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Joshua random update

30 Jan

Joshua is now 6.5 and in first grade. He was attending Athens Bible School, but we decided last semester to switch to homeschooling after the Christmas break. We’re 4 weeks into homeschooling and are both absolutely LOVING it. I’ve already seen a lot of progress in Joshua, now that he’s able to go at his own pace in each area. He’ll be starting grade 2 math in a couple weeks, he’s reading chapter books regularly and working on increasing his reading stamina (given that he read an entire Star Wars chapter book this morning, I’d say that’s definitely happening!). We’re working on strengthening his hand for more writing (this is a weak area for him), and have also changed how he forms his letters. He’s doing very well. He’s getting used to doing copywork and narrations a lot, as well as several dictation phrases during spelling. I’ve seen so much academic growth in the last 4 weeks, I just can’t believe it. To keep up with his homeschooling progress and the nitty gritty details, you can check out my homeschool blog here. I have it on Blogger so I can quickly and easily post pictures from Picasa and such. Plus I don’t want to bore the people that just want to hear about the family on this blog. ;)

Other stuff… Joshua is playing Mites hockey this year, which is the next level up from Termites. He’s starting to go after the puck now, getting a little bit of aggression. We’ve been waiting for that to come out! Besides hockey, Joshua is also crazy about Star Wars, despite having never seen the movies and only having seen a handful of the Clone Wars TV series. He also enjoys playing computer (especially chess), and his DS that he got for Christmas. He’s definitely a geek like his daddy (and a bit of mommy). My dad got him a Snap Circuits set for Christmas, and he loves that too. Joshua is a big help around the house – picking up rooms, clearing the table and wiping it down, getting drinks for the family at dinner time, etc. He’s turning out to be a fine, young man. :)

 
 

4 Year Update

30 Jan

Aaron turned 4 in November, but had his well child appointment this past week. So here are the stats…

Weight: 40 lbs
Height: 42.5″

Aaron has made some huge advances in the last year! First, he’s talking very well now. Still has some mispronunciations, but he is going to speech therapy once a week for that. Most of it is stuff he can say, but chooses not to. :P Last summer, we started working through some Rod & Staff ABC preschool workbooks, focusing on colors, shapes, numbers, and also learning to cut. Yes, I let my 4 year old use scissors. I still can’t believe it. He definitely has better fine motor control at this age than Joshua did (who didn’t get to use scissors until the summer before Kindergarten). Anyway, by the end of the summer, he knew all his colors and shapes, how to count to 10, and how to roughly cut something out. Yay! Next we worked on letter recognition. We started with Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, which takes you from learning the letters through 4th grade level reading. We spent about 3 weeks learning the letters and their sounds. Then I remembered the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD, had him watch that a few times, and now he knows his letters very well. :) I hope I will remember that for Timothy – just skip to the DVD and let the frog teach the letters and their sounds! :P We have started some CVC words in our reading book, and he is doing very well with that. He still has to sound each one out at this point, but we haven’t practiced much since before Christmas. What surprised me is the fact that he could blend the letter sounds together to figure out the word before he even knew all his letter sounds! For Joshua, it was the other way around – he knew his letter sounds for a couple years before blending clicked (allowing him to actually learn to read). Aaron is proving to be a very different critter. I wasn’t even expecting him to read as early as Joshua did, but it’s looking like he might afterall. The blending certainly kicked in at an earlier age. Aaron has also learned to write some letters via copying them. I’m trying to hold off formally teaching him writing for now, but I doubt I’ll be able to wait much longer. I plan to use the Handwriting Without Tears program, as it has been great for Joshua (remediating his handwriting after getting into bad letter formation habits).

Aaron has started learning to ice skate, in preparation for playing hockey eventually. He likes it, as long as the teacher has the toys out. :) He does pretty well, moving slowly across the ice. He can get up on his own if he falls.

Well, that’s the Aaron update…

 
 

Quick 18ish month update

30 Jan

Timothy is actually 21 months now, but at his 18 month appointment, he was…

Weight: 26 lbs
Height: 32″

He’s running around, saying “ball” a lot (his favorite toy), and getting into everything. Pretty much, if you read Aaron’s 18 month update, Timothy’s is the same. :)

Not a lot of talking yet, though he does say some sentences here and there. When playing with the Leapfrog Fridge Magnets, he says “A says /a/… B says /b/”, which is awfully cute. If you ask him to say “I love you”, he will crack up. He’ll generally have a long conversation with you in gibberish, which most people enjoy. He seems to know what he’s saying, even if no one else does. I suspect that when he starts to really talk, it may be in sentences right away.

 
 

Server Issues

10 Jan

We had a server crash and a corrupted backup, which equalled losing all of the blog data from after July 2009. This means that most of the Timothy updates are lost in cyberspace. :( I guess it’s third child syndrome. My older sister and brother had baby books. I got one when I was 16 and had to fill it out myself. Maybe Timothy can update his blog when he’s 16. :P

I’m making some upgrades to the software while I’m at it, so hopefully I won’t break anything, and maybe I can start updating again soon. Lots to update since July of 2009!

UPDATE: Thanks to Lee Seitz for rescuing the missing blog posts! Working on getting the missing posts put back in. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! :)

 
 

1 Year Addition

07 Jun

Timothy had his well baby appt today!

Weight: 22 lbs
Height: 30?
Head circumference: 47cm

All is good, and thankfully his grabbing his ear recently is not an ear infection. It’s probably some referred pain from teething. Or he just might like playing with his ear. :)

 
 

1 Year!

30 May

Timothy turned 1 year old on May 25! I can’t believe he’s gotten so big! We haven’t had his 1 year appt yet, so no official stats (though he appears to be around 22 lbs and seems to have grown taller recently since he can reach stuff now!), but I’ll post those later after that appt. ;)

DSCF0875 [http://childstracks.net/v/Nursery3/1Year/Haircut/DSCF0875.JPG.html]

His birthday was overshadowed by Joshua’s Kindergarten graduation, which I’ll post about next. Not much celebrating of Timothy happened that day, but we did do his first hair cut. He’d been trying out the 80s hair styles… mohawk, mullet… Mama decided it was time to get out of the 80s. So off went the hair. It was a sad day, but he does look very cute.

The grandparents came up to celebrate his birthday Saturday, where we had cake, sang Happy Birthday ™, and ate lots of good BBQ. Timothy enjoyed all of it. Joshua decorated the cake for him. It’s a picture of Joshua and Timothy playing hockey together. :)

DSC_0068 [http://childstracks.net/v/Nursery3/1Year/DSC_0068.JPG.html]

Timothy is doing lots of new things these days. He’s pulling up and cruising along furniture, sometimes attempting to let go, but not quite ready to stand alone yet. He crawls like a mad man, especially if he hears food going to the dining room. He eats pretty well, though still not a lot of food. He enjoys eating and so far likes everything, and he doesn’t gag on everything anymore, though he still can’t handle really big stuff. For words, I’m pretty sure he has said “mama”, “dada”, and “night night” (“nana”). He can wave goodbye and move his tongue side to side. The important things in life, right? He enjoys reading books, and flips the pages appropriately. He’s also learned how to scroll the text of the Bible on my iPod Touch, plus he tried to Tweet the chapter we were reading. :)

Sleep is going reasonably well. He is consistently waking once around 4:30am, which is giving Mommy a good stretch of uninterrupted sleep, but it’s that time where if I go back to bed, I’ll sleep too late and have a horrible start to my day (not getting anything done before kids are up), and if I stay up, it’s awfully early, and that catches up with me after a few days. I usually just stay up. :P He had a few nights of sleeping all night this week, but this morning he woke at 4:30am again. Oh well. He has Hand Foot and Mouth Disease AND is getting two more teeth right now, so I can’t blame him for waking!
DSC_0058

He’s still a very good, laid back baby. Loves to ride in his Babyhawk Oh Snap! on my back. Great carrier. I highly recommend it! He also likes to drive the shopping carts at Publix with his big brother Aaron. Both his big brothers love playing with him, and it’s so sweet to see how they all interact.

Will post more after his well baby appt a week from now!

 
 

9-10 Month Update

28 Mar

Timothy just turned 10 months! And yes, I promised a 9 month update and forgot. Doh!

At his 9 month appt, the stats were:

weight: 20 lbs 1 oz
height: 29?

As of 10 months, he is crawling for real, pulling up to standing, finally figured out how to sit back down from standing… In the eating department, he was barely eating anything and wanted non-pureed foods but would gag on them and throw up whenever he got them. At his 9 month appt, I explained this to the doctor, and she said some babies just have really bad gag reflexes. Well, that evening, he got some Bojangles dirty rice at dinner time, and he not only didn’t gag on it, but he stopped gagging on everything! Weird. So now he eats small bits of whatever we’re eating. He still doesn’t eat a LOT, but he’s eating more than he was. If we do a puree, it’s usually 2 cubes (about 1 oz each) with a bit of rice cereal to thicken it up. He used to hardly eat 1 cube, so this is progress!

Nighttime is back and forth. Sometimes he’s up just once, and sometimes he’s up 3 times. He takes good naps though, so it’s all good.

Timothy and his brothers have so much fun together now. Joshua said one day that he really liked playing with Timothy. :) And Aaron is quite good with him also. He’s been very helpful lately.

Words… He’s said “dada” while pointing at Doug, so that was his first word. He said “mama” this weekend, but I’m not sure if he was just repeating me or if he was using it as a word. I suspect the former. He also can say “hi”, but doesn’t very often.

 
 

3 Year Update

30 Jan

Yes, Aaron turned 3 in November, but his well child appointment was this week, so I’m updating now. :P

Weight: 38 lbs
Height: 40?

Big boy! :)

Lots has happened in the last few months! First, he is finally TALKING!!!!!!!!!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And we can understand him probably 85% of the time, which is awesome. He still has some articulation issues, but I’m working on them one by one. Tonight he said “sippy” instead of “beebee”, so I’m thrilled with his progress! Every day, he says something that makes me think “Wow, I understood that!” :)

The second thing that’s happened is that we discovered the cause of his chronic diarrhea, and it’s no longer chronic. :) Turns out that he has Fructose Malabsorption, which is a type of fructose intolerance. With some minor changes to his diet (which really haven’t been that difficult), the diarrhea issue has been completely turned around. Another woohoo! The hardest part is that he loves apples and can’t have them now. But he can still have several fruits, such as bananas, strawberries, blueberries, etc. Fruits that have equal glucose to fructose are ok. Fruits that have more fructose than glucose are not ok. And we have to limit the fruits in general so he doesn’t get too much overall fructose. We also have to avoid whole wheat, as wheat contains fructans and is related to this fructose issue. White bread is ok, whole wheat bread is not. Even whole grain goldfish are out, much to his dismay. I haven’t tried regular goldfish. It’s a bit counterintuitive, as I had been trying to give the kids whole grain cereals and snacks, but there are way worse food intolerances/allergies out there. And thankfully, dairy is ok! Phew!

Aaron is learning new things… I’ve been somewhat casually working on preschool type stuff with him. We’re learning letters, numbers, some vocabulary words (like “calf”), etc. He’s enjoyed this. He can count to three and knows a handful of letters and colors. He’s about a year behind Joshua in this department, but I think his fine motor skills and coloring skills are better than Joshua’s. So it evens out!

He is helpful around the house, putting dishes in the dishwasher, picking up toys and putting them where they belong, etc. His behavior has been noticeably better since we changed his diet, and he’s turned into a very sweet little boy. He loves his baby brother and says “TeeTee KISS!” at night, wanting a kiss from the baby. :) I taught him how to use a computer this week, starting with starfall.com and also playing Potato Guy on Linux. He’s getting very good with the mouse!

Well, that’s the 3 year update.. just 3 months late. ;)

 
 

General 4-8 Month Update

30 Jan

Whoops… Kept meaning to update every month, and well… Here’s the summary. :)

4 Months
Weight: 15 lbs 9 oz
Height: 25 1/4?
Head Circumference: 16.5?

At this point, he was rolling front to back, then getting very upset that he was on his back. He sleeps on his tummy.

6 Months
Weight: 18 lbs 6 oz
Height: 27.5?
Head Circumference: 17 1/4?

He got his first tooth Thanksgiving weekend. I gave him his first solid food Thanksgiving Day – let him gnaw on a banana so I could eat my waffle. :) He really wasn’t interested in solid food much at this point though. The other boys took off quickly with the food, and Timothy was kind of like “Eh… I don’t need it.” So I just offered it now and then, and mostly he spit it out.

At his well baby appointment, as the doctor was leaving the exam room, she waved bye to Timothy. He waved back! She stopped and said “Did he just wave at me?”, and she waved again. He did it again! So she counted that as his first wave. :) He did it again for the receptionists on the way out. Flirt!

8 Months

No stats yet (next doctor appointment is at 9 months), but he’s HEAVY. :) He now sits up unassisted really well, though can’t quite get himself there. He’s working on it. He ends up at about a 45 degree angle, looking like he’s doing some abdominal exercises on his side. He started scooching forward and also getting on hands and knees and rocking at 6.5 months after watching a baby 1 day older than him crawling at a mom’s group. Thankfully, he hasn’t gone quite as fast as her, as she was cruising last time we saw her! Timothy’s not pulling up yet, and I think that might be a while, though he can stand up if you place him there holding onto something. Right now, he’s still working on a real crawl, but he’s getting around. He can go from the living room to the dining room to the kitchen. He is especially motivated by “big boy toys” and Warlock. Warlock is slowly learning to move when the baby grabs him.

Sleep is going ok. We’ve had 6 teeth come in! So he was awake a LOT. This week, he’s been going longer stretches, so I’m hoping it’s becoming a pattern. He even slept all night one night! I couldn’t believe it! Since then, he’s still been waking up once 1-2 hours after he goes to bed, then maybe another time around 4am or so.

Baby sounds include “buh”, “guh”, “vuh” or “fuh” (while sucking on his bottom lip). He may have had a “duh” in there too. He laughs when I say “Ma… ma”

Timothy is still a very laid back baby. He is pretty happy as long as he’s fed, has a clean diaper, and has had his sleep. He’s easily entertained by his brothers, especially Joshua. Both boys have been great big brothers.

He’s finally eating for real now, though it’s still small amounts. A couple weeks ago, a friend gave me 5 cups of pureed butternut squash. I was thrilled when the baby actually ate it and liked it! It was the first food he really truly liked and wanted more of. He still ate a pretty small amount, but last week he decided he really wants to eat food now. So we’ve gone from a tsp every 1-2 days to 1oz twice a day. He also likes Cheerios and Rice Chex. He prefers to feed himself, but he can’t really handle too much yet. Still gags fairly easily.

All in all, things are going great with Timothy. He still has his blonde hair and blue eyes, and his hair is now in a mohawk that I cannot for the life of me get to lay down. Oh well. Gives him character, right? Hopefully I’ll remember to update next month with his weight/height stats!

 
 

3 Months Old!

30 Aug

Timothy is 3 months old! His last weigh-in a couple weeks ago was 13.6 lbs, so he’s likely in the 14-14.5 lb range now. All I can say is he’s HEAVY. :)

Timothy loves to smile and talk to inanimate objects. Flowers seem to be funny to him. He’s starting to get a little bit of a happy squeal. No belly laughs yet, but he’s working on it. ;)

He’s starting to grab for things a tiny bit. Sometimes it’s not necessarily on purpose, but he can purposely bring a burp cloth to his mouth to chew on. And on that note… Teething has begun. He’s very drooly, and he is gnawing on things when given a chance. I can see the two little white bumps that will one day be teeth. I think it will be a couple months before they come through, but the process has started.

Timothy is sleeping about 9ish hours each night now, so two nights ago I moved him up to his room for the whole night. Previously, I was putting him to bed in the pack-n-play in our room, and then putting him in his crib after his one middle-of-the-night feed. So now he’s in his room all night. Still gets fed once, but it’s usually around 5am. He still takes good naps during the day. There isn’t really a set schedule, as we’re still getting used to school time. But I usually manage to get him and Aaron doing a long nap at the same time.

He’s still wearing 3-6 month clothes now, but will probably need 6-9 month very soon. Some of his 3-6 month onesies are getting a little tight. He’s also still wearing size small diapers, and I seem to have enough of them made that he can wear fitteds all day. He’s in a premium prefold at night just because it holds everything and surprisingly isn’t horribly bulky. I really need to start the medium stash *soon*. The smalls fit right now, but the rise is starting to get toward the short side. I have a bit of time, but knowing how long it takes me to get 10+ diapers made, I really need to start like a month ago. :P

Timothy is not rolling yet, but he has thought about trying recently. I put him down on his tummy, and he lifted his chest off the bed and tried to rotate those hips to roll to his back. He’s not even halfway there yet, but he’s thinking about it. Maybe next month’s update will have a roll in there. His head control is very good, and he likes to sit up a lot with help.

The older boys still love him. Aaron likes to point out his body parts, and also likes to give hugs and kisses. Joshua likes to entertain him while I’m busy doing something, and he also likes to rub the top of his head.