With the said, however, I do want to talk a little about where each of the kids are at the moment. Not because of a date of the calendar but because, quite frankly, I'm feeling really happy and excited about their stages.
This is random, laundry list style so Godspeed if you choose to accept the challenge!
Hartley is a couple months away from turning 3. She is now sleeping in a "big girl bed", which is a twin mattress on the floor. She's probably the most clumsy kid I've ever known (she can thank her dad for that!) so having a mattress on the floor feels like the right speed for now. But she loves her big girl bed, especially her ballerina sheets and her floral quilt. Plus, there's enough room for the dozen stuffed animals she must sleep with every night. Her top ranked sleep companion currently is a Mickey Mouse ornament. Basically I need to invest in a back up ;)
It takes Hartley a while to actually fall asleep (I'd say an hour on average), and she probably only naps once or twice a week. I guess she can thank her mom for her not-awesome sleep skills!
Hartley can now take off her coat; she can unzip and zip but usually needs help getting started with zipping. She is starting to walk upright while holding the railing going up and down the stairs. As of the past few days she can put on her own rain boots since they just slide on. She is starting to have opinions about what she'd like to wear. She loves tutus, probably because she loves ballet. Sometimes she insists on wearing her ballet slippers if she's wearing a tutu.
She continues to be a picky eater but her current favorite food is a "jelly-bunga" sandwich. This is her own term for a sandwich that's light on peanut butter and heavy on jelly. She stole Cookie Monster's saying, "COWABUNGA!" and made it her own, I guess. She also loves pizza, fruit, orange juice, and teddy crackers (teddy grahams). She likes to eat icing off of donuts and cupcakes but doesn't care for the cake part. She'll hand Brian or I the leftover cake portion and tell us, "that's trash". Though we actually are working on having her put things in the trash can on her own, and she's doing well with that! Oh, and she LOVES Chik-fil-a, especially the lemonade. She will always "cheers" you when she's drinking her chik-fil-a lemonade. So obviously we've raised a health nut, right? We try for healthy foods too but we are parents who pick and choose our battles, and food is not one we push too hard. And she doesn't eat this junk daily - it's just a list of her favorite things that she would eat daily if we let her!
She loves to count. For a while over the summer we discouraged counting at the advice of professionals because we didn't want her to get fixated. But as she expands on what she knows and becomes more engaging, we've let counting creep back in. She can count past 20, and I've seen her identify much larger numbers than that. She loves to count Christmas lights.
She is becoming much more engaging; she is starting to seek us out to show us things on occasion, which is a huge milestone in our home. She is also starting to ask us questions which is an even bigger milestone for us. This morning she looked out the window and my car wasn't in the driveway so she turned to me and asked, "where's mama's car?" Just such a huge thing for us because she's curious and engaging us.
She's also starting to use prepositions. The other day she told me "Wook! A dog on stocking!" (Her stocking has a dog on it)
She is also starting to say "mine" and sometimes even "I". This is one of the goals on her IEP, and I'm amazed at how she's already getting it. I brought this up to her teacher, and she said they practice it at school pretty intensely so she was pleased it was being carried over to home.
She's starting to answer questions outside of just labeling questions. It's shaky, and it's definitely in the early stages but it's happening! She is starting to tell me more of what she needs/wants, and how she is feeling. She can tell me "hurt" when she's hurt and can sometimes pinpoint where. Today was the first day ever where she was extremely tired, and she recognized that she needed to nap. I asked her how she was feeling, and she said, "sad". I asked her if she wanted to nap, and she said, "yes".
She is very affectionate with me. She often asks for "mama cozy couch", which means she wants to sit on the couch with me under a blanket. Feet must be fully covered by the blanket ;)
Her big thing lately has been her fascination with all things Christmas. She enjoyed meeting Santa, and she told him, "Merry Christmas, Santa!" She loves Christmas lights. She unfortunately has learned how to plug them into the wall so she's been known to plug in the lights for us. When we drive past Christmas lights, she always wants to get out of he car to see them. We did Meadowlark walk of lights weeks ago but we'll definitely need to repeat it for her. And she loves Christmas trees and ornaments. It's been so magical celebrating Christmas this month. She could care less about the presents, she just loves all the beautiful, little things about Christmas, and I love that.
She can sing a little bit of Jingle Bells (I haven't ever even sung this to her). We also have learned that her extraordinary memory has been working overdrive learning words to almost every song on the radio. It's honestly nothing short of amazing. Brian and I both were just completely in awe the other day in the car. The other day the Daya song Sit Still, Look Pretty came on, and she sang it word for word. I literally started to get teary because even though she didn't know it, she was singing such a cool girl anthem.
The other skill that she's doing that's mind boggling is sight reading. I bought a sign that says SANTA STOPS HERE and has a chalkboard for a countdown. I held her up to ask her to read me the number I had written, and she said, "Santa Stops". I'd never read her the sign before; I was floored.
She really is so brilliant. It's funny how we struggle with the "easy" stuff that comes naturally to others but her mind really is constantly moving. I never fully shared her assessment from Children's Hospital but it read that Hartley was "adorable but aloof" with "mature cognitive abilities". She can't always tell you if she had a good day at school but she'll correct you if you call teal blue. She's pretty amazing.
And all the little things she says are the best. Today when Brian left for work she told him, "bye, Dad! Have great day at school!"
Patrick is still a giant, easy going guy. He just turned 16 months but at his 15 month appointment he was 99th percentile for height and 100th percentile for weight. He has most, if not all, of his teeth. He actually got 8 teeth in about a two week span in November. That was joyous. (Insert sarcastic face here) He also got his first hair cut and did really well. I'm always paranoid when people ask me if I think his hair color will change. I definitely hope it doesn't change!
People always think he is older than he is but he is still such a sweet, snuggle bug! I'll probably be calling him my baby until he's 50 ;)
He's been crawling up the stairs for at least several months (before he could walk) but we're just now tackling going down a couple stairs at a time. He can do about 2-3 but it's by far my least favorite thing "to teach", and I'm not pushing it. Though I sometimes do daydream of the day that I'm not carrying 33 pounds of big boy baby down the stairs.
His favorite things are cars, hands down, no question. It's all he really wants to play with. Every vehicle is "car". Trains are cars. Buses are cars. You get the gist. He easily says "car" at least 50 times a day. It is his most used word followed closely by "mama".
He plays a game with me where he says, "mama", and I say back to him "baby". It can go on for a veryyyy long time: him calling me mama and me calling him baby.
He likes to dance. He likes to wave. He likes to just do a lot of random babbling.
The words he has said: car, mama, dada, hi, bye, pumpkin, pizza, banana, apple, cupcake, ball, dog, and Winnie. He is starting to learn his animal sounds and I've heard him say "moo" and "baa". He picked up the toy phone a couple days ago and said, "hi!" Don't ask me why but that is always one of my favorite things.
He can climb onto the couch (terrifying).
He loves crawling into Hartley's big girl bed. They love to wrestle each other on it.
Hartley has learned that Patrick is her "little brudder", and that she is his sister. She is bossy to him at times but also loves him fiercely. She has no problem telling him, "no, stop, Pattick!" But if he drops something, she'll get it for him. If he cries, she'll come to comfort him, and tell him, "it's okay, Pattick". She'll notify me when, "Pattick's crying" or "Pattick's sad". She still calls him "Pattick", no R, which I've actually started doing, too! Poor guy will be nice and confused by the time us girls are done with him. Hartley calls herself "hart-wee". She'll tell me, "I Hartwee!" It's adorable!
Wow, I just wrote a novel! But I've been meaning to write this. I want to remember this stage. It is honestly my favorite so far. It is the most exhausting but it's also the most rewarding. I know I'm not supposed to say this but I'm more of a kid-person than a baby-person. So I've been enjoying seeing my kids run around together, hearing them talk, and seeing them light up over all things Christmas. I can't lie, it hasn't been a sobby emoticon chapter for me - it's been more like I'm seeing the real fun beginning to start!
No comments:
Post a Comment