Another Year Older (Almost)

She is almost six.  SIX!  I'm not going to say time flies - I felt all those minutes - and I was never under the delusion that she'd stay young forever, but SIX!  She needs 2 hands to count her age on her fingers now.  I LOVE this kid so much! 

Her personality shines, her temper flares, her imagination soars, her will tries my patience, and her love warms me to my marrow. 

She started school this year!  We had her as prepared as possible with glasses, hearing aids, knowing lots of the kids in her grade, talks about what happens at school, reading to her daily, all the good stuff - but I was still so anxious that this huge change would trigger her anxiety and she would start pulling out her hair again.  She has proven time and time again that she is a survivor and Dania survived the transition like a pro.  During the first month, she came home exhausted to the point of hysteria which after she finally would go to sleep left Mike and I feeling like a tornado had ripped through the house, but she has adapted and grown and impressed me so much.  Her sense of humour has been refined to a new level and her teacher even commented to me about how funny Dania is.  Class clown for sure.  Well, she did just spend the last few years watching me on stage so she knows how to play to an audience!  I have also noticed change in her writing and willingness to do it!  She still doesn't like colouring though.  She will simply hand me the pictures and say "I scribbled this for you."  No pride in the details - she wants to get through it so she can 'act.'  Now that she is even starting to read I am noticing new leaps and bounds in her speech developments.  She has still struggled with the s, sh, z, and l sounds and continuously used her compensatory sounds from before her surgery.  As she is reading though and wanting others to understand, I hear her self correcting more and even using the sound without thinking so hard.  She is a rock star.  She also doesn't fight me  - as much - when I ask her to use her sounds. 

She also started Sparks this year.  I loved Guiding and I was excited for her to start.  I actually am now one of her unit leaders - they needed one more in order for it to open, so I stepped up since I was a Girl Guide leader when I was younger.  It's great to watch her want to learn new things and earn badges... it's a shame that she is the ONLY kid in the unit to not listen to me.  I am often exhausted and keep thinking, 'why did I think this would be different than speech pathology/getting dressed/bed time...'  Either way, I am happy to do it.

There were a couple really emotional moments with her that were the fuel for me wanting to start writing again.  When we took the adoption courses we learned how adopted kids can struggle with identity in their teens and about how honesty is the best policy.  We have of course always told her she is from Russia and adopted.  I am not sure what triggered her deep thoughts this past August but she started asking lots of questions about whose belly she was in.  We talked about how it was a different lady and I had her name on a piece of paper and could tell her, but she said she didn't.  She would ask and then get really quiet.  Then one day she asked if the lady could feel her moving around inside her belly.  I said she would have been able to.  Dania then says that when she was pushing on the lady's belly she was dreaming of being with us.  Oh.  My.  Gosh.  I got choked up instantly and was at a loss for what to say.  Wow.

She has grown to be super affectionate with us and will tell us she loves s all the time - punctuated with the yells that we are rude for telling her what to do, of course - but this kid continues to amaze me in ways I couldn't have even imagined.   I LOVE this kid!

The Best Gift I Ever Received

*Please note, this was written a year ago.  I just revisited this story as a gift for my friend as her daughter celebrated her first birthday.  I KNOW I don't write on this blog much, but all was status quo for a while.  There have been some big changes and I feel the urge to write again... so let this begin it as this happened chronologically next in our lives after the previous post.

February 25, 2016

It’s almost 1 a.m. on February 26, 2016, and I’ve almost been awake for a whole day.  I am positively buzzing!  Everything about today is coursing through me and I don’t think I can even write it down properly.  It is my daughter’s birthday (or was, since it’s the 26^th) and we were excited to bits about that.  The most beautiful gift was given to me today though. 

My daughter was adopted.  I didn’t know when she was born, how it happened, or what her birth sounded/looked/smelled/felt like.  I didn’t know she existed until 13 months later when I got a phone call at work.  I know what you’re thinking – that should be the best gift I have ever received, right?  I don’t look at that as a gift though.  She was fate.  So much about her and us was meant to be that it rattles me to my core sometimes.  No, she wasn’t a gift.  She was ours from the moment she was born, I just didn’t know it.   Flash forward, four years later, the subsequent leap year as another coincidence, a best friend is going into labour with her first baby.  A little girl. 

Now, I never saw myself as pregnant until I met my husband.   He rocked the foundations of my own wants and needs like I never could have imagined.  When we couldn’t get pregnant, I was more worried what he and others would think as opposed to feeling disappointed in any way.  I just didn’t want to disappoint anyone else!  Long story short (and it is the BEST story, and still ongoing) we became parents the summer after our girl turned 1.

When I found out my friend was pregnant?  It was beautiful news.  I was afraid of over selling my enthusiasm or sounding underwhelmed but the instant I found out I had thought, “I want to be there.” 

I understand how private making a family is.  I understand how much an outsider could NEVER understand about your current situation.  I also know that no situation is as hard as that current situation.  It’s hard to talk about troubles.  It’s hard to sound excited if people you know are having difficulties.  It’s hard to know what to feel until it happens so it’s always best to not ask!  Best lesson ever for adults?  Don’t ask specifics of family planning!  Still, the moment I heard of my friend’s impending labour, I was yearning to live vicariously (and then I’m sure I turned and told my kid to stop screeching, begged her to eat something, demand she stop jumping on the furniture, threaten to leave where we were, and finally, silently wish I had a glass of wine), and be part of their most private experience.

We watched my friend’s baby grow.  I loved watching my daughter start to understand what was happening and want to interact with the baby.  I was torn about feeling the baby move around as I was so afraid to sound too eager or sad about it.  I was thrilled when she asked me to accompany her to an ultrasound.  I told her that I was there for them the day-of no matter what they needed, and I was ecstatic when she said that they both thought I would be a good person to have in the room (cue heart bursting!).  I had said, in a long ramble, that if they wanted me there to hold back hair, take photos, run to get things, walk their dog, ward off demons, build a bridge over the possible sinkhole that could open and expose the mouth to the underworld that might prevent the doctor from being in their room, then I would do it – dreaming I would be asked to accompany them on this day. 

She was given her due date – it was my daughter’s birthday!  A birthday sister!  Amazing!   The next ultrasound amended the date to earlier.   Oh well, I thought, that’s still awesome that it’s happening! 

As I said earlier, it’s the morning of the 26^th.  A slowly rotating, shiny, red, helium-filled number 4 is threatening to hypnotize me, but I must share this tale!

My friend had started contractions on the 24^th.  I was so excited.  My daughter and husband were excited too.   I felt a twinge of hope that she could wait until the 25^th to have her baby, and then I felt guilty for wanting to leave my daughter on her birthday to watch another baby being born.  Ugh!  The inner torment!  I resolved to deal with it as it comes. 

On the 25^th, I was woken up much earlier than usual with the phone call that the water had broken and my friend was being admitted.  Amazing!  Could I fall back asleep knowing this AND that I had a full day of activities planned for my daughter?  Of course not.   I laid there until I got my customary, “Mama?  It’s just cloudy, not dark, can I go downstairs and have breakfast in my pajamas?”   We had birthday presents, a family coffee date, lunch out, a trip to the museum, and the whole time I got periodic updates that nothing was progressing for my friend, but she was comfortable.   My husband and I decided that our new 4-year-old needed a nap and we headed home.  As she was asleep, I get the message that suddenly my friend is 9.5 cm dilated and the baby is expected in the next 2 to 3 hours!  I immediately typed:  Should I come now?  If you don’t want me to come, that’s completely okay! 

I put my coat on and grab my bag and tell my husband.  I stand in the kitchen ready to hit ‘send’ on that message when I get the message it should still be a couple hours but if I wanted to come now, I could grab a coffee with him while my friend has a nap. 

It hits me while I drive to the hospital that this is a leap year and my daughter was born on a leap year, the last leap year, and this exact day.  I never knew her birth, but I am about to hopefully be part of the birth of another little girl on the same day, on the subsequent leap year, and this is going to be my insight into what I completely missed out on in my daughter’s life. 

I arrive at the hospital and get a message that the formerly reported 2 to 3 hours is now 20 minutes.  I get directions to their room, get off the elevator on their floor and am met by Dad-to-be.  I exclaim that this is amazing!  He says that the 20 minutes was said to them about 15 minutes ago.  We push through the door of their room and I see my friend on the bed and the crown of a baby head right there!  I tear up.  I instantly look to see that she looks okay, and she is smirking.  I gather she had gone from 4 cm dilation to 9.5 with a baby head right there so suddenly that neither of my friends really had time to process that her presence is imminent!  The nurse tells her to push and baby continues to enter our world.  Four contractions later and I can tell I am about to see a face.  The big push is done.  Less than 10 minutes of me standing there and I can see her face.  The nurse tilts and pulls the baby out and then her arrival time is declared.  She lets out a precious little mew, is given a hasty wipe down and placed on my friend’s chest and both are draped in a blanket.   I am snapping pictures on a continuous basis but I am not looking through the lens at all (I look back at the photos and it is not the perspective I remember seeing, that’s how I know.  Well, that and my eyes were full of tears).   I just saw essentially what happened 4 years ago unbeknownst to me on the other side of the world.  Wow!

I am struck by how fast baby is calmed by the touch of mom and how she turns toward the sound of dad’s voice.  I strikes me that my daughter never had that.   I do know she was birthed in the hospital and never touched by her deliverer.  She was simply being dropped off for me to pick up at a later date.   I got rather choked up looking at how instinctively this new baby groped for her mother’s breast and nestled against the warmth of her parents’ skin.  My daughter unfortunately wasn’t afforded that comfort.  My heart broke a little more with a new understanding to my daughter’s beginnings.  No, she does not have a formal memory of this, it was never there, and she has had so much upset in the beginning of her life.  You would most likely never believe me if I told you, but I know this upset is inherently a part of her core being.  I just hope that this is a part of her foundation we have built upon and will be overshadowed and triumphed over, but it is there and it will always be important for me to recognize it is there. 

If I had not been witness to today, this would be an understanding I would not have.  I saw the love passing between mom and dad as they welcomed and comforted baby, and I appreciated so much more how survival without this and self-defence is ingrained in my own daughter.   I wanted to witness the events of today for purely selfish reasons, but I am leaving today feeling borderline euphoric to be enlightened about my daughter on a level that I didn’t know I could be.   After my friends were comfortably in their room, I drove home thinking solely of how little baby’s hand looked against mama’s chest and how much bigger my 4-year-old’s hands would look if she let me cuddle her that way.  When I got home, I did go right to her and thank her for letting mama run away for a little bit, and I then lay down next to her and listen to her mile-a-minute mind tell me what I missed.  She let me be close to her and asks me to stay with her but the cuddling isn’t the same instinctive burrowing that I saw today – and that’s okay.  I did get a completely unprompted “I love you,” and those have only just recently begun.  She was clearly thankful and buzzing from her day as well.   She will always be the MOST amazing, complex, brave, resourceful, creative, feisty girl I know and no matter how much preparation and reading I did to prepare me for her background and development, I was just blessed to witness so much more about it than I could have ever imagined.

And to my friends:  I will never be able to thank you enough for the experience today. 

I know, I know, I know... what are ya gonna do?

It has been recently pointed out to me by someone, who apparently checks EVERY work shift, that I haven't posted since June.  I KNOW!  LIFE HAPPENS!  Forgive me.  The blog is entitled my path to parenthood... or something clandestine like that... not my life living day-to-day and hoping I don't throw her out the window while my husband's golfing and accepting duties in Spain because he's been there before... seriously.

LOL!

I make that sound bitter.. because I'm fortunate enough to be able to!  I am bitter about the Spain thing.  I just WISH I could be fortunate enough to have visited a foreign place enough to feel satisfied enough to say, "nope, I don't need to go ashore and tour.  You go ahead!"  Instead?  I'm saying, 'nope, I don't need to poop in peace.  You keep slamming on that door while screaming at the top of your lungs no matter what threats I utter..."  Get why I've been busy?

Seriously, it is unfathomable what this deployment has thrown at me.  I did 6 months alone while he circumnavigated Africa.  This is "only" 10 weeks.  It's been 2.  My sister was here for one.  I feel like it's been 32 weeks... ugh!  This kid pushes every button in my existence because she knows MAMA is here - no matter what!  It is sad to me sometimes how she overlooks Dada in situations. I have now observed leading up to her first deployment that she 'understood' Dada was going away.   That in itself broke my heart; then the nightmares started.  LITERALLY!

This kid has been having nightmares since she understood Dada has been leaving for a long time (we've been working on the calendar together, to my own detriment).  I had no idea until one of her teachers approached me before she switched to 3 days a week.  Goodness gracious.  I have to admit that since that revelation, I've been watching the webcams at daycare (because I can and work from home 3 days a week) and mostly just look in around nap time, and every 15 mins or so following that.  I've now witnessed my daughter in body-wracking sobs, in silence on my behalf, sitting on the knee/in the arms of her teachers for a minimum of 60 minutes!!!!!  This killed me the first time I "saw" it.  It's HORRIBLE to recognize that your kid is shoulder-shaking sobbing and you can't comfort them.  I have now stopped watching the cameras.  I don't get it!  She sleeps okay at home (wakes up crying IF she does nap, but is easy to soothe once she has peed or has something in hand to eat) but all I get from school is "inconsolable."  I feel like they see me as uncaring when I say "it has to be because her father is away..."  Sounds like a cop out even to my ears.  For the first time, she awoke from a bad dream during nap at home (normally she fights it with ever fibre of her being and then is awful for the rest of the day onward!).  I usually only get "it's a monster" out of her as a description.

Mike called home!  Yay!  She was so excited to hear him.  First 3 questions she asked:  1.  Are you on the boat?  2.  Why you on the boat?  3.  Can the sharks bite you?  Interesting to me since she has never mentioned sharks with Dada before.  I wondered the moment she started watching Frozen if she would put together Daddy going away on ships and the ship with Anna and Elsa's parents... For those who haven't seen it?  *spoiler alert* it sinks.  I was surprised to hear her ask about the sharks - it was the closest to monster and Dada that I could get... Can't figure out if that is the 'monster' from her dreams at school or not... probably never will, so frustrating.

Only time will tell.

On every other moment since June (as I've been informed by my sister is the last time I typed) up to THIS moment though... here we go!   Soccer started!  This kid wanted NOTHING to do with team sports.  She wanted to log roll down the hill beside us.  Fine.  Also makes me wonder about what to sign her up for in the future.  I feel like she will be more of an individual competitor.  People say it's too early to tell and then at the same time tell me she is destined for gymnastics!  Okay!  You know nothing!  HA!  We are still waiting on the appointment for genetics about her possible Stickler's-like syndrome.  I don't want her in gymnastics or hard, joint-pounding activities if she is destined for arthritis at 20.  Not cool.  That being said... I just started 'creative movement' classes with her today and she was SO into those.  Clearly, at least I feel, my instincts were on about the individual competitor aspect - IF she wants to compete.  We will keep going REC instead of a discipline-focused facility programs, until she is "diagnosed" and falls in love with anything.  Man, that appointment can't come soon enough because the tests for Stickler's (and anything else) will take months for processing.  Damn the fascinating and blessedly-cruel "art" that is genetics... I say art, only because we create so much out of the genetic foundations that are building us.  SO freaking fascinating!

On a definite note, got her new glasses last week.  Her prescription is the same, yay!  We just needed bigger glasses (and I desperately didn't want ones with nose pieces because we were going in every-other week getting hers fixed!).  She is so FREAKING cute.  I didn't think her glasses could get cuter and I was WAY wrong!

Wow!  I was told I had nothing to worry about with her looking over her glasses so much, it was just hat she had figured out her 'normal' distance for good vision.  It will actually take a bit more effort to look through the glasses to see that distance  while simultaneously being granted faster focus at other  points of focus.  There has been no major revelation like when she first got her glasses... just 

 less looking over her glasses at us!

To touch on almost-explored topics from earlier...I feel exhausted and like I want to throw her out the window when she pushes it to the max.  (Scene set:  Kid KNOWS if she wants to help in the kitchen she has to keep her hands out of the bowls or she has to get down from her step stool.  She is also smart enough to know what cupboards/drawers she can go in...).  She moved her stool and stuck her hands in the raw chicken 3 times while I prepped other parts of dinner and calmly told her she wasn't aloud in the kitchen anymore.   This was not received well.  This resulted in more bowl-hand plunging, more forced hicupping and screeching that she knows I cannot stand - but also can''t do much about when I'm in the middle of prepping/cooking dinner.  GAH!  She is smart.   She KNOWS what will set me off (mainly screeching and spitting and hitting) and she does it as soon as she gets angry with being told 'no.'  Hence, it leads to me feeling defeated and like I don't know how I'm going to do 8 more weeks of this.  I've resorted to bribes now.  Chocolate, sweet, task-specific bribes.  IE.  If she eats her dinner without fuss and eats it all, she gets a peanut butter cup.  That is the only time she can get one so she knows what she has to do.  Glow-in-the-dark stickers in her room for going to sleep and staying in bed instead of running around the room, bouncing off the walls, banging the doors, and screaming.   She just does not take me seriously when I use a stern/loud voice and tell no or else she loses a toy/privileges the next day - and I carry through with any 'threats' like that!  I just don't scare her the way our friend with the loud voice or Dada's loud voice does.  She laughs when I do it.  Sigh.  Makes me feel useless.  Good thing she's cute when she's asleep.  Only 8 more weeks, right?  Only...

I Guess Everything Happens to her Mouth!

It's been a long time; I apologize.  It's been very busy with Mike in and out to sea on an unknown schedule.  Sheesh!  Can't wait for that to end.  Plus, the warmer weather has us outdoors more.  Dania seems to be into the gardening more this year.  I mean, she always loved dirt but she seems to appreciate the flowers that are growing.

Her speech is coming along fantastically.  She has been working SO hard at speech pathology.  Still gets to angry at me at home if I try to get her to say something the correct way.  She doesn't get near as mad at the actual lessons.  She is working on the F sound without expelling any air through the nose.  Sounds easy for a normal kid, but a kid with a cleft who had the muscles at the back of her throat running in complicated directions has more trouble than you'd think!  Once the F is mastered, we can start with the S and then I predict she will be nearly fully 'normalized.'

We've had some fun with doctors too.  She bit her toenail off (that's how she says she did it) and had to get that checked out.  I've noticed she picks at her big toenails too.  She also fell on the May long weekend and bumped the side of her face on the ground.  She developed quite a bruise and a big lump at the joint.  She wasn't hindered with eating or talking, but if I touched the spot she definitely would cringe.  It started to get better.  Three weeks later the bruise reappeared and the lump was bigger!  This is when I started to worry.  We went to a walk-in clinic as we couldn't get to our GP until next week.  They referred us to x-rays at the kid's hospital.  The x-ray department referred us to Dentistry because they could get a better panoramic x-ray.  Now, we are quite familiar with Dentistry so she was right at home in that waiting room!  She was definitely nervous getting the x-ray (wouldn't let go of my hand to hold the handle on the machine) which was unexpected to me.  My heart went out to that little girl standing in the lead apron with the machine circling around her head.  She doesn't like asking for help or showing vulnerability but it was there - and so was I.  After the x-ray was taken, we were referred back to X-rays to get it read.  No broken or chipped bones.  Yay!  Now we go to the followup with our GP next week and he will have the full report and assess the lump to see if he thinks it is anything more than just a tendon or ligament injury.  Poor kiddo is so used to people poking her in the mouth now!

We had our first dentist appointment too - which went swimmingly, a visit from Gramma, birthday parties for friends, and lots of fun overall.  She's becoming obsessed with dinosaurs.   Mother's day was special as it will always be around the anniversary of when we first met her!!!

She has a fan club of a few little kids (they are at school and in the neighbourhood) who like to watch her be 'Dania.'  She still doesn't initially just play when kids approach or she is in a new situation.  She will act like a cartoon character (I'm told that comparison a lot!).  She will fall down and shake her head, she always looks with shifty eyes, freezes her stance to look around or listen, and then will start acting like an animal or dinosaur.  It's hilarious to watch.  Kids will come up to her and just bark or roar to try and get her to do it.

She is still very difficult in the home when I ask her to do something and starts to act angry now too.  Brow furrowed, deepens the voice, crosses the arms.  It's obvious she isn't actually angry, just acting that way.  It's cute, very cute, but also frustrating.   The full moon this month had her prowling her room like a caged animal, as per usual, but I swear she has not stopped eating since!  I told Mike that she asks to eat nonstop all day and when he finally had a morning with her on a weekend he told me I was right!  It's kind of funny since she had just fought us screaming at the top of her lungs just the night before to not eat dinner.  Growth spurt for my little werewolf.

My favourite thing though?  Car rides hahahaha!  After the random unprompted screaming that lasted at least 6 months, I now can drive and listen to her sing to herself or play with the little figurines we keep in the back seat for her.  She has such an imagination.  It is impressive to me how she will create and recreate stories and scenarios.  Some I recognize from things we did, books we read, or a cartoon she watched, but most of the time she is just making things up.  And the soft singing melts my heart completely.  Such a sweet little voice.

This is probably my favourite picture of her ever!

Ear Doctor and Fever

The snow is driving us all mad!  We are both stir crazy and starting to get on each others' nerves.  Appointments keep having to be cancelled and rescheduled but we did make it to the ear doctor last week.  A long visit in short, her tubes are still in place and we just need to wait until they fall out to see if she needs new ones.  He said cleft palate repairs usually have tubes until age 4 or 5.

Then the tubes came in handy this weekend as she had a fever for 4 days straight and whenever she woke up, she kept saying her right ear hurt.  After 4 days, I finally gave in and went to the walk-in clinic.  The ear was red but didn't look infected yet.  She said that the tubes probably prevented the accumulation of fluid from this viral cold.  She finally woke up yesterday without a fever!  She's still a little lethargic, but obviously felt better as she wouldn't go to sleep last night because she had 4 days of energy pent up.  It's good to know that my kid isn't any more contagious than all the other snotty, drooly, coughy, sneezy little kids out there!  Hahaha!

I think we have earned a Chapters date today!

Eye Doctor

We had our followup with the ophthalmologist today.  All is great.  This kid was such a trooper during the initial wait, then she was so good to cooperate with the optician and her tests (all of which she had just done 2 weeks ago!).  Even when she was getting bored and just guessing at the shapes on the eye chart - she wasn't even looking in the right direction! - she was still well behaved.  They confirmed she was seeing depth perception, which was the only test before she wasn't too sure about.  it involves putting on the 3D glasses and looking at a big bug picture (seeing if they try to grab at it or are startled by it's appearance of being off the page), and also by being shown a group of buttons with 1 that pops out and asking her to push the button that needs to go down.  She even sat good for the ocular pressure test again.  Then we had to get the dilating drops put in.  She laughs as these go in!  The optician was a bit taken aback.  She said that they actually sting a little and I did try them once so they do burn a little initially.  Dania knew she got to go get a muffin in the cafeteria once she had the drops though!

We then waited an hour to go back in and see the actual ophthalmologist who did a few more tests and then let us know they had no concerns and that her prescription was still correct.  We go back in 6 months and if nothing has changed and genetics are normal, just annual followup after that.  She will need correction for life, but we just want to ensure there isn't a fast progression in her myopia.  I inquired further about the genetics appointment and she said that they must have a bigger wait than she initially thought.  She is still taking the precautions as if she is genetically positive for something like Stickler syndrome (the ocular pressure testing) but all is okay now and we just have to wait and see if we need to follow closely or not.  They were definitely impressed with her speech improvement and could understand almost all of her answers without having to look at me for confirmation.  

We were at the hospital for almost 3 hours in total.  She, thank goodness, was better behaved than she normally is when it's just me.  I think she likes it in the Eye Clinic waiting room.  Fish, lots of fish, and the promise of muffins... if only I could apply that everywhere...

She's 3!

Yesterday marked Dania's 3rd birthday and about 18 months with us!  I checked her height on her growth chart and she's only grown about an inch in height since August, and I think it was all in the legs since all her pants are flood pants now.  I only officially record weight after the doctor's and we haven't needed to go in a while.  She has changed so much, and even just in the last few weeks her development in speech is crazy apparent.

She now officially is a preschooler!  She attends on Mondays and Fridays and her transition time was apparently not a problem at all (which totally makes me feel better about putting her in to daycare 1 day a week to ease her into school since she had a bit of difficulty transitioning into that big group situation) and has already made a best friend.  I guess her and a another girl, S, are just inseparable and I did meet her the other day and she continued to tell me how Dania is a big girl now that she is in the same room as her and that "she can even talk and everything!"  It was cute.  Dania was a little overstimulated come nap time, apparently she was running laps around the room, but she did calm down and didn't have trouble after the first day.  She is telling me stories as soon as she is in the car when I pick her up and I can even understand most of them!  This is getting fun now!  She is also more willing to sing herself instead of just asking me to sing and I catch her singing to herself all the time now and can always tell what song it is (although, last night at midnight it was a made up song, "I love CAAAAAAKE!").  She also sat and watched a different movie with me, well, most of it until she head butted me for putting the empty popcorn bowl on the table instead of letting her put it on her head.  It was Cinderella, and now she talks about her as well as Elsa and Anna... sweet, sweet variety!

She has been to the speech pathologist again and did well.  She went to the optometrist who was able to confirm this time that she does use both eyes equally despite the different strengths of prescriptions.  It's good that she isn't relying on one more than the other.  She even let them do the glaucoma 'puff-of-air' test.  When Mike told me that I was impressed.  Even my sister refuses that test LOL!  We have followup with the ophthalmologist next week.

Mike has been in and out to sea and that's clearly taking a toll on her (and me!).  It's hard to explain how many days until he comes back... she doesn't get beyond tomorrow.  It is also hard on both of us when I can't do one thing while Mike plays with her/watches her and she gets frustrated at lack of attention sometimes - and having to be good by herself while not getting that attention ie. not diving off the couch onto hardwood repeatedly.   I try to always give her a logical reason as to why I'm saying 'no' but it will still be time before she understands the 'why,' hahaha.

She is just so stinkin' cute sometimes!

birthday dinner out

Ontario

Holy moly, it's been a while since I posted but we've been super busy.   Mike is in and out to sea and it makes life that bit more difficult.   Dania and I did just go to Ontario and had a wonderful time.  We had a hell of a ride there though.  Delayed 5 hours so that we landed after 10 pm when we were supposed to land at 5.  I had planned it so she would hopefully nap on the plane and then be in a good mood when we got to Gramma's house.  Nope!  She didn't get to bed (without nap) until what would have been 1:30 am AST.  We both crashed hard that first night.

She played in the snow with Aunt Kitty, went to the butterfly conservatory, let me catch up with great friends and played with their kids, saw all of her great-grandparents on my side of the family, jumped a lot on a trampoline, and had a 3rd birthday party!  I'm so glad I did do it there because Mike now won't be here on a weekend when I would have a party at home and therefore, I don't want to!   Too much work for just me!  She had a rocking good time at the early birthday party though!  She had tonnes of cousins to run around with, pizza, a Frozen DQ cake, and lots of people fawning all over her.  I loved it too because I got to see so many people and have a huge catch-up/show off period.  Dania sang Happy Birthday to herself with everyone, blew out the candle (twas not possible last year!), and entertained people by singing Let it Go.

She's not going to remember the birthday anyway... but we have lots of people who will!   It was also a party that was a breeding ground for germs.  A whole bunch of us got sick, starting with 1 person vomiting at the end of the night (you know it's a good party when...) and the result has been sick days from work, rescheduled appointments, and me and Dania sitting around like lumps on a log not wanting to move much.  We just eat a lot of oatmeal.   She seems to be getting a bit of her energy back today though.  I am still fatigued and it's in my throat and chest now but it keeps moving around so I'm hoping it will move on soon!  I just realized that this is my first big sickness since she's been with us.  I am now synonymous with the Nyquil/Dayquil commercial parents...  guh.

Good thing she's been singing along to songs a lot more and singing them on her own so that she keeps me entertained!

Potty Trained

It's been a week in underwear and I think I can now say that she is potty trained.  We had two bad days and the rest were great!  Only 1 accident in the last 3 days, and that was when she got excited with Aunt Candy, so, how can you blame her?!  She also spent the day at daycare and when I picked her up she was still dry!  We put a diaper on her for nap, but it is more often dry than wet when she wakes up.  She also wears one overnight, but that's it!  She now needs to be weaned off of getting Reese's Pieces when she tells us she has to pee and goes in the toilet!  HA!

I have also given up on trying to understand the eating habits.  After 6 days in a row of absolute screaming, she ate dinner no problem the next 3 nights.  Sigh.  As long as she tries it, I'm okay... but come on, just try it without it taking an hour!  Keep it up kiddo!  

She is also singing so much now that it warms my heart and makes me long to get her into some sort of music class.  She watches little nursery rhyme videos on the tablet and I can now recognize her requests, "Mama sing Old McGonna?" and recognize her tunes when she sings in her room.   I just have to remember these sweet moments when she tests my patience - which she is starting to blatantly do.  A new phase now where she points out that she is doing something she knows she isn't allowed to do, like running up to me with something small in her mouth and showing me just the corner of it sticking out while pointing at it!   At least every morning when she says "hi Mama!" I forget all that happened the day before... usually.

New Years Resolution

Well, Dania must have made a resolution to lose weight because she suddenly  has decided not to eat.  UGH!  It is absolutely painful.  I know most kids do this, but she's tiny and needs to eat.  She is potty training and her tights already don't stay up without a diaper!  Seriously!  She cries, screams, fights, throws herself around in the chair, won't be bartered with or bribed.  She won't swallow!  She holds a bite of food in her mouth and just lets it turn to liquid (48 minutes was the longest!).  I just want her to have 1 bite, always try something, but she isn't even taking 1 bite of her fav foods at supper.  I know it's not a painful reason because I broke down after day 6 and got her a Happy Meal and she scarfed that thing down in less than 10 minutes!  Oh, my!  It's just a crappy dinner hour and a half.  Mike and I can't talk over her yelling and we are constantly trying to reassure her and remind her that if she just has 1 bite and swallows that's okay.  She is so smart though that I honestly think she is waiting for us to break down and just let her get away from the dinner table without a bite and demand crackers.  If she has a bite of something new and she doesn't like it, fine, no problem, we will find you something else.  But I keep making stuff I know she has eaten before and she just screams.  I tell our friends this and then she goes and eats all her food and her friends' food at our weekly Sunday dinner.  What the heck!?  Well, if I thought it was over, I was wrong.  It's been 2 days since that and both nights have been:

And then she is fine once her feet hit the floor!  Even when she looks like this she does cute things that make us try not to laugh!  HA!

On the plus side, no accidents today and we were even in and out of the bitter, windy outdoors several times!  

Wow,  I just noticed that this probably has the most exclamation points in any of my other posts.

Christmas 2014

Christmas was so different for Dania this year!  She understands who Santa is, doesn't quite get that he comes and brings presents on only one night.  She understood the decorations and appreciated all the neighbourhood lights and our tree.  She understood how to open presents this year too!  We made her the dollhouse and that was definitely from Mama and Daddy (are you kidding me?  I want credit for making that.  Santa didn't do anything there!) and she had a few gifts from Santa.  We didn't do stockings because she doesn't really understand that Santa fills stockings and pillow cases.   She had so much fun playing with the new toys and was only a little overwhelmed with everything on the big day.  So much to choose from!  

Something that has really struck me was her love of the Christmas music.  She is such a musical little girl and Christmas songs are so easy and simple that I would hear her singing them and know exactly what she was singing.  I am also told that she dances the whole day long at daycare.  She is doing really well there and even talks about one of the girls.  It's so funny to hear.  This is a little girl that cries a lot, which furthers my theory that Dania is very empathetic.  Daycare is having the effect that I wanted because we were at a friend's house for a party and there were a bunch of kids running around and she was only hesitant for about an hour instead of the entire time.  She even started playing a game of catch with two of the girls, which I had never seen her do before!  It was so cute to watch her figure out how to play and how the older girl encouraged Dania to do well.  I was not the only person who was impressed with how it all went down.  I even had a friend get a little teary-eyed... she was quite far into the wine, but I loved how proud she got over Dania because of course that's how I feel too.  

Now, as she is becoming more independent she definitely is challenging us more and more.  She is so quick to just scream if we say no.  We are actually having to use time outs on a daily basis to calm her down.  She is also purposely not listening to us when we ask her to do some things.  It can be quite infuriating but I know it's part of development in all kids.  I still can't believe HOW different she is from last year at this time when she hardly said anything, not interacting very much with people other than Mike and me, and completely clinging to me in a larger group.  She's so awesome.  She even made us our first Christmas presents through school.  We got the classic mold of her hand and a couple ornaments.  AND!  She will be getting her second hair cut this week.  It's been over a year since her first but it has finally grown thick enough and long enough that it needs a shaping.  I'm looking forward to the new year and all the new growing and developing she will do!

Pantomime Time

For the fourth year in a row, I've participated in the annual pantomime at a local community theatre.  No, not MIME... pantomime.

Pantomime (informally panto), is a type of musical comedy stage production, designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is generally performed during the Christmas and New Year season. Modern pantomime includes songs, slapstick comedy and dancing, employs gender-crossing actors, and combines topical humour with a story loosely based on a well-known fairy tale. It is a participatory form of theatre, in which the audience is expected to sing along with certain parts of the music and shout out phrases to the performers. (Thank you Wikipedia).

Anyhow, it's the reason I've been missing several nights a week from home and super busy and unable to update.  Once the show opened, I am the busiest I get all year.  This year, I was excited to bring Dania to a dress rehearsal to see Mama on stage and to hear some of the songs.  The kid doesn't sit to watch anything longer than 15 minutes so I didn't want to bring her to an actual performance and leave an empty seat for the majority of the show.  She totally blew my mind and stayed for 1 hour 16 minutes!  That was the entire first act and 2/3 of the show!  She LOVED it!  I have to say, I loved seeing her from the stage and it was adorable how she wasn't quite heavy enough to keep the folding seat down completely.  Whenever a song started, she'd start dancing and the seat would fold up and down.  I come out on stage and hear her say, 'Mama!'  Adorable.  She would even participate when encouraged...it might have come late, but she still did.  For example, "Say 'hi' to Lightning everyone!" (Lightning is the horse) and 5 minutes later you could hear her say "HI LIGHTNING!"  The other actors kept telling me about stuff she'd do or say while they were on stage.  She also loved the dog puppet one actor always had on him.  Every time he came on stage I could hear her repeat "baby dog" and say 'hi' to it.  She kept talking about it at home too.  I had to tell her that he wasn't a baby because his name was Ol' Feller.  Well, he became Ol' Baby Dog from that point on.  She would also tell everyone "Mama blue eyes, Mama play" because I had sparkling blue eye shadow on as my character's name was Sapphire.  After she saw me on stage, she actually got excited when I would prepare to leave in the evening.  'Mama sing, Mama dance, Mama play' and then constantly repeat Ol' Baby Dog over and over and sing the name.  She talked about Ol' Baby Dog so much I had to bring her in before the show one night so she could see and talk to the puppet personally.  My coactor was so awesome and sat with her and the dog for a good bit of time while Dania just kept hugging and kissing and petting the dog.  She still sings his name every day!  

I gotta say, this kid LOVES to sing.  She has even become obsessed with the song Let it Go from Frozen.  Now, she hasn't watched the movie, but she will watch the music video 21 times back-to-back no problem.  I was even told in the grocery store that she was a good singer as another lady recognized the song... I wasn't even prompting Dania, she was all on her own.  

She is also loving Christmas music.  Mike always has it on in the car and of course every store plays it.  She is always bopping her head or dancing.  I'm actually very excited for Christmas this year.  I have put over 250 hours into building her a doll house.  I started in July.  Photos will come when I can show off the WHOLE thing.  

She also just had a visit from Gramma for a few days.  It was great watching them together.  Plus, she got Christmas gifts early, not that she gets what Christmas is, she just got excited because she got new stuff!  Above is her Elsa and Olaf and she also got a scooter.  She carries Elsa everywhere.  So cute.

Proud to be Canadian!

It's official!  Dania is Canadian!  We got the certificate in the mail yesterday and it was issued November 12!   Only 4 days shy of 15 months of her landing on Canadian soil and she is now Canadian!  I was so happy when I walked in the door and Mike said, "guess who is Canadain?!?!"  She had no idea why I was making her hold the certificate and smile but she did it anyway and looks SO proud!

Transition

A lot has happened and that is why it has taken so long to post again!

Firstly, I received a letter from Canadian Citizenship Services asking me to mail her actual permanent resident card as it gets sent back to immigration officials once citizenship is granted.  This must mean I filled out the forms correctly!  Yeah!   It was definitely not a document asked for in the initial package (just a certified true copy) and if they are asking for it now, I would think that would mean they are ready to grant it but, just like an old passport, they can't have a legal document flitting around that could be misused.   It is now in the self-addressed envelope (postage not paid with a fancy government prepaid stamp grrr) ready to be dropped in the mailbox.

We also had a followup eye appointment.  This went okay.  She def didn't want to sit still for the evaluations this time, probably because she can see all the cool stuff in the office now.   We have some homework from them.  I have the kids version of the letter eye charts (house, apple, circle, square) and I am to work on those with her at home while covering one side of her glasses at a time.  The worry is that because her prescription is much stronger on the one side that she might only really be using one side to look at things.  Basically, I have to first get her used to having one glasses lens covered and then work up to having naming lines on that eye chart.  We go back in January for them to look at this specifically.

Halloween was an interesting experience for her.  She had no idea what it all meant and won't remember it, but totally had fun knocking on doors and saying trick or treat.  Daddy collected the candy for her so I don't even think she really understood that she was getting candy.  She doesn't ask for it now with the bag sitting in Mike's office.  She just liked that she could finally go touch all the pumpkins on everyone's porch!

She has now also transitioned into daycare one day a week!  I really needed the day and I needed her to learn to be in a big group because she just shuts down if it is a group bigger than four or five kids.  By shutting down I mean standing and staring, and not taking-it-all-in staring... zombie staring where she isn't focused on anything.  It's obvious anxiety or feelings of some sort being stirred up from when she was in the orphanage and I want that worked out before she can go to preschool in 3-1/2 months!  We got into one where she knows one boy (who will be moving up to preschool at the end of this month so he can't become a crutch) to help her out and she clearly was happy about that!
     We did a transition week where I stayed with her the first day and we played for 2 hours.  She took in the room and the kids and was clingy but she definitely wanted to participate.
     The second day I stayed for an hour and then left here there for 2.  She cried a lot.  I could tell when I picked her up that she'd been crying (she is going to be an ugly crier.  Instant red blotches and super puffed up eyes).  I guess she had kept saying, "I need Mama!"  Heartbreaker!
     Day three had me dropping her and leaving right away and her staying for lunch.  The ladies told me she cried for a little at the beginning but then settled in and participated in the crafts and stories.  Got a little sad outside because they think she thought she was going home when they got her dressed for outdoors, but she cheered up and ran around.  Then she ate a good bowl of quinoa and many handfuls of grapes.   She was very excited to see me and we have now worked out that when she gets said and says, "no Mama go," that I ask her if Mama comes back, to which she responds, "yeeeaaaaa," in a sad voice.  Hahaha!  I also noticed that she has started to ride her scoot-around at home by standing on the back wheel rod and holding the handlebars and kicking with her one leg so it is more like a scooter.  I noticed that a lot of the kids do this on the playground so she obviously took that to heart!
     Day four she cried for about 5 minutes when I left her and then was fine.  She stayed for nap this day too.  They said she got upset when she woke up, understandable though since she's never waken up here before!  I picked her up shortly after nap time was done and she was quite gibberish-full on the way home!
     The last transition day, her first full day, they said she cried for about 30 seconds and then had a great day.  She did art and participated in the stories, napped, ate some lunch (good to hear that it's not just us that she doesn't want to eat her whole meal for!), and had a great time.  She is definitely more vocal since this week (screeching! grrrr) but my hope was that it helps her speech develop and I think that will come very quickly for her.  My other hope is that it helps her stick up for herself and become more assertive.  Right now, she lets herself have her toys taken from her, gives up her places in line on playground equipment (even if she is sitting at the top of the slide she will move if she sees another kid is halfway up the ladder) and her turn in games.  She lets herself be pushed and doesn't say anything and I don't like that.   I don't want her to turn into a mean kid, I just want her to know that everyone gets a turn equally and that includes her!

She is singing a lot more and even making up her own songs.  She's starting to get into jigsaw-style puzzles.  She is still pretty combative with me over anything that sounds remotely like me trying to get her to speak properly, but is also picking up on my emotions and becoming sympathetic to moods other than sad and crying.  She is getting her colours down and definitely has all her letters now.  Getting much better at telling us when she has to go to the bathroom.  She is a lot of fun and still makes me smile every morning when she says, "hi Mama!"

Speech with Glasses

We had our first speech pathology with glasses on and it was fantastic.  The speech pathologist was so impressed and ecstatic with her attention and participation and (still blows my mind) patience.  She was clearly watching the lip and tongue directions and trying to mimic in a more intense manner.  The speech pathologist even jumped to different activities now that Dania wasn't bending so close and clearly could see flash cards and books better.  Dania was awesome.  The B and P is becoming much more deliberate.  Still not as tolerant at home if I ask her to try again.  Next will be the D and T.  We have to work on getting her to stick her tongue out when she attempts to say those sounds because that will get it out of the back of her throat and then we can get her to retract the tongue once she is doing that consistently.  It's too hard to explain to her to put it behind her teeth at the top of her mouth... she can't see us doing that.  We are also to start working on three-word sentences.  Already have been doing so, but she gave us a whole bunch of scenarios to incorporate.  She also blew bubbles for the first time.  Well, blew bubbles with her mouth and not her nose for the first time ahahaha.  I don't know if it was the glasses and she could see what we were doing better or if she just finally put 2 and 2 together and figured out she could make more bubbles that way.  I was happy!  Still won't do the harmonica at home... just holds it in her mouth and hums!

Aside from speech, her little temper is starting to become the wonderful terrible two's temper.  Everything I suggest is met with NOOOOOO! with a full-body tense up and tipping her head to the side to shout it over her shoulder.  Sigh.  She's starting to understand options and conditions we are putting on things; you can have more cereal if you eat this piece of pear.   She is blowing my mind with letter recognition.  Now that she can see she is pointing out letters on signs all over the place and accurately stating which letter it is.   She got very excited at the F in the word "fresh" at the store today.  She picks her alphabet cereal out of the bowl and knows the letters perfectly too.

Her seasonal obsession right now is pumpkins.  SO excited when she sees them on people's steps during our Leia walks.  What is with the sudden barrage of white pumpkins this year?  They are out in equal numbers to the orange... weird.  She pats and kisses every pumpkin close enough to touch - the outside displays at the grocery store take about 20 minutes to walk past hahaha.  It's cute.  I've started to just tell her they are too heavy for us and she leaves them.   That's a new word for her, 'heavy.'  Except she uses it for anything that is difficult.  If she can't get up the stairs alone, they are heavy.  If she cannot put the box of cereal in the cupboard because she is trying to do it sideways, it is heavy.  Puzzle piece not fitting?  Heavy.  I'm trying not to say 'hard' when I correct her because hard is a texture we are working on too!  I always laugh when she says heavy because it makes me think of in Back to the Future when Marty McFly keeps saying things are heavy, in keeping with his 80's slang, and Doc Brown thinks there is something different with the gravitational pull in the future because of these comments.

Swimming lessons are getting better!  I think the water was just too cold and the place was too chaotic for her on that first lesson.  She is enjoying them now and kicking and falling off the wall to us in the water.  She had a pool party on the weekend for a friend's birthday and she had a ball there.  Our local pool is a wave pool so you can sit up in the shallow end and let the waves knock you around.   Water in her face?  Yes, please!  Weirdo hahaha.  Man, I love her.

She doesn't always need the waves to knock her over as she loves to fall down all on her own hahaha.

The only other thing going on now is that because our adoption agency is defunct (just disappeared after a year of no work) we have this contract with Russia saying we would provide post-placement reports for the next 2 years, but now have no one to send them too.  Asking around online, some people are doing them up themselves and then sending them to their orphanage's regional Ministry of Education but on the other hand, we had given the agency a bunch of money in trust to complete this for us and ensure proper translation, legalization, and delivery of the document.  I'm of one mind that if Russia doesn't want us to adopt their kids anymore than they can't be that concerned about how she is doing presently.  I feel a bit bad because we said in court that we would do this and our judge was so nice, and the money we gave the agency would have been spent on this anyway so it would have been gone (just being spent over a longer period of time instead of disappearing all at once) so we don't have that amount to 'double spend', and our social worker has retired now.   The other mind I have is that maybe providing successful post-placement reports will help to lift the ban of adoption as they see how great all their kids are doing.  I also do want the orphanage to know how she is doing as we donated a bunch of money on her behalf to help others with clefts and other physical ailments.  Big sigh.  It's like the government 'threat' will hang over me for a long time now!

Postop Followup

We had a postoperative followup with both of her surgeons and the audiology clinic.  As always, she enjoyed riding the elevators all over the hospital.  She did get very quiet when seeing the cleft palate surgeon because I do think she remembered him and what he meant (pain) to her.  After we just talked and he let her slide down the dentist chair instead of sitting in it!  He peaked in her mouth with the mirror while she sat with me and that was all he needed.  He told me he was extremely pleased with how it looks.  The palate is raising up like it should (I never thought of it as doing that, but I look in there almost everyday), and the scars are looking like they should and no stretching or pulling.  He was also happy to hear her making so much noise and asked about her speech progress as a whole.  We also talked about her nasal regurgitation.  I told him how it only comes out of one nostril now and only when it is something more liquidy.  He explained that her swallowing and chewing will take a long time to change as she was so used to holding her tongue one way to help her swallow and she is probably still doing it.  He is confident it will change and remedy the regurgitation.

Next we headed off to the ENT Clinic and met with the surgeon who put in her tubes.  She didn't really care about his presence because he never looked in her mouth!  The tubes were perfect and they had no concerns.  We will see them again in 6 months and then they might even be able to come out!  Then she can have bubble baths again because the soap won't cling to the plastic tubes and cause ear aches from clogging up as it dries!

Lastly, we had a hearing check that was finally successful.  I laughed when the ENT Clinic told me her files from the other office we have tried to get her hearing checked said she wasn't cooperative.   The kid normally sits on my lap and makes no sound.  The first time she cried because it turned out she had a slight ear infection.  At the followup she did't make a peep but they didn't have adapters that were small enough to fit in her ears.  She would sit there and as the test was going on the tube would slowly work its way out and fall in her lap.  The third attempt was the same with the tubes not fitting.  The woman even said to me that they didn't have tubes small enough to stay in her ears and then made a followup for a month later (I remember thinking, how are the tubes going to fit in a month if they don't fit now!?).  I missed the fourth attempt and they never called to say I missed it or make a followup.  It is the same office that I go to every 3 weeks for speech pathology but I'm starting to wonder if they actually scheduled that last attempt or if I imagined that phone call!  Either way, this time she sat on my my lap perfectly and didn't flinch at the tubes being put in (ones that were small enough because they didn't budge once they were fit) and she passed with flying colours.  The woman said the volume response is just below ideal but she thinks it is because her canals are so narrow because everything else was perfect.  This was good to know to finally have a baseline for her hearing!

So, that was 6 months from the last visit.  We will probably go to 12-month intervals after the next one.  She is best case scenario for them all! (Us too!)

5 and 7

Well, just got back from the doctor's office.  It is official that she grew 7 inches and gained 5 pounds in a year hahaha!  Wish I only gained 5 pounds in a whole year...

A Whole New World

We picked up her glasses today and it was amazing to watch her response.  I was so curious to see what would happen because she can see things, just not clearly.  As soon as they were on and she took a look at the lady who just fitted her, she started nodding her head up and down to see through and then above the lenses.  We all giggled.  The lady then took the glasses off because she realized the arms were too long.  She couldn't find shorter arms, so they are on order, but she got a head strap and put the glasses back on her and made it so they wouldn't slide down her bridge-less nose.  She ran around a bit and then she stood up and it kind of dawned on her that it was different on a bigger scale.  Her mouth actually dropped open and she was looking around the store as a 'big picture' for the first time.  SO ADORABLE!  We went for a walk in the mall and went under the skylight and when she was looking she said, "woooOOOOoow!" because she could see the details of the clouds through the skylight!  She also ran to a store that had a shelf of stuffed animals on a front display - like, ran from far away because she saw what it was!  I let her play with those for a bit and then wanted to take her to the book store.  She sat on the ground and opened a book and did the "wooOOOOooow!" again.  She doesn't always do this for books but I cannot say whether it was for the new clarity and being able to take in a page as a whole or if it was because there was a shiny spot on the page; either way, she didn't keep hitting herself with the pages while she looked at the book because she wasn't as stooped over!

Now, after a whole weekend, I can say that they have made a bigger difference then I imagined.  She giggles and laughs SO much more now - which I adore!  She can see our expressions better and mimics so much more.  She stood under a tree on a walk and just stared up (I'm assuming noticing the layers of leaves for the first time), she saw all the fun stuff at the waterfront at the same time Mike and I saw it, she pays attention to things for a longer time in general!   She watched the small tv we have in the upstairs for the first time ever!  I took her downstairs and she sat in a chair instead of standing directly in front of the big screen - not for a very long time though.  What can I say?  Old habits die hard!  She skyped with my family and giggled more at their faces because she could see them clearer too (and also at the little face of her in the corner because THAT was now like looking in a mirror for her).  She has not tried to take them off herself since we left the store on Friday morning.  She asked once to have them off but when I shot her down she just kept doing what she was doing without a fuss.  I think it's the strap on the back of her head pushing her hair that bothers her more than the actual glasses.  She has not fought us once when we put them on after waking her up in the morning or at nap.  AND, my fav, she can actually lay in bed beside me while we read bedtime stories.  She doesn't have to sit up each time I turn the page to see the smile on Gerald's face that she knows is there!  Then, she also doesn't cause a stink when we take them to say goodnight.  It has been an absolute joy to watch her with her new eyes.  

(crap, I thought I'd get through that whole thing without tearing up and there I go on the last sentence.)

Vindicated!

I got a call yesterday from the Eye Clinic saying they had a cancellation today and could we make it at 9:45?  Heck yes, we can!  I have been waiting for this because as she grows more and does not stop looking at things close up, I feel more and more that she needs glasses.  I know she can see far away shapes, like, she knows a slide is a slide... but she never really looks at things unless she can hold it to her nose.  

Long story short - she needs glasses... big time.  The doctor looks in her right eye with a lens and says, "oh my, are you ever myopic!"  She is -7.5 in one eye and -5 in the other and then has astigmatism on top if it.  This kid has NEVER seen anything in the distance in focus!  I am SO excited to take her for her first walk or to even look at a book and not have her bend right over it and block the text!  They said kids with myopia are usually the ones that keep their glasses on without trouble because they are actually SEEING now!  This is also something that she will live with forever so it's best that we got on top of it now.  I dropped her prescription off and got her fitted for baby glasses on the way back from the appointment and they should be ready in a week and a half!  I'm hoping that by next weekend my baby girl will see!

Long story long... and it's gonna be long because I find it SO fascinating!

First of all, I was worried she was going to be cranky because she, like me, is not a morning person.  She wants to be left alone to enjoy her coffee (cereal) and then do something quiet (read) until she wakes up.   I got her a muffin and she was fine.  Even hugged the muffin before eating it.  When we get to the hospital she is excited because she remembers the elevators - better than remembering the surgery!  Ha!  We ride up 6 floors, register, and after a quick "WooOOOOOwwww!" at the fish tank and before she can even play with the toys they are calling her name.  We go into the room and I sit her on my lap in 'the chair' and she gets quiet.  I notice the Sesame Street finger puppets and start playing with her while the optometrist came in to do the initial evaluation.

I was really keen to know what they did since I knew babies can't say their answers... she started with pupil reaction to light, then to reacting to light from different angles.  She did some focus testing by having her look through a prism at an image that has now been split into 2 images to see if she flicks focus back and forth between the two.  She had a flashlight with an end that had 1 one light, 2 green lights, and 1 red light in a diamond pattern and put on the red-green glasses and had her point to the lights (she even counted them aloud).  She did distance testing by turning a television on and off.  She had these slats that were grey with a square that was made of grey and white lines located somewhere on it.  The slats started with very wide lines, making the square very obvious.  She would (blind to the location herself so as not to unintentionally suggest the answer) flip the slat over and have Dania point to the square.  She nailed it.  LOL!  They also did some perception testing with 3D images... Dania didn't like those very much, or, at least, wouldn't touch the images.  She would say her sound for 'ball' and point but not actually try to touch the 3D ball - I guess that happens a lot with little kiddos.  She did some other light testing that I have no idea what it did because I saw the back of her head and it didn't look any different from the initial testing - it might have been different coloured lights and the pupil reaction.  So, all in all?  This part took about 30 minutes and she sat so well and they kept commenting on that.  They also took an oral history from me and I told them about the adoption and that it was noted in her info given to us.  I told them that I have always noticed she looks at things closely and doesn't pay attention to things farther away for very long and that my gut said it wasn't attention span because she will sit and play with her Leapfrog reader for an hour!  I told them how it was my family doc that referred us to the eye doctor and how we saw him once, he told us to come back with the drops, and then he told us she was near sighted and referred us to the people that can deal with kids properly.  Then she had to put the dilating drops in her eyes.  Enter the tears - that I think were more from boredom and sitting still than anything.  Now we had to go to the waiting room and wait for the drops to kick in.

She played, happily, and seemingly unaffected by the drops.  She was not walking weird or seemingly having a messed up depth perception from the drops.  She did disregard the books quickly and opted for staring at the fish tank at length.  After about 30 minutes she asked me for Pocoyo.  Now, this is a show on youtube that we watch sometimes and I wasn't about to say 'no' when I had no idea how much longer we were going to be.   I also knew her vision must be screwy by now so I pull out my phone, find the show, press play, and her name is called.  So, we are now going into this next part with an anticlimactic Pocoyo experience...

She was so good!  It blew my mind her patience!  She wouldn't have this for me at home but she is also an inquisitive girl and was fascinated by the new activities going on close to her.  She did ask for Pocoyo in between every lens trial though!  So, this new session involved the Ophthalmology fellow and a student.  They were both so nice and very patient and clearly used to working with kids (automatically lowered their chairs, put smiles on their faces and raised the tones of their voices).  This was the part where an adult sits behind the big lens machine and looks at the alphabet chart (I know it has a real name) and tells the doc if number 1 or number 2 is more focused.  For a kid?  They have mum sit Kid on her lap and gently keep her head forward (I say gently because I'm sure for the 3 times I had to adjust Dania that others have had to do 30 or just brace their child's head).  I think she has this fear/reverence for doctors.  She has a love/hate relationship with them because the first bit of her life was composed of a lot of poking and prodding - especially in the mouth and ears - but has now experienced long-term results and 'get's it.'  Anyway!  He started with her right eye, chose a lens strength that was to an extreme (I don't know what extreme!) and holds it to her eye with a light scope and looks at her inner eye reaction.  This is where he exclaimed, "oh my!  Are you ever myopic!"  He then tries a bunch of different strengths and just like with adults, flicks back to the one he thinks is right while going to extremes and ever-so-slight variances.  He finds the one he thinks is good and then starts on the adjustment for her astigmatism.  After about 15 minutes, he finds the right combo for the right eye.  This whole time she has sat so still on my lap and listened to every direction from the doctor.  He would say, 'oh, chin down,' and I knew he was talking to me but she would then put her chin to her chest and he would laugh, 'oh, not that much!' and she would bring it up a little.  He kept telling her how smart she was.  Made me really proud!  It takes a bit longer for the left eye because she's done this all before now.  He starts getting her eye to look at the right spot by saying, 'HEL-looooo!'  To which she immediately says it back.  The student is laughing off to the side and making his hand creep up on her and making faces - he's going to be good with little ones!  After about 35 minutes total, the doc has the right combo and writes me a prescription and we sit and chat about what it means and I ask all my questions about what it was he was actually doing so I understood it enough to tell it here!  At this point, I do put Pocoyo on the phone for her to watch!  They laughed at the dancing that ensued.

The fellow told me that this was something that couldn't be corrected.  She will need glasses forever.  Ok, no big deal.  I had initially thought it might be correctable but I am not as concerned with her keeping them on because she will wear sunglasses outside for a long time and I wear glasses and she points that out a lot.  I think about how my prescription has a similar astigmatism to Dania's but that my eyes are 7 times and 5 times better than hers and I get major headaches if I sit at the computer without them.  What does she get?!?!  It makes me wonder if she has ever seen far away to understand near and far!?  After a lot of my questions were answered, the fellow goes to get the ophthalmologist and she comes in to talk to us.

She sits down and immediately begins asking about Russia.  What region is she from?  How much history do you know?  What tests did she have over there?  How come it took so long to get here?  Okay, the last one?  Not a Russia thing... that was the Eye Clinic and Canadian health care system.  I made sure she knew that  (and please, I am not knocking it at all!  I LOVE our healthcare.  I just felt slightly off put because of this sudden barrage of questions and nothing to do with the eyes!).  She takes a big breath after she asks what age we brought her home and then tells me that was the same age her son was when she brought him home from Moscow!  HOLY MOLY!  Seriously?!?!?!  What are the odds?!?!  It's been 6 years for her now since her adoption but as soon as she told me that she instantly warmed up and seemed so involved and concerned.  She explained that her region was important because of ethnic physical features (wider set eyes, flatter bridge of nose, almond eyes) to be taken into consideration but also because she was curious about our knowledge of hereditary syndromes.  It's none, by the way.  She said that there are syndromes from that region related to cleft palate and myopia that would be worth considering for the long run.  She asked if I would be okay with a referral to genetic medicine for testing to see if the 2 problems are genetically related or not.  I have no problem with that!  I was excited when she said it!  So fascinating!  I do a lot of genetic transcriptions in my job and was giddy at the thought of being part of this unique world;  moreover, it would almost be like being given a link to her past that we don't know!  This would be something that, if relevant, would affect any biological offspring and her long-term healthcare.  Such syndromes, the most obvious being Stickler's syndrome, which I had heard of (thank you new job!) can progress quickly without intervention and treatment (aka, eyesight and hearing getting worse without aid) and can affect connective tissues and cause joint pains/arthritis in the long run.  Despite what it can cause, just knowing can help with future healthcare needs.  I have to wonder if this ophthalmologist hadn't adopted from Russia herself if Dania's file would have stuck out in her immediate thoughts like this (remember, only yesterday she was given the file)?  I mean, I do not doubt that this connection would have been brought up eventually by one of the many specialists but now that we have these 2 conditions to work with and a woman who recognized the regional relevance, we have a starting point for possible special action.  SO DANG FASCINATING!

So much of Dania has seemed 'meant to be' in this process... this is a scientific aspect that I never could have predicted!

As I said, we went to the glasses store that was recommended as specializing in little ones and would also consider the flat bridge of her nose and we had frames within 10 minutes of walking into the store.  I didn't expect a wide array of choice with what is considered 'baby' frames.  I got to choose dark copper versus gold and then the colour of her plastic arm cover that wraps around her ears.  Either way, the store kept proclaiming how good she was and she only had to sit for a total of 2 minutes (three times with different widths of glasses and twice for the pupil distance measure).  At this point, she was asking for the ice cream I promised her for good behaviour.  HAHAHAHA!  We did get a pumpkin pie blizzard to share, but we also walked away with the order of glasses to be delivered in a week and a half!  SO EXCITING!  Seriously, like, beyond exciting to think that she will really see for the first time because she was worse than I had thought!  She won't have to stop and work to see things and will be able to catch things at a glance or in dimmer lighting!  WOW!  I can't wait!  I can't even explain to her what she is about to experience!  HOLY MOLY!

A Star is Born

Dania nailed her first audition!  Yeah!  Seriously though, I'm not one of those dance moms or pageant moms (although, I'd make a pretty awesome Olympic mom!), it was my audition and since Mike was away, I knew she would have to come with me - so, why not work her into the audition?  I go out for the pantomime (not a mime, pantomime.  It's British, look it up) and since it's goofy in nature anyway, a toddler who can't really carry a tune but loves to sing and dance is just about a perfect fit.  She threw up her arms and threw back her head and let out a 'yeeeaaaaah' right when she was needed and then danced her but off while I sang the rest.  I got a part, by the way. Hahaha.

It just amazes me that she was willing and able to do such an audition.  Last time Mike went away she would have just clung to my leg as she panicked and asked to be picked up while I would have tried to pretend she wasn't there for the sake of the audition.  She has changed SO much in the last month.

Mike did come home for this weekend.  She was quite excited to see him this time, which made me feel even more warm inside since last time, she didn't want to leave my arms for his.  I love hearing her exclaim, "Ga-ga" (still can't do the D sound).

Our latest speech pathology appointment went really well though!  She was even being patient with me (though, since leaving the office, not so much) and I could tell the speech pathologist was quite pleased with the progress.  The B and P sounds are becoming more frequent.  Not only is she consistently doing them on not initial sound (apple, Abby), she is doing them consistently with certain vowel sounds, ie. Bee (the long e produces an initial B sound every time).  She loves taking Leia for a poop (cooP) and even cheers her on as she does it.  Makes me even not mind picking up said cooP!