Always Have Hope: A Long Overdue Post

I can't believe it has been almost 4 months since I last updated the blog. Since the beginning of September we have had a lot of changes. Hadley has started speech therapy once a week and is working with a DI (Developmental Interventionist) every other week. Both of these services are provided by the state through a program called First Steps for children birth-three years old who qualify based on a delay or disability. We have been happy with both of our therapists and are are seeing a lot of progress in Hadley's speech. She is saying over a hundred words (just a guess, it is probably even more) and will combine a few two and even three word phrases. We continue to work on putting all of the syllables on words (she likes to use the first syllable of words only) and put more than one word together.

The first week of October we moved to a new house. We have settled in well and love our new home. It was only a short move about a mile from our old house so we are still in the same part of town. The older girls are sharing a room now which is generally going well. We are struggling to find the right length of nap for almost three year old Isla which allows her to still fall asleep at a reasonable time at night. Most nights she is keeping her older sister awake talking and continuously getting out of bed. Hadley continues to be a champion sleeper falling asleep relatively quickly and sleeping a solid 11 1/2 to 12 hours a night and napping about 2 hours every afternoon. Thank goodness we were blessed with three good sleepers!

We had a wonderful holiday celebrating with family and friends. Although everyone had fun and enjoyed themselves, I am relieved it is over. Although Hadley did relatively well with the new faces and constant crowd and change of routine for about a week, she struggled with it too. She had a harder time falling asleep, woke up screaming an hour or so after falling asleep and was much clingier and wanted me to hold her all the time, especially if someone outside of our immediate family was in our home. These are all things we saw after coming home with her that have gradually improved over time. Although she has adjusted and bonded beautifully and easily to us, we can't forget all the changes that have occurred in her short two years and four months (and in the last year since we brought her home). It continues to amaze me how brave and resilient these little ones are once coming home to their forever families. I have seen the same things happen with many other kids who have come home in the last year or so. It is amazing to see how quickly these kids can thrive with love and nutrition!

We are excited to start the new year settled in our home with our three girls and no major plans for this year. We are in the process of making decisions about school in the fall for all three girls and hopefully have it figured out. Hopefully we can get a few family vacations planned soon. We are dying to get the girls on the ski slopes this winter season but would also like to spend several days basking in the sun and relaxing (as much as you can with a 2, 3 and 4 year old) on a cruise. If only we had a private plane to fly all these kids to all these places we would like to go!