3 years

I guess I kind of dropped the ball on this one… Coby has only been 3 for over a month now.

In the last year Coby has come extremely far and has grown more than I think we ever expected. He is still a super tiny guy, but seems to be doing just fine physically. In the last year we were able to get him into some “schooling” where he received both physical therapy and speech therapy and it has honestly helped him more than anything I think ever could have. He has gone from a basically non-verbal boy to someone we can have a full conversation with. He still struggles with a lot of words, but he has found his voice and we are so proud of him. He is still incredibly clumsy and trips and falls all the time. We hope that we will be able to find a new program here in New York where we can get him back into physical therapy to help with that, and also into speech to continue his growth with his language. I guess the only thing I can say is that we are so proud of this kid and his strong will to keep growing!

Stats:

Height – 3’1”

Weight – 29.8lbs
I don't have the exact percentiles, but I do know in both height and weight he is between the 25th and 50th percentile. So that's progress! 

Likes:

Trucks – to say trucks are his favorite would be an understatement. He calls them “hucks” but he loves them so much that he even says bye to them as we are driving down the road. Every time he will say, “bye huck, see next time!”

Anything with wheels – not only does he like trucks, but he likes trains, cars, airplanes, anything that moves he loves.

His brother – he pretty much will repeat everything Lucas says, he also follows him pretty much everywhere. It is very cute!

His daddy – he is most certainly a daddy’s boy, he will run to Vinnie before anyone else in the world.

Blaze and the Monster Machines – I thought for a long time Coby was never going to find a favorite show/character, but I guess he just needed a show all about trucks to find his favorite.

“Blazing” – okay really it’s just running, but anytime he can he will yell, “let’s blaze” and then go running toward his chosen location.

Dislikes:

Eating – he is not a fan of sitting at the table or eating on a schedule. He will fight tooth and nail if he doesn’t feel like it’s the right time for him to eat.

Diaper changes – He most certainly hates them, but doesn’t care enough yet to want to potty train. He has made some indications but every time we try he is still not quite ready to follow through.

Being roared at – I know that seems like a really odd statement, but he hates it and Lucas thinks it is hilarious to do it. So Coby screams and runs away until either mom or dad stop the interaction.

Sitting for story time – we have learned to just let him run while we read, we just hope he’s semi listening as he runs.

I love New York!

Okay, so I don't really know if we love New York yet, but we have been here for over a month now, so I figured may as well update everyone on our new adventure.

Last cousin visit until the new cousins are born.

It has been an adventure for sure, when Vinnie flew in we decided to start the drive early and ended up staying the night in Burley and then we went and spent a day in Utah with my sisters. We were hoping that taking a day just hanging out would give our truck the time it needed to get ahead of us. Which up until the day we got to New York it was... and then somehow it ended up 3 days behind us. Luckily for us we do know 1 family here and they offered to let us stay until our stuff arrived. So we got to spend 3 nights on couches and beanbag chairs. Once our stuff finally got here, we had to wait until Vinnie got off work to unload. So we had to completely unload the truck into our teeny tiny apartment all in one night... needless to say we had a maze box mess for DAYS! I almost lost my mind because everytime I tried to make sense of what was here and clean something up, I just made a bigger mess somewhere else. At the end of it all, we ended up with a small Uhaul full of stuff that we had to put into storage. But we are finally settled now.

Our lovely maze

The boys room

Our kitchen/laundry room

Living room

Living Room

Our room

Our room

Since we got here we haven't been able to do a whole lot of adventuring, Vinnie went back to work the day after we got here so I was left with the boys in this place that seriously scares the heck out of me. I went from a place with ONE interstate and a few "highways" to a place where everything either a highway or byway or interstate or something... When Vinnie drove me to the apartment for the first time I was sure I would never leave the house again I was so confused. So the first few days we stuck really close to where we were staying. By week two I got a little more adventurous and we went looking for the Target that wasn't by our apartment or our friends house... only because we needed something for the house that it had and the other two didn't... and I'm proud to say we survived and DIDN'T get lost even once.

Other than that the only excitement we have is I got a job that works pretty great job with Vinnie's schedule and we went trunk or treating and trick or treating. We are looking forward to celebrating Coby's birthday tomorrow and Thanksgiving with friends next week! I promise eventually we will get out and adventure and I will be sure to share with everyone! Fingers crossed we will get to go to NYC during Christmas time so we can show the boys the HUGE tree, but that may have to wait until next year.

Pumpkin time

Halloween

2 1/2 years old

That smile!

Our little man had a check up today. Quite simiply the results of the appointment were exactly as we knew they would be. He is going to be a skinny little dude. He has gotten taller, but he hasn't gained any weight in the last 6 months. I say that knowing that he has been sick in the last two weeks and we have been testing some things with infant/toddler and his eating habits, so really he probably HAS gained weight, but has probably bounced all around with all the things going on in his life. In the last 6 months a lot has changed with our little man, we were able to get him into the infant/toddler program based on him being delayed with his speech. They have also identified that he has some sensory issues that are causing some of his issues with food and also his social issues. All of which are leading us to try many different new things to see how we can help him progress in all areas. He will also begin going to "school" twice a week for 4 hours to help with his speech. 

He is so silly.

Stats:

Height – 2’11 1/2” – 38th percentile

Weight – 27lbs - 27th percentile

Love this boy!

Likes:

Mimicing - he quite possibly thinks his big brother is the coolest person alive. If Lucas is doing something, Coby is too.
"Some" - as I mentioned his vocabulary is very limited, but all drinks to him are "some". If that's all we gave him, he would be a happy camper.
Outside - he'd live out there all day and all night if we'd let him. He hates getting dirty in every way, excpet for when he is outside. If he is outside bring on the dirt.
Hot dogs - this might be his absolute favorite thing in the world to eat... not the healthest thing in the world... but for him it's amazing!
Sesame Street Songs - he doesn't stop for many things, he is very mobile. But if we turn on his "songs" the kid will stop dead in his tracks and come running.

Loving his breakfast.

Dislikes:

People touching him - as mentioned before he has a sensory issue, so unless he wants to hold your hand, hug you, cuddle, ect, he gets very upset. 
Being dirty - he is the only kid I know that insists on having a napkin with EVERY meal, and once it's dirty he wants a new one. 
Eating - again with the sensory issue, we have been told that he can't tell how much food is actually in his mouth, so he will stuff and stuff and stuff his mouth until he can close his mouth. He also forgets that he likes different foods. So we have to convince him to try a bite. Once we can get him to do that he will pretty much eat anything. 

Zoo day!

Accomplishments:
Communicating - his words are coming along VERY VERY slowly, but with that struggle he has learned how to use noises and hand gestures to get most of his thoughts understood. It may not be where he "should" be, but we are so proud of the progress he has made. 
Staying in nursery all by himself - we have been taking his to nursery every Sunday and every Sunday either myself or Vinnie has had to stay, because he would freak out if we left (even though Lucas was with him), but within the last two months he has successfully gone to both hours of nursery without us 4 times.
Being comfortable with others - he has always been very aprehensive of people who weren't mommy or daddy, but he has FINALLY started to let other people approach him.

Brotherly love!

3 years

Birthday boy making funny faces!

Seriously!?! We have a 3 year old??? How on earth did that happen so fast? There are days with I look at Lucas and I see my newborn baby and then there are moments when I see a little grown up sitting there. I can’t believe how much he has changed and how his personality has become so distinct. He is to the point where he is having full conversations with people and even telling jokes. His favorite currently being the quote from the Lion King about “what’s a motto”. As you can see from his stats he is growing… very quickly. He is our big little dude for sure. It is getting to the point where I can’t carry him around for more than a few minutes because he is so long and heavy. He gets mistaken for a kindergartener more times than I want to admit.

Stats:

Height – 3’4 ½” – 96^th percentile

Weight – 43lbs – 99^th percentile

Surgery on his ears

Likes:

Superheroes – I’m pretty sure he knows more superheroes and more about them that I ever did before he was born.

Fruit – I think if we would let him just eat fruit all day long he would, it is always his favorite part of his meal.

Coloring – Whether it is with actual crayons or on an iPad or phone, this kid cannot get enough of coloring.

Games – He loves games, he got Candy Land for Christmas and Hi Ho Cherri-o for his birthday and he asks daily if we can play one of his games.

His friends – pretty much everyone he knows is his friend, and he gets so excited when they come over or we get to go see them.

Our goofball!

Dislikes:

Bedtime – He is still struggling with sleeping, he gets “afraid” of the cars outside the house. We use a white noise machine but he still gets freaked out most nights.

Mama leaving – We have had a lot of crazy things happen in our lives lately and has made it so I am not around as much, whether it was from recovering from surgery or working… and he does not like it a bit.

Water on his head – This one is a new one; he doesn’t like baths as much anymore because he can’t stand having water poured on his head.

 

He throws the best fits!

A lot has changed for Lucas since he was 2. This past year he finally got tubes put in to help with his ear infections, which has made a HUGE difference in his life. Minus one yucky bug that the whole family got he hasn’t gotten sick at all since his surgery. He also has gotten glasses since our last update. I noticed that he was doing funny things with his left eye when he was trying to focus on something. So we took him to see an eye doctor and he wasn’t using his left eye to see. So now he has the cutest little glasses and has to patch every so often to strengthen his eye. The doctor is hopeful that he will grow out of his glasses when he gets older.  Oh, we have also broken free of the pacifier! I'd like to take credit for that, but Vinnie was amazing and got him to finally give it up for good!

He loved going to the store and "talking" to Santa.

“A lifetime isn't forever, so take the first chance, don't wait for the second one! Because sometimes, there aren't second chances!..."

I’m going to start off with a warning, for some of you this post may be TMI… heck maybe for all of you. But I feel like this is what I need for me so here goes. Feel free to read it or not! And it is totally unedited, this is me just writing, if there are typos or grammatical errors, I make no apologies.

For those of you who know me well, you know that family is my number 1; I have wanted to be a mommy for as long as I can humanly remember.  You also know that my biggest fear has always been not being able to be a mom, and for a lot of years that fear was very painstakingly true. I lost my first baby in 2007 just a few months after I got married, followed by an ectopic pregnancy that was caught very early, and then a miscarriage in my second trimester in 2008. All of this followed by my divorce. Then in 2010 Vinnie and I got back together and we tried and tried to have a baby… in 2011 I was told that my body had stopped ovulating on its own and I would never have a baby without help. So I started taking medicine to ovulate, and in late 2011, I got pregnant… only to miscarry days into the new year. Then started the real fertility journey which ended with the most beautifully perfect baby boy in 2013, my life was finally complete. (Side note because I didn't give birth to him, we also were blessed with an amazing adopted baby too who was also born in 2013!!)

Due to all of this I haven’t taken birth control in years, if I can’t ovulate on my own, why waste the time of filling a prescription and remembering to take it every day. This was my first mistake… I guess you never know the human body and you should never assume never really means never. 

So here is where my real story begins. I have always been very blessed with very regular, very easy cycle. I can only remember a few times where it has ever caused me more than a little discomfort… and all of those times were in high school, and I’m pretty sure it was more the discomfort of going to school than my cycle. So in November I started a very normal cycle… that a few days in became a bit painful but nothing I hadn’t felt before in life. Then 6 days later, I started again. My first thoughts were, “huh, I wonder if I some how got pregnant, and miscarried.” So I called my doctor and told them everything and they assured me that it was just an irregular cycle and I had NOTHING to worry about. I then spent the next 3 weeks with some bleeding and some not. Then I woke up one day with a perfectly normal cycle, exactly on the date I should have started in December. As the days progressed so did the “cramps” and then one day it turned into the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life. By the time Vinnie and I got the boys to bed, it was pretty obvious that I needed to see a doctor and I needed to do it right then, and luckily we have people who care enough about us to drop everything so we could go to the ER without waking the boys.

So there we sat in the check in nurses office so they could get my temperature and what was wrong and how I was feeling, and being told that it was going to be a little bit of a wait but they wanted me to give them a urine sample while we waited. That was the first time that night I don’t remember what happened. Apparently, sitting in that chair I passed out for a few minutes and woke up to me vomiting all over everyone and everything in the room. I then got rushed to a room where I did that same exact thing again. Once they were finally able to get me stable they asked if I was pregnant, to which I expressed that it was completely impossible and that the test would come back negative and I knew it. But of course they had to be sure. But due to me being me… I tried to pass out a few more times and did pass out one more time before they were finally able to get a test. Then all the sudden the doctor went from wanting to do a CT to wanting to do an ultrasound… which at the time didn’t even phase me… until I was laying alone with the ultrasound tech (who wouldn’t let my husband come in… which by the way was a HUGE HUGE fiasco with the nurses, the doctors and the tech… but that’s another story) who said, “so how far along are you?”….. UHHHHHHHHHHHHH what?.....

Yep, sure enough I was pregnant… and not the happy so excited yay you are going to have a baby kind of pregnant, it was the baby isn’t where it’s supposed to be, she’s bleeding internally and could die kind of a pregnant. And my whole world stopped, I was being faced with a reality that I never thought I’d have to face until I was a happy old grandmother of all kinds of grandbabies. I was dying, if the doctors didn’t do something I would be dead. A young mommy of 2 amazing little boys… and I was being faced with death. And in that moment I wanted 4 things, my mommy, my husband, and my babies. 

They sent in the on call OB and she told me that I was going to have to get surgery and it had to happen right away. So as I sat there and looked at Vinnie I knew he and I were in the same place, this was a life or death situation… and he had to leave to take care of our kids. I was going to do this all alone; my last moments of life could have been spent alone.  

So he and I said our goodbyes and we talked about the boys and what I needed him to do to help them remember me, and that I needed him to love them enough for the both of us. While my insides were screaming for him to bring the boys to me, to let me say goodbye in person for him to never leave my side ever again. As they rolled me out for surgery I watch my husband that I loved more than life, walk the other way out the door. I then spent the next 30 minutes thinking about had I told everyone I loved that I loved them, and did I kiss the boys goodnight, and had I given them everything they ever needed from me… and could that really be the last time I would ever see my family again. I thought about how on earth Vinnie would be able to be a single parent and work full time, and what would happen to all of them, and would someone be able to love the 3 of them the way I loved them. And as this was all happening I was talking to this nurse and that nurse and this is going to happen and that is going to happen and I just kept thinking, “Is this the last person I’m ever going to talk to again?” I specifically remember the nurse who checked me in for my surgery, he was also my recovery nurse, I remember him trying to calm me down and talk to me about my family and him comforting me and telling me that he would be there when I woke up. And then I was gone, I don’t know for how long and I don’t know how the surgery went, but I do remember hearing, “Jana, can you hear me, I’m right here, just like I said I would be.” I then opened my eyes and realized I was alive, that I had survived. And for the first time in my life I realized how lucky I was and how beautiful life is. 

I then spent the next day in a hospital bed alone, waiting very un-patiently for Vinnie and the boys to walk through my door. And then there they were the most amazingly beautiful, perfect three guys I have even seen in my life.

I guess what this long crazy rant of a post is all about, is live every moment to the fullest, live in the moment, say what needs to be said, tell those that you love that you love them, even if they may not love you back, love with every fiber of your being, because you may not know when it’s your last moment… and trust me that is quite possibly the scariest thing in the world. And if you made it this far, please know that if you are part of my world, I love you, and I cherish you as a person. Even if we haven't talked it months or years you have helped shape my world and I am a better person because of you!

2 years

One of my favorite pictures of him.

Yep, it’s true the crazy Hankla family now has TWO 2 year olds… I’m not sure we thought that one all the way through when we decided to adopt Coby, nor would it have ever changed our mind. However, it is fun when really nosy people at random places come up to you and ask the question either, “Oh, are they twins” (which if you know our boys is a totally ridicules comment) or “How old is this one?... Oh, so this one must be” and before they can talk we get to chime in with two also. Coby is one of the most neutral kids I have even met, until you put him in a position he doesn’t like and he becomes the most opinionated kids ever. He has the worst stranger danger I have ever seen in any person. He glares so well that I think people are put off by him when they first meet him. However, if they are around for more than 20 minutes they meet the real Coby who is a HUGE flirt and has the smile to support it.

Also, check out those stats!!! Boy has he grown in the last 6 months, we went from a kid who wasn’t even getting into the teens for percentile almost push into the 50^th for both!!!  We have literally gone from size 9 month to 24 months in about a 3 month time frame.

 

Handsome dude!

Stats:

Height – 2’10” – 48th percentile

Weight – 27lbs - 37th percentile

 

Flirt I tell you!!

Likes:

Daddy – simply put, I could stop right there with his likes. I have never met a kid who loves one person so much… but this kid does.

Dancing – this kid will stop anything he is doing if he hears any music (including our washer and dryer finishing a load) he drops whatever he is doing and starts dancing.

Jumping – and no I don’t mean just the fun little jump up and jump down off the floor jumping. I mean the climbing up anything he can find looking down and taking a leap.

Anything Lucas likes – these two I swear are the best of friends… and anything Lucas wants to do, Coby does also!

Captian America Dislikes:

Eating – don’t get me wrong the kid loves to eat… at his pace, at his time, and in his way… if you try to mess with his set up you will have a crying kid on your hands.

Being told no – what kid does like that?? But Coby has the best fake sob for any time he is told no.

New or old people he doesn’t remember – as I said he has some pretty bad stranger danger, so even with people he knows, if it has been a few weeks he will freak out. It’s about the only time the kid will cling to me like it is a life or death situation.

 

Zoo day! 

Accomplishments:

Big boy bed – this was quite possibly the EASIEST transitions I have even been though in my life. It took him ONE nap on the floor before he realized how cool it was to get to sleep in a bed he can get in and out of as he pleases.

Communicating – Coby is really struggling with words, which really worries me, but in the place of words he has learned to communicate through his noises, his expressions, and gestures. Which is very helpful in trying to get him what he needs. He has gained a few more words in the last month or so, but still no where close to where we’d like him to be. We will be meeting with a speech therapist on that one!

Stairs – with our move, I was really worried about the stairs for both the boys, however, crazy mama, both boys mastered going up and down without any issues. 

Mama cuddles... or giggles.

Birthday Party!

Our Unexpected Addition

For those of you who know me, you know that all I've ever wanted to be was a mother, so when Vinnie and I had so much difficulty with miscarriages, we started to believe we wouldn't ever have kids. When Lucas finally came along, we were the happiest people on earth. We were happy to just have our one sweet boy. 

So now let's fast forward to March 2014, when I got a very unexpected e-mail from Vinnie's little sister. In short she had given birth to a beautiful baby boy in November(just 10 short months after I had given birth to Lucas) and was unable to care for him. In her e-mail she asked Vinnie and I if we would be willing to take on her baby as our own. Could we be that crazy??? I mean we had our own 14 month old at home, we were first time parents... we were still learning the ropes. Well after a lot of discussion and prayer Vinnie and I knew there was only one answer, yes! So we started the process to adopt. On July 1st, 2014, I flew to Coeur d'Alene to a hearing to find out if the judge felt we were a good fit. After a very short court hearing, I walked out with a 7 month old baby in my arms. A little overwhelmed he and I went and checked into our hotel for the night and flew back to Boise the next day.

Since that day we have been an unofficial family of 4. But as of August 20th, 2015 we are an official family of 4. That was the day we adopted Coby William Hankla. We are the very proud parents of two amazingly crazy boys and wouldn't have it any other way.