Catching Up with Delilah

Hello, it has been a while since we’ve last written for The Parent Voice!  I thought starting out I’d take a little time to reintroduce my family and catch up with what Miss Delilah has been up to. My name is Hailey Cain, and I am a twenty-seven-year-old, stay-at-home mom in Linn County, Oregon. I have been married to my husband Joshua for almost 6 years, but we recently passed our anniversary for 12 years together. Sometimes, I feel that just saying how long we’ve been married doesn’t cut it. Joshua and I are both graduates of LBCC in Albany. I studied Human Development and Family Sciences, and he studied Criminal Justice. Right now, I stay at home with our daughter and Joshua works as a Direct Support Professional in the community.

At this point in our lives, we have one child: a daughter named Delilah. She turned four back in March of this year. She is a friendly and curious girl who wants to learn everything! She never stops asking questions. Currently, we are doing preschool at home with Delilah (which I can’t wait to share!).  Long-time readers may recognize our family as we used to write for The Parent Voice from before Delilah was born until just before she turned two. At the time, things in our lives were very different, and I felt like I needed to take a step back from writing, but I am happy to be back and excited to share what we have been up to lately. Also, as a part of our family, we have one little dog named Wash and three cats named Kraken, Mindy, and Penelope.

Hobbies and activities are something that are really important to our family. I think having hobbies we do just for ourselves and those we can do together as a family is essential. We love playing games together. Board games, card games, and video games are some of our favorite activities that we can do together. Sometimes, it even surprises us how competitive we can get! We also use games a lot when working at school as well. Snakes and Ladders has been one of our favorites for counting practice. We often do outdoor activities as a family. Fishing and hiking are some of our favorites, but sometimes, it’s enough just to go outside and explore for a while. For my personal hobbies, I do a lot of crafts! One of my favorites is crochet, but I also love sewing, quilting, and jewelry making. I’d learn even more if it were up to me, but I only have so much space for crafting supplies. Outside of crafting, I also read and bake A LOT! Recently, I’ve been collecting and reading old Dungeons and Dragons books written in the Dragonlance world, and with baking, I have been workin g on mastering sourdough bread.

Delilah was almost two when we last wrote, and it is so hard to encompass just how much growth she has gone through up until now. Not just growing bigger and getting older but also developing her personality and character. Since we last wrote, she has grown from a loving, rambunctious, and often stubborn toddler to a curious, inquisitive, and fiercely independent girl. As we are doing anything, she loves to remind me, “ I’d like to do it myself!”, whether it’s buckling her car seat or fixing her a snack.

To help get to know Delilah, I wanted to include her in writing by asking her what some of her favorite things are right now (even if they may change by tomorrow),

• Color: Yellow
• Treat: Cow Tails (the strawberry ones!)
• Song: I Had Some Help by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen
• Book: A Kiss Goodnight
• TV Show: Peppa Pig
• Game: Hide and Seek
• Animal: All of them
• Vegetable: Corn

Since we last wrote, we’ve had quite a few changes in our lives. We’ve gone through job changes, schedule changes, and moving into a new house, and all of these have brought us new challenges and opportunities to grow. It’s also a bit funny how some of the subjects I’ve written about before, like picky eating, sleep, and dealing with challenging behaviors, are all still relevant in our lives two years later. The challenges don’t go away. They just evolve as she gets older.

Also, since we’ve last written, we started Delilah’s first year of preschool at home when she was three, which was a very gentle introduction to learning, with a lot of talking, playing, reading together, and hands-on activities.  We started her next year of preschool at the beginning of June, where we are using a formal curriculum and having a little more structured learning mixed with a lot of playing and arts and crafts. We also like to work on practical skills around the house for her age, like helping with appropriate household chores, helping in the kitchen, and helping to care for our animals.

Again, I would like to say hello to everyone! We are so excited to share in detail all that we have been up to since you last heard from us and all the new experiences or challenges that come our way! Thank you for reading!