Jan 21, 2010: Happy 3rd B-Day Marco!!!

I can't believe he is 3 already. It seems like he was born just yesterday. And on the other hand it feels like a lifetime...

Marco's birth day was so incredibly special, such a wonderful beginning as a parent. We have been through our share of things over the past year, and Marco has rolled with the punches right along with us. There are plenty of moments where I worry about the future of my kids. Will they be independent one day, will they be happy, will they have an OK time in school or will they be teased? I think every parent goes through those moments, special needs or not (sometimes I hate the term 'special needs').
Today I made it a point to just relax and enjoy Marco. Enjoy the moments with him, especially picking him up from school and taking him to dinner before his Speech Therapy. We sat and enjoyed dinner and I took a picture of him. He asked me to turn off the lights when they came on, I explained to him that these were not lights I had any kind of control over. He tried to stand on the chair, I made him sit. He danced outside the window by shaking his booty, and made the people who were sitting on the other side laugh. I was told how cute he was, once again. (Good god, if I was given a dollar every time someone told me how cute he was I could send him to College one day. As it is I just hope he can become REALLY good at soccer.) Then we went to Speech Therapy. Probably could not have had a better B-day party for him if I had planned one. ST is really a kind of play therapy. Although maybe on the surface it looks like play, Marco is learning from it. He laughed a lot today. He has an incredible report with his ST that warms my heart. I am so glad that Marco bonds with people (besides his Dad and I) who help shape his life, from whom he learns. Many of Marco's behaviors do not point to autism at all, which makes me happy.

Now that Marco is 3, he will have his ST via the LUSD. I met Ms Gabby, who seems incredibly nice and like Eric, is gifted at what she does. I look forward to Marco's chance to spend some time in the classroom, to get a feel for what that is like. He will go to his ABA school only 5 hours a day (8-1) and on M-W-F he will go to daycare in the afternoon (both are near my work so I will shuttle him in the middle of the day). The same day care he was going to before he started ABA. It will be nice for him to be around kids and just get to BE a kid. Play and interact when he feels like it, but to not be forced into anything. I felt 40 hours of ABA was a little too much. I was bringing home an overly tired child every night, who did not even feel like having dinner. Now he will have some energy to spare, and I dare think he will actually absorb more. (That is just my mother gut-instinct, of course studies have shown that 40 hours of ABA is what is needed for the biggest amount of benefit. I am going with my gut...no study can beat a mother's gut instinct, right?!?!?!?)

Jan 18, 2010: Milestones

Proud Daddy

Wind-blown Annelies in front of Lake Tahoe

It has been a while since I wrote. Last entry was when Annelies and I were in Holland. It turned out to be a wonderful trip, Annelies and I both enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

It was good to see our guys again though, after almost 2 weeks! Marco had grown, and has many more words in his reportoire in both Dutch and English. He now counts in English really well, and in Dutch pretty well. At first he counted One-Two-Three-Four-Five-Six-Mama-Eight. So very cute. He laughs a lot, and communicates much better although he does not yet communicate very directly (we can not yet have a conversation with him). I got to a point last week where I asked Marco's ST if I will ever have a conversation with him. It is difficult because I see the kind of progress kids his age make and I get a little freaked out. I do not doubt Marco's abilities. He is also very careful but steady physically and he most certainly understands dangerous situations in play (he respects heights, for example). I still have to be careful in the parking lots but he seems to understand the urgency of staying with me. He is now mimicking both speech and actions a LOT, so I think he is developmentally going forward and will catch up at some point.

With Annelies, he is pretty cute. Annelies is crawling now, so to stimulate her, I put toys or her bottle on the floor for her to crawl to. Marco picks those things up and brings them to her, so cute.

We took 2 family day-trips up to the snow. Marco took some time to get used to the snow but before long he was throwing snow balls and running around in the snow. We are going up for a couple of days in February, looking very much forward to that.

Annelies is now crawling (really crawling, on all fours). We also started standing with her, where one of us sits in front of the table and she sits on a bent knee so she can pull herself up and sit back down on the knee. I am taking it one step further and making her bend one leg at a time. She got a great little rocking horse for her B-Day (Thanks Joan!!!) which she will be using a lot (I just put it together). Her balance is wonderful, and she loves to be in an upright position like that. Adding a couple of pictures of the kids....Will write more soon.

12/10/09: Annelies Goes International

The big day began with a telephone call to tell me we had an emergency with the system at work (I must say, neither of my kids kept or woke me up as much as this 'newborn' system we migrated 2 months ago, LOL. Thankfully I get PAID to deal with this system). There have been too many of these early mornings in the past month, but because we were getting ready to skip the country I had enough energy to deal with what I could before handing it off to my co-workers so I could finish up packing and bring Marco to school.
It was difficult to say goodbye to Marco. He cried a little (he usually does now, the school is still so new for him), which made it even harder. Marco is in good hands while I am gone, getting some quality Daddy-time, and the rest of the time will be with Oma or at school.
I was still packing when Leif arrived to take us to the airport. It was a nice drive to the airport, all the work-worries kind of dropped away and I felt so good getting away from it all and just not thinking about it anymore.
Check-in went quickly, I was in the line for families going through security so I had help from others (it is a bit of manouvering with a child and a stroller by yourself, but not impossible). When we boarded I kind of had a small feeling of "ohmygod, how are we going to survive the next 10 hours? Cheapass Dutch person I am, of course I did not get a seat for Annelies. She was going to be in my lap the whole flight (or on the floor or whatever I could pull together. If I can get something for free, by god, I will. So proud of my roots!!! I was thinking: will Annelies behave or will she be loud and abnoxious? Will I regret not shelling out that additional 800 bucks for another seat (Shit, that IS a lot of money), but that fear was alleviated quickly because there were a lot of kids around us who were louder than she normally tends to be (Yes, that is saying a lot because Annelies, like the Vlaming side of the family, has a good set of pipes and does not shy away from using them).
Takeoff was smooth, I had a bottle for her and she kind of fell asleep as she was drinking. One of the flight attendants came and brought us a crib for her that I was able to put in front of my feet. A word about the service on KLM when you travel with a baby: EXCELLENT. I was impressed and immediately put at ease. The aforementioned steward came and checked on us 4 times during the flight to ensure we were OK. I also sat next to a Mom who had a 5 month old who travels back and forth quite often (she is Dutch, lives in Oakland with her Husband who is from India whom she met when he was doing an MBA in NL). We talked and had a nice time.
Annelies woke up around 3 hours into the flight and was up for about 2 hours. I fed and played with her, then put her back in bed to let her fall asleep which she did. It was awesome. I had a little TV screen where I watched about 4 episodes of the Office and 2 whole movies with no interruption. I was in heaven. Any mother is going to understand me, no kids and no work, no phone just me and a pretty comfy seat (I had the wall in front of me so put up my feet) and my own little TV. That is how I got through the 10 hour flight very quickly. (Almost too quickly, LOL).
Right before we started to land, Annelies woke up (they had opened the little window covers and turned the lights back on) and I repeated the routine from takeoff with a bottle of milk for her, it went beautifully, no crying, no fuss. She is such a trooper!
I will post pics as soon as I can figure out how to load them to my account...

Dec 2, 2009: Happy First Birthday, Annelies!!!

She is ONE!!!!

Unbelievable that one year has passed since Annelies was born. In some ways it went really fast, in others it feels like we have lived a lifetime. One of Annelies' birthday presents was her 1 year checkup with the pedi. Since we are traveling within a week I asked to move her shots to next visit. That way we can be sure she will not have any residual effects from them.

Her stats are AWESOME: 95th percentile for height, 75th for weight and 25th for head circumference. This on the "typical" charts. Dr H (the pedi) is super impressed with how Annelies is doing. She is cooing a lot and says "Hi" appropriately (like when we say it to her), and is starting to wave. We have not done a lot of signing with her, because we need to lear ourselves, something I am planning to focus on more this upcoming year. She sits up and gets herself from sitting to laying down position easily back and forth. Today she said "Bye" (or at least, it sounded like it to Aaron and I). She is crawling, just needs to figure out that it is faster to crawl then to roll to places she wants to go. She babbles a lot, all syllables, with intonation. She will begin with Eric, the ST who has been working with Marco, in January. (When Marco turns 3 his services will mostly come from the LUSD (School District). So I already put in for Annelies to get that spot with him. I learned, above all, to be aggressive, proactive and organized on behalf of my kids. This has helped me with work too, so that has been a good side effect :)

Enclosed are a couple of pics of Annelies and Marco in bath on the eve of Annelies' B-Day.

Oct 17, 2009: Where Is Her Penis?

This little gem of a question was asked to me by 5 year old Riley, my friend Jenna's offspring. I loved it. I loved it because it was so simple. To him, what was lacking in my daughter was not a few brain cells, eyes that go to the side and not up, or any kind of 'look'. To him, she was only different because she does not have a penis. Like any girl would be!

Annelies and I stayed with my friend Jenna and her to kiddo's, the aforementioned Riley and 1 1/2 year old Jace. For 3 days, Annelies basked in the glory of being loved and admired by Riley. Annlies took a bath with Riley, Riley fed Annelies her bottle, he tried to get her down a play slide, helped her play on a toy horse, and told her every 15 minutes that she is beautiful. Jace took it all in stride, but you could kind of tell at times he was thinking: Hey, waitaminutehere, I was the baby...what happpened?!?!

Riley spent the last night we were there at his Dad's place. The next day, when he talked to his mommy, he told her to tell Annelies good bye from him, and to tell her she is beautiful and he loves her. And don't forget to tell her she is beautiful! Yes, I admit that my heart kind of stung at times, knowing that when they are 15 years down the road, most likely she will not be getting that kind of admiration from 'typical' boys her age. That is why we enjoy it now, as much as we can. I must also say, though, that when I saw 17 year old Chris with Annelies (when I visited Robin- see previous post) I thought: "Heck, if Annelies meets someone half as sweet and wonderful as Chris, she will be a lucky girl!"

Oct 16, 2009; Past and Future

Today was a wonderful day. Annelies and I woke up in the Denver area (Aurora to be exact). It was the first full day of our Colorado adventure. Since we did not have any 'dates' until the afternoon, I decided to head North to Greeley, my old College town. We stopped on our way out of town at Starbucks and headed North on I-25. We made it to Greeley by 10 am (I always get up early when I travel, so did Annelies, but she is always early). It was so strange and cool to be back on the campus! We drove around, and I snapped pics on my cellphone to send to Aaron. A lot has changed, a lot of nice new buildings. I loved the campus back then, and it is even nicer now. We parked the car, and took a long walk around Campus. In front of my old dorm, we took a break and I gave Annelies her bottle (see pic). It was so cool to be back. The weather was glorious. It was only today, sitting there looking at Lawrenson Hall in front of me, that I realized how much I appreciate my College days there. It was a rich experience, difficult at times because I funded most of it myself. Stressful sometimes because I worked my way through, and was so often freaked out at the thought about having to support myself afterwards. (Who the heck was going to give me a job??? LOL! Never should have worried about that.) I would not have had it any other way. I sat and reflected and felt good about where I came from. Students there are so nice, I talked with a couple of them. Then I did something I was never able to do during my college time: I spent $200 at the store to buy sweatshirts and T shirts and other gifts. That was awesome!

In the afternoon we headed to Arvada to meet Robin and Teri and their kids. Each of these women has an older son with Ds, and a younger daughter (Robin's daughter Janet is 13, Teri's daughter Suzie is 2). It was great to see Annelies hit it off with Suzie, they played on the floor (Suzie is a quick crawler, but will probably be walking soon). Teri's son Chris held Annelies for a while. Seeing these older kids with Ds was a revelation to me. It showed me how rich Annelies' future has the potential to be. After the visit with Teri, Robin and kids Annelies and I headed to Applebee's to meet Jaime and Makinna (see picture...Annelies giving her Lip Of Discontent to Makinna, LOL). Makinna just turned 10, she is a lovely young girl attending 4th grade in a typical school. She is more like all other 10 yr olds than different. She talks in slang, loves horses, and shoes. She has friends in school who love hanging out with her. Once again, my heart was filled with excitement and hope for Annelies' future.

As I drove home, I reflected back on how this day took me to a piece of my past, and then showed me possibilities for the future.

Oct 10th, 2009: NICU Reunion

Today we were invited to Sutter Roseville, for a reunion of NICU patients from the past year. The NICU has now been open for a year, and we were absolutely lucky that it opened when it did. I recognized all of the nurses who were crucial to our stay, they were all there (except for one) which was AWESOME. We chatted, I took pictures and they lined up to hold Annelies. So cool. They were genuinely happy to see her, and thrilled that she is thriving. I also saw the people whose little girl shared a room with Annelies; they were born on the same day. I took some pics and have an email address to stay in touch. (I always regretted not getting their information before we left, but that time was such a daze for all of us...).
Annelies passed her 10 month B day, unbelievable how quickly time goes. We are planning a trip to CO next week, to visit my friend Jenna and also someone we met since we started this journey. I am so looking forward to it. Some 'girlfriend' time, I am very much due for that! It will be just Annelies and I, and my first plane trip with a baby. Only 2 hours, so it should be OK. If this goes off without a hitch, we will go to NL this December to visit my family. Since Annelies is still 'portable', it is a good opportunity. I regret I never did this with Marco when he was this little, so now I will take that chance.
We are thrilled the fall has arrived. We are looking forward to visit Apple Hill in november (hopefully with friends who have kids- it is a matter of arranging our schedules), and the SUDS walk at the end of the month. I hope to do some kind of Christmas open house this year. It is also time to think about Christmad cards again!!