monkinetic weblog | redmonk.net

Today our little precious girl is 5 years old! Pics from the party a little later tonight.

Update 03/14: Ok, no pics yet. I’ve downloaded them but have not had time to get them posted.

|Jodi| and I took the munchkin on her first real hiking trip today, to the Superstition mountains, on Peralta Trail (which I also wrote about here). Adelina did great. She loved the mountains, and kept wanting to go to the top of various peaks we saw. Then she found a stick - nay, a Stick - and had fun stopping and writing letters in the sand, or drawing smiley faces. What a girl! She was beat by the end of the hike, but much fun was had by all. Pics now in the gallery.

Wow, Adelina started pre-school yesterday. She had a good day yesterday - a bit teary when she realized that mommy wasn’t staying, but then she had a great time! Today… man, she did NOT want to get out of bed!! After we got her calmed down and reminded her about her new friends, she perked up and was out the door with few problems. Jodi dropped her off at school and she linked arms with her classmates and off she went!

This has been really cool. Adelina is in a ‘Total Communication” classroom, which means that they focus on helping her learn to communicate in whatever way works for her - sign, speech, gesture, etc. While I think this may not be a long-term plan of education, I think for now it’s awesome - it gives Adelina the best chance to communicate what’s going on her gorgeous little head, and that’s a Good Thing™.

Man, I am SO BEHIND on the blogging thing. Since I last posted we’ve had Christmas, visits from family, a trip to the Christmas fair, and today Adelina started school. Wow.

So, be patient and I’ll get out a series of posts soon catching up.

I took a few minutes to google ‘deaf blogs‘ today, trying to find somewhere to help me understand a bit of what my amazing, beautiful, hard-of-hearing soon-to-be-daughter may go through growing up. (If that was a bit hard to follow, sorry - it’s the head space I’m in right now.)

It’s a whole other world, the Deaf community. I don’t know if we’ll end up raising Adelina with the focus being there or not… but I want to understand more. Understand her experiences, understand how to help her acquire language after all the delays, understand how to help her life be as full and complete as it can be - knowing that her life will be lived out with a foot each in two worlds.

I’m working hard to trust that Jodi, Adelina and I will work out our own way forward, the one that is right for us. I feel the Lord asking me to trust Him, and I’m trying.

I’ve just uploaded more pics to our picture gallery on |Jodi|’s site. Check ‘em out.

Well, |Jodi| has the happy news… we’ve found our (Lord-willing) daughter-to-be!!

She’s absolutely beautiful, and has a smile to warm, or break, your heart. She’s also deaf. She has yet to speak a word to us, but we love her just the same. Her name is Adelina - a name as lovely as she is, and we’re keeping it.

*blissful sigh*