Preschool

Connor, Mommy and Daddy finished our first erector set project together this evening. Connor did pretty well. Evan just wanted to hold the screw driver and got mad any time Connor needed it. We may need to go find another one.

Connor's first body picture.

So I've been going back and forth with what to do for Connor's schooling. Right now he is registered at a Montessori preschool down the street. My concern is that he will have to go through all of the activities even though he's beyond some of them and I'd rather that he use his time to learn new things. So this week we started doing some homeschooling just to see how receptive he would be to the idea of staying home and doing school with Mommy. Within 10 min the first morning he said, "Mommy, are you my teacher?" He seems to like the idea. We've been doing calendar time, some practice cutting and some playing with shape blocks. Both boys seem to be liking it and we're getting through a lot of stuff in an hour a day. They keep running upstairs to "play" with the shape blocks and do puzzles. Evan wants to spend the whole time gluing things together.

So we're pretty sure that we're going to keep him home this next year and I will teach them. I've already got the ideas I want to do pretty much picked out...building, puzzles, cooking, along with some of the basic stuff. He is reading basic books with easily decodable words and sight words...it's not fluent yet, but he's still working hard. He likes to spell still and is starting to write letters. He won't let me teach him the correct way to form the letters, but hopefully he will before he gets the wrong ways set.

So for now, I think the best thing is to save the money for preschool and "play" school at home!

21 Months!

Evan is a whopping 21 months old today! He is getting so big! In this picture he had to barricade himself away from the beagle just to eat a cracker for breakfast! That beagle is getting fatter and fatter from her thievery!

Evan says a lot of words. He surprises me everyday with a new one...yesterday it was hamster. His favorites are still heavy, push, kick, beat and no! He can identify red, blue and green consistently...and probably a few others but his brother beats him to it. His brother has taught him some letter names though. Evan knows 24 of 26 letter names. He will argue about M because he says it's a W. He loves to color, read books and make his brother scream! He said his first 2 word phrase last week "Let go!" while they were arguing over something. He takes no prisoners and will fight to the end for what he wants and if his brother has it, he'll just try to take it from him. You gotta be tough to be the little brother!

He has a great sense of humor and is tons of fun..if not a little pushy! I can't wait to watch him grow!

HI!!

So potty training has it's good days and bad days. Some days Connor is right on top of it and goes to the potty every time...other days, not so much. But when we're out in public, he's usually got to go so we visit many public restrooms these days. This is quite a challenge because we have a wild little brother that has to go with us. He likes to open the doors (that's usually only when I'm going). But his favorite activity in public restrooms is to look under the stalls and scream "HI!!" I must admit it's pretty funny, which is probably why he keeps doing it. Luckily he hasn't managed to "catch" anyone yet, but I'm sure that's not far away. We still have a ways to go on bathroom etiquette!

Baby Update...

We went to the Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialist this morning. They always do ultrasounds so I was glad to have this appt after the one last week was so bad.

This ultrasound tech took time and listened to me...it also helped that the baby had moved and was on the other side of the yolk sac and not between the yolk sac and the wall. The baby measured right on target and the heartbeat was 151 which is good and high! No problems. So we scheduled the next appt/ultrsound for 4 weeks which is when they'll do the testing for Down's Syndrome and other genetic mutations. When I was pregnant with Sam, it was at the 12 week ultrasound where we convinced the tech to try to see if we could tell the gender...and we could! So maybe in 4 weeks we'll know with this on too...although, we all know it's a boy too!

We are very relieved and now I will start working on reducing the stress and my blood pressure level (which wasn't high (120/76 which is normal), but actually kind of high for me esp when I'm pregnant).

Baby?

We had another ultrasound today for the new baby. Last week at 6 weeks, the ultrasound didn't show a heartbeat...which was a hard blow, but probably just too early....so we went back today at 7 weeks. The scan showed a heart rate of 114. The ultrasound tech and the dr both had trouble getting an accurate reading on this one though because of the placement so close to the uterine wall. The dr said that it was measuring a week behind, but I refused to accept that since they both had trouble actually seeing where the baby was. I go to the specialist on Monday and they typically do ultrasounds, so maybe in 5 days it'll be a bit bigger and can show more.

I'm having all kinds symptoms and things seem to be progressing, so we're just going to stick with the positive and hope it all stays there!

Knock It Up

The boys were fighting yesterday in the car over what they wanted to watch...rough life I know! Anyway, I kept hearing Connor say "Knock it up Evan!" And since I was trying to stay out of it and listen to my own book...I just ignored them until it escalated. Finally I asked Connor what he was saying and the he was trying to get Evan to stop saying "Elmo" over and over. Knock it up meant knock it off! Then I went from annoyed to amused really quickly and decided this was definitely a blog worthy event!

The boys have been interacting a lot more...not all negatively. Connor is working on teaching Evan his letters. Connor is reading more and more each day. We really need to work on counting though..he keeps getting stuck in the teens. Evan has an opinion about a lot of stuff these days and there's lots of tears, screaming and pushing when he doesn't get his way!