2013, I'm ready for you!

And we're back from a very busy and wonderful time away for Christmas! We went up to Edmonton the weekend before Christmas to spend some time with Brian's family, and then on Christmas Eve we made the trek up north to hang out with my family for a few days. The drive was so good - we had been on the road for 4 hours when Brian and I looked at each and wondered what was wrong with our kids because they had been so quiet! And not because they were sleeping, because apparently the car seat is not the right place to sleep, even for a baby boy. We were just thankful he was pretty quiet:). We had a great time visiting family and some friends, and we were back on the road on Friday. The trip home was not as smooth, but not the worst. Saturday morning our kids had their Christmas morning! It was great fun:). Adam seemed to love his bus and Lynsey was thrilled to have an art easel where she could finally unleash the creativity inside her:). Nathan didn't care too much, but he does seem to like his table! Yesterday we headed out to Brian's aunt and uncle's to have our Penner Christmas gathering. The kids did pretty well, although I think Nathan especially is just done with traveling and just having tons of people around all the time. Adam had his moments, too, but over all he coped very well through all our traveling.

Today we get to celebrate our little Adam turning 3! We are having some cake later (will post those pictures later tonight hopefully) but we already gave him his bongo drums which he seems to like:). Unfortunately, like with most of his toys, he showed some initial interest and went back to shaking his bubble stick. I would love it if we could get rid of these toys that he just shakes and doesn't really play with, but he would just find a substitute so there's no point. He is getting better at playing functionally, so I'm hoping the hand flapping will just phase out (fingers crossed!).

At Brian's family Christmas, his Mom asked us to share highlights from our year. It made me think back to 2012 and some of the stuff that happened, and I realized that it's actually been a pretty hard year. We did have our wonderful little Nathan back in February which is obviously a highlight, but the months that followed were very difficult months. Adam grew increasingly harder to deal with as his frustration at not being able to communicate properly grew, and Nathan was just not a content baby. This was the first summer since the kids were born that I didn't go out with them most days because it was just so much harder with 3 (even though Nathan had become much happier by this time) and I found myself feeling a lot less connected to friends then I have in the past. This fall was dominated with Adam's assessment and learning that he did indeed have Autism as we had suspected for a while, and scrambling to get him into a preschool program so we could start his therapy ASAP. I do feel like I am getting a bit of a better grip on things now that Adam is in a good program where he is doing well. Nathan is in a really high maintenance stage, but he'll be walking soon which will really help him. Lynsey is such a sharp, wonderful little girl that loves school. We're in a good place I think. When I look ahead to 2013, I feel like it might be a year of change for us, but it will (hopefully) not be quite as hard as this year has been. I guess we'll see what it holds!

Happy New Year everyone!

Much Happier Times!

The last two weeks have been much happier than the previous two weeks! Everyone is well with the odd lingering cough here and there. It is so good to see my kids (especially Adam) happy and back being themselves.

I will start my report with Nathan! He is doing much the same as he was at my last post. He is high maintenance, but I think he is making some steps towards some independence. He can pull himself up in certain situations and is cruising (albeit slowly) along furniture now. His naps continue to not be the greatest - rarely does he sleep past two in the afternoon (I put him down around 12:30 for his afternoon nap - early nap is necessary because of Lynsey's pick up time, but he IS allowed to sleep until 2:45 and he never does!). It's a bit frustrating, because we find him super whiny by supper time. He actually still has a third nap some days because I just can't take it and still goes down at 7pm for bed, so I don't know what's up with him. Anyway, he's still cute and as long as you're doing what he wants you to do, happy as can be:).

We had parent/teacher interviews with Lynsey last week Friday. I knew that Lynsey's teacher wouldn't be gushing over what a joy Lynsey is to have in class, but I wasn't expecting quite so much negativity. She really didn't have a single nice thing to say about her actually! We are well aware of Lynsey's weaknesses and that she has issues with submitting to authority, but she's in Kindergarten and I was expecting at least a bit of encouragement. The teacher sounded really annoyed because apparently Lynsey is not following her instructions and when she does, it's not in a timely manner. She gave us this assessment that she had done on her, and she marked her as having "difficulty" in communication, social skills, and gross motor skills. I was like, whaaaa?? The communication one she basically explained as being because she doesn't listen to instructions, which really is by choice and not because she is not developmentally where she should be (which is what this test is supposed to indicate). The social thing also came back to classroom conduct (ironically the reason she isn't doing as well as she should is because she's talking too much to her friends! Go figure!). The gross motor mark is just completely ridiculous in my mind - I have met few kids Lynsey's age that are as agile as her physically. She was being held back by her third grade partner for the Terry Fox run!

It was a very discouraging experience. She did say that she recognizes that Lynsey has the skills to do much better than she's doing, so at least she doesn't think Lynsey is cognitively delayed. I did ask about the quality of her work and there again she was very negative. She showed us some of Lynsey's drawing and colouring and apparently it did not meet Kindergarten standards. I told her that I had seen immense improvement in her drawing and colouring since she started school because she had never really shown much interest before. When other kids were colouring, she was off running around or playing a game or who knows what else. It just threw us off a bit, because you always want your kid to have a teacher that is on the same wavelength as your child and can see the good in them. I am determined not to be the parent that blames everything on the teacher, but I will just work with Lynsey on our end so that she can reach her potential. She does need to learn to follow instructions and do things that are not necessarily the most exciting to her. She is perfectly capable of excelling in Kindergarten and our hope is that she will turn it around and get better.

Now to Adam! A lot has been going on with him! We had a bit of an issue last Tuesday - the bus company had somehow heard that Brian had picked him up early on Monday due to him still feeling sick. They decided that they would therefore not pick him up on Tuesday morning, without hearing from us or letting us know their decision. It was quite the shmuzzle, but in the end, the bus driver had to turn around and come back and get him after the dispatcher talked to the school. It was a bit ridiculous - I think I will make the call myself about whether or not my boy is well enough to go to school!

He has been doing extremely well. This last week, he has joined them for circle time on his own from the very beginning and stayed for the entire time. The teachers have commented that he has been doing so well since he started feeling better, and is giving them more eye contact and engaging with them more than ever. I had been noticing this before I heard it from them, though - I feel like this week especially, he looked at me more often and for much longer than usual. He has also been much chattier as well, although it's still very much just repeating things he's heard instead of forming his own sentences. Today, he looked straight and me and said something (I wish I could remember what it was). It stood out to me because he rarely looks right at us to tell us something. He might start out looking at us but he always looks away. He is joining in on some games Lynsey plays and allows us to join his world and play with him more and more. I feel so optimistic right now! It's a great feeling! Last Sunday we brought him to Sunday School only to find out that they had changed Sunday School rooms and joined the two and three year old classes. He screamed for the first 5 - 10 minutes, but as soon as Brian joined us in the class, he was fine. Today, it was just me and he only cried for 2 minutes. I am pretty sure that I will only have to be with him for one or two more classes and he'll be fine. Yesterday, we took him to my hairdresser to get him a much needed haircut. He was definitely anxious and got really upset, but he was so much more manageable than the last time we got his hair cut! The hair dresser was able to give him a great hair cut (he was really good - I will never take Adam to Beaner's again!). It was just another indicator that he IS getting better all the time. I am thankful once again that we were able to get him a spot at New Heights for preschool! He absolutely loves it and it's been amazingly good for him. It's nice to have some hope for the future:).

We are leaving on Thursday for Christmas with both families! Here's to much good food, good visiting and hopefully good traveling:). Merry Christmas!