23 Months

23 months

 

Date

November 16, 2013

 

The official 23 month picture

We went to the Woofstock dog festival in the park this morning.  There will be a whole post about that soon.  We thought it would be the perfect location for a 23 month photo shoot.  Elliott definitely brought his sass and made getting the perfect shot a challenge.  Stinker. 

I am having trouble believing that he's going to be two in one short month.  I was just barely pregnant and being rushed through the hospital to stop labor.  It feels like that was 6 months ago, tops.  But, we mailed his birthday invitations today, so it must be happening.  We're having a dinosaur party.  Roar!

Let's see.  Elliott is about 32 pounds.  He seems to have tapered off in weight gain, which is good, because very soon I will not be able to lift him at all.  He will see the hepatologist before the pediatrician so that's where we will get an official weight. 

 

He's having a blood draw on December 2nd and his next hepatology appointment is December 11th.  The 12/11 apppointment has caused a pit to form in my stomach and it will not go away. 

Michael and I have decided that Elliott is left handed.  For a while he switched back and forth but he has definitely settled on his left hand for eating and coloring.  Is handedness genetic?  I'm not sure where this came from.

As far as language development he is full speed ahead.  If I were to guess I'd say he has 200+ words in his vocabulary.  Yesterday I heard him use his first present progressive "ing".  I asked if he was done eating and instead of saying "eat" like he normally would, he responded with "eating".  Then today at the park he said "driving", which was awesome because I've never even heard him say drive.

Night time sleeping is awesome.  He is still a noisy dreamer sometimes, but it has been ages and ages and ages since he didn't sleep a solid 11 hours straight.  Nap times continue to be a toss up.  Yesterday he slept soundly for 2 hours.  Today, nothing at all.

 

He is still in our bed, which is still just fine. We're planning on moving him to his room at the beginning of the summer.  If it's a disaster we'll re-evaluate at that time.  Since sleep was so (damn!) hard with Spencer we've always had a "whatever" attitude with Elliott and he's always been a better sleeper than big brother.  This probably means that potty-training (which took Spencer 45 seconds to accomplish) will be a disaster.

Elliott got a haircut yesterday and it was the first time that he didn't throw a huge, screaming fit the entire time.  He cried when she put the cover on him but then he settled right down and did fine for the whole cut.  It took graham crackers, cartoons and me blowing bubbles the entire time to accomplish this, but, hey, I'll take it.

Food.  So.  My parents fed him peanut butter granola last weekend.  He didn't react to it but I'm too afraid to give him a second dose.  We might drive him to the ER and feed him a pb&j in the parking lot.  I think we're going to give him chocolate cake for his birthday.  Spencer's first chocolate was the cake for his second birthday, which was actually 1 week before his birthday.

Hmmm.  I seem to have run out of things to say.

 

There is going to be ONE MORE monthly update.  I'd better bring my A game next month!

 

There are about 75 more pictures, so enjoy scrolling to the end.

This was almost the official picture.  I really, really considered it but ultimately decided it was too dark, even after editing it.

Late to the party

When we were in Tucson last weekend I found this turkey sitting on the floor in my parents basement.  Just sitting there.  All alone.  He was crying a little too.

 

I asked my mom why he wasn't upstairs with the rest of the decorations.  She claims that she has never thought he was very cute.  I disagreed and formally adopted him on the spot.

Yesterday I was looking everywhere for Spencer's school pictures.  I searched high and low.  In drawers, on shelves, in nooks and crannies.  I can not find them.  They are missing.  I did, however, find this little welcome sign that I bought from the dollar section at Target in August and forgot about.

 

 

These turkeys get 8 more days of glory and then they will see the inside of a box for 11 months because Santa Claus is coming to town.  Ho Ho Ho!



I swear Spencer still lives with us

I've got a fantabulous little catch up post for you.....events that have happened from November 1st until today.   There is one, single, sad picture of Spencer.  I don't know what my deal is.  I just don't seem to take pictures of him anymore, despite the fact that I love him, like, a lot.

 

This is Elliott's first taste of candy.  It was pink lemonade flavored.  He loved it.

This was the day after Halloween. Spencer chose his Rice Krispie treat for his snack.  This is his only picture in the post.  I hope you enjoy it. 

Everybody has seen this pin on pinterest.  Everybody.  It's been re-pinned 18.6 billion times.

 

And this one too. 

Well.....we did it! 

 

It took 6 months, but we hung the IKEA spice racks in Elliott's room.  We bought them in June, painted them in August and hung them on November 3rd.  Go us.

Another project we did that day was a wall protector for the dining room. 

 

This is Ginger's favorite bed.  She sleeps on it all day long.  I had noticed that the wall and baseboards were getting really dirty from her filthy body that gets shampooed once every 4-6 months.  When I went to wash the wall it actually stunk.  So I scrubbed it up good and then we lined it with poster board so she stinks up the board and not the actual house.

 

Then I blinged it up with stickers.

 

Bubita is one of her many nicknames.

And speaking of the little Miss.  She was taking the 7th of her 86 daily naps when Elliott stuck a phone to her ear.  She used it to call the police.  She's trying to get a restraining order against Elliott.  He's kind of obsessed with her.

 

He's also into playing ON the train table.

 

And reading books with Gramme.

We spent the weekend in Tucson.  I got 2 hours of free continuing education at the U of A on Saturday morning.  It was homecoming weekend and the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences (my major) was offering a free class as part of the festivities.  It was held in room 205 where I took every single class in my major as an undergraduate.  I sat in my same seat (3rd row up- 3rd seat in).  The only thing missing was Anthony to my right.  We took almost all of our classes together and we always sat in the same seats.

 

I haven't been in this room for 12 years and 11 months.  It was weird.  In some ways it felt like it had been almost 13 years and in some ways it felt like the blink of an eye had passed. 

 After my free continuing ed I went to Jeannette's baby shower.

 

Check out this cake!  I didn't eat any of it. :(

 

I'm very excited about the baby boy in her belly.

Michael and I left the kids with my parents on Sunday morning and went to see Thor.  Then we left the kids with his parents on Sunday afternoon and went to see Gravity in 3-D.  We love our kids.  We also love getting away from them a bit.  No pictures, because that's frowned upon in a dark movie theatre.

 

 

I went on a field trip with all of the special education kids at my school today.

 

I provide speech therapy services to all of these kids.  I thought it was OK to show this picture since you can't see their faces.

 

And I did some appropriate editing on this one.  This was my buddy for the day.  He also comes to speech therapy.

 After I left work I got my hair cut at a local beauty school.  It's a great haircut and it only cost $9.  Then I went to Ross and bought a new shirt and 2 new pairs of jeans, because I currently own 0 pairs of jeans that actually fit.  Happily, it is because they literally fall off my body, not because I can't button them.

And we're caught up. 

 

Next time: 87 pictures of just Spencer.

Honor

My family has a long military tradition.  My mom's dad was a Marine in WWII and my dad's dad was in the Navy in WWII.  My dad and his brother both served in the Navy (my dad retired in 1996 after 36 years of service).  My brother Nathan was in the Marine Corps and my brother Nick was in the Navy.  My cousin Drew was in the Marine Corps, my cousin Austin is a pilot in the Air Force and my cousin Caitlin is in the Navy.  Michael's family also has a long military history, but I will totally forget someone if I try to list them, so I won't.  I will say his brother is active duty in the Army though. 

 

Spencer's school had a big assembly this morning in honor of Veterans Day.  About 5 weeks ago I filled out a piece of paper with our family's military members (we decided to limit it to my dad and our 3 brothers) and sent it in to be included in a visual display of names. 

 

My dad was able to come up from Tucson and participate so he was able to sit with the other Veterans during the assembly.

Side note: I bought my shirt from The Gap in 1995 when I was a sophomore in high school.  I try to wear it once a year so I don't have to get rid of it.

 

Can you see Spencer's little face poking out in the back row?

 

Miss Arizona 2013 was there.  She sang the National Anthem and gave a little speech.

Elliott ran around like a wild man.  Thank goodness there was plenty of space behind where all the kids were sitting so he didn't interrupt or bother anyone.

 

He applauded and cheered when appropriate.

 

After 45 minutes of running and clapping he needed a snack.

 

Our brothers and my dad had their names on the honor poster.

People were quite impressed by my dad's uniform and we even had strangers ask if they could take a picture with him.  Maybe next year he can sing the National Anthem and give a speech. 

We have a busy, busy weekend planned.  Nothing specific to Veterans Day, but I'm taking a (free!) continuing education class, going to a baby shower and getting some holiday shopping done.  And by "holiday shopping" I mean new holiday/family picture clothes for all of us!