Look Out World, Here He Comes!

So, as you might remember, Zeke went in for his speech assessment on March 20th. I went back this past Saturday and went over the results with the ladies who assessed him. Apparently his speech is not as bad off as I thought, but he does have delays in grammar and pronunciations and the like, so he does qualify for their "support programs". What this means is that he gets to go to Pre-School at an elementary school near us, which will focus on his "problem areas" while getting him used to a structured school day so he'll be all ready for kindergarten, when the time comes.

I expected there to be a bit of time between getting his results and when he'd start school but they told me Saturday morning that if I could get him registered on Monday he could start on Tuesday. So I did. And my not-so-little-anymore boy started school today. And he did great. (His teacher did say he wanted more free play time than structured class time, but he's not used to strutured class time, so that's to be expected in the beginning I guess.) And he did had fun. And he was missed by Deacon (and Mommy), but we consoled ourselves with some Sesame Street and a little rest (shower) time.

So now Zeke goes to school Monday through Friday from 9am to 11am. One hour a week is spent with the school's speech-language pathologist, the rest is spent in the classroom doing classroomy types of things. There are 3 other boys and 1 girl in his class, so it's nice and small. There is also a teacher's assistant in the room. I got to meet both his teacher and her assistant yesterday, and they both seem wonderful. When I picked him up today from school one of the other boys in his class had run up to his mom and said, "Mom. I made a new friend today and his name is Zeke." Aww. So, it seems like this is going to be a very good thing for Zeke, and I am really excited to get him in there, even if it is just until school ends on May 20th. I am so proud of my sweet boy.

Better Weather

We're still here. Sorry for not posting in over a week. I have no good excuses. So, to make up for it I am going to try to post at least a little something most days this week. I'd say every day but I am fairly certain that won't happen. All the same, here we go.

I've decided to start with the weather since it sort of sets up the background for another post that's for another day. I got an email the other day from a friend here. It was a forward but I thought it was pretty funny all the same. The email said how they could tell that spring is coming because they could see the deer walking around in their backyard...

Pretty funny, no? I got a kick out of it anyway.

In all seriousness though, we have been having beautiful weather lately. Besides Saturday evening into Sunday morning when it snowed a little again, it has been in the upper 30's and sunny. Ahh...lovely. It's been so nice that stuff has been melting. I guess "breakup" is officially here. We even have a little patch of grass showing on one side of our driveway. See?

I apologize for the poorish quality of the pictures in this post. Blogger isn't working properly on my computer right now so I had to take pictures of the pictures with my iPhone so I could get this post done. Hopefully tomorrow it will be working again. See you then.



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Of Pillowcases and Prayer Shawls

I had this problem. My boys sleep in toddler-sized beds. They use pillows. They don't use sheets, just blankets. The problem was toddler beds + pillows + blankets - sheets = no way of getting fun pillowcases for my boys. They have plenty of sheets for their beds. There is no need of sheets. However, they each have one pillowcase that they have been using for quite some time. On laundry days, I take the pillowcases off of their beds after their naps, wash them, and put them back on before they go to sleep that night. And poor Deacon's pillowcase is the Spongebob one that Josh used for an entire year in Iraq way back in 2004. Yeah.

So, Saturday I went out yarn shopping. While I was out, inspiration struck. While I was at the craft store, I purchased a bunch of cloth to make my own pillowcases for the boys. I'm not sure why it took me so long to think of doing this, but I'm so happy I finally did. And I apparently picked the right time to think of this because the when I was there, all their novelty prints were on sale. Now the boys have a Thomas pillowcase:

A Sesame Street pillowcase and a Buzz Lightyear pillowcase (I'll let you guess which one is on Zeke's bed right now):

And two "Cars" pillowcases (there was only a bit extra left on the roll so I got it for an additional 50% off and made two "ghetto" hemmed cases with it):

All in all not a bad little haul, and I am quite pleased with myself.

And while I'm displaying my craftiness, I thought I would also share with you, my latest two knitting projects (well, the two that are finished, I'm still working on Omi's blanket).

As I thought I mentioned once before but can't find the post where I mentioned it, I've joined the Prayer Shawl ministry group at the church we attend here. We meet every other Wednesday and knit and chat. Once someone's shawl is finished we pray over it, and it is sent on it's way. It's really a very cool thing.

So, my first shawl I made for my friend Erin. Erin is getting ready to do some really cool and amazing things for the Lord, and I am just so impressed and excited for her, that I really wanted to do something for her to show my love and support, and a shawl seemed perfect. Being the first shawl I've ever made, I had fun making it. Even though I got worried that it might not be long enough (and one of my friends that I knit with suggested I make it a poncho instead), and even though Erin's favorite color is pink, it was such a neat thing to be a part of.

After I finished Erin's shawl, I wasn't sure what to do next, so I took a little through my little stash of yarn and decided that I needed to just make something out of a bunch of yarn that I had leftover from another project I had done awhile ago. This shawl, once we have our next "meeting" and it gets prayed over, will go in the church's prayer shawl basket for whoever in the community needs it.


And there you go. I've already started my next shawl (and I'm really excited to see how it turns out), and I'm probably 75% of the way through Omi's blanket. I feel so productive all of a sudden.

Potty Update

I was waiting until yesterday to write this post because I wanted to see how yesterday went. But then Deacon got sick, and so I wrote it today while I was at the doctor's. Anyhoo...Zeke has been doing great with potty training.

Thank you for your advice, to those who offered it. We did start out trying a sort of reward system. The boys and I made posters and we hung them on the bathroom wall. The idea was that every time they went to the bathroom on (in?) the toilet they could put a sticker or two on their poster. As you can see someone (ahem, Deacon) cheated quite a bit.

However, it got to the point where they would sit on the toilet then hop off, expecting stickers. Thus negating it's intended purpose. (I didn't really want to go the candy route because they have more than enough energy as it is, and more sugar is not something that they need.) So now they just put stickers up there whenever they want just because it's fun. Oh, and my potty record is better then my poster indicates, I promise.

Anyhoo, after a week or so of letting the boys run around the house all nakie bum, it seemed like Zeke was starting to get it. So I took Joni's advice ( which I think she said was another friend's advice to her) and decided to just put Zeke in some underpants and see what happened.

He, of course cried and carried on about not wanting to wear underpants, and about how much he wanted a diaper. But after 5 minutes he realized I wasn't going to change my mind on the matter, so he changed his mind and was happy to be in underpants. Now he wakes up in the morning (or after a nap) and says, "Helllooooo underpants!" as we pick out a pair to wear.

For the first week we still put him in diapers when we left the house. I didn't want to push him too hard and cause some sort of regression, but he is now comfortable leaving the house in his underpants. He's been to the store a couple of times in his underpants. He went to church this past weekend in his underpants, and even used the bathroom at church (3 times - only actually going once) with my help (those toilets are pretty big).

Yesterday was our big "test" though. Yesterday was the first PWOC we went to with him in underpants. This was a big deal because he would have to do it all by himself in a place he'd never gone before and he emerged victorious. The one childcare worker said she had asked him if he had to go and he told her that he wanted a diaper, but she told him he could use the potty and so he did. He still needs some help snapping his pants, but he can do it all on his own now. He's such a big boy.

And, for those who are/were concerned about the little toilet in the living room during movie time, I pretty much stopped doing that after I wrote about. He now tells me he has to go potty, I pause the movie, he goes, comes out and says, "And movie go now!" That's when I hit play and help him finish getting dressed.

Of course, he still wears a diaper for naps and to bed at night, and he still hasn't pooped in the toilet yet, but we'll get there. I'm not worried. Now Deacon on the other hand, he's just not ready. I let him wear underpants in the morning because he doesn't usually do anything in the early a.m. But it's diapers for the rest of the day out for the little man. Again, we'll get there. I am quite pleased with the progress we've made so far.


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Fur-Idita-Rondy-Rod

This past Saturday, we braved the cold and snowy roads and went to check out the Fur Rondy activities, as well as some of the Iditarod. Fur Rondy (Fur Rendezvous) is a week (or so) long festival thing leading up to the Iditarod. Each day there were different game competitions and a little carnival and shows and food and all kinds of fun. We were originally going to head down to check it out Friday afternoon, but it snowed a bunch Friday, and since Josh said we were going on Saturday for the Iditarod no matter what the weather, and since the few things we actually were interested in checking out were open on Saturday as well, we opted to just make one big morning out of it all.

We got to Anchorage about an hour before the Iditarod actually started, so we started off with some Fur Rondy fun.

And by Fur Rondy fun, I mean we checked out what was left of the snow sculpture contest. It was really the only thing I was interested in seeing. Sadly, it was pretty warm a few days that week so a bunch of the sculptures melted/broke apart/got pretty dirty. There were a few that were still in pretty good shape though, and the boys had fun naming the ones they could still figure out. Like the frogs:

After making our way around the snow sculptures we figured we should start making our way up to where the race was starting. This entailed many, many stairs, not much fun when you're 30 weeks pregnant. But we all made it to the top and found a pretty decent spot to watch the dogs and sleds and they made their way to the starting line.

The boys lost interest in the dogs shortly after arriving. In Zeke's defense, he knew there were trains somewhere and that's what he wanted to see. In Deacon's defense, he was cold and tired and could only see if he was on one of our shoulders (which he did enjoy immensely). But after Josh and the boys shared a reindeer dog (a hotdog made of reindeer meat), and after the boys and I had some chips and hot chocolate, we made our way to what Zeke had been waiting all morning to go see:

Whoo! Whoo! I haven't seen Zeke as thrilled as he was when we walked into the train station in some time. He ran right to one of the back windows so he could see the above train a little better. This train, by the way, is sort of a celebrity to our boys as we have a book about this train. But when they realized there were model trains going all over the place, it was all even better. They even had a bunch of Thomas trains and cars set up in a siding on one of the rails.

So, after spending two hours in the cold, enjoying some of Alaska's biggest winter events, we got back in the car, drove home, had lunch, and took nice long naps. Well, the boys and I napped. Josh played his video game. All in all, a really fun day.

PS...I finally got all my pictures from this year up on Flickr. You can check out January and February here, and the rest of our Fur Rondy/Iditarod/handful of March pictures here. Maybe some day I'll get back to them and actual label/tag them. That's a big maybe though, so just enjoy them as they are, if you are so inclined that is.

A New Smile

Well, they took out his tooth.

I took Zeke to the pediatric dentist on post this morning to have his tooth x-rayed and taken care of. Part of me had really hoped that it would be possible to save the tooth, but I saw the x-ray. Like the dentist said, by the time they took out all the stuff they would need to take out for the root canal, he'd have very little tooth left, which could then easily fracture and cause more problems down the road.

So they took out his tooth.

I'm not going to lie, it was pretty traumatic. First they tried to give him a little gas just so he'd lie still and not feel anything, but he freaked out when they put the little thing over his nose and just refused to calm down and breathe properly for them. It didn't help that I had to leave the room while the gas was on, on account of being pregnant and all. They left the door open and I could stand right outside the door and talk to him and all, but it wasn't really enough. I'm so thankful the dentist is so patient. He just sat there, holding Zeke's hands, trying to get him to calm down so he would breathe through his nose, but to avail.

So we decided that the best/quickest course of action would be to just numb up the area and pull, with me in the room, holding his hands/holding him down. The whole process only took all of 5 minutes, but they were some of the longest 5 minutes of either of our lives. My poor baby just screamed, not because it hurt (although the shot looked like it might have hurt a little), but because he was done and didn't like being held down like that. It must be so hard having something like that being done and not understanding it at all. But once the area was numb, the dentist loosened the gums a little and pulled it right out. Apparently it was already loose, so there wasn't much he had to do to work it out.

I think the worst part for me was watching my baby cry like that, knowing there was nothing I could do until it was over. Then seeing this giant hole in his mouth, with all this blood coming out - it was really all I could do to not cry myself. I never want to go through that again. I'm sure Zeke doesn't either. Once it was all over though, he was fine. He keeps sticking his tongue in the hole, but he seems like he could care less. The dentist let us keep the tooth too, so we can show Daddy when he gets home from work tonight. Score! (I was going to post a picture of the tooth too, but it's in a baggie with some bleach and I just couldn't get a good shot of it. Maybe I'll keep trying.)

But now their rest time is almost over, so I had better end here and find something soft for Zeke to snack on when he gets up. Now we just have to get used to seeing that hole. After all, it's going to be around for the next 3 years or so.

I still can't believe they took out his tooth.

While We're On the Topic

And while my children are outside playing in the extra two inches of snow that we got today (which Josh is currently shovelling from our driveway), I figured I'd take this opportunity to post some pictures of some of the icicles that used to hang from our house (before the mini "heatwave" we had a few weeks ago).

I'm Out of "Snow" Titles

Since it did this last Thursday and Friday...

...dropping yet another 6-8 inches on us (after the foot we got two weekends before, which was on top of the three feet of snow that was still lying around since it doesn't go away until April or some time around there), I figured I would write my post about how our weather's been lately.

From what I've been told, it was a pretty mild February. No where near the normal amount of snow fell, and it actually got pretty warm in the middle there for a week or two. Of course, by warm I mean in the mid 30's, but it was so nice compared to the negative temps we were getting used to. Not to mention the wonderful fact that the sun has finally started making it over the mountains by us, so we actually get to see the sun for a little bit each day the sky isn't covered with clouds. I can tell I'm not the only one who missed it because every time it was out Zeke would get all excited and say, "Mommy, look! The sun!" Then he'd run around the house and point out all the rainbows that the sun was making on our walls by shining through our hall light.

The warmth and the sun have also meant that the sheet of ice that's been covering our driveway for the past however long softened up enough for Josh to get out there and chip it away, including the "speed bump". You see, most of the roofs over the garage/driveways around here are angled, like this:

Ours, however, is not angled. It's perfectly straight. Like this:

While it looks nice, the problem is that when the weather warms up a smidge and stuff starts melting the angled roofs drip the water off to the sides of the driveway. Our roof, being straight, just lets the water fall where it may. This led to a lump of solid ice at the top of our driveway that was literally the size of a speed bump. Needless to say, it made pulling into the driveway a fun time, almost every time. But it's gone now, because Josh spent many hours (over the course of many days) doing this:

Don't worry, he didn't have to do it all by himself though. He had some "help" one day:

Notice how, in the middle and right pictures, Deacon is shovelling the snow from the snow bank onto the driveway. He's such a good helper. Zeke and I "helped" by coloring on the newly cleared driveway (it's a rocket):

And now that the boys are up from their naps, and doing things on the computer quickly gets stressful when they are out of their beds, I will close with one last picture:

Sorry it's dark. The camera batteries were practically dead, so Josh couldn't get the flash to go off. But, what this is a picture of, is Josh standing in front of the snowbanks that now flank our driveway. For those who don't know (or don't remember) Josh is 6 foot 4 inches tall. The bank behind him is almost as tall as he is, so I'd put it at around 6 feet tall. That's right. There is currently six feet of snow at the end of our driveway. It makes me even more thankful that we live on a little cul-de-sac that no one really drives up and down because sometimes it's really hard to see around the banks to see if there is anyone coming.

And to think, this has been a mild winter so far. Wow.

It Was Probably Time

Here are the before shots:

And here's how they looked after:

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