Recovering Noah

I have started and restarted this post a million times. I started it being serious and I started it being funny and then I'd erase it each time because I didn't want to offend anyone... because the truth of the matter is this - when you talk about your educational decisions for your kids, some people are going to get offended. And I hate offending people or causing controversy or any sort of discomfort whatsoever. But here it is... we've decided to pull out Nandi and Eli from public school, and next week, we will start homeschooling them. I'm going to be the first to admit that I'm a bit of an educational snob. I am extremely pro education. I love to read and I love to research and I love to think that my kids will go off and get advanced degrees and discover how to clone people and make robotic machines that will do all the laundry and fold it and put it away so I will never have to do it ever again. I have high , if somewhat slightly unrealistic, hopes for my ...

Our family would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May you get lots of kisses under the mistletoe, Nutella in your stocking, remember the reason for the season, and stay up to watch the ball drop. We're ending this year with the flu (all of us!), lots of school meetings, tons o' school drama (more about that later!), and more medical bills than I care to count (another hospital stay for Naveen just last week!!). But this year also brought our missing puzzle piece (Naveen!), new friends, old friends, the loving and continued support of our family, exciting travel, and lots and lots of laughs. May we continue to be so blessed in 2013. Happy Happy Joy Joy and a big Ho Ho Ho! From our family to yours, Meeeerrrry Christmas!

Just wanted to let everyone know that Naveen came home from the hospital late Saturday night.  He was diagnosed as having an ESBL strain of Klebsiella Pneumoniae.  It's a super bug and only responds to a few antibiotics. Fortunately, it's responding to the two that Naveen is currently taking. He'll be on IV antibiotics until Dec 5 and I'm administering them every 8 hours. Let's see... does anyone really think I'm competent and organized enough to handle that?? I flushed his IV with blood thinner the first go around and forgot to clamp his IV shut, but he made it through in one piece. I've got it down pat now, although I feel completely and utterly sleep deprived. I'm usually in bed by 9, but have to stay up until 11 for his night dose and then get up at 5.15 am for his morning dose. And I'm such a light sleeper that I wake up every time Eli goes to the bathroom at 3 on the dot and can never go back to sleep.  The kids will tell you that I'm jus...

I think whether you're pregnant or in the midst of an adoption, you can't help but mark each holiday in terms of what will happen "next year".   "Next Christmas, she'll  be here." or "Next Easter he'll be here."  A year ago, as we were gathered with our family at my aunt's house, I was telling anyone who would listen, "Next Thanksgving, Naveen will be here!" and I imagined him sitting in my lap, all dressed in orange and brown (my favorite colors on my Indian babies), tasting pumpkin pie for the first time, and holding hands while we said grace.  Never in a million years did I imagine that he'd be spending his first Thanksgiving in the hospital. He's doing fine. It's nothing too serious. He just caught some sort of a bacterial super bug that can only be treated with IV antibiotics. We should, hopefully, go home on Saturday or Sunday, with an IV in and a home nurse will stop by to give him his antibiotics for the ...

Update - Oh my word! Never underestimate the power of 3 hours of homework a night to completely upset your whole schedule.  Soooo many things not getting done this week. We are REALLY struggling with Eli's learning issues and his homework. Everything makes sense now that we know what's going on and we're desperately trying to find a way to help him learn. I am really praying about homeschooling right now. Those who know me fear for me.. and my kids! haha. Our family dynamics are not the best for homeschooling. Each child would do good on their own , but all together.. all day long?  But I am spending several hours a day reteaching what they're learning in school AND I spend ALL my time trying to figure out ways to teach them in the way that they learn mess. It's a jumbled mess right now. Ideally, I'd like them in school so I can devote some time to Noah and Naveen, who don't get much attention when the other two come home from school. But at this point, they...

It's time for another Gratitude post. What, you say? Another one? Did we just have one of those? Yes. Yes, we did. But things are crazy and I'm feeling overwhelmed and so I need a bit of perspective. Again. About ten years ago, I remember my mom was feeling pulled in all directions. My granny, my granddad, and my great aunt were sick and my mom was the primary caregiver for all of them. She lived thirty minutes from them, but would drive to see them everyday. Shop for them, take them to their doctor's appointments, do their laundry... and still make it home by 5.00 o'clock and have supper waiting for my dad when he got off work. Just two years earlier, she'd undergone chemo for breast cancer and was still living in fear that it would return.  Sim and I were in the final stages of Noah's adoption, and my brother and his wife lived 3 hours away. She felt stressed, pulled, and all alone. That's kind of how I'm feeling right now.  Just pulled in a...

6 months!! Can you believe it?? I'm not kidding when I say that I sat down at the table Saturday morning and spent a good 30 minutes staring into oblivion while mulling over the fact that November 4th was Naveen's 6 month Gotcha Day. 6 months!! Where'd the time go? So much has happened and things are just so crazy busy that I don't get a chance to blog much anymore. I have great intentions of being a super consistent blogger, but the fact that I have commitment issues, plus the fact that feeling pressured to write everyday stresses me out, means that I end up constructing a ton of blog posts in my head, but rarely type them out onto the computer. So, here's a quick bullet list of what's been going on, followed by pictures! Naveen had surgery on October 12 to repair his right kidney. Knock on wood, we think it worked! We go back next Tuesday to his see both his urologist and nephrologist for a follow-up. Naveen's completely regressed in almost all ...

I could've sworn that when I put him to bed last night, he looked like this... But when he woke up this morning, he looked like this... (Disclaimer - Eli picked out his clothes!!) A beautiful and sweet ELEVEN year old! Happy Happy Birthday to the boy who stole my heart, changed my life, and started it all. Noah Partha, I love you more than you will ever know. And it is such a privilege being your mom. I am so grateful that I've been able to spend these last 10 years with you and watch you  grow into the handsome, funny, and intelligent young man you are today. If only the whole world could see what we get to see everyday. If only they knew how brave and how strong you are and how each day that you're alive is a miracle. Everything you do is a miracle. Walking next to me in the grocery store and putting veggies into plastic bags? That's a miracle. Learning how to stack blocks on top of each other? Another miracle. Bringing the peanut butter jar to me w...

Two posts in 24 hours? I know! Might as well sit down and type while I've got the gumption. The other day Sim took a day off work because he said I needed a "Mental Health" day. Bwahahaha! Ya think?! It happened to be on a day that I was already scheduled to drive to Dallas for a doctor's appointment. But, Sim, being the awesome guy that he is, agreed to come and keep me and the kids company. Yes! He drove the 3 hour round trip drive on his day off. He's a good man, Charlie Brown! On the way to the appointment, we made a quick stop at my friend Liza's house. She was at work, but she had some stuff for Nandi, and her parents were home, so we ran by for a few minutes. Okay, let me explain. Liza is originally from Uzbekistan. Her parents are Russian. Have you ever attempted to make a "quick stop" at a Russian's house? We walked in and there were plates of Russian meatballs and little bowls of fruit and vegetables and slices of lemon an...

Today was one of those days were I had to pull out all the stops. We were running late. I hadn't given Eli his mock spelling test yet. We were out of groceries, and the kids were starting to get on each other’s nerves. So I did what any good stressed out mom would do… I bribed them with donuts. I promised that we’d drive through the donut shop if they could just get their act together and work together as a team. Part of the whole work together as a team bit included Eli helping Naveen  get dressed. Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t think a brown and orange striped shirt and blue and red plaid shorts match each other. So I left the shorts in place and quickly changed Naveen’s shirt and we were outta there! After they scarfed down the donuts and I dropped them off at school, the rest of the kids and I decided to hit a garage sale on the way back home.  Now, if you've read my blog for a long time, then you know that garage sales are in my blood. The first dol...

.... you email a friend and then cut and paste it to your blog to serve as an update on what's going on your in life! Today I emailed my friend Meredith to give her an update on what's been going on 'round these parts because I've not only been a blog slacker, but a friend slacker, as well. As I got to the end of the email, I thought, man, would it be really lazy to just cut and paste it to my blog so that I don't have to write anything for awhile? So, here you have it. A personal look at the types of emails I sent to my friends. They're such a jumbled mess that it's a wonder I have any left!  But it also gives a quick update on how things are going around here. Here you go! **************************************************************************** Hey Meredith! I'm sooo tired! Going to rent the Exotic Marigold Hotel tonight. Have you seen it? Takes place in India and just came out on DVD. I woke up with a crick in my neck and it HURTS. ...

It's no secret that I've been in a funk lately. A big fat funk! Even Sim called today to check up on me because he's worried about me. It could have something to do with me telling him that he might come home one day to find my bags packed and skid marks in the driveway where the minivan used to sit. And maybe a couple of kids left in the house for him to deal with. Yesterday was rough. I'm trying so hard to find a silver lining. If you read my last post, then you know that one of our kids is showing more and more signs of a mental illness. This particular child cycles and right now things are really good and when things are good, we start to doubt ourselves. But we know that it's all going to crash soon, so we're trying to enjoy the good bits for a while. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it, when that child is in a good period, our child that we thought  had recovered from RAD, is in a baaaaaaddddd period. Let...

Honestly, I don't know what's happened to me or why I've fallen off the blogging train, but things just seem so busy these days.  We're dealing with A LOT of things that I wonder if I should blog about. Things I feel I should blog about it because I suspect some of you are dealing with the same things. Things I worry about blogging about because my kids' names are already out there. Things I wish I could blog about under absolute anonymity. Things that make me wish I had kept pictures and names off this blog when I first started and things that make me think that I might just start completely over with a new blog where my kids are given pseudonyms and my profile pic is a photo of a supermodel or a cat or a sunset. I think one of the hardest things about adoption is not knowing your child's genetic background. One of our kids is at the age where we're starting to see signs of mental illness. Signs that have been there all along, but signs that are becomin...

I'm worried my post from yesterday turned into a big 'ol whine fest. So, I'm trying to dig myself out of the funk I've been in lately by realizing how blessed we are... 1. We may be up to our eyeballs in debt, but at least we have a roof over our head, food to eat, and air conditioning to keep us cool.  AND Sim and I are in agreement that we have to break down this mountain and we're slowly chipping away at it one penny at a time. 2. Noah may not qualify for SSI, but we are blessed to have been able to provide therapies for him for the last 10 years. He's never gone without and I'm so thankful that we've been in a position to give him what he needs. 3. N &E may have explosive tempers, but they both also have very sweet sides, are wonderful with Noah and Naveen, and we are very fortunate that their tempers are no longer violent. 4. Nandi's at Math & Reading camp this week through our local elementary school and it means we're all u...

I can't believe it's been a whole month since I last blogged. Things have been crazy busy around here, but thought I'd pop in and give a quick update. Summers are pretty rough for us due to our family dynamics. Nandi thrives on structure, Eli abhors it, Noah could spend all day spinning Tupperware lids on his his knees, and Naveen wakes up with an agenda to see how much he can destroy! haha   And then, of course, Nandi and Eli are like oil and water. They both compete for my attention and have pretty explosive tempers. And when you add a child who has severe autism, plus a newly adopted three year old who acts three so incredibly well ....  well.... you get the drift. It's been kind of rough 'round these parts. The end is in sight, though, with school starting up again on the 27th. Nandi and Eli are both in public school, with Nandi going into 2nd grade and Eli into 3rd. Public school has it's drawbacks for sure - and the hours of 3.30 - bedtime are usually ...

Okay, so he's not playing with pine cones or counting seashells or bundling freshly gathered twigs from a nature walk....   They're not fair trade or organic or environmentally friendly... They're not harvested from wood and sculpted into shape by indigenous tribes in the Amazon.... And I didn't buy them from some eco-friendly catalogue for fifty bucks a pop... But these leftover styrofoam cups that he found in the back of our pantry have become his favorite toy. And you can't put a price on that! P.S. Thanks for all the kind remarks on my messy house! lol  Wait until I show you the before and afters of Naveen's bedroom!