Baby Blogger
DEPH

9/1/2010 1:45:21 PM   But there are even more! These are from just a few days ago when we went to Grafton with -you guessed it- Jack & Bernie and Heather & Chris to pick apples at Eckerts and then on to hang out and eat at the Loading Dock. Everybody was partying like it was Friday night (which it was): Ahhhhh. Finally caught up. More soon, I'm sure.

9/1/2010 1:43:49 PM   More pictures. I didn't want to put the whole shebang in one post because I was afraid the page wouldn't load for GiGi. So here are more pictures. I told you there was a backlog! First, there are these pictures from the last day the J'ville pool was open. Victor was soooooooo happy and surprised when his best buds Bernie & Jack showed up. For a while, we were just about the only people there though:

8/31/2010 8:26:41 PM   Hey, I added some pictures! They're even good. :) Things have just been so busy with the beginning of school. Victor's still loving it but he's very tired when he's home. He gets off the bus and he wants to go down in the basement to "hang out with Daddy" and watch a DVD. Definitely has to unwind a bit before he's ready to play with Erick. And while Erick is sad to see his brother leave the house without him, he's really enjoying his freedom. He just started Little Gym last week and he is loving it. Before I forget that I got these ready, here are a few catch-up pictures from a few weeks ago. We went to the MO Botanical Garden with Jack & Bernie (and Heather & Chris) for an extra special Heather-orchestrated dinosaur event. The big boys all got to ride Metrolink to the gardens (Erick and Daddy met us there) and they seemed to buy that it was a Dinosaur Train. Then at the gardens, we went to the Jurassic Dark exhibit in the Climatron. I don't have pics of that part because Victor literally fell on his face right before we went in and so I was consoling him the whole way through. Here are the few pics I have though: (Big boys at the entrance to the waaaaaaaaaay cool Children's Garden) (Erick attempting to climb the cargo net like a big boy.) (Erick, clutching the parrot that he screamed about having to leave behind, and quite concerned about why Jack has transformed into a dinosaur.) ("That.") Good times.

8/24/2010 2:13:59 PM   Have I ever got pictures to share! Can't get to them right now though, sadly. Maybe one of these nights I'll have enough energy to get them edited and posted once James logs off for the day. The big moment that we unfortunately don't have pictures of though (OK, we have like 2!) is Victor's first day of kindergarten last week. Dawn the Rule Follower did as we were asked and dropped Victor off at the designated curb dropoff point so we don't have all of those quaint pictures of Victor walking into his classroom and sitting down at his desk, etc. Most of the rest of the school parked and walked in and took their pictures but not Dawn the Rule Follower. :( On the bright side, there really weren't tears shed with our arrangement whereas there probably would have been with the full-on family march down the hall. And he's in good hands at dropoff - his favorite teacher's aide, Mrs. Holder, comes out to the car and takes his hand to walk him right in there. He can barely be bothered to cast a "Bye Mommy!" over his shoulder. I'll take that over leg clinging any day though. He's doing just great. To give you some idea, he actually gets out of bed voluntarily in the mornings because he's anxious to get ready and go. He really likes the new school and he's happy as a clam with his teacher and aides (and luckily a few familiar friends from Early Childhood). His classroom has a teacher and 3 aides for 6 kids so we feel quite comfortable about his safety during the day. I still feel like I'm going to throw up every time the phone rings during the day, especially around lunch time (PB&Js offered in the cafeteria EVERY SINGLE DAY....ugh) but he's adjusted and happy and all reports from the staff are nothing but stellar. The boy is a kindergartener. Too cool.

8/10/2010 3:50:57 PM  As usual, it's feast or famine with our family and photography. So I guess that makes this the occasional feast: (The rare moments when Erick will wear a hat must be captured!) (Playing the sad clown on the day after the party.) (I was a little freaked out to walk in and see this.) (Another episode of "The Many Faces of Victor: Hat Edition".)

8/8/2010 2:17:01 PM   As it turns out, I have a few other pictures to attend to before the big birthday photo update. I had forgotten how many pictures we've taken lately. A week ago, we took a little cruise down I-255 with the Dohrn clan for some bouncy housing. Here's the proof: (Bernie in the air!) (Jack & Bern getting down on Erick's level.) (Not too traumatized by his first bouncy housing.) (The old pro post-slide.) (Tired, bored boys waiting for food.) And these are a bit random but just a few days ago, I found Erick just hanging out enjoying the sunroom all alone: He had company before long though: Next up, birthday pics. Sadly, there are no pics from the water park. I didn't feel brave enough to attempt keeping the camera dry all day. I sure wish we had a picture of Victor coming off the slide in Treehouse Harbor though. Biggest smile ever. Hopefully this montage will make up for the lack of water park pictures: (Yep. It's long. As usual.)

8/8/2010 12:18:31 AM   Victor's birthday party was a smashing success (as far as the kids were concerned anyway........we weren't entirely impressed with the level of service from the bowling alley but the kids were blissfully unaware). There are many, many, many pictures for me to sort through but I'll try to get some of them on very soon. Victor loves all of his presents though and he's even sharing some of them with his brother, probably because he can't even keep track of all of them at this point. He's five and he's been celebrated. Now on to getting ready for kindergarten to start in just 11 days!

8/3/2010 7:08:45 AM   Victor is five. Can you believe that? And while I've never really written letters to my children on this blog (mainly because I didn't want to rip off my dear friend Ruth), I think it is probably the best way to mark such an important occasion as this. And so, I offer this missive to my sweet, sweet Victor on his 5th birthday......... My Dearest Victor Doodle, You're five now. That's kind of a big deal and you seem to understand that. You understand so much about the world now, in spite of not necessarily having all of the interests and language skills of a typical 5-year-old. I'll admit that I've wished so many times for you to just wake up and be "typical" (that's the magic word for "not autistic") but I wish for it a lot less these days. I've seen those typical kids and you're really just way cooler. I'm not just saying that. You're completely amazing. I think that because I've had to work so hard at getting at your thoughts and feelings, I really know you more than I know anyone (and obviously more than anyone else knows you). And to know you is to love you so it stands to reason that I love you more than anything in the whole wide world. Don't tell your brother. You're going to kindergarten in just a few short weeks and you are so ready. Your daddy & I are incredibly proud of how hard you've worked in pre-K and in private therapy to get to this point. We used to wonder if we'd need to hold you back a year before you went to kindergarten, just because you're so young for your grade. You barely even make the cutoff, after all. Now that the time has come, no one had any question that you were ready. You are such an old pro at being a good student. You've known all of the stuff that kids are supposed to know when they go into kindergarten for like the past 2 years or so. It was all of the social and language stuff you had to work on. And boy have you worked on it! You, my little stinker, are ready to go to big school and I know you'll love it. You are doing so many cool things that we love getting to see you do. You are doing a lot of reading and it, of course, makes me so happy to see how much you love your books. You take such good care of them and I so appreciate how you try to show your brother how we should treat books, even if you get a bit too worked up about it at times. Books are something to be passionate about and I respect and love that about you. Naturally, you also seem to love numbers. You are Daddy's boy too, after all. You are happiest when you are following him around being his minion and pretending to do all of the things he does. You are so much like Daddy, actually. You are really so many of the best things in Daddy, the things that I love most about him. Much like Daddy, you don't really pull any punches and don't have hidden agendas. And you are funny and sweet and love to do imitations like Daddy. You have Daddy's temper too. You don't have a short fuse (unlike your brother!) but when you get mad, you really blow up. But then you move on because you don't really like to be mad. Like Mommy, you wear your heart on your sleeve and you get really nervous when people hover over you. It's funny how many of your autistic traits are not very weird to your daddy & I. There is just absolutely no mistaking that you're ours. You love order. As any civilized human should. You've gotten a lot more accepting of change though and you have been so resilient through a lot of big moments during the past year or so. Especially the arrival of your brother. You are such a good big brother. Sure, we still have to ask you on a daily basis not to choke him and you lose your mind if he messes up one of your toys. (Also, you've been known to take toys away from him just to hear him scream. Man alive, can that boy scream, eh?). But that's part of being a brother. The torture, I mean. You love your brother so much though and I'm pretty sure he knows it too because your name is his first and favorite word. You love to help take care of him and you are always so concerned about how he is and what he needs. You've been amazingly patient about Erick's impact on both our schedule and Mommy's energy bandwidth. What's more important than sharing toys is sharing Mommy and you have been so generous and kind with your brother in that regard. That is saying a lot because you are known at times to be kind of a Mommy's boy yourself, especially during the middle of the night when you want to snuggle. You are such a snuggler. You are such an affectionate boy in general. Not everyone would realize it because you still struggle so much at times to greet and say goodbye to people without prompting. But when you're at ease with people, you are extremely generous and affectionate. No one knows that more than your brother. You always have a smile for him and cannot let him go to bed without a big kiss and hug goodnight. I'd love to talk about how incredibly smart you are and the things you do and say on a daily basis that amaze us but I'm pretty sure I'd start to sound like an obnoxious mom (you know the type...."blah blah blah, my kid is amazing and brilliant, blah blah blah" when we all know that you're the most amazing and brilliant, V). I will say that your powers of memory stun me at times. Granted, being male, those powers are ever selective. You can forget ever hearing that which you don't want to remember, especially when it pertains to eating. Oh Victor, I could go on and on about your endearing qualities. Just know that I have never felt a deeper pride or joy in my life than I have in being your mommy. You are what I was waiting for and you are worth every bit of that wait. And while it's hard not to shed a few tears about how quickly my baby is growing up, I am mostly so excited to see you starting kindergarten and making new friends who will see the wonderful things in you that I already have the great fortune to know. Thank you for finding your way to me. Happy 5th. Now let's go to the water park! Hugs and kisses, Mommy p.s Thank you for still liking Llama Llama, Red Pajama.

7/28/2010 7:08:50 AM   [James here] Obligatory defamation of Facebook and what it's done to MonkeyDeux! But on to more fun things. When I came home from my trip to Austin, the next morning Erick treated me to a display of his two words: "Kitty" and "Victor". Of course, his versions are "Key" and "Dicdor", but they happened to be very close to one another, and he pointed to each in succession as he identified them. He'll point to mommy or daddy and act like he wants to label us, but then gives you a look like, "Remind me again of your name?" [Dawn Rebuttal] There are four factors contributing to my failure to update here in a timely manner. Facebook is but one of them. They are specifically as follows: 1. I can't add and update pictures during the day because of network issues while James is logged in for work. I'm often too tired to bother at night. 2. Erick keeps me extremely busy now that he's into everything all the time. And when he's napping, Victor's running laps around the house and terrorizing the cat. A lot of parental intervention needed. 3. The boys have been sick constantly all summer. I'm tired of talking about it and sadly, it's about all I have to report most of the time. I do feel badly that a lot of Erick milestones are going unreported but by the time I can think of recording them, we're on to the next illness and I'm preoccupied. 4. Yes, facebook. I spend more time there communicating with friends than I do elsewhere because it's so easy to do it all in one place. I'll do a lot better once Victor goes back to school for full days and I at least have some naptime during which to do adult things. And I really do strive to do that. Right now? Not happening. If you'll excuse me now, I have a feverish and crying Erick to hold. More soon.

7/11/2010 10:51:56 PM   As promised, here is the vacation montage:

7/9/2010 9:01:23 PM   My apologies (yes, I know that the apologies are getting old) for the long hiatus once again. A lot of things have been keeping us busy but we've also been plagued by internet outages every night for several weeks. You know, right when I finally have some time to blog. It's been quite maddening. Things have been generally good around here though, medical issues notwithstanding. So we have a new pediatrician. We loved Dr. L but when our insurance coverage changed at the first of the year, she became out-of-network. We tried to make it work for a while but as much as these boys seem to get sick, it became ridiculous. Sad as it was to part ways, we are liking the new doctor quite a lot. And trust me, we've gotten to know her and her entire staff! She worked Erick in early for his 15 month appointment a few weeks ago (3 days before we we were leaving on mini-vacation) at which point we discovered that Erick had yet another scorching double ear infection. That made the sixth infection since his 12 month appointment so we finally opted for the antibiotic shots since he's had every possible oral antibiotic now. He had to do those shots for 3 days in a row (so yeah, we know the nurses well now!) but man, did they ever do the trick! You could tell he was feeling way better than he had been for a while and luckily it was just in time for our trip to Branson. He's had fluid behind his ears for the entire past 3 months though (including just a few days ago at the ENT's office) so he's finally getting ear tubes next Friday. We're relieved. We're very much at the point of being concerned about hearing damage (and possible speech delays if we let this continue) as well as antibiotic immunity. The doc that will do it is the same guy that clipped his tongue tie. And he's an Illini! Meanwhile Victor has gotten to know the medical staff there in relation to another lingering sinus infection (maybe he'll meet the ENT soon too). He's doing better with a stronger antibiotic. Apparently Amoxicillin doesn't even touch his sinus infections now. He also threw a brief bladder infection scare in for fun. After those tests came back negative, we've all determined that he must just be having one of those pesky growth spurts where the bladder has not expanded to keep up with the rest of his growing body. And he's definitely had a spurt. After hovering right around 36 pounds for more than a year, he's suddenly 40 pounds! Still long and lean but a bit more bulked up than before. He's getting a whole lot of exercise these days. He's much more active and we really think the swimming is a big part of why. He's got a lot more interest in sports now and he seems to actually need physical activity more than before to help him sleep and focus, etc. It's a good change to see in him. We're considering switching to two nights of swimming per week but I'm a bit hesitant since he'll have so much going on once school starts. We'll have to therapy one early evening and he'll have a few weeks of twice a week soccer camp. But we can always scale swimming back. I think James is right that we should probably capitalize on how much he's getting out of it and how much he loves it. It's doing so much for his confidence in general. Victor really would swim every single day if we'd let him. Luckily when we were in Branson, we could happily oblige! The resort pool was by far everybody's favorite part of the trip. It was a very nice, sprawling pool and it really wasn't even all that crowded. The boys both got to spend lots and lots of time splashing and playing there. We also worked in some other things: a scenic train ride, a Ride the Ducks ride, a paddlewheeler cruise, some general sightseeing and a cave tour (Victor's least favorite part - to the point that he screamed pathetically for most of the tour). The boys were pretty pumped up about the train ride for the first hour and then it became tedious. It was totally worth enduring to see their excitement when we first got on though. They loved the dome car (let's hear it for neurotic Mommy who buys tickets months in advance so that we can get awesome seats!). We were happy to see them enjoy the train so much because we'll be back to ride it again in December when it magically becomes the Polar Express. And Mimi will be going along for the ride with us! (Mimi likes The Polar Express as much as we do.) The boys were positively angelic during our travels, as they always are. They truly are like their parents - happy to be out on the open road. It's only when the traffic is icky that we all get cranky. And sleeping at the hotel went pretty darned well, really. So I think we can pronounce our first family vacation a smashing success. We can feel confident about doing it again soon! But not too soon. There is a montage of pictures from our trip in the works but the aforementioned internet outages have set me back a bit in finishing that up. Hopefully I can get that on here soon. Connection looks great tonight but alas, I am feeling very ready to veg out on the couch with James to watch Tivo'd episodes of Damages while sipping a daquiri. Simple pleasures. I hope that anyone out there who has managed to read this is having a wonderful summer. So basically, that's you, Ruth & Lori. :) I miss you both.

View Entire Blog History

visitor 36611