Almost daily I think of things I want/need to blog and try to figure out when I will get a chance to do so. Time Management and I are still getting acquainted.
Having four children isn't necessarily that difficult. It's not hard to care for four children (sometimes seven if the neices and nephew are here), physically. Other than taking a few minutes to feed, dress, bathe, squeeze each of them, it's not that hard.
However... my brain is MAXED OUT on all the other stuff: TEIS (and cleaning the house for TEIS), Vanderbilt for AG and Cale, IEP meetings, painting cabinets, re-listing the house, egg hunts, church functions, and Easter baskets, Easter clothes, dance, recital, baseball sign-ups, cooking club, clothes swap, gym, birthday dinners, Thank You notes, work, taking photos, editing photos, Girl Scouts, major autism tantrums, recovering from major autism tantrums ... and that's our two weeks.
In the middle of all that, we have managed to squeeze in some really sweet moments :)
Anna Gray felt grass for the very first time. EVER.
I thought it would be sensory over-load, but she loved it!
She has learned to reach- usually for us (she even wraps her little chubby arms around our neck and gives kisses!). She hasn't quite developed her pincer grasp- she's using more of a sweep-n-scoop movement, but it often results in something sticking to her hand. She doesn't always know what to do with it when she has it, but she'll get there!
For extra practice, I gave her a spoon covered in brownie batter. If anything was going to inspire me to practice picking something up and taking it to my mouth, it would be a spoon covered in brownie batter!
I'm not sure she really put two-and-two together, but we sure had fun trying!
Almost every night, Cale asks for "Anna Gray time". I'm not sure which of them enjoys it more.
Here we all are (Layla took the picture) in our blue and yellow for World Down Syndrome Day on 3/21. I saw Anna Gray's picture on probably 100 FB profiles- you guys were spreading awareness all.over.the.world. How cool is that?!
Saturday, AG had her first Easter egg hunt. And by "hunt", I of course mean Olivia carried her around for a few minutes while AG screamed for a bottle and then we gave up, but not before sitting her on the ground with an egg in front of her for an obligatory picture... but more on that later ;)
She was grumpy the whole time we were at my grandmother's.
She was super tired from all the running around without a proper nap and I have just about decided she is not a fan of the whole pass-the-baby-around-to-a-bunch-of-people-she-doesn't-know-game. Who would be, right? But the second we got home, she was sweet as can be! Even though she was still hungry and tired, she was all smiles!
Her favorite way to sit (is it bad that I want to stunt her so she stays just like this forever and ever?):
She should be starting physical therapy in the next week or two, still not exactly sure what that's going to look like. She has appointments with the opthamologist and audiologist coming up as well. Pretty sure her vision is great and fairly confident in her hearing, but we will double check to be sure. She is starting to either recognize her name or our voices- I'm not sure which, but she looks up!
Again, thank you all so much for reading our story (or at least the very beginning of our story!). We have been home six weeks tomorrow and we have literally not gone ANYWHERE in public that we have not been recognized. Even several towns over in the most random places. I can't believe our little AG reached so many people! We learned so much from this experience, and I'm so glad we decided to share it. That being said, I think it's about time that I swap back over to the family blog. There are still things I have been wanting to put over there, but I felt like I needed to update here first. I will continue to blog the ups and downs and all the fun of being us! We would love for you to continue to follow our story at Growing Wests :)
THANKS FOR READING!!
ANNA GRAY LOVES YOU ALL!
(Her daddy loves a girl in overalls!)
