Hey Santa!

Psst!  In case you weren't sure....

Santa Baby

Santa baby, you’re the cutest one that I know, for sho’

You’re an awfully good girl.

Santa baby, I love to snuggle you every night.

Santa baby, you’re growing up way way too fast, for me

I can’t believe you’re so big

Santa baby, you’re pulling up on everything.

Santa baby, we love you more than you’ll ever know, it’s so.

You’re our miracle girl

Santa baby, we thank our God for you every day.

*Moms out there.... here's another version of this song that you might find as funny as I did.  Enjoy!

A Holiday Song For Moms

Blogging

If you'd asked me five years ago if I'd be a "blogger" today I would have laughed at you.  To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure I knew what blogging was five years ago.  I've fallen kind of backwards into this, but here it is.  The blog has taken on a bit of a life of its own the past year or so.  I thought that once Clara came home and we settled into our new normal a bit that it might also fade into the background.  But I continue to write.  You continue to read.  Readership continues to grow.

I'm thankful for this blog because it has become an outlet for me as I try to process things.  I've always enjoyed writing, but this has given me a new purpose for writing again and I find myself coming to it when I have news to share or ideas to ruminate upon.  I've met new "friends" as a result of this blog and have gotten to know people across the country who I may never know face to face, but who have come to know my heart.  Although it sounds overly dramatic, in some ways this blog has saved Clara's life.  Not only has it been the source of countless prayers offered on her behalf, but when I write about our struggles, people email and comment with ideas and suggestions that have been big game changers.  We would never have discovered dozens of tricks like "dreamfeeding" without this blog.

I'm just a girl who writes and takes photos and truly don't consider myself to be brilliantly talented at either.  But I enjoy it.  As an educator I believe that writing is best when it's authentic and meaningful and when it has an intended audience.  This blog does all that for me.

So, I'm going to try to run with it a bit.  I've given the site a few face-lifts (new content pages beneath the header, a few new gadgets on the sidebar and I finally fixed that bug that was goofing up the alignment).  If you're one who usually reads the blog in email or your RSS feed, pop over to the site when you have a chance and check out the new changes.

I don't know much at all about "professional blogging," but I'm self-teaching a little and beginning to dip my toe in the water, albeit hesitantly. You may have noticed that there have been some ads running on the site the last month or so.  If you see something that piques your interest, please click (and help us buy diapers).  If you read a post that you particularly like, click on the Facebook like symbol on the right hand side of the blog, or share the link on your own Facebook page.  Feel free to pass along the blog to others who you think may be interested in the ramblings of this stay-at-home mom.  Help us spread the word.  I'm going public.

I'm not sure what this will evolve into over time, but I'm committed to finding out!  Thanks for reading.  You're the reason I keep coming back.  That, and the fact that I can't resist sharing photos like this:

Christmas card teaser.  Rufus loves his baby.

More Feeding Therapy

Friday we saw a different speech pathologist for feeding therapy.  And it went pretty well.  I have some hope this time that maybe we’ll find some strategies that will work for Clara and help her to begin to make some progress.  Some things she said (some we knew, some were new):

-          Clara has a significant eating delay.  We will have to work hard to overcome her aversion to eating.

-          Clara doesn’t like to eat because she’s not good at it!  This is true of most fine motor skills, she said.  But I’ve also seen this with students across the spectrum in my own experiences.  They’re a bad reader, they hate reading.  I truly can’t imagine hating eating, but that’s part of what’s going on with Clara.  So we have to help her get better at it, so she won’t hate doing it, so she’ll do it.  Cyclical, yes. 

-            Clara has a severe tongue thrust.  Most babies outgrow this by four months or so, but Clara’s is extremely pronounced.  You know how she’s got her tongue out in 75% of the photos we post?  That’s because she’s got her tongue out all the time.   She only knows how to move it in that one direction.  And in order to effectively eat food, your tongue has to move in lots of (other) directions.  So, it's cute, but it's a problem.  We’ll be working on that.

-          Clara likes to be in control.  She has consistently done better with gnawing a piece of food she can hold, or even squeezing puree from one of those pouch things than with a spoon coming at her.  We’ve got to work on getting her to trust us to bring a spoon towards her mouth.

So, what does it mean? 

-          Right now we’re going to continue seeing this speech pathologist on a weekly basis for feeding therapy.  She’s given us several strategies to begin working with Clara on at home, to help her get that tongue moving in the right ways.  We’ll practice hard twice a day at home and continue to layer more strategies on top of each other until we begin to see some progress.

-          We are going to also involve a dietician (Oh yes!  One more person involved in Clara’s care!  Delightful!) to help us make sure that between the milk she gets from a bottle and the food she eats in her high chair, she’s still getting the calories and nutrition that she needs to grow.

-          This is going to be difficult.  We’ve got some big obstacles to overcome here.  It was nice to hear her recognize that a) this is not easy and b) there is an enormous amount of pressure on us to get her to eat.  I sometimes feel like everyone thinks that this will just happen naturally and that it’s not hard.  It was nice to have those feelings of pressure and worry affirmed and feel like someone is interested in helping us find the answers that will help alleviate some of that pressure in the weeks and months ahead.

Thanks for your continued prayers for us regarding Clara’s eating.  We know that she has worked hard to overcome a lot in her little life and are prayerful that she’ll jump this hurdle, too.  All in good time, of course…

Speaking of eating, here's our girl in some super cute Christmas bibs, made and sent to us by a faithful blog follower!  Thanks, Lindsay!!!  It's the best part of feeding time!

Teaching Little Ones About Christmas

 

So, I've mentioned that I love Christmas, right?  I get a big kick out of presents, I am enthralled with the magic of Santa.  I love decorating the house and breaking out the Christmas china (that's another post, not yet written) and sipping on egg nog.  I love all the parts of Christmas.  But I do recognize that the heart of Christmas is not about any of these things, but is the beautiful story of the birth of our Savior.  

And I think it's hard, this day in age, to raise children who aren't totally distracted by all the sights and sounds and smells of Christmas.  The Toys R Us ads are a lot more glamorous than the idea of a stinky stable and some weird dudes in funny clothes bringing gifts of things they can't pronounce.  Our culture is consumed by consumerism and it's difficult, I think, to keep children from getting sucked into that vortex.

But I want to be intentional with Clara about teaching her the real meaning of Christmas.  Oh, don't get me wrong.... we'll be baking cookies and making crafts and doing our share of Christmas shopping, too.  But as she grows up I want her to know that bigger and better than all that magic is the miracle of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.  So, I thought it was important to start that this year, even though she's "too young" to really get it yet.  I believe these early years are critical.  

So, we've been singing Away in the Manger, Silent Night, and Oh Come All Ye Faithful along with Jingle Bells and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.  And we've been reading The Night Before Christmas, but also some other wonderful board books that teach about Jesus' birth.  And we've been playing with her basket full of toys, but have also loved telling and acting out the story of the nativity with this beautiful nativity set, given to Clara by the same great friends who gave her the Noah's Ark a few months back.  As she gets older and can understand more I hope that we'll weave other traditions into her Christmas experience like giving to a charity of her choice, helping the less fortunate, and participating in Christmas worship. 

I believe that the sacred and the secular can be interwoven.  I want for Clara to love all the parts of Christmas, like I do.  But more than anything, I want for her to understand that this time of year is about giving, that it's about being with friends and family, that it's about considering grace and love and that it's about celebrating the birth of our Savior.  

How have you taught your children about the sacred story of Christmas?  

 

 A few of the books we've been reading...

Clara Meets Santa

(but doesn't touch, 'cause let's be honest, even a non-mall Santa like this one is still probably a giant petri dish.)