Rhyme Time

Amelia's reading is coming right along and since she has mastered so many sight words, I thought we'd try our hand at a word family activity.

We decided to start with the -ap family.  I had Amelia pose in different pictures representing an "ap" word.  Then, I printed out the picture and made a set of index cards with the names of some "ap" words.  I even threw in some extras to try and trick Miss Amelia.

Amelia doing "nap".

 "cap"

Henry helping out with "lap".

Henry making another guest appearance for "clap".

Amelia showing her "tap" moves.

"map"

This was a GREAT activity for her!  After we tried it together, I had her draw like symbols on the back of each matching pair. For example, the picture of "cap" and the written word "cap" each had a heart drawn on the back.  The picture of "map" and the written word "map" each had a smiley face drawn on the back.  That way Amelia can do the activity and then check her work herself.

We are already discussing the next group of pictures we will take.  Amelia is interested in the -an family--thanks to Peter "Pan" himself.!

Good Bye Tonsils!

Poor Miss Amelia had 7 visits to the pediatrician last year for tonsillitis. And one for strep throat.  The pediatrician had had enough of seeing Amelia for the same thing over and over again and sent us to see an ENT.

We went during Amelia's spring break (We also saw the dentist and the eye doctor as well--we are crazy spring breakers around here!).  The doctor we saw was very dry, matter-of-fact, and didn't show much emotion.  And for being a pediatric ENT, I didn't find him especially friendly with Amelia.  BUT, when he saw her tonsils he was very animated asking if they are "that big all of the time??".  They are.  He then told us that on top of all of the infections that she has been getting they are absolutely interfering with her sleep if they are that size.  So, the recommendation came to get them out and we thought we'd shoot for summertime.

Then, for a couple of nights in a row, I would check on a sleeping Amelia and hear this horrible gasping sound at the end of every breath.  She has always been a very loud snorer, but this was different.  And I didn't like it.  With this change in her sleeping sounds, Jason and I opted to move up the surgery to ASAP status.  

So, April 15 was the day we chose (what better way to spend our tax return, no?).  We did tons of preparing Amelia from reading her the book, "Good-bye Tonsils" to letting her grocery shop with us for all of the delicious frozen treats she would be indulging in post-surgery.  We also let her choose the spot for her "last supper".  Interestingly, she chose Bread Co. and ate broccoli cheddar soup (something she could certainly have after surgery).  But, I couldn't complain because at least it wasn't McDonalds!

All in all, the surgery went great.  Amelia was actually excited to put on the gown, have her blood pressure checked, and get wheeled to the operating room in the wagon.  The doctors and nurses were great and put her at ease.  Plus, she was well prepared!

The doctor talked to us after the surgery and told us again how unhealthy Amelia's tonsils were.  Even at the age of 4, they were already scarred from repeated infections. He also said she did great in the OR and played the game they had set up for her that eventually led to her going to sleep. The anesthesiologist said she was the highlight of the day for them and did fantastic!

She had a little trouble coming out of the anesthesia.  But once she napped a bit, she was good to go.  She came home and ate and drank like a champ.  Apparently the meds she got at the center are a little stronger than the ones they send you home with!  By day 2, she was in lots of pain and barely ate or drank for 2 days.  Luckily, an impromptu visit outside from the twins across the street led to her eating 6 popsicles in a row.

The rest of the two week recovery was up and down, but we survived and I can already tell she is much better off.  The snoring is gone.  And so far she is eating more food at each sitting than she ever has before.  She has always been a pretty adventurous eater, but now the quantity is more too.  It could be a long growth spurt, I guess, but I think maybe her tonsils made it difficult to swallow things and eating was a chore.

Either way, I think we made the right decision and I am so glad it's over.  And now our summertime can be full of swimming, running, jumping, and playing without a tonsillectomy getting in the way.

A Little Ring Around the Rosey

There is definitely something magical about this place!

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

Every Saturday Jason meets his family for breakfast.  He alternates weeks between his mom's side and his dad's side.  He always takes Amelia with him and most of the time he takes Henry too.  I get to have a couple of hours to myself each Saturday morning, which is WONDERFUL.

At these breakfast meetings Amelia is often showered with small gifts and trinkets by various aunts and cousins.  A few weeks ago at breakfast she got a little Hello Kitty notepad and a set of sparkle pens.

Unfortunately, this same week Amelia's stomach began hurting very badly while she was waiting for other family members to arrive at breakfast.  She told Jason's mom and she took Amelia into the bathroom.  Amelia threw up.

Shortly thereafter, Jason piled both kids in the car and came home.  On the way, Amelia used her new notepad to illustrate some of the events at breakfast.

This is Amelia and Grandma in the bathroom. Notice the line from Amelia's mouth to the toilet. This is one of the few pictures Amelia has ever drawn of herself where she wasn't smiling. All of the hands have 5 fingers, do you see them?

In this picture, Amelia and Grandma (both smiling now) are telling Jason (who is sitting at the table) that Amelia threw up in the bathroom and it's time to leave.  Notice Jason's cup of coffee has steam floating up in the air.

Amelia, Jason, and Henry all driving home post throw-up incident.  We still aren't sure what happened because she was completely fine for the rest of the day!  

 

It made for a beautiful illustrated story, though.  Did it not?

Learning to Braid

Amelia asked if I would teach her to braid the other day.  I initially told her she was too young to learn, but then the more I thought about it, the more I figured she was actually the perfect age to learn.  She LOVES making patterns and has learned "right" and "left", so why not?  I decided to start her using pipe cleaners, thinking it would be easier to learn using those in case she let go mid-braid.

Turns out, she is a natural!  And as an added bonus, she requests a braid in her hair almost every day.  Now if only she could braid it herself.

Next up?  Shoe tying!

Mr. Hard Head

Starting to think it may be wise to keep this on him all of the time....

15 Months

It's a little sad that I am just getting around to writing the 15 month update.  My goal is to get it on the blog before Henry is 16 months.  I feel like I am cutting it a little close....

This child has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 3 months.  It's hard to believe he is the same kid!

Most obviously, I am talking about physical growth.  He surprised me a bit at his check up when the doctor showed me his height graphed on the growth chart.  His "x" was way off the chart.  She didn't give a percentile, but said he is the height of an average 26 month old (this may be stretching the truth a bit--or maybe I misheard her??).  Anyway, on the other end of the spectrum was his weight.  He is no longer in the 50th percentile like he was at 12 months.  He has slipped down to the 40th!

Height: 34 inches (off the chart)
Weight: 23 lbs, 12 oz (40th percentile)
HC: 90th percentile

Physically isn't the only way he's been growing, though! He is saying about 25 words now and knows 6 baby signs. Henry even combined his first words last week, "Bye, Bye, Dada". He can show different faces (laughing face, crying face, crazy face, etc) and can point out loads of pictures from his books. He likes to cough when he needs his drink (apparently he figured out that every time he would cough we would say, "Do you need a drink?"), say "MMMMMM" when he is hungry, and fake cry when he sees another baby (even if the baby isn't crying).  He tries to sing along with songs and already knows a couple words to "Wheels on the Bus" and a firemen song that Amelia taught us from school. He can point out his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, head, belly, feet, and hands fairly consistently. 

He has learned how to climb on to kitchen chairs, the kitchen table, and the couch unassisted.  He insists on going down the steps by himself and preferably up them too.  He hugs by doing a little head butt to the person he is intending to hug.

He still has an undying love for cars (vroom vrooms) and balls.  He is starting to pick up a thing for monsters, too.  And he loves books!  In fact, he will walk across the room, grab a book, and then walk back and hand it to us.  He will settle himself in our laps to hear the story and when that one is over, he will get up and grab another (and another and another).

The biggest change for me is that he is no longer nursing.  We stopped around 14 months.  The main reason we stopped was because my supply was next to nothing.  I was on a prescription medication to keep my supply up and he was only nursing once or twice a day.  He stopped pretty easily, but the boy still loves his milk!  Now I just hold him a little differently while he drinks his sippy cup full.  It seems like he still associates drinking his milk with snuggling with me and I'm fine with that!

His personality is certainly coming through and he will let you know exactly how he feels about certain things.  He has NO patience for shopping and gets pretty upset when his sister gets something and he doesn't (like a chocolate shake at 8AM because she got her tonsils out the day before!). I find a lot more humor in Henry's baby tantrums than I ever did with Amelia's.  I know it's only going to get worse before it gets better though, so hopefully I'll always feel that way about them.
 

Be Sure To Wear Flowers in your Hair

(I've been told it is a faux pas to refer to San Francisco as "San Fran", so I will be writing the city's entire name out each time it is necessary).

Jason and I had a very rare opportunity to get away together and although it may not have been exactly ideal, we jumped at the chance! He was due in San Francisco for a AAAI conference (some sort of allergist meeting if you aren't up on the acronyms) and I decided to tag along.  After all, the hotel room was paid for 100% as well as his plane ticket and all of his meals.  Initially, I got a little nervous after the ticket was purchased about leaving the kids (particularly Henry), but quickly got over it once I boarded the plane.

I wish I could say the weather was beautiful, but it wasn't.  It was coldish and/or rainy almost the entire time we were there.  I wasn't too deterred, though.  That gave me an excuse to lay in bed and take a nap or crash on one of the sitting room couches near the fireplace and read my huge stack of books I picked up from the library before leaving St. Louis. (I finished 4 books on the trip!).

When I wasn't laying in bed, sleeping, or reading, I got out and explored the city. It is beautiful!  Hilly, but beautiful.  It was a great walking city, easy to navigate (although I would have paid good money for a topological map), and I felt super safe (with the exception of the night Jason and I traveled to the "tenderloin" area in search of a particularly well rated Indian restaurant).

I actually ventured into Chinatown twice during our stay.  Once with Jason and once by myself to go back and buy Amelia a little kimono-type outfit as a souvenir.  What a fun place to explore!

 

The hills in this city!  I think half of my pictures were of hills I had just climbed.  Not that exciting, really, but I guess I felt the need to take a picture each time to document my accomplishment.  And I'll be damned if I didn't climb one hill, walk all the way down the other side, and then come upon another hill that was bigger than the first.

One day while Jason was in meeting much of the day, I took an 8.5 mile tour of the city on foot.  Man were my feet and legs sore after that!  In the middle of it, though, it didn't really feel like much work because there were so many beautiful things to see.

This really would have been a great opportunity to play around with my nice camera, but I was too worried about being solely responsible and misplacing it somewhere in the airport.  So, my old camera it was.  These little sea lions were so interesting to watch.   I would have liked to get a few better pictures of them!

I hiked out of the way to get to see Lombard St.  I now think people who take the trolley (as opposed to walking) to the top are very, very wise.

We moved hotels on the last night due to an oversight on Jason's part when booking the trip.  The second hotel was in the middle of the action.  The weather had really taken a turn for the worst by then, but we survived by finding a little winery that overlooks the bay and splitting a bottle of wine. I could have stayed there all day and night.  I honestly cannot remember the last time I was so relaxed.

We slacked a little on the booking of the Alcatraz tour.  We missed out on catching a night tour and almost missed out on seeing it at all.  We decided to take the first tour on the morning we were supposed to leave San Francisco.  We closely watched the clock to make sure we had enough time to get back to the hotel for the shuttle to the airport.  We had enough time to see most of the island, but a little more time would have been nice. 

As it turns out, we could have stayed and toured Alcatraz all day AND night.  It turned out our flight home was canceled and the next flight they could get us on was 11 hours later.  The flight was supposed to leave at 12:30 AM!  And to top things off, we were automatically re-booked on separate flights because the flights weren't booked together in the first place since Jason's work booked his.  Jason was set to fly through Dallas and I, through Chicago.  Luckily, I cried and begged enough that we eventually got on the same flight (and some meal vouchers!). But, 11 hours in an airport was pretty much my breaking point.  Then, our flight got delayed another hour and we were in danger of missing our connection in Dallas.  Luckily, in the end, we made it home to our well rested kids with no further problems. It was a harsh return to reality, but a wonderful trip overall.  I (almost) wouldn't have changed a thing!

Trains with Evan and Janie

Yes, you have seen the Museum of Transportation on this blog many, many times.  After all, we used to be members there and at one point were visiting it a couple times a month.  But, you have never seen pictures of Amelia, Henry, Evan, and Janie at the Museum of Transportation!  So, let me indulge you.

My cousin, Laura, her husband, and their two little ones traveled in from Kansas City a few weeks ago for a visit.  Evan and Amelia are less than a month apart in age and Henry and Janie are only a few months apart as well.  They all got along really well and I realized that we just really do not see each other enough!

 So it was off to the Museum for the day (St. Patrick's Day if you can't tell!).  It was a beautiful day and the kids had a fun time exploring all of the trains and such.

One of the best parts for Henry, I believe, was time in the Creation Station. Particularly, the wagon ride he took around the area with Janie.  

 He really, really wanted to touch her sweet little head. 

Amelia and Evan have become enthusiastic pen pals since his departure.  This is especially amusing to me, since his mom and I used to be pen pals also when we were younger.  Although we weren't quite that young!  We are hoping to get to KC this summer to let Evan show us some of his favorite places to hang out!