December 30

December 30th is a good day. Even if everything went wrong that day it would still be a good day because it's the day that Sabe and I got hitched! It was definitely a turning point in our lives. Not only did we have you and me, we soon found out we were preggo with a tornado and it would soon be you, me and thing 1. By today, our third anniversary, we are you, me, thing 1 and thing 2.

This is gonna be a mushy post, but I can honestly say that I would never take marrying Sabe back. Anyone who knows the before Sabe me and the after Sabe me knows that the after Sabe is a much better person. Sabe completed me and I wanted to be a better person for him. He loved me and helped me through my insecurities and loves me no matter how I look or smell [you know, the whole mom thing... where I don't always get a shower...] or even if I'm stressing and bite his head off. He's always there for me and the boys. Even if he's not always physically here with us, he's always there for us.

Sabe and I don't always get a long [married couples never do, obviously] but we've been pretty good about setting aside our anger and coming back to the "we". My love for him has changed, but it's not lessened. It's grown over time to something I can't even describe. He's cleaned up my puke and other bodily fluids, helped me get out of bed or the couch when I was huge and pregnant, run to the store for something that my preggo cravings HAD TO HAVE NOW, worked long hours, helped me get dressed, etc and it's all because he loves me. He's seen me in my most vulnerable state. I've told him things I've never told anyone else. He's the person I go to first. The person who won't judge me or bail on me. He's the one single person that I can always count on to love my children more than life itself and do everything in his power to protect them.

Thank you, Sabin, for these three years of love, laughter and quarrels. Thank you for the two currently sleeping hellians/angels that you've blessed me with. Most of all, thank you for loving me. Happy Anniversary.

Hello from Arkansas!

As all of you know, we drove to Arkansas to spend Christmas with our closest family, Frank and Dorothy. We're going to be here until the third and I have to say, it's so fun being here! Kahlan and Marcus don't always get along [Marcus likes to knock over her toys and stuff] but they love playing together. Jamesen loves the attention from everyone and it's nice to have Sabe home!

Jamesen had never met Uncle Frank so I had to take pics of it. Blogger's taking forever to upload pics though, so you only get one.


And then Dorothy took Jamesen into the bathroom to play in the mirror and it was way too cute for me to not take pics of it!

Some Christmas Eve pics. Our stockings right to left: Jamesen, Marcus, Sabe, me, Frank, Kahlan, Dorothy.

Before Santa

After

Christmas morning

We accidentally left the big train set at home so this has had to do, sadly. It'll be much better when we get it on the table and can just leave it there.
For those of you who sent money and had me pick up the gifts, Shauna you got him the firehouse with the slide and the yellow box that says Chuck on it [it's more little cars to go in there], Lynne you got him two sets of three trains that are in the box with the track pieces but the pic of him opening a present is the one from you. Mom your gift to him isn't pictured because we accidentally left it at home, sorry.

Most of Jamie's loot. Again, for those of you who sent money, Lynne you got the toy that's right next to him that you can see the red and yellow bird on the corner, Shauna you got him the outfit he's wearing [he's not wearing the pants obviously] and a bathtub toy that Marcus was playing with while I was taking this pic [has a penguin sitting on a boat and you wind it up and let it go] and mom you can see the shoes :)

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone! We love and miss all of you who aren't with us.

Does this look dangerous to you?

If you can believe, I've had someone say [when Jamesen was completely, totally and blissfully passed out in it], "Wow that looks so uncomfortable. I would hate to be in that thing if I were him." I was just like "Yeah he obviously totally hates it."

Then I had one lady come up and tell me that "those things" are dangerous and looked at me like I had three heads when I didn't take him out and walked away.

Then I had another lady who was behind me in a line say "He's not gonna fall out of that thing is he?" to which I snorted, said no and turned around and she goes "are you sure?" "Yes I put my child into something that I know he'll fall out of and then go in public and walk around so he can fall out in front of a million people". and she said "I guess not." Yeah, no duh.

But today, today takes the cake! I was wearing him while walking to a park. I was walking down a [not very busy] street and this lady slowed down so she was driving at my pace and told me this story about how her friend use to wear her baby in one of those things and how her baby fell out on the concrete and was in the hospital because of head trauma and when I didn't take him out she proceeded to tell me what a horrible mother I was for endangering my child and that she was going to call the MP's on me and get my kids taken from me since I'm so obviously an unfit mother!

So yes, obviously I'm an unfit mother. If wearing your child means you're an unfit mother then nobody is a fit parent. Wearing my child is safer than driving with them in a car!

If Santa were a woman

Marcus would have gone up to her, sat on her lap and been all smiles for the camera. Since Santa is not a woman, Marcus smiled and was loving him, until he realized I was putting him on his lap that is. It went from HUGE smile to this look of shock and terror, lol! Santa did pretty good at holding him on his lap while he was trying to get away though.


I kept telling them to take the picture while Marcus was screaming and they didn't do it. I honestly would have picked that one. They had one where he wasn't making a horrible face but he wasn't smiling and the girl was like "So you want this one right?" and I was like "No I want the middle one" and she looked at me like I had 3 heads, lol. I really wish they had listened to me and gotten the pic when he was screaming. Oh well.

At least this year we got a good Santa!

I do have to say though, that I will NEVER forget to go to the military santa again. The mall pics are a rip off! $20 for a fuzzy picture? They handed me the pic and I was like "wow. If i had whipped my camera out I could have gotten a better pic than this printed at walgreens!" Of course, not out loud but I sure thought it!

And what's with the "season's greetings". You say that to people when you're not sure if they celebrate Christmas. People getting pics with Santa are celebrating Christmas! Write Merry Christmas! Geeze!

Through Their Eyes

According to Jamesen, sweet potatoes are the best thing since sliced bread, Marcus is the coolest person on the planet, paper is yummy, anything you're eating should go into his mouth, the floor is the best place to be, napping is overrated, mom is the the "go to girl", tickling is the best game ever, Gary is SOOOO soft and awesome and mommy's hair is a fun toy.

According to Marcus, nothing is good without ketchup, dad is the best toy, outside is THE coolest place in the universe no matter how cold, the Christmas Ornaments need to be pulled off and put back on 50 times a day, Jamesen's toys are really his toys, Mommy can make any hurt better with a kiss, music is the most amazing thing, 101 Dalmations is the number one movie and diluted V8 Fusion is WAYYYYYY better than water lightly spiked with pedialyte.

On days when they're both screaming non stop I tend to forget that what little wonders they are. It's so humbling to see life through a child's eyes. I'm so bent up about everything all day long that I forget to stop and tell Marcus his body parts, numbers and colors or play a game of tickle with Jamesen. Being a SAHM is hard and I tend to think negatively about it. I think about all the things I would be doing [mainly sleeping] if I wasn't a mom. I'm turning around and time is flying by and I'm not living in the now. I'm not being a nice person to anybody in my family and it's really taking a toll on everyone [especially me].

I've been a huge grump lately. My excuse has been that I've been on a major emotional rollercoaster and hormone imbalance this, hormone imbalance that but the truth is I'm missing the now. Fighting with Sabe won't make things better. Yes he changed Marcus' bed time routine on me. Is that the end of the world? No. Yes Marcus is crying and whining. Obviously somethings wrong and I need to fix it. Jamesen is pissed. Have I changed him lately? I'm so absorbed in myself lately that I"ve been putting my family on the back burner. My house is trashed, my husband is pissy because I've been yelling at him, my kids are upset because we've not been outside in ages.

I think I need to suck it up and take Marcus to the park tomorrow. Who cares about Jamie. If she tries to start stuff then I'll just ignore her. I wont let her rule my life. Tomorrow I'm going to make it all about the kids. I think I'll let my house suffer and be dirty still. It'll all be there tomorrow.

Here's to a new day and a New Year's Resolution to be more about family and less about me!

Low Crawling and C'mas Lights

We gave Jamesen carrots, applesauce and sweet potato over the last few weeks. He was confused by the carrots since all he had had before was peas. He doesn't like applesauce [which Marcus didn't like fruit at that age either, weird kids] and he SNARFED the sweet potato. He gets so excited when we put him in the high chair because he knows he's gonna get sweet potato.

Also, he's been low crawling lately. This vid shows it a little bit. I'm having a hard time getting it on video because he always stops to smile at the camera when he sees it coming. He didn't get to the block in the video. He got distracted by Marcus who was attacking me because I was laying on the floor to get on Jamie's level.

I found This Link on FaceBook. I'm such a sucker for Christmas light displays. Christmas lights to music with the music being techno? Marcus was in heaven! Oh you should have seen him the first time he watched it. He was a dancing fool! Here's the like 3rd time after it was getting a bit old :)

Family pics, take 2

Ohhhhh geeze. Shouldn't I have learned my lesson the first time? Shouldn't I have gotten someone to man the camera? Shouldn't I have tried for a time when both kids were properly sleeped [yes I made that word up]. Shouldn't I have been nice to my husband beforehand so we weren't both grumpy?

Yes. I should have. Did I? No I did not. And this is what came out of it:




And so I spent the next almost hour piecing those three pics together [after sifting through about 160 of them to find ones that WOULD piece together] and got this:


And that, my friends, is why I learned how to use photoshop.

Snow

I woke up yesterday to it snowing. I hurried and got the kids dressed, all excited to see Marcus' eyes light up to the falling white stuff only to be disappointed to find it had stopped snowing by the time we got out there. There wasn't much snow at all, just a light frosting and it quickly melted when the sun came up. I, of course, took some pics of Jamie's first snow. We were out at like 8 in the morning so it was around 30*.




On another note, I think Marcus is finally starting to get to that point where he forgets what it was like before Jamesen was around. I've been told it takes about 6 months for that to happen. He's finally starting to interact with Jamesen a bit more. He'll climb into the pack n play and "play" [aka, steal all his toys] with him. He brought his doodle pad over so Jamesen could see him draw. I turned on Nemo and he pushed the pack n play, with Jamesen in it, nearer to the tv and then climbed in there with him.

I've got a friend who's little boy is a couple weeks older than Marcus and her little girl is about a month older than Jamesen. I follow her blog and she's constantly putting up pictures of her little man snuggling the baby and it makes me jealous that Marcus doesn't do the same thing, lol! I know I get some cute pics and things, but most of the time it's me forcing Marcus to sit still and trying desperately to get him to quite screaming just for one pic before his crying makes Jamie start crying. Oi!

I can't wait till they're a bit older and best friends. It'll be so cute.

Temptations

So last night I wrapped our mountain of presents. We got all of our nieces and nephews presents this year because we have the money, unlike every other Christmas we've been together. In total we have 12 nieces and nephew with 3 foster nieces. LOTS of presents! I also got some for my neighbors girls and another friend's little girl.

Marcus of course HAD to help me. It was actually really cute. I would hand him the tape and point where I wanted him to put it. He would then point to where I pointed and blabber some nonsensical thing and then very carefully place the tape right where I told him to. I would then fill out the to and from sticker and hand it to him and he'd carefully place it on the present followed by the bow.

He got ahead of me one time and pulled the entire sticky thing off the bow. I don't think he realized that when I was pulling something off the bow, it was the cover to the sticky part so he just ripped the entire thing off. Maybe he did know, I'm not sure, because I was busy cutting and heard this rip.

Oh and before I forget, as we speak Marcus is trying to stick Jamesen's stocking onto his foot! heehee

Anyways, so in the middle of wrapping was bath time and off he went to bed. This morning you should have seen his face when he saw all the presents! Of course he went straight for them and I had to yell angrily at him as he reached for one, ready to rip the thing to shreds. My friend came over and I gave her Becca's present. She put it on the floor with Becca's coat over top of it. Of course Marcus found it and of course he ripped it open. *rolls eyes*

I can't wait for Christmas though. It's going to be so much fun spending it with Frank and Dorothy [and of course Kahlan]. I'll make sure to take tons of pics! :)

What are the odds?

Honestly, what are the odds of having two very active kids in a row as your first two kids? If you know Marcus, you know he's very active. The kid can literally climb anything he sets his mind to and never stops moving. Even if he's into a movie or a tv show or something he's constantly changing positions on the couch. The only time he just sits and chills is when he's tired and that rarely happens now days.

When Jamesen was in utero, he kicked ten times more often than Marcus. I saw that as a sign but tried to ignore it seeing as how I desperately wanted the opposite to be true. When Jamesen started sitting right on cue with how Marcus did I saw it as a sign but chose to ignore it then too.

I can not ignore it any longer. Jamesen has been doing push ups for about a month now, about 2 months earlier than Marcus started. He's starting to get up on his hands and knees. Again, 2ish month earlier than Marcus. Today he fell over and wasn't quite laying all the way down as the pack n play wall caught him. He pulled himself back up into a sitting position for being almost in a laying down position. I don't remember when Marcus started being able to get himself into a sitting position on his own but I KNOW it wasn't this early.

I'm trying really hard not to be scared at this point. Marcus is a HUGE handful. I'm constantly pulling dangerous stuff away from him, pulling him down from things he's climbed on, etc. How am I going to do it with two? What if I'm so busy paying attention to one that I don't realize the other is doing something and they get seriously injured?

Sabe and his brothers were constantly getting injured growing up for that reason right there. To be honest, I'm really unhappy about Jamesen moving so fast. At this point, I would rather have a kid that doesn't sit until they're 9 months, walk until they're 18 mo, etc. If I go by the 2ish month ahead of Marcus pattern, Jamesen will be walking by 8 and a half months. All I can do is pray that he's strong, but calm [unlike Marcus who is very NOT calm, lol].

*sigh*

Marcus is giving up his naps and it's depressing me. He's not quite at the point where he can go a whole day without napping even though he thinks he can, so he gets super cranky and irritable and cries at you looking at him wrong by the end of the day. It's really quite tiring. It's ok for now since Sabe is home, but come January when Sabe picks up a new cycle, I won't be too happy with that.

He's being really trying lately because of it. As I've stated before, when he doesn't sleep, he doesn't sleep. So this whole not napping thing is taking a toll on his overnight sleeping making him irritable to begin with. Dealing with a cranky toddler who keeps waking up the baby and making him tired and irritable isn't a fun situation. I have to keep reminding myself that yes, Marcus is extremely irritating right now and I wish this stage would hurry and he'd grow up faster so I can move past this, but once he DOES grow up I'm going to look back and wish he hadn't grown so fast. Instead of looking at the irritating things Marcus does, I've been trying to look at the cute things he's doing at this age and cherishing it. It's been making my patience level higher and it drains less now.

Though, my house is trashed. I've seriously gotten to the point where I think to myself "Sit and relax or... spend the next half hour to an hour cleaning up all of his toys only to have him trash it in MAX ten minutes when he wakes up. ... Sit and relax it is!"

I started a new photography blog if you guys wanna follow my journey to professional photographer on there. It's http://adriennelabarephotography.blogspot.com/

Follow up on the spider bite and such

We switched pedis. First off, Jamesen has a bump on his head where his soft spot is and when I took him in for his 4 month they didn't look in his ears, check and make sure he followed stuff with his eyes or even touch his head. And then the dr in the ER being a complete idiot... Yeah we switched.

My neighbor suggested Dr. Saifullah so off we went to him. The biggest thing that impressed me with Dr. S. is that he was so patient with Marcus who was climbing ALL over him. He didn't act like he was in a hurry to rush me out of there and get to the next kid and he listened to me. Reminded me of Marcus' pedi back in Utah.

The spider bite is looking good. The redness and swelling has gone down considerably so we're good on that aspect. The main reason for the visit was the bump on Jamesen's head. THANK GOODNESS it wasn't what I thought it was. I thought his soft spot was closing early and he was going to need surgery. Dr. S. said his soft spot looks just fine. It's on the small side, but plenty of kids have soft spots that size and it perfectly normal.

He did make a "WTHeck?" face when he saw the bump on Jamesen's head though. He's referring us to a neurologist to make sure nothings wrong. He says it's a vein running over top of it and doesn't think we should worry but wants to make sure since it's raised and "in a weird spot".

A funny though, 3 months ago at Marcus' 2 year appointment he weight 26 lbs. He now weighs almost 28. A month ago at Jamsen's 4 month appointment he weighed just over 16 lbs. Today he was close to 18 and a half lbs! Marcus was 18 lbs when he was like 10 months! It's crazy how kids can be so different even when they come from the same family!

I HATE spiders!!

So we got up this morning and Sabe asks me if I had seen the thing on Marcus' thumb. I had no idea what he was talking about so he brought Marcus over to me and there's a bite on his thumb. It looks exactly like how my bite started out. We took him to the hospital to get some antibiotics in hopes that they'll help even though they didn't help me. We had our visiting teachers come and give him a blessing too. It seriously makes me sick thinking about him going through what I went through. I'm praying my heart out that his gets better without any incident.

The Dr. that saw him at the hospital was a real piece of work. This is how the conversation went:

"I got a bite a month ago and the scab only just fell off yesterday so when we saw this on his thumb we really didn't want to take any chances and wait to come in. It looks just like my bite did at the beginning."

"Are you sure it was a bite?"

"Yeah it was a bite with a staff infection on top of it. They thought it was just the staff but then when it started to heal it did what spiders bite do when they heal."

"Have you seen any spiders?"

"Yeah we've had one brown recluse and a bunch of other large spiders."

"But nobody else has been bitten right?"

"Ummm... other than me?"

"Well it's probably just a staff infection. It's VERY rare, like on in a million, that you have to come back and have a surgeon cut it open."

"Well that's what they had to do to me!"

"Are you sure yours was a spider bite?"

I wanted to bang my head against the wall. I knew they wouldn't do anything but give us antibiotics but I'll do anything to keep Marcus from having to go through what I did! If you're the praying type please pray for him!

Family Pictures

Do you know how frustrating it is to take family pics with a tripod? You're very limited with how you pose and then you have to hope that everyone is not only looking, but looking nicely when the camera flashes. Luckily, Marcus thought the flashing red light was funny and there was long enough time in between flashes for Marcus to clap and say, "Yayyyyyy!!!" Well, you can see in these consecutive pics:






All the good ones have someone cut off! SO so so frustrating! So I spent the next hour and a half fixing the last one. I pieced a couple of the other pics together to kind of shift it over to the right a bit.

Hmmm

Does anyone still read my blog? I never get comments and it makes me feel like i'm talking to myself.

Lots of stuff going on with the littlest man in the house!

pushups

Finding tootsies

eating solids for the first time!!

Look at him staring at the spoon! lol

Marcus would put the spoon right by Jamie's mouth and right when he'd go to eat, Marcus would yank it away. This is mid yank.

He SO loved it tho!

And this is Marcus' first time feeding himself icecream. He actually didn't make that big of a mess. He didn't want to waste any of it!

They almost look pro!

I offered to do a photoshoot for my friend Amanda. She's pregnant with a little boy. She told me the name they picked so I went out and bought some stuff [like blue ribbon, some blocks to paint the letters of his name on, etc] and it got me pumped to do photography again. So I called Connie to see if she would bring her girls over and she obliged.

Before they came over I tried to get some pics of the boys. Jamesen is sitting so well! I was able to get quite a few pics in between catching him.



Marcus was fighting me. This is one of two I got by himself.

And some together. Marcus really didn't want to have Jamesen touching him.


Then Connie came over. Her girls are so beautiful!


I'm looking at these and they almost look like pro pics. The lighting is a bit off in a few I didn't show and a couple other things but I'm getting close! I hope to make enough sales in templates that I can get some more photography equipment and maybe start charging for this too!

Entering into WAHMhood

WHAM-Work At Home Mom. That's right. I'm going to be a WHAM! A couple months ago I started making templates out of my pages for other people and finally worked up the nerve to apply to a store online that sells digital scrapbooking supplies and I was accepted! I'm so excited about it! My store should be going up soon. I've been working really hard the last couple days to get stuff ready to go into it. It's been a pain really.

On another note, Jamesen is doing push ups. About a month earlier than Marcus did too. Booo!

We're sitting!!

For the most part. He's still a bit shaky and topples when he gets excited but look how well he's doing! Sitting Vid He's following right along with what Marcus was doing. Making me said since that might make him our last baby. We'll see though. I'm going to try and enjoy every second I can since he'll probably be our last. I don't want to look back and wish I had spent more time in the now and not dwelling in the past.

The Picture of Health

We had Jamesen's 4 month well check today. We had his two month check a little late so there wasn't enough time since his last set of shots for him to get this next one. I have to go back in on Monday. That's not that big of a deal though since I was going back for my spider bite anyways.

They said he was the picture of health and everyone kept commenting on how adorable SHE was. Honestly, does he look like a girl? I had like 7 people say "Oh she's so adorable!" It's probably because of the teething necklace, but honestly, he doesn't look like a girl! He's obviously a boy. One lady said "He's a boy? He's too pretty to be a boy. He should have been a girl!" *rolls eyes*

They were really impressed with how well he held his weight while standing and how well he's rolling. He can roll everywhere! It annoys me a bit actually because I have to stick him in something and strap him in to keep him from disappearing on me. Marcus didn't roll around like that until after he could sit.

Anyways, he's 16 lbs 3 oz and 26.75 inches! that's the 93% for height and 62% for weight. So I have another tall and lean baby. He's not skinny like Marcus was, but he's not fat like Patrick is. I wish he were Patrick fat :( But at least I don't have another skinny mini on my hands! To give you a comparison, Marcus at 4 months was 14 lbs 2 oz and 26.1 inches. I have a feeling that Jamesen will always be taller than M was at that age and later pass him up completely. Though I doubt Marcus will be short. He's always been in the 60 something for height. We'll see!

Rashes, rashes everywhere!

If you don't know the story behind me using cloth diapers, I have to tell you.

Lucky for Marcus, he inherited my family's sensitive skin. When he started teething, the super acidic poops would give him a terrible terrible rash. If it was even left on his skin for a minute it would turn into a bleeding rash. It got to the point where he would get a rash and it would take me 2-3 weeks to get rid of it and then in another 2-3 week he'd have another one! I felt like the worst mother ever for not being able to figure out what I wasn't doing right to keep him from rashing up.

I prayed so hard one night when Marcus had a particularly nasty rash that I would find something to stop him from rashing up all the time. The next morning I randomly decided that I wanted to cloth diaper Jamesen. As I was looking up different kinds of diapers, I found a one size diaper and decided to get a few to try on Marcus. After getting enough that he was mostly in cloth, I noticed a significance difference in him and he didn't get his first rash in cloth until MONTHS after he was in only cloth.

It's days like today, though, where he's teething terribly and has the worst acidic poops literally all day long and has a bad rash, that I say a prayer to God, thanking him for leading me to cloth. If his rash is this bad in cloth, I can only imagine how bad it would be if we were in disposables.

On another note, thanks babe for all you have done for this country to keep us all safe! I love a Veteran! :)

things have been hitting me hard lately

You know, ever since my bite was confirmed to be a bite, I've been dwelling on the fact that the stupid spider could have bit Jamesen and if it had, there was a very real possibility that he could have died. He's not dead and is perfectly fine but my heart is aching at how close I was to possibly losing him. Again.

I can't put the kid down lately. There have been a few other things that have really been making me dwell on it. One is the story of a little boy who was diagnosed with a heart defect in utero and wasn't expected to live who just had successful heart surgery and will be fine. Reading up to that point that he will be fine, I can't imagine what his family went through never knowing if her son would make it to the next year, the next month, the next day.

Brittanie also started a blog about Cora and that one's really been hitting me hard too. I think other than Matt and my mom, I was the the most affected by Cora. I can't explain it to you at all, but I felt that I had a bond with her. She was due on my due date and would have been born on my birthday had things been different.

I can't really explain what's going on in my head. I'm breastfeeding so I do still have crazy hormones going on, but I can't shake the thought of losing Jamesen. The kids almost been drowned twice and was only two inches from me when I was bitten by the spider. The staff infection alone could have killed him. It was kicking MY butt! Can you imagine what it would have done to his tiny body?

My heart aches. It seems so silly that I'm dwelling on it. You know, from the moment I conceived him I thought I was going to lose him. I thought for sure they were going to tell me something was wrong when I went in for the gender ultrasound. But he's fine. And since he's almost drowned twice and it's not happened, it's pretty obvious to me that he's supposed to be HERE. He's got angels watching over him so why am I so upset by this?

Why do I feel this way for Jamesen and not Marcus? Silly thought here, but every time something has been wrong with my kids, I've known about it. Even when people have said "oh it's nothing", I KNEW something was wrong. So this feeling I'm feeling for Jamesen is kind of freaking me out. He's perfectly fine, but I can't shake the thought of almost losing him again.

Blown Away

So I posted recently that Marcus has been talking a bit more lately. It was really apparent to me a few days ago. We were watching Word World [wow... lots of w's]. Anyways, if you don't know about Word World, everything is made up of letters.



In the episode we were watching, frog had bought a bed and it was finally delivered. Instead of getting a bed, he got the letters B, E and D. So frog goes to "Build a word" and sets the letters up and Marcus says, "Beeee! EH! Dee dee dee!" I was so ecstatic about that!

If you know us or read my blog at all you know that Marcus has been behind in communication. When I took him to get his 18 mo check up they gave me a questionnaire like they do for every check up and for the communication section he got like 10 out of 60 points. On the paper he looked autistic. His pedi was prepared to come in and tell me he was autistic but when he walked in and saw him he said, "Wow what a busy guy! No wonder he's behind in communication!" It's been a rough battle because all the other two year olds we know talk up a storm.

It started with him mimicking animal sounds. I knew that was a good sign because he never mimicked or tried to say anything! Then he started mimicking actions like THIS

And then the letters started. I caught him yesterday morning going "Deeeee! I!!!" at the letters. So tonight in the bath I decided to see how many letters he knew and he completely blew me away. See for yourself!

I'm back to loving a certain two year old in my house ;)

Testing Boundaries

I'm very frustrated with a certain two year old living in my house. It's really funny and yet extremely frustrating talking about Marcus to other people. I've noticed that a lot of people with kids the same age as Marcus tend to not believe me that he can do these things unless they see proof. Or their suggestions are things that I know for a fact will not work to help the situation.

Case in point, getting out of his room at night. Your first reaction to hearing someone having a problem with kids opening doors is to suggest those doorknob things, right? Marcus learned how to take those off BEFORE he figured doors out. Second suggestion, a baby gate.




So how about a taller baby gate? Well he can climb out of his pack n play which is a good 6 inches taller than that baby gate. Why waste money on something I know he'd be able to master in MAX 2 weeks, specially when they're more expensive?

Our solution to this problem was to lock the door. He figured it out like a month after we started doing it but for some reason he forgot he could do it. Until recently. The same thing that happened then is happening again. He wakes up EARLY in the morning and comes into my room and lays down with me but doesn't go to sleep. Instead he plays, flops around, yells, etc, etc. Half the time he tries to go downstairs. And since he knows he can get out, he gets out at all hours of the night and I have to put him back. If he wakes up at night, he doesn't just go back to sleep, he gets up. Marcus getting up 4-5 times a night plus Jamesen getting up 1-2 times... I'm one exhausted momma.

Another thing he's recently started doing is unbuckling himself from his carseat. I was driving on the freeway about to take my exit when he just stood up! Gave me a heart attack. I was practically screaming for him to sit back down, which thankfully he did. I pulled into the welcome center and strapped him back in, hoping nobody would see me and get me in trouble. In a way I'm glad he stood up because I would have been in trouble had I gone through the gate with him unbuckled. That wouldn't have been fun.

I had one person suggest that I had just forgotten to buckle him in because she can't see how a 2 yo could unbuckle themselves. I have to roll my eyes at this. She's always making snide comments like that about things Marcus does like she's trying to say "Yeah he's doing a lot of things my kid isn't doing so I have to downplay it so he doesn't look so awesome." I really hate when people compaire kids like that. Who cares?!

K, rambling! Back on the subject.

Frustrating Marcus. You know, you'd think that if someone got in trouble for doing something at least 2o times a day every day, they'd eventually stop right? Not Marcus. He's getting smarter about things. Climbing on the counter is an automatic spanking because he KNOWS he's not supposed to be up there. I've done everythign I can to get him to stop. I've spanked him, put him in time out, calmly explained why he's not supposed to be up there, grabbed his face and brought it right to mine to make sure he's listening, yelled at him, etc etc and nothing makes him stop.

He's recently learned how to open the fridge and will get in there and not close it. He's got a fascination with dirty cloth diapers and will open the drier so he's got something to step on and grab dirty diapers out of the basket and play with them. He's gotten close to climbing over the fence in the backyard on more than one occasion. The list goes on and on. And honestly, I'd be semi ok with all of this if the dang kid would just sleep!

I've been having really bad insomnia the last couple nights. When I dont' sleep, I don't sleep well. Just like little kids do. If they go down late, they get up early type thing. I do my best sleeping in the wee hours of the morning and hes been waking up really early. Totally killing me because I can't sleep until like 1 am. It was the stupid ER visit that has thrown me off so bad. Bah

Ok, I think I'm done complaining. Talking about sleep made me tired and I still have to shower and wash the hole on my chest [grosssssss]