18 months

(James in the shower)

James recently had his 18 month old check-up. He weighs just over 23 pounds (15th percentile), he is 35 inches tall (97th percentile, but I think the nurse measured a little wrong so he's probably closer to the 80th percentile) and his head is 48 centimeters (56th percentile). Overall he is doing great. They had me fill out a development questionnaire. He needs a little work in the communication area, but he is doing really good in the other areas. There were six questions in each section and the doctor told me that the first three are normal and the last three were more above normal questions. For Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Problem solving, and Personal-Social he got them all. For Communication he got two on the top, one kind-of, and three not really at all. We knew he was a little slow on communicating, Hailee at this age was putting sentences together and knew a lot of words. Thankfully his personal-social skills are just fine so the doctor isn't worried at all.

So here are some of the things he is interested in. He is one busy little boy.

He still loves taking a shower or bath. In fact, I think he gets messy on purpose just so he can take a bath. The other day I had to run to the store before school to get bread for lunches. I decided to surprise everyone by getting donuts for breakfast. They were a big hit. Later that morning, James decided he was still a little hungry and decided he needed a couple more donuts. After surveying the situation I decided a quick shower would be the best option for cleaning him up. In this picture he is trying to catch water in his mouth. He absolutely loves getting wet. Sometimes he takes multiple showers a day. Sunday he jumped in the bath with Hailee. As he was getting out of the bath Todd was getting in the shower, so he got in the shower with dad. One morning he woke up when Todd was in the shower and he was just so mad that dad would even think about getting in the shower without him. The nerve.

Saturday's, when the weather is good, Todd likes to take the kids to the park to play soccer. James can dribble a soccer ball better than I can. He doesn't just kick the ball way ahead of him and run to it, he is actually dribbling it just like his dad and Hailee. When it comes to getting around this kid knows how to move his body. His gross motor skills are well where the should be. He loves trying to keep up with his sister.

He is also a very helpful little guy. He loves helping at our garden. Picking tomatoes is his favorite past time and he has even learned to just pick the red ones. Sometimes he likes to make a mess so he can "help" clean it up. The other day he purposely spilled his water, then he said "uh-oh" and grabbed a towel to clean it up. 

He loves to help Hailee do whatever she she is doing. Sometimes he "helps" a little too much, like when she is trying to do her homework and he gets a pencil and tries to help her write. For the most part she doesn't mind him tagging along and looking over her shoulder. She is such a great big sister.

Whatever "sissy" is doing is just about the most fun ever. Since he is constantly trying to keep up with her, he is growing up too fast. Now if he could just capture her knack for talking.

We got James a little tricycle the end of August. After we got it all set up we were worried that it was a little big for him. This picture was taken the day he got it. We were so surprised after just a few weeks he has mastered the tricycle. He goes forwards and backwards without any help at all. He's still working on steering, but when he petals backwards he always looks behind him to see where he is going. So far he's been pretty careful and not too wild, but I'm sure that is just a matter of time. Ask me in a month if he's still being careful.

One thing he hasn't grown out of quite yet is taking off his clothes. I'm hoping with the weather cooling down he'll stop doing this. He has gotten quite good at taking off all of his clothes. When he would get hot it wasn't long until he was stripped down to nothing. The other day he did bring me his diaper to put back on when he needed to go to the bathroom. This picture was taken after Hailee when back to school and I found him naked and in the window sill. Sometimes I wonder what our back neighbors think of our little streaker.

Even though he isn't talking a lot he does say a few words his favorite phrases are "lets go" and "uh-oh." Other things he says all the time are "daddy" and "sissy." "Ma-ma" is still only used when he is tried and cranky. He will also say "shoes" "socks" "apple" and few other words. He loves to "go" anywhere so words that go along with going outside are words he uses all the time. When we pick up Todd at work, he gets so excited when we drive into the parking lot he repeats over and over "daddy--daddy" until he sees Todd.

Even though he is not great at communicating and he loves to run around naked and dump sugar all over the kitchen, he really is a good little boy. We are so happy he is part of our family. He really brings such a big heart to our family. We all just love him so much.

The letter K

Every day I ask Hailee how her day was. I usually get the typical "everything was fine" type of response. It takes the rest of the afternoon for me to get the real story of how her day went. One day I would love to be a fly on the wall of her classroom to see her day, but it is very entertaining to "hear" about it from her point of view. This evening she told me that she didn't have time to finish her letter writing. I was a little confused because copying and writing letters is usually the part of the day that is boring for her. I was a little concerned that she wasn't doing her work because it was boring for her. (We've had to have conversations about doing her work even if it is boring.) So as I was questioning her to get the bigger story behind not finishing her work she said. "By golly that little 'k' was hard! I had to do a line down a little 'e' that looked like it was cracking up. The big 'K' was no problem, but that little 'k' was just so tricky. It took me forever to do."

That darn letter k. I'm just happy that she was doing her work and not being a pill.

The Highs and Lows of First Grade

Hailee has been in first grade for three whole weeks now. It has been a big step for my little girl and for the most part she has loved it.

The first week or so was spent enjoying all the new found things you get to do when you're at school all day.  For example...You get to have 2 recesses a day. You get to go to PE 2 times a week. You get to go to Music 2 times a week. Library still only happens once a week, but now that she is in first grade she gets to check out 2 books. Two seems to be the magic number in first grade.

She was at first a little sad to realize that some of her friends are in the other first grade class. She quickly learned that all of her friends from kindergarten would be on the playground with her at recess. On Wednesday she was so excited because Kyle (a boy she liked from kindergarten) invited her to play football with him and his new friends from his class. She was beyond thrilled and even more excited to be playing football. When I asked her how it went she said, "We tried to get the ball from each other and threw the ball to each other. There wasn't really teams, but I felt like Kyle was on my team. There was some tackling." "Did you get hurt playing football?" "No!! Why would you think that?" I'm just a crazy mom I guess. 

There was another little bit of sadness when she started doing her class work. In her words, "Mom why am I still doing kindergarten work in first grade?" She missed 2 days of class this week and on Wednesday her teacher sent her home with the missed work. I was a little disappointed to see what they were doing as well. Hailee found it incredibly boring to be doing 1+2 math and 'what letter does cat start with' kind of homework. It was all I could do to get her to finish it. When we were working on the Math I was trying to keep her motivated. I asked her what 2 +3 =? To which she responded "blah, blah, boring 5." Seriously it was like pulling teeth to get her to do her homework, which is not like my Hailee girl. The last few weeks I've been getting a little worried as Hailee has become less and less excited about school. She still enjoyed a lot of things there, but wasn't liking a lot of her day. I was relieved today to pick her up from the bus to find a happy and excited little girl. The first words out of her mouth were, "Mrs. Fletcher let me do 2nd grade work today!" Hailee is in a split 1st/2nd grade class and up to this point she has kept the kids doing just work for their grade, but today she picked 3 first graders to do second grade work. Now Hailee is wondering if she'll get to have a 'spiral' like the second graders and if her name will get changed to black instead of blue. (Second graders names are written in black and first graders and written in blue.)

Today after school I had to pick Todd up from one campus and drop him off at another one. The kids were both excited to have a few minutes to talk his ear off on the drive over. Once we dropped Todd off Hailee asked...

H: Now what are we going to do?
N: I was thinking we could go home and clean up the house.
H: Oh mom, but I'm so tired, can't I just go take a nap with James? (by this point James had fallen asleep in the car)
N: (laughing) Are you sure you want to take a nap or do you just not want to help clean?
H: Oh no mom, I am tired. I fell asleep on the bus today.
N: You fell asleep on the bus? (not really believing her)
H: I did mom. Sabrina woke me up.
N: Who is Sabrina?
H: A girl in my class I was sitting by. Her stop is before mine.  She woke me up before her stop because she wouldn't be able to wake me up at my stop.

My poor tired little girl; falling asleep on the bus. It has been a hard adjustment to get her to bed on time. They start school so early and even if I let her 'sleep in' she has to be up by 6:45 a.m. I'm hoping that now we're over being sick that we'll be able to get on a better schedule.On the way back from picking up Todd today we were telling him about Hailee falling asleep on the bus. Todd told Hailee that she needed to try and get to bed earlier so she wouldn't be tired at school. She quickly responded, "Dad, I wasn't tired at school. I was just tired on the bus." It might take a little more convincing.

Also on the way home today she was busy telling me all about Isabel's upcoming birthday party. Apparently that was the main topic of conversation at recess. Everyone is excited. She is having it at an indoor play area near our house. I got to hear about all the fun they were going to have tomorrow then Hailee said, "There is even going to be pizza, soft drinks, ice cream and cake. It's going to be so much fun. Mom, what are soft drinks?" I was laughing so hard that it took me a minute to answer, "It's like root beer and sprite." To which she said, "and milk shakes?" "No not milk shakes, just drinks with carbonation." "Oh that's not fun, I'll just take Root Beer." I guess if you think about it a milk shake sounds more like a soft drink that a coke.

My little girl is just growing up too fast. Her latest thing is wanting to make her own snacks when she gets home from school. She is always hungry and ready for a snack. Yesterday she made a tuna fish sandwich and cut it in half and then gave half to James. He was beyond thrilled to be included in such a fun snack. She is really quite a big girl now and the best big sister. One recent snack that cracked me up is a mayo and peperoni sandwich. And just now she thought about adding colored marshmallows to her tuna sandwich but then she rethought things and decided that it wouldn't be very good....but maybe ketchup. It's always an adventure. Today the final decision is a tuna, ranch, spaghetti noodle sandwich with squeaky cheese on the side. She loves to experiment. And the verdict is..."Heavenly, the perfect texture and flavors." I'll have to take her word on it because although she offered to make me one as well, its a little too much heaven for my taste.

First trip

James just passed another first milestone. His first visit to the ER and eye doctor. Just as he was feeling really great he decided to slip and fall on his wooden puzzle, the kind with little wooden knobs, right on his eye. Since there was blood coming out with his tears we decided it would be best to get it checked out. Other bumps and bruises I don't worry as much about, but I really didn't want to take any chances with his eye.

James and I had a lovely 4 hours in the emergency room. The ER was filled with old people, nut cases, and a few sick kids. No one was really lively except for James. By the time we got back to our room he had made several new friends and had a great time exploring. Despite a really puffy eye he was the picture of health and happiness. I'm sure there were plenty of people wondering what we were doing in the ER.

Once we got back and saw the doctor they determined that it was most likely a cut on the inner bottom eye lid. James did not appreciate getting the couple of eye drops in his eyes and made sure everyone knew about it. It took two of us to hold him down while the doctor looked at it. After the exam we had to wait to get cleared to go. He quickly snuggled up and went to sleep while we waited an hour and a half to tell us that we needed to see an eye doctor the next day.

This morning he woke up happy as can be with just a little swelling, but I figured we might as well take him in. The eye doctor told me everything looked great and that everything should just continue to heal on its own. I didn't have my camera with me for the ER or eye doctor. I did get a couple on the camera phone, but I had Todd's phone and I'm not sure how to get them off his phone. I'll have to post them later. Thankfully everything seems to have turned out fine and James is a happy little guy today.

Sick week

It has been a crazy week. James and I didn't get much sleep all week and by the end of it I was exhausted. Todd took an afternoon off work to help me out. Thursday he picked up Hailee from the bus and went grocery shopping for me. Friday he picked up Hailee and let me take a 4 hour nap. It was heavenly and I felt much better for it.


This weekend came and went without too much excitement. Friday evening Hailee started complaining of a sore throat and stuffy nose. I'm not sure if it's the same thing that James has or not because their symptoms are so different, but it wouldn't surprise me if he did give to her. We have gotten really good at washing hands, using her elbow to cough,  and using tissue to wipe her nose. But the one thing she has a hard time remembering is not to share with her brother when she or he is sick. James thinks whatever Hailee has should be his. Being the nice big sister she allows him to drink, eat, and share whatever she has. It's not wonder they share every sickness that come into our house.

By Sunday Hailee was feeling a little better and the kids were playing together on the patio. James was trying to do something that Hailee felt he shouldn't be doing. I over heard part of her conversation with him. When I asked her what was going on she said...

H: I'm demanding him
N: And how is that working out for you?
H: Not so well

The key to their happy relationship is when Hailee starts "demanding" him, James just ignores her and does whatever he wants to do anyway. He never tries to fight her on it, he just does it anyway.  Then Hailee usually finds me and I decide if it's really a dangerous thing and really needs to be stopped.

Sick Baby

You know James is sick when he spends his days laying on the couch watching Curious George. Poor little guy has been absolutely miserable lately. I hate it when my kids are sick. Both of them are pretty good sports when there not feeling well, but it just breaks my heart to see them sick and not their normal happy selves. With James, however, I do appreciate all the cuddles I get when he is sick. He usually is too busy for cuddles, but when he is sick I get nice cuddles from him.

We are all adjusting to our new schedules since school has started. It has been really fun to spend that extra one-one-one time with him. He has just recently started enjoying reading a little more which has been fun. He is also learning all his animal sounds. In the beginning he would only liked the animals that growled, but now he does quite a few. His favorites are a rooster, cat, bird, monkey and bear. He really doesn't like saying the sheep sound. 

 We all love this little boy so much. He is so good at showing his love for us as well. After Hailee goes down to bed if he is still awake he sneaks into her room to try and wake her up. When we go pick up Todd all we have to do is drive into the parking lot and James is saying "daddy, daddy." He gets the biggest smile on his face when he sees Todd come out. I get random kisses all day long. I love spending time with him during the day. He loves life and everything is so exciting to him, it's hard to not catch his excitement. I wish I could just video tape him all day long, he is constantly doing fun things. I can't imagine our life without this little guy. Before he was born our life was so happy and I wondered what adding a new little one would be like. It is so much better than I even imagined. It didn't change our family, it just added to it. Now we couldn't imagine life without him.

Friends

Last Friday I got together with one of my good friends here in Oregon. The goal was to can about 80 pounds of pears. As they were coming over I was wondering how far we would get in the canning process. I had heard that pears were harder to can than peaches and I wasn't sure how James was going to do. My friend's little boy is adorable, very obedient and nice little boy, but usually when we've done things together we've had Hailee with us. I wasn't worried about Spencer, I was worried about James.

I shouldn't have worried at all. Spencer and James played so well together. They played cars, drew with sidewalk chalk, and had a great time playing. Kristin and I got all of our pears done in one day. It was so much fun. It is so nice to have a canning friend, it makes canning so nice. But even better than a canning friend is when they have good kids for your kids to be friends with. Spencer is a great example for James and I am always happy when they get to play together.

We got so many pears done. I love being so close to the farms here in Oregon. We got these pears for about 45 cents a pound. I think it is something we'll do again next year...up next tomatoes.

Bad Habits

Over the summer Hailee started developing a bad habit. She has been reading up a storm. She had over 5000 minutes of reading, as best as I could guess. The main problem I had in keeping track of her reading was Hailee would stay up late finishing her book. A lot of the books that she started reading just that night. I discovered this by mistake one morning when we were taking Todd to a dentist appointment. He just had a teething cleaning and I wanted the car that day so I told Hailee to grab her book (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) that she had just started the evening before. She told me that she already finished it. I didn't really believe her until I questioned her and sure enough she had stayed up reading until she finished her book.

Over the summer she read so many books, most of them several times over. Some of her favorites were:

• Magic Treehouse
• Charlotte's Web
• Ella Enchanted
• James and the Giant Peach (as well as the other Roald Dahl books)
• Mr. Popper's Penguins
• Ramona Series

Now that school has started again Hailee's late night reading habits are becoming a little bit of a problem. Just tonight I found her reading Beezus and Ramona at 9:00 pm well past her bedtime. She has to be at school at 7:40 am every morning and staying up past bedtime is getting a little harder. Of course when she gets into a good book it's so hard to put it down. I'm really at a loss of how to break her of this new little habit. I really thought she was doing good and going to bed, but I guess we still have a little ways to go.

Even though she is probably a little tired, she is loving first grade. She comes home excited every day and thinks she is the luckiest girl since she gets 2 recesses every day, PE twice a week, music twice a week, and library once a week (although she would really like library twice a week too). She is such a happy, tired little girl.

First Grade

Fall is definitely in the air: the leaves are starting to change, there is a cool crisp in the air in the morning, the rain has come back and it's time to start school.

Today was Hailee's first day back to school. I think we're the very last ones to start this year. Hailee was so excited for school to start. When deciding what she wanted to wear she decided she wanted to wear the same thing that Cambria, her cousin, wore on her first day of school. Grandma always sends back to school packages and since Hailee and Cambria are just about the same size they have a lot of matching outfits. She was so thrilled to be wearing the same outfit as Cambria.

Hailee is in a blended class this year. There are 1st graders and 2nd graders in her class. Her teacher is Mrs. Fletcher.

Yesterday afternoon we were getting everything set out and ready for school to start when I noticed that Hailee's hair was getting too long. We decided to trim it up a bit for the beginning of school. As I was cutting her hair she decided she wanted to try a few bangs like I had. She was more than pleased with the results and I can't believe how much older it made her look. I can't believe my baby is growing up so fast.

  I just loved Hailee's desk. Her school opened in the 1940's and I think her desk is from that time period. When we were leaving I was telling Todd I loved how retro her desk was and he said "It's not retro, it's just old." He's right I'm sure it is original to the school. It looks like a miniature office desk.

Well we dropped off Hailee and then Todd and James was just left with me. He did better than I thought he would. He played and got in to mischief as usual, but the difference was he was calling for me. Every time I turned around he would say "mommy...mommy" It was too funny. I rarely hear my name being called. Half way through the morning he realized that it was 'safe' to start getting into Hailee's things. Then it was time for his nap and a little break. It's kind of weird getting used to having one kid home with me, but I think it will be good for both of us.

Soon it was time to go pick up Hailee. As you can see in the picture above James was thrilled to see his sister. Hailee on the other hand had had a rough end to the day. Just about a minute before it was time to go she realized she had lost her tinkerbell lunch box. It was tragic. She was in tears for the whole ride home. I was able to calm her down, reassure her that we would find it, and get her to tell me about the rest of the day. She LOVED school. She was so thrilled to have 2 recesses AND  P.E. She loved her teacher and had a good time all day. Overall she had a perfect day with the exception of loosing her lunch box. Her teacher called about an hour after school finished to tell us they did in fact find it her lunch box. She had put it in the wrong basket and the other teacher found it after school. She told me that she was still trying to finish lunch when it was time to be done. She rushed out and put it in a basket by the door. I think tomorrow she'll be a little more careful about which basket she put it in. Funny girl. I'm just glad everything else was exciting for her.