Proposals!!!

This week I got the drive to finish up Livi and her soon-to-be sister's room. I don't know what really got in to me... especially since Jon and I have been sick with really bad colds. I think it can only been explained by the "nesting" instinct!

My sister came over and cut in on the edges while I rolled the bright purple paint on :) I took advantage of Jon staying home sick on Thursday and drove out to Richmond to pick up the girls' beds. I found them on Craigslist for a VERY reasonable price from a manufacturer. I got both bed frames and one mattress in my Mom's minivan!

Thursday night things were clean and set up enough for Livi to sleep in her new room. Livi was literally bouncing off the walls with excitement for her new room, but when it came down to being bed time Livi had some anxiety. She cried on and off for a bit while we coddled and tried to comfort her. She only took about an hour to settle down and slept the whole night through! Nap and night time the next day were not an issue. She loves her new bed. She loves her new room and continues to drag us back to play with her in it.

Friday, I finished transferring Livi's clothes and putting up pictures....

This is Livi's bed.

I love the picture on the wall. It inspired the room.

Very Alice in Wonderland-esque.

After running around all day and setting up the girls' room I finally sat down around 7pm to check my email. My heart jumped as I saw one from our adoption agency with the subject "Bulgaria"! Why did I wait until after hours, before a weekend to check my email?!?! Our Dossier was accepted and registered and attached were two proposals for little girls needing a Mommy and Daddy! Jon was sitting beside me and we started reading. I was crying. One of these girls is my baby!!! I still can't believe it!

The proposals were both not very complete and did not have pictures. We have to make an official request to get the full packages of information, which we will be doing on Monday. Both girls were born in April 2008, so they are 4 months older than Livi. Both girls have Down Syndrome, both are in the same orphanage and, from the little information we have, both seem to be developmentally quite similar. How do we choose?!!!! This seems like an impossible task.

We'll be waiting to make our official decision until we have the full files, but we know that one of these girls is our girl! We'll be asking our agency to hold back the pictures of the girls and only send us the one of the child we choose. Since they are both in the same orphanage, I don't want to know which child we said no too and have to leave her in that orphanage. It would break my heart more than having to make this decision. It seems so absurd to choose one child over the other. Please don't get me wrong, this decision is going to bring one of the best blessings for our family and I don't really believe that there is a wrong decision here... I just want to make the right one. Does that make sense?

Stay tuned for more info!!!

Halloween 2010

Here's my little Ladybug! 

In the afternoon we went to the mall to get some extra use out of Livi's adorable costume. It wasn't the event in Chilliwack that it was in Abbotsford last year, but it was still a lot of fun! Livi was awesome with all the other costumes. Nothing scared her. There was a scarecrow handing out candy that scared some of the kids. Livi was just excited to go up to him and say hi! Someone in a Death costume didn't scare her either. She thought it was a lion and wanted to give it a hug. I love that looks don't scare or confuse Livi. She is interested in everyone no matter what they look like and wants to get to know them.

Before we went out for Livi's first official trick-or-treating Livi was SUPER EXCITED and kept saying "let's go! Let's Go!" I think she overstimulated herself a little because before we left she "needed a little break." We did not put her in time-out...

The first house we hit was, of course, Marmee's. She didn't quite understand that she wasn't supposed to go inside. Livi got better with her "trick-or-treat" as we went up the street. It started off as a whisper but got louder and stronger. She almost always said "thank-you" too!

There was one house that Livi had been very excited to visit. It had a giant inflated pumpkin on their yard. She saw it from a block away and talked about after each house. When we finally got there she started getting really upset that she couldn't go and touch the pumpkin. She stopped listening and threw herself on the ground. I calmly asked her if we should skip this house all together. 

Livi whined "yyyyeeeeaahhh"

Me - "So no trick-or-treating here?"

Livi - "yeah"

Jon - "Is it just too tempting?"

Livi - "Too tempting."

We passed the house without incident and my little Ladybug returned. I love that she knew that she couldn't handle the stimulation and had to skip it :)

Surprisingly, Livi was not enamored with all the chocolate she was getting. All she wanted was the lollipops! I don't think she has ever had one before so it was something new. We gave her the choice of one candy after trick-or-treating and this is what she chose...

It was really a fun evening and a very successful first trick-or-treat! I'm pretty sure I was with the prettiest Ladybug in the town!

The Great Soother War of 2010

There is a small window around one year old when most children are ready to give up there soother. We missed it or didn't care enough about it at the time. Recently, Jon and I decided that this would now be a good time for Livi to give it up. We have been talking with Livi for weeks now about giving up her soother to the Fairy to give to the babies. She was on board with the idea and even excited about it. I came up with the idea, inspired from her 'Olivia Acts Out' book, to send her soothers "up, UP, UP to the moon!" to the Soother Fairy to give to the other babies. When she made it through the night soother free the Fairy left a present. In Livi's case it was a baby doll with her own toy soother... we were hoping to reinforce the idea that soothers were for babies. 

 They are all tied on...

 One last pep-talk...

 Ready... Set...

Go!!!!

 

Wow!

The first night was hell. She cried on and off for 2.5 hours! 15 minutes of crying, 30 minutes of play... the hours went on like this. She eventually wore herself out and fell asleep. I think she woke up once that night, but I can't be sure. It's all been a blur. 

Each morning since she has woken up an hour earlier than normal or been up for over an hour in the night and slept in. She has not napped except for on the third day out of shear exhaustion. Getting to sleep at night has heard less and less crying every night but the quality of sleep has not improved. 

Surprisingly, Livi has only asked for her soother once the first night. She understood that it was gone but does not seem to have the tools to put herself to sleep with out it. We have tried EVERYTHING we could think of and even researched for new ideas on the internet! We extended her night time wind down routine, introduced a bottle for before naps, put towels on her window to keep her room darker, rocked her like I did when she was a baby, tried sleeping with her, tried to show her other things to suck on (thumbs, fingers, blanket, fuzzy), tried to teach her to rock herself in bed, tried white noise, let her cry it out, jumped to coddle her at the first whimper, gave her lots of praise for sleeping soundly, etc... NOTHING worked.

Yesterday was day five of little too no sleep for all of us. Livi was barely coping, not listening well, hyper and grumpy at the same time, not sleeping and I was officially sick with the flu. Sleep deprivation did not help my immune system. Livi wasn't not napping because she was ready to give up her nap, she didn't know how to put herself to sleep without the a soother. She needs sleeps for her health and development. I needed a nap. I needed my sanity! After one and half hours of Livi not napping yesterday, I was defeated. Livi had won. The Soother War of 2010 was over. I gave her a soother. She slept for 2 hours. I slept for 2 hours. I feel like a bit of a failure but we all needed our sleep. I had already discussed the possibility with Jon after he had been up with her for nearly an hour the night before. He almost gave it to her then :)

We gave it our best shot but realized she was not yet ready to be soother free. We are instilling more stringent rules around it now though... in hopes of maybe weaning her off of it instead of the cold turkey approach. She is only allowed to have it in her bed when she is sleeping. We already had a nap and night time rule but would let her have it during morning cartoons and evening wind down time sometimes. No more! Only in bed!

Am I being to harsh on Livi and myself? I think this soother thing is bothering me more than normal because all the literature says 2yrs is about the cut off time. She should be ready. Livi has always been on par or ahead of the literature. I know I sound like a total controlling mother/stuck-up cow but when you have a child as easy as Livi has always been, it is hard not to expect every parenting step to be just as easy. She is going to be a horrid teenager just because I said that, isn't she?

I think the other issue going on here is my own. Realizing it has made me more okay with letting her have her soother back. I sucked my thumb until I was almost 11years old. I was very self-conscience and, I'm sure, teased about it. My mom tried EVERYTHING to get me to give it up. It turned out that leaving my birth father did the trick :) It was a coping mechanism for me that went on for longer than was normal. I need to remember that Livi doesn't have the need for that coping mechanism.... this is just a developmental phase that she is not ready to give up yet. I need to step back and watch her for when she is ready, not tell her when she should be ready.