Faithful

Sweet thing.


I can tell you that our God made Himself known this morning. We saw His grace all around us from the moment we woke up. Thank you ladies for holding us up today.

We had a really positive appt. I have been super impressed with this Dr and his office staff. They are incredibly knowledgeable, professional yet super friendly and warm. They are careful and gentle with their words knowing that most parents that see them are possibly at their breaking point. I very much appreciate that.

Dr. M's helper did all 2.5 hours of intake both with us and KG. She was kind and listened intently while taking vigorous notes. She played with KG alot doing really random tasks that made no sense to me but gave her alot of insight into our sweet one.

I asked a million questions and made a million comments during the evaluation. She always nodded, smiled and wrote a note while saying,"Dr. M will be able to give you an answer to that."

KG was herself to a t. Always a good thing. They really got to see her as she is for the most part. She fell asleep on the way home.

Dr. M came at the end just to chat for a minute. He gave a quick look at the eval and played with KG. Then, he gave us a super quick thought on what he thought she definitely didn't have and a possibility that she does.

My heart is torn at the moment between whether today was a blessing or not. Sometimes ignorance is bliss yet knowledge is power. I sound like a commercial or something weird, don't I?

Pray for us to not freak out during this week before we know more concrete information. Even then. We are in need of discernment as we take a step toward equipping our little one to do whatever the Lord has for her.

Sorry to be so vague. We have our next appt with him on Tuesday at 3pm-5pm to discuss everything that he sees and figure out a game plan. He will review all of our past testing, present testing, hearing tests, etc. Let's just call him the "puzzle man".

Thank you again sweet friends! I treasure you thoughts, wisdom and prayer...

I'll leave you with this sweet picture of me and KG.

Hello again

It has been awhile, huh?

I cannot seem to find time during the day to blog with my new little monkeys roaming around the house. You understand right?


In order to avoid blog vomiting on all of you guys, I am going to simply state a few things...

-Would you girls pray for us in the am at 10? We have a very important appt for KG with a developmental pediatric doctor to hopefully shed some light on some of our struggles these days.

My physical is anxious and weary but my spirit is at peace with whatever comes of tomorrow.

Thank you ladies in advance.

Lord, Let us not grow weary while doing good for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart...Galatians 6:9

Amen

This gets an AMEN in my book!

A new addition

Mamaw thinks we are too skinny around the Billups home. I think that's why she sent me a gift.
I think these shall be the first product of her goodness.

TMI

Holiday week for us girls has come and gone. We were out visiting my grandparents this week while J was camping with some friends from college. I just need to confess all the foods I have delighted in...

Wednesday.
-McDonalds, homemade chicken tortilla casserole, 2 chocolate milkshakes, 1 milky way, 1 small bag of doritos, sweet tea

Thursday.
-Chick fil A, Burger King, 2 chocolate milkshakes, more casserole, 1 bag of Mister Salty Chocolate Pretzels, sweet tea

Friday.
-Cinnamon Toast, Catfish King, Peanut Butter/Brown Sugar Sandwich, Puffed Cheetos, sweet tea

Saturday.
-Waffles with Peanut Butter, McDonalds, Dominos Pizza, 1 milky way, 1 vanilla shake, 1 root beer float, 2 bags of Mister Salty Chocolate Pretzels, sweet tea

I am sure that I forgot a couple of yummy treats here and there but you get the jist of it all. :)

A few things you should know...

1. My stomach is REALLY mad at me.
2. My grandmother has a severely infected tooth and can't get to the dentist until Monday.
3. I am in need of some WATER!

Busy Hands

My hands are learning alot these days. If you had told me last year that I would be signing all day every days to my children, I would have giggled. It's amazing how the Lord transforms our hearts to His. Klaire is now signing almost everything she wants. She is also trying to verbalize everything as well. Some words come out clear as day and some come out looking more muddy. But she's trying and that's the key!

We discovered "Signing Time" with Rachel Coleman. Fabulous!

I am trying to find a playgroup for us to join that uses sign language. No luck so far. If you have any thoughts, please pass them my way. :)

I need to tell you something else too. I need to tell you what an INCREDIBLE job my husband is doing with sign. I have been so proud of him! I get tickled sometimes because he signs something totally different than what he says. It's hilarious! He is the greatest Dad in the world!

We met with the new Speech Path this last week. Can I just tell you what a relief she was to my heart?! She was open and listened to everything that was going on. She just sat and took it all in with me. I think she may be a believer too, based on her comments to my responses.

According to KG's new test (that included her signs), her receptive language was approx. 40 months and her expressive speech was approx. 12 months. These were both give or take a few months but I felt fairly accurate of her abilities. The SP thought that it was strange that KG could do more of the complex descriptions, categorizing and such with a limited vocabulary. She is a fabulous problem solver. Hence, the new door locks at our house. :) Some of the multiple word phrases, were actually made into one word. IE..."I did it" was really "ididit". We are going to have to slow her down and start breaking up the words.

We also went and visited the "3's and 4's" at the Regional Day School for the Deaf. I was very nervous to say the least. We wanted to see how they use sign as a educational method. It's so different than just teaching. There are defiantly methods to teaching kids with a hearing impairment. We went in knowing that KG would not attend for one reason...1)She is not profoundly deaf. So, we met the director of the school and began our observation. We started in the 3's. How precious were they!! I was very impressed with their oral skills as well as their signs. As the director was telling about the children, she came to one little boy who did not have hearing aids. I inquired as to why. It was like a light bulb went off in her head. She said that he was actually very similar to KG. When he turned 3 and left ECI, the district was only going to offer him a small amount of language and she felt it wasn't enough so the deaf school took him in. When he finishes pre-k, he will go to his regular school and continue with speech. All this to say, the school actually had 2 or 3 kids just like KG! It warmed me to know that this might actually be a possibility. We won't know what will happened until then but it was amazing to see the Lord shine light in a dark spot for me.

As of now, we are planning to home school Kindergarten and begin the University Model school in 1st grade. I am trying to keep my eyes open to what the Lord has for our family. I don't want to pray for what I want or what will be best for them in my eyes. I am asking the Lord to soften our hearts toward all methods of school and show us which route will bring Him glory.

Thank you sweet blog friends for your kind comments...our hearts are encouraged to say the least.

Our hearts are being stirred toward great things that are going to strip our pride. Pray with us as we explore what He has in store for the Billups family.

Until then :)

Welcome to Holland

Klaire Grace's teacher read this to me today during our meeting. I wanted to share it with you because I think it will impact you too. So many of us in one way or another are in our own Holland. Let us celebrate together in her beauty and grace. Here's to Holland!

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability- to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip -to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

" Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills... and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ...about Holland.


KG's AI (Auditory Impairment) teacher began discussing the "grieving process" with me today. I immediately told her that I was not grieving. I, in fact, was fine. Well, she began to discuss it anyways and before I knew it, my heart was broken open in front of a stranger because I was actually grieving. I had no idea!!! Why didn't anyone tell me that had a loss and now I was grieving it?!?? I totally was under the impression that we had hit a communication barrier and we diligently working to overcome it.

A new reality once again.