It has been another bitterly cold week here in our neck of the woods!
I love how much focus it gives us on school and inside projects!
I consider bitter cold winter days a gift when you live on a farm!
After school on Monday, it was an office day for me.
I spent over five hours working at my desk that day – a big chunk of it during nap times.
Trying to get insurance approvals, working on adoption post-placement paperwork, and a lot of time was spent on getting Eliza her medication in pill form.
I am just starting to get a system in place to keep track of ALL of this. I bought an 8 1/2 x 11 spiral bound calendar to sync with the calendar on my phone, a pink (for Eliza) and blue (for Tate) highlighter to highlight and then be able to see all of their appointments at a glance, and a filing system to keep all of their insurance authorization letters and medical records straight.
Wouldn’t you know it, that little pill that Tate started taking, that prompted Eliza to want to swallow her medicine instead of wearing a patch, is full of lactose. Eliza cannot have lactose. We are not sure if she had dairy milk as an infant in her region of China and if that is the reason her tummy gets so upset with it, or if it is because of her sensory processing issues. In my research I found that kids with sensory processing issues are usually sensitive to foods and other things – which in Eliza’s case is dairy milk, eggs, and dyes in foods.
I called many manufacturers on Monday, and not only could I not find anyone who made this pill without lactose, but every other brand had dyes in it as well. I did talk to some lovely people!! One man spoke the Lord’s blessing over my hard work – and it made my day to hear the Lord’s name spoken this way to me by a stranger on the phone.
In the end, I contacted the pharmacy in our area that compounds medication, and they made Eliza’s medication for us without lactose, dyes, or really any yucky ingredients at all! We are so thankful. It is not quite the financial savings we thought we would have from the patch, but it is good. I was worried about Eliza being able to swallow her pill, because of the shape and size, but she has not had any problems with it! (in the photo on the left is a mint that Eliza swallowed for me, Tate’s pill is in the middle, and Eliza’s pill is on the right) She is only three years old! Way to go, sweet baby!!
Isn’t it so neat how my celiac diagnosis almost ten years ago prepared me to be able to be a strong advocate for Eliza’s sensitivities? It comes so naturally to have to work hard at paying attention to ingredients!! God is so good!
School was super fun this week!! I think I have as much fun as the kiddos!
I captured in photos just a glimpse into our school week!
We read about moons, and then I used a white crayon to draw all of the moon phases on index cards. Lane, Tate and Eliza painted black water color paint over them to see which moon phase was hidden on their card. So fun!
We are still studying snow, and so we made a snowy scene on a window with contact paper facing sticky side out!
The littles are working on number recognition and shape recognition this week. We used a die one day to count and then mark numbers – this was their favorite activity, I think!
Oh my goodness, has it been COLD! I do love the bright blue skies and the sunshine that those bitter temperatures bring though! My three youngest monkeys start each morning in the same place! And it only took three photos to get Tate to hold still and look at the camera!!
Thursday morning when it was eleven below zero, Tate and I headed out early. Tate had an appointment for a speech evaluation. It was a huge blessing! The therapist is pretty sure we will not win the insurance battle to meet with her weekly as she hopes we will, but she filled my mind and hands with things that I can do here at home to help Tate in this area! So far it has been loads of fun, and Tate responds to it very well!
Tate would say what each picture was, and the therapist would reward Tate with a fish. Once all the evaluating was done, Tate got to play the fishing game with all the fish he earned. He loved this!
While the therapist gathered information and things for me, she let Tate play articulation station on an Ipad. I am hoping to find a way to use this app at home – it was awesome!
Friday is our grocery and cleaning day! I love Fridays! I love everyday!
We did some serious, serious deep cleaning yesterday. It was so needed!
We filled the mud room with a huge load for Good Will, and a stack of blankets for the warming stations in our city.
Last night we had a little flood! From the laundry room to the basement! Thankfully we caught it and were able to get it cleaned up.
After that it was date night! The littles were sleeping and we shooed three other kiddos upstairs! Then Blake made some Mahi Mahi and Swordfish! It was a great date! I want some more fish! It was so yummy! We joked that we would eat the way we did last night in about 20 years! It was awesome and needed, but I like the chairs at our table FULL! Eliza calls it “the whole circle!”
And just like that, another winter week is behind us!
The sun is staying in the sky longer these days, and I know in just a flash we will be running around outside barefoot again!
Happy weekend, everyone!!
