One year ago

Yes, we are finally to the point where we are making it to the Anniversaries of the past year.  We are quickly coming up to our 1 year anniversary of bringing Dasha home.  It has been a tough year, full of transitions and trials on everyone's parts, but it also has been a good year.  She fits in with us as if she was born here.

So, the first of our anniversaries.  I had dropped Camden off at school and came home to take a nap because I had a wicked sinus headache that wouldn't go away and the phone kept ringing!!!  Now if you are ever around me you know that my phone hardly EVER rings!  I am just not a phone person.  I don't like talking on the phone at all.  I perfer to just text, yes I know this makes me anti-social, I just am not much of a talker.

After the 3rd phone call I thought about turning my phone off but decided against it in case Camden's school needed to get a hold of me. Well I was just drifting off and the phone rang AGAIN! I was super annoyed and rolled over to see who it was, it was the Adoption Agency! I answered excitedly and it was what I expect. We got Dasha's referral! After 30 minutes on the phone, I was almost in tears, and I had this picture.

I quickly hung up with the agency and called Randy, and sent him all the info.  We had some questions but sent it off the the IA doc.  Two weeks later we accepted her referral officially!  That was the longest 2 weeks ever, we didn't tell anyone that we got a referral, so it was killing me!  Then the official whirlwind began.  More later as we celebrate more anniversaries.

I apologize for any typos, blogger is having issues with Spell check.

Oncology Visit #3

3 down, 1 more to go!  We then will have met our requirement for future issues should anything arise.  This appt. got moved and it was not at the most ideal time, 12:45 so no food or water after 8 a.m.  At 10 sharp she was begging for a snack!  I love having my kids on a schedule, but sometimes it kicks me in the hiney because of it.  I got her distracted by taking her out to mow with me, yes I know it is not the safest thing to have her ride the mower with me, but if I don't she stands and screams and cries because she is afraid of it, but if she rides it with me she is fine.  Go figure!!! 

We show up at Children's at 12:15 and get checked into Radiology, and at 12:45 sharp they call us back and they have a student who is doing her clinical there doing the ultrasound.  From our last few experiences I thought well Dasha was going to give her a "training" on difficult kids!  Other than protesting a little at first Dasha was a PERFECT little angel.  She laid perfectly still for the entire 30 minute ultrasound.  We then went and had a chest x-ray and then finally lunch!

After lunch we had 30 minutes before her oncology appt. so we went to the car and I let her watch a movie since she had been so good.  She is really addicted to movies now I have to be really careful on how much I have the T.V. on.  I usually like it on for background noise, but she gets sucked in.

We then went to see her oncologist and we had to do two potty samples because the first one wasn't as clean as they would of liked,  downfall of a 2 year old who likes to wipe herself.  Miss Independent.  They then put on the numbing cream on her arms so they can get blood later, and we waited for Dr. Shore.  He came in and it was good news as always, he LOVES Dasha, he always takes her and shows her off to the nurses and takes her to the prize box, they normally don't get healthy kids in Oncology.  Then came what I thought would be the worst part of the day, the blood draw.  Well the numbing cream worked and the nurse was AWESOME!  NO TEARS AT ALL!  Not even a whimper, she didn't feel a thing.  God was looking down on her that day.  We will have one more appt. at the end of the year and then we will be done! 

We also are coming up on our 1 year anniversaries so be prepared for memory posts in the future.

Also, we have gone almost 2 weeks with no potty accidents and she has been dry during nap time for almost a week now and only 1 night time accident in the last week.  I think next week I will ditch the diapers during nap time and we will see during night!  So proud of her, once she got it, she got it.

Diary of a bad Blogger!

It would start with some excuses, a tale or two of why I haven't able to blog, and there are some, but overall I just haven't felt the urge to blog, and not a lot has been going on to talk about and share.

Just a quick recap of the past month, the kids LOVE school, I am talking LOVE in all CAPS, jumping up and down in the morning with excitement love school.  Camden has improved so much in the past month it is astounding.  Dasha also is doing really well, she love to show me circle, and other things that she is learning.  I am taking full advantage of my 5 hours a day that they are both gone on Tuesdays and Thursdays to get homework done and get caught up on the house.  It is in need of some serious TLC. 

This past weekend the kids, dog and I loaded up the car to head down to Wichita for a family get-together and air show.  This was probably the last time that I will sleep at my childhood home as my parents are moving in 3 months and retiring down at the lake.  The majority of my extended family have never met Dasha so it was a perfect time for a party!

 4 Generations of Women

 

 4 Generations: My Grandmother, Mom, Sister and her boys and Me and my kids

 

 Dasha's Great Uncle George

 

 Cousins having fun

 

Being silly

 

 

I will try to be a little more efficient on my updating from now on but no guarantees!



First Day of School

Wednesday the 22nd Camden started his first day back at school he will be going to school 4 days a week 5 hours a day.  Dasha started Thursday the 23rd and she will be going 2 days a week 5 hours a day.  Let me just tell you, I can get so much done when they are gone it is amazing!  Yesterday I got the next two weeks of homework done for my anatomy class.  So nice!  Here are some pictures of their first days back.  Have to say I have some of the cutest kiddos!

School Starts Tomorrow

For Camden, Dasha starts on Thursday.  While I am excited about getting some time to get some stuff done around the house, and all the moms know it goes much faster without the kids, I will miss the kiddos.

Dasha had her 6 month follow-up at the Nephrologist last week, and her results went well, but unfortunately there were some comments made by the doctor that just didn't set well with me.  I shared the comments on a new Russian Moms group, which by the way if you are on FB JOIN!  Look up Russian Adoptive Moms and ask to join.  So I posted the conversation on the page to see if I was overreacting and thankfully the moms there confirmed to me that I was not, in fact my favorite comment back was "did you punch him in the face?"  So today after thinking about it a lot, I called the patient advocacy line at the hospital where we go and I didn't do it to complain per say, I called to explain the situation and asking if maybe the doctors need some training in dealing with children with international adoption backgrounds and sensitivity training.  Needless to say the woman I spoke to was APPALLED at what was said, and said she would get on top of that right away.

Dasha also went to the dentist yesterday.  Randy took her and Camden and I stayed home.  Randy told the lady about Dasha's latex glove fear and it did rear it's ugly head but the woman handled it extremely well, she gave Dasha her own glove to wear, and they played together with the gloves and they were able to polish her teeth, floss and give her a fluoride treatment.

Camden is doing very well with his new treatment that we are doing for his GI issues, his appetite has increased IMMENSELY!  Which who wouldn't be more hungry if you belly isn't full of yucky stuff?

School started yesterday for both Randy and I also, so we are going to be busy.

Hopefully Thursday after both kids have had their back to school photos I can get them posted!

Now this is the child who two months ago ran screaming from any animal who even looked at her. She loves her Aspen now!

Update

Here we are, another Wednesday!  We have had company in the past few weeks so life has been very busy.  Randy's friend from California came to visit on their way through to visit family, and Randy's mom and her husband are here right now while they are on their way back to Florida from California. 

Camden finally had an appt. with a G.I. yesterday and we have a plan in process, it is going to be a long process, but I feel positive about this.  The kids start school in 2 weeks!  Oh my goodness I am so excited that I am going to get a few hours to myself twice a week.  Now don't take that the wrong way, I love my kids, but I literally haven't been away from Camden for more than 5 hours in a day since we got home in December and Dasha 2 hours.  I need a break!!!  Camden is going to go to school 4 days a week, 5 hours a day, and Dasha is going to go 2 days a week, 5 hours a day.

I am taking 2 classes this fall, one was supposed to be online but there wasn't enough people in the class so it got canceled and all that was left was an on campus class, so once a week, I will truck myself down to the college for class.  Randy is taking 3 classes, working on his Bachelors of Nursing.

Though the big news of the day is Dasha is potty-trained during the day!  We can't make it at night, but during the day she is completely potty trained.  I am so stoked about this!  Now I don't trust her to tell other people, so during church, and gymnastics we wear a pull-up, but no accidents at all.  Also when school starts up she is going to wear pull-ups until she is comfortable telling her teacher that she needs to potty.  She doesn't talk to people that she doesn't know, so I think it will take a few weeks until she is comfortable telling her teacher. 

We also changed gyms, the gym that we were in only offered a dance/gymnastics combo class.  Dasha HATED the dance portion and cried the whole 30 minutes, but loved the gymnastics portion.  So I found a gym that only offered gymnastics, and she LOVES it!  Also took a while to find one that took 2 year olds.  Most wanted them to be 3 and fully potty trained.  Though it is further away, we like it much better.

Have you all been enjoying the Olympics?  I have been a true Olympic Junkie, love it.  Plus we have 2 countries to cheer for!

Hearing Test Fail Again...

Tuesday we went back up to Children's Mercy for another hearing test.  Last Feb. we went and had Dasha's hearing tested, while she passed all the basic tests, where they put the probes in and see if the drum moves, etc, she fail the ear specific tests in her right ear.  They didn't know if it was because of her age and she was bored, or if it was a problem.

Again yesterday she passed all the drum movement tests, and again she failed her right ear specific tests.  This time though they were doing more difficult thing like, find the ice cream on a picture board, and to me with her language delay and while she understands what we say, I haven't really worked with her on, "find" skills.  So again, they don't know if it is age, language barrier, or if there really is a problem.  So we will go back one final time in November, if she fails again then they will proceed with hearing assistance for her right ear.  Hopefully it is just language, and being a toddler!

Up next, the nephrologist, and then the dentist, followed closely by the oncologist! 

On a side note, initially we were going to go back to Minneapolis for our 6 month follow-up with Dr. Howard, but after discussing with Randy with ALL the Dr. Appts. that she has already, we feel that she is being taken care of, and they wouldn't get any more information that they have not gotten at the oncologist and the nephrologist, and with all the drama that we have put her through with Dr.'s and future drama, surgery next summer, we opted that one less Dr. appt. would be just fine in our eyes.