Anni

I keep finding pictures of Anni from when I used to watch her a lot when she was just a baby:

We've had her on a somewhat permanent basis now for over three months now, and we feel like we know her even better and we love her to pieces!! We are slowly discovering what we need to do to help her learn and grow and develop in the best way possible. 

When she came to our house, she seemed interested in books, but couldn't sit for more than a minute while I read one to her.  I have discovered that she couldn't relate to the books because she had never done anything!  I made this discovery one evening when I read her a book about some animals taking a bath and she was highly interested in it because she can relate to baths.  I have been trying to expose her to more and more things, and then I find books about what we have done.  She can now sit through two or three books!

Following are some of the new experiences for her.  We bought her a swimsuit and we all went swimming.  She is a fish!  She is not one bit scared of the water and puts her head under, floats on her back with assistance, etc.

Anni is the biggest mimicker that I have ever seen and likes to do whatever any of us are doing.  While the kids are at school, a large part of my time is spent cleaning and doing laundry.  We bought her lots of kid-sized cleaning tools for Christmas because she loves to be right where I am, doing just exactly what I am doing:

Her mom misses a lot of visits, so we use the time to have some fun!  This was on a cold day, but I suspected that she had never been to the park.  I was right - she was hesitant to go down a slide, but once she did it, she said, "FUN!  Again!!"  She was also delighted with the swing:

Maddie took care of the Ware's house and pets while they were in Hawaii and took Anni with her almost every time she went.  Anni was fascinated by the chickens:

Anni loves to watch me cook, so whenever I am making something simple, like my weekly protein snacks, I let her help.  Then we have one every day when we get home from the gym:

This isn't pretty, but when we got Anni, we thought she must get really car sick because almost every time we got in to the car to take the kids to school, pick them up, etc., she projectile vomited all over.  Like incredible projectile vomit.  She sits behind me on the driver's side, facing the back of the suburban and the kids in the very  back seats can feel the spray.  You can imagine the excitement when she starts vomiting!

She also would cough all night and then sound like she was swallowing something down over and over again.  We slept with her the first two months because she wouldn't sleep alone, and none of us were sleeping...  The first doctor we took her to, told us to keep her on constant Benadryl.  She figured she was teething.  I was VERY skeptical because none of my kids had this problem when they were teething.  We did it for a week while we waited to get in with another doctor, and it wasn't doing anything.  Meanwhile, I had to head for home and clean her up every time she vomited and Shawn had to completely dismantle her car seat, I'd wash it, and he'd put it back together again.

Finally we got her in with Russ Harrison and he diagnosed her with acid reflux.  This surprised me since she never had ANY reflux as a baby!  He said that all the anxiety she has had to live with before she was removed from her home and a poor diet had caused it.  (Before we got her she had things like ice cream for breakfast, candy bars for lunch, etc. so this made sense). Getting her to eat a healthy diet is a whole other story, but we have done it!

Anyways, she has to take some medicine every day for 5-6 months, and eat a very healthy diet.  She has already gotten a lot better, but she still vomits in the car about once a week...

The first of January we decided to start sleep training and get Anni in her own bed so that we could feel human again!  Shawn set her crib up and we did her whole bed time routine and then he and I laid down on the end of Kami's bed in her room, and with our heads facing her, we sang to her until she fell asleep.  The next night we sand a lot fewer songs and she cried when we left, but we kept going in from time to time to reassure her. After a couple of days she seemed as happy to have her own bed as we were for her to have it! We wondered why we didn't tackle this sooner it went so well, but I suppose that it was good to ease her into it.

I always love seeing a sleeping baby:

Emma Ware gave her this bunny and Pace said it smells like honey, so it's name is "Honey Bunny" and Anni always sleeps with it:

This particular evening, Anni was all ready for bed, so we needed to say family prayer, but Pace was still in the bath.  We ended up saying prayer in front of the bathroom door so that Pace could hear, with the kids barricading it so that Anni couldn't get back into the tub:

I think she is getting used to being constantly mauled by the kids:

She calls us "mommy" and "daddy" and seems so happy to have a mom and a dad!  If we are hugging she wants in on it too, and then she pushes our heads together over and over so that we kiss and hug each other.  She is blossoming from a schedule and security.  Shawn came home for lunch one afternoon and she was so excited:

And that's a little bit about our little doll in January.