Lila's Halloween Parade

Lila had a Halloween parade at school on Friday.  Compared to Adeline's shindig (will someday catch up with all of this posting) it was pretty insignificant.  She paraded to the front of the church and the parents converged upon the class with flashing cameras.  After we got our picture, they paraded back to their classroom for their party.  I was impressed at how mature Lila seemed and how composed she was.

Lila dressed up as a witch for the occasion.  After giving up on her desire to be a duck or Ernie, she took to the witch.  It was really fun to watch the girls wear Savannah's old costume.  I purchased two at the time knowing that they would someday be big enough to wear them.   I can't believe how many years have passed. 

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5th Annual Pumpkin Carving

Here are the pumpkins from our 5th annual pumpkin carving with the Anstines.  Of course, the origin of this night dates back to a time when all three little girls were held prisoners in their NICU isolettes.  We, as their parents, can't imagine a year without the pumpkin carving because it always serves as tangible evidence of our incredible luck.  We always make comments like, "We should send this picture to their NICU docs because not in a million years would they have predicted this!" 

While this night is full of remarkable milestones, for the kids it is just plain fun.  Because they are getting older, I decided to serve a spooky dinner by candlelight.  The girls thought it was great fun.  Decorating the table and finding as many candles as we could muster up was a good time for me and my oldest.  Although we don't have a great picture, it turned out to be a very festive.

After dinner we jumped into the carving.  All of the children thought they were perfectly capable of carving their own pumpkin and were a little disappointed when the parents said, "NO!"  Here is Lila Grace reinforcing our decision to keep sharp objects out of the hands of little children.  While she tried to put a pumpkin carver through my heart, she quickly made up for it with a sweet smile for her picture with mommy.

Savannah worked very hard at her kitty pumpkin. She drew the face on paper first and then transferred it to her pumpkin. This year she was able to cut some of the pieces out but still needed help. Savannah was proud of her kitty because it was her design and not one off of the computer - mommy and daddy are very guilty of stealing images off of the computer.

This year Adeline sketched her own design on her pumpkin.  Daddy had to use a little hand over hand to make sure the Sharpie didn't go flying but the design is all her own.  She was a very proud girl and had some pretty spectacular daddy time.  Lately, all she wants to do is be attached to her daddy and carving a pumpkin with him was one way to ensure he would pay attention to her and only her.

Lila ended up with two pumpkins.  She had been saying for week that she wanted a ducky pumpkin but was clearly unsatisfied with the duck I carved.  Luckily, daddy saved the day and found a way to make an Ernie pumpkin for her.  It certainly was the best of both worlds for her when she realized that she had Ernie and his rubber ducky for pumpkins.

It was an evening of fun.  The kids enjoy it every year and the parents certainly do as well.  Not to state the obvious but. . .  carving pumpkins with your children is much better than carving pumpkins for your children - as was done the first year because the little girls were fighting for their lives in the NICU.

Itchy, Scratchy, Witch Costume is On!

Adeline had her Halloween party in her developmental classroom. I wasn't able to attend (Did I really put a tennis clinic over my Belle's party?). I was there last year so daddy took the reins this year. I presume it was good for him to make a classroom appearance without me.

I was able to catch the last five minutes of the party because I had to drop Lila at the same school for speech therapy. Upon arriving, I was nervous about the report. Did Adeline behave normally, did she wear her costume, and how did she stack up against her new classmates?

It seems that when parents come to Adeline's IU preschool classroom, the kids fall apart. Let's remember that these are children with developmental issues and, more than not, change isn't welcome - even if it is a parent. Adeline always acts much more clingy when I am invited in and I usually have Lila in tow which makes for the two of them fighting over my lap.

Today, this was not the case. According to Daddy, Adeline did great. While some children were falling apart, Adeline stood strong. She engaged, ate her snack and. . . drum roll please. . . put on her scratchy witch costume. For a month she has been set on being Thomas or Lightening McQueen for Halloween. Take a minute and Google those costumes and you will see why she isn't. They just aren't cute. I like cute! I am pretty sure that is stating the obvious but I wanted to put it out there. What is cute is Savannah's old witch costume. It is flowy, scratchy, and wiggly which is enough to turn Adeline against it while it is still on the hanger. But guess what? She put it on and paraded around her school. I think she is pretty darn cute in to too!  I can only guess being in school contributed to the successful outcome. To put it in perspective, I was just going to leave her in a pumpkin shirt and call it good. I figured it wasn't worth the fight. I am sure glad I didn't because every other kid had a costume.

My final question about stacking up against her peers is hard for anyone to answer on a day that is out of the ordinary. What Daddy did say was that Adeline was very composed and met all expectations. This was not true for a handful of the other kids. While this makes me happy, I am also nervous about Adeline getting too close to the top of the class. This line of thinking will be saved for another post but for now, I will just say that Adeline is a shining leader this year. This being a first for the Belle, and for now, being at the top of the class is okay.

Tiniest Jack-O-Lantern

Tonight, I carved a pumpkin at the dinner table. It was so small that it fit in the palm of our hands which made the girls doubt that it could be done. Not only were they surprised when the pumpkin adorned a cute little face, they were very surprised to see all of the seeds and pulp. All three girls have seen a larger pumpkin carved this week in their classrooms. It was fun to watch them discover the tiniest pumpkins have the same features as the larger pumpkins, just in a smaller format.

Here is our tiny masterpiece.

Pumpkin Patch

I went to the pumpkin patch with my oldest today.  It seems like the little girls have had ample opportunity to find their pumpkins for carving.  School seems to get in the way of this for Savannah.  So, instead of just buying one for her, we stopped by a local farm and picked one out.

It just so happened that this outing coincided with her classroom exploration of pumpkins.  Multiple pumpkins were brought into Savannah's classroom and the students collected data on their weight, circumference, and seed count.  It was fun to watch Savannah put her knowledge to work in the real world as she examined the pumpkin she picked out today.  Upon plopping it onto the scale, she noticed it was very close in weight to that of her school pumpkin.  This connection made her predict that there would be close to 500 seeds, the number she retrieved out of her 14 pound pumpkin at school.

While it was a nice school to world connection, it was also a nice mommy to daughter connection.  We had fun playing on the playground, checking out the farm animals and sampling the cider doughnuts.  Moments like these remind of how important it is to spend time with my kids individually.  It certainly gave Savannah an added boost today.

Glasses

Miss Adeline is going to start wearing glasses.  It doesn't thrill me, to say the least, but as it sinks in, I am becoming more and more comfortable with the idea.  Adeline has an eye that turns in toward her nose when she tries to focus on something near.  She has some farsightedness in the eye.  Her eye sight isn't terrible but it does make her strain to focus which tugs her eye inward.  According to the doctor, this is very common in the average population but preemies have a lower tolerance to the farsightedness.  Thus, lazy eyes are more common in the world of prematurity.  

Upon hearing the news, I immediately made a second opinion consult.  I feel that we saw the best of the best doctors.  Adeline's regular ophthalmologist is the chair of her department at DuPont and the second opinion came from a MD/Ph.D.  The two doctors differed in their approach.  Dr. Lehman from DuPont wanted to put Adeline in bifocals but Dr. Forbes from Chop opted for single vision lenses.  His opinion was that starting with the least amount of correction is better in the long run.  If single vision lenses fix the problem, Adeline will have the option of jumping into contacts at a young age.  Bifocals often become a dependency problem which is hard to wean from.  Contacts are out of the question if bifocals are in the picture.

So here we are.  At age four Miss Belle has to start wearing glasses.  It saddens me as it is just one more thing that sets her apart from the average population.  For a girl who has worked harder than any of us will ever know to try and fit under the "normal" bell curve, I feel that glasses is a set back.  Glasses, in conjunction with her raspy voice, orthotics, and developmental delays come together as a package that screams premature.  I never hide the girls' early birth but have always been very thankful that we look perfectly normal to the untrained eye.  I just hope glasses don't tip the scale in the other direction.

Leaf Hunt

We went on our annual leaf hunt today.  Despite all five of us being under the weather this week and the parents continuing to be so, we made our books and headed out.  It was a HOT fall day that almost did the parents in.  The kids didn't mind as they showed much enthusiasm about finding their perfect leaves.  I was thrilled that Adeline trekked through the park, found her leaves, and placed them on the appropriate pages without many sensory obstacles.  Just for the record, each girl was able to find a yellow, orange, red, green, brown, purple, big and little leaf. 

 

Along the way, we found a mammoth caterpillar that Adeline referred to as Baby Einstein.  The girls thoroughly enjoyed watching it move.  I must admit that it was pretty impressive.  Everyone was brave enough to touch it except for Daddy.


After nearly and an hour of hunting and exploring, we stopped by the playground to let the girls play. Whenever I watch my girls play from a distance, I am always amazed by the delight they take in one another. There is rarely any fighting. More often than not, they are calling for one another with huge smiles on their faces. They really adore one another. Just today, as we walked to the playground, Savannah mentioned how lucky she is to have her sisters and how much fun they are to be around. I doubt many seven year olds pause and reflect on their luck in the sibling department while walking into a playground. I know I am biased, but I rarely see kids get along with each other as well as our girls do. I think I am the lucky one!!