Family Forum / Parenting / Mothers / July 2009

I noticed there's still some around.  Hooray for that.

I thought I'd just pop in quickly, even though I should have been in bed
over and hour and a half ago.

As of late... Things are... Interesting.

ODS is 9, will be 10 in December.  He's doing well.  We got the boys
together last week, IIRC, and went to the big park not far from here, then
the next day, the boys went to a spray park with ODS and his mom.  He'll be
in the 4th grade in September.  I don't really have much of an update,
really, as I guess I've been on a little bit of an edge with ODS' mom.  Grr
with that whole thing.

Anyways.  DS was 8 back in January.  He's back at football and loving it
like last year.  It's his second year now, and I don't think he's the
youngest and smallest on the team.  Well, maybe he's still the smallest, or
close to ;) He did very well this last year with school, although there were
some issues at the very end of the year that were brought up.  He's been
bullying this poor kid and we've been working on that whole situation.  I
feel like we're getting somewhere with that.  He'll be in grade 3 in
September.  He's still a huge challenge for me, however.  I'm trying,
though.  Other than that, not much new with him.

DD1 will be 4 in 2 weeks now.  She still has some major speech delays, and
last assessment with the speech and language pathologist at the end of June
said her speech is less than the 1st %ile (ha-ha oooh...)  I guess that
means about 99 or so % of kids her age speak better than she does.  She
understands VERY well.  Her hearing is fine, her comprehension is fine (I
think that was it??) and she is highly intelligent.  She just can't talk
very well.  I have her registered for an early ed/early intervention
preschool that deals directly and only with preschoolers with major
speech/language delays.  I'm looking forward to that and I really hope it
helps with her speech.  OH.  And what is even better is... SHE HAS FULLY
POTTY TRAINED!!!!  I don't know if anyone realizes how fantastic this is for
me.  I struggled and struggled with her.  I think it was back in about March
or so.  It was actually the day we went to see the preschool program, she
went pee on the potty there (she had been peeing fairly well on the potty
about a year before, we had a major fallout with that for unknown reasons
and she then refused after) but, she went at the school and from that day
on, she was peeing in the potty full time during the day, diapers at
night/nap time only.  About 3 days after that, she went poop in the potty
and what a milestone!  From that day on, she was fully and completely
trained, and for the most part, on her own.  She never once had an accident,
even at night, and I just have to say, I'm so happy about that.  This was
SUCH a struggle and battle on all levels for me.  Not anymore, though... I
also found out that most preschoolers around the 3-4 mark are NOT potty
trained when they go into the speech/language programs.  I was told by the
one lady at the school that although nothing's really there to back it up,
SHE has noticed that language problems and training problems seem to go hand
in hand.  She didn't know why, just said it was something she has found over
the years and kids with speech issues more often have training issues as
well.  Also, back in December when she tripped and broke those 2 teeth
(which involved some lovely pediatric dental surgery to remove one of the
broken teeth, cap the other and then eventually put a semi-permanent tooth
back in her mouth, she hasn't seemed to have *more* speech issues since
then.  So yes, that's about it for now.

DD2 will be 3 in October and is doing fine.  Other than the fact she seems
to be just about as clumsy as DD1.  A couple of weeks ago she walked right
into the bathroom door frame - which, for some odd reason, is a metal door
frame.  Poor DD2 ended up smacking her face REAL good on the door frame and
managed to give herself a VERY good black eye.  It just went away very, very
recently and then on Sunday, she fell off her chair and smashed her other
eye on the corner of my parents' dining room table... A near miss, which was
maybe a good thing.  She got just on the top corner of her eye, right along
her eye socket bone area thing, and INSTANTLY had a massive bruise there
that looked horrible.  3 or so days later and her one eye is completely
black all around :(  She's doing well otherwise, but she still has to hang
on to her disgusting blanket that she loves so much.  Her speech seems to be
right around average, at least, and she's still just a big baby that is
clingy, needy, and just a big suck!

DD3 is not quite 5.5 months old now.  She rolled over just before 3 months
and did that just once on her own before taking a little break and has been
rolling all over the place since she was a little more than 3.5 months old.
Now, though, she's really starting to cruise around.  She pulls herself with
her arms and kicks with her feet and knees and is just on the move
constantly now.  Not quite crawling or even getting up on her hands and
knees.  Arms, belly and feet seem to get her around just fine, thank you
very much.  She even goes for things... Toys or non-toys on the floor grab
her attention and then she grabs them.  She's always full of smiles, and
loves to show her smiler.  She LOVES to see herself in the mirror ;)  We
also went swimming for the first time last weekend... I can't take the kids
swimming on my own (3 non-swimmers = very, very dangerous for me to deal
with on my own) so we all went as a family.  DD3 absolutely loved swimming.
She was like a frog in the water, floating on her back and frog-kicking and
splashing and just loving it.  She's still nursing like a champ and is most
likely well over 15lbs now... She was 14lbs 15oz back at the end of June
when we went for her shots, so a month later, she's definitely well over
15lbs.  She's a big of a little porker.  She's a breastfed baby fat type, so
it's all good.  Her weight gain is fantastic and she seems to be doing very
well.

All the older kids seem to love their baby, which is great.  They love her
until she starts getting their stuff.  Then I have a feeling they won't like
her so much for a while ;)

Also, on the same note... N and I are now in counselling.  We've been seeing
a marriage counsellor for a few months now and that seems to be going
alright.  We're working on our known problems and dealing with them and
we're also finding new problems and dealing with them in a much, much better
way.  That has been going very well.  I currently have about 4 books on the
go right now... 2 are aimed at the kids (the kind to help parents with their
kids, I guess) and 2 are husband/relationship-type books.  Things, though,
seem to be going very well.  We went camping at the beginning of July just
after my birthday.  I'm planning on doing a surprise camping trip (N got a
new, huge, awesome tent for his birthday on the weekend and I can't wait for
us to go camping in this new tent and try it out) and I'm hoping one Friday
when we have a free weekend I can pack the van up with stuff for camping,
kidnap him from work just before the end of the day and take us all on like
a surprise camping trip for a weekend.
This weekend, though, we have a wedding.  A good and long time childhood
friend of mine from elementary school that I've kept in touch with over all
these years is getting married.  She's asked DS to be the ring bearer.  She
is DS' godmother and the flower girl is her cousin's little girl, who is
also her goddaughter.  DS is looking forward to that and excited to wear his
brand new suit - which I need to hem up ASAP (oops) and I am really looking
forward to it as well.

So other than that, I really don't know.  I'm just tired and should now head
off to bed!

For those that are still around... how are things with you?  Anything new or
have any updates??