Rollie Pollie Ollie

We now have a rollie pollie ollie on our hands!  He is a little Houdini and can get out of anything (swaddle blankets, bouncer chairs, bumbo chair???).  I had to buy a bigger rug since he is rolling everywhere now.  I had flashbacks of a couple of Christmas???s ago yesterday when Ty managed to roll under the tree and was trying to pull ornaments off.  Tanner did the same thing at this age.  As Tanner was born in May and Ty was supposed to be born in May, it makes it a little easier for me to judge Ty???s development.   There are some developmental delays but they are not all that significant.  Ty still won???t eat off a spoon and he can???t sit up.  Ty is actually more advanced in his communicative skills though than Tanner was at this age.  (Of course, Tanner still has some speech delays so that is not surprising).  Maybe I shouldn???t say speech ???delay??? with Tanner.  That may not be accurate.  He doesn???t converse using as many words as many 3 year olds do but he isn???t suffering from it eitherJ.  All in their own time I guess.

Ty is continually moving in a forward motion though.  Once he figured out how to roll both directions, he just took off.  He loves this new found freedom.  I think the Bumbo chair (I mentioned that in a previous posting) has done him good too.  It has a low center of gravity so he has to work at it a little harder to sit up which strengthens his tummy.  He can hold his weight sitting up if he puts his hands in front on the ground.  This only lasts a few seconds but still it is progress!

He has also learned to ???pat??? and it is so precious.  He is continually patting my hand when I hold him.  Mommy is a patter so he must have learned the behavior from me.  He is such a little copy cat and loves to mimic.  He wants to talk so badly!  He really watched our mouth and tries to imitate shape and sound.  Lately he pretends to cough all the time just so I will cough back.  He loves responsive communication.  I bet he will be chatty chatty chatty once he figures out some words.

Can you believe we are only about 6 weeks from his first birthday????? Wow!!!!  This first year we may wait until May to celebrate it.  In the future we will celebrate his birthday on the real date (January 17th) but this first year we may not.  During this winter season, we may not want to do a big party (virus reasons) and he won???t be old enough to enjoy it anyhow.  As a point of fact, most one year old children are not old enough to enjoy their birthdays either but at least they can eat their birthday cake and I don???t see Ty being quite ready for that in Jan.  Haven???t made a final decision on this one yet.  Jury is still out.

Why is it that as soon as you think you have a kid figured out they change?  I had just determined that Ty liked vegetables and not fruits and then this week he switched teams.  Now he is refusing vegetables but will eat fruits.  Aaaaghhhh!!!  The cereal bottle is still working though so I am at least grateful for that.

He learned to hold his own bottle though this week!  Tanner learned that at 6 months and Ty is 6 months adjusted so he seems on target with his fine motor skills.

Speaking of a change in behavior, last night Jim and I giggled when we saw Ty on his tummy in his crib eating the bumper pad ribbons.  What is the big deal you say?  All babies do that!  Not if they have always been swaddled they don???t!  Ty has learned that if he rolls from side to side he can work the swaddling loose and get his arms free.  He was happy as could be free of his straight jacket and munching away on his bedding.  Why do we bother swaddling still?  Because Ty is still on an apnea monitor and a sat monitor at night.  If he gets loose from the swaddling he starts eating his chords.  Worse, he starts rolling over and gets chords wrapped around his body and sometimes his neck!  Not good!  He loves to be swaddled for sleep and if he wakes up during the night and unswaddles himself, he has trouble going back to sleep unless we reswaddle him.  We will have to break this habit soon but swaddling is our best course of action while he is still on monitors.  For right now, we just have to wait him out.  Let him escape until we know he is sleepy and then redo it.  I thought of a new thing to worry about yesterday though.  We have just laid wood laminate down in Ty???s room.  Eventually the crib will be moved in there.  Tanner never attempted to crawl out of his crib but I feel pretty certain that Ty will.  Imagining him crawling out of the crib and landing on his head on the wood laminate sends shivers down my spine.  The trials and tribulations of motherhood???always something to occupy our imaginations.

Amanda, and her mom and grandparents came to visit Ty this week.  They live about an hour away so between that and our lockdown, we haven???t seen them since September.  I posted pictures in the Nov album if you want to check them out.

Homeschooling mama to 4 amazing kids and part time professional photographer.

Pick Up the Phone

When I was in the third grade my friend Sabrina and I were playing in our front room when all of a sudden by little brother David comes busting through the back door in a panic.  ???Someone wet my wizard woose!!!!??? he yelled throughout the house! (Someone let my lizard loose).   What a terrible tragedy that was!  Can you imagine the horror of it?  I find myself asking what is worse?  Loosing one???s lizard to a brother that staged a jail break or being incapable of pronouncing the letter ???L????  That is a toss up!

David could be the topic of many many many of my memory lane ramblings.  He is onery.  He is a button pusher.  He doesn???t take ???no??? for an answer.  He acts first and thinks about consequences later.  He says whatever comes to mind without any thought of filtering.  He goes against the grain and has no prideJ. 

He did not even hesitate when he pulled me out of Daniel???s pool and started giving me CPR!  (No, I was not drowning.  Apparently he just thought I would make a good test case).  That is just a wicked thing to do to your sister.  Oh my gosh that was disgusting!  Who would do that?  To their own sister and on purpose?  Check out his picture in the Nov album.  He even looks a bit Jeff Foxworthyish at the moment. 

He can drive me nuttier than anybody (and he knows it).  He is also one of the most giving, unselfish, tender hearted and compassionate people that I know and I love him so much!

Even though I do indeed love him, sometimes a sister does need a little recourse.  I have been kissed on the lips by this brother one too many times lately (as Tanner would say ???das gwoss???!).  So I thought I would share a little something with you.  David is under the opinion that I screen my calls all of the time and that I purposefully don???t answer his calls (not true).  He has these very long and one sided conversations with me over my answering machine while continually petitioning Tanner to get me to pick the phone up.  (Which we never hear because I am NOT screening his calls).  Anyhow, I couldn???t stop giggling when he decided to sing ???Pick up the phone??? to me this week.  I have decided to make that message available to the public.  Listen to this clip:  Download PickUpthePhone.mp3 (very short mp3 file).

Sadly, my attempt at retaliation will not work.  He will probably get great joy and satisfaction out of this.  I never win.

Homeschooling mama to 4 amazing kids and part time professional photographer.

Another GIRL – YIPPEE!

Congratulations to Darin and Jodi!!!!  They found out this morning that they are having a GIRL!!!  Her name is Karsyn Lynn. 

It was high time for another girl in this family – lil’ Miss Zandi needs a friend!  Here are the stats: 

May 2001 – Tanner

Nov 2002 – 18 months later – Noah

Aug 2003 – 10 months later – Zandi

Jan 2004 – 5 months later – Ty

Sep 2004 – 8 months later – Graham

Dec 2004 – 3 months later (expecting:) – Zane

April 2005 – 4 months later (expecting) – Karsyn

YEP!  We definitely needed another girl!

Homeschooling mama to 4 amazing kids and part time professional photographer.

Sweetie Update

Mom is doing well this fine morning.  She has been eating and walking some and is off her IV pain meds.  Her incision was very large so I imagine it will take some time before she really feels "good" but she has been tolerated the pain well over the last couple of days.  Hopefully, she will be coming home today or tomorrow. 

Homeschooling mama to 4 amazing kids and part time professional photographer.

New Diary Format

SURPRISE!  I know I know….I am changing formats again.  I have decided to give this typepad weblog a trial run for 30 days.  Why?

  1. Easier organization of my archives
  2. Easier viewing
  3. Easier searching
  4. Easier photo publishing
  5. Fun comments:)

If you are "behind" in reviewing web postings for Nov, you can get to the original postings HERE.

Special Note on comments:

I will not be "replying" to comments.  If you would like a reply or have a question, please email me directly. 

I am not using this weblog service to publish my site and journals more publicly.  The intent of this site was for family and friends (and all my new web friends;).  This is still a very personal and theraputic endeavor for me though.  Often times, I post things that are very controversial to the general public.  This site was not intended for the general public.  I am not going to "password" protect my journals, and I welcome old and new friends alike to visit, but I do want my visitors to remember when they are reading my posts who my "target" audience is.  I am not going to filter what I say, so I guess this is just a warning to read at your own risk if you have stumbled upon this site and do not always appreciate my postings:) LOL!

If I don’t like this format, I will go back to posting my diaries on my website.  We’ll see how it goes!

One concern I have is bandwidth.  My personal site allows for 10 gigs of bandwidth where this package only allows for 3.  On my site, I am using more than 5 per month.  The maximum I can get with typepad is 8 gigs so this may or may not be an option for me.  This format may decrease the amount of bandwidth being used so maybe I’ll slide by:).

Homeschooling mama to 4 amazing kids and part time professional photographer.