Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Milestones

Well clearly I have not kept my New Years Resolution to blog more.  I blame this on the fact that either Elijah or I or both of us have been sick pretty much since the first of the year.  He finally got over this horrid cold about a week ago but unfortunately that was right after I managed to catch it from him.  I am better now but still coughing and blowing my nose more than normal.  And of course while I had the cold I wasn't feeling too nauseated (Thank you, Jesus!) but now that it's gone, more or less, my nausea has returned with a vengeance.  Like last night I got to throw up my dinner.  Yay!  If I have a third child maybe it will be a girl and I won't be as nauseated.  I kind of doubt it, but one can always dream.

Anyway, as a result of all the illness around our house we have become WAY too attached to the television.  So now that we're well, I'm trying desperately to make it a rule that we only watch Sesame Street in the mornings and a Veggie Tales video in the afternoon while I make dinner.  I'm sure that's probably more than any kid should watch, but sadly it's a great reduction in the amount of our TV viewing of late.

Of course, that means that we must fill up the time doing other things like breaking lamps, climbing on things we shouldn't, or playing with toys.  I have been trying to think of things to do outside of the house but that gets difficult since he's really still too small to play on the playground.  Today we are going to try Science City at Union Station.  I have been told there is a toddler area.  I hope this is accurate because we're going after his nap, which usually ends around 3.  It makes total sense, right?  Now that we're not sick anymore we should visit a place where tons of toddlers waddle around and put their grimy hands on everything, right?!

Anyway, we're going today because it's right next to Mike's (aka Daddy's) work and when he gets off we're going to meet him for dinner and then go to the Ash Wednesday service at church, which starts at 5:30.  So it's either go meet him for dinner or not see him until after service.  But onto the title of this blog.

Here's a picture of Elijah riding his car to break up the monotony.


If you've read any of this blog or have talked to me at any length about Elijah you know that he reaches every milestone at about the time I'm thinking he's never going to reach it and there's something wrong with him.  Well, I have been thinking that about his speech for quite awhile.  He babbles like nonstop but as for actual real words, there aren't that many.  And the ones he does use I'm not even sure he knows what they mean.  On the other hand, it's clear that he understands at least 80% of what we say to him.  So I have no idea what's going on.  But instead of focusing on that, I'm starting to wonder why there aren't notable other milestones, such as climbing.  Because he has that one down.  In fact, just when I think there's nothing in an area to climb on, he finds something to climb on.  Or what about breaking something?  Because he broke the floor lamp in our living room.  We managed to fix it, but still.

Or how about shapes and puzzles?  Because he's insanely good at that stuff.  Not like to where I'd be concerned about austism, just good at figuring out which piece goes where and what shapes go in which holes in his shapes ball.  I wish I could video record him doing these things but generally when I pull out the camera he is more interested in the camera than in what he was previously doing.

Here he is putting the cow piece in the right spot.
 
You probably can't tell, but that's the blue cube-shaped block he's put in the right spot.
 
And as you can see, the triangle shape is going in the right spot.

He also has a shape ball that has way more complicated shapes in it (i.e. hexagon, pentagon, trapezoid, etc.) but it's upstairs and I'm too lazy to go to the trouble of trying to get a picture of him playing with it.  Suffice it to say that he can usually find where the shapes go and if he doesn't it's usually because he has the trapezoid upside down or he confused the pentagon spot with the hexagon spot or something else equally understandable.  So instead of complaining and worrying about the lack of speech, I'm going to praise and brag on my kid for being really good at shapes.  It's just a different sort of intelligence, right?  Maybe this is where he's gifted and he's just not interested in talking all that much.  At least I hope so.

Monday, February 6, 2012

What's Been Going On

Okay, so I have been a major slacker lately, not just in blogging but in about everything.  But of course, if I slack off in everything, blogging is included in that.  Part of the reason is because being pregnant SUCKS!  I mean, I love feeling baby kicks and I love the end result of the baby, but I feel tired and nauseated all the time.  That's right, I'm 22 weeks and still nauseated.  I was nauseous from week 6 until he came out of me with Elijah.  I was hoping this time I'd get to be like all the other women in the world and only be sick until second trimester but alas, no such luck.  So I'm just expecting to be popping zofran until this one is born, too.

On top of my being sick, Elijah has been ill off and on since before Christmas.  For awhile there he was coughing so much and waking up crying so much that it was like we were revisiting his old non-sleep days and I was about to rip my hair out.  Anyway, he's sleeping at night again, thankfully, but he's still coughing.  It's been going on since just after the first of the year and I'm really tired of it.  He doesn't seem like he has a cold and I don't think he has anything contagious, he just coughs all the effing time!  Part of me wants to insist that his pediatrician test him for asthma but what good would that do?  They can only give us inhaled steroids for that, right?  And we tried giving him that before and he fought so much that I don't think he really breathed anything in.  On the other hand, since we haven't had a real freeze this year, maybe it's allergy-related.  And it's not like he can't breathe, he just coughs all the time.  So I'm really not sure what to do about that.

But in the spirit of getting back to blogging, I have decided to run through a quick update of what's been going on lately.  So first of all, all the sickness, but now onto things that are way more fun.  January 25th was my niece's first birthday so Elijah and I went to OKC for her party and stayed for the week.  Here are some cute pictures from said party.

 Kiddos playing with bubbles.

 Elijah checking out the presents.

 Elijah & Cousin Addi playing with her drum.

 Addi looking inquisitive about the presents.

 Addi opening presents.

Addi devouring birthday cake.

In other news, since we are having another baby in June, and since Elijah got an overabundance of toys for Christmas and we're running out of room for all toys, I bought something to keep the toys in the living room organized.  This was needed due to lack of storage space for toys and also simply because we need to start keeping the toys and doing most of our playing downstairs since once the new baby comes, we won't be able to be upstairs playing if new baby is sleeping.  And since I am mildly OCD about keeping things clutter-free, I got really excited about having this in my house.



It was on sale for $40 at Target.  And I had to put it together and buy the cloth drawer things separate, but still I think it was a good deal.  I was planning to go looking at thrift stores for something I could repaint or something but I think after all the looking around and refurbishing it would be worth the $40 I spent at Target.  Fortunately there is still plenty of room for new toys so we can add more as the kids get more toys (which I am certain they will).

Finally the biggest news of all came today at the doctor's office when we had my sonogram and discovered we are having another little boy!  The sonogram technician got a shot right between his little legs and even I could tell there was a little peepers poking out between them.  So we get to reuse all of Elijah's old clothes and I now get to start decorating the guest room to convert it into another nursery.  I will definitely take pictures and blog about that as it occurs.  (At least I plan to.)

Then I felt like a rock star because I managed to get my scanner working so I was able to scan the sonogram pictures we have.  I know it may not seem like much, but this scanner is a pain in the heiney every time I have to install it or reinstall (which I have had to do several times) and this time I had to search for drivers online and then download them and then find the hardware manager thing and tell it to update the drivers and then get the software working and then actually uninstall the scanner and reinstall it... Anyway, it was a job and now it's done and working.  So I'm pleased.  But no one cares about that except me, what you really want to see are the sonogram pictures.

 He was trying to suck his fingers a lot.

Here's the naughty bits picture.  It may not be as obvious here but you could really tell those are his legs and his little man part poking out between them when we saw it in the doctor's office.

Another profile shot.

Okay, I better get to making dinner.  I will try not to take so long between blogs from now on.