Little Scribbler’s Birthday Dress!
Posted by: Kristy on: March 8, 2011
The ADORABLE Little Scribbler is turning FOUR YEARS OLD on March 18th! In honor of her birthday (and in an effort to be more industrious with my ‘free’ time– little of it tho there may be!) I have created this delightful birthday dress!
Picture it with a long sleeved white shirt underneath because its still a bit chilly here! And without the wet area on the yoke– LS wiped her sticky, apple covered fingers on it, so it had to be spot cleaned before she even wore it!
It has several small flaws in it, but it’s the first time I’ve worked with this kind of pattern, and I’m sort of proud of it :)
(Pride goeth before the fall…yikes!)
Psalm 32
Posted by: Kristy on: March 7, 2011
1
Of David. A maskil. 1 Happy the sinner whose fault is removed, whose sin is forgiven.
2
Happy those to whom the LORD imputes no guilt, in whose spirit is no deceit.
3
As long as I kept silent, my bones wasted away; I groaned all the day.
4
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength withered as in dry summer heat. Selah
5
Then I declared my sin to you; my guilt I did not hide. I said, “I confess my faults to the LORD,” and you took away the guilt of my sin. Selah
6
Thus should all your faithful pray in time of distress. Though flood waters threaten, they will never reach them.
7
You are my shelter; from distress you keep me; with safety you ring me round. Selah
8
I will instruct you and show you the way you should walk, give you counsel and watch over you.
9
Do not be senseless like horses or mules; with bit and bridle their temper is curbed, else they will not come to you.
10
Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but love surrounds those who trust in the LORD.
11
Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you just; exult, all you upright of heart.
—————————————
I got assigned this Psalm as a pennance during my last confession. It really speaks to the coming season of Lent– regenerating our hearts in the Lord! I plan to reflect upon my sins– pick one or two categories on which to really work this Lent, and cast them up to God. Lent is one of my favorite times of the liturgical year, because the traditions and sacraments we recieve during this time REALLY help develop the relationship between God and Man.
I’m looking forward to weekly Stations of the Cross, to the increased opportunities for Confession and Reconciliation, for daily Lenten prayer services. I am looking forward to sitting in a quiet church and saying the Rosary, and looking forward to attending Adoration. I am excited to have my CCD class work on their Self-Inventory worksheets, and teach them about penance and sacrifice in the name of the Lord.
Psalm 32 is really such a seasonally appropriate reading! It really speaks to the heart of the Lenten season!
(In not-completely-unrelated news, I’ve been thinking that ‘Selah’ might be a really good middle name for a baby. From what I understand, it is a Hebrew word meaning “pause and listen for God”).
Adoption Timeline
Posted by: Kristy on: March 7, 2011
(I stole this idea from another blog I read!)
The timeline to building our family–
September 2006– First meeting with adoption agency
December 2006– Approved and waiting!
January 2007– Chosen!
March 2007– Little Scribbler is born and placed in our family!
November 2008– Little Scribbler’s adoption is finalized– she is legally ours forever and always!
February 2010– We begin homestudy process for NextKid
June 2010– Still in the homestudy process, The Auditor is offered another job in a different state.
July 2010– Scribblers relocate from New York to Maryland!
November 2010– Faithful Scribbler has many conversations with many yucky adoption agencies in the Baltimore-Washington area.
December 2010– Faithful Scribbler has a WONDERFUL conversation with Catholic Charities. FS and The Auditor attend information session and file formal application
Febraury 2010– Second meeting with Catholic Charities. Second round of paperwork complete!
March 2010– Third round of paperwork in process.
This will keep those of you who have been asking up to date with our general timeline. From what we understand, we should be approved and waiting by May or June, at which point we will begin applying for grants and loans to cover placement fees for NextKid.
Our crib is already set up and we’re ready to go! NextKid– HERE WE COME!
A Long Overdue Update
Posted by: Kristy on: February 22, 2011
We here at the Faithful Scribbler would like to apologize for our long absence from the blogosphere! There have been a never ending, overwhelming, exaughsting string of events that have left me completely tapped out on both time and motivation for blogging.
First up– The Auditor is considering a new job he was tentatively offered. Many pros and cons lists have been drafted. Much discussion has ensued. Many sleepless nights of agonizing internal debating, tossing and turning and ‘what if?-ing’…and still no decision. The position would be newly created especially for him, and as yet, nothing formal has been offered. All that emotional energy wasted!
Second– Please pray for our nephew, aged 13, who has just decided that he may in fact be bisexual. He also went through a two day stretch of threatening suicide on the internet last week, necessitating me calling his mother at midnight and waking her up to deal with it. He’s got a laundry list of emotional problems, and from what I can discern (because I am Judgey McJudgerson) not much support or stability at home.
Third– My brother’s wife is having a baby!! But we’re not allowed to tell anybody yet because she’s not yet out of the first trimester, so I’m sitting over here stewing with all this baby excitement, crocheting tiny hats and sweaters in a variety of colors, until such time as this issue can be thoroughly discussed and explored. I WANT TO BUY BABY CLOTHES FOR MY NEICE-PHEW ALREADY!!!! Sigh. A few more weeks! :)
Fourth– The Scribbler Adoption Saga continues. We met with Catholic Charities for a second time, got a second round of paperwork, and are pressing forward. The average wait time with their agency is about one year from the time your homestudy is approved, but we are very aware that it could be much faster, or much much slower, than one year. We’ve had a little hiccup in how we’re going to pay for the homestudy (our tax refund isnt what we thought it would be because we owe the state of Maryland for municpal taxes…sigh) but we’re pressing forward anyway as of this time. Once our homestudy is done, we will continue exploring financing options. Frankly, researching financing options is pretty much how I’ve spent the last several weeks, and there are some promising programs that I’m hoping we’ll be able to work with!
I’ve already got the “nesting” instinct kicking hard, and I’m anxious to set up the crib and dig out Little Scribbler’s old baby clothes and sort through them, etc etc. I’m pretty sure this instinct is driving my husband to the verge of insanity :)
The Little Scribbler is not terribly excited about the prospect of becoming a big sister, so we’re treading lightly in that area.
Fifth– and most importantly– the Little Scribbler is having a pretty hideous time of things right now. Her bahaviors have increased to the point that some of her functionality in the world is compromised. Lots of tantruming, lots of erratic behavior, lots of aggression. About two weeks ago, we had a conference at school because of the issues occuring in the classroom, which include not just the Little Scribbler, but three other preschoolers as well. The school psychologist is going to be spending time in the classroom to try to develop behavior plans for each kiddo.
I went into school to observe her in the classroom– they have a little room with a one way mirror like a police station– and saw what really really surprised me. There was LOTS of aggression happening, and melting down, and refusal to cooperate. Where was my sunny girl, who always found such joy in such little things!? I met with the Occupational Therapist, and attended a seminar in attention disorders, autism spectrum disorders, and behavior modification.
After much self-evaluating, I think we’ve pinpointed the problem. A few months ago, LS started to really push the envelope at home with her behavior. The Auditor and I decided we needed to “lay the hammer down” and really box her in with our expectations, in the hope that if she got away with NOTHING, she would start to ” toe the line” and stop behaving so erraticly.
What we forgot is that Little Scribbler’s brain doesn’t work the way our brains do. LS has Sensory Integration Disorder, amongst other things. Her proprioceptive sense (sense of touch and body position) is ALWAYS going haywire. It is in such a heightened state that it actually suppresses her sense of vision and hearing, meaning, unless the Proprioceptive sense is satisfied, she CAN NOT pay attention to what she is seeing or hearing. By “laying down the hammer”, we were creating expectations she COULD NOT meet, becuase her Proprioceptive sense wasn’t satisfied. The constant failure was making her a nervous wreck, and she started to develop an emotional complex– every little thing, spilling milk, tripping, dropping a book, elicited a tantrum of epic proportions. I was getting so frustrated that I broke Rule Number One of Parent Little Scribbler– No Yelling. Never, Ever EVER Any Yelling. It sends her nervous system into a tailspin.
So, long story short, we needed to hit the reset button on Little Scribbler’s life. She and I BOTH needed to start over. We took four or five days, stayed home, went NOWHERE, and did only things that we thought LS could do well. Regardless of her behavior or clumsiness or tantrums, we showered her with love and comforting and compassion. We needed to build back up that trust in her that we love her unconditionally, and wont yell or become upset when she cant control herself. After a few days of that, we were able to reintroduce some limits and discipline, with MUCH better results!
Also during that time, I met with her Occupational Therapist, Dana. Dana is really awesome. She reminded me that not only do I have to be Little Scribbler’s mom, I also have to be LS’s full time special ed teacher, therapist, and laison between her and the outside world. I have to always be thinking about WHY she is having a hard time, and I always have to be stimulating her proprioceptive sense, because she CAN NOT function until that sense is satisfied. So we’ve introduced a “sensory diet” into LS’s daily activities.
In case you were wondering (and I know you probably weren’t but in case you were) there are many things you can do through out the day to satisfy your proprioceptive sense. You want the activity to give deep pressure to the body– the deeper and more consistent the pressure, the better. It’s best if the pressure is applied to the shoulders/back, the legs and feet joints, and/or the arm/shoulder joints. Some great activities to satisfy this sense are jumping on a trampoline, wearing a lightly weighted backpack, jumping rope, pedaling a bike, pushing heavy things, chewing gum, etc.
Additionally, for attention disorders, a higher protein diet is extremely helpful in leveling out the behavior without using medication. The seminar taught that somehow the way the brain breaks down protein (as opposed to carbohydrate) leads to a more stable level of seratonin in the brain throughout the day. This is actually GENIUS and has helped tremendously in the past few days!
So we’ve implemented a new “Sensory Schedule” that looks something like this:
Wake Up– Deep Pressure (calming activity like massage)
1030 am– Protein snack/ Proprioceptive Activity (stimulating like bike riding)
1145 am– Proprioceptive Activity (stimulating like bike riding) and Gum Chewing
1230-330– LS is at School
345 pm– Protein snack/ Proprioceptive Activity (stimulating like bike riding)
500 pm– Proprioceptive Activity (stimulating like bike riding)
Bed Time– Deep Pressure (calming activity like applying lotion or massage)
That is our schedule on TOP of our school schedule, our chore schedule, and our meal schedule. You know how they say kids with attention disorders thrive on routine? yeah, it’s true.
The collection and implementation of ALL this new information (and really, I’ve summarized about four textbooks worth of information into this blog post!) and new schedules has pretty much ruled my life the past two weeks. But…it’s working! It really really is! Sensory Integration Disorder comes and goes in spurts, so we’ll have to redo the testing and remodify the schedule as the months wear on, but at least we have a jumping off point!
Oh yeah, and as if that werent enough, we decided to start volunteering with the church’s High School Youth Group as a family. So now our Sunday evenings are spent with teenagers, who are actually pretty hilarious and awesome!! Their antics will probably feature heavily in future blog posts :) AND, as an added bonus, they ADORE the Little Scribbler, who has become a mascot of sorts. For some reason they call her the ‘Hot Potato’, which she thinks is so hilarious she can barely stand up!
I love my life, but MAN is it tiring!
(sorry I’ve been out of touch everybody! I’ll be back in the game pretty soon, I promise!)
Just Wanted to Share…
Posted by: Kristy on: January 24, 2011
…that our neice, N, is 46 days sober!!! Keep the prayers coming becauase she could really use some support!
(ps– I promise to blog again ASAP! Life has gotten in the way of my sharing my random musings with you all!)
Adventures of the Little Scribbler
Posted by: Kristy on: January 4, 2011
LS just lost control of her scooter and rammed it into the coffee table. (Yes, I let her ride the scooter in the house. It’s a battle-picking thing). After she righted the scooter, she looked at me and exclaimed,
“Ooops! I hit da curb!”
Methinks she’s been spending too much time as a passenger in my car…
Living the 12 Days of Christmas
Posted by: Kristy on: January 1, 2011
We here at the Casa de Scribbler are throwing ourselves a Twelfth Night party next week, on January 5th, the eve before the feast of the Epiphany.
We have been trying to celebrate ALL 12 days of Christmas– a season which is rather truncated here in the United States, but which is actually 12 days long in most of the Christian world.
We have been trying to take these days to focus on celebrating Jesus and salvation. In honor of the Feast of Saint Stephen (December 27th), we are trying to live His ministry by caring for the poor. Frankly, we got lazy and we can do better, so we’re using this year as a “jumping off point” for celebrating all 12 days, and hoping to do better next year. But in any event, we’ve tried to think up ways to DEMONSTRATE “caring for the poor” to Little Scribbler, and suffice it to say, I think we managed to teach a few lessons in the past few days, at the expense of a little humility on the part of the grown ups…
You’re never supposed to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, but in the case of teaching a 3 year old, you have to kind of spell things out pretty plainly and repetitively, for it to sink in. This leads to a lot of what sounds like bragging (for lack of a better word). We’re trying to play it off caring for the poor as “Mommy and Daddy are obedient to God, and do as Jesus says, and so we give groceries to that man on the corner because he doesnt have any food to eat. And since our family has so MUCH food to eat, we are going to share with him, because Jesus asked us to, and He loves us all the same”, as opposed to “Look what a nice thing we’re doing for that man! We should always be nice to other people”. It feels good to help other people, but I dont want to give her the impression that she should do so for the personal rewards. Feeding the hungry is what is expected. It’s the baseline, not the “above and beyond”. Neither do I want her to have an inflated sense of her own virtue, so we must tread lightly on the explainations! But as you’ll see below, the explainations are VERY necessary!
We’ve had some awkward moments between the Auditor and I, where we’re not really sure how to explain something to Little Scribbler, but we want to make sure from a young age that she gets the idea that we have a responsibility to think of people other than herself. The first time we stopped to give groceries to someone who was begging, she became hysterical– screaming “MY CEREAL! Hey! GIVE THAT BACK!” over and over and over again. As a result, The Auditor and I have conferred and determined that we’re still in the “teaching” phase of charitable giving…she’s starting to understand, but I look forward to the day when explaination is no longer necessary.
We’re also planning on celebrating Twelfth Night– which I BELIEVE (although cant seem to substantiate) was the day that the Magi arrived in Bethlehem to pay homage to the Infant Jesus. In 3 year old terminology, Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, and Twelfth Night is the day of His birthday party– the day people arrived to bring Him gifts worthy of a King, and to worship Him. (Pretty sure they didnt have any cake, though).
And so, here at the Casa de Scribbler, we are having a Birthday Party for Jesus. I am making the traditional circular King’s Cake (symbolizing a crown),(although probably omitting the yucky jellied fruit bits that are supposed to go in it) and we are all giving Jesus a present. Frankly I got the idea from the story of “The Littlest Angel”, about a little boy who dies and goes to heaven, and when he sees people bringing gifts to Jesus, he sneaks back down to earth to retrieve his most prized possession to give to Jesus– a box of special rocks and sticks and whatnot that he found on his walks in the woods.
Instead, The Auditor and I will be making offerings to Jesus– some kind of personal sacrifice, or a promise to do something specific and good with the year, etc. We will write them down, wrap them up in birthday paper, and then open them. The papers will be displayed someplace private, to remind us throughout the year of the gift we have pledged Jesus. I suspect that Little Scribbler will take this very literally and expect tangible presents for Jesus, so I’m not sure how we will go about handling that just now.
So this idea of a 12th Night Party is sort of fluid at the moment– evolving. I’m open to suggestions if anybody has any! I’ve got all manner of decorations and whatnot to commemorate the occasion. I want it to make an impression on Little Scribbler, and more importantly, I want to give Jesus something…because I very rarely do, and it’s time to appreciate my blessings just a little bit more than I do, and to approach religion from a place of worship, and not just a place of “Lord please help me!”.
So on that note– Merry Christmas! There are five days of it left– enjoy them! :)
The Year In A Nutshell…
Posted by: Kristy on: January 1, 2011
Turned 27.
Took a trip to Florida.
Spent Little Scribbler’s 3rd birthday in Disneyworld!
Met Pat in person!
Started adoption process!
Got pregnant!
Ended adoption process.
Had surgery.
Lost a baby.
Counted my blessings and was overwhelmed by the number!
Little Scribbler’s eye surgery.
Took out a loan.
Moved to Maryland!
Became mother of a great big pre-schooler.
Started teaching CCD.
Took another trip to Florida.
Began house hunting!
Took out another loan.
Quit house hunting.
Counted my blessings again and was STILL overwhelmed by the number!
Started adoption process.
It’s been a busy year…what have YOU done this year!?
Anxiety Is My Middle Name…
Posted by: Kristy on: December 22, 2010
Yup, you can just call me Faithful Anxiety Scribbler! Because I’m having one of those days where I feel paralyzed with it.
I dont know if it’s a real tangible mental health problem, or just one of those phases everybody goes through. I suspect it’s just your average, every day, situational anxiety.
But it’s making me gain weight like nobody’s business! The diet of October was an epic-fail– I think I’ve put on ten pounds at least since then, which gives me about 40 pounds to take back off. Sigh.
But all I do is sit at home, play with the Little Scribbler, and get fatter by the minute. It’s all I can do some days to keep this apartment clean (and by “clean” I mean one step above bio-hazard standards!)
I dont want to leave the house, because leaving the house costs money, and money is something we are in short supply of at the moment…well, pretty much since we moved here.
Moving cost us about $5000 we didnt have. In addition to that, we had $6200 in out of pocket medical expenses this year. The Auditor got a raise when we moved here– but his pay is figured differently, so our monthly take home pay is the same as it was back in New York. We’ve had to take out a personal loan and we’re only able to make the minimum payments on it to pay it back. There are bills I cant pay on time– there are some medical bills STILL rolling in that we cant pay AT ALL until we get our tax refund back– which means I actually had a collections agency call the house this morning. Which was mortifying….and caused a spike in anxiety that has sent me here, to the couch, on the computer, spilling my guts to you, the reading public, about the intimate details of my finances. Because it feels better to just tell someone that we are SWAMPED. That our only hope is the anticipated enormous tax refund. That buying a house is in jeopardy because our credit will probably take a hit between now and the time we apply for our mortgage. That the thought of even APPLYING for more debt (mortgage) makes me sick to my stomach. That we’re probably at least three months away from even starting the adoption process in any earnest, and even if we ARE out of this hole by then, we STILL have to raise the $5000 to start the process.
I know I am very blessed– I know my little family is awesome! I know we are hungry, and sheltered, and warm, and I have very little to complain about.
But in trying to stay positive and not complain, I have bottled up this financial stress to the breaking point and some days, like today, I am a mess, because I have become the kind of person who pays her bills late. And that is humiliating. And so I’m telling you about it to make myself feel better. (Yeah, I didnt say it made any sense!)
The worst part is that my husband works a GODO job, with GOOD benefits, and he works HARD! He’s a professional and he gives up everything for us so that I can stay home and raise our daughter myself, and manage her developmental issues myself, without relying on paid childcare. We are responsible people. We never shop, we rarely travel, we dont go to the movies or buy expensive things (with the exception of $200 in Christmas toys for the Little Scribbler, which was probably overboard). I buy Little Scribblers clothes second hand. We all use the same, manly smelling soap. I buy the 99 cent shampoo and while we eat quite well, I manage to keep the grocery budget to about 50 bucks a week (because I am an awesome, coupon clipping, dollar stretching MIRACLE worker!) I really DONT think we live above our means– except with all these moving and medical and automotive bills in the last six months, EVERYTHING seems to be above our means.
I need to stop complaining now. It does feel better to get it off my chest tho.
Eight Years Ago Today…
Posted by: Kristy on: December 21, 2010
I married the Auditor! (well legally anyway, we didnt get sacramentally married until July of 2009).
He wasn’t an auditor then– he was a College Student. He had a thick, curly ponytail down to his waist! He wore Woodstock t-shirts and black windpants.
I wasn’t the Faithful Scribbler then– I was also a College Student. I was failing about half my classes and on academic probation. I could cook lasagna and ramen noodles and that was about it.
We lived in a crappy apartment. We were broke. We had dreams of jobs and kids and a big house to grow old together in.
We still live in a crappy apartment. We’re still broke. But we have the jobs and we have the kid and we’ll grow old together even if we live in a crappy apartment for the rest of our lives!!
Dreams do come true, and mine definitely did when I married the Auditor :)
