At Home in the Mountains

I always stop and remember this day as the day that completely changed my life. No one but me remembers now, but this is the day that we had Maddy's 20 week sonogram. This day is not sad to me anymore; it is just an important day to remember. On that day I was not ready for my life to change so dramatically. I didn't want to have to be challenged or deal with the difficult circumstances that we were dealing with. I just wanted out...but there was no way out. Looking back I have to laugh at myself. There was no way to see it on that side, but God had an amazing plan for our family. He had a plan to give us more joy and more understanding of who he is. Many of the times in the last five years have not been easy, but they have been worth it. We would not trade Maddy for anything and love every part of who she is, even when sometimes part of who she is drives us crazy, like doing the exact opposite of what the photographers tell her to do when trying to take her picture (event f...

Look, Mom! I'm a walrus! We had our first parent teacher conference for Maddy yesterday. Maddy's teacher, Miss Zohra, is a very nice lady and seems to really like Maddy. Having never done a parent teacher conference, I didn't really know what to expect. It was informative in some ways, but since we have no past performance to compare how she's doing in school now, it is hard to tell what all of the evaluation actually means. I felt that there were several things as far as fine motor skills that we need to watch, and if we don't see improvement, it may mean re-admitting into OT. They do a really comprehensive eval sheet for every aspect of learning. They don't just focus on academics, but also evaluate life skills and social skills. The score 1-3 in all of the different levels. 1 is above age expectation, 2 is age appropriate, and 3 is needs work. Maddy got 2's and 3's on everything. One of the things we found from the evaluation, something we...

Yesterday, when she got home from school: Maddy: Hey, Mrs. Mom. Mrs. Mom, I love you! Me: I love you too. Maddy (walking away): Okay, Mom. Good talk. Last night, before bed (listing some things to pray about): Maddy: I'm thankful for pancakes every day. I'm a pancake machine. I 'splode pancakes! Me (in a confused tone at first): You.."'splode" pancakes?......HA HA HAHA HA AHA HA.... (several minutes of uncontrollable giggling between the two of us follows) As my Dad would say, it was after 9.............................................................................................