Merry Christmas

IF WE WOULD see the Child on this Night, then we must be prepared perhaps even to be a child on this Night, to let our imagination and our hope and our faith carry us to some new way of seeing, some new way of hearing, so that our eyes might be opened and our ears might be too, so that our hearts might be quickened and our spirits might be touched.
In the end, we must be willing to believe in the Promise that Immanuel will come, we must have faith to believe that the Promise will be kept, and we must hope that we too will be willing and able and childlike enough to recognize the face of God in the face of the Child.

- Robert Benson
The Night of the Child

Not well, but improving

In case you were wondering what happened to us, Olivia has been under the weather for two weeks and my husband had a stress test leading to a heart cath.  He is fine. No blockages. He is just recovering and has restrictions on lifting.  Olivia is also doing better.  Praise God! On both accounts!

We know now that Olivia has a food sensitivity which was causing the stomach yucky-ness (I will spare you the details!).  I sure hope this solves our questions about why Olivia kept having bouts of being a limp wet noodle.  I know that when my tummy is out of whack, I don't feel very energetic, and so with Olivia's significant low tone, she simply melts to a limp nothingness with very low energy.  It was very scary. And the doctor was seen and called repeatedly. He did not solve the mystery. He kept saying stomach bug and ran blood test to check other issues.  If your child with Ds is low tone (hypotonia), it changes everything.  There is no doubt in your mind as to whether or not low tone exists or if it affects your child.  You know it!  I had a great reassuring phone call the other day with a mom of two low tone children with Ds.  She echoed all I said. And I liked that she told me that when Olivia is sick and just cuddles into me all day (and day after day), to just enjoy it.  Olivia is a love!!!!  I just hope she continues on the path to feeling better. Yesterday she was making progress regaining her strength and was finally acting a bit more like herself. For the past two weeks, I was wondering where my Olivia had gone.  I was reassured that she kept talking and kept signing. But she was not her normal smiley self.

I am just drained from these weeks of concern for my Olivia and my husband.   This is the darkest time of the year, and this year it has been a particularly tough time to get through.

Presents are under the tree and we are always ready to celebrate the birth of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ!  Olivia has not understood the excitement over Santa, but she loves to sign Baby Jesus and to take her baby Jesus in and out of His manger.  (it is just a tiny stuffed toy that I sewed years ago and part of a stuffed Nativity Scene. Olivia is only interested in Baby Jesus and Hail Mary)

Sledding for the First Time

Hey this is really fun!!!!

This was my first time sledding and it was the best!  Here is me relaxing in the snow.  I learned to sign SNOW today!  It looks like I am dancing, but it is my close approximation of the sign for SNOW.  I really like snow. And I don't even know that it is cold, because Mommy had me all bundled up so that I could hardly move. But I could feel the speed of the sled.  Awesome!!!

On and Off the Horse

Olivia has decided that getting on and off the rocking horse is more fun than riding it.

She crawls up to the horse and then looks at me to get her on the horse.

She rides it very briefly...

Then she very carefully lowers herself to the floor and crawls away.

(Repeat! Repeat! Repeat!)