Thread: We need some updates on the kids!!!

Updates updates updates!! Give one

I agree! How are your Snow Peas doing?

Eli is insane.

That's all I have to say.












Seriously though, some days I think he belongs in a mental institution! He is nuts! Or maybe just....TWO.

His speech is still delayed but he is doing much better. He has many more words than he used to - around his 2nd birthday he only had about 10 words, and he used only 4-5 of them regularly. Now that he is 2.5, I'd say his word count is closer to 40 words, and he uses them regularly! He is starting to make 2-3 word sentences such as "No, mine!" "More please" and "I want na-na" (banana). This is all just from my work with him, he has not had any speech therapy. We had a consult with a speech therapist earlier in the year but we never actively pursued going in to the program.

On the other hand, his physical prowess is as good as any 4-5 year old! He can climb ANYTHING. He climbs things at the park that my 4 year old DD won't climb. At the indoor bounce house here in town they have a giant slide that you get up to by climbing a 10 foot vertical wall, using only handholds and a rope. He scales that 10 foot wall like Spiderman, using only the handholds for his hands and feet! He is pretty amazing. He has no fear. He loves to hang from things as well - if you put him on top of monkey bars he will grab a bar with both hands and just launch himself through the bars to hang by his arms! He is still definitely a little monkey, as we suspected when he started walking at 8 months.

He is a pretty demanding child. He is always calling me to come help him or get him something - at least he calls "Mommy!" now instead of just yelling at me! But he is a sweetheart too, with a big smile that melts my heart!

His favorite toys are any type of cars, and he has a few favorite stuffed animals that he sleeps with. His favorite movies are Curious George, Cars, and Toy Story.

We finally got rid of his soother 2 months ago! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, since he was very attached to it, but we only had 2-3 rough days, and after a week he forgot about it. Now I will feel more comfortable letting baby #3 have one in November, since Eli will not have had one since June.

Anyways, that's all for Mr. Eli! He is a big bundle of crazy, always yelling gibberish and blabbing at the top of his lungs all day! He drives me nuts, but I love him to pieces!

I'm not very positive right now about Daniel.

He, too, has been behind in communication skills. Though, Like Eli, it's starting to improve. I am pretty sure he has food allergies, but his stupid ped doesn't think so and refuses to do the testing. I'm gonna ask my doc about it after I pop my baby out. At this point I'm not sure who I want the new baby to see cause I obviously remembered the pediatricians wrong when I recalled who I liked at the clinic.

We've officially hit the terrible two's. His tantrums are the worst I've seen in a VERY long time. We were spoiled with Jacob. Daniel honestly acts all possessed... he screams and yells at the top of his lungs you can see the veins popping out all over his face and neck, meanwhile he hits (hard) and kicks and throws the closest items at you. I honestly think I have bruises from the bomb I disabled just 45 minutes ago. And these fits last at LEAST 10 minutes each. Then, of course, when he finally calms down, he's shaking really bad from the adrenaline. *sigh*

I have NO clue how this is going to work with a newborn coming into the mix soon. I pray that the newborn is "used" to him enough to not be too affected by his fits and stuff. Otherwise, I'm gonna need a nanny (yeah right).

A short while after I posted on here, I got a good call. There is a program in our state called Early Childhood Intervention. It is state mandated and regulated and is, therefore, free. Daniel was recommended to them for evaluation on his delays in communication and fine motor skills.

She is going to call me back at the beginning of next week to do an over the phone developmental questionnaire (the one the ped sent in to her was not the closest age wise to him) and then we will schedule a meeting for him to be evaluated to developmental delays and possible autism. finally a professional who is hearing my concerns and moving forward with my requests.

Wow, Janelle, I'm so glad that happened for you! Hopefully you can get him whatever kind of help he needs!

You'll be in my thoughts over the next few months as you adjust to life with 3 little monkeys!

Eli is SUCH a little man! he's so big! i can't believe it!

Janelle- Daniel will probably start to behave oh.... during your first visit with that program LOL. I enrolled Ellie in Early Head Start last year because she STILL wasnt walking at 19 months.... and after their first visit she started walking. booger.

Ellie is no angel. makes me feel right at home with you guys talking about your kids. but she's always been a little behind most of the kids with her language, but nothing far enough off the charts for me to worry, and when she hit a big language milestone about 3 months ago SOOO many things started to go better! like she can tell me what she needs now!

I do think i'm the only mama still nursing a snow pea right now, and that was one thing that we've made progress with, she throws fits when she's tired and wants to nurse and didnt know what to do to get it... and words really helped her tell me what she needed and helped her understand when she had to wait. and waiting is not good with her.

And she's still a night owl, wants to go to bed after midnight and would sleep in past 10 AM if i let her. After the last 3 hellish nights though, i'm working on getting her phased into an earleir wake-up, as early as i can stand it, which is not very early after i fight her all night to get to sleep!

She is learning to count (and i feel rather pathetic when i remember other kids were doing that over a year ago!) and still misses numbers but she's always doing 1-2 or 1-2-3 to herself. she loves to steal my flip flops, which she calls flops LOL, and according to the shoe store she's in a 9 1/2 shoe now! she's in mostly 3T clothes depending on brand, and a few 4T as well.

We are working on learning the potty right now. i can get her to go several times a day, and she will take off her diaper as soon as its wet, even a dribble, so i know she's almost ready, but she doesnt really know BEFORE she's going except maybe once a day. we have a sticker reward system. I've been getting her straight to the potty first thing in the morning and after nap... when she takes one.....

She is sweeter than pie sometimes though, she always wants to make people better when they are upset, and a hug from a 2 yr old does do wonders! Right now she's terrorizing her uncle while i'm at work. i've had to pick up full time, which isnt even regular weekday shifts or anything, because DH isnt making much right now with his job so we have to find any babysitter we can.

In other news we are finally looking at buying a house, DH's recent job change made us ineligible for any bank loan though, so we are going through a long process to get a USDA rural development loan. And all the while praying the house we found doesnt sell before we are ready to put an offer in on it. A different house would do, but this one meets almost every single one of our needs, we'd have to compromise or wait a long time to find anything else.

and Bubba is just about the greatest kid EVER! he pretty much sleeps through the night, which i don't expect Ellie to do, i can't, I don't even STTN and i'm an adult, he usually wakes up at 6 am to eat, and of course i don't get up then LOL, but i should. He is giving me none of the trouble that Ellie did, she was one of those eat like a newborn for a whole year babies, and he's always been more efficient, he can sit unsupported and eats all sorts of solids right now. Just turned 6 months old and he can do a bit of the roll and wiggle but he's not crawling quite yet. Ellie did that at almost a year so he's still way ahead of her. Ellie loves him to peices and he loves her too, she can be smashing him and he still smiles because she's playing with him and that makes him happy.

and i'm happy to be back to my pre-bubba weight, which means i still have 10 lbs to go to my pre Ellie weight, and more than that to get to where i should be. but we're getting there. I had quite a bit more pain at the end of my pregnancy with Bubba than with Ellie so i am determined to get into great shape before i consider a #3, which DH claims he's done but i know how the first 2 happened and i know it will happen again LOL.

Good idea! Nice to hear how the kids are doing.
Griffin is great, he's a happy, pretty even-tempered guy. We are dealing with occasional temper tantrums now, which is a new thing for him, he's always been pretty agreeable and easy to re-direct. He's starting to tell me "NO!" sometimes, and screaming when he doesn't get what he wants. It doesn't last long, and we're trying to never cave in to his tears. It's funny, when he sees other kids throw TT's, he just stares in amazement and asks if they are OK. It's still a novel concept for him, screaming and throwing oneself on the ground as a method of getting something. Most of the time, he's still baffled by it.

We switched to a "big boy" bed this week, because he has out-grown the pack n' play at my parents house, so we put him in a twin bed there, and he LOVED it and stayed in bed all night, so we decided to go ahead and switch at home. At first, he didn't like it. He asked for his crib after the first night, but now he's pretty excited about it.

We've backslided on the potty training. For a while, he was doing well, but lately he refuses to even sit on the potty. We're going to try some rewards. He doesn't like candy and stickers aren't enough incentive, apparently, so this week I'm going to pick up a little bag of those cheap fake bugs or worms or something and he'll get one whenever he goes on the potty until he is back to using it regularly.

He is a great swimmer! He can't actually swim yet, but loves the water, knows how to hold his breath and can hold on to something and let his feet float up and knows all the swimming motions. I'd guess by next summer he'll be able to swim.

He's talking well. People other than DH and I don't always understand everything he says ("woad" for "road," "scoot-th for "scootch"), but he speaks in complete sentences and has finally figured out pronouns. For a long time he referred to himself as "you" (since we always called him "you.") Now he says me and I, and calls other people you.

He's very friendly and says hi to everyone, and will keep saying it until the person finally says hi back He makes friends everywhere he goes, but not everyone appreciates being chattered at by a 2 year old while trying to grocery shop.

We are TTC #2. Our neighbors have a 2 y.o. who G is best friends with, and they just had a new baby. We asked him if he wanted us to have another baby, and he said "no way!" I guess he sees what goes on next door

Maci is doing really good. We have left the terrible 2's and were in the emotional 3's. She is really starting to express her feelings. If she gets in trouble, she pouts and cries. She is very dramatic and loud. She has no inside voice. Im constantly chasing after her.
This summer we spent much of our time at our local splash pad and the zoo. For Christmas, Im taking her back to Disneyworld. She just adored all the characters and didn't want to get off the rides. As far as development, she is really smart. She knows her colors, 1-10 and she's starting to say her ABC's. She has a few problems with pronounciations but that was to be expected. I was the same and turned out ok without speech therapy. She is going through a little seperation anxiety when I drop her off at Sunday School. When she does calm down, she tells her teacher about everything including the dog pooping in the floor. It's so embarrasing when they tell me. I hope they don't believe everything. She is starting to sleep through the night and her diet stinks. She hates veggies and fruit. Overall, she's pretty happy and will not be getting a brother or sister anytime soon. She may be the one and only. Im content and I don't know how I could start over rasing another "Maci". She has worn this momma out.

Taylor is wild and crazy but loving at the same time. He is totally going through the terrible 2's. He will throw fits at the drop of a hat. He screams and throws things. He tests his limits all the time when we are outside which is all the time. He really loves a tball set I bought off one of the local for sale groups on facebook the other day. He thinks its the best and hits the balls pretty far. He occasionally has issues sharing with his sisters or my friends little girl I watch. He is starting to want to help with Sydney and trying to be nice to her after he is mean which is interesting to watch. He loves his dinosaurs, trucks and animals. I got him a scooter that he loves to ride and actually rides it correct. Im still working with him on peddling his bikes.

We are still working with his early access teacher who we have had since he was 6ish weeks old and just started with a speech therapist coming to. We are moving into the transition phase on early access since he turns 3 on N.Y.E. and will no longer qualify for their services but will for the speech therapist.(s.t.) The testing that the s.t. did on him on her initial visit showed that he has a delay in his speech which yes we know since thats what is the only qualifier for him now but it is a delay at 22 months(I think) He is not putting 2 words together and normally not telling me what he wants he has about 25ish words. The s.t. will be coming out 2 times a month for now to work with him and for now she will be coming with his early access teacher so she can get to know him. The other day though he did tell my brother "Bye Jake" when we dropped him off and then when I told my mom about it he said "Hi Nana" so its there its a matter of he doesnt use words together. I think he is also saying love you mommy but I havent fully figured it out but thats what it sounds like since he says it right after I say I love you Taylor. I am working to try and get him to say things like my cup, my pants, go bye bye, my snack. Its not there yet but eventually will be. Im not totally worried about it but it is nice to have someone else helping it along. He has come along way since we have started working with them. He has started talking more though since he had his tonsils and adenoids out in March and his teacher even said that. Because of the speech delay we have not been working on potty training BUT since the little girl I watch is trying and she is younger(turns 2 next month) it might help.

Trinity starts preschool soon, not sure when havent gotten the call yet on when she will start or when we will tour the school. She is such a smart little girl she knows everything she is supposed to know for prek and most/all that she needs for kindergarten. Shes so excited to start back at school again. She is such a helpful little girl. She loves helping me cook/bake or laundry. She will help get things I need when asked. She has my temper and on a 4 year old its horrible but after the fact its kind of funny. Right now she is actually gone for the weekend with my mom she went to the races friday night and is doing family time with my moms family the rest of the weekend I guess. They went to some pizza place today called Incredible Pizza that they have the main incredible people in it and she had a blast with them and its like chuck e cheese with their games and stuff. Ive seen some pictures and it looks awesome.

Sydney is 14 months old now. She is almost as tall as Taylor and into everything. She loves playing with her brother and sister and my friends daughter. She is so easy going though its nice. She has her moments where she will throw her fits but other then that she is such a happy baby. She is learning to crawl up stairs and loves the ones up the ones on the play equipment we have. She is learning new words and is so into books and everything.

Had another phone conversation with the woman at Early Childhood Intervention. We did the 30 month evaluation form (ASQ) that she wanted to do last week. She says he's only slightly behind in some areas, but has some concerning things that she would like to push through to evaluation despite his only being slightly behind. I gave her my nephew's name and she is going to look up his file to see if he was evaluated with them or not. She said his name is not familiar, but it was 4 years ago and she does see a lot of kids.

So they will call me back later this week to schedule his face to face evaluations.

And we are buying security locks for our doors today. Yesterday he let our cat inside the house at 4am without us realizing he was awake. And this morning we caught him wandering around the house in the wee hours. He's not sleep walking, he's just awake and bored and doesn't bother waking us anymore. Since he can open the doors now I'm concerned he'll go outside and explore without us realizing he's even out of bed. The baby monitor isn't picking up his getting out of bed. If it weren't for my lack of good sleep because of the pregnancy, we might not have even known he was up this morning.