Will and Ben have started baseball season. They are both enjoying it and have improved so much over last year. Brian is having fun playing with them and has decided he wants to coach next season.
A breif explanation of the picture of Ben in the tiger suit on the next post- he had drawn those stripes on himself at school with marker, complete with stripes on the tummy. As soon as we got home, he wanted to put the costume on. I thought it was hilarious and wanted to take a picture of him. He didn't want me to, so I had to bribe him with a dollar.
The Sponge Bob invitation is the invite we are using for Will's birthday party. I ordered it custom from someone on ebay.
It's been so long since I've posted anything new that I thought I'd do a general kid update.
Sam is talking up a blue streak. The speech therapist is now coming to our house once a week for an hour to work with him and he's made incredible progress. Talking in four word sentences and learning new words everyday. He's very much your typical, into everything, 2 year old! When you ask him a question, he pauses, says, "ummmm", thinks about it, then answers you. Very cute. His newest saying is, "awww maaan" with perfect inflection in his voice. He is also learning his colors. He asked me for pink paint the other day and would not be tricked when I gave him orange. I had to go back into the closet and drag out the red and white and mix it up for him. He will be starting at Country Village preschool in the fall. It's closer to our house than the older boys preschool is so it will be more convienent for us. It's a great place with several huge playgrounds, a science room with lots of birds, reptiles, and even a chinchilla, and a "barn" area with a pig and chickens. It looks like a fun place to be if you are a 3 year old!
Ben is graduating from preschool next week. *sniff sniff* I can't believe my baby is going to Kindergarten! He's so excited to be going to the same school as his big brother. I have requested that he be put in Mrs. Shields class, the teacher that Will had for K. He introduced himself to her on Friday at the school carnival. He has been really interested in letters, numbers, and writing lately. He has workbooks that he will sit and do for over an hour. He asks me to spell out words for him and he writes them down and is even starting to sound out a few. He's really going to be ready for Kindergarten! There are several siblings of Will's friends from Kindergarten that will be in his class too, which will be fun.
Will is almost done with first grade. He can read just about anything now and has learned to tell time and add and subtract. We have been working on his very first science report, about Triceritops. He was instructed to write a couple of paragraphs on it and one of the sentences was supposed to be his favorite thing about the Triceritops. He said that his favorite thing was that if he lived in the time of the dinosaurs, he would be able to catch a Triceritops because they don't run very fast. We also made a paper mache model of it and he painted it and glued on wiggly eyes. Will has lost his two bottom teeth and the top ones are loose. It would be cute if they waited until December to come out but it will probably happen this summer.
Sam, walking into the room: "Poop. Poooop".
Mommy, excitedly: "Sammy, let's poop in the potty".
Sammy, wrinkling his nose: "No. Nooooo. Bapa. Poop bapa".
I so thought he was ready to potty train. He tells me and wants to be changed as soon as he goes. Apparently though, he would rather poop in his "bapa" than in the potty seat I have ready for him in the bathroom. Hopefully he will not follow in big brother Will's footsteps and not potty train until he's 4 and a half!
We recently found out that Sam had fluid in his ears that was preventing him from hearing clearly. He was sent for a hearing test since he is language delayed. We noticed the language delay around 18 months age or even sooner, but decided to wait until age 2, based on the Dr.'s advice to do testing because he may have just been a late talker. Even after age 2 when we started going through the process of having a full evaluation, most people told us that he was probably fine, that the evaluation probably wasn't necessary and that they knew lots of later talkers. Something was setting right with me about it though, so we forged ahead.
I never would have guessed that it would have been his hearing that was the problem. I did note that he screeched a lot, but thought that was due to frustration over not being able to talk. We ended up seeing a specialist for him who told us that he needed tubes in his ears. It has been a little over a week since he's had the tubes in and what a difference!! The first couple of days I didn't notice a change, but about the third or the fourth day, it was like night and day.
He is having a language explosion. He picks up new words everyday and is even stringing two and even three words together. We couldn't be happier with his progress. It's amazing what a little modern medicine can do! The operation took all of 10 mintues, maybe less, and I was back with him.
His new word for today was snow. We all went to Pittsford park because yesterday they had dumped a huge truckload of snow there for Snow Fest. They had games and sled rides down the hill that they put snow on. We had a birthday party to go to yesterday, so we didn't make it, but today was even better because it was FREE! We didn't have anything for them to use to slide, but a bunch of kids had brought sleds and boogy boards and were kind enough to share with the kids who didn't have one. It was great. There was an older boy there who was really great with the younger kids, taking him down the hill on his boogy board. Sam grabbed daddy by the hand and took him off to the play area of the park while mom watched the older two in the snow. They slid down that hill for over an hour and didn't want to leave for lunch.
We are planning to take them to see real snow next month since daddy has a friend who owns a cabin in the mountains where we can stay. That should be a lot of fun for the boys, as they have never been to the snow before. If today was any indication of how much they'll enjoy it, I'd say it will be well worth the trip!! I just wish I had brought my camera.
they do something really sweet. First I'll say that I'm really glad that we chose (uh, okay, well not exactly chose but I will spare the details) the child spacing that we did. Having Will and Ben so close in age has mostly been a blessing. They enjoy a lot of the same things and play together a lot. They also spend a not insignificant amount of thier time together beating each other up. They have been doing a lot of this lately, so I was really happy to hear this exchange this morning.
Me: Will, Matt has invited you to spend the night at his house Friday night. Did you want to go?
Will: Spend the night?! Yay!
He then runs off to find Ben and says, "Benny we're spending the night at Matt's house on Friday!"
Me: Well, actually honey just you are invited to spend the night at Matt's house. He's your friend from school so his mom just invited you.
Will: Awwwww. If Benny doesn't come I will miss him. I miss Ben.
See, they do love each other!
Just a quick funny Sam story.
One of Sam's many silly nicknames is "bones". This stemmed from when he was a baby and we started calling him "ham" because on his first Christmas I said he was the size of a little Christmas ham. The name stuck and morphed into "hammy", "hammy bones", "sammy bones" and just plain "bones".
Sam is learning his body parts right now. We'll ask him to point to his nose or eye and he (usually) will do it. Well, for the past few days he has been pointing to his head and saying, "bowl" or something that sounded similar. Brian was joking, saying he was saying the Spanish word for hair, "pelo". Yesterday Brian said, "Bones" talking to Sammy, and he pointed to himself and said, "bones". Yes, we are saving for his future therapy sessions!
This morning I was lying in bed with Sam and Brian had gotton up with the boys and turned on the t.v. for them. Ben came in when Brian left for work and said he was hungry and wanted breakfast. I told him that we didn't have any waffles left (his usual) but that he could have cereal or eggs. He said that he wanted something with syrup on it. I joked with him that we could put syrup on his eggs and he said, "No! That is going to be gross. I'm going to give you a bite and you are going to think it's nasty!". So I asked him about putting a little syrup on his cereal. He thought about it for a minute and then very seriously said, while pointing his finger at me, "Ok. I will try it. But if I don't like it I will try something else. I will try candy". Yeah, nice try bud!! This child cracks me up!
Kids do not seem to support Darwin's theory about survival of the fittest. If I had a nickel for every time I have saved my kids lives over the past 6 and a half years, I would be rich. They put small, shiney objects into thier mouths (Have you ever seen what a penny looks like in the x- ray of a 4 year old's abdomen? I have.) , they attempt to eat "treasures" out of the cat's litter box when you are not looking, and they dart out in front of moving vehicles if given half a chance. Last week, as we were getting ready to go to the park, the kids and I were in the carport and Will was bouncing a ball. I heard a car start up, my mommy radar kicked into gear and I said, "Will, please put the ball in the car and get in and buckle up. If that ball goes out into the street and you run after it, a car might hit you." Of course being 6 years old and *much* smarter than me, he decided to ignore me. Not even a second later, the ball goes into the middle of the parkway and he takes off running after it. I grab him by the hood of his sweatshirt, dropping and breaking my favorite water bottle in the process. I suppose my firstborn is worth more than a water bottle, even if it was my favorite one, and even if he doesn't listen to me.
Ben is very busy planning his 5th birthday party. According to his preschool teacher, who has been priveledged enough to receive an invite from Ben, it is sounding like the event of the year. He says he is having this party at Pump it Up, one of those inflatable fun house places where kids can jump to thier hearts content on these huge inflatable bouncy houses and slide down slides that are at least 2 stories high. So I guess this means Brian and I better make good on this party since he has already invited about 15 4 and 5 year olds. While he is at it, he is also planning his 6th, 7th, and 8th birthday parties, right down to the theme and contents of the goody bags. Oh boy. He asked if we could make his birthday cake today and when I told him that it was actually mommy's birthday tomorrow, so we should probably make my cake instead since he has another month until his party, he asked me how old I was going to be. When I told him that I was going to be 30, he said, "Wow, mommy. You are going to be OLD".
