He loves her...

When Cadence was around 18 months old, I started getting the itch to try for another baby. We were happy as a family of three, but I always knew I wanted to have more than one child. I also never felt like we were "complete" as a family. Due to different issues (including a devastating miscarriage that led to the start of this blog, Henry did not come into our lives until February 25, 2008.

He and Cadence are just shy of being 4 years apart. Being 4 years apart and being male and female, I did not expect them to be so close. However, they are incredibly close! I've had people make comments on how I probably wished my son was first so he could protect my daughter. Are you kidding me? First of all, I have no doubt that Cadence will hurt anyone who attempts to hurt her brother! Secondly, she has been a miniature mommy since the minute he was born (she was present for his birth).

Over the events of the last year, I feel like they have grown even closer. Four months ago they started sharing a room and they love it. It is rare that Cadence complains about not having anyone to play with or not being able to play with Henry. As much as Cadence adores Henry, he worships her. Our route to school and work is set up where Cadence is dropped off and picked up first. On the few occasions that Henry and I did not pick Cadence up immediately after I picked him up, Henry has cried for his sister.

Today, I took Cadence to my aunt's house to spend the night with her cousin. When it was time to leave, we said goodbye to Cadence and went out to the car. Henry started saying "Cadence in there mom" over and over as if he though I was forgetting her. The whole drive home he alternated between crying for Cadence and reminding me that we left her there. Once we got home, he was very melancholy. Throughout the evening, right up until he fell asleep, he kept asking "Where's Cadence?". I feel bad for him because I know he is so sad with her being gone. But it is also good for both of them, because they need to get to do their own things too. At the end of the day, it warms my heart to know how close my kiddos are. I love knowing that no matter what happens in their lives, they have each other. I can only hope that they continue to be as close and stay close as adults.

Creative Christmas

This Christmas, I really wanted to do alot of creating with the kids. All three of us love crafts and I wanted to start some new, "just the three of us" traditions. I am really happy to say that we actually accomplished it this year.

First, we created our own Christmas ornaments. Henry's first Christmas, I did not put ornaments on the tree because I knew I would be putting them back on every day! I just used plain white lights and fell in love with the simplicity of the look. I have not used ornaments since then, but this year I wanted to add something special and of course, create. The kids and I got a book of Martha Stewart scrapbooking paper and our cookie cutters and made ornaments. We all loved the end result and everyone got to contribute. Please excuse the picture being sideways, I can't get blogger to act right!



Next, I knew I wanted to do some type of small, easy and inexpensive gift for a large group of people in our lives. These people (Henry's daycare teachers, Cadence's after-care staff, women I work with) are all individuals who help us on a daily basis and I am so thankful for them all. I really struggled on how to show then we care without breaking our budget. I finally stumbled across this article and knew this was perfect for us. Here is what we came up with.


To go along with the magnets, I wanted to write a note to tell the recipients how thankful we are to have them in our lives. Over the last couple of years, I have accumulated a ton of Christmas cards. However, they have disappeared since we moved! So instead of buying cards, we made some with our left over scrapbook paper and cookie cutters.

We also did a couple of baking projects!

Things to Remember

Here are some of the cute things the kids are doing right now that I know I may not remember later:

• Henry has a speech delay, so instead of being at a 2 1/2 level, he is at between an 18 months and 2 year old level. One of the areas he struggles with are pronouns. So when he wants me to hold him, he asks "I hold you?". He also adds his name on top of the pronouns when he does use them. The other morning, Henry caught Chandler (our terrier) sleeping on his bed. His response: "Chandler, get off my Henry's bed." Its so stinkin' cute!
• When we get home for the evening, I put my pajamas (some combo of sweats and a shirt) and Cadence will come and ask me what I am wearing, so that she can put on similar clothes. Then she goes through all of her stuff to find what matches my comfy clothes as closely as possible.
• Tonight, Henry kept yelling for something and I could not figure out what he was asking for. Honestly, it sounded like he was saying "my bitchy"! Finally Cadence came running in because she knew exactly what he was asking for, his fishy.
• Cadence grew up calling my sister "Sissy", thanks to my grandma getting confused about which of us she was talking to! It was confusing for Henry because he calls Cadence "Sissy". So, now he has started calling my sister "Sissy Livia".
• Henry calls his mittens his "soccers" because he wears them to Cadence's soccer games. When I picked him up from daycare the other day, he saw an airplane in the sky. He then started asking the airplane, "Land in my soccers?" and holding his hand out!
  

Attention!

Early on in Cadence's kindergarten year, we noticed she had some attention issues. We were noticing some issues at home, but I chalked it up to being five years old and a drama queen. At her first Parent Teacher conference, the teacher brought it to our attention that she had some problems staying on task, paying attention and getting her work done in a timely manner. At first this was a shock to me. I was used to getting glowing reports about how smart and sweet she was. I even resented the teacher a little bit. As the year progressed, and the issues began to affect her school work, we scheduled more meetings with the teacher the counselor and a screening. By this point I knew what the screening would tell us: ADHD.

One of my best friends is a Pharmaceutical Rep for the company that manufacture's Vyvanse, the new ADHD wonder drug. She has more knowledge than alot of doctors do about ADHD and was able to help me comprehend this new battle. For Cadence, all of her issues deal with attention. She has no hyperactivity. I started doing my own research on ADHD in girls and was horrified by what these girls can go through if their symptoms are not acknowledged and treated. Low self-esteem, risk taking behavior (including drugs and sexual risks), and more. We decided to work on some coping skills over the summer and see how first grade started.

The summer went very well, but of course, she wasn't in a classroom, being forced to pay attention! Within the first week of first grade, Cadence was coming home crying and telling me she was afraid she was going to get held back. One of the hardest (and also best) parts of this issue, is that Cadence knows she has a hard time paying attention. She knows that she struggles with this and it hurts her that she does. She and I both cried alot the first weeks of school. Early on, spelling tests started. Spelling tests are a nightmare for a kid who has a hard time paying attention. They have to pay attention to hear the word, keep it in their brain long enough to sound it out and write it down and then re-focus immediately to try again. Add to this that Cadence is doing this in Spanish and you have a very frustrated Momma and kiddo!

ADHD doesn't look the same in every kid. In fact, some of the people closest to Cadence (both grandmothers included) were shocked at the diagnosis. Here is what ADHD looks like in my daughter. She's a daydreamer, she constantly wonders into her own world. She frustrates incredibly easily and tears come regularly. She does not listen unless actively engaged. You cannot just start talking to her and expect that she will retain any information. You have to make eye contact with her and get her engaged before her "ears turn on". When she is able to focus, she hyper-focuses. Her favorite is movies. When she is really focused on a movie, you have to physically break her concentration. With all of this comes struggles, but she can also do some really cool things. She can hear a song one time and know all the words and the melody. She knows the scientific names for every animal baby there is (I don't even know where she learned this!). Many times, kids with ADHD score lower in class or on tests and get labeled as not as smart as other kids, but in reality, many of them are very intelligent.

Cadence and I have been working to find some things that help her this year, but spelling tests have still been a struggle. After much soul searching and dealing with my own issues on this diagnosis, I have opened up to trying some medicines to help her with her attention issues so that she can really be at her best. We are not yet on a medicine, but have started the process. But, last week we had a huge reason to celebrate! In her class, the children take a practice spelling test on Thursday and the real test on Friday. If you get a 10 out of 10 on Thursday, you don't have to take it on Friday. Only 5 words are given on Monday to study with the kids and the other 5 come from phonic sounds they work on in class. So there is really no way to memorize the words. They really have to learn them. Last week, she got a 10 out of 10, on THURSDAY! I could not have been more proud of her and she was incredibly proud of herself. That moment made all the struggles, frustration and nights of trying to help her learn words I can barely pronounce (the words are in Spanish, remember?) worth it!

Back in the Saddle

Over the past year, I have gone through alot of changes within my life. None of them were easy changes to make and some of them broke my heart. However, each change I've made has a common theme, gaining control of my life. Now that (almost) all of those changes have been made and finalized, I feel so happy and calm. I got tired of not being able to do the things I wanted to or being envious of other people's lives. Knowing that I am the only one who can affect the daily life that my children and I lead is incredibly freeing. There are obviously those people that could throw some wrenches into things, but I have learned to not let their actions affect me.

Enough of the emotions, I have always loved reading blogs and am very jealous of a few friends who have created (and keep updated) great blogs that I enjoy reading. With that in mind, I am back in the saddle of blogging. I wish I had blogged more over the last year, but its probably best that I didn't because I don't like airing dirty laundry and the last year would have been alot of that! I'm looking forward to being able to look back and relive this time with my kiddos as we navigate our new life...