A (mostly) Super Sunday

Well, it didn't end the way we had hoped, but Super Bowl Sunday was pretty exciting around here.  As part of a once in a life time, Carpe Diem kind of trip, Dave was able to GO to the SUPER BOWL.  His friend, Joey, managed to get tickets and was kind enough to invite Dave.  On Friday afternoon, they began the drive to Indianapolis, stopping in Scranton, PA and Canton, OH, on the way.  Despite the loss by the Pats, the guys had a great time on their road trip.  I mean, how amazing is it to go to the Super Bowl, and to see your own team play in it?  I would imagine this would only be topped by your team actually winning the game. 

It was a long five days without Daddy (mostly for me) but the kids got into the spirit and were excited that Daddy was in "Apolis."  They loved yelling, "Go, Patriots!" and they loved that many family members were here to watch the game.  Jack loved that he conned Jessica into carrying him around and getting him things for an hour.  That boy... he's a con artist.  Mairead loved that Jen came over and danced for a bit before heading to a Super Bowl party.  Mairead donned her Bruschi jersey for the occasion.  She and Tedi have a lot in common.

Jessica had the great idea to have all New England foods at our Super Bowl party, so we had clam chowder, a Boston recipe for pulled pork, Boston Baked beans, Boston Cream pie, nachos made with Vermont Cabot cheese, and more!  We didn't win, but we ate well!

Ben was missing his dad and while watching the game, he was sitting on my lap and saying, "I'm just missing Daddy right now."  Mairead, being my daughter, insisted on wearing "my Patriots clothes" to bed that night.  Just when I thought I couldn't love her any more than I already do...

This video is not from Super Bowl Sunday, but it's just cute!

Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa

We had plans to celebrate Christmas with our NY family quite some time ago, but things did not work out. So, we headed to Grandma and Grandpa's two weekends ago to celebrate Aunt Ry's 40th birthday, and we had our Christmas while we were there!
It was great to see everyone. The kids were thrilled to play with their grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin. Oh, and Rosie (the dog), too! In fact, when we were getting ready to go, Jack told me he didn't want to go to the purple house. He wanted to live at Grandma's. We had a fun weekend and were happy we could be there for Aunt Ry's party. We were lucky enough to have a visit from Aunt Kathy and Uncle Frank, and Mim- one of the kids' four great-grandparents. They are pretty lucky to have these special people in their lives. They loved the Valentines that everyone brought. Thanks, everyone, for your generosity!

The kids just recently stopped listening to Christmas music every day (we have now switched to The Monkees), so they didn't really seem fazed by the fact that we were celebrating Christmas again. They were pretty happy about it, actually! Mairead LOVED the barn. It has animals and a million pieces. In other words, it's perfect for her. The boys had a great time with their fire trucks. They talk, have sirens, change shape, and shoot little foam balls. What’s not to love? Grandma and Grandpa did a great job picking out fun gifts.

The boys loved their Thomas playsets from Aunt Ryane, Uncle David, and Rachael. And, Rachael picked out a LaLaloopsy (am I getting that right?) doll for Mairead that is just like hers. It’s very sweet to watch the girls together. They have a very special relationship already.

It was nice to spend some time with our family and to just relax together. Most winters, we would have taken the kids sledding on the big hill on the property, but there was just no snow! The kids did get to see a bit of snowfall Saturday morning, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

Thank you to everyone who made the weekend special!

Mairead is awesome. Just, awesome.

She has just been amazing lately.  She is doing and saying things every day that just leave me dumbfounded.  Things I thought we would have to wait years for- if we ever saw them- she is doing.  I was in tears yesterday and felt so happy that I just couldn't put it into words.  I love this kid.

For a while, we have really been working with her to get her to stay 100% dry all day.  My mom has been promising that if she stayed completely dry all day for two days in a row, that she would take her to a special dinner and then out shopping.  Well, she did it.  So, yesterday when my mom got home from work, we told Mairead that she had earned her special day.  I told her it was time to get ready and she said, "But, I need a bowtie for my special dinner."  I told her that bowties are really for boys, so she said, "I need my red dress with black stripes."  She meant her Christmas dress.  She wanted to get all dressed up for her dinner.  She came upstairs with me to find the dress, and then insisted on tights and her 'tap shoes' (Mary  Janes).  She wanted her hair done and was incredibly excited.  They were only going to the 99, but who cares?  How long have we been wanting her to do just 'normal' four year old girl stuff?  To insist on wearing a fancy dress?  To want to be a princess?  I was speechless.  She wanted us to do her hair, and once she was dressed, she would curtsy and say, "Yes, your Majesty."  No idea where that came from , but it was adorable.

I was just so happy- a year ago, I never would have expected this, but she just keeps amazing us.

For what seems like forever, we have encouraged her to say hello to people when they come to the house, and to ask Daddy and Grampy, "How was work?" when they get home.  Lately, she gives them big hugs when they get home and asks, "How was your work?"  She says hello and good bye to adults unprompted.  She smiles and makes eye contact with other kids when I bring her to school.  She doesn't jump in to conversation yet, but we'll get there.

Last week, she had a terrible cold and when I told her she had to stay home from school, she was sad.  She told me she wanted to go to school.  Last Spring, I basically had to force her to go, and now she doesn't want to miss it.

The other day, we saw a boy dressed in camoflauge from head to toe.  As he walked by, she said, "Mom, that boy looks like a swamp."  Pretty smart, I think!

We are so grateful for her and for all the progress she has made.  We know that her teachers are doing wonderful work with her and that just being in the integrated preschool class five days per week is amazing.  We knew that would be so great for her, and she is just thriving.

It's still hard to watch when other kids are talking and socializing, and she is just on the outskirts or playing alone.  I can see in her face that she doesn't really know what to do, and that she is anxious, but she does tell me about playing with Wilfredo, or that Reya is her partner.  She tells me about Mrs. M and Mrs. H, and that "Miss Kerr is not at school today."  She says, "I love you" to all of us and even to her brothers.  She wants to help with anything around the house.  Tonight, I told her we were having pancakes for dinner, so she went and grabbed her stool and said, "And I can put in the eggs and the chips and do the mixing."  And then she did!

There are so many things she does and says that I can't even think of them all.  I used to celebrate every tiny success and relish those moments that seemed few and far between.  Now, there are so many triumphs that I can't even count them.  She faces new challenges all the time, but keeps blowing us away with how strong she is.  She's just a miracle!

Busy, busy!

I know I haven't been updating the blog as much as I usually do, but we have been so busy lately!  Last week, there were 7 children here, ages four months through four and a half years.  With the exceptions of Jack and Ben, this was an all girls' playdate, so most of the time was spent doing crafts.  I wish I had been able to snap pictures of everyone, but I only got a few!  Thanks to our friends Kacey, Maeve, Maddie, and Audrey (and their moms!) for a fun morning!

All three kids had their first appointments at the dentist in the last two weeks.  Thanks to our friends, the Descheneauxs, who recommended this dentist's office.  They were so incredibly patient with the kids and it really was a positive experience for everyone.  I never thought Ben would let them even look in his mouth, but he hopped up into the chair first and was seriously a model patient.  The hygenist kept praising him and said to me several times, "Really, he is just awesome.  I can't believe it!"  While she was cleaning Ben's teeth, Jack was sitting nearby and kept saying, 'Not me.  Not my turn!" so he was not as enthusiastic.  But, he sat on my lap in the chair and let her do the entire cleaning from there (which is why I don't have a picture of him).  I was SO proud of both boys!  I wrote in a separate post that Mairead was a rock star, too.  I really could not believe how good they all were!  Huge thanks to Jen who babysit twice so that I could take the boys one day and Mairead another.  The kids LOVE hanging out with her (and with Bean), so they loved it.

We went to a party to celebrate the 80th birthday of a wonderful family friend, Theresa.  Theresa has been part of our lives since before I was born, and we were happy to spend the afternoon with her and her family.  The kids were great and looked very cute!

All three kids are in school now, which means a lot of time in the car for me.  Mariead and I take the boys to school on Mondays and Wednesdays at 12:30.  She helps me walk them in, get their bags hung up in the cubbies, and get them settled.  Then, she and I head to her school for 1:00.  Sometimes, we even stop for an iced coffee and an apple juice at Dunkin' Donuts.

                                               
I pick the boys up at 3pm and Mairead gets off the bus at about 3:45.  These days are a little hectic, but we are settling into a routine.  This does mean that twice a week, I have about 90 kid free minutes.  It's strange when the house is so quiet!  This works out since I am still teaching my University of Phoenix courses, in addition to the online tutoring I do for Pearson Education.  Dave is involved with several committees at the high school, so everyone in the family is spending a lot of time in a school or working for one!

I mentioned that Mairead is getting so much more independent lately.  While we are very proud of this, there are some drawbacks.  For example, for months, Mairead's OT and her teachers have been working hard to get Mairead to be able to use scissors successfully. Well, it looks like she has accomplished that goal since she cut several sections off of her hair the other day while I was in the shower. She was quite proud of herself.

She wants to help with everything lately, especially with housecleaning.  This would be useful to me if she were about 10, but right now, it's a little dangerous since she likes to spray the cleaning chemicals!  She goes back to the stroke clinic at CHB in February, just a few days after seeing her cardiologist for an echo in Waltham.  We hope that both appointments go well!

Preschool. Can you believe it?

The boys started preschool (at the same school where Mairead first started) at the beginning of January and it is going really well!  I still can't believe they are old enough for this.  Nor can I believe that we have three children in preschool.  I was filling out forms for the dentist recently and one question is 'Grade in school?' It just sort of struck me as I wrote, "Grade: PreK.  Grade:  PreK.  Grade:  PreK" three times.  Sometimes they seem so far apart in age, probably because Mairead is so tall, but times like that it really just jumps out at me how close together they really are!  We just hope that means that they will be BFFs as they grow up.

I am really glad that we enrolled the boys. We went back and forth on it because they are so young (2.10) and because of the expense, but I am SO glad that we did it. Jack, in particular, LOVES it. He does not shut up from the time he walks out the door until he gets up to his bed to take a rest. He talks about the teacher, the snack, the other boys (all boy class), the toys, whatever he can think of.

Ben is still a little unsure of the whole thing- he gets a sad puppy look when it is time for me to leave, but he doesn't usually cry or anything. There was one day that he was pretty much hysterical and I had to just walk out and let the teachers take over.  I HATE those moments.  Walking away from your crying chidl is awful, even when you know it is the right thing to do.  At pick up, I can see through the windows as they get ready, line up, etc, and one day, Jack was at the front of the line and Ben ended up near the back. He started to get upset and one of the other moms said, "Oh, does he not want to leave?" I told her I was guessing that it was because he was separated from his brother. When they came out, Ben said, "I a little sad. I want to hold hands with Jackie." So stinkin cute.

We hope that preschool will help with sharing and with letters.  When I hold up a letter and ask, "what's this?' They just yell out random letters. "J!  P!"  No, it's a T.  T is for?  "Jackie!"  No.  They just do not care-- so different from their sister!

I went to the school's Open House one night for conferences. They have only been there two weeks but their teacher said that they are doing really great! Ben does have a hard time at drop off but he calms down a few minutes after I leave. She said that their verbal skills are exemplary and that she can't believe how well they communicate, and that they are just so cute. She said, "Oh, I could just cry thinking about how incredibly cute they are." It was so nice to go to one of these and hear how great my kids are doing. With Mairead, teacher meetings are always so stressful and emotional. This was just so positive, it was such a relief- to the point that I almost cried. Guess I am destined to tear up at parent/teacher night whether my kids are struggling or doing great!


One thing she did already notice is that Ben tends to follow Jack around and want to be near Jack a lot. I'm ok with this for now, I mean, they are so young. I just need to keep an eye on it and make sure Ben's dependance on Jack doesn't limit either of them. I'll cross that 'separate or not' bridge when I come to it!

This is not a great picture since the boys pretty much never stop moving, but this is the first day of school.  Ben said he was 'a little sad right now' and I asked Jack if he could make Ben feel better, so big brother went over to give Ben a big hug.  How sweet are these kids?

They love to be together and to 'snuggle wit my brudda.'  The other morning, Ben woke up early so when Jack awoke to find that Ben was gone, he started yelling, "Where'd my brudda go?  Where's my brudda, Benjamin?" 

They are still small enough to take baths together and they have a great time in there.  They just never want to get out! 

We love watching them interact.  They play trains all. day. long.  They enact these elaborate scenarios in which some train always needs rescuing.  They hug and kiss good night and are always aware of where the other one is.  It's pretty adorable, actually.

They just come up with the funniest thing to say.  At playgroup the other day, Jack ran to me and said, "Mommy, I can make Thomas go on the table and it's like a Sodor Suspension Bridge to play trains."  Another mom asked, "Um, what did he say?  Something about a suspension bridge?"  I tried to explain the Thomas obsession, but I did agree that most almost three year olds probably don't discuss suspension bridges that often.

Right now, Ben is furiously pressing buttons on a large calculator and mumbling that he has to check his email.   Mairead and Jack are dancing around the kitchen to The Monkees.  We may have created a monster with this.  We had to get them to stop listening to the Glee Christmas album that we have been listening to every day since November.  Now they are serious Monkees fans, so we have heard their greatest hits about 25 times in the past four days!

They are so much fun right now.  We still have some sharing issues and subsequent whining issues, but I hope that they tone down those habits.  I hope they keep being so cute, though!

What a difference a year makes

Last February, the world was covered in white stuff.  The kids could barely get outside because they just sank into the snow.  Dave did get Mairead out sledding a few times, but there was so much snow that it was tough to even walk!

This winter, we have barely had enough to play in!  Mairead and Jack did get out in our last 'storm,' which brought about 3 inches, if that!  Mairead is so much more independent this year in terms of sledding.  She carried her sled to the top of our hill, sat on it alone, and slid (sledded? slided?) to the bottom where I caught her before she hit the fence.  She giggled the entire time.  She is fearless about things like this and she just loves it.

Ben has zero interest in the snow.  He doesn't want anything to do with it, and even wants me to carry him to the car instead of stepping in it.  Jack, on the other hand, thinks it's great and loves to stomp and make footprints with his boots.  He tried sledding but it was a little too scary for him.  He did love making snow balls and shoveling.  I hope he keeps that love of shoveling- he will need it when he gets older!

I have to brag about my daughter

I just have to brag about Mairead.  She has just been so 'on' lately!  She has just been awesome. So much fun, so happy, and, as her teacher put it last week, "so effervescent." How great is that? The other day, I was driving her to school and told her I wanted to get gas first. She said, "No thanks, Mom, I just want to go to my school." This from a child I literally had to drag kicking and screaming last Spring.

I have really been remiss about taking pictures, lately.  I did get this one of her drawing of Thomas.

And this one of her playing dress up.  She's a fashionista.

Recently, she had her first dentist appointment and was amazing. A little nervous, but awesome. When Dave and then my parents came home, she immediately told them, "I go to the dentist and I get a prize." I didn't prompt her to initiate conversation or anything.

Then, she went in the bathroom, peed, flushed, washed her hands, brushed her teeth, and put her pants back on-- all with ZERO assistance or prompting. I was listening from the hall but she didn't even know I was there. This may not seem like a big deal for a 4.5 year old, but a year ago, I really didn't know how she would get to this point. She then asked me to carry her special bears because "I want to go in my room and play with my squinkies and go to bed." This was at 6:50, and she usually goes at 7:30, so she must have been exhausted!

She has just been doing SO many things lately that just blow me away. Recalling things, making great eye contact, talking to adults, answering questions, doing more in terms of self care, etc. I tell her about 20 times a day that I am so proud of her.

At a playdate the other day, she said to a  little girl, "We can go play in my room, Kacey." Meaningful, socially age-appropriate, pointed conversation/interaction. I could not have been happier.

This all means SO much to me- I just can't even tell you. I think about how dark things were for us a year ago when we were fighting with the schools, she was struggling through the day, *I* was struggling through the day, and now she is just making such great strides. I well up with tears about 5 times a day thinking about what a miracle she is.

And, if all of this isn't enough, the other day she told me, "And when I grow up into a mom, I can have a baby in my belly like Katie (my sister)." I cried. I mean, here is a kid who, at the time of her stroke, we didn't know if she would talk, walk, etc. When things were at their worst in terms of her anxiety, social skills, etc, I would think about how all I wanted for her was that she be able to grow up, find someone to love, have a family, and just be happy. I used to fear that these things would be out of reach for her. She just proves me wrong and continues to amaze us. She has a tougher road than most kids and we know that she has a long way to go, but I no longer believe that there is anything she can't do.

Thanks for reading all of this-- and thanks for always being so supportive of her and of us!