On To New Adventures

This precious little one left our home mid-day Tuesday. Of course we knew she was going to be leaving sometime soon, but we thought we'd have at least a few days' notice to physically and emotionally prepare. Through a series of miscommunication and missed messages, we ended up having a half days' notice. 

We met Baby B's new parents Tuesday morning and had a good three hour visit with each other, and then they all left together. They were truly very good people and it is easy to imagine Baby B having a long and well-loved life. 

It was a rare human experience. One day you have a child whom you love and have raised since birth. Twenty four hours later, she is gone, never to return. Normally when this happens to your child, it is a tragedy, usually due to death or kidnapping. But this is foster care, so it is a good thing. So we find ourselves very emotionally confused and drained. We are in the difficult position of both mourning and celebrating her departure. After she left, Mark took the rest of the day off and we spent time together as a family.

We've put ourselves back on the list to get more children and we are looking forward to having another little one. But we want to squeeze in some fun with our family of four before we get The Call. So today we had 'crazy school day'. I took the boys out for bagels for breakfast and they did their school work at the street cafe. Then we went on a field trip at a local fire station. They saw how the fire truck works and how the fire fighters live while they're on duty. They got to climb all over the fire truck and inside the cab, and were able to play with the fire hose (which, if you asked them, was probably the coolest part of the whole trip). 

After the fire station, we hit Target and the library. It's amazing how much you can get done in a day with only two school-aged kids!

Baby B at 7 Months

Happy seven months, Baby B!

You started solids on your sixth month birthday. You had pureed avocado. You seemed to like it because you ate the whole avocado! You have solids three times a day, at each of our meals. After avocado you had pureed banana, and then peach. You made really funny faces when you ate peach and didn’t seem to like it. I think the taste was a bit too tart for your tastebuds.

Foods you’ve tried in your seventh month: avocado, banana, peach, broccoli (your favorite so far), cauliflower, mango, carrots, peas, corn, zucchini, butternut squash, pumpkin, strawberries, pears, prunes, apples, egg yolk, tomatoes, cantaloupe, potato, leeks, apricot, yogurt, and rice cereal. Many of these foods were blended together, for example leeks blended with potato or corn blended with butternut squash. You've been quite le gourmand this month.

Now that you are eating solid foods, your schedule has changed a lot. You dropped two of your naps and extended your awake time to two to two-and-a-half hours instead of just one hour. You have just two long naps a day, two hours in the morning from 9:00-11:00 and then three hours in the afternoon, from 1:30-4:00. You go to bed at 6:30pm and sleep until 7:30am. This schedule is so much nicer for us: your long awake time allow us to get out of the house for a few hours during the middle of the day and your long naptimes line up perfectly both with morning homeschooling and afternoon quiet time. 

For the past few weeks your babbling has gotten a lot more sophisticated. Instead of your normal cooing sounds, you're trying out different ranges of sounds, from super high pitched to deep sounds.

This month you started physical therapy for a slight developmental delay. You have something called "truncal hypotonia", which means that your trunk muscles have low tone. At this point, you should be able to sit up tripod style, but you're not able to just yet. You usually just bend right forward when we try to sit you up. So your physical therapist showed me different activities I can do with you to try to promote stronger muscles. We've been doing the exercises for just a few days and you're already showing a big improvement. I think you'll be sitting up independently in no time.

Foster Update:
This will be our last update on Baby B. She is going to live with her new parents 'as soon as possible', in the words of the court. We are still waiting to hear exactly when that will be. We will miss our little Baby B so much, but we know she will be in good hands.

Thomas Matisse

This month we are studying a few paintings by Henri Matisse. I keep four prints displayed on our bulletin board so the boys can see them throughout the day. When it's time to do our picture study, I ask the boys to choose their favorite painting, and then I ask them to describe it to me. Tommy's description of this painting, The Green Stripe, went something like this: "This man has yellow skin. It's all splotchy and rough. He has a green stripe down his face. I'm not sure why. He has blue hair and red lips. He looks sad."  

After he described it, he drew it himself:

Baby B at 6 Months

You are half a year old! This month was uneventful as far as physical milestones go. You're still rolling around, still babbling happily, and still sleeping well. You had a cold this month, probably given to you by your foster brothers. The only new thing is that you spent most of the month drooling and chewing on everything in sight in efforts to get your two bottom teeth out. And you are starting to bear weight on your legs, something you never wanted to do before.

You are so happy and mellow. You smile at anyone who talks to you. Your favorite 'big brother' is Tommy - you watch him closely whenever he's around and you always have a big drooly grin for him. 

We just went on a five day long family trip to the San Diego area and you did amazingly well. During the long car rides, you played with your toys in your carseat until you dozed off, then took nice long naps. In the park you rode in the sling with me when you were awake and napped in the stroller. You were so easy!

I'm looking forward to introducing you to solid food this next month. You seem very interested in what we eat, and always try to grab my food when you sit on my lap during meal times. We'll have to see if you're interested. I'll probably start you off with avocado or banana.

Big brother Ben helping Baby B 'walk'

Foster Care Update:

We never wrote about some of the details of Baby B's case here. As new foster parents, we were super cautious about sharing any information beyond age and gender about her. Now that we have some perspective, we think it's okay to share a few bits, especially since they are so key to her case. So here goes: 

Baby B is Native American. Even though she was born in California, in the United States, our county has chosen to allow her tribe to have legal jurisdiction over her due to her Native American heritage. Thus the tribe has the right to put her into a Native American adoptive home. Mark does have some Native American heritage, but we don't have the documentation to prove it.

We have known from the beginning that there was the possibility, even likelihood, that Baby B would leave us someday. But we still hoped that she would stay. Now that we know that it's a certainty she'll leave, we're sad about it. We don't know when she's leaving, only that she is. It could be in a week, or it could be in two more months.

Please keep our family in your prayers: that Baby B's new adoptive parents would be willing to have an open transition process, and that we would be flexible and patient as we wait for the details of this case to be worked out.

Legoland 2012

We had our big Legoland adventure this past week. We first went there two years ago when the boys were two and three. They had so much fun that of course Tommy asked, "When can we come back here again?" We told him we'd come back when he was five. Two years seemed like a really long time, so it didn't seem like a stretch to say we'd come back then. Well, when you're a grown up, two years flies by. Not so much when you're three and four. Over the past two years Tommy (and Ben) has asked no less then once a month "So, when are we going back to Legoland?". When he turned five (the magic Legoland age we put forth) the frequency went up to once a week. After a while I finally told him, "I promised you we'd go to Legoland when you are five and we will go to Legoland when you're five... don't ask again!" This seemed to help and they stopped asking about it. That gave us a nice cushion of time to surprise them with "Guess what! We're going to Legoland next month!"

The trip went exceptionally well, even with a baby in tow. The drive down took a whopping 12 hours but everyone did well in the car. We didn't even have to break out the DVDs (which we brought in case of emergency). We stayed at the park for four days to make sure that we tried out everything we possibly could. There was no crying, whining, or complaining - the fact that we saw so many children doing just that made our kids look like angels. The kids were basically pleasant the entire time - it was a blissful family trip.

Point Lobos

This weekend we went on a family outing to Point Lobos. It was misty and cool, a wonderful change from our crispy and hot hometown. The boys had a great time exploring caves and tide pools. Baby B did well in the Ergo, as we hiked all over the paths and rocks. We're working on our method of splitting up to both care for Baby B and at the same time spend time with the boys: often one parent would sit in the car with a sleeping baby while the other parent explored with the big boys. We haven't had very many outings together as a family of five, so we're still figuring all these details out!

First Day of School 2012

Yesterday was our first day of school. We started so early so that we can have more flexibility throughout the rest of the year to take time off when we need to. And because I've had about as much of summer as I can take. Ben is doing preschool and Tommy is doing 1st grade. He was supposed to do kindergarten this year. Earlier this summer I started planning out my school year for kindergarten and realized that Tommy had 'accidentally' learned about 80% of K material. Oops! That meant I had to switch mental gears and seriously consider doing first grade instead of K. I'm not a big fan of changing plans, so I took this decision very seriously. I researched what a first grader would be learning versus what a kindergartener would be learning. I gave him a 1st grade readiness test from a respected homeschool curriculum company (which he totally aced). In the end, I decided that it would be better for Tommy if we made the jump to 1st grade. However, one thing I need to keep reminding myself is that it doesn't matter so much what I call the grade; it is ultimately more important that I teach him according to his abilities and interests, not what a grade number says I should be teaching.

First Day of School special breakfast and gifts. Their gifts were "cool" pencils and an electric pencil sharpener. The sharpener was really for me; the hand-cranked one we currently own is quaint in theory, but in practice is a perfect place for crayons points to get jammed and for pencil shavings to explode from. I also conducted an interview where I asked the boys various school-related questions. 

Some gems from Tommy's interview:

What do you hope to learn about this year?: "Rocks, like what the clearest rock in the world is. And what the shiniest rock in the world is. I just want to learn all about rocks."

What do you want to be when you grow up?: "A builder."

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be?: San Francisco 

And some from Ben's interview:
What do you hope to learn about this year?: "Really cool umbrellas." (huh?)
What was your favorite thing you did this summer? "Camping with our friends."
What can Mommy do to be a good teacher this year? "Be really kind to your kids. Which would be me and Tommy."


Our "schoolroom", which is also our dining room. It's perfect for school because of the long table and tons of wall space for maps and white boards.

I didn't plan on doing real work today. I thought we'd do all the fun "First Day of School" stuff, look at all the new books, go over the new schedule, and then they'd want to go outside to play. But they begged to start work. Being the nice mom I am, I let them do as much handwriting work as they wanted. Which turned out to be twenty minutes' worth. I'm soaking it up because I know the novelty will wear off soon enough!

Our tentative schedule. Each 'lesson' takes 10-15 minutes, so the whole school day should take no longer than 90 minutes (not including the break). I'll probably tweak this as time goes on and we work on our groove.

For those interested in curriculum details: 

This year (and probably for the next few years) I'll be focusing on the 3 Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. I used these three books to get most of my ideas for how to structure my schooling and what information to focus on:

The Three Rs by Ruth Beechick

A Charlotte Mason Education by Catherine Levison

Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola

For Tommy I'm using Rod & Staff Penmanship, Math-U-See, and readers from the library for reading practice. In addition, he will be doing narration from Aesop's fables, scripture and poetry memorization, and we'll do read-aloud about science and history once a week. Realistically, it will probably be a lot more often then that, since science seems to be Tommy's favorite subject and since history is my favorite subject. Narration is one of those things that normally wouldn't be done every day, but it only takes a few minutes and speaking is an area that Tommy really needs practice. Ben will be tagging along with Math-U-See and in addition will be using the Explode the Code primer for reading/writing. Both kids will also learn about well-known classical music and artwork.

This post is mostly for my own benefit so I can remember how I did things and either laugh at myself in months and years to come, or remind myself of things that worked well for us. But I hope it gives others some good ideas as well. :)

Swim Lessons

The boys had their last swim lesson of the summer this week. At the beginning of their lessons six weeks ago, they were both completely helpless in the water: couldn't swim, couldn't float, and didn't even like to be in the water. Ben actually yelled at his instructor for the entirety of his first four lessons (not a proud mommy moment). He complained about not wanting to go to swim lessons for the first few weeks, while Tommy couldn't wait for lessons.

At the end of twelve lessons, they are now very comfortable in the water. Ben stopped yelling at his instructor somewhere around the fifth lesson. Now they can jump in the deep end, float on their backs, and swim to the edge of the pool. Ben is pretty good at backstroke and Tommy is working on his freestyle stroke. I am so proud of them!

Baby B at 5 Months

Brother time - Baby B has definitely become accustomed to the ways of boys. She's completely unfazed by loud noises, sudden movement, and lots of physical contact.

This past month has brought a lot more interaction from you. You're watching everyone around you and smiling at most people. You save your biggest smiles and giggles for your foster brothers, who love you to bits. 


Kiddo, you talk a lot. All day long you're cooing, growling, babbling, and saying "aaaaaaahhh! aaaaaahhh!" It's really cute, and it's got to be a girl thing because my boys didn't talk like this until they were about a year old. You're also blowing raspberries, which is incredibly cute.


Last month you premiered your Three-Quarter Roll. This month you really started rolling back and forth all the way. You've shown us that you like to sleep on your tummy. I'll put you on your back (per doctor's, social workers', and developmental specialists' orders) but you always roll yourself over to your tummy and happily sleep that way.


You've gotten really grabby. You'll grab your feet and chew on them when you're on the changing table. When I'm holding you, you'll reach out and try to grab whatever I'm holding (or trying to eat). If I put my face close to yours, you'll try to eat my cheek.


I stopped your "dream feed" this month. I had been putting you to bed at a normal time of 7:30/8:00pm and then getting you up between 9:30-10:30pm to feed you again while you were still asleep. Then I realized that you weren't eating very well in the morning when you first woke up. So it dawned on me that you were probably ready to give up your dream feed. So we ended it, and sure enough, you started drinking more in the morning, which in turn caused you to sleep longer for your first nap of the day, which in turn caused you to eat more later, which...well, you get the idea. In the end, you  dropped two feedings and gained more nap time. You're also starting to be able to stay awake longer than your usual one hour. You can sometimes stay awake as long as two hours, though you start getting sleepy around the 1.5 hour mark.


We are still waiting to hear whether you'll be staying with us. We got news this month that we'll probably be keeping you as long as December before we find out what your future will be. You'll be ten months old by that time. Even though we're overwhelmed at the idea of having you for so long and possibly having to give you up, we are constantly reminding ourselves that this is why we decided to be foster parents: to give babies a healthy start in life and to give them a loving family to attach to. You met with a psychiatric social worker this past month who evaluated you and reported that you were one of the most well-adjusted and well-bonded babies she'd ever seen. Hearing that report was so encouraging. Even if you don't stay with us forever, just the fact that you spent six (or eight, or ten) months with us and were so well bonded with us means that you will have a good life; you'll be able to bond with your future parents (if you do go to another family), and you will be able to have healthy relationships with any siblings you may have, with friends, and someday a spouse. Ultimately, God is sovereign, and we are trusting in his perfect plan, even if that plan doesn't include you staying with us.

Enjoying some tasty toes

Goodbye, Dad

Mark's dad, Gregory John Knapp went to be with his beloved Savior on July 11th, 2012 at the age of 65.

He passed away at his home, surrounded by his family. Greg dedicated his life to sharing the love of Jesus Christ with all he knew. If you'd like to learn more about this love, you too can learn how to know God personally.

He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Linda; his son Matthew and daughter-in-law Cameron; his son Mark and daughter-in-law Autumn; six grand-children; his brothers, David Jr. and Jonathan, his mother-in-law Irene and his brother-in-law Richard. 

We miss you so much, but we know we'll see you again someday. We find joy in knowing that you are with Jesus right now, whom you loved so much in life.

Santa Cruz

This weekend we went "camping" in Santa Cruz. It wasn't really camping, it was more like "crashing in our trailer at the end of a really fun day at the (park) or (beach)". Truth be told, the first day was pretty rocky. Baby B was a big ball of fuss, the boys were extra... energetic. And we had forgotten a bunch of things for our trip to the beach. And I had forgotten how difficult it is to bring a small baby to the beach. But the boys had fun, and that's all that matters, right?

Doing tummy time with the big brothers in the trailer. The only way we've found to survive with two kids in a small trailer is to bring along lots of favorite movies for those times when Mark and I are both occupied doing other things. Here they're enjoying Robin Hood while I'm making breakfast. (And just for the record, I don't make a habit of propping Baby B in front of the TV - this happened to be the only flat surface in the trailer for her to hang out on. And the big brothers were really entertaining her.)

Baby B did a great job sleeping in all sorts of places. She napped on our bed when we were in the trailer and took her naps in the jogging stroller while we were out. She is such an easy baby!

On our second day of "camping" we went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The kids had an amazing amount of fun. Ben was our little daredevil and wanted to go on all the scary rides, most of which he was too short for. Tommy was content to go on the tamer rides. At one point he remarked, "Mom, my way is better because the rides I like are the safest." It's been so interesting to see their different personalities come out during our trip to the park. Tommy often tried to figure out how the rides work, while Ben sought out awesome thrills. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but it was worth it!

Baby B at 4 Months

A perfect three-quarter roll!

This month hasn't brought too many changes for you. You're still sleeping well. You're still only able to stay awake for an hour at a time. You're still eating every 2-2.5 hours. You're still a mellow and happy girl! 

You did have two milestones (or maybe one and three-quarters). You laughed for the first time this month, when I was simultaneously making raspberry sounds and tickling you. You really made me work for that laugh! Now I'm guaranteed to get a giggle if I tickle your neck. Oh, the joy of baby giggles! You also started rolling over from back to tummy. I'm not sure if it counts though, since you haven't exactly made a full roll. You always get stuck on your shoulder. If I nudge you a bit, you'll finish the roll. I think I'm counting it. 

In the past few days you started doing this high-pitch yelling, screeching thing. It's seems to me like you're practicing your voice just for fun and you really like listening to yourself. It's really cute for the first ten minutes. Then around the twenty minute mark, my ears are ringing, and after thirty minutes, I've got a headache. But make no mistake, it is very cute!

_______

For those praying for our family and for Baby B, would you please pray for God to give wisdom to those who are in charge of making decisions on Baby's behalf? While we're not able to give details online, we can say that things are getting a bit complicated. There is a greater chance that she will move to another adoptive family sometime in the next few months. Of course, this is foster care and we've seen that just about anything can happen at any time. But our hearts are growing quite attached to her and she is becoming a daughter to Mark and I and a little sister to the boys. Please pray for our hearts, that we would continue to give our love freely to this little girl, and that we would trust in God's goodness and in his perfect plan, no matter what happens.

Preschool 2012 Wrap-Up

Our preschool year is done! I am pleasantly surprised at how well the year went. There were so many times I felt guilty that I was wasn't doing 'enough' with the boys, at least compared to what I imagined their brick-and-mortar preschool peers were doing. Last summer I made a list of what I wanted each boy to have learned or accomplished by the end of the year. Just the other day I looked at that list for the first time in many months. To my amazement, they hit each one. In many cases they far exceeded my expectations. 


Some of my goals for Tommy were: learn basic addition/subtraction up to 10, count to 100, get through Bob Books series, learn to empty the dishwasher, do laundry, and clean his bathroom. Ben's goals were to learn all his letters and numbers and to work on coloring and drawing (a year ago he wanted nothing to do with drawing and coloring). He also learned the same household tasks that Tommy did.    


It's amazing to me that the boys learned so much without me trying very hard to push a set plan on them. I just read them a lot of books, we had conversations about anything and everything, worked together with them in the house, and mostly just followed their interests. At times it felt like we weren't doing very much. But now that I look back at where the boys were a year ago, I can see that we did a lot. I'm so glad I heeded the advice of experienced homeschool moms to just take it easy and read. It really works!





Even though we are "done" for the summer, not much has actually changed. Since we were doing just the basics every day - Bible, catechism, reading lessons, and read-alouds - I can't really stop doing anything. We are still doing our reading lessons because Tommy is progressing really well with learning to read and I don't want him to take a break from it and forget everything. We're also still having our Bible time. But for my own sanity, I want to make a way to distinguish 'school-year' from 'summer break'. So what's different?


For one thing, I'm trying to get out of the house with all the kids a lot more. I'm a homebody and love the comfort of being home and having nowhere to go. So it takes a lot of mental energy to get me and three kids out of the house, even for a few hours. So we all made a list of fun places to go, and I hope to hit them all this summer. The best part is that all of them are free and within 15-45 minutes  away from our house. Some of our future outings include going hiking at local parks, visiting some awesome out-of-town playgrounds, and maybe even a beach outing (though the thought of taking three kids to the beach by myself is still daunting!)


I'm also trying to be more relaxed with our schedule. Normally we would have School Time right after breakfast. But now I'm letting the kids play whenever the mood catches them, even it if means playing in the sandbox at 8 o'clock in the morning or wandering next door and playing with cousins for a few hours after breakfast. I try to fit our learning in later in the day, whenever we get a chance.


I used this preschool year as a practice run for "real school" so I could test out different ways of doing things and get a feel for how I'd like to conduct school for our next year. I've learned that we all do best when we get everything done right after breakfast, and then the boys are free to play the rest of the morning until lunch, or we are free to run errands and get home in time for lunch. I've also realized that nap/quiet time is still non-negotiable. I experimented for a few weeks by letting the boys skip quiet time a few days a week. It wasn't pretty. They got pretty cranky and wild by 5pm. They need that time to just  be quiet and look at books to give their minds and bodies a rest. I don't think that will change anytime soon!


I'm already getting excited about planning for next year, and I'm having fun figuring out how to turn our dining room into a school room. I see a trip to Ikea in our future. :)

Check out these handsome students. The picture on the left is from September 2011, the right one is from June 2012. It's funny to me that Ben happens to be wearing the same shorts in both pictures!