Finally!

Maddy is playing with her dolls! All of a sudden, out of nowhere, she is picking them up and showing them to me and saying, "Baby!" So she's not a complete tomboy...

Star Wars funny

After reading aloud the crawl at the beginning of Star Wars IV: A New Hope to Jack, he turns to me and says, "Wow, that's a lot of words!"

Jack's first joke

Jack told his first joke this morning:

Q: "Why did the egg go in the cake?"

A: "Because I want it to!"

(followed by uproarious laughter)

So... making him watch Chris Rock and Bill Cosby is paying off! Hee hee!

A few zoo pictures

It was such a beautiful weekend we took the kids to the Zoo on Sunday morning. (Yes, Jack is wearing a propeller cap in one picture! It was his reward for being a big kid and walking the zoo without a stroller.)

"Ski Week" Photos

Jack about to slide down a hill in Incline Village with an assist from Daddy & Grandpa.


He had a great "ski report card." They said he had good balance!


Jack about to get his skis on. (Lessons were at Northstar in Tahoe.)


Daddy & Maddy in the snow in Incline Village.

Where is he learning this stuff?!?!

Last night we arrived home very late (10 p.m.) from our Sacramento trip. Jack didn't sleep much in the car and was over-tired. As we both struggled to get the PJs on and get him into his room, he was literally darting around the room, avoiding bedtime. Finally, he grabbed a toy cell phone that was on the floor and yelled into it, "Jail! Come get Daddy!" Erik and I just cracked up and were distracted from our task. Seriously, I know they don't cover this stuff on PBS, Sprout or Noggin! Where would he hear such a thing? I can't believe anything like that has come up at his preschool...


He's also picked up a language "thing" of now attaching "I never get to..." whenever we tell him there's something he can't do. It sure sounds funny! ("I never get to drive a car! I never get to pump the gas! I never get to have a tea party!") Oh, you poor put-upon child!



[Pictures from the kids snow adventures to come!]

He's too smart for us

This morning Jack announced to me, "I watched basketball with daddy last night!"

I must've fallen asleep, and the game didn't start until 8:30 p.m., which is WAY past Jack's bedtime. So I asked him, "Was daddy mad?" Thinking that Erik would be telling Jack to go back upstairs to sleep since he was up late.

"Yes," said Jack. "The Bears were losing."

My new favorite picture

A rite of motherhood

This evening I put together a Bionicle (a Lego thing)! By myself, for my adoring son who as we speak is sleeping with it.

"When I was little..."

On the ride to school this morning: "Mommy, when I was little I liked gummi bears."

Right, back in the day...

Christmas fun!

Maddy & Jack & one of Jack's new toys.















Putting together Jack's tool workbench. Maddy is very interested.

Maddy with a few of her new favorite toys.

The allergy saga continues...

Maybe it's not blueberries after all, but a food additive. Maddy was negative on the berry panel. Although Dr. P says that we should treat it as an allergy anyway since she develops hives and these tests aren't infallible. Maddy is also "slightly" allergic to milk and peanuts. She is not allergic to dogs and cats, which is good! Dr. P has no idea why Maddy would get hives with the fried chicken, although last Friday's reaction to grilled cheese now makes more sense. The current plan is to continue with the Benadryl & epi pen at school and home and play it by ear until the reactions get to where she wheezes. She did not want to subject Maddy to another blood draw for awhile, and said that the scratch test is not "valid" at her age. So we'll continue to play it by ear.

Catching up...

I just realized that my last post was 10 days ago!

Let's see, what's been going on...

1. Jack has had yet another ear infection.
2. Jack LOVES Christmas!! Especially the lights.
3. Maddy now has an epi pen due to severe allergies to blueberries.
4. Maddy had a RAST done to identify other allergies.
5. Maddy is talking more, although she's kind of rude. ("go away," "no no bite")

I still have some pictures from Thanksgiving to post! (And no new pictures for a while, Maddy broke our camera last week during one of her multiple doctor visits!)

As if there were any doubt

Jack has now learned how to burp at will. He is so very proud of himself! "Mommy, I burped!" Every time. He's a boy, all right!

What's so bad about sleeping?

They BOTH decided to wake up at 5 a.m. Usually they sleep at least until 6:30... most of the time, we have to wake Jack up out of a sound sleep. So why the early wake up call today? It was like a switch turned on-- they were WIDE awake. It was a complete party at 5 a.m. I'm sure I will never know why.

But I do know I need more coffee now.

Maddy's speech eval

Surprisingly, she did not bust out with 50 words during the evaluation. In fact, in the space of 2 hours she did not utter a PEEP until 1 hour 45 minutes in (and then it was all babbling/jargon except for a few recognizable "uh-ohs").

However, after a developmental eval and a separate speech eval (which were mostly play-based and based on my answers to questions about what I've seen/heard her do), she is generally at her expected age, or within the 25 %tile in some areas (like fine motor), which is not enough for services. They decided to adjust her age, since she was about 4 weeks early, so instead of evaluating her as an 18 month old (which she will be on Monday), they had her as 16 months, 23 days. Whatever.

So, the long and short of it is that her receptive language is in the average range (as a 16.23 month old), and her expressive language is at the 12 month level. We got a nice pat on the head, and were told that if by 24 months (when they stop adjusting ages for prematurity) if she wasn't at 40-50 words, to call them back and schedule another eval.

Hmm... that would sure be some language explosion, given that at 18 months she has 4 words. But again, fine. We'll play.

Hopefully I'll be updating this in 6 months to say that Maddy has met that goal!

Comedy gold!

Today at the suggestion from a parent, I set up a notebook in which my student can now "tell" on someone rather than come tell me every little bitty thing that happens that they don't like. It's titled "The Telling Book" and is located in a central location in the classroom. I told them, if what they need to tell me doesn't involve hitting, kicking, bad words or blood, they are to write it in the book. And that they do, albeit phonetically. However, I'm translating, and I think by the end of the year I'll have enough for a book which I will then publish and market (ha! I think to most people it would be hopelessly boring, but the earnestness of the students cracks me up). A couple of today's gems:

"C made a mean face at me."

"E coughed on me."

"Z called me a dino-wup." (This one I asked for clarification, and "dino-wup" was the best I could get out of what the alleged name was.)

Well, I tried

On the drive home, Maddy started vocalizing about something, and it sounded urgent. She sits directly behind me and I can't see her. It's also starting to get dark.

ME: Jack, can you look at Maddy? Why is she crying?

JACK: Mommy, I have farties!

ME: OK, Jack. But why is Maddy crying? Is she OK?

JACK: Mommy, slow down! You're going too fast!

ME: (Driving 55 MPH and in the slow lane of a 3 lane road) OK, Jack, I'll slow down. Is Maddy OK? What is she doing?

JACK: I don't know. Can I have french fries?

ME: No, Jack, we're going home and having dinner now.


(BTW, Maddy is fine... don't know what the yelling was all about.)

The adventure continues...

Today was a school holiday for Veteran's Day. Just me and the kids on a Tuesday. I decided to be adventureous and take them to a movie... so we went to Madagascar 2. I was happy that I bought the tickets the night before online... the line was almost around the block! Seems I wasn't the only one who had this idea. Anyway, the theater was packed, but I did find 2 seats (assuming Maddy on my lap) up against the wall (to try to prevent Jack from running). We did get some popcorn and a drink, but they weren't too interested in that. The kids were really good for about the first 45 minutes. Of a 90 minute movie. For about 15 minutes I was trying to (unsuccessfully) contain both kids. Maddy was getting tired, and Jack wanted to roll down the aisle. Unfortunately, since the movie just came out a few days ago, the theater was packed. So, I had the pleasure of carrying Maddy and trying to remove a repentant Jack ("I'll listen! I'll listen!") from the theater. Once I got him in the lobby, he eventually calmed down. (I also had total stranger tell me, "Way to keep your cool, mama!" Uh, thanks?) How did I calm Jack down? I lied to him and told him the movie was over! Yes, Jack, the movie ends when they're trying to find water, and the next movie will be about them finding the water!

To ease the transition, I then took them to the McDonald's so they could run around the Habitrail (thanks, Caroline!). We got home by 12:30... Maddy was just about out and slept 3 hours, Jack has NOT napped and will be going to bed early!

Lesson learned? Take kids to movies with Erik or a friend :) They still need man coverage, they're too young for zone.

Maddy

She's getting her speech eval the morning of November 17th. However, she has been improving lately with some language-like behaviors. She has just started pointing at things this week. She also now gets excited when she sees Ginger and Strider and babbles at them when she sees them. The lady I talked to at Regional Center did remind me that Maddy is technically premature, so there would be some expected lag in development that should "catch up" by age 2. But as she approaches 18 months she still only has "mama", "no", "uh-oh", and "bye-bye" as well as some intermittent "dada." I'm quite certain that during the evaluation Maddy will totally start busting out with complete sentences and the evaluators will look at me like I'm an idiot for even referring her.