Wow, Ten Months Already

Finn is 10 months old today. That's so crazy. Here's a little bit of what the little man has been up to lately.

On February 16th, Finn had two new teeth break through. For awhile it was tough getting a good picture of them, hence the reason I didn't post about it 2 weeks ago when it happened. But now they are there and easy to see. And easy to grind apparently. It's been funny watching him as they came in and he started to realize they were there.

Finn is still quite the happy baby, but he will make this face if he feels he isn't getting enough attention/being held enough/just wants some sympathy.

I'm not sure it really works out well for him most of the time.

No sooner did I write this post about how Finn interrupts my time with Deacon, then he decided to up his game by figuring out where I don't want him to be/climb up on, then go ahead and be/climb there. This forces me to get up and walk away from Deacon, so I can pick Finn up and place him down somewhere else. And repeat. Poor Deacon. (Of course, if Deacon would just start using the toilet we wouldn't have this problem, but that's another post entirely.) Finn's diaper changing time has also started taking longer to get through as he no longer likes to lay nicely while I'm changing him. Finn likes to take this time to demonstrate what a fantastic and wiggly contortionist he is. Thus, wrangling him into a diaper has become a challenge in and of itself.

Also challenging now, is trying to get Finn to eat a decent dinner. Ever since he got sick a few weeks ago, he has been a bear to try and feed at dinner time. He doesn't seem to like the jar baby food anymore so we're lucky if we can get 5 spoons of it him. He winds up wearing most of it. On top of that, he's become so fickle about solid foods. Last week he LOVED macaroni and cheese. This week, he wants absolutely nothing to do with it. Last week he loved beef vegetable soup (drained, so he just ate the meat and veggie chunks). This week, all he'll eat is the meat. As per Linda's suggestion yesterday I gave him a piece of toast, which he devoured. But who knows how long that will last for? All he seems to want at dinner are frozen peas and his baby puffs. Not really a substantial meal, if you ask me.

But what makes dinner even more fun, if you can even believe that it does, in fact, get more fun, is that he has started pulling his hair when he's had enough of what we're trying to give him. This is good "fun" because by this point his hands are usually covered with food and drool and what's-it, all of which then wind up in his hair and on his head and all over his face. I think he does this because he LOVES bathtime so much, he figures if he gets dirty enough at dinner we'll be forced to give him a bath. (That's probably not the case at all, but it makes it all a little more endearing.)

Finn drools. A lot.

Finn squeals quite appropriately when you "tackle" him and "wrestle" with him on the floor.

Finn is also a pretty vocal baby. Besides "cat", Finn says "Dadadadada" for "daddy" and "mum" for "mom" (he likes to pretend he's British sometimes...but who doesn't?). He also says "baa baa" for "bottle" and "bah bah" for "banana". They're very similar, but it's definitely two different "a" sounds, just like the sounds they make in the words they are in. Umm...did that sentence make sense? I know you know what I mean.

Moving on (quickly). Finn loves to be where his brother are, even if they don't always enjoy having him there. He is everywhere at once, and knee deep into everything. He keeps us on our toes for sure. Much like Zeke at this age, Finn enjoys a good snuggle. Much like Deacon (still), Finn loves his blankie.

This makes me feel good since I made it.

You know what else makes me (and let's face it, everyone else) feel good?

This kid and his fabulous smile. It really has been a good 10 months.

And It Only Took 2 Hours!

They cleaned up the roads today. And by "cleaned up" I mean they brought out the big plows and got up INCHES of ice from all over the place. I know they do this every year, but it really is a fascinating process to watch.

See, it actually started one day last week when something came through and widened the roads by getting all the plowed snow off of the roads and onto our yards (yay). I'm not sure who did it since I was at speech with Zeke, but when we came home it was a noticable difference. Today though, it started with an initial plowing which left burms like this at the end of everyone's driveways.

After that, the big guy (who I think is responsible for widening the roads) came through and cleared all the driveways. Once the driveways were clear, this guy came through and just plowed the heck out of the street.

Leaving, of course, a new burm. A bigger burm. So, the first big guy came through again, and cleared all the driveways. In doing this, by the way, we all now have 4 foot walls of snow at the ends of where our yards are hidden under 2 1/2 feet of snow.

Finally, once the big guys were done, one more truck went up and down the street, clearing out all the driveways the rest of the way, and cleaning up all the extra snow and stuff that got left on the street. All told, it did take about 2 hours.

My favorite part of all this is that now we have about a good 6 inche drop at the end of our driveway. I'm not sure if any of the pictures really do it any justice, but it's about 4-5 inches of ice, topped with 1-1 1/2 inches of "snow" (really a snow/ice mixture).

At least the roads look great. Oh, and if anyone's as fascinated by this as I am, there are more pictures on flickr (which you can get to by clicking on any of the above pictures). I just couldn't help myself.

More Speech News

I guess it was about 2 weeks ago now, that I went in to Zeke's school for a meeting with his teacher, his SP (speech pathologist), and the school's OT (occupational trainer) for Zeke's yearly IEP (individualized education plan) review. Normally, it's just his teacher and SP, but a few weeks before two weeks ago (so maybe a month ago?) Zeke's teacher sent home an "invitation" to meet with the school's OT because they think Zeke needs some more help with some of the physical components of his life. I met with the OT, she explained her concerns, told her to go ahead and test him to see if he'd qualify for OT, and then met with the 3 ladies to discuss how Zeke is doing.

So, how is Zeke doing? Great in some ways, still behind in others. He does qualify for OT, which is what the meeting started with. Basically, Zeke has a "hard" time with things like buttons, as well as how he holds his pencil and how he cuts with scissors and the like. It boiled down to the fact that he does, in fact, have all the skills to do these things, but he has a weak grasp, so he's not doing them as well as he should be for his age. Since we've been focusing so much on Zeke's speech the past year, it's not altogether surprising to me that some of his physical skills would be a little behind. At the same time I'm also feeling like, really? There's something else? You know. But the OT said he's not that far off and it's just a matter of strengthening his hands and that he should really only need 3 semesters of work to catch him up - so by December.

Zeke also has a hard time transferring skills. For example, in the fall, he learned how to zip up his jacket. When it started getting colder, and I got out his winter coat, he had NO idea how to zip it. It was a different coat, so it required, in his head, a whole new set of directions and a new process that he had to learn. He can put his snow pants on just fine when he has jeans on, but when I had him put his snow pants on one day when he had brown pants on, he didn't know what to do because his pants were brown. It's really kind of interesting. So there's that.

After the OT, the SP took her turn. She said Zeke is doing great and has made so much progress. She said he's 95-100% intelligible, but still needs help with his grammar. His sentence structure and syntax make him hard to understand still. You can figure out all the words, but the order he puts them in makes them make no sense, mostly when he tries to make longer sentences. For example, instead of saying "I look just like Dad in this" he says something like "I am look Dad this". He also tends to put his adjectives after the words he's describing, like he's European or something. Instead of saying, "I want the purple hat" he says "I want hat purple". So, grammar is our main concern now.

As for how Zeke does in the regular classroom, he's great. His teacher did say he likes to rush through his work to get to whatever's next, but that's him. He is always looking to what's next, and planning things out 4 or 5 events in his head. They say kids thrive in consistency (or something like that) and it's so true of Zeke. He will get up in the morning and plan out his day step by step. It's really kind of fun. But otherwise, his teacher (as well as the OT and SP) say that Zeke is SUCH a joy to have in school. He's kind and helpful and sweet. Which, of course, every mother likes to hear about her boy.

So, to recap, Zeke is doing great at school, improving in leaps and bounds. He needs to work on his grammar skills, taking his time, and strengthening his hands. They love having him there, and we're all going to be sad when the school year is over and he doesn't get to go to school there anymore (which would be the case even if we weren't moving to NJ since he's not technically zoned for the elementary school he's currently going to). Zeke is a bright boy, a funny fellow, and just a great kid, and I can't wait to see what he comes up with as he gets and understands more and more.

Taking the Plunge

Well, I did it. I got a twitter account and have tweeted(?) twice now. I added a widget to my blog with my twitter feed, so I guess you'll always be able to read/see things there. My twitter ID (I guess) is thosewalterboys, which is what I'll mostly be tweeting about. I guess we'll see how this goes then. And if you twitter, let me know who you are there, so I can follow you.

In other "news" I started patching my boys' pants. Zeke, has this uncanny ability (or so it seems) to put holes in the left leg of ALL his pants within a few short months of wearing them. And since jeans don't grow on trees, I did a trial run a few weeks ago and "made" some "new" pants for him and for Deacon. Since Deacon gets all of Zeke's clothes after all.

Not too bad for a first go, I guess. Zeke was excited about the idea of Mommy making him "patch pants", but at his first go with them, he was very much NOT excited about them. In fact, they upset him so badly that he absolutely REFUSED to look at the camera when I took a picture of him in them.

He then carried on and cried for a full 1/2 hour until Josh finally talked him into thinking they are cool and great pants. Now there's less of a struggle to get him into them. Which is good since he put a hole in his last pair of non-holed pants this weekend. So, now I have to get out the sewing machine again and get to work since 1 pair of patched pants are not going to be enough to get my boy through the week. I think I'm also going to have to go out and buy another pair of pants for him just so he isn't only wearing pants with patches. Because, while they are cute and all, sometimes it's just nice to have a "normal" (for lack of a better word) pair of jeans.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I cut them like this:

so my boys will have the perfect shorts for their first summer in New Jersey. Ohhhh yeahhhh!