The Davis Family

My favorite daily tradition with Jordan this winter is to turn up the heater in the morning right after breakfast. So I get him up, get him changed, feed him breakfast and then he runs straight to the heater vent… and I hurry to the thermostat to turn the heater up from 64 to 66. Brian also lights the pellet stove every morning and we get up to about 70 in here by the time that has been burning for awhile. Jordan lays on his stomach with his face over the heater vent for awhile and then sits with his legs on either side of the heater vent and leans his face down to it again. He looks forward to this every morning…. I’m going to miss winter.

I picked up a used drum synthesizer thing at a resale place this summer to give Daniel for Christmas. He likes the drumming okay, but he also quickly discovered the music that it plays… so that he can practice drumming to it supposedly. But he just turns on the music, lays down and rocks and rocks. He loves it. After a few days of not seeing him except for mealtimes, we decided he needed to ration his zoning out. Now he gets his music immediately after dinnertime. Now he asks if it’s dinnertime all day long. (laughs) He’s getting the idea and we’re even trying to teach him the clock a little bit, since dinner is at 5pm for him. So the last two nights, he’s had dinner, then gone into his room with his drums/music…. shut the door… and promptly fallen asleep. Oh, sweet boy. We’ll have to do something different tonight – maybe have his drums in the hallway instead? But they’re loud and I don’t want to listen to them. We shall see. 🙂

Lately at dinner for the rest of the family, Carolyn has been asking to pray. She’s 6. I love listening to little kids pray. Last night she thanked God for food, family, “and that the clocks… that there was a blackout. Because I like blackouts. Amen” (It’s been windy here and the power went out and reset the clocks the night before last.)

I’ve been fostering a talk time with Anna in the evenings when the other girls go to bed. Most nights I just give her a hug and she heads to bed, but now and then we sit and chat for awhile. It’s the most relaxed time she and I have… no pressure and genuine hanging out. Sometimes we’re just quietly silly (quietly, because it’s after bedtime for Daniel, who sleeps in our walk-in closet across the room) and sometimes we talk about serious things. It’s just nice to hang out with my big girl.

Let’s see, what’s a current memory of Maggie. Brian almost always agrees to carry the (two yougner) girls upstairs to hug me goodnight. It means two trips, but they love it and he obliges. Last night, he walked in with Maggie upside down, criss-cross applesauce (or something that looked like spiderman hanging from his web). She doesn’t snuggle in for hugs any more, she perches on my lap and tells me about the fantastical things she’s imagining. Then she hugs me if I remind her and drifts or bounces to her bed. (Carrie wanted to be carried by her feet after watching Maggie last night. She announced, “I came upstairs upside down two nights in a row.” and seemed very pleased with herself.)

Brian turned 36 years old! Does that make us old? I can’t remember exactly when old starts. I think I like it that way. However, Brian’s back spasmed the other day because he lifted his arms above his head, so I think it means we’re within the margin of old.

Just so you know – Brian won’t be drinking, partying, gambling or carousing at all this year. Because he’s a square. You all won’t notice, since he’s hardly a party animal now, but he wants to play the part of a perfect square as well as possible.

Cuz he’s a nerd. Right?

36 is a square.

6 squared, to be precise.

I got the joke right away. Because we nerds stick together.

I just needed to journal a little and check in here with a few things. I don’t know how far I’ll get, but I’m going to start.

I’ve been doing hard work with counseling on a regular basis. I set up a 2-hour session every other week and we fill it every time, cover-to-cover. I haven’t found that I’m out of things to work on and I’m being brave and vulnerable and working to take back ground that belongs to me. There have been relationship issues, church issues, special needs mom issues, straight-up mom issues, fatigue issues, depression issues…. you name it or struggle with it and I’ve probably brought it up. I’m proud of me for this. I have some hard journaling to do after the last session, which slipped off a cliff into talking about some ingrained thought patterns that have returned with the latest round of depression. I feel lighter for having walked these healing paths, but it is hard and often painful. Knowing that I have counseling every other week has given me a sense of progress and relieved some significant pressure. Even if all I do sometimes is dump my stress and voice my experiences and feelings… well…. I needed a safe place to do that. A place where she doesn’t over-react, a place where she listens well, a place where the responses are going to be sound and thoughtful. My mind is growing healthier through counseling and it’s running over into other parts of my life. If you see this, thank you, Deborah!

On a much lighter note – Brian is doing his annual dates with the girls. The first date was with Carolyn. He took her out to eat – I don’t remember where. And then they went out to the movies. And they bought the snacks at the movies too. I don’t remember the details – it was a week ago. But Carolyn was just skipping everywhere and so happy. Today is Maggie’s turn (by the way – she does NOT let us call her Margaret right now. Don’t try. She genuinely doesn’t want to be called that right now.). She and Brian came up with the plan to pack up a tarp, some wood and fire-building materials, some snacks and I don’t know what else and they’re going to a campground to build a tarp shelter and build a fire. I believe they’re hitting McDonald’s on the way for sustenance. Sounds like an awesome time. I’m not sure what the plan is with Anna yet. Time will tell! My only rules are that they aren’t gone for more than half a day and stay in budget. We also didn’t schedule them ahead of time so that we can flex with the stress level in the home… leaving when the boys are stable rather than screaming. 🙂

We made some big changes (big in my head anyway) to how we handle the holidays. Mostly, we reduced the number of commitments severely. In anticipation of the cancelations, I was a bit anxious. But now that the time is here and Brian is off work all week and we have ZERO commitments outside of our nuclear family until Saturday… well, it feels GOOD. It’s exactly what we need. We canceled extended family except a short visit with my sister and parents this weekend (whom we didn’t see for Thanksgiving) and we aren’t going to church and we don’t even need to go to the grocery. We’re capitalizing on the blessings that two parents at home bring. Like taking turns with the caregiving. Like helping each other sleep in a few extra minute when we can. Like stopping to sit and snuggle on the couch on a regular basis and finding each other for long hugs. Like being able to talk about hard counseling work and hold each other and pass tissues. It feels like “not waiting to have time.” I also am going on long walks and jogs by myself, courtesy of my husband, and logging so many miles. I’m cooking! We’re eating food that wasn’t partially prepped by Costco and my tummy is happy. (The kids aren’t so thrilled – they love the junk food.)

I’m going to see if I can wrap Brian’s gifts while everything is still calm here and before I need to get the boys through afternoon snack and toileting. I just needed to check in and write a little. I have some more journaling in me, but it’s even a little too sensitive, even for me – the person who shares everything. Counseling homework this time involves a hard-to-write letter and also identifying some specific thoughts. But first – presents. And then – diapers and yogurt. And then… well, maybe Brian will be here then!

Merry Christmas!

A few recent pictures – all from my phone:
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Face to the heater vent as usual!

Serious lentil pouring.

More cool lichen on another walk.

Myself!

Weeping willow trees with sunset lighting.

This little note is so special, I put it as my cell phone background.

Been drawing floor plans

Brian’s date with Carolyn!

Cool lichen on a walk

Morning snuggles.

Daniel watched Mr. Rogers on a cell phone on the shelf in his new room.

I made jalepeno cheesy bread.

I cooked corn chowder.

Jordan didn’t cry while we were there!

We had a family restaurant trip – Anna brought a quarter just for Daniel to ride the airplane.

We watched The Nutcracker!

I got to go out to coffee a few weeks ago!

We got to go for a walk with friends a few weeks ago!

Of all the pictures I took by the book tree, this is my favorite.

Daniel’s new bedroom is our emptied walk-in-closet. He made the transition seamlessly and the girls are happy to have their room to themselves at night.

December 11, 2018

I wanted to include a Christmas letter with our photo…. so here I go – gonna write one:

5-year-old Daniel has locked himself in his walk-in-closet bedroom with a toy that is teaching him his letters and letter sounds in the most obnoxious way possible with plenty of repetition and tinny music. Jordan (age 9) is laying on his stomach with his face over the heater vent. The heater isn’t on… I don’t know if he’s feeling cold air come out of there or if he’s just waiting. The pellet stove is running in an attempt to prevent potential $400+ heat bills of our glorious mossy mansion, so his waiting is futile if that’s what he’s doing.

I started some bread dough this morning, because fresh bread on winter days is awesome.

*interruption to figure out why Maggie isn’t doing her schoolwork. She was just distracted. Got her started on a writing assignment and a cursive assignment.*

Back to bread-making. I need to get that dough into balls, because I want rolls instead of a loaf (because slicing bread is too much work?). But the counter is dirty and I don’t have socks on, so the crumbs on the floor are going to stick to my feet and that drives me nuts. So then I’d need to sweep. And then do the bread thing and then there’s going to be flour on the floor so I have to sweep again. Oh, and the counter is cluttered and dirty. So the jury is still out on the fate of the bread dough.

Anna is 11 years old and doing her 6th grade schoolwork downstairs. Or in her bedroom. I’m not really sure where she took it. But she’s a strange child who likes her grammar homework and finished all her chores without being told. Strange, but wonderful. She’s a huge fan of the art class the three girls are doing weekly and… oh yeah, I need to give them time to do art homework. Maybe after lunch?

*interruption to tell Maggie to stop goofing off so loudly that I can hear her from across the house and to do the assignments she picked out.*

Carolyn (age 6) is almost done with her first grade homework for the day and looking darling and altogether too grown up with her hair cut shoulder length. I asked her what kind of Christmas dessert we should make (sometime between now and New Year’s presumably, but we’ll see what happens) and she had no trouble at all picking out Sugar Cookies with frosting. I asked Maggie (age 9) the same question, but she wanted to tell me the things she calls the kinds of desserts instead of telling me which one she wants me to make. She calls Molasses cookies “sugar cookies” because the dough is rolled in sugar. She calls the Sugar cookies “Christmas cookies” because they’re supposed to be made at Christmas. And then she told me she wanted the Cinnamon Rolls, so we did get there eventually.

We finally finished the last of the doctor appointments for the year yesterday. Maggie and Daniel were last up for pediatrician. Daniel is over 29 pounds…. that’s a 10 pound gain since when we adopted him a year ago. That gives me a great deal of pride, pleasure and a sore back too. Thankfully, he almost always uses his wheelchair when we’re out and about, because his chunky, slippery, distractible self is hard to carry for very long. Maggie is following her own growth curve (the 3rd percentile?) and is closing in on 50 pounds. She absorbed herself with Brian’s old mp3 music player and some books while the doctor and I talked.

Next year, the girls will continue with co-op on Fridays, art on Thursdays, boring school Monday-Wednesday (that’s the way they’d explain it), and recoup/recover/catch up on the weekends with Brian when he’s not working to pay the bills. He’s still working from home twice a week, which is the reason I’m only seeing a counselor bi-weekly. His work is stable and he continues to become more senior in his projects, though he decided a few years ago he didn’t want to get into management and to stick with engineering. I think he gets enough politics and emotions here at home. Seems like a rational decision to stick with managing inanimate objects instead of people.

All the kids are home with me except when they’re out with me. I’m clearly getting good at this letter-writing stuff! Daniel’s learning and developing and Jordan’s pretty stable, so we’re doing what we can to keep that up… limiting excess activity and mostly capitalizing on the pleasures of a simple life. I have a helper for Jordan 1-2 times a week and that’s released a major pressure point in our family and permitted outings every week with the other kids and more time for me to exercise. I am not a huge fan of exercising in general, but I love going for walks outside and extending the amount of time that I can jog.

All the kids are really active too… both physically and creatively. Maggie usually spearheads imagination-based games that involve packing bags and supplies and building forts and making the weirdest messes. I still don’t know why she decided to use rubber gloves to store water (a canteen???) or what the pile of garbage “rescued” from the recycling can is for. Anna’s busy inventing an elaborate treasure hunt (with clues and map and story line) for her siblings and cousins come Christmas. Carolyn plays equally well with both her sisters (and sometimes brothers) and it’s fun to see her developing her personal interests even as she spends most of the time following and engaging in her older sisters’ inventions. Daniel still loves music and being silly and just discovered Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Jordan likes to go walking outside, swing on his swing and play “Where did mom hide the cheerios in the play room.”

My bathtub is full of gifts covered with towels. My desk has a stuffed cat on it that needs its leg sewn on. I’m eating chocolate covered raisins. And my feet are cold.

Merry Christmas!!!!

The Davises

Big news about Daniel today. I don’t know if he’ll continue this behavior or go backwards for awhile, but we made some progress with food!

Daniel has a feeding tube, because he’s scared of food. He has had enough choking and sputtering and force feeding for a few lifetimes. We didn’t blame him and he’s been thriving with a feeding tube. We’ve taken a gentle therapeutic approach to food and he’s made great strides. Some things he does now that he wouldn’t do before:

1. Hang out in the kitchen or dining room
2. Watch others eating
3. Play with food
4. Help cook
5. Hold his food that I’m feeding him through the tube
6. Smell food
7. Reflux his food immediately after eating in order to taste it and hold it in his mouth.
8. Smell and touch food held in a spoon

And the big one that came today…. he touched his tongue to a spoon with soup in it three times during a meal!!!! (I was feeding Jordan the same soup Daniel was about to eat and letting him smell the soup in the spoon… desensitizing his reflexive fear to the spoon… and asked if he wanted to touch his tongue to the spoon. And he did!!!!)

This kid is up 10 pounds from a year ago. That’s half again from his body weight of 19 pounds last year. He’s so much stronger. He’s learning how to navigate with his wheeelchair… both the practical bits with bumps and slopes when we go places, but also things like learning he’s supposed to stay near me, understanding instructions and reluctantly learning not to run into people and things. He’s walking so much stronger! He can walk sideways just leaning his hands on the wall… he’s so much steadier than he used to be. He seems to stand for longer than before too. I’m looking forward to finding and showing him videos of how other children with straight legs get from sitting to standing on their own. (Some people just can’t do it without help, but I’m prepping a few things to make it easier for him to learn. Such as watching videos of other people with similar bodies.)

It’s exciting times. The whole family deserves an update… each of my girls, Jordan, Brian and me. But I’m going to settle for this now. Proud of this little boy.

Here are some pictures!

Halloween:

You can’t tell that Anna is a Koala bear. But she was.

Ninjas run in the family. I decided we weren’t doing Halloween this year. Until 5pm on Halloween.

Look…. no ribs showing!

His back 6 months ago… maybe 5 pounds ago?

Holding and smelling a fruit! (And probably tapping it on his front teeth, because that’s what he does with most hard objects)

Awwwwwwwww. Daniel October 2017 in Bulgaria

I wanted to compare him laying on his back to what he looked like a year ago in Bulgaria. It’s a slightly different angle… but take a look at the edge of his ribcage and see if you can see the difference in his pectoral-to-shoulder area. Appropriate padding looks GOOD on him.

October 2017 – Heartbroken eyes and heartbreaking weakness. He easily wore size 24 month clothes and size 3 diaper. Size 6 diapers now and I wasn’t able to zip up a size 3T winter coat the other day.

Soooooo…… my children may have spent their money on stick-on mustaches at the dollar tree. I think they made good use of them. hehehe

Our pretty kitty, Boots.

Anna used hair gel to give Daniel a cute mohawk.

Remember this wan little face from October 2017 in Bulgaria?

Jordan is usually a happy kid when he hangs out by the space heater by my desk!

He did it!!!!

Another first! Daniel participated in some on-paper-desk-schoolwork!!!!! He colored and he did stickers! He tried to do what I told him and was proud of himself!

Carolyn was really excited about Daniel working at the desk when she noticed. He’s never been interested before!

Thanksgiving with Great Grandpa!

Playing a board game on Thanksgiving.

We got our Christmas tree today! These three kids were the primary decorators and it looks amazing!

I know my facebook friends have been enjoying living vicariously through my Christmas gift ideas posts. Or at least some of them are. The rest of you are all either Grinches or having a rough Christmas. Sorry!

Anyway, back to Christmas wish lists. Making lists of gift ideas and researching them online and planning is possibly my favorite part of Christmas. It’s why (if money allows) sometimes random people get random gifts for me. Because picking things out is SO MUCH FUN.

Now I have five children! Five wonderfully unique children with individual interests and wishes. And you know what I do? I don’t read their Christmas wish lists or dig through the catalogs that they carefully circle things in. It’s probably why we have a significant flop rate on our gifts. Because the dream of the gift is super important to me… and sometimes the follow through shows it was just a dream. But I dream on. Maybe I should dig through the catalogs. But… no. They circle things that I KNOW would fall flat and be discarded in less than an hour. At least the things we end up buying have the potential for months of engagement.

So Christmas.

We can’t do lots of things on the holidays, because our family lives with trauma and autism and stuff…. but we all enjoy preparing for the big day and eating too much and too many sweets. And the girls LOVE presents. Daniel might too. I’ll let you know. It’s his second Christmas with us and he’s a quick learner. Jordan likes hanging out with us and he likes the music and the candles and new toys.

Where was I?

Living vicariously. So I’ve been shopping for some really cool things. This year, our budget is $100 per child plus $5 for each stocking. We’ve tucked money away all year in order to do this freely. We also saved enough money for Brian to go on Daddy-daughter dates – one with each girl. Maybe a movie, maybe ice cream, maybe bowling… I don’t know what they’ll pick. It’s one on one and done during his time off from work near Christmas day.

We have so many cool ideas and so many interests between the kids! And the kids have limitations too and needs. So how to choose! That’s where I make long lists and then hang out online looking at the different ideas. And asking on facebook for input and experience.

So if you read this and then see us before Christmas – SHHHHHHHhhh!!!!

I got a metal detector! I’m so excited! I hope it doesn’t break quickly, because it was $30 on Black Friday and has lots of plastic parts.
And I’m getting some metal trinkets so that there is more to find out there… maybe I will gather some trinkets and coins into a cloth bag to bury. Ideally canvas or oiled leather or…. okay, I am getting carried away and dreaming of books I read where people find ancient pirate loot.

I’m shopping the hot wheels tracks for Daniel…. picking out one that should at least launch toys into the wall to a few squeals of glee.

I’m looking up cool survival stuff for Maggie and Carrie, who love playing outside in the woods. THey have some survival kits, so I was looking up survival food and lifestraws and things like that…. I might get some convenience foods since they’re cheaper than emergency or hiking food. Like oatmeal cups and ramen cups or tiny cereal boxes. I have more thinking to do here before anything is bought.

Craft or art supplies are definitely on the table. Music-playing electronics perhaps.

Okay – no more spoilers. DON”T TALK TO MY KIDS ABOUT THIS OR YOU WILL GET THUMPED ON THE HEAD WITH THE METAL DETECTOR. You’ve been warned.

Happy planning!