JJ has started Kindergarten this year. He is young for his class, but he has been in school since the age of 3 for his speech delay. We originally weren't planning to send him to Kindergarten this year, but when we found out he aged out of preschool in the school district, we decided to go ahead and put him in Kindergarten so he can continue his speech classes. Our other option was to put him in an outside preschool program and hire someone to make house calls for speech (which would be quite expensive for both of those).
He seems to be doing well in Kindergarten so far. He loves to try and read books and he is getting really good at sounding out words on the pages.
His communication is getting better. He used to get frustrated easily and his main form of communicating was squawks and angry noises if he was in a hurry to get our attention, but now he is a little better about using his words and even telling us what letter the word he is trying to tell us starts with. He has always been very creative about his ways of communicating, but he is improving and I'm sure there will come a time that we will have forgotten how hard it once was to understand what he was trying to tell us.
He is our helpful kid (most of the time). He wants to help clean, cook/bake, do yard work, and help with the baby. This is great for me since Jeremy and Drew are super busy in 2 different baseball leagues right now.
It's amazing to think back before JJ came along. Drew was 1 years old and we decided to start trying to get pregnant with another child. Fast forward 5 years and it seemed we would never have more children. We had almost completed the lengthy/expensive process of adopting internationally and we found out we were pregnant! I was excited/worried about having an adopted baby that would've been just 9 months old when our new baby was due to be born, but I thought we'd be OK and we had a very excited big brother to help us with it.
When I was 12 weeks pregnant we found out that the Philippines had denied our request for the adoption because we were not related to the baby we were trying to adopt. We had put in a request to be considered "like family" since Jeremy's step mom was related to the baby. We were disappointed and sad, but I know that is one of our many unexpected blessings. I am very grateful that I was pregnant when we received that news because I believe it softened the heartache quite a bit.
JJ's such a great addition to our family. He is funny, so sweet, and has the cutest dimples that will melt your heart (even when he is making you CRAZY). He teaches me patience and how to love unconditionally every day.
