My Little Performer

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Livi is flourishing. She is coming out with more and more words and sentences everyday. It is so exciting to listen to her! I was feeding her the other day and she says to me “by myself mommy.” I laughed and let her do it by herself… even though she made a huge mess. She has begun singing too! The Clean Up song. Not quite in key but real singing!

She had her 18 month vaccinations and she did great of course. She is officially 27lbs, and 85.5cm tall. I think that puts her in the 97th percentile for height and around the 83rd percentile for weight. Not entirely sure it that percentile thing is correct though. She is healthy and growing steadily, so I’m happy 🙂

I realized today that we are in trouble and may have a little preformer on our hands. I took her to an interactive story time at the library today. I think the performers were called the Trollson’s. Livi sat herself down up front with all the big kids. I’m sure she was among the younger viewers, if not the youngest. They gave a warning at the beginning of the show that it might scare some younger kids, since it was geared towards five year olds more. I figured I’d see how she did and we’d leave if we had too.

So, since it was an interactive story time, I ended up getting picked to be one of the actors. I was a little nervous and out of my comfort zone at first, especially when they made me sing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” in front of the 70 people there, but I got in to it by the end. The kids thought I was a good actor 🙂 Livi was very fascinated that I was up front, on the stage. Auntie Sessa came with us so she was with her, but Livi did end up joining me on stage. What a little performer! She loved it! Too much! She was getting in to the actions and wasn’t at all scared of the troll, who had at least four of the kids crying. She even wanted him to pick her up! It was SO FREAKING ADORABLE! I am proud that different looks don’t phase her. She is accepting of whatever malformations people may have… even big scary trolls… But, I’m also a little nervous because she will go and trust anyone!

I should update my lifestyle change too… I haven’t done an official weigh in and measurement because I had to miss my last two group meetings where we do that, due to me having a terrible cold one week and Jon having to work late the next. Unofficially though I’ve lost another 4 pounds! That puts me at 14lbs gone in 9weeks! It seems like it is going slowly but I am right on target 🙂

Homestudy #1

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We had our first meeting with our social worker, (aka, Rebecca – The Woman Who Decides If Livi Gets A Sister) on Tuesday. It went really well. She used to do what Jon does now at CLBC, so we had something in common. I think I really like her, although I am slightly intimidated by her power over my life. She seems really laid back and gives us lots of feed back. I’d been told some horror stories of SW’s just asking questions blankly and writing your answers down, not participating in any conversation. I was scared this would be our experience.

We answered all the questions really honestly, of course, and I think we came across clearly. She seemed really impressed with our thoughtfulness and knowledge of parenting a child with special needs. She even wrote down, word for word, one of Jon’s answers about our philosophy for living in community.

We have a ton of paper work to complete before our next meeting. I haven’t really looked too much at it yet. I think I’m feeling a little over whelmed with it all. We’ll get it done though.

We already had a brief second meeting to come to our home and check everything over. I don’t think my house has ever been so clean. She even asked me if it is always this clean… I was honest 🙂 I said it is usually this organized but not this clean. The horrible part of the meeting was near the end the fire alarm went off in our building! Seriously! Could it have happened at a worse time!? I wasn’t worried because everytime we get work done on the building the alarm goes off. Did I react fast enough for her? Argh! Oh well. I don’t have any control over the stupid alarm.

Big Decisions Are No Good For Lifestyle Changes!

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This week we have had two of the biggest decisions of our life to make. Needless to say my meal plan went even more out the window than it was and I only went to the gym once or twice. I’m not expecting good results this Wednesday at my weigh in 😦

What were those big decisions that overwhelmed me with a need for easy, quick, and unfortunately not very healthy food?

Well, we have an opportunity to buy a beautiful, perfect, forever house for a bit of a deal but it would still stretch us financially. So, the question is do we jump in or hold back? It may not seem like such a hard decision to some… “Life is too short to be stressed about finances”, but it is such a perfect house for our growing family in a perfect area! We’ve been discussing it on and off all week and we have a lot of different scenarios to consider, so we still haven’t completely decided what we are going to do.

Speaking of our growing family, the other big decision has come with a child referral! It isn’t typical to get a referral of a child before you’ve even started your homestudy, but because we are, essentially, adopting an “unwanted” child, there is no waitlist of adopting parents. She is beautiful, precious, adorable, a true gift, but two years older than Livi. Jon and I are really struggling with all the issues associated with adopting so far out of birth order. How would Livi adjust to Mommy needing to spend so much extra time with a child older than her? How would our knew daughter adjust to being the oldest child but not the first daughter? What about school? We didn’t want the girls to be in the same grade. So many things are swimming around our heads.

I think we have come to a decision, or at least a compromise, on this decision. We are only just starting our homestudy and this was our first official referral. We don’t want to jump in to something that wouldn’t be right for our family just because it is the first opportunity. There is no legal commitment yet anyway, so we are going to say no for now and see which referrals we get at the end of our homestudy. If she is still available then, we will definitely consider her more. I feel horrible making this decision. Are we making the right one? How can I say no to a child in need? What if no one adopts her? Are we essentially sentencing her to a miserable life in an institution? How do I deal with these kinds of thoughts and not go crazy!? I do feel comfortable with our decision at the moment… but that doesn’t mean in five minutes I won’t change my mind and want to say yes.

Our first homestudy meeting is on Tuesday and we are VERY excited! We’ll talk things over with our social worker than and get a better feel for how everything is going to work from here. Send your love and prayers over the next few months! We have some HUGE decisions and very exciting life changes coming up in the next few months!