Well,
this is one of my favorite things to do each year—writing the Greenwood
Christmas Letter. I guess I enjoy it so much because it gives me the
chance to reflect on what God has been doing in our lives.
We started off 2010 by welcoming our newest addition, Sophie Sugai. She arrived on January 15th
weighing in at 7lbs 3oz and measuring 20 ¾ inches long. Labor was
about 4 ½ hours and after 5 minutes—yes, 5 minutes—of pushing, she made
her entrance into the world. Let me tell you, ever since that day, she
lets us know that she is a part of our family. The first three months
were VERY rough. All she did was cry, cry and cry some more. Chris and
I were working off the definition of colic that we had gotten when
Josiah was a baby, so we didn’t think she had colic. It was amazing
because when she turned three months, she just stopped crying —let me
tell you the next day I was trying to remember everything I did the day
before so we could have another cry free day. Shortly after she turned
three months, I was reading an article about colic. In the article, it
re-defined colic. Well, according to this definition, Sophie had
colic. I think when a definition on colic changes, a world-wide memo
should be sent out letting parents know—this is kind of important
information. Sophie is almost 11 months old and continues to bring much
joy to our life. She definitely has a fiery personality and is very
vocal in the process. When this little girl wants something, you better
watch out! I’ve decided that I need to go ahead and read “The
Strong-Willed Child” by Dr. Dobson. Usually, disciplining Sophie starts
with me telling her no and ends with her smiling and laughing at me.
The disciplining makes her even more determined to get or do what she
wants. We are praying that she is getting this all out of her system
before the teenage years, but I have a feeling this is just the
beginning!! Sophie continues to amaze us on how quickly she is learning
things. I think she is learning things so quickly because she has
Josiah to watch and learn from. She is already crawling and pulling
herself up to her knees. She tolerates the baby food we give her and
lets us know when she is ready for some table food. We really look
forward to seeing how God is going to shape Sophie and how He is going
to use her. We know her fiery personality is a gift from Him and can be
used in a positive way—let’s just hope we remember that as she gets
older!!
Josiah is now two. He continues to be a WONDERFUL big
brother to Sophie. He is so gentle with her. We don’t worry about
leaving Josiah and Sophie in the same room, and we are so thankful for
that. This year, I have started school with Josiah. About a year ago,
we started the “Your Baby Can Read” videos. Josiah has done really well
with them and has started to recognize quite a few of the words. I
didn’t work too much with him on letters and sounds, but he has picked
them up along the way. I could tell towards the end of the summer, he
was starting to get bored with our routine, so I decided that we would
go ahead and try school. So in September, we started school two days a
week. We track our weather every day and talk about what the date is.
On the two days of school, we do a Bible lesson. We have learned about
Creation, Noah’s Ark and when Jesus feeds the 5,000. We were amazed the
first time Josiah told us what happened on each day of Creation. After
Bible, Sophie usually goes down for her morning nap, and then Josiah
and I do a lesson on the letter he is learning. We usually go over the
sound the letter makes and then we make a craft of something that begins
with that letter to put in his ABC’s book. In the afternoon, we do a
math lesson and then we do some kind of Science or Social Studies
lesson. So far he really enjoys school. There are some days when he
doesn’t want to do anything, so I just go along with it—I mean who
doesn’t have a day when all they want to do is stay in their pajamas and
play. When we do play, the big hit at our house is Thomas the Tank
Engine or Dinosaur Trains. In September, we went on our first family
vacation. Yes, we have been on trips before, but it usually was with
family members or going to see family. For our trip, we headed to
Strasburg, PA, outside of Lancaster and spent two nights in Amish
Country. The Greenwood Family thoroughly enjoyed our vacation for
different reasons. The parents enjoyed getting away from the hustle and
bustle of DC. Josiah enjoyed seeing Thomas in person and riding in the
“boose.” I don’t know why he says we rode in the caboose because we
didn’t, but we just let him go along with it. Sophie pretty much went
along for the ride and enjoyed having new territory to explore. Another
big achievement for Josiah is he is now day-time potty trained. I
think we were totally spoiled with him because he pretty much initiated
wanting to use the potty at the beginning of the summer.
Chris
continues to stay busy with all that he does at the church. He
preached a great sermon series on discipleship this summer. I will
include the church’s webpage at the end, so you can go listen to his
sermons if you have time. He is going to start preaching the first
Sunday of each month, so he is pretty excited about that. We both feel
like we have really started connecting with the youth and enjoy having
them around. We have three youth that live within walking distance from
us, and two of them were over at our house quite a bit this summer.
Chris and I were a little sad when school started and they weren’t
around as much. We get to see one every week because she comes over to
watch the kids while I teach ESOL. The other one comes over every
Friday evening, so we can study the Bible together. There are moments
(when we stay up way past our bed time) that we feel really old, but we
are so thankful for the ministry God has given us here.
Well, where do I begin with me? Well, I guess the biggest thing going on in my life started back on July 1st
when I took the kids to an animal farm when my mom and niece were in
town visiting. While we were there, Josiah asked if he could ride the
pony. My gut feeling was this was a bad idea, but for him to initiate
something like this was big for him. So, we got in line and waited our
turn. I asked him a couple of times if he really wanted to do this, and
he assured me that he did. I asked one last time as we were walking
over to the pony, and he told me that he wanted to. So up on the
pony—small horse—he went. Since this was his first time, the handler
thought it would be a good idea for me to walk on the other side of the
pony. Now, the light weight that Josiah is, as soon as the horse took
off, Josiah started to get off balance on the saddle. The horse
stopped, so the handler could get Josiah centered back on the horse.
When she did, the horse side stepped right on my flip flop wearing foot
and stood there for a good 10 seconds. I didn’t make a big deal about
it because I didn’t want Josiah to be frightened, so we continued on the
pony ride. By the time the ride was over, the top of my foot was the
size of a tennis ball. At that point, I decided I needed to go the ER.
So here it is in December, five months since the accident, and I’m
almost fully recovered. I’ve had a soft cast, a boot, a hard cast and a
boot—again. After being under the care of an orthopedic doctor for
about three months, he wanted me to go see a pain management doctor. He
couldn’t find anything on the x-rays and felt that 3 months was plenty
of time for muscles and tendons to heal. So off we went to the pain
specialist, and I was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome
(CRPS). CRPS pretty much means when I had my accident, my nerves were
telling my brain that I was hurt and had been injured, but they never
stopped telling my brain any differently. The treatment for CRPS is to
have injections of steroids into the nerve heads in my back that go to
my foot to reset the nerves. Now, for those of you who know me, I never
had an epidural during labor because I wanted NOTHING near my spine, so
this was a BIG deal for me. This was a moment that I needed to trust
God. I needed to trust the fact that He is the One who gives skills to
certain individuals—especially, the pain specialist I was seeing. I
have learned a lot about my relationship with God over the last five
months. Sure there were times, when I was down because I just wanted to
be done with the whole ordeal, but I am truly thankful for all the
lessons I have learned and for my deeper relationship with God.
Well, I guess that is all for this year. We hope you all have a very Merry CHRISTmas and a Happy Blessed New Year!
Blessed by Him,
Chris, Sara, Josiah and Sophie
Instead
of waiting for Monday to come around, we went ahead and made an
appointment to see Ms. Stacy on Friday. He didn't get to see Ms. Leah,
but we told him that he was going to see Ms. Leah's friend, and he was
totally fine with that. Ms. Stacy said he has a lot of junk in his
chest and wrote us a prescription, but said we could wait to give it to
him if we wanted. Friday night was a ROUGH night--from 7:00pm to
10:00pm he woke up three times. After the third time, I brought him to
our room and propped him up on some pillows which didn't help. So
finally, I sat up against the pillows and held him in my arms. He slept
much better, but lets just say I didn't get much sleep. Chris and I
decided that if he didn't nap well on Saturday, then we were going to go
ahead and start the prescription. Well, he didn't sleep very well by
himself so back in my arms he went. So we went ahead and gave him his
first dose of antibiotics. Well, I have heard horror stories about kids
being on antibiotics, but I thought that it was made up. I have heard
about how aggressive kids are. Well, I can now say that I am living
these horror stories. In the last 12 hours, Josiah has pushed Sophie
over, talked nasty to me, had multiple meltdowns, repeatedly pushed his
rocker ottoman into me, and put his hands over Sophie's mouth and nose. So I am praying that tomorrow is a better day--that he catches up on his sleep and is a little less aggressive to all. 
After
the kiddos went to bed, Chris and I headed over to the church to
decorate for Sophie's birthday party. It was so nice for John and Jen
to stay while we went to the church--it made our Saturday that more
relaxing. 
She is also doing well with her signing. She can do "more", "milk",
"all done." We are still working on "please" and "thank you." She is
starting to recognize some words on her videos and will do our special
sign or sound. The words she knows are "clap," "gorilla," "arms up,"
"mouth," and sometimes "ears." We are so very proud of what she is
learning already at just 11 months old.