Terrible and oh-so-sweet Twos

Continuing my lengthy update (proof that I'm not ready to give up this blog- I do love to "write", which we can really interpret as "talk" but it just takes written form here :P)

As is always the case, James seems to be growing a mile a minute. He's talking in bigger and bigger sentences, and unlike my sister who often took a back seat to my own non-stop mouth, James will not be outdone by his talkative older brother. I wouldn't say he talks quite as much as Drew does, but he definitely likes to get his two cents in as often as he can (and as loudly as he can).

He has phases of being a "pure" two-year-old in a way I don't remember Drew being. Drew threw his fair share of tantrums, but I do not remember the "disjointing my arms and melting to a slippery pile of mush on the floor" kind of tantrums. And did I mention yet that James is loud? But I do have to admit something. I handle his tantrums a lot better than I handled Drew's. I think Drew always had to his disadvantage being a very verbal child, which always led me to believe he understood a lot more than he did, and was therefore capable of controlling his own behavior in a way no 2-year-old can. Now that I have a direct comparison (comparing my 2-year-old that won't listen to my 4-year-old that also won't listen), it's a lot easier for me to recognize that James often simply can't help himself, he's doing what 2-year-olds do, and I usually just kind of laugh as he throws his ridiculous tantrums (though I don't find myself laughing when he melts into a puddle in the middle of the road while we're crossing...). Not that I don't have expectations for James or that I let him off the hook for inappropriate behavior, but I don't let it get to me worked up the same way Drew did. I probably shouldn't admit that, but it's true, and maybe it offers hope to another mom out there.

We won't let him sleep in the bath tub. ;)

Drew and James have both been taking once-a-week Spanish classes at a nearby language school. As a former Spanish teacher, I obviously have a passion for language learning and have loved the opportunity for them to be a part of a program that is specifically designed for young children to learn a foreign language. The classes have been great. Drew is in a class for ages 3-5, and James is in a moms and tots class for ages 1-3. Drew, being my language boy, has been doing very well and picking up a lot of Spanish. But James is the one who has surprised me. We've kind of always pegged him for being a more physical kid, not as verbal, but not only is he picking up the language quite well, he actually surprises me with how well he sits still, pays attention, and follows directions. I'm also quite pleased with how much he's picked up and uses unprompted at home- he now consistently calls a fly swatter a "matamoscas", interprets words Jason and I use to try to be secretive, and I often hear him singing little Spanish songs to himself. With both of them enjoying the Spanish classes, they now often ask me to speak in Spanish to them, which I really enjoy. And the classes have been good for me too in that respect because I'm using and practicing my Spanish more.

I do think it's getting time for James to start doing a preschool program of some sort. He spends a lot of time at home with me, and he's getting to be quite shy with adults. Even though we've been doing the Spanish classes for three months now, he still freaks out at the beginning of every class (even though I'm IN class WITH him) and won't get off my lap and won't speak. I'm working on getting him registered for a "Children's Day Out" program at a local church for the fall next year. CDO seems to be a big thing here, but I'd never heard of it. It's a great idea really- it's not quite preschool, but it's not day care either; it's a nice in-between.

Always our snuggly boy

I'll come back for a little more updating on what Jason and I have been up to.

Long time no write

My posting here has become less and less frequent over the years, and in this most recent break (one of the longest I think this blog has seen) I've pondered whether I want to continue the blog or if it's maybe time to say goodbye. Most of the time when I think about writing now, instead of being excited or thinking through the words I want to put down (as I used to do), I feel a pang of guilt and push the rest of my thoughts aside.  But this space has always been a comfort to me. Even if the words I write go unread, the process of putting my thoughts to "page" has often been therapeutic.

I think two things have contributed to my lethargic/apathetic attitude towards my blog. First, when I began this blog one of the main purposes was to share updates with my family and friends that are spread far apart. At the time I began the blog (in 2009!!) Facebook wasn't as popular as it is now, at least not with generations other than my own, and not as many of my family and friends were on it. Now that they are, I find myself sharing a lot of the fun photos and small updates there that I used to share here. It's quick and easy and you get to be "liked". Who can argue with that?

Second, my laptop had been slowly dying making the process of writing and uploading pictures incredibly slow and painful. With limited time as it was, I just didn't have the patience to wait on the computer.

But it really didn't take much pondering to decide that I'm really not ready to say goodbye to my blog. And I just recently got a new computer so I'm hoping that will help me to write more frequently. But, even if it doesn't, it's just nice to have this outlet for writing the occasional update, venting a frustration, or sharing something interesting. 

All of that said, I think we're due for an update...

 

I left off my last update hoping that the coming winter would not be a long and harsh one. As we're finally on the other side of it now, I can say that my predictions that it would be a bitterly cold winter were not too far off. We got some snow, but overall I didn't feel like it was a lot. The problem (for me anyway) was the cold cold COLD temperatures! It was so hard to go out and do anything with the boys because of all the necessary layers and the time it took to get bundled. I also didn't expect it to get dark so early! I mean, yeah, that happens in Georgia too, but it didn't occur to me that more northern latitudes would get dark even earlier. The sun was setting usually around 4:30. That's crazy!! As can be imagined, none of us were big fans of feeling cooped up AND in the dark. We welcomed spring with open arms, and I can say that I think it was one of the most beautiful springs I have experienced in my life. I don't doubt that a large part of that was simply the juxtaposition of the two seasons, something you don't experience to the same extent in Georgia.

Spring has brought lots of outdoor play time on the trampoline in the backyard, or with the neighbors in the front yard. The boys really enjoy playing with the neighbors' boys across the street, and I just can't get over how much I enjoy that. We really didn't have a lot of kids the same ages as our boys in our previous neighborhood, and it makes me so happy that the boys have that here. I remember so many happy hours playing outside with neighbors growing up and it's something I've always wanted for my children.
 



Star gazing with friends



Drew is a few short months away from starting kindergarten. He is super excited! As any mom facing it for the first time, I have mixed feelings of excitement and sadness, but I think overall we're looking forward to it. I think Drew is ready for the challenge. We had applied for him to go to the dual language program (Spanish immersion) our local school offers, but unfortunately there is only one class so entry is lottery-based and he got waitlisted. I'm still waiting and hoping, but, after freaking out initially, I've calmed myself by trusting God's plan. What's meant to be will be. Between Spanish DVDs, Spanish classes we've been taking, and my own Spanish abilities, I don't doubt he'll learn some Spanish anyway. And, on top of that, I became fluent in Spanish even though I didn't begin learning it until 7th grade. So it's not the end of the world if he doesn't learn it now (though I really wanted him to have that native-like fluency I feel I lack...).
 






Kindergarten Orientation

Since my last post, Drew has progressed even more in the reading department. He's reading full books now and only seems to get caught up on fairly difficult words. At risk of sounding like I'm bragging, he's really shocked me with some of the things he's reading. He read the word "island" the other day (which isn't even the most shocking of words he's read... try "wainscot" from a Beatrix Potter book. :P Not that he, or I, knew what it meant :P), but that stood out to me because I vividly remember a student in my class when I was in 1st grade reading the word island as "iss-land" but Drew didn't even hesitate in reading it correctly. My mom and dad constantly give me looks when he reads words that are much too big for a 4-year-old to be reading and all I can do is shrug. I don't know if it makes me sound more or less bragging to say I really didn't teach him that. For reasons that are kind of complicated to explain, I actually didn't really want him to read until kindergarten. Not that I discouraged reading, but I definitely didn't sit down and work on phonics with him. But he's definitely reading. I posted on Facebook last night that TWO HOURS after I'd put him to bed, I found him reading in his room. His biggest concern? "How could you tell my lights were on??" Sigh... I completely understand how difficult it is to put down a good book, but I didn't expect to begin this battle so early.

 

It seems words are just the name of his game. He likes to do crossword puzzles with me and occasionally guesses an answer based on a clue or letters provided and he has taken to figuring out how to say words backwards in his head (like "milk" is "klim"). But for as much as he's into words, he seems to struggle the same amount with many physical tasks. Even using a fork seems to be quite difficult for him. And he's still struggling with writing and pencil grasp. He definitely gets the concept of spelling but pencil to paper is still very difficult. Despite a lot of effort on my part, he continues to hold his pencil in a full fist. And as if I wasn't worried about it enough already, at kindergarten orientation they told us to "make sure your child has a mature pencil grasp by the time they enter kindergarten". I've tried everything I can think of (and everything everyone else on the internet has thought of) to build hand strength and to get him comfortable with the correct pencil grasp, but at this point it's become a battle of wills and I've decided it's a battle better left for professionals. He's more interested in coloring, drawing, and writing now than he was even a few months ago, so at least we've made progress there. And he did shock me by writing a number of sentences inside a fortune teller at my mom's house. My mom said he sat down for a half hour and did it all by himself (using the death grip, of course, but hey... it's legible). I'll take it!


If you can't tell, he's still obsessed with superheroes
And his "fortunes" are more like "commands"



In case you weren't sure what I meant by "fortune teller"

Because I can see that this is already getting quite long, I will save the rest for (a) future post(s). But don't worry, I'm already writing them as you read...

 

Well hello there...

It's about time for a wordy update, especially since it's been over 2 months since I last posted, and I don't know that I've really done an update since we moved, other than highlighting some of our fun adventures and explorations.

We've unpacked the boxes (mostly... don't look in the basement or the garage... or Jason's office) and are settling in. I still have a lot of finishing touches I'd like to do in terms of decorating and making our space a little more organized and livable (curtains anyone?), but we already feel quite at home here. We are loving our house more and more each day, and we are completely falling in love with our neighborhood and town. We've made friends with several neighbors who have kids around the ages of our kids, which has been great. And there has definitely been no lack of fun and exciting things to do in the area with the kids. Jason and I have both commented on how it's almost creepy how well everything has worked out and how much we're enjoying ourselves here. Then we remember that we have yet to make it through a winter and that our tune might have changed a bit by the time we make it to spring. ;)

And lest it sounds like we've completely forgotten what we left behind, we do all have our moments of homesickness. It hit me hardest when my best friend Stacey had her newest baby boy; I hated not being there right away. I saw a picture of baby Samuel on Facebook and completely broke down in happy/sad tears. Not only was he wearing clothes that had belonged to my boys (which made me both incredibly happy and sad), but seeing his tininess and knowing I couldn't be there made me hurt so bad. Jason and I have brainstormed ways we could convince all the ones we love to move here with us, but I just don't think it's going to happen. ;P A perfect world wouldn't be so big. I've said to a few people that there is no perfect solution anymore, now that my family is spread so far (and that includes our friends since they very much became family in the absence of having our families nearby). My heart will be torn no matter where I am.

Adorable baby Samuel in one of my favorite onesies

I am adjusting to being a stay-at-home mommy (for now, at least). The August/September transition was a bit strange for me. For the first time since kindergarten the back-to-school ads and hype did NOT apply to me! And even as such I was apparently not immune to the back-to-school nightmares. For me it's always a dream in which I end up being forced to teach a high school class. If you know me well, that says enough. If you don't know me well, let's just say the one year I spent teaching high school probably scarred me for life. ;P In any case, I'm enjoying being able to spend time with the boys as well as spend some time taking care of myself. I've been doing some yoga classes, which I've really enjoyed, and my lung function has been higher than it's been in a while.

Drew has been adjusting very well. He still talks about a couple of his friends from Georgia, but he's always happy to report he now has another best friend (who happens to live right across the street- awesome!). His new friend is a few years older, but graciously plays with Drew. The two seem to have very similar thinker/reader personalities, so they get along well.

Drew's not in preschool this year even though most children start prekindergarten at age 4; because of the timing of our move (plus the loss of my income and higher prices here), we just weren't able to swing the Pre-K thing this year. I'm "homeschooling" him, and it's very much a quote/unquote kind of thing. I was really good about it for about 2 weeks, and since then... well... he spelled watermelon randomly on his own, so I'm just going to hold on to that and hope I'm not screwing him up. ;) In any case, he's been more or less teaching himself to read, sounding out short words or picking out the words he recognizes in the books we read. Our biggest concern is that he refuses to hold a pencil in anything but a death grip; by this point children ought to be getting close to the "tripod" pencil grasp. He's never been very interested in coloring or drawing, so has very little hand strength and control (I won't deny that some of that probably has to do with the use of the iPad- as much as we limit his time with it, I know it's still had an impact). I've been trying to encourage him to build with Legos or Unifix cubes and to do little activities with tweezers or tongs to help strengthen his hands in hopes that his writing skills will develop alongside his reading skills.

Otherwise Drew is just enjoying being a 4-year-old. I am still reminded daily that this child is a near duplicate of me, but I do love to watch him think, play, and grow. His favorite thing right now is superheroes even though he's never watched Batman, Superman, or any of those other comic-book character shows. His two favorite shows are Team Umizoomi and Paw Patrol, both of which involve a team of characters that help "save" people, and I think that's where his main superhero obsession comes from. He plays pretend all day long and he's quite often a superhero that has to save someone. I think those are some of my favorite moments in the day- watching Drew go off into his own world and seeing his imagination shining.

Here are some adorable pictures my neighbor took of Superhero Drew during trick-or-treating. (Another neighbor had piled their leaves for pick-up on the sidewalk instead of the road)

Even Superheroes fall

But they always get back up again.
And yes, he really was this happy. :) No posing here.

James is growing up much too fast. It's hard to believe he's two already! He loves to do anything his big brother is doing, which is cute at times (when he wants to clean up his dishes after meals) and frustrating at other times (he's ready to give up his booster seat, crib, etc. because of Drew, but we're not ready). The two of them mostly get along, though, of course, they have plenty of fights as well. I actually recently took away ALL their toys in hopes of calming the incessant fighting over stuff. Turns out it's not the stuff that's the problem as they quickly began fighting over things like hangers and car window shades. :P And for the record, before anyone thinks I'm cruel or something, I do plan to give the toys back. It was kind of an experiment/lesson (and let's just say I'm probably the one doing most of the learning).

James is talking more and more each day, and starting to string words together. He now says "truck" quite clearly (instead of with an "f" sound at the beginning) which is both fortunate, and sad. Walking down busy streets with a toddler screaming the f-word is quite embarrassing, but I will admit we all got a bit of a kick out of it, and there's the growing up part that makes me sad. I remember when Drew used to say "aw-hum" for awesome, and how sad I was when one day he suddenly said "aweSome!".



James is proving to be quite a sweetheart. A lot of people think he has a football-player build, and because of that they assume he's a tough guy. While he does play much rougher and harder than Drew did, he's still a softy. If anyone gets a bump, says "ow!", or even just coughs or sneezes, James will ask, "Mommy okay?" (or "Drew okay?" or "Daddy okay?") with a very concerned look and will not rest until you say, "yes, I'm okay" at which point he says, "okay!" and happily goes back to playing (as someone who coughs a lot, this can get old. ;P). He's also a bit of a neat freak. While Drew likes to line things up and organize them (but could care less about clutter), James is the one who can't stand a mess. If he spills a drop of milk on himself or on the table he screams until he gets a paper towel to clean it up. If a crayon (that he's not using) falls to the floor while coloring, he just can't continue until he picks it up.

We've done a bit of traveling in the last couple of months. I've made two trips to Georgia (solo!), one to sell our house, and one to visit Stacey's new baby boy. We also made a trip up to Canada for my cousin's wedding and had a great time visiting family. I'll hopefully do a post soon with some travel pictures. I have some beautiful ones from Canada that I know my grandma would like to see (though I've already shared quite a few here).

We're buckling in for the coming winter. I keep hearing it's going to be a harsh one. Either way, we've already been shocked by the cold weather that's already come (snow on Halloween!?). Neither of us are completely foreign to it, Jason having lived in Wisconsin until he was 12 and me having lived in Canada until I was 10, but approaching it as adults who will have to shovel driveways, clear cars, and bundle children will definitely be an experience. I am definitely looking forward to doing things with the kids like sledding, building snowmen, and skating, though... all the things I missed when we moved to Georgia. Let's just hope it's not the bitterly cold winter they predict that will make all of that rather difficult...

Divide and conquer

Another quick update:

Jason is out of town. Boo. But my mom is here. Yay! Although "here" is kind of not true. After a rather exhausting day yesterday (with two kids who were both whiny and altogether unable to be pleased), and because James seems to be suffering from a cold, we decided our best approach was to "divide and conquer". She took James to the lake house last night and will stay until tomorrow and I have Drew here. We've planned a couple easy dinner meals for me here and I have lots of leftovers for lunches. I bought the movie Frozen (although we hadn't even seen it) to keep us entertained while I rest. Drew's pretty easy on his own (and he slept until 8:30 this morning so no complaints there!) and, as I said before, I think he can really use some extra attention these days, so it's kind of a bonus both ways.

I will actually say I'm kind of glad Jason got a chance to get away from all of this. He's been so amazingly supportive and has done so much to keep it all together here that he's just as run down and exhausted as I am. Yes, he's away on a business trip, so he's working plenty, but I'm hoping the free time after work will be good for him. I made him promise me that he would do something fun while he was away.... as long as that something fun wasn't a college girl on spring break. ;) Kidding. He is in Tampa, though.

Because I know many of you are sending up prayers, I figure it's only fair to keep you updated: I got the chest CT scan results and nothing looks so abnormal that they want to go ahead with a bronchoscopy. My lungs definitely look like CF lungs, and there are some questionable "cloudy patches", but we'll see how I do at my follow up and go from there as far as possible treatment options. The doctor did say that my lungs look quite clear so I'm doing a good job with airway clearance, so that's good news.

Thank you for all the prayers and notes of encouragement sent my way. I have been saying my own prayers of thanks for the wonderful people in my life. I am so appreciative of the offers of help from so many of you, but I am just as thankful for those who are thinking about us and praying for us.

Life according to me

It's been a while since I've written a wordy post about what we're up to these days. So here's the scoop:

Me: I'm doing all right. Sometimes I feel like I'll never quite get the hang of this, but we're getting there.  Mothers of more than two: how on earth do you do it!? Currently I'm out of work until the end of April. I'll only be back to work for about a month before summer vacation. I'm hoping I can use this time (and summer after) to get myself back to baseline. Stacey and I have been back to running. I initially started running after Drew was born as a way to help increase lung function and bone density (did you know running helps with that?), so I'm back at it with the same goals in mind. In order to make sure we DO IT, though, we did a couple of things: a) we've picked a race to train for, b) we made sure we have jogging strollers for all 3 kiddos so we can run even if the hubbies are at work, and c) we bought rain covers for the strollers so we have NO EXCUSES! (That's our motto now!)

[Picture to come... I swear I'm going to get a picture of us and the kiddos and strollers!]

Drew: He is developing more and more of an imagination and starting to enjoy playing by himself a bit now. I'll be busy cooking dinner or washing dishes and I'll hear him in the other room making up conversations between inanimate objects (usually cars). I'll tell ya' that it can be pretty horrifying to hear "yourself" acted out by your two-year-old son. :-/ Drew is also completely enthralled with his little brother. He comes up with a new nickname for him on a daily hourly basis. Today's nicknames included brownie (because he was wearing brown), kicky, ditty (?), and... oh there were so many I can't remember. He always says, "hi, [insert nickname]" then says "now you say 'hi, [insert nickname] to him!". He also is pretty much constantly in James' face making loud nonsense noises (again- seeing myself from my two-year-old's point of view). I've recently been telling Drew he can actually say words to James; he doesn't always have to spew silly sounds at him. Below is a video of Drew making noises at James.



James: James is getting better at rolling onto his tummy, and though he has rolled back over a handful of times (and just recently did a few rolls in the same direction moving himself across the floor), he has yet to master the reversal skills, so we're in the phase of short naps and nighttime waking because he'll roll himself onto his tummy then wake up MAD! We got a few giggles out of him a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't heard them again recently. I seem to remember this strange trend with Drew of learning a new skill then temporarily forgetting it only to rediscover it again. I'm certainly impatient to get those laughs back- baby laughs cure everything! The video below isn't laughs, but he is still pretty darn adorable!



Jason: He has a new job! This was an answer to prayers. We were both tired of the varying schedule and the late nights and weekend hours that came with his job at the golf course, so Jason had been looking around for something new. As luck would have it (or as God would have it, I should say), Jason accepted a job offer to do telecommunications/engineering/computer-aided-design work and was going to start this past Monday; he showed up to find out that someone was supposed to have contacted him (and another guy who was there) to let them know that they weren't supposed to come in until Wednesday. That same night Jason got a call with an offer to do the same work but for more money, and completely from home (with the company he's done contract work for for years)! Talk about God working in our lives! Jason felt bad walking away from the first job after having accepted the position, but he made a better choice for our family. Spring was always really hard for us with his late hours (due to later sunset) and my early ones- we barely got an hour together before I would have to head to bed- so things should be a bit easier now when I head back to work. Our biggest issue will be finding ways to keep the kiddos from distracting him when they're home since we don't have an actual room for his office- just an open room that's supposed to be a sitting/formal living room.

Two of my sweeties

That's life according to me right now! Come back for more!

The scoop

Life in the Flood household is... going. We're surviving and doing relatively well. Here is a little update on all:

Drew: He is absolutely impressive with the amount of language he is learning. Just about every single day he says something that surprises me. Some examples.... recently he has started forming questions properly: "are you sad, Mommy?". He used the word "either" correctly the other day, which surprised me: "do you want grapes?" "No." "Do you want a banana?" "No, not that either!". He tells me what he does at school and says it in full sentences. Today's conversation went something like this: "I sit on the stage. We sing Christmas songs! The blue star is loud. The purple star bounces" (he may say it in perfect sentences, but it may not always make sense to me...). He uses the correct form of verbs, "my hands are dirty!" (not long ago he would have said "is". And only a little bit longer ago he would have said "hands dirty!"). He's showing a lot of sympathy lately- he notices and gets upset if I'm sad and he gets very worried and tries to help soothe James when he cries. He has also started playing pretend a lot. He loves "talking on the phone" and I love listening to his end of the conversation: "I'm at home....Mommy is feeding James.....oh, I see...." The other day he put "diapers" on his motorcycles because they were poopy. Basically he is growing in dramatic leaps and bounds and I can't keep up!

Helping bake cookies

Enjoying the new quilt from Bad Awnt Sue, Grandma Betty, and Grandma

James: His arm is healing well. He sleeps and eats well, and as of today is 10 pounds, 8 ounces, a full 2 pounds since birth! I thought he was much bigger than Drew was at a month, but it turns out he's actually a tad shorter and a hair heavier. He's a fussier baby than Drew was, which has caused me a lot of worries. I've said he's only ever asleep, eating, or crying. I don't know that he's colicky because he's generally pretty easy to calm, but it's different than I remember with Drew. I'm trying to accept that every baby is different, and yet I keep searching for answers. I'm currently going dairy-free to see if it's possibly a cow's milk protein intolerance. It has actually helped a LOT with skin rash, gassiness, and overall fussiness... unfortunately (I LOVE my milk and cheese! During my 7 years as a vegetarian I never once considered going fully vegan because I knew I couldn't give up milk and cheese. The things you do for love!). He's starting to be awake more and enjoys observing everything around him, just like Drew did. He found a finger today and started sucking it when he was crying... we may have another thumb-sucker on our hands.

Trying out the new (rather large) cloth diapers!

Yummy fingers

Me: I have been so thankful that my mom stayed with us for the first month since James' birth. She left on Friday so I'm just now beginning to deal with what it's really like having 2 kids. I'm surviving better than I thought I would, but it's still difficult to get anything done and I feel like poor Drew is left to entertain himself a lot. Thankfully he got fairly used to that while I was pregnant and lazy exhausted all the time. I also went through a bout of mastitis last week, which caused a lot of fatigue (both in recovering from the infection, as well as the amount of time spent feeding and pumping in order to drain the breasts properly and replenish milk supply), and more worries about James (is he eating well enough? Often enough? Latching properly? What about my milk supply now??). Sigh... I thought I'd worry less this time around. Not so.

Jason: He's Jason. He just goes with the flow and is doing well. Thankfully as the days get shorter, he gets home from work earlier (one of the few bright sides to the short winter days). I love being able to have him home for breakfast AND dinner.

So that's the story right now! More to come...