The Quest for Our Princess: God is Greater!

I went to sit down the other night to write a new entry and just couldn’t. I opened our blog and heard our first song “Our God is Greater”. I forgot that I had changed our songs while in the Ukraine and since I always wrote our blog on Microsoft word and then transferred it over, I never would hear the music. God knew then that I would need to hear that song on that very night I opened up our blog site. God is Greater and Stronger than all that we are going through. He is our Healer, and nothing can stand against us. We will not allow this time in our life to break us or to turn us away. It is making us stronger.

Since my last blog, a lot has changed and a lot has stayed the same. We still have the tantrums and the struggle to do school work each day but I can also say that we still have Eryna’s smile. Her smile is what keeps me going each day. She blows me away with her huge heart and desire to make you laugh. She loves her brothers and will try to help them at any moment. Of course that causes fighting because we have raised them to be independent so now having someone come in and do everything for them doesn’t work too well. In the morning, Eryna wants to get everyone a glass of water, spoons, feed the dog, help get Logan dressed, help make lunches, etc. I love her work ethic when it comes to helping, I just now need to find a way to apply this work ethic into her school work! J We have taken her to every doctor needed to make sure she is getting all the nutrition she needs and to be as healthy as possible. Her cardiology appointment went perfect, pediatrician had to update a lot of her vaccines (7 shots in one day poor thing), neurologist recommended some medication to help with behavior but we have decided to wait and try other approaches, dentist is next week (we hear that an orphan has an average of 7-9 cavities when they have their 1^st appointment), and the best news is that we found an amazing counselor that speaks Russian!! Shawn was looking on the internet one night because he felt that it would be good for her to be able to speak to someone in her own language and he found a lovely lady named Yana that has a practice in Aventura (about an hour from us). We have had 3 appointments with her so far and we are so thankful that we found her. She really cares about Eryna and has been helping us a lot with communicating with Eryna. She recommended a couple of vitamins for Eryna to take to help with her ADHD and we have been able to see a slight change in behavior since. I am praying that we can help her focus through using a holistic approach first before going to medication. We also started speech therapy last week. She was approved for 3 visits a week but we have a high copay so we are only doing one visit a week right now. I think that’s about it as for her health right now.

I would like to share some things that continue to make us smile each day from our princess. Eryna loves to dress up. Poor thing only had boy dress up clothes for a while but she loved putting on about 3 different ones at a time. Now we were able to get her some old prom dresses and those she wears about every day. Her next favorite thing is swimming. She would eat, sleep and live in the pool if we let her. We are going to have to heat that pool all winter because I don’t think we will be able to keep her out. My parents bought her a bike so she loves to be outside trying to learn how to ride it. It has been very difficult to teach her to pedal but she is coming along. She does prefer Logan’s tricycle and rides that the most. Eryna still loves her puzzles and playing with dolls. My parents watched Eryna one night so we could have some special time with the boys and they got a kick out of her playing with my sister and I’s old dolls from childhood. She had them all sitting at the table eating dinner with them, she took them to the bathroom, pushed them around in a shopping cart, and then put them all to bed. It was so nice to see her have a great bonding time with my parents. My mom did say that the whole time she kept asking for the boys and made sure she was gonna sleep at her house. Eryna loves to dance as well. We got the dance Wii game and she has a blast with that. I uploaded a video of her dancing with my nieces, you can see that below. She has such a big laugh as well. She has that laugh that will always make you laugh at the same time even if it wasn’t funny!! She also has a way to melt your heart after a tantrum. She always holds our face and says “I’m sorry Mama” or “I’m sorry Papa”. She has learned good manners too. She will always say “Thank You and Your Welcome”. We are still learning on how to say “Yes” when asked to do something but this past weekend she learned “No and Stop” very well…..not the order I wanted but at least she is learning words! Her most consistent words that she can say are: please, thank you, your welcome, home, shower, pool, may I please, store, eat, stop, no, help, Chloe (our dog), Ethan, Logan, Nonny, Papaw, Papa, Mama. That’s all I can think of right but I am sure I am missing a lot. She definitely understands a lot more than she can speak. I hope as things calm down more, I can get on and write more. I never thought I would miss doing this but I do. Especially when I hear people tell me that they miss our entries and continue to check each day. I am sorry for not keeping up with it more often but I will try harder!!