Happy Birthday! (Sort Of ...)
March 19, 2009 8:30 AM

It totally amazed me that so many people remembered Juliana's birthday. She is six now, it is so hard to believe. I still see her as my sweet little baby. In fact, she still tries to get me to carry her like a baby sometimes. Oh, how I wish I could at times, and keep her safe in my arms forever.

Her birthday really was not great this year. It just so happened that she ended up scheduled for a swallow study on her birthday. There are 364 other days in the year, and she gets scheduled on her birthday! All of the other children that were coming out of the rooms before us were all fine, but not "my sweet princess." She decided that she did not want to be there and was not going to do anything that we asked of her.

She was a bit frightened at first, rightly so. We explained everything to her and explained that nothing that was going to happen was going to hurt. She was only eating pudding. How bad could that be? But she was not going to trust anybody in that room. She screamed and cried and threw a tantrum like a two-year-old. Needless to say, Mommy was not happy! And I was even more "not happy" when we were leaving and I had to carry my six-year-old through the hospital and the parking garage to the car because she would not put her feet on the floor.

She cried herself to sleep in the car on the way home and spent some quiet time in her room when we got home. That gave me a little bit of time to calm myself down and try to refocus on her birthday. She opened her presents and had cake later in the evening when Daddy and Kendra got home.

We had a special "Mommy and Juliana Day" last Monday. We rescheduled therapy from 7:30 a.m. to 11:00. After therapy we went to the park near our house to feed the ducks and play on the playground. We had a really nice time together just the two of us. She talked all morning about feeding the ducks-but when we got there she was not so keen on the ducks.

They are not the least bit afraid of people and came a little too close for Juliana's comfort. After feeding them two slices of bread while continuing to back up the whole time, she ran behind me and said "I'm scared of the ducks!" They are so used to being fed, that people do not scare them at all.

Juliana's communication and language skills are exploding right now. She is so smart, and it is all finally beginning to flow out of her. After her bath in the morning, we wrap her hair in a towel. When we are ready to take it down we brush it and put her ears on. A couple of mornings ago I told her to go get her ears and she told me "I not listen now, I listen later." Sorry sister-you will listen to me ALL of the time!

We have scheduled her next procedure with Dr. Wolfe. Spring break will be in Miami this year. Well, hopefully not all of it. She is scheduled for April 8. He will be putting the expander in her back on her right side. This will be for the same procedure that he has done on the left. We will slowly fill the expander with saline and then, in a few months, he will be moving tissue from her back to her right cheek.

He will also begin the "debulking" process on her left cheek. As you can see in the "Dainty Flower" picture her cheek is not completed yet. According to what he has told me, this should take two separate procedures to complete. During the second stage of the "debulking" she will have her BAHA (hearing aid) implants, that she received in November, exposed so that we will be able to use them, hopefully this summer.

As I write this I realized that I use the word "hopefully" a lot. That is how our life works. We make plans and "hopefully" they work out, or at least whatever does happen is "hopefully" manageable.

We are continuing to move ahead with the adoption process to bring our sweet angel home. It is such a "hurry up and wait" process. All of the paperwork has to be completed within a certain period of time so that nothing expires before it can all be submitted together. I am actually understanding the process a bit better now. In the beginning, my head was swimming with words that I didn't even know what they meant.

We are so excited for her to come home. As I go through each day I constantly think about packing one more lunch in the morning, choosing clothes for one more for school, taking one more to dance or piano (or whatever she chooses to do), and tucking one more in at night. Please keep this process in your prayers. It is such a long road, but the reward is so worth the struggles.

I am having flashbacks to my childhood as I finish this post. Juliana's favorite movie of the week is Mary Poppins, my all time favorite Disney movie! She and Kendra are both not feeling very well today, so we are on round two of "Supercalifragilisticexpialido-cious."

—Tami