So first update is that Caden will be going in for surgeries 9 & 10 this June.  They’ll be fixing his redundant lip tissue and then he has a fistula (hole) in his upper palate that needs to be fixed as well. (And yes, I do get a kick out of telling people that my son has his own plastic surgeon.) He doesn’t need ear tubes though since he passed his hearing test this time. It will be interesting doing all this with a 3 1/2 year old since he’ll understand so much more.  I imagine it will be much scarier for him.

We need to get him into the dentist as he has 2 cavities, so sad. Being a preemie though and with their notorious bad teeth this doesn’t surprise us. Brushing his upper teeth with the way they lay back against the roof of his mouth is difficult to say the least.

Next update is that we finished Adessa’s dyslexia testing.  There are 4 classifications of dyslexia and here’s the way they explained them to us:

Mild – Probably would never be tested.  Would struggle a bit when they were older in school, have some dyslexic moments but otherwise perfectly normal.
Moderate – Where most kids in the tutoring center are. They usually come in about 3rd or 4th grade when their reading isn’t progressing and they just can’t seem to keep up with the other kids. Usually very bright and smart and have been able to cover and hide it until this point.
Severe – Very early signs as soon as they enter school. Reading does not progress and everything is very labored.  Again, very smart kids and there is a huge disconnect in their knowledge versus what they can read and write.
Profound – Does not progress at all. Nearly impossible to learn how to read and/or write without extensive tutoring and help.

Adessa has severe dyslexia and severe dysgraphia (the writing side of dyslexia). She’s going to need a few years of tutoring in order to learn to overcome some of these problems. The good news is that her Chinese shouldn’t be impacted at all being a character based language. We just got done with parent-teacher conference and Adessa is doing fantastic in her immersion program. The writing she struggles with a bit but she is retaining the words better than the English side in reading ironically.

Learned some interesting things about dyslexia though. There’s a common misconception that dyslexic’s simply see the words backwards and it’s actually not that at all. When seeing a word on a page like CAT it takes just a few moments for their brain to catch up with what their reading.  So they see the T first. It explains why all of Adessa’s #’s are backwards as well.  17 is written at 71, etc.  Even when she writes 17 correctly she does the 7 first and then puts the 1 in front of it. So that’s helpful in knowing just what she is dealing with.

So we’re going to get her in tutoring twice a week for an hour each time and this will be for the next year or two. A lot of time commitment but she needs it and I would hate to see that enthusiasm she has for school suddenly disappear as she gets more and more frustrated.

Adessa is in her Performance Academy where she sings and dances. She’s a natural performer so of course loves it.

This past weekend she performed at the Festival of Trees and we recorded her performance for all to see. She was so proud of herself and even though she was nervous performed great on stage. She even did a solo! She was so brave and she did it perfectly after all her practice.

Here is her first song “Holly Jolly Christmas”

And here is her solo!

We’re moving.  Back to Utah. 2 moves in less than a year. The girls are taking it well though I am sorely going to miss full day kindergarten out here. Adessa adores school, and moving to just 3 hours of it makes me cringe. I guess I don’t have to worry though about how she’ll do in first grade like many other parents though, wondering if she can handle it. Going to year round schooling is also kind of nerve wracking for me.  I believe kids need a schedule and just uprooting and changing it on them every 2 months is difficult.

Random pics below in various stages of completion:

Outside, love the yellow w/ black door

Decided to have the girls share a room downstairs because it was just perfect. Double closets and a huuugee bedroom. Bigger than the master even. Should be fun for them.

Kitchen going in. The island is hhuuggee and I get my double ovens!

View from the dining room into the family room and kitchen.

Back of the house, before it was painted. It’s a very large back porch there.

Decided to finish off the basement so it’s 5 bedrooms 3.5 baths. Believe it’s 3200 sq. feet. Large backyard. Should be fun, and I’m hoping I can last for longer than 2 years in one spot.

Bring us home souvenirs <— Gena, Adessa and Caden

I’ve never had someone who make me laugh as hard as he does, who makes me feel safe as much as he does, who makes me look forward to the future. I love our relationship, our quirks.  That we can argue and yell one moment then forgive and chuckle the next. That we can take any difficult situation and look at it honestly together, that we can make our decisions as a team. That we can never stay mad at each other and can go at most, 2 minutes, with giving each other the silent treatment. His fantastic ability to communicate and talk to me is one of the things that made me fall in love with him. We can talk for hours and never run out of things to say, we can tell each other’s thoughts at a glance. That even after all these years I want to hang out with him, I want to know more about him, I want to become closer to him.

I love that he loves being a father. That he adores his 2 little girls, that he cherishes his little boy. That he accepts life as it happens and that he knows the best laid plans for the future change, evolve and transform. That he loves to spend time with the kids, whether it’s homework, playing or taking them to the store.

I love that he’s always working and progressing himself, no matter what lay-offs we’ve been through he’s always had a couple of side projects. I love that he’s a dreamer and a romantic. That he loves football and writes poetry. That he’s so incredibly intelligent and brilliant at science and math and compassionate and sensitive.  He’s a contradiction and it fits him so well! I love the fact that we have this life together.

I LOVE YOU!

Christmas night was a different story, with a trip to the ER. Caden has been feeling miserable, he has an eye infection and a sinus infection. Christmas evening he started a fever of 101.  So we gave him ibproufen, and a few hours later it was up to 104 and he was throwing everything up.  We called his Dr. and she recommended we get him seen.  I would have just brought him to one of the Kid Urgent Care’s, versus a trip to the ER, but alas they were closed.  So we braved the crappy weather (seriously, in UT it had been snowing non-stop to the point that my brother’s car was stuck out in front of our house for 2 days). They gave him eye antibiotics and oral antibiotics and by the next morning, he was doing wonderful.  Strangely enough his rash that he’s had for the last 2 weeks was gone as well.  He’s back to his happy self today and all smiles.

Below is a pic of the kids Christmas morning, and yes… Caden really looked that sick:

Then there was Adessa’s dance recital.  She did wonderful!  Below you can see the pics of her doing her different positions and leaping:

First Position

Second Position

Third Position

Leaping

Christmas is not about prosperity and comfort, it is about help to the hopeless.  The central doctrine to this season is the incarnation: God becoming man.  God didn’t become a man because he thought it would be nice to spend time with us; he did so because we were hopeless.  He didn’t come to live in comfort, but to be poor.  He didn’t come to help good people, but to rescue the outcast.  He didn’t come to hear cheers for saving people, he came to be rejected and so to identify with rejects.  He scorned the self-righteous, and embraced the shameful.

What about the Christmas story itself?  Mary got pregnant out of wedlock and Joseph chose to bear the social shame.  They were in a country that was occupied by a foreign empire, ruled by self-seeking despots and self-righteous religious leaders.  Jesus was born in a barn -  not the clean manger scene we are used to.  The birth was announced to shepherds – people who were scorned by the “good” people of society.  The local ruler was so worried the messiah would overthrow him, he sent death squads to murder all children under two in the town where Jesus was born.

Fact or fiction, the scene was not pretty, but instead was filled with pain, despair, and hopelessness.  This is hardly what we see on TV.  This is hardly what we hear in church.  That is the setting describing the first Christmas, not a mall or warm living room with a tree.  Christmas doesn’t hide from pain, it addresses it.

Whether you take it as truth or just as an inspiring story, we should pay far more attention to this meaning.  Yes, it is great to give gifts and be with family – I will be doing that as well.  But there is no escaping the pervasive pain and suffering in this world.  The Christmas message is not about sheltering ourselves from that suffering, but instead going out among the suffering and providing comfort.