Alina's progress

I haven't written for awhile on how Alina is progressing and where she is at now. She is, in one word, amazing! When we took her from the baby house she was very small. She couldn't stand up by herself, let alone walk or run. And I had no idea how many words she understood or if she could even speak any words (in Kazakh of course). Today she has gained the weight she needed, grown much taller, and is a very healthy little girl. She can walk and even run after her sisters. And she understands a lot of English words! She will follow simple directions, and you had better be prepared if you say the words "eat", "bath", or "shoes"! She will go running for them all=) She is even saying a few words, but only when she wants too. She will not say them when prompted, but just looks at us like we don't know what we are talking about. She manages to communicate what she wants to me just fine with hand gestures and her eyes. She has such expressive eyes.
We are seeing a pediatrician who is familiar with adopted children and have seen no need as yet to go to the International Adoption clinic here. Our caregiver has said that if she sees a need she will refer us there. Alina is on target for her age on everything but speech, but since that is very understandable given until 3 months ago all she heard was Kazakh, we are not concerned at this point. She has proven to be a very bright little girl and a quick learner. I decided to hold off on having her evaluated by the school district to see if she would qualify for any special assistance. If after she has been home for six months and her speech is not progressing I will have her evaluated and hopefully get some help with how to help her along.

Alina no longer has the tantrums when eating. I think she realizes that the food is there and plentiful. I ask her if she is done and if she shakes her head no I offer her one more bite. If she turns away then she is done, if she accepts the bite then we keep going. She is sleeping thru the night for actually about 13-14 hours. Occasionally she wakes up but will go right back to sleep. Our routine at night is a bath, then cuddling time for a bit, then I lay her down with her blankie and leave. Sometimes she babbles a bit, but mostly she just goes to sleep. We are down to one nap a day now, though she is very tired by bedtime. She really could take 2 naps a day still but it is easier on me if I can put both girls down for naps and have a couple hours to get stuff done.

Alina is doing great with her sisters. The older girls are great with her, and Reina is sharing more and more. Considering Reina is 2 I am thrilled! She still is very possessive of what she sees as strictly hers, but now will get a different toy for Alina if Alina is getting too close to "her" toy. Alina has bonded well with Quentin I think. She will now go to him and ask to be picked up if I am busy.

That's it for now!

Snow...

Things I never would have let my older children do when they were little...

Dress up

We played dress up the other day. I wanted to see if her little Kaz outfit would fit her yet. When my mom bought it we thought it would be a year or so before she could actually wear it. That was before we knew she would go thru 3 sizes of clothes in 2 months=) It fits!

Alina has also figured out where the food is stored. I keep her crackers on the bottom shelf so she can get to them easily.

Bedtime

Last night I thought I had gotten lucky and Reina had gone down to bed without getting up once. Then I started hearing loud breathing that I thought was coming from the monitor. I went down to check on Reina and this is what I found.

Everyone's fine....

I think I forgot to mention that after the tests they did on Lauren they really couldn't find anything wrong. She has been feeling fine since then, though we kept her home all day yesterday just to be sure. She missed her first day of swim lessons. Hopefully today she will be fine as well. I am thinking it was just a case of maybe not drinking enough, so we are keeping her well hydrated.

Reina has finally started really sharing with Alina. And she wants us to know it=) She will give a toy to Alina and tell me "I share Alina!" over and over. I then praise her and give her hugs and kisses which makes her really happy. It is pretty cute to watch. Yesterday I took Abbie to her yoga and swim classes while Quentin stayed home with the kids. Evidently he helped Alina to learn how to climb the slide and go down by herself. She is pretty wobbly so needs someone right there to watch and spot her. I had been reluctant to show her how to climb up because I new as soon as I did she would want to do it over and over again. Sure enough, as I am trying to get dinner ready she is climbing the slide. So I run over to spot her then run back to flip the french toast (yes, we often have breakfast for dinner=) ). I finally moved the slide into our bedroom and shut the door so I wouldn't have burnt french toast that no one would eat.

Life is never boring!

Did I ever mention that I thought that things would get back to "normal" after we finally brought Alina home and Abbie and Lauren started school? I know I have said it several times with a fond remembrance for "normal". I think I must have forgotten what "normal" actually is around here=)

I have been determined to get Reina potty trained. I was determined last week, which turned into this week, and will probably go into the next few weeks before I finally actually start trying to potty train her. Time keeps getting away from me and things happen. This last summer while the girls were in Idaho I moved Reina into a toddler bed. She has been sleeping really great in it except for waking up a few times during the night. Lauren was sharing her room with Reina, but after Reina waking her up to open the door so she could find me several times a night Lauren decided that she wanted her own room again. I don't blame her. So we moved Abbie upstairs into our "guest" room. It is now Abbie's room (and guest's when they visit=) ) and she really likes it. Lauren we moved into Abbie's space downstairs. Reina now has her own room. It was nice for about 3 nights when I could shut her door and know that she couldn't open it. I could hear her on the monitor if she woke up and needed me, but we didn't hear any little feet running into our room in the middle of the night for 3 whole nights . Then, she figured out how to open her door. Now I can't keep her in bed. I gated her in one night and she hated that. I found her asleep on her floor by the door. She had been playing in her room and must have just gotten sleepy and layed down=) So we are back to hearing the little feet at night and trying to get her to actually stay in her bed at bedtime.

Today I got a call from the school nurse at 10:30. Everyone has been really healthy so I didn't know who this was about. Lauren had passed out! Evidently she had complained of a stomach ache and headache and her teacher was taking her to the nurse. On the way there Lauren went white and slumped over. She came to right away and the nurse called me. I took her to the doctor. They did some tests but nothing seems to be wrong. Hopefully it doesn't happen again. If so, we will need to have her heart checked out too. When the nurse called I just packed the kids in the van and left. I forgot to change diapers, Reina still had her jammies on, and I probably looked a mess from rolling around on the floor with the little ones. I did run back into the house for jackets since it was pooring rain outside. The call from the nurse shook me up a bit. I couldn't imagine why a perfectly healthy 7 year old would just pass out. Lauren started to cry when I walked into the nurses office. Made me want to start too. She perked up after I gave her some gatorade in the car on the way to the doctor's. Quentin met us there and stayed for the results of the tests with Lauren while I took 2 crabby and tired toddlers home for their naps.

Alina had her 18 month checkup on Tuesday. She is 22lbs 9 oz and in the 23% for weight! When we started she wasn't even on the chart! Her iron is low so we are working on getting that up with some iron drops. I am supposed to give them to her 1 hour before or 2-3 hours after a meal. That is like impossible. She eats all day! With 4 small meals and 2-3 snacks a day, that doesn't leave me too many options. So this morning she had to wait an hour for her usual milk. She got water (recommended to take with the drops) and cheerios (crackers are okay to eat with the drops so I figured cheerios would work). She was not happy about the water instead of milk. She LOVES her milk. The vanilla carnation instant breakfast is pretty yummy. I will try to give her her next dose this evening before bed. It will be stretching it. Dinner is at 5ish and bedtime is 6:30 for her.

Tomorrow Abbie has yoga and both older girls have swim lessons. Provided Lauren doesn't pass out again. We made it through a whole week at school with everyone on the right bus, or remembering to NOT ride the bus. It helps that Abbie has a huge post it taped to her desk saying "NO BUS ON WEDNESDAY".