Update: Mila

I'm going to blog about each of the girls separately starting with Miss Mila, ONLY because I have the funniest video ever of her from last night and I want to share it! She keeps us laughing and is definitely the class clown in the family! I grabbed my phone real quick while we were eating dinner last night as I watched this unfold......

(I think blogger is having a problem with videos, working on getting them to play!)

Most kids feed the food they don't want to the dog....Mila's learned she's not allowed to do that so I guess she thought she'd try feeding it to Sofia ;) Apparently Mila didn't like her dinner, or maybe she just wanted to share with Sofia! Either way, she knew she was caught in the act, but tried to smooth it over! 

You can see how she tries to get out of trouble by being funny as well! How could I possible not laugh?

She has all of a sudden decided she is ready to walk like her sisters! She is consistently taking 5-6 steps from her chair or from a standing position and is getting closer to starting to take 7-10 steps more consistently! She is able to push to standing from the middle of the floor and take 3-4 steps now and she's learning to put her arms out to catch herself when she falls instead of diving face first!!! We are SO very proud of her. After hearing some specialists say she may never walk without the use of a walker, you can imagine how excited we are as we experience every single step with her! I can just hear her saying, "Oh ya? that's what you think? I'll show YOU!" We're still using her walker for long distances because she tires VERY quickly. Her goal right now is to build up endurance. With such low muscle tone it really takes a lot out of her to even take those 7-10 steps, or to walk in her walker for a few minutes. 

She is starting to "talk" more. We're using a "total communication" approach with her, which means we are teaching signs, spoken words, and using PECS (a separate blog post coming about that). She calls appropriately for mama and dada, says "more," makes dog, duck, cow, and cat noises, says "beep beep" for car, and has a word approximation for "help." She's starting to initiate her own play activities more frequently and calling for us to help her with a toy when needed. She's starting to use more and more signs. Her favorite lately seems to be "go" when we stop during our walks or stop at a red light! I walked into her room and saw her signing all the words to one of her favorite signing time songs (it was playing on CD)...when I asked her to show me she refused! That is how she earned the nickname "Ninjabean" from my friend Jo! She's able to feed herself a small meal with a fork and is doing pretty well with her spoon too (it's just REALLY REALLY messy!!!). 

Her new favorite game for the past few weeks is to pop up in her crib as I'm getting her room ready for bedtime. She pops right up after I lay her down, throws out her binky and just LAUGHS hysterically! I run over and tickle her and she burries her face in the pillow, repeat (as many times as I allow haha). She has the girliest laugh and most high pitch scream I've ever heard, too! I just love her little personality. 

She gives THE BEST hugs and snuggles too, every single time I hold her. It doesn't get any better than a hug from this sweet chunky love! Speaking of chunky.....Mila is nowhere on the down syndrome growth charts, and it toward the top of the typical charts these days! She is 31 pounds and 36 inches (which puts her only 6 pounds and 6 inches under her FIVE year old sister!) Can you believe our tiny 7 pound baby girl is now at the other end of the charts? I love her fat baby legs, but as she's moving more I can already start to see her slimming down and losing some of that baby fat......good news is she has a lot left to go :) 

We were sad to find out her eye surgery was not successful :( They did muscle surgery to try and help her from "posturing" which I posted about before. Basically she tips her head way back to get her nystagmus to stop so she can see clearly. This is her "null point." The surgery attempted to change her null point so that her head posture was in a more natural position. We were informed that about 25% of kids need a second surgery to completely correct the problem but were also told we'd most likely see a ton of improvement after just one surgery. At first we thought we saw some improvement because she wasn't posturing as much to watch TV, then we realized she wasn't doing that because she couldn't see much-she was having some swelling due to an allergic reaction from the ointment :( So she has another appointment in a couple of months to discuss a second surgery :( 

 Waiting for surgery....

These were apparently the smallest socks they had and she HAD to wear them they said, okay then! I guess they double as pants! 

Clowning around! 

 Not so fun! 

Poor dolly babe....this was, to date, her easiest surgery....figures it didn't work LOL! 

And if you notice Mila rockin' some cool purple headphones and mama's old school iPod, it's an attempt to meet her auditory sensory seeking and decrease her whining.....first quiet Target trip with Mila..... :) 

We've been busy with lots of therapies. We're in the final "6 months until she's 3 and ages out of early intervention" stretch and have added and increased some of her therapies to really give her as much as we can during these last 6 months. When she turns 3 the only way she will get services is if we enroll her in preschool. Having a March birthday, we're not sure we'll send her that late in the school year....we always have the option of outpatient therapies through our insurance, as well, but the in home therapies are just so nice! I'm going to be taking her and Sofia to a mommy and me dance class once a week and I think they're going to love it! 

Here's a picture of Mila with Uncle Bub and his AWESOME SHIRT! My friend took this picture of Mila pouting on the playground and Bub had it made into a shirt...so funny! Equally as awesome is Mila picking her nose in this photo. 

And clearly Daddy has been letting them watch WWF...well okay, he was at work when this pictures was taken, and I might have encouraged their craziness by laughing right along with them.....Sofia has no idea what's about to hit her hahaha!

(when you can stand from the middle of the couch, it must be counted as "therapy" and so I couldn't tell her to behave and stop jumping on the couch! P.S. no babies were harmed)

I continually look back on our journey to Mila and on how the Lord filled us in at the very last minute with details about her health and needs and just how sick she was. I know, for a fact, had we known that before meeting her, we'd have run the other way. Oh it breaks my heart thinking of life without her....I'm so thankful the Lord knows our hearts best and that His plans are better than anything we could ever imagine! Having been through all of her surgeries, sleepless nights, health scares, wondering if she'd even LIVE, well all that has bonded us to this beautiful child in ways that most people can't understand, unless they've lived it. I find myself trying to imagine preschool and letting her go a little more as she grows up, and I just can't imagine. Even though she's our middle child, she'll always be my baby....

Up next.....an overdue Sofia update......she IS turning TWO in less than a week, ya know! OH MY! 

A Sign Language Post

With both girls we used sign language to help them with their communication since we knew speech would take longer to develop. I've heard the argument many times that teaching children sign language will hinder their speech, to that I say you're wrong! I'm sure there is some fancy research out there somewhere but I haven't looked. I don't need to because I've seen so many children learn sign language first and then take off with their speech later. 

Teaching my girls to COMMUNICATE is far more important to me than teaching them to speak, initially. But teaching communication is also so important for when that speech development DOES come! Depending on what type of therapist you come across you will hear so many different things about signing in regards to speech development. Some therapists will say to teach children very basic signs such as "more," "all done," "eat," "dada," etc. This is the path we've taken with both girls. Some therapists will say to only teach very specific signs, for example, you shouldn't teach them just to say "eat" you should teach them all the different food signs. Well based on their cognitive development as well as fine motor development when we started signing, we had to start on a more broad spectrum and then get more specific. For example, we started with teaching "eat" and when Zoya got really good with that then we would start teaching some specific food signs such as "banana." 

I think just the initial idea of teaching the girls that a sign gets them what they want is so important! "More" has been a really good sign for us to accomplish that with both girls. We've already seen decreased grunting and yelling and frustration from Mila because she understands that she is communicating her needs effectively. This makes her happy. Mila, like many babies learning sign, started using "more" for many things that she wanted (like when she wants my phone or a certain toy), but it was effective and we will expand upon that. They say it's like baby babble. When babies start babbling they babble the same sounds to communicate many different things until their speech develops further.  This is "sign language babble." Don't google that term because I just made it up haha. 

Here is Mila signing "More" and then "Eat." She started by needing hand over hand prompting to sign both of these words. She got really good with "more" and I would request that she sign "more" for bites of her snacks and meals. When she got that down and was doing it without prompting, I added "Eat."

Then she learned to sign "More Eat" all together. Today she was signing "More Eat" with no prompting from me (other than just waiting her out). 

I was talking to a friend who has a child with special needs as well and she said, "You know when we post things like that video you posted of Mila signing, many people don't realize that to get there you worked on that skill for every single meal and snack for months." She is exactly right. And I guess I didn't really ever think of that. Maybe that is why I am so proud when they learn something new, because I know how hard WE worked at it together. I know how many repetitions it took to cement the skill. So bear with me as I brag about my kids because they work so hard and when they meet milestones and accomplishments that might not seem like a big deal to parents of typical kids, it's definite cause for celebration here!

Creative Communicator and P**p on the Potty!

Shawn and I have been so impressed with Zoya's communication lately! She has such a hard time verbalizing what she wants/needs, but she very creatively makes her point known! She uses sign language quite a bit and we understand what she wants 95% of the time. Tonight we were taking a walk and she was in her little push car. She kept saying mama and moving her hands up and down in front of her-alternating arms up and down. I didn't know what she was saying. She kept doing it and I said, baby I just don't know what you're telling me. She then pointed to her foot and then pointed at the pavement. I said OOHHHH, you are signing WALK (and she was doing the correct sign for walk, but I had just never seen her do it before)! I said, you want to get out and walk? And she smiled huge and said YAH! and giggled. She is so proud of herself when she is able to communicate what she wants to us and even giggles with glee when we repeat back to her what she was trying to communicate! Zoya often makes up her own signs for things such as "upstairs" and then we have to play a guessing game trying to figure it out, but when we do, boy is it worth it...she gets so very excited! Zoya's expressive speech has been her biggest area of difficulty since coming home. I was pleasantly surprised to find out she tested around a 22 month level expressively in her recent evaluation. A lot of that has to do with how many signs she knows...that counts toward expressive language skills I guess. I feel so bad when she tries so hard to tell us something verbally and we just can't understand her...but thankfully she doesn't get too frustrated and finds another way to tell us! Although she continues to have difficulty with her speech, she has had a burst of words lately.  Some of her recent favorite words are "later" (pronounced laaay-llllurh), "dog" (sounds like duck), "up" (says uppa), yellow (llll-ehl-llll-ahhhh), purple (pur-bah), NO (changed from nah-nah to a very strong NO!), M & M (nem-en-em-en-em). I love hearing her little voice!

And onto the second part of the title....P**p on the potty!!! She was terrified to go on the potty and only ever went one other time a long time ago which I think was a pure accident....every time since, when I know she has to go I put her on the potty and she refuses to go. Then she will hide (or wait until nap time and go in her crib) and poop in her pull up. Tonight I knew she had to go so I put her on and bribed her with Signing Time-School and a cookie....nothing. So I took her off and she started going in her pull up, we ran to the potty and she refused to go more. Off the potty once more and she started going again, back to the potty and she starts crying and grabbing me looking terrified. I hugged her and comforted her (by the way why are kids scared to poop on the potty? LOL). She finally finished her business on the potty!!! She jumped up and grabbed me tight and then she looked in the potty and said "pah-pah" (for p**p) and started clapping!! We called daddy in to celebrate and you woulda thought we just won a million bucks! Oh the little accomplishments that are such big milestones. And to think at this time last year we were wide awake in the middle of the night stressing about our second court hearing a year ago tomorrow praying the judge would name us as Zoya's parents!! Who would have guessed a year later we'd be having a p**p celebration!!!

And to celebrate the day we were legally named Zoya's Mama and Daddy (a year ago tomorrow)...we are going to see ELMO LIVE!!! Oh boy! I hope she loves him as much in real life as she does on TV!!

My Funny Girl

True Story:

Tonight after Zoya was watching her usual signing times before bed, I was carrying her upstairs. I yelled to Shawn, "Hey can you put her milk in the fridge?" No response. So I stopped and said, "It's on the couch." Still nothing. So I loudly say, "HELLOOOO??" He answers "Yaahhh". And then my sweet girl signs, "PAY ATTENTION." LOL I love this girl!

(These pictures were taken a week ago....as I look out my window now the snow is coming down like crazy and it's frigid....and my friend Shelly in Texas tells me it will be 80 there tomorrow...I can't even remember what it feels like to be warm!).

P.S. Those of you who've following for a while will remember SASHA. He was one of the kids in Zoya's groupa who we just fell in love with. He had a family at the time and then lost his family. Well friends, right now his family is on the overnight train in Eastern Europe on their way to meet him in a few short hours. They are also adopting Ana who I talked about in THIS POST (at the time we thought she was a boy). God is good and I am so happy to see those two children so close to meeting their forever families!!