The Daily Hailey

For SO long, my only stories about the kids have revolved around their illness. Now that we’re almost out of the woods on that, I figured I’d do a post about whats new with them unrelated to illness. Because its been a WHILE!

Firstly, before I go into it, a quick note about the pictures in todays post! I took them as the kids were getting ready to go out, and Dekker took the longest so I didn’t really end up getting a picture of him in this bunch. Also, the only one I have of Laela is with her and Solly. Basically, as our family grows, I want to say that I know I don’t always get a picture of each kid individually, or it may appear that I take more pictures of some kids than others. I do NOT have a favorite kid, or a least favorite kid. Different stages bring differences, and with that, some prefer to be photographed more or less, alone or with others, etc. I’ve caught myself hesitating to post pictures because I don’t necessarily have the same number of each kid. But its something I don’t want to sacrifice, so I’m risking some judgement here, I suppose. So just know I love all of my kids equally, even on days when I don’t have pictures of one or two. End rant.

How is Dekker?

Dekker is doing great 🙂 I can tell he is totally relieved not to be feeling sick anymore! He is quick to help, seems to be happy to have some routine back, and he is back in full teacher mode, haha! He’s picked up some interesting attitudes, though, which we are actively working on. I think when everyone was sick, we made a point to live a much more relaxed life, and we didn’t push them as much. We still kept to our rules, but for instance, we didn’t feed them meals that we knew they would struggle to eat. Things like that. So now, if and when we ask something of Dekker that he’s not 110% loving the idea of, its met with a big snarky sigh. So we’re working on that 😉 But really, its SO nice to have him back!

Miss Laela isn’t far behind!

In the mornings, when I go get her from her room, and ask her how she’s doing, she replies with “I’m healthy today!!” Its SO good to hear that she’s feeling so much better! Since being sick, she’s started to pick on all of these beautiful little phrases that melt my heart multiple times a day. “I’d love that.” “Happy to help.” “I just want to be nice.” She’s become extra positive over the last little while, which is such a delight after a long, difficult road. On the flip side, I think she’s still coming back from all of the sickness, and some days, she is in rough shape, and needs a nap. Its been almost  year since she napped, but she’s needing one every couple of days recently. But she takes it then, with a bit of tears, and her mood is noticeably better when she wakes up 🙂 Win for Laela!

Rowan has changed SO MUCH since we got sick!

Being that we all got sick mid-November, its felt like we’re constantly backpedalling, but now that we’re on the upswing, I’ve seen the things that have been developing in Rowan finally have a chance to come out! He is 22 months old, and is suddenly WAY more verbal!! He’s always been a pretty clear communicator, so when he wasn’t saying tons at 18 months old, I didn’t give it another thought. But he says and does SO MUCH MORE now!! When someone offers him something, he says “thank you” without prompting. He’ll come ask “Whatcha doin’?” If someone leaves the room, he asks for them by name. He prays before bed (repeating) and requests to pray for meals. He repeats after his talking toys. He says “I love you.” His mimicking skills are just really really good. He even insists on carrying his dishes to the sink, which is a rule than we enforce with Dekker and Laela, but haven’t pushed Rowan on at all yet. He just does it. He’s really surprised us with developing so many skills while SO very under the weather.

And Solly has been changing too!

We’ve had a bit of a journey figuring Solly out in all of this sickness. We were well on our way to sleep training him before we all got sick. He was eating solid food like a champ. Then, when he got HFMD, he didn’t want to drink anything, but he would eat. So we fed him solids more than milk, which was a huge mistake, as he got VERY backed up. It was awful. So we pretty much quit solids altogether and just worked to get him well hydrated again. But with that, he was hungry only having milk in his body, and we couldn’t afford to not feed him in the night :/ So sleep training all went on hold too. It was sad to see that all go, but he is SO much better now, and we are excited to get moving back in the direction of solid foods and sleep training again. He is getting stronger by the day! He has moved up a size in clothing, even though he lots quite a bit of weight, so he is officially in 12 month stuff! Crazy kid is just so stinking tall! Another noticeable change in Solly is his hair! He’s getting more of it finally, and its BLONDE!!! All of our kids start dark haired, but lighten up over time. Solly looks like he might be blonde earlier than others! The hair on top is still a bit darker but the hair on the sides is light light blonde! He’s SO cute!

Behold! Our crew of cuties! They attracted a lot of attention today at Superstore, as per usual. I mean, can you blame people for noticing? They’re all far too beautiful for their own good.