Sick again....

Carter has been coughing on and off the past couple days and had a small fever yesterday. When he woke up from his naps his eyes also looked a little swollen and pink. He has been very irritable and not eating either so after Tyler's OT appointment we headed to the pediatrician (I really think we should be able to buy season passes or something at this rate). So no ear infection, but a sinus infection which is draining into his eye. He is now on amoxicillin and will hopefully be his happy self tomorrow.

Tyler is continuing to talk up a storm at the nursery lately. I am trying to decide if I should ask to be out of his room or not. I love being in his room so I can watch him and see how he is doing myself. The other teachers always tell me how he is doing, but you never really know. I also just love his room and like to be in there if he is in there or not. However sometimes I wonder if its hurting him more if I am in there with him. When I am with him he is more likely to have his meltdowns and to only talk to me. Although today they needed to bring him to me so that I could give him some pressure hugs to calm him down. Also he seem to do more interacting with other kids when I am with him. Luckily my wonderful boss is all about whats best for Tyler so its pretty much my decision. Decisions, decisions.

Congrats!

My brother and sister in law had a beautiful baby girl today. When Justin got home we all went to the hospital to see her. Welcome to the world Norah Lynn Renae!!!!

B-E-A-U-TIFUL!

The weather was gorgeous yesterday day so after naps we got to spend some time outside. The boys loved playing in the sandbox and riding their cars and bikes around the porch. It was really fun to see Carter and how much more he can do now outside.

At church today Tyler was talking up a storm! None of the other teachers could believe how much he can say. He was also interacting with kids some and even did the hand motions to Wheels on the Bus! Is it bad that I was so happy to see this?

So Happy Together

The boys are playing so well together. I Love It! It really makes the hard moments - the ones when they are both screaming for no reason - worth it. At dinner the other night the boys were giving each other high fives back and forth. Tyler will be driving his trash truck and make sure Carter also has one. If I put one boy in time out on the naughty step, the other one also goes and sits on the naughty step (I know I need to stop this, but its sooo cute!). Oh and one small brag - Carter says naughty step!

Tyler is also showing that he is the big brother. If Carter throws food at the table it will be Tyler to tell him "no throwing Carter". We were at the grocery store and Tyler asked to get a cookies. I told him no cookies. Carter starts saying "cookie, cookie, cookie". Tyler responds "no cookies Carter!"

Carter also tries to do whatever Tyler is doing. When Tyler gets into one of his moods of running into things, running around like a crazy person, etc. I try to make him jump up and down and push on the wall to help settle him (things I have learned form the OT). Carter will also try to jump up and down along with him, but its more like squatting.

I love watching them play. Its the highlights of my day.

Cookie Monster

Here is a video of Tyler using his imagination some more. I know its not the best quality and Tyler likes to run over and see whatever I am taking a picture of, but I still think its pretty funny. If you can't tell, he is eating the "cookies"(coasters) like Cookie Monster does.

Family Weekend

On Saturday Justin didn't have to be at the tournament until the afternoon so the boys and I headed up to Denver in the morning to spend some time with Daddy. We decided we would go to the zoo. It was in the 50's so not to chilly and all the animals were out. The boys had a blast. Tyler's favorite part was the giraffe's. As soon as we got into the zoo that's all he wanted to see. We saw them at the very end. Carter seemed to like the zebras the best. At least that's the animal name he could say besides doggie.

Today the weather is once again beautiful so we spent the morning at the park. The boys had a great time and showed daddy how well they can now climb on everything. There was also a softball team practicing and Tyler spent a few minutes just watching them throw the ball around. I can't wait to take him to real games this summer.

It's been a while

It's been a while since my last post. Justin was covering the state wrestling tournament, which meant he had the computer with him in Denver. The boys did ok with daddy being gone. There were some frustrating moments with Carter getting into everything he wasn't suppose to and Tyler using his favorite word many many times. Overall we all did pretty well I think. Tyler's favorite word right now is "no". I ask him to do something and he tell me no. I am not quite sure how to handle this. Obviously I still make him do whatever it was that I asked of him. What I don't know is that should I punish him for saying no to me, or see it as him expressing his thoughts/feelings on the subject. I want him to respect our authority, but I also want him to be free thinker. Justin and I will have to ponder on this one.

So a couple updates: Carter got his stitches out on Thursday and while he did scream, it was nothing compared to putting them in. He will have a scar but I think it will be covered up by his hair for the most part. Tyler had an OT appointment again and his therapist is puzzled by a few things Tyler does. For example sometimes the brushing helps calm him down and other times it makes him riled up. I guess that isn't very common. She is giving us more things to try tho. Tyler is also talking a lot more at school which I am very happy to see. On Wednesday he was playing with a toy phone in the beginning of the morning. About ten minutes later he was onto something else and went up to another child asking him where the phone was. I was so happy to see this interaction!

Carter's vocab is also expanding like crazy. He is learning about 5 new words a day I think. Off the top of my head (because I know there is more) he says: quack, duck, uh oh, eat, cup, milk, bebe, baby, blanket(anket), Hana (our dog), book, beep beep, and many more.

Family Fun Day

Justin had the day off for President's Day, so we went to Mr Biggs. The boys had a lot of fun, and Tyler was more adventurous with Daddy there. We also ate lunch there, which means pizza, the boys favorite so it was an extra special treat. After that was grocery shopping, naps, and then Young Life. The boys did pretty well all day and it was very nice to have a day off together. Justin will be at the state wrestling tournament thrusday, friday, and saturday so having this day together will hopfully help out at the end of this week. Enjoy the pictures!

Favorite Things

Tyler has always been a cleaner and very orderly. The other day he wanted his shoes off. After I took them off he went upstairs to put them away. Unfortunatly I had no idea where he put them. They were not on the changing table where we usually place them at night. For the next couple of days he just wore another pair of shoes. Today Justin found them in our closet where we place our shoes. I guess he did put them in the right place, mommy just didn't know where to look.

Imagine

Tyler is getting such a creative imagination the past few weeks. He has been pretending to cook for sometime now, but lately his imagination is really starting to show. It all started when we were watching the Superbowl and a commercial came on with a dog drinking from his bowl. Tyler promptly started crawling around "dinkin da wata".

A few weeks ago we were talking about the snakes we saw at the pet store. He found some straps and played with them calling them baby snakes. He then decided he and Carter were baby snakes. A few days later he was sitting in his car seat and started talking about baby snakes. I asked him where the baby snake was and he said "in the carseat, two baby snakes".

Today he started climbing up his basketball hoop and told me he was a monkey climbing a tree. The when he fell out of the tree "moke fall dow". He then continued to climb various items throughout the rest of the day - mainly Justin's legs, pretending he was a monkey and the item was a tree.

Of course with his fascination of anything moving, his latest favorite toy to play with is any laundry basket. The laundry basket has become a fire truck, a bus, and of course a trash truck. So creative!

Destruction

I called my mom this afternoon to see how their flight was and to tell them of Carter's unfortunate incident this afternoon. When I got off the phone I came down to this:

They decided to dump out all the bins:

And where the bins usually are I find thisAnd that phone conversation - five minutes tops.

My little destroyers.

In other news Tyler had his OT today (yes it was a very hectic, busy day!). She taught me a brushing technique that is supposed to help get his nervous system "in order" so that things that would usually affect his processing of senses won't bother him as much. We are suppose to do this at every diaper change, along with joint compressions. So far he doesnt seem to mind it at all. We should start seeing improvements right away. I am curious if this will help Tyler because today it seemed to rile him up more than anything.

Stitches

Yep it finally happened and I feel horrible about it. Carter got his first stitches. We were leaving church and Carter was in the front seat of the double stroller. I didn't strap him in, big mistake. Just as we were getting to the car he leaned forward and fell out of the stroller. Since he was holding his cup he didn't have his hands to catch him and fell right on his forehead. I picked him up and blood was streaming down his face. Right then Justin called and told me to clean it up and see how deep it was. I did that with the few baby wipes I had in the car. However I have no clue what requires stitches or not. This entire time, not surprisingly, Carter is screaming his head off. I call the peditrician and they tell me to come right in.I must say I love our pediatrician. As soon as I walked in they had a room waiting for me with the doctor in there already with all the supplies they needed to clean his forehead out. After looking at the cut they decided he needed three stitches. They numbed him up first, but it didn't seem to help much. He continued to scream, as the nurse and I tried our hardest to hold him down. I felt horrible. By the time we got home he was doing much better and now he is running around like nothing happened. We go in next Thursday to remove the stitches. I just hope the scar isn't too big.

Jump, Jump Around

On Thursday Oma and Opa were feeling much better, so Tyler, Oma, Opa, myself, Uncle Todd, and Toby all went to Pump It Up. Pretty much its filled with those inflatable bouncy things. Both of the boys loved it. Last time we went Tyler took a few minutes to adjust and needed my helping climbing up to the slides and stuff. Cater was barely walking so he didn't go on anything. This time Tyler was such a pro and did almost everything by himself. Carter also enjoyed himself, and I was helping him climb the slide this time.

After Pump It Up the boys took nice naps and my brother Todd and I got to go have lunch. It was quite nice to go catch up and for myself to eat somewhere without being interupted by one of the boys. We then meet up with Uncle BJ and Aunt Abbi and all went out to eat (yes on Valentines day). Amazingly Old Chicago's wasnt that busy, however it still took over an hour just to get our food. The boys did very well considering the long wait. We had such a wonderful time with Oma and Opa here and can't wait til they come back in April. When Tyler woke up this morning he was looking for his Oma and Opa. He also mentioned them about three times in his prayers Thursday night.

The Next President?

The boys and I went shopping today and Carter was such a little flirt. He decied to try out one of his new words to everyone we saw - "hi". We passed two ladies a couple of times in the store and each time Carter would say hi to them and smile. One of the ladies said what a social butterfly - he could be the next president. I must say I agree that he is pretty cute! Other new words in Carter's vocab incude:

hi

bye

poopy

no (he also shakes his head no too!)

rice

After the store we went to the park to enjoy our nice weather before our next snow storm hits tonight. The boys love going to the park and it had been a while since we had gone. It was so fun to watch them. This was also a first for Carter as I let him do his own thing instead of keeping hin at arms length at all times. Carter followed Tyler everywhere - even up to the highest slide. Tyler would go down and then giggle in anticipation for Carter to follow him down. Of course if Tyler is giggling then Carter will be giggling too. We also did a couple sensory things at the park the OT suggested, none of which Tyler really liked, but he didn't make a huge fuss either. So far it has been a great day!

Favorite Things

I am going to blog every so often about favorite things the boys do so that I may never forget them. Tyler is doing one of my favorite things right now. I have always loved when other kids do this and now Tyler is doing it. When Tyler wants me to hold him he will say "hold you". I know he is getting his pronouns mixed up, but I also think that he does want to hold me to help him feel better. Melts my heart everytime.

Carter is also in a fun stage right nw. The removing clothes stage. He has now manged to even unzip sleepers and take them off. What a goof ball!

Cousins and SPD

Toby is here with us again today. For the most part the boys play well together. Tyler is being extra sensitive today. I am not sure if its beause its not his normal routine to have someone here first thing playing with his toys or what. We have playgroups over here every few weeks, so I would think he would be used to that. We did have a few problems sharing, but once we got out the rice table everything was good. The boys also loved getting to play outside some today - gotta love our 50 degree weather!

I know some people have been curious about Tyler's SPD. Basically Tyler have a mild case of it. Everyone has sensory issues to some point. For example I won't eat some types of fruit because of the textures. This doesn't really affect my daily life. Tyler's sesnory issues are starting to affect his tho. SPD is also fairly common, altho there are many different types, and no child with SPD is alike. One study said 1 in 20 kids has SPD. Like I said compared to a lot of SPD kids he is very mild. There are some kids who hit themselves in the face and asked to be bit because those pressures on their bodies help calm them down. Basically all these quirks I said Tyler has are caused by how he is processing his senses. If anyone has any questions about SPD I would be happy to try to answer them. At first I kinda thought it was a silly thing, but now I am realzing a lot of Tylers meltdowns, or how he withdrawls from people is because of this.

Oma and Opa

Oma and Opa made it here Saturday. My mom was sick Friday so we weren't sure what was going to happen. As soon as Tyler woke up Saturday monring he said "Opa Opa basketball". Luckily my mom felt well enough to come and we all met up at the basketball game. Tyler loved watching the game. This was a college game so we also got to see the band, the cheerleaders, the mascot, and the dance team. His eyes were glued to the court. Carter also did fairly well climbing over everyone and eating a bunch of popcorn.

After the game we all went to dinner and then back to our house. On Sunday my parents spent the day with my brother's family and my dad then got sick. What a fun trip for them! Monday we decided the best bet was to keep the kids away from my dad so the boys, my mom and my nephew Toby all headed to the mall play area. Opa and Oma are skiing right now but will be back on Thursday, hopefully feeling tons better. I promise to take pictures then.

My Little Valentines

Justin stayed home from work with the the boys so that I could go into the nursery. When I came home, they had surprised me with this:

What wonderful little valentines I have.

On another note Tyler had his occupational therapist (OT) initial evaluation for sensory issues today. You may remember from this post that this was just a precautionary thing. So much for that thought. The therapist seems to think that he may have Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). While this is not an official diagnosis, she thinks he has enough signs that we will be doing therapy once a week just to work on these issues. The biggest concerns are his high threshold of pain (which is something we always knew, just never thought of a problem) and that he is under sensitive, which means that he doesn't feel senses as much as others. For example when he bites, he does not sense how hard he is biting. We will also be working on how oral he is and trying to limit that somewhat. Justin and I now see things he did early on as signs for SPD that we never thought of before. For example, after he learned to crawl he quickly learned to start cruising. The only time he would crawl was to get to some place to cruise on. Also when he crawled he would crawl a lot on his hands and feet rather than his knees (we always assumed this was from watching the dog). The therapist said that he may not have liked the feel of the carpet or floor on his knees. So he would limit that feeling as much as possible - aka cruising early. I am very eager to learn more about this and how we can help Tyler thru this. The biggest problem with SPD is that it can be distracting and limit their learning ability. Also SPD kids can get to a point were they can't handle all the senses bothering them anymore so they can act out in means ways, or become frustrated very easily (we have seen this in Tyler). Because of this kids will either isolate themselves from others, or be isolated from others because of their behavior. Something we don't want for Tyler. His next appointment with the OT is next week.

Little Artists

My mom and dad (Oma and Opa) got the boys an easel for Christmas. Tyler loves drawing on it - its seems like its the only thing we wants to do these days. His new thing is to draw circles on the dry erase side. He is getting pretty good at it as well. Now if I could only perfect how he holds that marker. Carter also enjoys putting scribbles here and there, but we would rather just walk around with the marker or eat the chalk.

We had Carter's doctor's appointment today and his ears look beter today than they did on Tuesday! She still hears a little wheezing, but on Sunday we can start weaning him off the inhaler (a week long process). She also said we are allowed to go out and about as long as we bring the inhaler with us. This is great news because Oma and Opa are coming this weekend and the boys will want to play. I must also brag about Tyler at the doctor's. He did awesome! He quietly read books while she was looking over Carter. I wonder if it will always amaze me to look at him and see how grown up he is.

Picture Update

Just a picture of Carter and how he is feeling. He hates the breathing treatments and they wear him out but he is being a little trooper. Hopefully we will have good news tomorrow at the doctors.

Poor Little Guy

So we are back from the pediatrician and Carter was RSV. So no church tomorrow (or the rest of the week for that matter) and he has to get breathing treatments every 2-4 hours. How fun! We will be back at the doctors on Thursday to make sure his ears look ok. They looked fine today, but 50% of kids who get RSV get ear infections so we just want to make sure they are still looking good. I should also expect Tyler to get a pretty nasty cold as well (he started coughing on the way to the doctors). Luckily Carter is acting normal and being his usual happy self. He is having a few more tantrums than normal, but really what can I expect when he is sick. Poor little guy.

One of those Days

Its been one of those days. The days when the boys seemed to have lost their hearing. Tyler was in time out 5 times within 2 hours of waking up. I even put Carter in time out twice. They just can't saty away from the dog bowl. First they put the dog food in the dog's water. After that was cleaned up they decided to put their magnets in the water. Then they thought they should just splash in the water. I can undertsand Carter doing this. He s 15 months and exploring his boundaries, but Tyler. He has known the dog bowls are off limits for months now, but it's one of those days I guess. On top of all this, Tyler refused to clean up countless times throughout the morning.

I was hoping with Tyler having speech today it would improve with his behavior - nope. We were having his quarterly evaluation today, which means a lot of paperwork and going over his stengths and weeknesses. Becuase of this his therapist didn't bring her toys for Tyler to play with. So I got out the rice table thinking that would keep the boys occupied. 5 minutes later I had a pound of rice all over my floor. I put the rice table away and get out some of Tyler's favorite toys - he decided to throw them everywhere and Carter thought this also looked like fun. What a mess. Tyler finally cleaned up after everyone left so he could have lunch.

What a morning - I am so glad its nap time. Although nap will be cut short so I can take Carter to the doctor. For the past few days he has had a very mucousy cough. At first I contributed it to cutting some teeth (his top two 1 year molars popped thru on Saturday). I thought since he was drooling more, maybe all that created the cough. But since its still lingering we are going in to make sure its nothing else and we are ok to go to church tomorrow. I am already for tomorrow to be here!

A little speech update - Tyler is doing very well. We have new goals to work on before June, when he will transition out of the birth to three program and we find out if he qualifes for the preschoool program or not. We really want to work on his social/emotional skills. We would like to see him interacting with peers more, and also relating his needs to others besides Justin and me and outside of the home setting. We are also going to set up a sensory consult to make sure everything is ok there. This is more precautionary than anything, but we are trying to rule everything out before June. I am already nervous about June and the decsions we will have to make for Tyler. Hopefully some of these issues will be resolved by then.

Boys Weekend

I was at a baby shower in Greeley in Saturday, so Justin had the boys. We were also having our monthly potluck that night, so Justin was also in charge of all the cooking and cleaning. I must say I was quite impressed. He got everything done with only one time out all day. They even ran a few errands. The boys usually do great for Justin, as they love having daddy time. According to him, their favorite part of the day was "underwear time". They sit around in their underwear/diapers and hang out together. A thing the boys could only do with their daddy. I am so happy that I have a husband who takes such an active role in raising our boys. On Sunday I got out the sand table the boy got for Christmas. Since its still snowing on a weekly basis I decided to make it a rice and bean table. The boys love playing with this new toy. Digging, scooping, dumping - really what could be better. Now if I could only get Carter to undertstand that we need to leave the rice and beans in the table, we would be in business.