I was so excited! I was excited because there was a time, not so long ago, that this very child fought for her life, she fought without a mama or daddy holding her hand. So for the next THREE years she took comfort in her mama-preferring me over anyone and everyone else, in every instance....clinging and so very needy and very dependent on mama in so many ways....needing to know I'd never leave her. And today, when she slapped me and chose preschool over mama, I thought, she feels safe and loved....for the first time SHE was ready to face this world without mama or daddy by her side....which tells me the love and effort we've poured into her over the past 3 years is paying off in so many ways. So today, even if it sounds weird to you, I'm happy Mila slapped me. I'm happy she wanted to stay at school...I'm happy she is strong enough and well enough and comfortable enough to go to preschool without mama. To hear that the other kids LOVE her and that she feels accepted there, just makes my heart so happy! Of course I wouldn't mind (selfishly) if she never ever wanted to leave my side....but really, I'd rather have THIS reaction than having her not want to go to school! We didn't send her right when she turned 3 (which is typically how it goes with kids with special needs-in order to get their services) because we just didn't feel like she was ready yet. I wasn't 100% sure she was ready, but felt peace in my mama heart and so we decided to go for it. I know it's only been 2 days, but I can already tell Mila thinks she's pretty cool going to school. The whole way home she kept repeating "R" (she calls her teacher Miss R.) and her helper's name! I promised her she could go back again next week :) 

The reports today were that Mila did great, prefers to sit in her helper's lap for story time as opposed to her cube chair (she's a snuggler), even colored a worksheet a little bit (she normally refuses to color at home), went potty and stayed dry no problem, had a snack, and that the other kids just love her! It made my heart so happy to hear that!!!! We're slowly extending her day each week, although I'm pretty certain she could do the full morning with no problem after seeing how much she wanted to stay today! 

She fell asleep in the swing within an hour of being home...preschool is exhausting I guess! 

Mila Goes to Preschool!

Really, I'm trying to be a better blogger, but life just hasn't given me much time lately! With Mama back to work very part time, Zoya on a shortened K day schedule, and now Mila in preschool two mornings a week....I feel like I live in the car! Zoya's and Mila's schools are in opposite directions of one another (with our house being in the middle).  All 3 little ladies are also dancing this year, but now that we've moved it's a 25 minute drive one way. Thankfully they all dance on Tuesdays which is Shawn's day off, so I can shuttle the little ladies over for their class, shuttle them home and swap Shawn Mila and Sofia for Zoya and head back over to dance. Mila and Sofia have outpatient speech once a week, and Mila has outpatient PT once a week as well. Between all that and all the (necessary) kindergarten and preschool planning and revision meetings, I think it's safe to say I don't think I can add one more single spinning plate to what I've got going right now! I can only laugh because 6 months ago my plan was for this year to be our "year of respite...." where we'd lay low and hunker down shutting out the world....but it wasn't to be! Soooo anyways, now that I've given Excuse #398 for not blogging.....hopefully this will make up for it!

Mila is attending preschool two mornings a week. We found a great preschool that we think is going to be a fabulous fit for Mila! We just planned to keep her home this year because most places were already full by the time we moved (apparently people sign their kids up for preschool years in advance or something?!).....anyways, we heard about this school and figured we'd take a visit just to say we tried, and we ended up falling in love with the place! She's in a typical preschool class with a "classroom aide" who is mostly there to assist her, but can also help other kids when Mila is ready for more independence. Our goals for Mila are mostly social goals at this point...being part of a group, listening to adults other than mom and dad, making friends, playing with friends, you know all the typical preschool stuff. We didn't set any academic goals because she's really doing very well just working on those things at home. She can name all of her colors, shapes, numbers to 9, letters (upper and lowercase), and even surprised me with naming some sight words (that I did not work on with her!). That's the good thing about having an older sister I guess! Mila is *nearly* potty trained and has only been wearing pull ups for sleep time or long car rides....she's still heavily reliant on reminders from us, but will tell us many times when she has to go too! She's even learned the 'ol "get out of non preferred activity by playing the potty card" trick!

She was SO excited about going to school. She was literally RUNNING up and down the living room squealing this morning. When she got to school she was like a kid in a candy shop....going from one thing to the next checking it all out and squealing with delight! I may have overstayed my welcome (haha) but when I finally felt okay to leave I said goodbye to Mila and she said bye bye and was easily distracted by a letter puzzle. They said she did great and Shawn says when he went to pick her up she didn't want to leave! So I'd say all-in-all, a successful first day!!

On to the pictures..........

New big girl glasses and she looks so much older....

Put a backpack on the kid and she instantly looks YEARS older! Where is my baby?

Even more years added with this pose...seriously Mila, STOP!

Attempt at a nice pic with Mama, LOL! 

 Being silly with Dada!

Off she goes! 

Just a little video of Mila surprising me with some sight words! 

And just because this is one of my all time favorite pictures! (no its not photoshopped haha)

"Beautiful Night, Beautiful People" 

Sofia Joy and the Watermelon and an update on the Wild Child!

How many pictures can one mama take of her kid eating watermelon? Apparently A LOT! But she's so cute! This was her first successful (non choking) time eating watermelon independently! Woot! That's an area we've worked really hard on and we're finally at a much better place! 

It's hard to believe this girl will be THREE in September! If she is anything like my other two girls, 2 years old was a walk in the park compared to 3 years old. If that's the case, please pray for us! This girl keeps us on our toes! 

I wish I could tell you what happened to her nose, but I really have no idea. She's going to be the kindergartener in stitches on picture day, I can picture it now!

She has a mind of her own, and that's an understatement! I never knew such a little person could challenge me so much, nor did I know I could ever love such a crazy little person the way I love her! I'm learning from this girl....I'm learning a lot!

Her wild emotions means she feels deeper than most....a gift, I think. 

She has a spirit that is unbreakable, even after a 30 minute tantrum she has a way of putting a smile on her face and starting over from that moment on. I'm still working on my ability to do the same (the smile part, not the tantrum, because I've got that part down)! 

Sofia is slow to warm up in new situations and she makes others earn her trust and work for her attention, but when you get a glimpse of the buried treasure inside her heart, you know you've hit the jackpot! She's still slowly crawling out of her shell.

She is opinionated....very very opinionated, about everything. Lucky for me, she is of the opinion that she has the best Mama in the world-so good in fact that she can't stand for me to be out of her sight for more than 2.5 seconds....and she lets the world know when her Mama has left the room, oh yes she does! 

She is so confident and so uncertain all at once.

But when she's confident, and with Mama or Dada by her side, and when she's good and ready, she dives in head first, full of joy!

That mischievous spark has not left her eyes! 

Neither has her stubborn streak determination.

Sofia and I could not be more different from one another and yet the Lord knew somehow we couldn't live without each other! 

Sofia's separation anxiety has gotten a bit more intense since we moved and she's still trying to figure this whole thing out! She loves her new house and the huge yard full of hills! With her sensory processing disorder, she needs lots of proprioceptive input and she's getting better about finding appropriate opportunities to meet those needs. She was pushing this very heavy car through the grass tonight after dinner! 

Just don't, for the love of all that is good in this world, don't ask her to touch shaving cream, or really even LOOK at it! 

"I will not look. I will not look. I will not look (at the teeny tiny miniscule amount of shaving cream on my tray)!"

Promise, I'm not being a mean Mama. Kids with SPD need opportunities to train their brains to process sensory input in a regulated way. Sofia is extremely tactile defensive, but little by little we make progress! Why is this important? It's important so she learns to interact with her world on a daily basis without breaking down due to sensory avoidance. Think foam soap in restrooms, think eating a messy sandwich or meal, think washing your hair, etc. There are so many daily activities that require us to interact with our environments through our tactile senses. And that is my PSA on SPD for today :) My goals with new sensory activities start very small for her. Just watching her sisters play with shaving cream was very distressing for Sofia. So that was the goal today. She smelled the shaving cream and also allowed me to help her touch a very small amount, hand over hand, for 10 seconds. 

She's really starting to babble a lot more and attempt words. She is a follower-only of other children, though, not adults ;) She will do anything her sisters do, so often if I want her to do something I use them as peer models and she will try new activities that way too! So she tries to say all the words her sisters say and lately she has started talking a lot more to us. She has a conversational tone and she clearly knows what she is saying but we haven't a clue. She just laughs and laughs! She has really been loving learning her letters lately and reading "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." She is such a smart cookie!! 

Her curls have returned for summer! 

We've decided not to rush into preschool with this little lady, so once she turns 3 in September we'll lose our in home therapies and probably continue with some low key outpatient speech therapy and I'll work with her a lot at home where she's most comfortable. She needs a year to just be the baby and continue building trust outside of her family at her own pace. 

We love our crazy beautiful Sofia girl, or Sofi-J as we like to call her! 

Long overdue update!!!!

It's about time for an update on all 3 of the Little Bees!! 

Zoya is less than a month away from turning SIX! She has been home just over FOUR years now! I can hardly believe it!! She's had a rocky school year and missed quite a bit of school for all of the health issues she experienced this year. She has a follow up appointment with endocrinology this week and we'll see what their thoughts are at this point with the blood sugar issues. She has still been having some high and low blood sugars. The lows are mostly in the morning if she has been very active the night before. The highs are any time she has any type of sugar, natural or not. We have her on a good nutritional program and she is FINALLY gaining weight again! Before she got sick she was 39.5 pounds and dropped to 34 pounds at her lowest. She started gaining when we figured out the blood sugar issue, but was stuck at about 37 pounds for the longest time. She has now finally broken the 40 pound mark!!!!

We made a decision to withdraw her from preschool for the last month of the year and she's been doing so awesome at home! We've been focusing on celebrating Zoya, having fun together, building her confidence, and helping her to feel like the valuable little person that she is (and doing a little school work in fun ways)! It's been really pretty awesome! She's been much happier again which does my heart good! Each night, at the suggestion of a friend, we've been asking her what her favorite part of the day was. Some of my favorites have been, "doing dishes with Mama, playing doctor with Daddy, snuggling on the couch with sister, dancing with mom and dad, etc." You see, all of her responses showcase activities where she's being loved and valued....isn't that all any child really needs? We're taking a step back and really trying to allow Zoya to experience a time in her life in which she is allowed to simply be. So far it's working out beautifully and this Mama is learning along the way!

Like most other 5-almost-6-year-old little girls, she is really into Frozen! That movie has even jousted "Marmaduke" from it's #1 request spot in Zoya's life! She's really enjoying her dance classes and just finished her second season of performances! She asks if she can go to dance every day! She loves playing with her babies and I love finding them all in random spots around the house, covered up and ready for bed. She is starting to really enjoy writing which is so awesome to see! She draws pictures on her magna doodle and tries to sound out the words and writes a few letters by them to represent the word. She loves books and reading, and she still hates math :) You can often find her listening to music on the iPod. She has been playing dress up with any and all items she can find around the house which is usually pretty humorous! She asks for "cold hot chocolate" when we do our special movie nights (which is just canned coconut milk, stevia, cocoa powder, almond milk, and ice!). Her speech is really coming along and it's great to hear her thoughts more and more! She asks several times a week for me to tell her her "Ukraine story" and lets me hold her like a baby while I tell her the story, adding tiny new details each time. She's still struggling with impulse control and some attention-seeking behaviors, and we're trying our best to help her overcome those things.  She is an amazing little helper around the house with her sisters and often anticipates their needs before they are even known to me! She is really so very intuitive and sensitive to other people's needs. We are praying for guidance to make the best decision for her educationally-speaking for next school year. She is all around an amazing, sweet, almost-6-year-old little girl who has so much love to offer this world!

Mila turned 3 in March and has been home for 2.5 years already! It seems like yesterday she was a tiny frail little infant and we didn't even know if she'd live to see 3 years old! The Lord has amazed us with all he had (and continues to have) in store for her life! She participates in dance classes as well and will be starting "real" dance classes in the fall (i.e. without Mama). The dance studio is her absolute FAVORITE place in the world. I mean seriously, if I gave her the choice between the dance studio and a room full of veggie straws, she'd still pick the dance studio ;) She loves her teacher Miss Erica! Any time we drive anywhere NEAR the dance studio, Mila starts cawing like a bird from the back seat....really what she is trying to say is, "Erica, Erica, Erica." It comes out "Caw, Caw, Caw!!" and really loud so she's sure I hear her! She gets mad if we drive past the studio if we're going somewhere else!

Mila's health has been phenomenal! She is extremely tall for her age and at the top of the typical growth charts for height and weight! She likes to stay up later than the other girls and wake up earlier! But come nap time, we can always count on her to be out like a light in 2 seconds flat! She sleeps with her lovey, Pooh Bear and still takes a binky for naps and nighttime (shhhh). She has an obsession with Pete the Cat and his books and not a day goes by where she doesn't ask for them to be read to her! We call her our nerdy professor baby because the "rewards" she likes to work for are her color/shape/number/letter flashcards!!!! She has learned all of her colors, shapes, numbers, and about half of the letters in the alphabet. She's doing outpatient physical therapy and outpatient speech therapy, both once per week. She loves speech therapy and HATES physical therapy which is exactly why I asked Shawn to start taking her to PT HAHA! He works through it with her ;) Her gross motor skills have really come along, but that continues to be the most challenging area for her! She is starting to pick up her pace of walking, and beginning to feel more comfortable on various terrains. She can now climb a 4-step ladder to the slide (when she wants to), nearly independently!  Her motor planning difficulties still make life hard for her, but we've seen promising improvements there as well! She can repeat lots of words and sounds and request familiar items/ask for familiar needs to be met. We are working on using speech more spontaneously, as well as processing receptive language! The plan we had in place was for Mila to start preschool in the fall, but we are taking a step back and reevaluating all of our educational plans for the girls. Prayers are appreciated in that area!

Mila absolutely adores and looks up to her big sister Zoya and at times we can see her trying to be a big sister for Sofia, too! She has a smile that can light up the entire room, paired with the loudest, screechiest happiest noise you'll ever hear! She's pretty happy most of the time, but sometimes when her routine is changed up with no notice she doesn't appreciate that very much ;) She is now and always has been, a mama's girl! She would prefer if her and I just sat in a chair all day and sang songs, read books, gave tickles, and hugs and kisses! She still sometimes cries when I've been gone and then return home, as if she can't process the emotions she's feeling with being so relieved and happy I'm home. It's pretty hysterical! She gives puppy dog kisses with her tongue out and I hope she never stops kissing that way! She's becoming more opinionated lately and if we are somewhere she'd rather not be, she just says, "bye bye" and waves, like okay, let's get outta here :) Her love is so refreshing!

Sofia is 2.5 years old and has been home for about 16 months now. She is extremely observant and learns just about everything she knows in a "monkey-see, monkey-do" approach, which is both good and bad! Don't ask her, however, to demonstrate any of her skills-because, well, sister is about as stubborn as they come!!!! I like to call it "persistent" and surely that skill set will come in handy later down the road, right??!! She is Zoya's little shadow and pretty much follows her around all day trying to mimic her. Those two are like magnets, but it usually doesn't end well! They know how to push each other's buttons, but they also know how to give each other the best hugs ever! Sofia also mimics Mila, mostly in the speech area. That means if Mila has a somewhat incorrect pronunciation of a word, well that's how Sofia says it too! It's pretty cute. Sofia's speech is still very limited, but no worries, that girl can get her point across other ways.....OH YES she can! She is a definite Tom-boy thus far-into getting messy, daredevil stunts, driven-by-a-motor, and just looking like a hot mess 5 minutes after I get her ready for the day! Oh and if you notice in pictures her pant legs rolled up, she suddenly can't stand to have pants covering her calves! LOL!

Sofia has been in a stage of separation-anxiety and stranger-fear for...let me think....a very long time now! She doesn't enjoy dance class, or any other social situations, unless she can have 1-1 attention and comfort from Shawn or I. We've been trying to make sure, when going to any social gatherings/situations (which pretty much means anywhere outside of our house-or even at our house with new people present), that Shawn and I are both present, or that she gets to have those experiences with one or the other of us. It's a balancing act for sure! Right now she just needs to continue building the trust with us, and learn to feel safe in new situations. It's not reasonable at this point in her emotional development, to ask her to participate in activities without being able to access our comfort the majority of the time...although we keep trying little by little! If she is able to get as much comfort as she needs from us early on in new situations, recently she's been venturing away from us, and as long as we don't move ;) she's fine! She has recently done well having a couple of sitters at the house for short periods of time, so there is hope! She has a temper like I've never known before and we continue working with her to teach her how to self-soothe and not just explode when upset....but then again she's 2. She has to do everything her own way, which is usually the hard way ;) Sensory processing disorder also greatly impacts her on a daily basis and we continue to do therapy to overcome that!

She loves doing puzzles and any activities that require her to problem-solve. She will sit and play with wooden puzzles/peg boards, etc. for an hour at a time. I love watching her thought process because she is very precise about the way she does things and she always has a very methodical way of doing things! I watched her today as she put colored shapes on colored pegs and I noticed, after she's done this correctly for months now, that she was starting out with the right colors, but then toward the end she'd put the wrong colors on. I watched and watched and figured out what she as doing! She was trying to make each tower the same height! She is so creative and definitely thinks outside the box! She loves stacking things, cleaning up around the house, and closing any and all open doors, drawer, or cupboards! If someone leaves something out of place, we can count on her to find it's home! My favorite was when she picked up Shawn's hats he left out and carried them over to the trash....sometimes I feel like that too, Sofia ;)  She is the life of the party, as long as the party happens in her comfort zone! My favorite moments with Sofia are when she allows me to hold her and rock her and sing, "you are my sunshine." I could sing it 100 times to her and she'd stay there perfectly still....at the end of every round she looks at me with those big beautiful blue eyes and a half smile and says "mah" (more). She knows all of her colors/shapes/numbers and about half of her letters, too. She has in home speech therapy and occupational therapy (mostly focused on her sensory needs at this point). We have decided that Sofia will not start preschool in the fall, as she will newly turn 3, and emotionally she's just not ready yet!

I forgot to share this picture from February, but this is a picture of the girls at a Parent/Child dance class :) It's our happy place! Surely Miss Rachel and Miss Erica won't mind showing their face on the blog ;) 

Family update: We are in the process of some changes and trying to follow the Lord's plan. We will be moving this summer as long as we sell this house! It went on the market a few days ago and it's been tough trying to keep this place clean with 3 tiny tornadoes and also being asked to show the house with less than an hours notice! I do not wish to do that again! We aren't going anywhere far, but excited for this new beginning, if it all works out! More to come about that when plans are more finalized! We are so excited for summer after this long horrendous winter we've had here! I guess we've got bragging rights for the #1 snowiest city in the U.S. this year.....that's gotta count for something, right?

So with all that said, hopefully you can understand why I've been a little more absent than usual around this blog!

I took these pictures on Mother's Day and didn't get any pictures of me with the girls...oops! Shawn worked so I couldn't bug him to take some pictures! I'll need a do-over I guess!

Wow that was a long one! Nap time is over, here we go! Thanks for checking in even though I've not been updating regularly! We appreciate the well wishes and prayers for our family! We are so very blessed!