Day +380: Happy Mother's Day!

Mina Brigitta had another good test result this week. This one was from a speech and hearing therapist, who said she was listening, comprehending and speaking as well as other kids her age. We weren't real worried about it, but it's always nice to get the expert opinion. She's definitely paying attention, and she picks up little phrases that come out later on when she's talking to herself or to her babies. I think she grammar and vocabulary are pretty good, it's just that it's sometimes hard to understand her. One thing the therapist said is that we have to get rid of the binkies. We're strategizing about how to take care of that. Right now Mina Brigitta is excited to have the Mimi Fairy come and take away her mimis and leave her a big girl bed. She says she wants to go to sleep in her own room. I'll believe it when I see it, but we're going to try to go with it.

She and Isaac have been playing babies together a lot lately. Mina kind of let Isaac adopt the new "waah baby" that Kristy sent, so when Sissy has her waah baby, Isaac will say "Where my waah baby?" One of his games is to hold it in the rocking position and bring it over for you to look at. He always has a very solemn look on his face and he doesn't say a word, he just brings the baby over to show you. Then when you complement the baby, he brings it to the next person in the room. His waah baby must be a newborn. Both waah babies are still called Jesus. Sometimes Isaac will walk around saying "Where Jesus?" There's a lot of looking for Jesus going on at our house. Mina has also decided that Home Baby is Dadda's waah baby. So when she and Isaac both have their babies, sometimes she'll bring Home Baby to me and say "Here's your waah baby!" Keri still has the "Chad doll" she used to play with as a girl, so all four of us have babies.

We're realizing lately how much of a sensitive soul Isaac is. We went to a very windy and wide open beach when we were in Sonoma, and he didn't like it. He clung to Mama and was much happier when we got back to the car. It was calmer and less intense at Stinson Beach last weekend, but he still was clingy when we first got there and wouldn't go near the water. After about an hour there he started to loosen up, and then he had a ball running away from the waves. Mina had gone to the water right away. The interesting thing was that Mina was happy and secure as long as she was holding my hand. Isaac was only happy and secure when he wasn't holding my hand and was free to run in and out of the water at his own pace. Mina is very trusting of Keri and me, not that Isaac isn't, but just not in the same way. Hard to know how much is nature and how much is nurture, but Mina has had many occasions where she had to put her trust in one of us to help her get through hard times.

Then today we stumbled across a concert in the Stryling Arboretum in Golden Gate Park by a 40-piece band with brass, woodwind and percussion. Isaac loves music, but he didn't want to stay and listen. He cried and said "No music!" and wanted up with Dadda. Mina loved it, however, so we found a shady spot behind the band where it wasn't so loud and hung out while Mina wandered around staring at each band member. Isaac slowly loosened his grip and after half an hour or so, he started saying "More music!" whenever a song ended. Finally he was marching around stomping his feet during the music and clapping and saying "Yay!" at the end of each song. It was a scorching day in San Francisco, but we had a great time at the concert.

This weekend she's wanted to do nothing but dressing changes on her baby. All the dressing change stuff had been put away when she had her catheter removed a few months ago, and Keri just got it back out. Mina was very excited to change Waah Baby's dressing again. She puts on the mask and the sterile gloves and gets out the little wand of chlorhexidine to sterilize the site. She has some tubes that she tapes to Waah Baby's chest, and then she puts the dressing over them. Then she spends some time flushing the tubes, and then she takes the dressing back off again. Yesterday she had me hold Waah Baby in my lap just like I used to do for her. Isaac was hovering around as he usually does, but he had no idea what was going on. A couple of times I caught him looking at Sissy like she was some kind of an alien. Made me think about how none of Mina's friends is really going to be able to share this game with her. That's OK, she'll forgot about all of it eventually, and Keri and I can be her playmates in the meantime.

Unfortunately, she seems to have taken a step backward on her poddy training. Yesterday Keri and I let the kids get up by themselves for a few minutes. Big mistake. Mina came running in to have us come look at the poopoo on a plate. I didn't quite believe it, but came to investigate anyway, and sure enough, she'd grabbed one of her plastic Pooh plates, brought it into the living room, and did her business right there. Brings new meaning to the Poopoo platter. When I asked her why she did that, she said it was because she wanted to see Bubba while she was going poopoo, and he was in the living room so she couldn't see him from the toilet. She had two more accidents in the afternoon, and then today she didn't go on the poddy once, though she went into the bathroom before having her "accidents". I asked if she was scared of the toilet, and she said yes because there might be a mouse there who would come and bite her. This probably would all be funny if there weren't an undercurrent of tension any time there is a change in her behavior. Someday we'll get over that I'm sure, but right now we start to get nervous. She's been doing great otherwise, so I'm sure it's just normal little kid stuff. But I'm still glad that her monthly checkup is this Tuesday.

Still haven't gotten in contact with the donor. I just need to sit down and compose a letter, but it's hard to find the time when the kids need full-time attention until they're asleep, which frequently isn't until 10 PM! I hope to write him some time over the next few days.

Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day.