Do you know what is so neat about this picture ?

Gracie is playing in the same pretend play the rest were. She often plays by herself but we have seen her attempt and do more play with the rest of the kids. This day they were all pretending to be dogs...Here they were lying down on the pillows just like our dogs do :) She did everything like the rest of them...even making barking noises....Gracie way to go girl. When you are ready you continue to amaze us with what," You can do" and we are loving watching you discover your world.

We had an evaluation at our child psychologist last week for Gracie. There were no surprises and we all decided to try her on some ADHD medicine. She has been on it for less than a week and we see so much improvement in her ability to focus and stay on task. She does her school work so much better and she seems to be wanting to be included in what others are doing.

We usually do not try any meds for at least 2 yrs with our adopted kids when we suspect they might be helped by them even. We want to see just what healthy nutritious food, love and other behavior modications will do. We waited as long as we could before we put Andrew on some meds. to help with his behaviors and sleep and he is doing much better. Since we felt a good connection with our child psychologist ( we really do trust her and like her) we decided it was time to have Gracie evaluated. We had both Andrew and Gracie evaluated some with the school child psychologist and we also had some opinions ourselves about what was going on with them. We have had no surprises other than positive ones with them being on the medicine which has been a good thing. I am not one who likes to jump to this as the solution until we have tried lots of other methods . I always give the child more time than most with diff. ways to help control inappropriate behaviors but I knew the time was right and I am so glad we did . I also know you do have to trust and value the doctor that you choose. We have disagreed many times in the past with some child psychologist about our children and always we were correct...So I encourage parents to go with their gut about things and don't be afraid of medicine if it is needed. If the meds. help Gracie or Andrew have a more "normal" life than they are worth it- especially since we have had no side effects at all.