Where is my summer going????

I can't believe how fast life is flying by these days. It's so hard to live life in the moment when the moments are going by at light speed. Yesterday I sat down to finish balancing the checking account only to find that I started doing that job on July 7. How did that happen?

Everyone at our house is doing well. Faith is continues to make great progress. She is now making more vocal sounds and just started to sign for Bye Bye and More!!! We are soooo excited! She is also finally eating solids. We just had our first real meal with all six of us at the table. I never thought that I would be so blessed!

RJ and Grace are playing every minute they can with neighborhood friends. It's nice to be able to stay around home more and have happy kids. They are growing up so fast. I love that they enjoy taking care of Hope and Faith. Grace is a mommy at heart and always makes sure everyone is following the rules-even if she isn't:) And RJ has been practicing Guitar Hero in every spare minute. He can now beat me and Jay at many songs!!

And I'm super excited to announce that Hope potty trained herself this past week! I knew she would get it on her own. No one tells Hope what to do:) That is a personality trait that will come in handy someday, but can make life VERY complicated when she's 3. Most recently I had to carry her out of our local Subway kicking and screaming because she refused to contain her loud voice during lunch. Later when I asked her about the situation she just shrugged her shoulders, gave me puppydog eyes and said "That happens!".

Hope you are all having a fun and happy summer too!

PRICELESS...

I can't believe this will be our last 1st birthday. It really makes me realize that I need to treasure every moment. Time goes by way too quickly!!!

What a weekend...

My sweet little Faith is now officially a one year old!!! I can't believe it!

We had a huge holiday weekend full of celebrations. It was wonderful to be able to spend time with Jay and the kids, as well as many family members and friends. She enjoyed every minute of the festivities. I haven't had time to upload the cake pics yet, but she made a huge mess:) We attend the local parade on July 4th and fun was had by all. We missed out on all this fun last year because of Faith's birth. So I was just as excited as the kids to have a fun and sunny Fourth of July!!

This was the day...

Just one year ago I was still preggers with little Miss Faith. She was still snuggled safely inside, just waiting to come into this world. I was sooo relieved to be in labor after making it through the hardest of my four pregnancies! I was literally counting the minutes that I had left!!! Little did I know that I was on the cusp of a whole new normal. It's really interesting to examine the mindset that I had in the past, not knowing what was just hours into the future. Could I have possibly imagined what this year would be like? Tiny, nonbreastfeeding newborn, months of struggles with bottle feeding, endless dr appts, endless therapy sessions, four visits to the surgery center, two broken bones(Grace), the list could go on and on!

WOW!! That's all I can say!

Tonight I am taking a trip down memory lane with my dearest doula. She was with me last year as my contractions were steadily going nowhere. She drove me to Walmart "just to walk around". She was beside me as we pulled into the parking lot and my water broke! She gently helped me labor and bring Faith into the world a few hours later. Tonight we will walk the isles of Walmart (a store that I dispise the other 364 days of the yr!). I will probably look for a few toys to spoil my baby with. It will be nice to relive those moments and just focus on my sweet girl!

Thank You Doula Friend!!!

Joys and Sorrows...

This summer is certainly flying by!!! It seems like every minute we are going somewhere or anticipating another exciting event. Here are some of our recent highlights...

SHE'S CRAWLING!!! Faith has finally become mobile. She doesn't go very far yet, but she IS crawling and we are sooooo excited!!!!

Our sweet Gracie became an actress last week. She appeared in

a small production of Beauty and the Beast. As the youngest in the cast she was assigned a minor role as a Rose. But she took the job very seriously and loved every minute she spent on stage!! For those of you close enough to attend, she will be performing again in July:)

RJ is just enjoying summer one day at a time. He frequently bothers all of us with his strange humor and loves to be silly! He has also started gymnastics much to his father's dismay!! I tried to ease the topic by assigning RJ to a class with a male coach. This didn't work very well because Daddy picked RJ up on the second day of class and noticed that the coach wasn't the "man's man" that he had hoped for. He is more of the eyeliner and outstanding wardrobe type;) At least RJ is happy!

Hope is her own little challenging self these days. This is how we prefer to see her-sleeping(silent):) On this day she literally fell asleep with her snack in her mouth! We all had a good laugh when she woke up and saw this pic.

We also have endured some sorrow. Our Grandpa Francis passed away last week. He was a wise old man who taught us many things. The kids only knew him in his frailness. Hope had been scared of him lately because of the O2 tank he needed to travel with. This was the first experience with death that any of the kids had. RJ and Grace understood everything and really handled it well. Hope was endlessly confused and is still asking "Where is that Bampa in that box?" every day. She did provide us with some humor when we found her standing next to this is our living room soon after Grandpa's viewing. We hope Wendy(of Bob the Builder fame) will rest in peace!

Hope your summer is as fun and silly as ours has been!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Jay is such a wonderful guy!!! He has spent the last 16 yrs being patient with me and all my special personality quirks. He has spent the last 9 1/2 yrs being the best dad I know to our four children. Not to mention working hard each day to support our family and still having time and (some) energy to spend doing all the things we constantly ask of him:)

It's hard to find just the right words to discribe how thankful I am for the blessing Jay is to my life! It seems like I've known him forever. Since we were just "kids" when we met, there has been a lot of growing up done together in the past 16 yrs. Becoming parents has been quite a journey and continues to be a challenge everyday. It's amazing that the past year since Faith was born has been both the most difficult and yet the happiest. Jay and I have grown closer and have also been able to gain a lot of perspective through this adversity.


So today I just want to say "Thank You" to Jay for being a great DAD! You are a blessing to us all:)

A Glimpse...

Just wanted to give you a quick glimpse of what our family is like, in case you are just visiting for the first time. My name is Tina. My husband, Jay, and I have been married for 11 1/2 yrs and have four children. RJ 9yrs, Grace 6yrs, Hope 3yrs and Faith 11 months. Jay is an auto mechanic at a Ford dealership and I moonlight as a Childbirth Educator at a local clinic and work on call as a birth doula(not to mention being a full time mom during the rest of the day).

This blog has turned out to be my mommy rantings about the frustrations of raising children with undiagnosed special health concerns. RJ is assumed to have, but never diagnosed with, mild autism spectrum disorder. He is currently doing very well with the help of anti-anxiety medication and lots of TLC from his family, friends and special education programs. Faith has had several medical issues since she was born and is developmentally delayed in all areas. She is currently a medical mystery with no know cause for her problems. She gets physical, occupational and speech therapy weekly while continuing to undergo testing.

All that aside, we are a very happy family! Everyone in our house has a huge sense of humor. Although we have limited time all together due to work, dr/therapy appts, etc.-we make the most of the time we do have. I love taking all the kids on picnics to the park or to play at the local mall children's area. We also lurk at our local Target for fun, even making friends with some of the employees:) The kiddos love to spend time vegging with Dad in front of the TV or going boating. They spend a lot of time outdoors playing with our neighbor, Isabella(12yrs). She has been my lifesaver this year, spending time with RJ, Grace and Hope while I tend to the needs of Faith.

I hope that this gives you a little glimpse into our lives. I hope to share more in the near future. Stay tuned!!!