Fall pictures

I had planned on doing the boy's fall pictures yesterday. Wanted to take them outside but unfortunately it started raining again. So we did Aidan and Andrew inside and will hopefully get Alex's done this weekend.

Our October News

Alex is doing awesome at school. He's had one accident so far, but nothing a change of underwear couldn't fix. Has had a few meltdowns when other kids got a toy he wanted to play with, but that's expected considering he hasn't been in a daycare/school setting before. He is learning a lot which I am very happy about. The 4 yrs he was home with me he learned quite a bit, I taught him tons, but he is not the type of kid to sit down and learn unless in a group setting. He is counting to at least 30 now, which kind of seems bad for a 4 yr old, but I could never get him to count past 10 until he started school. He is starting to sight read some words-like STOP and can tell me how to spell more simple words. And the singing. He never was a singer much, didn't sing the ABC song ever, but now he is singing his ABCs all the time, singing nursery rhymes he has learned. His drawing is becoming a lot more defined, not as much scribbling. You can definitely tell he is thriving in school.

Aidan is doing great too. He goes to Tech for a speech eval on Oct 26 and I believe he was accepted into their speech program. I don't think they will eval him and then tell me he doesn't qualify or they don't have room. I guess we will find out more info when we go to the eval. He is mimicking everything we do-dancing, talking, all kinds of things. He is definitely at a fun, but frusturating age. He absolutely loves to dance to the Backyardigans and Yo Gabba Gabba. Having some jealousy with Andrew but also doesn't realize that Andrew does get hurt. But overall his behavior is getting a lot better-not as much tantrums and frusturation. I made him a book the other day that has cutouts of pictures of animals, toys, foods, faces, etc to help him learn the name to associate with the picture. I am no where near done with the book as I just started it and am trying not to buy magazines to rip only a few pages out, so if any of my readers would like to browse some of their magazines to see if they have anything they could send, that would be great. We are basically doing zoo animals, farm animals, house pets, every day foods, everyday household items, everyday outdoor items, face features(eyes, nose, ears)-I have eyes and mouth covered though, that was quite easy. Oh, Aidan also got tubes a few weeks ago b/c of the constant ear infections. I'm not sure if it is b/c his eustachean(did I spell that right) tubes are just too small-which is usually the case) or if it is b/c he had the implant surgery-seems like he had 1-2 ear infections before his first surgery and then from 1-2 yrs old had maybe 7, and then after his 2nd surgery(in June) has had 3-4 more. So who knows if he would have had it no matter what, probably so, but tubes are in. Has post op the other day, one ear was clear, one ear was filled with fluid. So he is on antibiotics and ear drops. He rarely gets ammoxicillan anymore, I think he has built up a resistance to it so we have to go for the heavier stuff. We go back in 2 weeks to make sure the infection is clear, if it isn't, I have no clue what step is next. Maybe allergy testing to see if that is a reason behind all the fluid/infections.

Andrew is also doing really well. He is 14 mths old now, walks so fast, very close to running. Has 5 teeth with at least 1 more coming in. Finally sleeping throuh the night for the last month, however the past few days has been waking up. He is always trying to copy his big brother, which is so cute to watch, but also scary ad he isn't the big boy he thinks he is. He's a good eater so far, seems Alex is my only picky eater right now, he loves cucumbers, bell peppers, blueberries, blackberries, and a lot of other things.

First day of school

Yes, it has been a few weeks since school started but I am finally getting a chance to post about Alex's first day of school. He had a great first day, was very excited to go, is loving his teacher, except when she moves his name from green(good) to yellow(a warning) and then to red(not good). He begs to go to school on the weekend and this wkd is labor day wkd so no school on monday and then there is a teacher inservice on Tuesday/Wednesday, and we will be still in New Orleans on Thursday, so he will probably be rather unhappy that he only gets to go once this week.
In his uniform

Andrew is 1

Andrew turned yesterday. We celebrated with pizza and cake with our local family. He had a really fun time and really loved the cake. Andrew is walking a lot now but still likes to crawl, it is so much faster! He has 3 teeth, and 1 more trying to pop through. He has several words-mama, dada, byebye, nightnight, uhoh and maybe a few more I can't remember. He loves climbing onto everything and has figured out how to get on and off the couch.

Pictures from his birthday:



Smash cake

Tooth #3 for Andrew

Andrew popped his 3rd tooth a few days ago, around the 7th of August. Quite different from Aidan who didn't pop his first one until 13 mths.

Aidan's 2 yr checkup

We had Aidan's 2 yr checkup today, almost 1 mth after his 2nd birthday. He weighs 28 lbs, is 35 1/4" long. He also has a double ear infection, he just had an ear infection 3 weeks ago. We have an consult with an ENT on September 8th to discuss tubes. Talked about development and he is spot on for most things--he walks, runs, climbs, jumps, can go up and down stairs, shows me what he wants-most of the time. He is on a 10-11mth level for speech-which is right about where we expect him since he has only had one ear turned on for 11 mths. He has a few words-mom, uh oh, tries Up, tries hand(an), tried TaDa(ah), occasionally he will clap when we say YAY, and will wave when we say BYEBYE--those are without visual cues. Still a ways to go, but we will get there, right now I'm trying to teach him names of objects--working on dog, ball, kitty, and several others. English is like a foreign language to him-he hears what we say he just can't make sense of it yet. Our speech therapist is supposed to be contacting Louisiana Tech to see if they can give him more therapy there. We should know something next week sometime if our ST remembers to call. If she forgets then I will call them later next week. I'm confident that will take him though as around here the chance to work and learn from a Cochlear implant kid doesn't come very often. So I'm sure we can persuade them to do therapy with him.

First steps

Andrew is starting to take steps, he has done as many as 4 single steps, I think me have a walker in a few weeks.