Conner - May 29, 2012

Conner is changing so much these days. While he is still a carefree and fun little guy, he is asking a lot more questions and talking about "when he was a baby". At night, all of a sudden, he wants us to read the books we read to him when he was a baby and in the hospital. I don't know how he knows which books those are, but he found Runaway Bunny (a board book) that we read when he was brand new and he wants us to read it to him. He told David that when he was a baby, he was "this big" (showing him the palm of his hand). He also asked me about heaven. I honestly have no idea what to tell him. I'm not good at that kind of stuff. It makes me teary. But Conner's happy go lucky attitude (most of the time) makes me smile at the same time. This all seems like such a mature subject for him, considering how often he is talking about Disney World and stinky girls but I guess he is ready to talk about more serious stuff sometimes too.

We have had a rough few months with Conner's health. He's actually handled it all just fine. No hospitalizations this winter and only had to use albuterol for a few weeks on and off. After RSV in December though, it has been one thing after another, including the stomach flu, sinus infections, hand foot and mouth and strep throat three times in the last two months. Not sure it's actually ever going away completely. Anyway, the ENT said the next time he gets strep, he wants to talk about getting his tonsils out so last week when he had another fever and red throat, we went to see him again and he thinks it's time. I only wish we had done everything last year when we took out his adenoids. So on June 12, Conner will have his tonsils out. The doctor will also check for any regrowth of adenoid tissue (or something like that!) and remove that. He is also going to remove his tubes that have been dislodged for a few months. The good news is that even though Conner has been sick and the tubes have been out of place, he still hasn't had an ear infection so we might finally be done with those! These last few months have really taken a lot out of Conner. He hasn't had as much energy and has been really had some rough days. I'm really praying that this procedure helps him. We are also hoping that maybe he will start to sleep a little better after the tonsillectomy. Fingers crossed.

Conner is having a great time at school. Although he doesn't know the kids as well as at his old school, he has had a lot of fun with them. He will be with a few of them next year when he goes to kindergarten there. The great thing is that the class is very small and that Conner will get a lot of attention (which he really needs). And we are pretty sure that he will keep his same "advocate" (aka shadow, para-pro, etc.) over the summer and next year. She has been absolutely fantastic with Conner. Since he doesn't need as much help with social or behavioral stuff, she works with him on academics which I love. I feel so fortunate that we have such a wonderful person looking out for Conner. As much as I tell her, I don't think she can truly know how much she has helped him this year. It has been an adjustment for us, for sure, but Conner has been happy and that is the most important thing. It's so hard to believe that the school year will be over in just a few days. Then two weeks off before camp starts. Hopefully Conner will be recovered in time for the first day. 

I want to add a few photos, but there is a huge glare where I am and I can't see the screen well, so I will get some up soon. I had some more stuff I've been thinking about lately, but I'm just happy to get something posted on this blog!!

Brennan turned 1! - March 8, 2012

Brennan turned 1 on March 8. It's so hard to believe how fast she is growing up. She is getting to be less of a baby and more like a little girl every day. In her 11th month, we went to take Valentine's Day pictures...both kids together was a bit challenging, as Conner has a pretty short attention span and Brennan's nose was really runny. We did get a few good shots though.

Brennan's 1 year stats:
Height: 30 inches, 80th percentile
Weight: 21 lbs, 15 oz, 76th percentile
Head: 46 cm, 90th percentile

So, Brennan is HUGE! She just keeps growing and growing. She is so different from Conner. I think he was 2 before he weighed 22 lbs! She is super happy most of the time, even while teething. On her 1st birthday, she still had just the 4 front teeth but a few more were getting ready to come through. Brennan has started eating mostly table food. On her first birthday, she was still taking 3 bottles and just eating 2 meals a day. We were having a hard time changing her schedule just because she just seemed hungry all the time. As soon as she turned 1, we started working on getting off the bottle. I waited until her 1 year appointment to switch her to milk. She handled that transition fine. We went straight to 1% milk and although she is okay with it, she drinks mostly water. She is getting plenty of whole milk through yogurt and cheese and is getting the majority of her dairy products that way.

She loves to eat and is hungry all the time. She never seems full. Keeping her busy helps...she is definitely a "bored" eater...when we aren't keeping her busy, she's hungry. I really didn't think that could happen so young, but it seems to be the case with the little one. She really likes the normal baby stuff like puffs, baby mum mums and yogurt melts. She also really likes Greek Yogurt, grilled cheese and pancakes. She is not a huge fan of green foods and will pick around everything on her plate to not eat anything green. She does really like fruit and she does get as many vegetables as we can get in her. She loves the pouches (like Gerber Grabbers and stuff like that) with fruit/vegetable purees (like applesauce).

Brennan started really walking a few weeks ago. Her first steps were around 10 1/2 months, but by her first birthday, she was mostly walking. She hadn't quite figured out how to get to standing without pulling up on something but she was pretty much done crawling. She's a naughty little one and gets in to everything! She seems to understand "no" because she usually pauses when I say it but usually just keeps on getting in to stuff.

Since December, Brennan has had a rough time with colds and being sick. She had a few ear infections and colds that seem like they are never ending. You would never know if you didn't see all the snot on her face. Many mornings, she wakes up and her hair is literally stuck to her face. It's gross.

Playing at the JCC Gym

Playing at the Hands On Museum

On Brennan's first birthday, we spent the morning at the Purim carnival at Conner's school. We had lunch together and played in the afternoon. We headed to Red Robin where Brennan had her first ice cream experience...I think she liked it! We had a party for her a week later...save that for another post.

This little girl loves dollies, stuffed animals and really anything soft. She also likes a lot of Conner's toys. Her favorites are his "cellphone", his Lightning McQueen car/electronic game (I think she just likes hearing the sounds) and a bag of Little People animals that were my nephews, then Conner's and now Brennan's. She goes straight to the bag of animals in the morning, makes someone open them for her and she plays with them all day. Brennan has a great personality and I can't wait to see how she changes over the next year.

Delinquent

These are some posts that I have been wanting to write:

*Brennan turns 1
*Brennan's Hungry Caterpillar Party
*Dance Marathon
*Friendship Circle happenings
*Conner's Parent Teacher Conference
*Therapy and the state of our health

Why am I so behind? I just can't seem to get motivated at night to do this and during the day, I'm usually attached to one or two little ones who won't give me a free minute. This morning, I happen to have a few hours to myself, so I went to Panera with my computer, all ready to tackle this blog because this serves as a reminder to me of what has been happening with us and I am not doing a very good job with it. Of course, their internet is down and it only took me an hour to figure out that I could not get it to work on my computer. So I headed to Starbucks and by the time I got situated, I only have 15 minutes...which for me is not nearly long enough to formulate my thoughts.

So for now, I will just have to settle for a reminder list of all I want to write about.

Brennan at 11 months

11 months! It has gone by way too fast. Babyhood is basically over for our little one. She grew up so fast. I can't believe that almost a year has gone by. I haven't savored it as much as I should have. Time just got away from me. But I love every minute we have with Brennan. She is such a sweet girl and I love her so much. Our kids are so beautiful. I honestly have no idea how I got so lucky. When I'm feeling down and sad about stuff, I just have to take one look at that little boy and little girl and it's impossible not to smile.

Brennan took her first steps on January 20. She was almost 10 1/2 months old. I was totally shocked. I figured it was a fluke, but ever since then, she has been doing it more and more. In the last week, she has been walking more and more. She still crawls pretty fast and falls down after a while, but she is definitely gaining confidence and walking more. She loves walking and hates falling! She is mischievous and gets in to everything. She still loves pulling all the pieces off of puzzles and she has been playing more with some of her toys. She especially likes the ones that make music and will dance to mostly anything. It's pretty cute! She still is holding tight with those 4 teeth. No new ones this month. She finally recovered from RSV and has been feeling good.

Brennan sleeps pretty well. Most nights she sleeps about 12 hours, but she is not the best napper. She usually screams when she gets in her crib but calms down in a few minutes. She sleeps great in the car, so I have started bringing a book along with me and I will sit in my car for hours if it means she will take  a good nap. She pretty much goes with the flow though and is pretty easy going.

We signed up for a Kindermusik class. Brennan loves it and seems to really like music like her brother. She squeals when she gets to shake the eggs or play a drum. She is the only girl and some of the boys are pretty aggressive. She mostly sticks right next to me which is fine. It's only a few more weeks and then we might try something else. I was hoping to just get her around a few other kids and this is a great start. We went to a friends' first birthday party at Gymboree and she took a long while to warm up. She was NOT a fan of the parachute which was something Conner loved as a baby! We also had a 1st birthday party at Lifetime. Brennan had fun hanging out with the big kids!

Brennan has started eating more table foods. She still likes baby food and I don't mind giving it to her because I feel like it's nutritious. She likes the squeezable little smoothies and will suck one down in 10 seconds. She loves pancakes and veggie burgers and has tried eggs. The latest foods we tried are rice and spinach pie. Both were big hits. It's nice to think that pretty soon, I can make one thing for both kids to eat for dinner!

She is doing great and getting to be a big girl. It's so sad that she's growing up so fast, but so rewarding to see what an amazing girl she is too.

Conner at 4 1/2

So Conner is 4.5. That happened a few weeks ago. It is so crazy to think that he will be 5 in less than 6 months. It is really amazing how much he has been through, overcome, and accomplished. I'm sure the big 5th birthday will be a big time of reflection for us. 

The last 6 months have been pretty big for Conner. I have teared up a few times thinking about how great this year has been for him. We have had to make so many decisions and with every decision, I think it will get easier, but it really gets harder and harder. I'm hopeful that this year we have been making the right decisions for Conner to help him to accomplish as much as possible. It seems so strange that life should be so serious in preschool, but it really is. I feel like the more we do now, maybe some day, we won't have to do quite so much.

The details are that Conner is now up to about 34-35 lbs, depending on the scale and his clothes. That means he is up between 1-2 lbs since his 4th birthday. Not sure where this puts him on any charts, but he's pretty good in that department. His height is good too. No worries there. He eats and eats. Some days, I have no idea how it's possible that my little man can eat as much as he does. They provide him a fantastic lunch when he goes to school on MWF's so on those days, sometimes he doesn't eat a ton of dinner, but overall, he does great. He no longer really likes macaroni and cheese or hot dogs but will eat them occasionally. Noodles aren't his favorite any more either, although he will eat them. He likes a lot of fruits, vegetables and cheese. Sometimes, I feel so strange feeding him what he wants for dinner but we do our best to get a balanced diet in him. The only foods he really does not like are chick peas and olives. No big deal!

He still loves anything to do with cars, trucks (fire trucks, dump trucks, etc.), trains, tractors, anything really that moves, he likes! He loves running around, playing outside, and horses. Conner loves being a big brother and he is pretty awesome at it. He loves playing with friends and he especially loves time with his older cousins and any other older kid that will give him attention! He loves music and has become especially interested in classical music. He likes singing in the car (and I love it too...hearing him sing his version of Honky Tonk, Badonkadonk is great! He is also a huge fan of Freeze Frame and We Got the Beat!).

Conner continues to be followed by a slew of doctors. The only ones that we see every 3 months now are the GI and Pulmonologist. That's mostly because they both prescribe medications. Conner made it through RSV and did okay with it. He ended up on 3 weeks of antibiotics because he just couldn't kick the sinus mess, but he did okay with some extra breathing treatments and inhaler. He will probably need reflux meds forever. He still has days when he spits up. Everything else is pretty much every 6 months to year and hopefully we can some day get rid of some more of them.

Conner is doing great at school. In fact, we just had his second parent teacher conference of the year. I am continually grateful to his teachers and his advocate (shadow) for providing Conner with such an amazing school experience. His teachers are so wonderful and I feel like they really care about him. His shadow is beyond perfect for Conner. As his teacher told us, they were made for each other. We were so unsure about school in August and now looking back, I know this was the perfect decision for us. Conner still has some goals to reach. Many of his difficulties at school have to do with his fine motor skills. This is his biggest area of weakness and a big part of schooling so we really worry about it. Fine motor skills affect writing, eating, crafts, dressing and undressing, etc. So lots of stuff that he needs to be able to do for school. He also has a very short attention span. At this point, it's hard to say whether that is just a maturity/developmental thing that will catch up, or because if things are too hard, Conner won't do them, or the worst case scenario would be that he has trouble actually learning. It is very possible that Conner has some learning disabilities and we will continue to be on top of this stuff to make sure he gets all the help he needs for school.

We still don't know exactly what we are doing for school next year. We do know that Conner will not be attending public school kindergarten yet. We are pretty certain he will be at the same school as this year and either repeat the 4 year pre-k class or do their kindergarten class (followed by a year at the public school kindergarten). It's so early to know where Conner will be by September. Noone can predict how much further Conner will get. He is picking stuff up, I'm just not sure if it's enough and we don't want him to feel overwhelmed in kindergarten. We will probably register him for kindergarten to secure him a spot and then if we feel he isn't ready, we will move him back to the 4 year old class. Right now, we are in a lottery for camp also (same place as school and same camp as last year). We have him signed up for 1 session in the 4's and 1 session in the big camp with the kindergarteners. Hopefully he will get selected for both and he will get to go to camp all summer. We are hoping that he will get to keep his most amazing advocate with him all summer too and we are pushing for her next year too. I can't imagine school without her. I feel like they have built a great relationship and I would love to continue it.

Conner has been on a good long break from therapy. He has been on a break from Physical Therapy since September of last year. We went for a recheck in January and we are going to go back again in a few months. There will probably be a few things to work on in the next 3-6 months, but right now, things are as good as they can be. Conner needs some time to grow and get a little stronger and hopefully we won't need PT for a long while. He's been on a break from Speech and Occupational Therapy since November when we ran out of sessions (insurance) for the year. We felt like speech was okay because he has been in a speech preschool and he gets speech at the public school. We actually went for a re-evaluation and he did amazing...so well that it was iffy whether our insurance would even cover it any more. They ended up approving 24 sessions, but we are still on a waiting list. Our schedule is pretty hectic so it could take a while to get in. It is pretty incredible that our little guy who didn't start talking until 3 1/2 is now talking up a storm. He is called a chatterbox at school and getting in trouble with some of the other kids (the teacher thinks this is a good thing...I would prefer if he was an angel all day!).

Occupational Therapy is an area that Conner really needs. He was on a waiting list for a while and we finally started up 2 weeks ago. So far, the therapist is just doing some evaluations and checking out where he is, but already she has given me some great tips and we are going to try to get some ideas that they can work on with him at school. We don't really know this therapist yet, but hoping that she works out for Conner.

Conner is still a super busy little guy but it actually works for him. I find on the days that he isn't busy, his behavior is a little iffy. So MWF he goes to school all day. T/Th is speech preschool for 1/2 day. Tuesday he does OT and Thursday he does speech at the public school. That's just the serious stuff. We have been trying to make time for more fun stuff too.

This year, we started getting Conner involved at the Friendship Circle. But when your child is involved there, then it's just natural that we got involved too. Friendship Circle is such an amazing place and it has been such a great complement to all the other things we are doing with Conner. We just started a Sunday program that is 2 hours. Conner gets dropped off and picked up. He loved it last week and hopefully it will be a great activity for him. On Mondays, he has a Friend @Home. His friend happens to be a 14 year old boy who is a freshman in high school. Conner absolutely adores him and is so excited about his friend coming over that he sprints out of school on Mondays. On Tuesdays, we do another activity there. This one is just an hour, but Conner has two amazing volunteers that play with him and he loves it. The people there are so great and they treat Conner so well. He absolutely loves it. It is a place that brings out the absolute best in him and he is so confident when he walks through those doors.

Nothing is ever easy but with school and Friendship Circle, I feel like this has been a great year and Conner is making huge progress. My hope is that the progress continues and that Conner finishes out this school year just as great as he started it.

Happy 4.5 to our little super hero!

this is the best picture I could get with his 4.5 cupcake!

Another Road Trip!

So we came home from Florida...we actually got home on November 27. Well, David had mandatory time off from work in December so we had to do something exciting! So we got back in the car and headed south again. This time our final destination was Texas. I planned a lot of our Florida trip and David planned most of this trip. He had us strategically stopping at such great places so we were able to visit lots of family and friends. We left again on a Friday night and the first stop was Dayton, Ohio to visit my big brother. Conner absolutely adores him and thinks he's the coolest guy (don't know why!) so he was thrilled to get to have dinner with him and see his house. His favorite part was my brother's drums. Scott has several drum sets (don't ask) and Conner was so excited to get to play on them. These are the real deal. Conner was actually pretty good on them and honestly would have stayed up all night if we let him. He continued to talk about "Uncle Scott's drum set" the whole trip. The only other thing we did in Dayton was grab a really good cup of coffee in the morning...and we were on our way!

Our next stop was Jackson, Tennessee to visit some of the Larson family. We haven't been to Jackson since before we were married. So much has changed since then. We were so happy to see the whole family and meet those two sweet girls. Miles is already 5 and Maddie just turned 1 and this was our first time meeting them.  They are both so sweet and we absolutely loved meeting them and hanging out with Anna, Frank, Katy, Uncle Rusty and Aunt Caroline. Conner was excited to spend time with cousins and Brennan was just happy to see another little person and to be out of the car! We spent two days in Jackson and had some great weather. The big kids actually got to play on the playground. Miles was a great big cousin and helped Conner out on the playground...and Anna was a sport going down the slide in some heeled shoes! 

Conner and Maddie

Miles teaching Conner a cheer!

Trying and failing to get a good picture of the 4 of them looking at the camera

the coolest mama!

the little ones

Our next stop was Dallas. We spent a night at our good friend Ashlie's house and 2 nights at a hotel in Dallas. We got to see a bunch of good friends and visit our old stomping grounds. We got to meet a few of our friends kids for the first time and they aren't even babies any more. We have been away too long! We loved seeing everyone and visiting so many places that we love in Texas.

Conner loved his new friend Ava..she wasn't as convinced!

The last stop before heading home was Austin to visit the rest of David's family and my cousins. We got to stay at Andra, Michael, Cheryl and Cayla's house (sister, brother-in-law and nieces) for a few nights. Conner had a blast having his "friends" around all the time. They played with Barbies, American Girl Dolls and Legos. Conner added a little Lightning McQueen to the mix but honestly he didn't care. He was so excited to play with his older cousins and they gave him so much attention, he would have played with anything. He completely ignored David and me most of the time we were there! We were in Austin for a few nights of Chanukah so Andra and Michael hosted a party for the whole family. Conner and Brennan got to spend some time with their grandparents and other Aunt and Uncles and cousin too. We got to go to a few places that we like in Austin too. I loved all the special time we got to spend with Andra and the girls (while Michael worked!). We went to the mall and ran around town together. Wish we lived a little closer. I also got to see my cousins Bruce and Jenny. Conner loved them too (I don't think he met anyone he didn't like on this trip!) and Bruce became a buddy pretty quickly.

We headed home on Christmas Day and took a few days to get home. We stopped at my brother's again and Conner got to play the drums one last time before the final trip home. Not sure when our next road trip will be but these two last ones of 2011 were pretty successful. The kids were great, we saw lots of family and friends, and we had a safe drive and fun excursions. I only wish we could have seen some more friends along the way.