Catching Up

All excuses aside, I’m just not that good at keeping journals or blogs.  I see others constantly journaling their lives and I think “How cool is that!”  And yet, I struggle to set aside time to jot down my thoughts or share the events that make my life the blessing that I believe it is. 

But, yet again, I find myself at the keyboard under the guise of another valiant attempt at making this whole blog thing work.  So, all feelings of déjà vu aside, here we go again.

This latest foray into the blogosphere finds Braden almost 5.  In fact, he’s looking forward to ‘being number 5’.  He keeps asking when Easter is, not because of his strong belief and joy at our Savior’s resurrection, but because he knows his birthday is after Easter. 

Emma turned 3 in January and we’re still trying to figure out where that time has gone.  She is really blossoming into a smart, fun and strong-willed young girl.  She’s now attending day care three mornings a week and loves it.  Somewhere along the way she’s learned to count to 25 and knows all the letters.  She also loves to sing and dance and is quickly developing an interest in dolls, princesses and fairies. 

Alex is almost 10 months now.  His development has been amazing to watch, from arriving 5 weeks early, spending 10 days in the NICU to chasing him around the house as he does laps with his army crawl.  He’s definitely going to be the eater of the bunch, as we can’t quite shovel food into his mouth fast enough.

I won’t pretend that the above even comes close to capturing the news that I’ve missed over the last months.  But I hope it does catch us up a little. 

The last couple weeks has been a time of decisions for our family.  The first major decision was to hold Braden back in preschool for one more year.  His teacher and we both feel that he’s just not quite ready and that another year of preschool would be good for his development.  It was a decision that we really struggled with, but are confident that it’s the right one. 

He also under went some evaluations with the Children’s hospital childhood development group to help understand some of the anxiety and other issues we’ve seen with his development.  Oddly enough, they have suggested that he has anxiety issues with a potential diagnosis of Non-Verbal Learning Disorder.  I won’t pretend to be able to related what that really means, but we know the symptoms are very much inline with what we’ve been seeing.  We are going to start some therapy with Braden and a counselor to help both him and us deal with some of his anxiety and work through it together.  I’m anxious to get started (no pun intended) and help him blossom into the fun, smart, intelligent boy that I know he is.

Emma will start preschool next year, going two days a week.  We were thinking that maybe she could go four days a week with her brother, but decided that two days was a good start; especially if she can go to music or tumbling classes on the other days.  And yes, you saw that right, she and Braden will be in the same class.  That will make for an interesting dynamic.  I hope their teachers know what they are in for!

The other big decision was to get a dog.  Yes… we are crazy.  A few people have not been shy about sharing that impression with us, but we really believe now is the best time.  A new dog will grow up with the kids and be an integral part of our family.  We also believe a dog can provide a lot of value in a therapeutic nature and help Braden overcome some of his anxiety.  And while a dog will add more chaos to our already hectic world with three kids, we think that it’ll be a great family activity raising, training and loving a new addition to the family. 

But the real reason some people are saying we’re crazy is that we chose to adopt an American Mastiff.  We considered a Labradoodle, especially for it’s hypo-allergenic qualities, but decided that it would probably be a little more hyper than what we’d like.  Plus we have had Emma around a bullmastiff and she showed no ill affects due to allergies.   We believe a Mastiff will be the perfect fit for our family: they’re loving, affectionate and calm protectors of family members.  They are truly gentle giants.  And yes, they take up a little more space than a typical dog, being between 140 and 200 lbs.   We are just very impressed with the dog we’ve met and the testimonials we’ve seen about Mastiffs.  We’ve applied with a couple of breeders of American Mastiffs (they’re somewhat rare) and are waiting, as patiently as we can, to hear back from them on availability.

Well, that’s enough catching up for now… it’s exhausting cramming months of stuff into one blog.  Plus I have a crummy cold, so should get some rest.  I’ll see you all in another 6 months.  No, I promise to try even harder to be more faithful to my journal here… not for you necessarily, but mostly for my own benefit.  When I do get started on it, I do really enjoy journaling like this.