Family Time

We've been lazy and food-stuffed over the past few days.  We're hanging out in pajamas for way too long, avoiding the outside world, hanging around with family, eating leftovers and enjoying the calm.

But we will be venturing out soon.  In the meantime, some glimpses into the last few days at our house.

Hanging with Daddy, Grandpa Mike and Grandma Pam

Making pumpkin pie.  My, what a good helper!

Story time!

One of my favorite parts of the week has been watching Cora gradually get more comfortable around Grandpa Mike.  In the past year or so she's been more nervous around men than women. And she doesn't get to see her Grandpa as often as we'd like.  So she usually keeps her distance.  But this time, she came around to some snuggles, and even christened him with his very own name:  "Bop bop," said while signing "Grandpa."  Pretty cute, indeed.

Baby Adelyn is getting so big!

Cousins.  This is about as close as they get.  Notice how Cora needs to be held in place.

Uncle Nick is so funny.

My sweet little niece.

Hoping your time with family and friends was as lovely as ours.

Transitions

We've been on a pretty long and slow path in our quest to get a decent night's sleep around here.  I've blogged about it before, although it's been a while.  And although things have improved, it's been a constant struggle.

Before Cora had her tonsils and adenoids out in early 2012, it was not uncommon for her to wake up 50 times a night and to need help to get back to sleep every time.  When you're singing Hallelujah when you get a solid 1-hour block of sleep, you can resort to pretty desperate measures.  Ours included doing whatever it took to get her to sleep as quickly as possible. 

So we co-slept.  Since she had significant sleep apnea, it also helped alleviate our nervousness over her breathing.

Since her tonsillectomy, things got a little better.  But still, she'd awaken quite a few times a night and always need help going back to sleep, often waking for hours in the middle of the night. 

Eventually, she got a mattress on the floor next to our bed, where she'd spend part of the night, and then come in with us, snuggled up face-to-face with her Daddy until morning.

But yesterday, we took a big step:  we got her a real toddler bed and we moved it INTO HER ROOM! Cora's room at our new house has been a play room up until this point.  But now, it's her honest to goodness bedroom, and she couldn't be more thrilled.  (You may notice Cora's unusual shirt-wearing style in these photos: she was also learning to take off her shirt yesterday.)

We're not expecting any sudden or drastic miracles.  Last night she took a long time to get to sleep, and then slept in her room until midnight or so, when she came back in with us.  And I imagine it will take some time.  Our hope is obviously that she can sleep longer in her own bed and get used to being in her room. 

But this is our first real big step.  It feels exciting and a little scary too.  While I was having my own pangs yesterday realizing that I'd be going to sleep in a room without an easy-waking little goose in the corner, I suddenly didn't feel ready.

And I wasn't the only one, apparently.  Even Nick had his own moment of sadness, as he looked at the empty space in the corner of our room where her little mattress had been.

But it's time.  Right now my little girlie is snoozing away in her own little bed, having her mid-day repose.

I'm crossing our fingers for the three of us.

Noodles

Does learning to slurp up noodles count as a milestone?

It seems to me that it should.  I'm sure Cora's occupational therapist and speech therapists would be proud. 

 Last night my good friend came over for dinner and some catch-up time.  I spent the afternoon making chicken pho from scratch.  There's not much that satisfies in the same way, especially on a crisp fall day.

Photo by Christine Shelton

Usually I give Cora's pho a spin in the blender, like she wants the rest of her soups.  But last night she had nothing to do with that.  She wanted to eat it like the rest of us did.  Watching her sit at the table and feed herself with a fork like a big girl (overlooking the noodles I had to scrape off the floor afterward, of course), makes me pretty happy.  It's not often that she shares the same meal that we do in the same form, either due to her allergies, her issues with texture, or her picky nature.

My little eater is coming up in the world.  And she knows good soup and good company.

Why I'm Still Nursing My Almost-3-Year-Old

I've been having a bit of blogging withdrawal, and will be writing some more in the next few days.

But for now, check out my new post our ongoing breastfeeding story on What to Expect.

Why I'm Still Nursing My Almost 3-Year-Old.

My Favorite Super Hero- 31 for 21

Well, 31 for 21 has come to an end.  Down Syndrome Awareness Month has only a few short hours left in it.

I realize that many of my posts don't have much to do with Down syndrome.  It is something that is a part of our lives, yes, and it affects many things.  But it is certainly not the biggest thing.

Down syndrome awareness is a good step.  You have to first be aware to begin the step that is most important: acceptance.

There is still a long way to go, but I have a lot of hope.  There are many people working hard to get there every day and are helping pave the path that my daughter will be walking.  We are a part of it, and you can be a part of it too.


But it is Halloween, after all, so I can't sign off without sharing a few photos of my sugar loving girl on her first happy Halloween.  In the past she's been dressed up and taken to parties where she mostly just cried.  But today, she got to eat her first Halloween candy (poor deprived little girl.)  And she mostly put up with us taking her trick-or-treating to a few houses in our neighborhood.  (Although she did yell and scream when I gave candy to the kids that came to our door.  She did not want me to share "her" candy.)

I give you the Silly Signer.  Yes, it is our made-up super hero.  Or super villain, depending on her mood.

Humoring me.

The Silly Signer is off!

We told her that trick or treating involves candy, so she's pretty excited.

The pumpkins next door.  Cora loved them.

Feeling a little nervous outside with all the kids running around.

She needed me to carry her to the doors.

You can't see it, but she's grabbing a handful of Skittles. And showing off her "I love you" cape.

The Silly Signer strikes again!  Here she is running off with the Skittles.

 

Running away from me because she thought I was going to take away her candy.

Happy Halloween!

Making Big Strides- 31 for 21

When it comes to life with Cora, you really get to practice patience.

Although I can often see her making steady progress in some areas, it is often painfully slow.  It's not uncommon to find that it can take her a year or more to master learning to do something that most children do in a month or two.  So we have learned to appreciate the little accomplishments, the small baby steps that gradually add up.

Right now, though, it seems like she's making some incredible progress in several areas.  It's really exciting to see.

Probably the most obvious development is in walking.  Since I came back after my weekend away from her, she is suddenly walking around a lot more.  Probably more than half the time while she's in the house.  When we're outside, I still hold her hand much of the time, since it's much harder to walk on uneven surfaces.  But she is getting there, and it is an exciting thing to behold.  She's also been climbing like crazy.  Just this morning, I turned around to find her sitting in her high chair trying to buckle herself in.  Yikes.

And then there's speech.  Communication has always been a strength for Cora, but speech has been fairly difficult.  Although she has a large receptive and signing vocabulary, she has a hard time making the specific sounds needed to form spoken words.  She started saying recognizable words shortly after turning one, and although she says quite a number of words, her articulation hadn't improved much until recently.  Now she is learning to pronounce a couple of ending consonants, like "cute" and "up."  She is starting to figure out diphthongs, like in "hi," and "bye," and many of her words are starting to sound a little clearer.  It's still a slow process, but it's been wonderful to see.

She is even improving her fine motor skills.  In addition to feeding herself pretty well, she can now put on her socks, pants (most of the way up), and sometimes get on her shoes and shirt.  She loves to help cook and clean, and definitely seems to have the "clean gene" that only certain people in my family are blessed with.

During pumpkin carving last night she was thrilled.  She drew on her pumpkin, helped scoop out the seeds, put the lid off and on, and played shape sorter with the shapes that Nick helped her cut out.  It was pretty fun for me to see her actually get excited about carving her own pumpkin. 

The glee on her face when she saw the jack-o-lanterns lit on the front porch was pretty cute, indeed, and she loved showing her pumpkin off to her Early Intervention teachers this morning.

It's pretty exciting to see this explosion of learning and development.  She seems proud of the fact that she is able to do more and more all by herself.  And, even though I feel a little wistful watching her grow up, it feels good to know that even though she is taking her time, she is getting there.

The Missing Pieces- 31 for 21

This is another recycled post from just after Mother's Day earlier this year.

I've been thinking a lot about all the mothers in my life: particularly my own amazing mom and my sisters.  I send this out to them.

This Mother's Day weekend our little trio took a whirlwind trip to the beautiful Oregon Coast.  There's just something about the ocean. Something cleansing, something that somehow sweeps the cobwebs from my heart and inspires me.
 

We played on the beach, watched Cora point out the birds and dogs, roll around in (and periodically taste) the sand, and then grab our hands and "run" straight for the water again and again.  We laughed and played and had a great time.

This morning I took a solo walk on the beach, the air crisp and the wind blowing, the clouds filling the sky in a way that felt just like home.

Alone is not something I get to do much of, and it's something that feeds me.  It's something I have always needed, and something that I was afraid would change too much after I became a mother.   I walked the sand toward the craggy rocks, breathing the cool salt air, setting goals to work more "me" time into my life, and thinking of how much becoming a mother has transformed me.

A few weeks ago while watching a drama on TV, a scene where a mother's adult son passed away had me in almost a panic.  I could feel her anguish.  I could see Cora on that table, and the pain was unbearable. In that moment, for just a few seconds, I thought that if I could do it all over again there was no way I could handle it.  I felt that being a mother opened up way too much possibility for anguish; that the mere idea of losing Cora hurt so much that never becoming a mother sounded like a better alternative to that possibility.

According to my husband, Don Juan, sorceror and mentor to Carlos Castenada told of "seeing" peoples' souls.  He talked of being able to immediately identify parents, because they were inevitably missing parts of their selves; holes in their centers that their children had removed.

And it rings so true.  Apart from how much motherhood has redefined my days and my values and my perspectives, it is truly like Cora has taken a piece of my soul, one that I couldn't get back if I tried.  Losing a part of oneself like that is terrifying, yet is still the most exquisitely beautiful thing I have ever done. And so it is for us, as mothers. We live our lives, so changed... tethered to the souls that are parts of us, that have taken pieces of our selves, whether these lives are with us or not.

It's with those thoughts that I snuggled Cora in my arms tonight, and read her book after book after book.  Sometimes the days are hard, the struggles frustrating, the experience lonely.  But oh how I love this little child who has stolen my heart.