What Happens When You Spend All Night At Choir Practice

Your husband gets on and posts things that you were hoping to post about...That's right.
The news is Prema has actually started to tell us some stuff about being back in India. She remembers eating pizza with Michelle and Kristin when Michelle first went to get her and playing on the roof of the orphanage. There are some other things that she has told Michelle also, and in true Prema style she has mixed in some obvious and total fabrications just for our enjoyment.
This is great because maybe one day we will find out enough to have a real story of what has happened to her....but I'm not really sure that I actually want to know.
BTW the picture is right after I yanked a really loose baby tooth recently.

Another Doctor

We got the results from Prema's x-ray. Her adenoids have grown back. In January of 2005 her medical records show that she had the removed in India while she was in care of the orphanage. Our pediatrician says that if you don't get all the tissue when you operate they can regenerate just like a lizards tail. The x-ray is showing they are present and somewhat enlarged but we won't know the real story until we visit the ENT. In the past 2.5 years for Prema:

Pediatrician - same as any kid
Neurologist- included an EEG for seizures (no seizures detected) and MRI at hospital for brain damage information (non detected)
Genetics- nothing discovered, but ruled out Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Orthopedic- Shriner's Hospital provides Prema with orthotics for balance problems
Physical Therapy (private and school)
Attachment Therapy (LMHC)- 2 years of visits and finally done
Neurofeedback specialist - 1.5 years of sessions and soon will be done
Oral Surgeon- tooth removed in hospital
Dentist
Orthodontist- starting braces in one year
Pediatric Optometrist- no sight problems at this time
Occupational Therapy (school)
Speech/ Language (school)
X-rays several times for several things
A lot of Lab tests
Hearing Tests

Each time we go to a new specialist/ medical facility it is always very interesting. Prema is a bit of an anomaly in the medical field. The people have never had any experience with a profoundly deaf child, adopted later in life, severely neglected, and with no history until her arrival at the orphanage. We've gotten recommendations to give up and stop putting any effort into her because her brain is the size of a 14 month old baby and can't do that much to lots of encouragement to keep doing anything we can because the prognosis of her achievements is unknown. We've met some incredible people along the years who are willing to do whatever they can to help us. And thankfully we have extremely supportive family living close by to help watch the boys during or accompany us to appointments so I can focus on everything the doctors/ specialists are telling me.

I keep you updated on our ENT visit. We are scheduled for February 3rd. Hopefully this is the last specialist for a few years.

Why I Haven't Posted

So as you can tell it has been a while since my last post. Of course you can assume busy times with the holidays and raising 3 kids. All of this is true.

We had a wonderful Christmas.
Our church was in the midst of a "facelift" from the last week of October until Christmas Eve morning. We decided to move our altar from the north end of the worship space to the south end and spruce things up a bit. With Kyle (Florida Electrical Service) in charge of the electrical for the project, Isaac and Prema performing in the Christmas Eve nativity, and I signing in the choir; we spent a lot of time the week before Christmas at church. The unveiling of the new sanctuary was on Christmas Eve and it was beautiful. Every did an awesome job putting in a lot of extra hours to make it all happen from the construction all the way to the music and decorations. Isaac was the Drummer Boy and did an awesome job at 2 performances and Prema signed "We Three Kings" at one performance on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Morning we boarded a plane and traveled to Wisconsin for Christmas with my family. We spent 4 days enjoying the snow and spending time playing with aunts, uncles, cousins, and Grandma and Grandpa. It was the first time our kids had seen snow and played in it. Eli hated it, and only wanted to eat it. Prema and Isaac loved it, but Prema was not the smartest when it came to keeping herself warm while playing. She would pull off her mittens and play in the snow with bare hands later to come inside crying about how sore her hands were. Kyle and I enjoyed watching the kids in the snow but we didn't like the whole production of getting them ready to play or the cold itself. Needless to say we were quite happy to come back to sunny Florida on the 30th.

Since then we've been busy with the daily routines. Prema is back at school. The boys and I have enough to keep us busy during the day with playing and keeping the house relatively clean and smoothly running. I had the chance to ride my new road bike once with Kyle and loved it. We've also been on some fun family adventures. Kyle's parents and I took Prema and Isaac to the Barnum and Bailey Circus in Tampa. The next week Kyle and I took the kids to Planet Jump with some friends (a warehouse filled with blow up bouncing things). This weekend we took the kids to "Touch a Truck and Clown Day" at our local park.

The other thing that has been keeping my busy are my New Year's Resolutions. I have a list posted on my kitchen cupboard which contains 10 things. Some are daily must do's and others are a one or two time thing but will take a lot of work to make it happen. This list can be daunting at times when other things take priority, but I persevere.

My hope is that I will load my pics from Christmas until now soon and post them on here too.