Mya's Prayer

Dear God,

Thank you fer Sara.......thank you fer Mommy..........thank you fer curtains..........thank you fer lamp.............thank you fer carpet.........thank you fer clock.

Amen!

Last Week of Preschool

Learned Behavior and a Minor Set Back

Sometimes I grunt and groan at the things that our children learn from us. It is amazing what they mimick and how easy they pick up on things. This morning I certainly did not grunt and groan at Mya's learned behavior. Instead I smiled at the sweetness. I'll get to this story in the next paragraph.

We had a minor set back with Dan's recovery when he started getting the chills last night around 9:00. I left to go to the grocery store for our big two week shopping trip that I do. I was exhausted from the day but felt like I needed to get the grocery shopping done so I could rest on Sunday. So I went, wanting to hold my eyelids open with toothpicks, although I didn't. Meanwhile at home Dan was getting sick. Little did we know that he was coming down with strep throat. He woke up Sunday morning with a fever and white dots on his throat. Thankfully he was able to call his surgeon and get an antibiotic right way. So I picked up the prescription this morning, got everyone fed, and took the girls to church at 10:30.

Now this is where the amazing learned behavior comes into play. Before we left for church, I told Mya to go into our bedroom and say goodbye to her daddy. This is what I heard from the other room......."Daddy, give me a kiss. I love you. Goodbye. Oh wait, let me cover you up." Then she proceeds to grab one of Saras blankets that is about 4 inches by 4 inches. She takes it into our bedroom and covers Dan's chest with the blanket. She says, "Let me tuck you in. Okay, now you are covered up. Goodbye Daddy. I am going to church. I love you. Give me a kiss. I love you." That is exactly how it went, although the clarity of what she was saying wasn't as interpretable as how I wrote it. But Dan and I knew exactly what she was saying and doing. I love that she picks up on the fact that Dan and I ALWAYS say, "I love you" before we EVER leave the house. Dan taught me this one and since the day we were married he has NEVER missed a day or opportunity to tell me that he loves me. I am SO glad that Mya has picked up on this.

Now, back to the rest of our day. I had high hopes of actually sitting in the service at church and enjoying the peace and quiet, but God had other plans. As many of you know, I am the director of the nursery at our church and we had 17 babies in our nursery today. Needless to say they needed my help. But it was fun rocking babies and spending some extra time with Sara in the nursery. When we got home from church, Dan was still in bed and has been in bed all day. He is weak and hasn't eaten much at all today. We all know that is extremely unusual for my husband not to eat so he is definately sick. We are praying that he feels better tomorrow. We are also praying that I don't get sick so I am out of commission around here. Someone has to stay healthy! I can't wait for things to get back to normal around here.

Sara wants to share with all of you some of her new facial expressions. She is really good at blowing raspberries.

The Donatini Girls

Advice

Just in case any of my readers ever go through similar experiences like us (i.e. having small children and a sick husband) I have some great advice for you. We know that advice only comes from gaining wisdom, which comes from making mistakes. That's right! We learned a lot yesterday that we would do differently if we had to do it all over again. Due to poor planning on both of our parts, we tried to have Dan recover from a surgery in a small, two bedroom house with a toddler and a baby. It was a whirlwind. We got home around 2:00 and things were smooth for about a half hour. Then Mya and Sara woke up. They both wanted their Daddy, but he couldn't hold them so they were very fussy. I needed to spend some time picking up the house, doing dishes, laundry, and making dinner. Dan needed to be in the recliner in our living room because it was comfortable for him. He was still recovering from being drugged and needless to say, the kids were driving him nuts. I felt like I was juggling way too many balls in the air. So what did we learn? We should have planned to have someone keep the children until the evening so Dan could recover and sleep. We should have planned to get take out dinner, but payday is Friday so we didn't want to spend the money on a meal. And we should have planned to take everyone up on any offer that they gave us to help us out. It was just a tough day for all of us. And to top it all off, Sara started getting sick and was up ALL night with a bad cough. She finally passed out at 6 this morning. Argh!

Another lesson learned is.......don't start a new behavior intervention plan with your toddler the day before your husband has surgery. I had to follow through with things yesterday and the number one thing to know about behavior interventions is that the behavior gets WORSE before it gets better. So that added to the stress yesterday. However, I have to tell you how great the intervention plan is working. It is amazing! If you ever need a very simple, easy plan for a toddlers, give this website a ty http://www.parentmagicstore.com/All-Products/1-2-3-Magic-Parenting?leadsource=79. The program is called 1-2-3 Magic and I can't say enough good things about it. The funny thing is that Dan and I thought we were using this program for the last year or so. The basis of the program is to count to three when your child exhibits a behavior that you want him/her to stop. You are to do this with no emotion in your voice. When you get to three they are to have a consequence. It came to my attention that we were making some big mistakes with this when I was helping out a single mom who needs some behavior interventions with her child. On Monday night I watched the video with her to introduce her to this program. I learned some things too! I learned that we do show emotion (sometimes a lot) when we count with Mya and that we were using paddling way more than time outs. So we changed up how we did things and started putting Mya in her room when we got to three. Eliminating our emotions and putting her in isolation worked wonders. The change happened within the second day. The other thing that we are learning is that we can't give Mya an inch to work with. As soon as we start counting we MUST follow through EVERY time. We are working hard to eliminate the behavior of whining and asking about things over and over and over again. It means that I have to be very attentive to these behaviors throughout the day in order to catch them. I got to the point where I was letting them go quite often because I was tired of hearing her whine. However, I was actually allowing the behaviors to increase and she was having control, rather than us. So that is my perk for the 1-2-3 Magic program. I would recommend it to any parent of young children.

Dan's Surgery

Well, we woke up at 5:30 this morning to get ready for Dan's surgery. We arrived at the hospital around 6, got him in his gorgeous hospital gown, and waited for his surgery time. Unfortunately an emergency appendectomy was being done around the time of Dan's scheduled surgery so we had to wait until around 9 for his turn. Everything went smooth, although I have to share the funny stuff about "Dan on pain meds." He is hysterical. I know that I will never see him intoxicated so this was the next best thing. About 15 seconds after the pain meds were inserted into his IV he started giggling a lot. He giggled and giggled and had the nurses laughing too. Then he looked at me and said, "Do I look handsome?" He tried to keep a straight face when he said this but started busting up laughing. Then he tried to act all serious and started pulling off his hair net (you know the lovely blue hat that hospitals make you wear for surgery) to look even more handsome for me. I was afraid he was going to start taking his clothes off or something. I jumped out of my chair and put his hat back on quickly before the nurses came back. Luckily they wheeled him off to surgery right away and put him under so we didn't have to worry about how goofy he was going to get. Anyway, the surgery went smooth and he recovered well. We are glad to be home with our sleeping children. I can't remember the last time I updated my blog at 3:00 in the afternoon. I love sleeping children! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that while Dan was recovering at the hospital I watched TV in his room. The only good channel that they had was TLC so I watched the Baby Story. It made me want another baby! I think I'll wait and tell Dan that information another day. No, actually, we aren't preventing any pregnancy but it just isn't happening yet. I just love having babies around........but I don't care so much for actually having the baby. I wish the stork could just bring them to me.

Thank you Jesus for getting Dan through the surgery today!

A Gift

Dan gave me a wonderful gift this morning. I went to bed last night with what might have been a case of pink eye or maybe just a cold in my eye. And I woke up with a pink, itchy, ugly eye. So he took the girls to church for the entire morning (both hours) while I stayed home and slept. I got to sleep ALL morning. It was incredible to curl up in my bed and not have to take care of anyone. If only he knew how much of a gift that was! When the girls came home I felt relaxed and energized.

In two weeks things are going to change around here and I am struggling a little bit with the change. I like when things are predictable and structured in my life so change can be a little tough for me. In two weeks we will no longer have Hannah at our house on a regular basis. She will be going to Disney with her family and then her grandma and aunt will be watching her for the summer. I made the decision not to babysit in the Fall because I felt the Lord leading me to explore some new things. I am in the process of becoming involved with the pregnancy center in town and that will take up some extra time next year. I am going to develop and teach parenting classes for the center. I am also hoping to get Mya involved in some classes of some sort like swimming or ballet where I can take her by myself and leave Sara with a family member. I want to try to spend some extra one on one time with Mya. I feel like I haven't had that with her since Sara was born. I know that I am doing what the Lord has asked me to do, but that doesn't mean that it is easy. I have been Hannah's babysitter off and on since she was adopted as a baby so I have developed quite an attachment to her. It will be sad not to see her as often as I do now. I have gotten used to juggling three kids and we have a great routine during the day. But I am SO excited for her to spend the summer with her family and go to preschool next year. She will do so well with a class of peers. I am excited for her future because she is a sweet, loving little girl.

Please pray for Dan's upcoming surgery on Wednesday!