Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Such is life

Can it really be last August when I last posted? I always said when I was growing up I wanted to be a teacher and a writer. It's a good thing I chose the teaching profession because my timeliness on writing obviously stinks. I read blogs online where people work full time, have crazy lives, and still manage to tell people about their craziness every day. I'm not sure how, but kudos to them for figuring it out (and I wish they would tell me their secrets!).

Anyway, the few people who come here are waiting on details of the kids, so here goes.

Callum is doing well. He is five and every bit ready to go to kindergarten, but will probably be terrified when the time comes this fall. He is playing soccer again this spring, and while we're not necessarily planning on any big scholarships any time soon (but really, he's five, so I just hope he is out there listening, trying, and not spending his time picking his nose or something like that), he's really improved with his listening and awareness skills.
Darth Vader birthday cake!

Official 5th birthday picture with Hey Hey

 Declan is also doing really well. Sometimes with him it seems like we are doing one step forward and eight steps back, but when we look back at the progress, he's come leaps and bounds from where he's been. Eating has been our main struggle, as we've had to do a lot of trial and error to figure out what works well for his system, which has caused for lots of stress and difficulties on our part. Gaining weight has been difficult, but we're crossing our fingers that we are finally on the right track and starting to see improvement.
Developmentally, he's doing great. He is relatively close to walking on his own, but since he does everything on his own time, it could still be a year or so away. Preschool and outside therapies have been great for him. He continues to move forward in so many areas and we are really grateful for that. 
Having fun!

So sweet
 In big news, Declan finally sleeps in a bed, and he has been sleeping all night! This is super huge for us. We have been in newborn stage with his sleeping for three years--think first couple of months up all night newborn stage--with many nights of getting up with him and having him cry for an hour or two at a time without being able to help. Having no outside help with this has been exhausting to say the least, but it has finally improved. Not only has his sleeping improved probably due to some medicine changes (we took a trip to Cincinnati Children's Hospital since we hadn't had a new hospital in a while), but we also found a big bed that had railings on all sides. He rolls so much in his sleep, even the toddler railings wouldn't do enough to help. Scott and I have finally had the luxury of going to bed and actually sleeping all night and not feeling like zombies every day.
Sleeping in a big boy bed

Easter time

Grump face--but I promise he was happier than he looks (I think!)