t i n y e r a n c h

Today was Josie's first day of Kindy (preschool for those of you in the States). Due to a wonderful arrangement at Sophie's new Kindy, they allow younger siblings to come two mornings a week to the session with their older sibling rather than making them take the afternoon class.

Josie was excited and a little anxious it seemed. Sophie was bouncing off the walls. She couldn't wait to have her sister at her Kindy!
 


Jake stayed home so we could all go in together. Josie settled right in as she's been to the school before when we were helping Sophie settle in. We observed her from near by and were amazed at how much we can let go now that her seizures are under control. She hung out in the play kitchen for a bit then decided to do some painting. Then she was off to the outdoors and straight to the woodworking bench. This is something I cannot believe I've become accustomed to here. It's a full on workbench with nails, hammers, drills, vices etc. that the kids are allowed to make things at. Josie's teacher Mavis sensed we were nervous Nellies and stepped in to assist Josie with the hammering.  Here's and action shot and a finished product shot.  And yes, that is a power drill that Josie operated all by herself. 

 
 
After that, Jake and I decided to head out and test the waters to see how Josie did without us there. We had to round both of them up to say goodbye. Josie just said "Bye" and turned around to go find something else to do. I dragged her back and made her give me a hug. I know she might not, but I need it!
 
Then, I got to experience this.

 

Back off ladies! I've been waiting 4 years to have a quiet coffee out with my hubby.

I headed back to get Josie 45 minutes early. She was an absolute mess. I mean, this kid had obviously been into every single dirty thing she could find. Her hair was falling out, she had new, dirty pants on, paint on her coat, snot on her face, dirt pressed into her forehead, I-don't-know-what on her shirt sleeves. And she was absolutely confident and sure of herself. She was happy I was there but kept right on doing what she was doing.

Since some of you haven't exactly booked your airline tickets yet, I thought you might like a virtual tour through our latest abode here in Wellington. Believe me I'd much rather show you in person, but I know how expensive those flights are - plus I did a sketch of the floorplan for my dad, so I could feel a little closer on Father's Day.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank everyone again for their help - Mark & Nadine for moving us across town, Lisa & Djordje for lending us their loveseat and chair, Matty for lending us his IMAX-sized television and especially Marilyn for scoring us another awesome rental.

At any rate, without further ado the lovely Miss Sophie will now lead you through the very flash place you've been seeing views from:

See the floorplan
Start the tour!

I distinctly remember standing on a chair in my grandma's kitchen to help my brother and two cousins make this recipe.  We made them all the time.  Easily once a week during the summers that we spent with my Grandma.  We never called them No-Bake Cookies though.  For some reason we always called it Dog Food.  I never thought this was a turn off as I knew what they tasted like and would scramble past you to get a spoon before they cooled even if you called it something much worse.  

I made a batch of these the other day and sent them with Jake to share at work.  I expected the big issue to be the peanut butter and chocolate combo, which most Kiwi's I've met detest.  Jake recalled his pimping of my cookies to go something like this;

"My wife made some No-Bake Cookies."
"You mean, raw cookies?"
Jake says he struggled to think of what else to call them and then said, "Dog Food?"

I can see where my marketing plan may have a few holes but sheesh, we're talking cookies that you don't have to bake folks!  :)

The recipe calls for you to drop them on waxed paper which is great.  We used to just pour the entire batch on a buttered plate and slice it off into squares.  Actually, most often we'd just get spoons and eat it while it was still warm.

Be sure to measure your ingredients out before you begin.

1 3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
4 Tablespoons cocoa powder
3/4 cup peanut butter, crunchy or smooth
3 cups quick cooking oats
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine sugar, milk, cocoa, butter in a medium saucepan.  Bring to a boil.  Once at a rolling boil, cook for 1 1/2 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Stir in peanut butter, oats and vanilla.  Drop by spoonful onto waxed paper and allow to cool.

If you don't boil long enough the cookies will not set, if you boil for too long they'll become crumbly and won't hold together.

The girls and I were enjoying some dinnertime conversation today while Jake was working late.  We were recounting the day when Sophie told this story, which will forever be one of my favorites.

Sophie: "Today I was telling Penny and Mavis (both teachers at her Kindy) that Daddy likes to wear dresses sometimes to be funny.  Mavis said she didn't think she wanted to hear any more about that and then laughed so hard that tears came out of her eyes."

I laughed so hard that I choked on my dinner.  I still can't stop cracking up.  It's just awesome that the teachers at Sophie's school think Jake is a closet cross dresser. 

It snowed and hailed at our new house today.  Sophie instantly wanted to be outside in the weather while Josie placed one foot on the deck and exclaimed "My feet awe too cowd!".  Sophie and I put a big mixing bowl outside to collect the hail which she brought in and ate with Jake.

Jake was trying to sleep in this morning and Josie sat in the living room, bellowing periodically at Sophie.  I came in to remind her (yet again) that her daddy was sleeping.  I took one step out of view and she picked up the mallet for her xylophone and proceeded to beat on it.  I stepped back in and she looked up at me and asked "Too loud?" with a huge grin on her face.  She knows.  Oh she knows.

We had oatmeal and toast for breakfast this morning.  Sophie is in charge of making the toast lately. She gets her chair up, puts the bread in, we retrieve it once it's done and then she gets to butter it.  Lots of crumbs fly but she is proud as a peacock.  I made the mistake of licking the butter knife in front of her the other day.  She literally gasped and said "Oh Mom!  No! No! No!  You'll cut your tongue!".

At bedtime, Sophie likes to have her head rubbed from the base of her neck up to the top of her head.  "From my neck to my hair" she instructs every night and she is is usually out like a light within 5 minutes of me leaving the room.  Grandpa's Revenge, on the other hand, likes to call "Mommmaaayye" over and over.  Tonight I decided to tough it out and just let her shout to her hearts content.  She's not upset, just bored I think.  She decided to add "Can you hear me??" to her calls of my name.  Then when that wasn't working she pulled out her Ace in the Hole and said "I need to go poopoos."  I was 90% sure she was just trying to get out of bed but what are you going to do if she really has to go.  She was pleased with herself when I got her out to head to the toilet.  

We've been thinking of you lots and hope this window into our day brings a smile to your face.

Lots happening here at the Ranch, and we are much overdue for an update. I'll just do a quick run-down and hopefully settle into more regular posts once the dust settles a bit:

1. We've moved to a new suburb of Wellington called Brooklyn. It has its very own lovely Central Park and many of the streets are named after U.S. presidents. Our house has amazing views (pictures coming soon, but for anyone who has visited already we look down onto Mt. Vic) and those most-precious of Wellington commodities (insulation, double-glazing and central heat). It's a bit further from work (12-15 minutes by car as opposed to 4-5) and if you can believe it windier but much more convenient to downtown and its awesome amenities (Te Papa, Frank Kitts Park, Moore Wilson, etc.)
2. Our new rental makes our old rental (which I often claimed was going to be the nicest house I would ever live in) look like a dump. Thank you Marilyn for swinging for the fences and delivering us another warm, safe and gorgeous place to live in your fair city.
   
3. As a result of our move, Sophie started at a new kindy and appears to be adjusting well. It helps that many of her peers have also left for new schools as they turn 5, so it's not as unusual of an event. On her first day all the kids sang her a welcome song in Maori and each offered up something they could do to make her feel welcome. I dropped her off the second day and while talking to the teacher was surprised to see her trundling across the playground with a 4' ladder in her arms. She propped it up against a retaining wall (under the supervision of another teacher), climbed up and proceeded to jump off onto a big climbing mat. Beaming face, glowing eyes, very happy Sophie.
4. Josie has continued to improve with the increased dosages of lamotrigine, clobazam and epilum. She is still quite shaky in the mornings but (knock wood) we've only seen one or two possible head nods in the past few weeks, and (thank goodness) no drops. She has been very clear and vibrant, if a little more mischievous (earning her latest nickname, Josie-a-fiend).
5. Josie had her first tonic-clonic (the kind formerly known as 'grand mal') seizure on the morning of her 3rd birthday party. It was the longest five minutes of my life. The neurologist had informed us that these would be likely given her particular brand of epilepsy (MAE or Doose Syndrome), but up until then we had avoided the "big bad" kind. We haven't seen any more since but have been extra-watchful in the mornings, when they seem most likely to recur. We've also read a bit more about them and feel a little less terrified of them, if not exactly welcoming them into our lives.
6. We spent a hair-raising, nail-biting week after learning that our insurer wouldn't cover Josie for another year (our one-year packages weren't extendable, so we had to re-apply as if we were all brand-new customers again) because of her epilepsy. Awful? Yes. Legal? Apparently so. However we've since learned that our back-to-back work visas qualify us for New Zealand's publicly-funded healthcare under which all children under 13 are fully covered. Imagine that, our tax dollars at work! Hooray for New Zealand.
7. Uncle Jesse arrived the morning after we moved into our new house, just in time for the worst stretch of weather we've had in months. He's been a good sport about it though and seems to have fallen in love with Wellington. I share his appreciation for it, and have loved seeing him connect with Sophie & Josie - it's really been a great visit, we will be sad to take him to the airport tomorrow!
8. We continue to miss our former cohorts in ex-patriatism the 4kiwiwannabes, especially since we are so much closer to where they used to live! I am mulling a Memorial Day turkey after our Easter pumpkins, and thinking it would have been nice meal to share.

That's all for tonight - ladies night is almost at an end and I am going to go enjoy our view!

It's our beautiful little girl's 3rd birthday today. She's never really had a shell to come out of but her personality has blossomed this year. She's continued with her severe independence but has started to develop a bit of patience. She loves music and will sing, dance and play instruments like there's no one watching.  She has a flair for drama and talking about how "wonuful" everything is.

We think so too. Happy Birthday Josie Grace, we love you!

The school system here is a quarterly set up.  It really reminds me of the year-round system we had in the states.  The kids go for a term then have about a 2 week break before heading back for the next term.  Sophie is currently on holiday, as they call it here, and Josie and I have really enjoyed having her home.  More Josie than me, and you may think I sound cold but hey, I can't compete with 41 four year olds.  I just don't have it in me.  Josie on the other hand is more than happy to try and keep her sisters attention all day long.  

Sophie has gained enough independence that she's fairly self entertained.  She's been trying to manage Josie into doing everything she wants her to do.  And also getting her to do it the way she wants her to.  What can I say, the girl knows what she wants.  Josie has been a good sport and is the perfect counter to Sophie's bossiness.  If Josie doesn't want to do it the way Sophie is instructing, she just won't.  Does it sound like a recipe for disaster?  Surprisingly, it works out 99% of the time.  The girls have really started playing well together.  Both coming up with ideas and having equal parts in the game.  It's amazing how long they can be entertained by seeing which things they can pull with a jump rope.  

I took the girls to a play last week as something to do.  It was really funny how Sophie was curled up on my lap during the parts with the villain while Josie joined the other kids and shouted at him.  The story was quite cute and at the end the cast came into the audience and asked the kids if they'd like to dance.  The king asked Josie and Snow White asked Sophie.  Their faces were priceless.  Josie looked like the happiest girl on earth and couldn't wait to come over and tell me about her dance.  All afternoon they reenacted different scenes from the play with each other.

It's been nice to have them with each other and give them a chance to reconnect.  I think Josie really misses Soph when she is at school.  Oh, today I caught them kissing for like 10 seconds.  Sophie was saying, "No Jose, let's kiss for a long time like this (press mouth to Josies face)".  It was pretty cute.

My last visit to the pediatrician with Josie was frustrating. Mostly because I hoped that we could get some answers or make some progress. Josie had been very lethargic, not sleepy but would just want to sit and stare or watch tv.  I'd offer to let her play or paint or do playdough, anything but she wasn't able to focus.  So when the pediatrician asked how she was, I let him know that she wasn't very responsive etc, to which he replied "but other than that she's well?".  I wanted to strangle him.  What I wanted to say was "NO she's not effing well!  She shouldn't be like this!"  Instead, I just started bawling.

I choked through the tears to ask my questions for him to pass on to the neurologist since our two month check up with her turned out to be a six month wait.  There was no way I could wait six months without talking to her.  First off, Josie's new drug would be at the maximum dose two months before our appt and I had no plan B.  We needed to know what we would try next if the lamotrigine didn't work.  And I hate to say it but I feel like all the Pediatrician does is weigh Josie and then play messenger for the neurologist.  Anyhow, I left feeling deflated and like the visit was pointless.

About a week later, we received a call around 6:30 pm from the neurologist.  "Hi this is Lynette."  It was like the stress melted. Did I mention that I LOVE this woman? I rehashed my concerns and she took them as valid, asked us to reduce her epilim but warned us that we may see increased seizures but a clearer child.  Which is exactly what happened.  The day after we brought the epilim down, Josie's seizure count jumped from 7 to 23 (and those are just what we saw) but she was talkative and interested in playing and reading books.  The neurologist also let us know that our next step would be either to try a different drug or the ketogenic diet.  She recommended the diet as the probability of drugs being effective decreases significantly if the first three haven't worked.  Plus adding a fourth drug then tweaking and weaning and adding the diet would take lots of time and possibly a big toll on Josie.  The timing of the diet will depend on the hospital nutritionists' schedule but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

The neurologist called a week later and gave me some more instructions on tweaking her first medication Clobazam.  We're trying to ramp that up every four days to see if it has any effect.  If not, we'll just ramp it back down.  So far, Josie just seems more aggravated with sporadic seizure counts.  She'll have 5 one day and then 20 the next.  Some days she has no issues with you touching her or giving her a bath and other days I am expecting Child Services to come busting through the door.  When she has these sensory issues she can't stand to have her hands or face wiped after eating.  Or if you have her in the tub and want to wash her hair she just keeps screaming "Don't do that to me!  Stop touching me!".  She won't wash herself either and it if it sounds like a painful cycle, it is!  It's not consistent enough to even know when it's going to happen either.  She'll be all excited to get in the tub and happy with the water but once it's time to touch her she freaks.

She's also starting to push her boundaries with us (and I can't blame her).  So far, she's been very good about not walking on the hard floors without asking us to help her.  Most of the time she stands at the edge of the floor on the carpeting and says "Mommy, I waiting for you!".  Lately, she sees how far out she can get before you will notice and reset the boundary.  We've been trying to give her a little more independence since her full drops have almost disappeared, however, we still aren't comfortable with her walking around in the kitchen.

Yesterday we took a walk over to the pharmacy and Josie got to ride her three wheeler while Sophie rode her scooter.  I think it was just what Josie needed.  She was independent, got to wear her helmet just like her big sister and had some great physical activity.  We did a repeat of the walk today and added a trip around the block for good measure.  She seems to be mentally developing at a normal rate from what we can tell.  Singing her ABC's, counting, picking out her letters when she sees them.

I guess what it boils down to is most of the time she seems like a normal almost 3 year old.  What we struggle with is the constant possibility of a drop seizure.  Boy, that was a little sentence compared to the fear and horrible potential it carries.

Saturday morning, less than 24 hours after they arrived (and nearly a year since we last boarded an airplane!), Mary & Joe returned to the airport with us for a short flight back up to Auckland followed by a 3hr drive up to Hahei Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. We met our friends Chris & Joanna for a nice lunch in Auckland and still made it to the beach by 4pm. The weather more than cooperated and we had a gorgeous long weekend - hope you enjoy the pics!