Her First Tights

When they told me I was having a baby girl

I was shocked.

Don't get me wrong,

I was totally and completely thrilled.

But in shock.

I was sure that I was destined for another boy.

But Macie is definitely a girl.

And I am so happy that she is.

Since the probability of us having another baby is very low, 

I'm happy to have my little princess.

And as the only girl,

I'm pretty sure she'll always be our princess.

(Like it or not, Macie.)

Girls mean dresses, bows, pigtails, braids, earrings and pretty nails.

All things I am excited for.

But I hadn't thought about tights.

It's a little ridiculous how much I am currently in love with tights.

Here, the first pair that kicked off my excitement.

First Grade: First Day

Finally, school was just one day away.
Charlie has a smart teacher.
She must know just how antsy with nerves and excitement kids get before starting first grade.
(First time many of them are leaving their parents for full day school.)
She had given the kids a couple of things to do in preparation.
These things saved my sanity the day before school started.

First, Charlie was to chose one of his favorite items and put it in this bag.
Then he had to come up with three clues to write on the card that would help the class guess what was in the bag.
Charlie chose a book - a Magic Treehouse book, to be specific.
And he came up with the clues, and wrote them, without any help from me.
Did I mention how his language skills impress me?

Then, the teacher had given the kids a little paper to open the night before first grade.  Inside was a cute poem and a little bag of confetti.  The poem instructed us to sprinkle the confetti under his pillow.  It said this would help calm him, help him sleep through the night, and wake up ready to start school.  It worked.  (Ephram tried it too, and it worked for him as well!)

In the morning we started at 7:00.  The bus was supposed to come at 7:52 and we wanted to be ready by 7:45.  (Charlie takes his time in the mornings.)  He got up, got dressed, ate his breakfast and was super-super excited.  Time for a few pictures.

And then, suddenly the bus pulled up.  Charlie took off running for it.  He has wanted to ride a bus, so badly, for years.  I couldn't get his attention, so I just took a few pictures of his back as he ran straight on board.  He didn't even turn around to say goodbye.  Ah well, I should be happy to have a son that is that excited about school, right?

Ephram, Macie and I managed to make it through our day at home.  Although we did often wonder about Charlie, and I did find myself answering Ephram's inquisitive looks frequently.  Then, it was time for the bus to bring him back.  We went outside to wait for him because we didn't want him to be worried on his first day.  Ephram had to wear his own backpack, full of books, to greet Charlie.

And I couldn't help taking a picture of these cute ones.

Turns out I had plenty of picture taking time.  It took the bus an hour and five minutes to get to our house that first day.  Didn't matter for Ephram, he was having a blast.

Finally, we heard the roar of the bus.  Ephram stood diligently where I told him to while the bus pulled up and stopped.

And then Charlie appeared in the door.  Ephram let out a gasp of excitement.

I heard Charlie's giggle in response.

It was like they were being reunited after months or years apart.  All of my requests that Ephram stay away from the street went out the window as he took off running to grab his brother in a huge hug around the legs.

I got a picture of the dash, but not of the hug... at that point I was trying to make sure the boys weren't standing in front of the bus.

Charlie was babbling with stories all afternoon and all night.  First day of first grade was a huge success!

This Many

I am pretty sure that I have previously mentioned Ephram's speech delay.
He has excellent language comprehension, but lags behind in his speech.
I first noticed the delay around 18 months, and he started speech therapy around that time.
Childhood Apraxia of Speech, the diagnosis.

And yes, I have done everything you are supposed to.
From the time he was born we talked about everything we did and everything we saw.
And we have read, read, read since he was a tiny infant.
He loves his books, and always has.
We point out things on walks,
I ask open ended questions.
I let him get frustrated in things,
And push him to use words when he wants something.
I prompt him.
But, although he did start saying first words at the normal time,
There was a point that he just didn't keep progressing.
His words never developed ending sounds.
And he had only two vowel sounds at 24 months.

Now that I have another infant to compare him to,
I notice it more.
Yes he cooed, and yes he babbled.
But definitely not with the same amount of sounds,
Or at the same frequency,
As his baby sister.
But he was my first baby, so I had nothing to compare it to.

He has made significant process since that time.
However, he definitely lagged again during our family crisis last spring.
(Which is not surprising considering the impact of it all on a two year old.)
Just in this past week I have noticed Ephram using words to try to communicate with us about 80% of the time.
It is so cute.
I love hearing his, "K-K Mama!" every time I ask him to do (or not to do) something.
Just a month ago, it would have been solely a nodded response.
It is so refreshing to have some idea of what he wants.
But I would say that his speech is somewhere around a typical 18 month old's.
Soon we will know as the school district is assessing him for preschool eligibility next year.

In his journey toward speech, Ephram has employed the use of signs and gestures.
It started when he was a baby and I taught him some simple sign language.
"Milk" was his favorite sign, closely followed by "more" and "all done".
Sometime in his second year he started making up his own signs.
I can't even begin to think of what all of these signs were/are because they are just a part of our life.
But when we are around others it becomes more obvious as those people have no idea what he is trying to say.
(This all made life very interesting when we had various nannies/friends helping out last spring/summer.)
One of my favorite signs he developed was for the word "big".
He would stand up on his tippy-toes, make a "working-hard" expression and stretch his hands up as high as he could over head.
This meant that he saw something big, like a bus - or that he wanted something big, like a daddy-sized cup for his water.  It was interesting how it translated to anything of large size.

Early this summer, he developed a sign for "a lot".

It was holding up all ten fingers and shaking them.
Usually accompanied by a giggling laugh.
So if I asked him, "How much does Mommy love you?"
I would get the ten finger response.
And if I said, "Do you want some goldfish crackers?"
I would get ten fingers and a tall stretch to let me know that he wanted a whole lot of them in a big bowl.
I was happy to see him starting to use his fingers in some semblance to represent numbers.

Then one day, when I was trying to teach him how to hold up two fingers on one hand, he discovered that he could hold up one finger on each hand to represent the same thing.
So, when we asked him how old he was, he started holding up one finger of one hand.
He'd shake his head, with a big smile, and jokingly say, "Nah!"
And the second hand would creep up next to the first with another finger held up to show that he was two.
He is so endearing.

Suddenly, he started to point out every time he saw two of something.
If I pulled out a cheese stick for him and a cheese stick for Charlie, up would pop the two fingers -
Accompanied by a beaming smile.
If we were on a walk and he saw a bus, and then within a few minutes another passed by,
Up went those two fingers again.
He started to use it to show us the idea of two things being similar.
And, for me, it was a brand new way of communicating with my son.
It was a window into his head,
Confirmation of his ability to learn.
And very cute.

Then his hands started to make shapes.
The first shape was a triangle.
He would carefully make it with his fingers, and then raise it up to eye level and look through like it was a window.
His way of telling me that he knew what a triangle was.
And later a square,
And a circle.

Ephram and I have our own way of talking,
And honestly... speech delay and all...
I wouldn't trade it for the world.

He's Sneaky

Don't let this cute, innocent, perfect face fool you.  When it comes down to it, my Ephram is super sneaky.

What's wrong with this picture, you ask?

He's eating a scone.  And clearly happy about it.  But that's not the problem.  He's standing on my chair, and has taken the half-eaten scone off of my plate when I left to go pick up a crying Macie.  I was gone less than a minute.  And so was my scone - gone in less than a minute.  Can't get upset with such a proud kid though.  And I probably didn't need the scone anyway.

But the next significant food steal, a week later, was funny.
We have a weak spot for these Softees donuts, both Ephram and I.
When we get them at the grocery store, we each have one, just one, a day.

On this particular day, I dressed Ephram and then left him playing in his room while I dressed Macie.
He snuck out of his room,
I'm sure on tiptoe as I caught him often during the month,
(It probably doesn't help that I think this is funny and so he thinks this is the best game ever.)
He went past Macie's room,
Down the stairs,
Into the kitchen.

He had to have gotten a chair,
Dragged it to the pantry,
Used it to climb up onto a shelf,
In order to reach the box of donuts,
(Because it sat on the second shelf from the top.)
Then he took the whole box of donuts to the table,
Procured a plate from the dishwasher,
(Thank goodness those were clean,)
And proceeded to eat
Not one,
Not two,
But three donuts from the box.

The last three donuts from the box.
I guess I didn't need a donut either.

But it sure would have tasted good!

Macie at Five Months

Well, it's been almost two months since we hit the five month milestone.  Thank goodness for Facebook and the record I've been keeping there.  I just went back and reviewed every picture I posted during Macie's fifth month, and every status update related to her.  I feel like I am right back in that moment and remember my baby girl in this time that seems like it passed ages ago.  I know that not everyone agrees with me, but I consider Facebook to be a blessing in my life right now.  Sure, others are probably tired of my never ending updates... but look at the gift that I have because of that record.  I can go back to any moment in time since becoming a parent - which happened the same year I joined Facebook - and look at what life, my family and my children were like at that time.

As Macie hit five months her personality was really starting to show.  During the month she became conversational in the most elementary ways.  She honed in on faces, started babbling in response to perceived conversation, developed so many new expressions, began using her hands in conversation, started nodding as she listened and grew in her ability to show us what delighted her through laughter.  In fact, during our reading time she was joining in and talking with me, often laughing as we turned the pages.  My Macie is a social butterfly, she is.  Also, she may just be the happiest baby ever.  I am so truly blessed.

Stats:
Chronological Age - 5 months
Adjusted Age - 3 months

Weight: 14 pounds, 8 ounces (+2 pounds 10 ounces from 4 months)

There is no five month well child check-up, so I did my best to weigh her at home.  By the end of the month she had some very cute fat rolls on both her legs and her arms.

Milestones: 

• First playdate - 18 weeks
• Spins around during play and twists to grab objects - 20 weeks
• Ticklish - 22 weeks

At five months Macie was in size 2 diapers and 3-6 month clothing; a move up in both categories.

In five months Macie wore 4 diaper sizes and 4 clothing sizes.

Feeding:

Macie continued 100% breastfeeding during the entire month.  I even let go of my fear and returned the hospital-grade pump that we were renting (with prescription reimbursement because she had been a preemie) to the hospital.  Macie ate on demand, and her needs differed from day to day.  There was no real routine to the number or schedule of feedings.

Macie continued to take Zantac to treat severe reflux at a dosage of .5ml two times per day.  During the month we saw an increase in the volume and frequency of spit up.  However, Macie didn't appear to be in pain and had few choking episodes, so her dosage did not increase.

Sleeping:

We had a nice routine for the entire month.  Macie settled into two daily naps.  One in the morning and one in the afternoon.  She typically napped two hours for one period and three hours for the other, although the timing of day for the longer nap would change.  She took all of her naps either in the swing or propped up on the Boppy pillow because she was having too many reflux issues laying on her back... even with the mattress at an incline.

At night she was also wonderful.  She would go to sleep around 9pm.  Wake up between 1-2am to eat once, and then go back to sleep until 7-8am.  At the end of the month she even had two nights were she slept through from 9pm - 7am.  Heaven.  I slept her in the swing every night.  When we got up to nurse, I would sometimes side-feed her, but usually we would both get up for about 30 minutes and then I would put her back in the swing.

Favorite Activities:

• Conversing
• Playing with toys - rattles, dolls, playmat attachments... really anything.
• Cuddling with blankets and/or dolls.
• Holding eye contact with people.
• Smiling and laughing
• Listening to songs - especially Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Would You Like to Swing on a Star 
• Being held
• Playing on her back
• Swinging

Least Favorite Activities: 

• Tummy time
• Spitting up
• Being immunized

Here are some of my favorite pictures from her fifth month!

First Grade Preparations

As the start of first grade neared, Charlie's excitement grew exponentially.

I have to admit that the fact that Charlie would soon be in first grade, all day school was both exciting (7 hours of school every day!!!) and sad (how did he get so old?)  When we went to go buy school supplies this year, it really hit me.  Just last year I was buying things like triangle crayons.  This year it was all real supplies.  Charlie was so, so excited to see all of his things.  We'll see how much of the school year they survive!

Finally it was time to go to the "Meet the Teacher" social.  Our school district does not release the classroom assignments until just a few days before class begins.  So you go to the social to see which class you are in.  At Little Cedars you also get to enter your classroom and meet the teacher.  Charlie had two classes/two teachers to see.  He was so excited to be back at his new school.

He'd hoped to be in the same class as his friend from Kindergarten, Belle.  I had prepped him that this might not happen, and it didn't.  Charlie recovered nicely when the boy standing next to us (Dallin) happened to be in his class too.  We followed them into the school to find his new classroom - #111.

Once we got to the class there were instructions to follow on the board at the front of the room.  Charlie had fun reading them and doing what they said.

He was extremely excited about the things on his desk for him to take home.

Then it was time to find his Connections room.  It is the door just across the hall from his 1st grade class.  Couldn't be a better set-up.

We spent some more time visiting with Ms. Dickison and saw another familiar face from Totem Falls.

And then we went and found the important place... the playground.  Charlie really likes the playground.  (Understatement.)

Finally, it was time to go back home.  Charlie was jumping out of his skin with excitement to start the new year!