what a week this has been! tashi flew to utah to start her new life at BYU (very emotional for us all to let her go, and sad to see how hard it was for the little ones), and as my mom picked her up at the airport, she called and told us that my brother's wife was waiting for a breast cancer biopsy result. this was almost eerie, because last year on the same day, my dad found a lump under his arm, and i got the call that he had cancer just as i was dropping lexi at her college dorm for the first time. both diagnoses, last year and this year, happened at my mother's birthday, which has been very difficult for her.
also this week, our littlest started pre-K, and brock started a doctorate program several states away. he traveled there this week for one round of classes, and he will travel there 2 more times this semester. he was accepted to teh program in may, but we have been waiting for news of a fellowship to determine if we was going to do it or not. he left on wednesday, still not sure of the fellowship, but it has come through. we also had visits from lexi & bear, on their was back to SVU (southern virginia) after their summer in california, and brock's parents. and our garden is producing faster than we can keep up with it, so there has been lots and lots, and lots, of canning, which i love, but we're tired - emotionally, physically, and mentally.
there has been roller coaster news about my sweet sister in law, but things are looking better than at first. my brother has started a blog to follow their journey:
my sister lost her husband to bone cancer when he was only 25, my mother survived breast cancer 7 years ago, my father died of neuro-endocrine cancer in april, and so this is our family's fourth time around. we are very hopeful and i do strongly believe there will be a positive outcome.
our kittens are over 3 weeks old now, and so, so fun. they want to explore and play with us and wrestle each other. we have always felt that gigi, their mommy, is the best little kitty cat in the entire world (she found lexi & i as a tiny ktten when we went for a walk last summer, and wanted to come home with us), and she has proved to be a wonderful mother ~ staying in her box and nursing her babies even when she was weak from hunger. we would bring food & water to her, and she would gobble it desperately, but she wouldn't leave her babies.
(first time out on the lawn)
on monday, the day after their 3 week birthday, a cute little neighbor boy brought us a tiny gray kitty he had found in their barn. they heard it crying on sunday, but couldn't find it. he finally searched until he found it in the rafters after school on monday. it was so tiny, about 1/4 to 1/3 the size of our kittens.
this little kitten confused us because he was so small, about the size of our kittens at birth, but he had his eyes open. our kitties didn't get their eyes completely open for over 2 weeks. then we noticed that he still had his cord. our kitties lost theirs within a week. lexi googled and discovered that kittens can open their eyes as early as 3 days, so we think he is less than a week old. this tiny guy is so sweet and affectionate. he purrs and cuddles, which our other kitteis wouldn't do for us, they just wanted their mommy at this age. we put him with our kittens hoping that gigi would feed him. she was unsure, but did allow him to stay. but he was so weak, and the other kittens so big and pushy, that he didn't have a chance at nursing....
so we force fed him some milk through a syringe, worried that he would get it into his airways, and decided it would take a miracle for him to make it through the night.
little mia is our animal lover and she put him in a doll sling and carried him around that evening. she lovingly and patiently cared for him and kept trying to feed him.
finally we put him with the other kitties for the night, hoping for the best. when we went to bed, we found two signs on our bedroom door:
"please check on buster (that's what she named him) every 30 minutes"
and
"did buster die?
yes/no
at what time
: "
we wrote that he was alive at midnight and went to bed.
in the morning he was alive and willing to be fed more milk from a syringe.
and now for the really interesting part of the story (at least we think so)....
mia took buster to gigi before she left for school, and had a long talk with her, telling her how important it was for her to feed him. gigi listened and then picked him up by the scruff of his neck...it took her a long time to accomplish it, because there isn't much scruff. it looked like she was eating him....and carried him to an empty cardboard box in the garage and let him nurse. then she carried him back to the box with the other kittens. she has repeated this over and over and will take him to his own box whenever we ask her to. now, wednesday afternoon, he can hold his own and feed with the other kittens.
i don't believe in coincidences, but do believe that most (if not all) things happen for a reason. i wondered if this little kitty may have been sent to us for a reason. i asked mia what she and buster (pronounced "bustard" by gracie, which inspires endless amusement) have in common. she noted that they were both small. i contributed that they both had birth mothers that couldn't take care of them for some reason. then i asked if we, or gigi, love him any less because he is a different color, or different size, or was born to a different mother. i saw the light go on in her eyes that i had hoped for. and that brings me joy. she struggles with these issues. i'm grateful for an orphaned kitten and a devoted kitty mother and what they can teach my precious little girl.
gigi, our sweet little black kitty, had her kittens on the 17th, which was noah's 7th birthday - we coulnd't have planned it better (there was no actual planning on our part)!
she is so proud of herself and her wiggly black babies with tummies that are full to bursting with milk. she patiently lets them nurse all day and night. i think they've doubled in size in 2 days. the first time i saw her get out of her box, when they were about 24 hours old, she had a look i knew well. it said, "i've finally got them all asleep, and i need to use this time well, but i don't know what to do."
we've been concerned about finding homes for them, but we have interest, and it looks like it will work out well.
it is wonderous to observe & ponder god's creations.
my dear friend sarah gave birth yesterday, her eighth child and first boy! and i realized that everyone that i personally know who has had a baby this year, or who is expecting and knows the gender, is having a boy. so i have deemed this the year of the boy.
raw edged flannel burp clothes for my two new nephews: baby owen - born last month, and baby peter - born last week.
susie grace has been acting ready to potty train for a while. but she is so little (2 and a couple of weeks) and i wasn't sure i was ready. we took the leap two days ago. she is doing well, staying dry for nap time but having little accidents while awake (shouldn't it be the opposite?)
i remember buying size 2 panties for lex & tash. mia was potty trained in japanese sized panties. but i had a difficult time even finding size 4 panties for baby grace. times have changed.
susanna G is 2 years old.
because noah needed something to do, and i needed to get some things done, i encouraged him to get his giant construction paper pad, his gift from tashi on his birthday (and his favorite birthday present), and make some decorations for gracie's party. i envisioned him drawing some pictures. this is what he came up with:
i love it! he can be so surprising. i had gotten in the habit of having lower expectations for him because of his delayed speech and fine motor skills. he couldn't sit still for even one page of a book to be read to him until he was almost 4. but now he is really taking off, and wants me to do "school work" with him every day. lower expectations no more.
we love birthday presents that they can all enjoy together.
we were able to find one hour that we could all celebrate together, between the last day of school, scouts, achievement days, and young women's.
we were half way through the party when i realized that mia had worn this same dress on her 2nd birthday. brock points out that my subconscious must have realized it. gracie wanted to wear the same dress she wore on her birthday last year. she is wearing it today instead.
mia's quilt was a hit.
baby baldness runs in my family. my five siblings and i were all baldies, except one brother that grew long luscious golden ringlets to match his thick curly eyelashes. everyone told my parents that he was the most beautiful baby girl they had ever seen.
tashi was my baldest baby up until now, but she ended up with thick curly hair, much thicker and faster growing and darker than lexi who was born with a head of long dark hair (so strange!) (and my lucky japanese children don't have one worry about thin hair). so when gracie exhibited bald tendencies, i wasn't worried, until now. she will be 2 years old next week, and still has very little hair. tashi had ringlets hanging down at this age. thin hair that doesn't grow well also runs in my family. and so here is my question: should we shave her head?!?!?!?
i have a friend who just shaved her baby's head. her baby had white blonde wispy hair that was almost invisible, and so did her 8 year old sister, who still has very thin whispy hair, so they decided it was worth a try. and it is definitely growing back thicker. but it is not growing back quickly. and her daughter was only 14 months when they shaved her. i do wish we had done that last summer for gracie (but i wasn't concerned about her hair then). several cultures in south america and central asia (india, pakistan) shave their little girl's heads to help the hair grow back thicker (as if they needed it with those genes for thick, dark, lovely hair). and i have heard many times that it works. but i just don't know that i can do it. and how long will it take to even get back to the length that it is now? (it has taken 2 years this time around). i do love her hair now, it is sweet and becomes her. so i really hesitate to shave it. but i am concerned about a lifetime of thin wispy hair that doesn't want to grow. what should we do? i really want to hear your thoguhts, but please keep in mind.... could you do it to your baby girl?
gracie, 20 months on monday, can say quite a bit, but not enough. she knows just what she wants, but we can't always tell us so that we understand. especially since many of her words sound alike.
she is also a screamer.
she asks for something, we give it to her, it isn't what she wanted, she screams.
and scream, and screams.
we try something different,
still wrong,
scream.
and so it goes.
she can say please, which is pronounced just like "cheese".
she knows that if she wants something, she should say please,
and so 90% of her sentences are:
"I WANT CHEESE!"
(being interpreted,"i want something please")
this can mean "i want complete control of the computer", "i want to be held", "i want to eat the entire carton of strawberries", etc.
it took lexi quite a while to get this straightened out after returning from utah, and gracie received lots of cheese during that interim.
gracie is a perfect mixture of pure delight and complete frustration.
and we love her.
one of her more endearing qualities is her love of babies.
anyone 4 and under is a baby. and anyone seated in the front seat of shopping carts is a baby, and they all get a "ohhhh, baby!" and an air kiss from grace.
she is delighted whenever she notices a baby, in a photo, a book, a billboard, etc.
and she is so sweet and tender to her own babies, and sings them to sleep, kisses them, and tucks them into bed, just like i do to her.
kissing her new baby doll on christmas morning.
i have been scrapbooking (online, which is so fast, fun, easy, and economical) gracie as a newborn, and she sat at the computer with me as i was working. i knew that she would be excited to see the tiny newborn baby in the photos, but i was completely surprised when she pointed at a photo of her a just few days old, being held by noah, and said "gracie!" and then pointed to herself.
here are a few of the photos i have been relishing as i scrapbook.
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