With a cough cough here and a sniff sniff there...

We are still here if anyone is still reading this! LOL! It has been a tough fall with the battle of the illnesses around here. Poor N is so behind on her vaccine schedule, the first round hit her with about a 104.5 fever as a result of the MMR vaccine (we believe) but whose to know for sure given that a virus was going around that same time with the same high grade fever?? All I know is that none of the rest of us got it so I'm blaming the MMR. Exactly 4 days after she had the Varicella vaccine, E2 got shingles, oh that little man was in a heap of pain, 2 nights with ear plugs for mama and very little sleep trying to comfort him as he cried through the night. Turn out, not all that uncommon for someone who had the chicken pox when he was a month old! We also had our first conference with the early childhood center for K. Their IEP evaluation was really accurate and they are really getting a sense of what works and what doesn't work for her. I am continually amazed by the whole Early Childhood Center staff and program. They really "get" her and have put some many things together , I am just blown away. Maybe it's my engineering mind, but I never felt the explanation of "insecure attachment" was the be all to end all explanation of her behaviors we were given by her therapist. For example, one of the things we could never figure out was why she would just out of no where, bite another kid. It made sense when she was in some sort of disagreement with the person but the random acts never made sense to just explain away as her feeling insecure. As it turns out, she has trouble reading faces. She gets happy and sad, but emotions like excitement or surprise, so reads as mad. WOW! Its like the light went on and in my engineering brain, it all makes sense. She wasn't randomly attacking these kids, when she saw them running for a toy all excited, she very well perceived their expression as mad and a threat so she was protecting herself! There have been many more of these nuggets over the past few weeks and I feel like a lot she is making more and more sense to me and how she reacts to situations. Its all good stuff.

I am trying to put together some form of a 12 days of giving for the kiddos for December. I got the idea from another Congo mama who did it last year, but am having trouble coming up with 12 things that would be meaningful and interactive for our young kids. There are certainly not a shortage of needs, but many of the volunteer activities are better suited for older kids. Like they love animals but I figure an animal shelter would let a 3 yr old around stray animal? Looking for some creative ideas if anyone has some.