Balance.

Life. Parenting. Love. Work. Fun. Balance seems to be our biggest challenge. Trying to prioritize. Trying to figure out where to put your energy. Trying to figure out what is most important in the moment. I can't seem to find the instruction manual on this one and if I did, I know it would change as soon as I could figure it out. We have to take it day by day. Sometimes minute to minute. This is the story of our life.

We make decisions for ourselves.

We make decisions for our kids.

We make decisions for our family.

I find lately that all I do is worry about balance.
First grade has brought on new challenges and new adventures. We will always focus on Owen's goals but we also want him to be part of his class. This definitely causes conflict to figure out how to adapt to the different levels.
Are we pushing too hard? Are we trying to cram too much in? If I take the cues from Owen on a daily basis, the answer is yes. It is all too much. But how will he grow, how will he learn, how will he succeed? We have to push. Thankfully at the end of the day he still tells us he loves us. We can get him to smile no matter how upset he is with the routine he has.

The first few weeks of school are hard. It is hard to find the right adjustments to make it all fit together. It is hard for him to understand all the change. Add on top of that there is therapy after school, being sick and homework.
But I know he is excelling in school. He is happy there. He has wonderful teachers helping him through the challenges and also trying to find the right balance for him. It may just be 1st grade for some but for us it is more. It is a bigger challenge to balance.

A new diagnosis

We've secretly been stressing about a potentially serious health concern for Olivia for the last month and a half. I won't get into all the details but there were multiple signs of puberty showing up and obviously that is not normal for a 3 year old.
Multiple trips to the doctor, on to specialists and off for tests has been our journey since mid July. It has been a waiting game until last Friday when we finally got the official diagnosis "benign premature adrenarche". Sounds scary but actually it is a huge relief becuase what could have been or what it could develop into is potentially very serious. Basically what it means is her adrenal gland is the culprit for now. Her bone age is also showing further advanced than it should so she is growing too quickly. There is no treatment now except to treat her symptoms and do more testing in a few months. Tylenol for leg pains, deoderant for body odor, etc. Never thought I would be in the deodrant aisle looking for a fun smelling, fun looking stick of deoderant for a 3 year old! Luckily the one I picked has her excited and she now asks for me to put it on her.
We have been worried, scared, and reliant on doctors to give us answers. It has been another hard test for us to go through. We learned once again how frightening it can be to google symptoms and potential issues. We learned how scary things can seem when there is so much unknown.

We pray that this doesn't turn into the seriousness we have read about. We pray that Olivia doesn't notice the differences. We pray that we caught this early.