A little piece of heaven

Happy New Year’s everyone! Hope everyone had a fabulous New Year’s Eve and Day.

2012 Found me all dressed up, even wearing make-up, and out having fun, while the kids stayed with my mom. Honestly, I don’t think we could’ve started off the New Year in a better way.

Because 2012 is going to be the year of balance. It’s going to be the year where we find a way to meet everyone’s needs in a sustainable way. I’m excited to discover the joys of having a balanced approach to life!

2012 promises to be an amazing year. 2011 was the most difficult but the most rewarding year of my life. It tore me to shreds and gave me the tools to put myself back together. It taught me priorities, taught me to let go of control, taught me to have faith, taught me that I am important too, that I need to have my own time, life, and to have fun too! My views of myself, motherhood, and relationships changed drastically. And most importantly, 2011 brought me best surprise of my life – Gryffin.

2011 was a challenging year for Nathan too, but 2012 hold so much promise for him, we have so many things planned in the communication and education department. Physically, we will continue with his daily Medek exercises at home.

For 2012 I am seeking balance, I am seeking stability, I am hoping to finally learn that most valuable of skills that I have lacked my whole life – PATIENCE.

I feel it in my bones. 2012 is going to be GREAT.

To our friends and family,

There are many we love that we weren’t able to see during the holidays, so I wanted to write an update about how we are all doing.

Let’s start with the star of this blog, Mr. Nathan.

Nathan’s had a very hard year. He has been sick innumerable times; before he recovers from one illness, he’s on to the next. At the beginning of the year he became ill enough to be hospitalized, which was a very scary experience for all of us. He’s been healthier since, but still very prone to every cold and flu flying about, which immediately sends him into asthma and bronchitis. On happier news, he is progressing with his ability to communicate using his Dynavox communication device, and is able to play games, make choices, and simply tell us what’s on his mind. He is such a sweet, bright little boy and he is a wonderful, loving big brother.

Isabelle is a force of nature. She is exuberant, intense, dramatic, brilliant, strong, kind, sweet, smart, funny, shy, and feisty. It’s hard to believe that one little girl could be so much, but trust me, she is. This was a very big year for Izzy too. She learned to walk, talk, and started preschool. She goes to a Montessori school two days a week with kids aged 2-5 and to a private preschool with kids aged 18 months to 32 months. She amazes her teachers at both schools with how smart and capable she is. In the afternoons she takes tap, ballet, and gymnastics classes. She has now learned how to swim and can go from one end of the spa to the other, hold her breath for about 12 seconds, and can jump into the water, hit the bottom, and jump out. Her language is exploding, with new words emerging every single day. She is now starting to put words together and mostly speaks in sentences. I was shocked a few days ago when I heard her say, “Mommy, more TeTe (bottle) please),” and “Marce, play shrek ipad please”. She is in LOVE with the Ipad and demands to play on it every morning (right after tete). She can app surf, start and end apps, and has mastered many of the games that we have on the ipad. She reads books (Shrek is her favorite) on the ipad and is learning to trace letters, to match, sort, and to label things like colors and shapes. Her tantrums are truly monumental and we are learning how to teach her boundaries and how to handle her own frustrations, which has been a challenge. Even though being with Izzy requires lots of patience, she is truly wonderful to be with.

Isabelle adores her brothers. Throughout the day, she has to know where they are, and if she doesn’t see them for a little bit, she will ask and ask for them. They are her anchor, always revolving around her brothers, always checking on them and loving on them.

Gryffin turned 4 months and is absolutely sweet, easy-going, and oh so adorable. He is a very happy baby. His Christmas gift to mommy was to roll from his belly to his back for the first time! He is almost able to roll from back to belly, he just needs that last little bit to complete the turn. Most nights he won’t wake up more than once to eat, and some nights he will sleep all the way through. He is absolutely a mama’s boy and can’t catch sight of mommy without giving her humongous toothless smiles. He loves his bath, loves to play in his gym mat, loves sitting upright watching the world, and going for walks. Gryffin’s big problem is car rides; he detests being in the car and screams bloody murder the whole time he is in the car seat. Nobody is perfect and this is Gryffin’s big issue. He is already 15 pounds and has never tasted anything other than breast milk. Gryffin was so adequately named, he really is a king of kings.

I tried very hard to take pictures of all of us but failed miserably. Soon I will post a few of the pictures I was able to get but unfortunately they were just not very good.

In general, even though this has been a very challenging year in many ways, it has also been soooo very rewarding. This year brought us Gryffin, it brought so many new skills for both Nathan and Izzy, and all of our tribulations has brought us closer together.

We are excited to start a new year, with lots of hopes and adventures to look forward to.

Thanks for sharing this journey with us and we hope you’re having a wonderful holiday!

Almost unreal to think that 4 months have passed since Gryffin decided to come into the world. Here’s a little story about him that I haven’t shared here. I had a feeling that Gryffin would be born early. At about 36 weeks I could almost feel him saying, “Mommy, I’m ready!”. But I know how important every week of gestation is, so I thought to him, “If you want to come early, you better start the labor, because I am not going to bring you in early.” The feeling persisted and I told everybody he would be early, but nobody believed me. One of my dear friends is an astrologer, and I asked him when would be a favorable day for him to be born. He said to me the ideal would be Aug 22nd. Sure enough, on the night of Aug 21st, I went into labor, and Gryffin was born the following morning at 9:36 am.

He has grown and advanced so much in 4 short months. He is such an easy-going, happy, alert, gorgeous little boy. His gentleness doesn’t cease to amaze me. He is the first baby I know who actually LOVES tummy time.

He is so expressive and makes the cutest little faces! He hardly ever gets angry, but every so often, I do get this sad face.

But it quickly becomes happy face

And here’s his curious, but I’m not sure face

He is learning so much already. He is already grabbing toys and bringing everything to his mouth. He is rolling from back to side and tummy to side but can’t quite make it all the way yet. He can scoot on his belly on the floor a little bit and if he wakes up he will often just hang out there playing and kicking in his crib. He loves to sit upright and observe the world, so when we are out with friends or at restaurants, all we have to do is hold him on our lap looking out and he is happy as can be. Or we can sit him in a high chair and put toys in front of him, and he can entertain himself for a long while. He is so curious and just stares at everything with avid interest.

He still loves his bath more than anything; bath time is definitely the highlight of his day. He is starting to play with bath toys and is starting to kick and loves splashing himself. He is a great eater and weights a whopping 15 lbs.

And one of the most amazing things to me is that he will often sleep through the night! Not all the time yet, but there are nights when he goes all the way through. And on a bad night he will wake up twice at most.

These last 4 months have been amazing, I absolutely love nurturing and caring for this little boy, he has the happiest soul and spirit, an absolutely contagious joy. And his development is just beginning, so much more amazing things to come!