friends

Evalana enjoys playing with friends. I'm so thankful to have so many great friends, and it's fun that many of my friends have little girls Evalana's age.

When Jolie came over, they kept hugging each other until they'd fall over. It was so funny.

ice skating

On Tuesday Evalana got to go ice skating again. She had been talking about ice skating since she last saw Aunt Michelle, so she was very excited about it. I'm so glad I took this short little video of her skating, because since we went, she's been asking me to tell the story of our ice skating with Mimi over and over and over and over again. The whole thing didn't last long, so I try to draw out all the details to include as much as possible. I couldn't tell you how many times she's watched this skating video. Her favorite part of the skating, though, was watching the big kids spin really fast.

ice skating with aunt michelle from rachel vaughn on Vimeo.

excited to go skate with aunt michelle from rachel vaughn on Vimeo.

mei tai

We got our Baby So Smart toddler mei tais! We love them.

little caretaker

It continues to amaze me how much this little girl cares about others. This morning she spoon-fed her baby doll. When the baby bonked her on the head, she made me kiss the baby before i kissed her owie. When we said a prayer, and i forgot to mention Daddy in it, she kept her hands folded, looked at me and said "Dada. Mo pay" (We need to pray more for Daddy). Yesterday I didn't even get a chance to eat my lunch, because she kept asking to pray through the whole time. She shares all her food, even gives away her favorite things. When we were going into a store, she heard a baby crying and said "Baby. Hold." over and over. She really wanted someone to pick up and comfort that baby. Whenever we see a baby, she gets so excited, "Baby!" And she waves and says hi to just about everyone.

18 months

We have a 1 1/2 year old! This last month evalana has been working on talking. It's amazing to me how much more she's talking now than she was last month. Every week she is able to say so much more. S and K sounds still come out as "t," but she's practicing hard (even in her sleep) and saying all sorts of words. She knows the letter E, counts to 2, and likes to identify shapes like hearts and stars.

Her current favorite activities are taking care of babies and cooking in her play kitchen--which is great because some of my favorite activities are taking care of my baby and cooking in my real kitchen. She also loves to color and use stickers, and she's pretty good at it, too. She holds the pen correctly and draws little circle designs. She looks so big when she lays on the floor on her belly, with her foot kicked up in the air, while she colors on her paper.

She's still doing great with pottying. She now sometimes walks over to the potty and sits down by herself when she needs to go. She almost always tells me "Paaye (potty)" or "peepee" when she does need to get to the potty. She still wears a diaper overnight and most of the time when we leave the house.

Evalana still loves her milk and nurses about every two to four hours or so. It's great that she's getting some of that perfect food in her, so I don't worry too much about what else she does or doesn't eat, although she usually does enjoy whatever we're eating.

She now has 15 teeth. She weighs 30 pounds (98%) and is 32 inches (60%, although last month she was 34.5"). Her head is 20" which is 97%. Her hair is getting lots longer, too. She wears a size 7 shoe, so it's about time to go shoe shopping for her again.

We are so thankful for every day with our sweet girl.

Happy birthday Noah

Today is cousin Noah's 3rd birthday. Evalana and Noah had a conversation on the phone together, which was really funny. Evalana basically said "Noah hi. Noah. Noah hi. Bye bye." Noah was very busy with gifts, people, chatting away. For the past four days for some reason Evalana has not stopped talking about the Arkansas family. We'll be playing or whatever, and then she'll start through the list "Gigi, Papa, Noah, Tae (Aunt Kristen), Taey (Katie)." And then she'll tell me about something that she liked doing with Noah when they were here in December. And then we'll do it again and again. I'm so glad she likes her family so much. Hopefully we'll be able to go visit them as soon as we finish our DT (foster) class at the end of February.

winter sickness

Evalana's sick. I guess she has a stomach bug. She's been throwing up every several hours since yesterday afternoon. So thankful for Joshua's help. He's working from home today and let me take a couple of showers during the night last night. Hopefully she'll be over the vomiting and diarrhea soon. Last year Evalana was sick from the middle of January to the end of March. Hopefully she won't be sick quite as much this year, but we're thankful for her overall heath. Okay, I've got to get back to play cooking with her. She's a very cute little sick girl.

Evalana loves to help mama bake.

oh doctors and cows

this afternoon we went to evalana's appointment to see an allergist at Children's Mercy. In July we had tried giving Evalana dairy foods. After about three weeks of eating dairy, she started having tummy aches and diarrhea. From what i've read, if they are intolerant to a particular protein, it can wear away at their intestines and build up damage until the symptoms show up. I'm not sure, though, about how/when to retry cow's milk to see if she's okay with it now since it seems to take so long to show up. So we waited the four months or whatever to get in for this appointment so i could get a professional opinion. The doctor did a scratch test on her back, which aren't completely accurate, but everything turned out negative, so that's good. Then the doctor said she's lactose intolerant and to give her lactaid milk. Ugh. From my own reading (http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/bfinfo/lactose.html, http://www.llli.org/ba/Nov98.html, http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/lactose-intolerance.html) I know that's not true. She does digest human milk just fine. So I don't know. I guess maybe we'll just retry dairy. Any suggestions? I do have to say, though, that all the people at Children's Mercy South were very friendly and made evalana feel comfortable. The only time she cried was when she had to stand on the scale and when the nurse attempted to take back the puppy gown.

Haiti

Joshua, Evalana, and i have been praying for the people in Haiti. The suffering from the earthquake is heartbreaking. What an encouragement, though, to see Haitians praying and praising God with singing through all of their current challenges. Please join us in prayer for the people in Haiti. There are also many great organizations to give to. Joshua and I have chosen to donate to http://theglobalorphanproject.org/donate/relief. Check out their blog while you're there. It is especially heartbreaking to me to see little kids evalana's age hurt and alone. I just cannot imagine. Please keep praying and give how you can. You can hear some Haiti updates from various ministries at http://listen.family.org/daily/A000002441.cfm (click on 1/18/10 broadcast).

attachment parenting

Recently several people have asked us why we parent they way we do and what some of the long-term outcomes of this crazy parenting might be. So I thought i'd attempt to share our thoughts.

Although we just started out parenting the way we felt was right, we ended up learning that what we're doing is called attachment parenting, and, believe it or not, there are even many other parents doing it. Attachment parenting to us basically means meeting Evalana's needs in a gentle and loving way. Some of the things we've done that might be out of the norm are breastfeeding her whenever she wanted, helping her to sleep rather than training her to sleep in a way that makes her cry, holding her when she wants to be held, and using gentle discipline rather than spanking. I'm sure there are other things, too, that I'm not thinking of right now.

The reason we decided to parent this way is because Joshua and I feel like the very most important thing we can do as parents is teach our children to love Christ. The best way we can do that for an infant is to share God's love by caring for them in a way that lets them know that they can trust us. We figure God created babies to have certain needs, and the baby knows much better than us when she's hungry or tired. God entrusted us to care for the sweet little baby, so we need to do our best job at meeting those needs with love. Evalana's life started nine-ish months before she was born, and i wanted to help make the transition from inside the womb to in our arms as easy on her as possible. I would love for her to never have to question whether she can trust us, especially when it comes to the things we share about faith in Christ.

The short-term disadvantages of attachment parenting are that a baby might need more attention, but i'm happy to enjoy a baby while i have a baby. although, if someone had told me before she was born all that i was going to have to do for the next couple of years, i'm sure i would have thought otherwise. I have big trouble with keeping up with the house, so I just had to decide that Evalana's more important than a clean house, and I do feel like I'm spending my time exactly how God is wanting me to in this area.

The long-term advantages of AP are huge. Of course every child's personality is going to be different, so there's no guaranteed outcome, but that's not why we're doing it anyway. Some of the outcomes of AP I've read are:

• Children and parents have high trust and sensitivity with each other.
• The child cares about others.
• Children grow up with heightened sense of self-control since their brain organizes in a more calm, controlled way.
• Babies use more energy for interacting and brain development since they aren’t spending as much time fussing and crying. A baby and later child is motivated to be in a quiet alertness state, and this can lead to better brain development and more pleasant interactions.
• The child is more likely to feel secure while exploring. Toddlers adapt more easily to new play situations and play more independently.

Here's an article I found interesting on studies on sleep training: http://womanuncensored.blogspot.com/2010/01/falling-victim-to-well-meaning-advice.html and more resources.

plain old update

Thought I'd give a little update on our 2010 plans so far.

Joshua gets to return to his KU classes at the Edwards campus on Wednesday. Fishnet is going to pay for him to continue his journalism marketing classes. Yea!

We started our MAPP classes at the beginning of January. This is the 12-week free required class for being able to foster or adopt from foster care in Kansas. I'm more aware of all of the requirements we'll have to get done in order to be completely ready to be licensed, so i'm thinking that we can keep working on it, but i don't know when we'll ever be ready. Joshua on the other hand is less familiar with all of the requirements, which is probably a good place to start, so he's all ready to do it, get it done, and get our license, maybe by April. We'll see how it all works out, but we do know that we're wanting to be able to take in children who are needing a family. We're both excited to be able to take this MAPP class.

I'm still working five hours per week at Westside, coordinating the adoption ministry. I love my job, I love my hours, I love our church, I love God. It's a good job.

I guess that's about it, other than all of the Evalana-chasing. We're excited for 2010!

babies

Evalana takes such good care of her babies.

When Evalana gets upset in the middle of the night (usually because of her teeth), she asks me to hold her and walk her up and down the hall--one of my least favorite ways to comfort her in the middle of the night since it involves my having to carry 30 pounds through the dark while half asleep. It works quickly, though, and she loves it, so we do it. Last week I saw her carrying her baby, walking up and down the hall. I asked her what she was doing, and she said "wa" (walking). I guess if she can take such good care of her pretend babies, I can walk my real baby when she's got pointy teeth coming through her gums.

orange peeler

Evalana peeling her own oranges and cooking in her kitchen

prayer

Evalana is a great prayer. She frequently asks to pray for people or other things throughout the day. She's also now sitting at the table in her chair, rather than using her high chair tray.