Bennett is 3!

Bennett had his third birthday on Thanksgiving this year. He has already made out with an impressive haul. We got him a train table, complete with way too many train accessories. He has been really loving trains for the past few months and always plays with them whenever he has the chance. It's so cute to listen to him squeal "tains!" and "choo choo" when one catches his eye. Grandma Jackie gave Bennett The Very Hungry Caterpillar themed bedding. It is perfect in his room and even had two pillow cases with Bennett's name embroidered on them. The new bedding meant it was time for the real big boy full-size bed.

My mom was here, so she took the kids out while we got everything ready for the big reveal. We had to entirely rearrange Bennett's room to get everything to fit well. And it was a risk to do everything suddenly as Bennett doesn't always love a change in routine, but this worked out. He was so happy to see everything and proceeded to play with the trains and cuddle in his new bed. He loves the sheets with all the stuff the caterpillar ate and spends time every day counting the oranges, plums ("pums!), etc.

Bennett's party isn't even until this weekend. It is also VHC themed and Mom is going a bit overboard. I have found Etsy to be a great party planning/decorating resource for those of us who lack any artistic and creative abilities. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures.

My mom stayed for a little over a week. Overall, we had a good time and everyone is still living. So that's a win. We bought her an Ipad for all mom-related holidays for the next two years. She took a couple of classes for that at the Apple store and seems to be doing well with it so far. We really didn't do anything else very exciting while she was here. She made some yummy food as is her habit.

Unfortunately, after she left, Vivian and I came down with the stomach flu. Bernie got it a few days later. Bennett seems to have been only mildly affected up to now...I hope we can at least get through his party. And then maybe we can avoid having that type of illness when we go to Phoenix over Christmas.

I am going to register Bennett for preschool tomorrow and maybe we will take him over on Thursday. I am really excited/sad/nervous for him to start. I think he will do well, but I guess it's my job to worry about it.

I have been walking/slash running with a friend of mine. We are trying to get ready for a 5K in April. It's not easy getting out to exercise with Bernie's work schedule + 2 kids, but we are managing a 2-3 times per week (except when someone is vomiting of course). We are quite the sight with our huge strollers and four screaming children. Vivian gets especially pissy for some reason.

I just asked Bernie if there was anything I was forgetting about and he wanted me to remind everyone how great of a husband he is. And he's right of course.

We have been going to JC Penney portrait studio a few times a year since Bennett was born. It is important to me to get milestone pictures of the kids and family photos every once in awhile. I know they aren't the most professional or creative photos, but they were serving the intended purpose. Anyway, they are habitually late. And it makes me crazy. It's especially bad when you get two kids ready, schedule the appointment when they will be happiest, and then have to wait 20 minutes while the prior session finishes. I thought I solved this problem by only booking the first appointment of the day. We went in at 10am today and no one was there. We waited 10 minutes and then told the manager we were leaving and not coming back. I am finished with that bullshit. Consider this my official warning to anyone else in Longmont...go somewhere else for your photos. I don't think I will go to that store if not absolutely necessary...like when they send me $10 free coupons.

The photo drama leaves me in a conundrum. Vivian just turned one and Bennett will be three. And it is time for a family photo. We wanted to have my friend Sara's husband Tyson take them while we were in GF this past summer, but my dad's drama and Vivian's allergy issues prevented that from happening. So, I am going to try and find someone around here. I have one person in mind, but if anyone has any recommendations, please let me know.

In more exciting news, I think we have decided on a preschool for Bennett. I was originally convinced that we would send him to Tiny Tim (where his therapists work) for at least this spring. It's a great program that combines typical and challenged kids with qualified teachers and therapy. Sounds perfect, right?? Well, we decided to go through the school district's evaluation as well to see what they might offer. They recommended a public preschool near our house. We checked it out this week and really like it. There are only 6 kids in the classroom with two adults (the teacher and an assistant). Speech and occupational therapists come in each week to work with the kids while in class. The teacher is a special education teacher and has experience with kids like Bennett. She was very nice. So, I think we are going to take the leap of faith and start him there in January (Tues/Thurs mornings). We will have another IEP meeting next week to iron out the details and sign paperwork.

We will probably continue to see his current OT and ST at Tiny Tim as well. We will see how he does with that plan and adjust as needed. I don't want him to be too overwhelmed.

Trip recap, etc.

We had a nice (but short) trip to Minneapolis. The kids really enjoyed seeing Grandma and Auntie Jodi. It didn't take them long to warm up because Grandma had beed doing lots of Facetime with them before we left. The wedding was fun, although the ceremony itself was not something the kids were able to make it through...not that I expected them to make it through an hour in a church in the first place. I think we stayed for the first 20 minutes and then watched some Mickey Mouse in the car. Bernie enjoyed seeing his friends again. He's right that that was probably the last time they will all be together for the foreseeable future.

If anyone ever gets to that area with kids, the children's museum in St. Paul was great and so was the Thai restaurant across the street. I am still thinking about that food. It's nice to be able to go into a restaurant and order basically anything off of the menu and not worry about there being any dairy in it.

We got back the day before Halloween, so there wasn't much time to prepare. Bennett went as a pirate in jammies (sans hat) and Vivian donned her cupcake gear. She stayed in the wagon while Bennett and I went door to door. He filled his bag by going around the block and is now constantly asking me for "cany!" I suppose I should hide the bag or something. Maybe Vivian can wear the Mickey outfit I got for Bennett this year.

We are happy with our new phones and the ipad was so awesome to have for the plane ride. Bennett is already a pro at one of the preschool apps. I am looking into a few options of speech apps we can work with at home. He continues to make good progress and will now try to imitate almost every word you say when asked. He knows his numbers 1-10, most letters by sight, shapes, and colors. I think there is a lot in his head we just can't know because of his communication challenges. His new favorite thing in the world is trains. He says "choo choo" every time we see one or talk about them. I guess the train table sitting in the basement was a good choice for a birthday gift. Now I just have to find somewhere to put it which involves selling some more of the baby stuff on Craigslist.

Vivian is now our 1 year old baby. She is experimenting with crawling on her hands and knees more. I don't see her walking in the immediate future as she doesn't even like to practice while we hold her hands. She is quite the little imitator though. Her current favorite think is playing patty-cake complete with hand-clapping, rolling, patting, and throwing it in the oven. Hopefully I can get a video of that soon.

Annoying

I took Bennett in for his follow-up today and his pediatrician looked at the xray and saw NO pneumonia...thought the ER was just playing is safe. So, yeah.

Also, pics on the Flickr page are going to be out of sequence. I posted some of Viv's birthday party yesterday, and now I'm going to start getting caught up by going back to September 2nd.

Our step into modernity, Vivian's Bday party, etc.

Bernie and I have finally gotten smart-phones-two iphones to be exact. He got the 4 and I got the 4s. We have been thinking about it for a long time and our contract has been up for over a year. So we decided to go for it and signed up with Verizon. This is the first time we even have a text plan. We have been having fun getting familiar with all of the phone features and playing a little bit of Angry Birds. The Siri voice feature on my phone is especially fun. I swore at it earlier today and it said "watch your language!' Ha! And seriously, I don't know if I will ever need another camera. It's such a convenient way to take photos. We are really going to get teched up on Friday when I go pick out my ipad birthday present. I think that will be nice to have on our two upcoming plane trips with the kiddos.

We had Vivian's first birthday party over the weekend. It was a co-party with her friend Audrey who also turned one. It was a fall costume themed party. Vivian was a cupcake and Bennett was a pirate (Aside: I got Bennett a really cute Mickey Mouse costume at a garage sale. I have been slowly introducing him to it for a month, but there is no way he is dealing with that shit. I had to emergency order him a set of pirate jammies from Old Navy. They're cute too, but I thought this was the year for a real costume). I made an owl cake with pyrex bowls, which was my first foray into making a non-regular cake. I will have to post pics of it later. It only stood up for about an hour before toppling over, but everyone at least got a chance to see it. Vivian got scared by some noise and didn't really get into her smash cake moment. But it was otherwise a good time.

Bennett and Bernie have been sporting cold symptoms since Saturday. Last night, Bennett got really weird with his breathing. It was fast and labored. He seemed agitated and was coughing constantly. The breathing thing was really freaking me out so I made Bernie take him to the ER and midnight. His oxygen was a bit low. The chest x-rays revealed a small spot of pneumonia. He is on antibiotics now and we will follow up with the pediatrician tomorrow. I'm glad we ended up taking him.

I have set up times to observe three pre-schools for Bennett. In some ways I feel like we should look at more, but then I feel a bit suffocated by all of the choices. I'm hoping we can find something we really like from the first three and that they will have a spot. Keep your fingers crossed. Now I'm delving into the question of which school district we want to be in. It's all so adult of me!

We are off to Minneapolis next week for a wedding. Bernie's mom and youngest sister will be meeting us there. We are looking forward to it...as long as we get well!

The Kids in Bulletpoints

Bennett

-finally saying "help" when he needs it. I can't tell you what a breakthrough this is.
-is getting therapy three times per week
-is taking a tumbling (beginning level gymnastics) class that he seems to enjoy. The boy loves his gross motor activities
-gets excited to see his friend Noah
-still loves to cuddle and read books
-is waking more often at night yelling. I don't know if he has started to have nightmares or what.
-loves to ride in the van and look at power lines
-STILL loves to watch the laundry in the washing machine
-enjoys eating green peppers like apples straight out of the garden
-is very into his routines, but doesn't get too mad if they are changed
-is going to be three in two months!
-would eat constantly if allowed
-will be beginning the preschool transition soon. We are meeting with the school district to do their evaluation the first week in October.
-still loves his blanket and thumb
-favorite toys are cars and trains

Vivian
-pulls up to stand on everything, but has not started cruising yet
-puts all food in her mouth and seems to promptly spit it all back out
-waves to say hello, plays peek-a-boo like a pro, mimics words, talks on the phone, and gave the sign for "all done" tonight at dinner.
-pulls on my hair every chance she gets. It seems to be her comfort object
-gave up the pacifier on her own a couple of months ago (much to my annoyance some days), five months earlier than Bennett gave up his.
-has eaten out of a bottle two times in her life and is doing well with sippy cups
-does not love car rides as much as Bennett
-still wakes up 2-3 times per night. Between her and Bennett, I don't know how I function some days
-has to take two baths every day to help with her eczema (which is so much better).
-is going to be one in one month!
-enjoys following Bennett around and getting into his business whenever possible.

Tomatoes the size of softballs.

We have some of those here. And they are the beautiful multicolor heirloom variety. I went to pick two of them yesterday after not-so-patiently waiting weeks for them to ripen and found that some sort of critter got to them first. The bottoms were eaten out of them. The critter better not show its face, or it will be dead. I cut the parts out that were chewed up, but I don't know if I can bring myself to eat them.

I have been avoiding the blog update recently. I just can't seem to muster the will to write about what is going on in our lives. Things are mostly status quo. Bennett had his first session with the developmental interventionist this morning and it went OK. We are hoping she can help out with his transition to preschool coming up in January. Right now all of Bennett's therapy services are through Childfind, which provides early intervention for under 3's free of cost. So all of our sessions are in the home or community (usually the park). When Bennett's third birthday rolls around, everything will switch to the local school district. Then our co-pays and visit limitations will apply (currently 50 combined for all disciplines for a year). And therapy will be at the center the therapists work through. It should be interesting trying to shuttle him and Vivian to three appointments every week. It sounds like they will try to combine most sessions with preschool when that starts. Bernie has to start looking at other insurance plan options. We are going to blow through 50 sessions in about 3-4 months.

Bennett has had a bit of an explosion in speaking lately. He has probably added about 20 new words in the last couple of weeks. They might not be understandable to everyone, but we can tell what his is saying. Examples include, train, choo-choo, bus, pop, hop, and I did it! I've even heard a couple of "mamas" out of him when he really wants something. Fingers crossed the at progress continues to be made.

Poor Vivian has been sick for the past two days. She has had a fever on and off along with the stuffy nose. And she just puked as well, so I'm sure we are in for fun for the next 24 hours. Especially when she can't sleep for longer than an hour at night and 15 minutes during the day.

I think we have almost made the decision that Colorado will be our permanent home. We have been here for over four years now and made some great friends. And I'm not sure you could find a better place than Boulder County to raise a kid like Bennett. The opportunities and resources are overwhelmingly endless. I can't see going back to Great Falls and we can't wait for five years for something to open up in Phoenix or Missoula. I am ready to make a decision. We are talking about getting our forever house in about 18 months as well. I am already obsessively considering where it will be.