What we've been up to

I haven't done a very good job of regular posting lately (imagine that!) but thought I'd try for a quick bullet point style photo update tonight.

Krassi is slowly starting to show more interest in his baby sister. I love this moment captured of her with her two smaller older brothers. Reuben is so into babies, as evidenced by his grin and gentle hand on her belly, but you can also see that Krassi is looking at her, which he wasn't doing at the beginning.

I decided to take his moment of interest a little further and rested Evania on his back while talking to him about "his baby" and what do you know - he got a little smile on his face when I put her there!

Rinnah's interest in Evania is frequent and fleeting. She holds her many times during a normal day, but for no more than two or three seconds at a time. She's older than Leah was when Reuben was born, but not so much of the natural nurturer that Leah is!

As I was saying...

...that Leah knows how to love on her little ones!

I'm still getting to spend most evenings doing one of my favorite things...

Late last week we put a fresh (pink!) sheet on the crib and removed all of the baby dolls and teddy bears who had been happily using the space, and now it's all Evania's.

And while I worked on that, Krassi got his first chance to play in the tunnel that goes in front of the dormer room and connects the two under-eave spaces on either side. He was thrilled!

Reuben's presence still elicits Krassi's self-preservation instincts (eyes shut and head pressed against the far wall), but Reuben really did a great job of being careful, and the response was only momentary out of Krassi and didn't at all seem to spoil his fun. No, I was the fun-spoiler when I took Krassi out of the tunnel and carried him back downstairs when we were done, and he let me know it, too, with tears-down-the-cheeks crying. I'm looking forward now to playing up there with him again and adding one more experience to his pool of evidence that tells him that good/fun/interesting things are likely to be repeated in hopes that someday his sense of loss will not be so deeply profound when something he enjoys is temporarily taken away.

Here's Krassi very deliberately looking at little Evania.

Shouldn't every two-week old baby have the experience of listening to The Hobbit read aloud while under the watchful...paw...of a feline larger than she is? We think so, too. :)

Peacefully alert, Evania enjoyed her first "real" bath more than most of her siblings have! (With the exception of Reuben, who has been in love with water since he first laid eyes on it!)

She was well supervised. :)

- You'll notice that there are no photos of the addition. That's because since the work week that my mom so kindly volunteered for us, nothing has been able to happen out there beyond the mudding that Korey and Kelley are doing a few evenings a week. It is very hard to be patient, but it's where we need to be right now.

- Monday's mail brought the official written report from our doctor on an ultrasound Evania had at three days old. Although we'd already heard the results from our doctor over the phone, it's still a pretty neat thing to see it in writing in front of you: intact spinal column and spinal canal contents...no evidence of meningocele or myelomeningocele. After her birth, our midwives noted that Evania has a prominent sacral dimple, which was likely nothing to be concerned about (because she had good use of her limbs, and good coloring), but was prominent enough that it warranted further investigation to rule out spina bifida. How often I find that it's easier to trust God with the "big" things (like a potential birth defect in your perfect new-born daughter) than the "little" things (like slow-moving house additions or slow-to-arrive babies!) She was "perfect" then all through the six days of waiting we had between her birth and when we found the results, and is still perfect now.

- Today's mail brought the results of Krassi's IQ testing (required by the county as a pre-requisite for receiving developmental disability services). Matt and I have joked that the county could have saved some money by just sending one of their employees the mile down the road that it is to our house and spending five minutes here instead of paying for a psychological evaluation, but that isn't what the system requires, so last week Daddy and Krassi drove down for his evaluation. Guess what - he qualifies! The test results came back saying that his IQ falls in the "less than 40" range, putting him at a severe to profound developmental disability. On many levels, that's absolutely where he is. On the other hand, Matt and I both see very subtle levels of intelligence that just won't register on an IQ test, but reveal an intelligence greater than what "less than 40" captures. The psychologist recommended re-testing him in 3-5 years, and I would not be at all surprised if the results at that time are significantly different.

And that's a bit about where things are around here!