We have been blessed with two special daughters and two sons from Eastern Europe. We welcome you to follow our journey as a family of five, waiting to travel and pick up #6, with the ins and outs of family, education, farm life, and love!

Friday, February 26, 2010

Great (but LONG) Month

I have been so spoiled during the month of February with all this snow Ohio has had! I don't know between snow days and the girls' doctor appointments that I have worked a 5 day week in the month of February! Last week and the week before we were out 3 days each week for snow! So this week, going to school 4 full days seemed like a marathon!

My Grandmother passed away the first week of February. Five years ago we moved into her house with her. We told her it was because our rental was too costly to heat, but in all reality, she had fallen and it was time for her to have a little more care and not live alone. Doug and I moved in with her before we decided to foster, and Grandma saw us prepare for foster care, experienced our hosting a Ukrainian orphan, and adopting Hannah. Six months after we brought Hannah home, in June of 2008, Grandma went to visit her daughter (my aunt) in Texas. She was happy there and decided to stay. She died after being ill with pneumonia for 3 days. Her mind was still in tact and she loved life and her family more than life itself. We celebrated her life on the 26th of February. We felt blessed to have all our family here from Texas and Washington DC to celebrate her life. Grandma (Gigi to the girls) will be greatly missed.

The month of February is a stressful one for me (Cara) at work. My students, grades 3-5, typically do not take the standardized Ohio Achievement Assessment (OAA), but instead Ohio gives us an option to do an Alternate Assessment for those students who cannot take the OAA. We get our information in November and our Alternate Assessment binders are due at the end of February. It takes approximately 10 hours per student to put one of their Alterante Assessment binders together when you count the time to workd with each studnet individually and to type up and print out all the information and place it neatly in the binder. (And I had 4 kiddos on Alternate Assessment this year!) With all our snow days in the month of February, it has been a mad dash to get everything done! I will be glad to send those binders out the door!

(A cute picture of Hannah)

Today Mila had an appointment with an orthopedic doctor. This doctor happens to be the brother of our physical medicine doctor that we like so much! I have been dreading this appointment since our physical medicine doctor told us a month ago we needed to go talk to him about surgery. I have a kiddo in my class who has had hip surgery and know of a fellow adoptee that has had hip surgery and 6-8 weeks in a cast from chest to toes did not sound appealing to me! How am I going to care for her, transport her, and most of carry her with a cast on that makes her even heavier??? Plus, I hate needles, and hip surgery requires a hospital stay.....
with lots of prayers leading up to today, I felt calm and ready to hear and face what the doctor had to tell us. He asked for us to have a different x-ray that those we had a month ago. The Doctor himself sat on the x-ray bed with Mila and held her legs in what he called a "froggie" position. After he had some time to look at her x-rays he came int o talk to us. He said for now, her hips look okay. He wants to see her again in 6 months and continue to monitor her progress, but he thinks if (and/or maybe when) she needs some sort of surgery she will need a tendon release surgery before looking at what he called a "bony" surgery. What an answered prayer! Now we can start thinking about summer plans, when a month ago we thought we might be spending it casted!

And guess who is wanting to sit on the potty???

She has been saying "potty" a good bit in the last 2 weeks, but typically when Hannah goes to the bathroom, so I thought maybe she was informing us where Hannah was going. This week we put her on the little potty and she has made a deposit of some sort in the potty every time we put her on!
Because Mila has poor trunk control, we have been placing her activity table that Doug made for her chair in front of her while she is sitting on the potty. I guess Doug's newest creation is going to be something to support Mila when she is sitting on the potty!

2 comments:

Cassc said...

I'm sorry for your lost. I'm an Orthodox Christian and when someone passes we say, "Memory Eternal". May Gigi's memory be eternal.

Sara said...

I am so sorry for your loss. I found your blog while searching for information about adopting from Serbia. We also are from Ohio (near the river). We have two year old from Vietnam and are looking into adopting a special needs child from Serbia. Can you email me? Did you work with an agency? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks Sara (sjd314@yahoo.com)