Heading to School

This week when I took the kids to school they decided to hold hands while they walked from the gate to the front door. It just melted my heart.

Pennington 29 Months

Pennington turned 29 months old 10 days ago. I wanted to let you all know what Pennington has been interested in recently.

Pennington really likes watching Winnie the Pooh (new and old ones), Olivia, and Clifford. We read Olivia and Clifford books all the time. I remember Johnny wanted to buy Olivia for Pennington before he was born. I looked at him like he was crazy. Thinking . . . "That's a girl book you know?!?!?" So we didn't buy the Olivia books until Piper was born. Well come to find out Pennington LOVES Olivia. Pennington also really likes Clifford's friend T-Bone who is in the videos. Recently we asked Pennington who his favorite football player was. He told us Tebow. We had no idea who told him to say Tebow. Well come to find out we actually think he was saying T-Bone not Tebow.

On Friday night while we were at Early Bird Shabbat (think happy hour and appetizers along with an optional short service), Pennington pretended to play football with both Nonni and me. It is really awesome to watch a child imagine doing something. He would pretend to kick, throw and catch the ball. Hopefully this imaginative play will continue.

Pennington is now part of the big kid group at school. Denise says he is doing really well. He is starting to tell me more and more about what he does at school. I have to say I think the Montessori method of putting kids together of different age groups is really smart. Right now since Pennington is one of the older ones he is working on helping teach the younger ones.

We have recently figured out that Pennington LOVES taking showers. We started taking showers with the kids when they were sick a few weeks ago. Now Pennington asks to take a shower.

Pennington still takes really good naps. Sometimes as long as 3 hours. He is actually really hard to wake up when he is not ready to get up. While he does take a really good nap, he doesn't sleep as long at night as some other children his age. Part of this has to do with the fact that we keep him up a bit later than we probably should so that I can hang out with him after work. There are some nights he doesn't go to sleep until 9pm. He typically gets up around 7am. So basically he averages around 13 hours of sleep a day.

He continues to love anything and everything that has to do with sports. We are seriously thinking about putting him on skis next weekend. We have shown youtube videos of kids skiing so he knows what to expect. I hope if we do decide to take him (weather permitting) that he enjoys it and that we wont regret taking him so early.

Below is a recent photo of Pennington. He is Super Pennington in this photo (just like Kipper the super dog).

Piper 17 Months

Piper turned 17 months old last week. I decided I no longer have children that will be referred to by how many months old they are but rather a 1 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old. I think it might have been getting a little too specific saying I have a 17 month old and a 29 month old.

Piper is now saying around 10 to 20 words. This is so amazing to me since Pennington just started talking about 3 months ago. Piper wants to keep up with her big brother but at the same time runs like crazy when she thinks he is about to tackle her. She's a tough little one.

Piper is doing really well at school. One of the helpers told me that she thinks Piper is really smart. I guess she is ahead of the other children her age developmentally. Of course this was a really proud moment for me as a mother. Part of the reason she is probably ahead is because she has her big brother to keep up with.

Piper is starting to want to dress herself. She can put her own coat and pants on. She is still amazing me with her ability to go poop on the potty but for some reason not pee on the potty. Piper is very into helping out around the house. She pushes she toy vacuum around the living room and enjoys playing with her cupcakes.

There are some challenges we are still working through with Piper. This girl still really wants to be breastfeed. Yes I am that mom that is still breastfeeding her child. Some days only twice other days as much as five times. I just keep hoping someday she will decide she is done but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Since Piper got sick a few weeks ago and is now working on a few new teeth (Did I mention this girl has had the same 8 teeth for like 6 months now? It is about time the rest of them decided to show up) we are back to square one with her sleeping habits. I had to make her cry it out last night. Otherwise I would have had to hold her for 30 minutes before she falls into a deep sleep for me to be able to put her down.

Below are two recent photos of Piper. She is helping me with the dishes and playing with her cupcakes.

Pennington's Assessment

About a week ago I received the Comprehensive Evaluation Report from Pennington's developmental and speech assessment. Included in the assessment was a summary of how many correct answers Pennington had in six different categories. The results are suppose to approach 100% by 3 years of age. Below are Pennington's scores as a 27 month old.

Fine Motor - 92%

Gross Motor - 97%

Adaptive - 75%

Cognitive - 70%

Social-Communication - 78%

Social - 92%

Not 100% sure I totally understand what this all means but it definitely looks like he is scoring well for a 27 month old.

Looks like we still need to work Adaptive, Cognitive and Social-Communication skills.

Adaptive is the area that assesses self-help skills that allow your child to become increasingly more independent.

Cognitive is the area that evaluations a child's memory, critical thinking skills, ability to grasp concepts and ability to discriminate feature of objects.

I think that the only reason he was lower on social-communication compared to social is because he is a little behind on talking. However, the other day he said a 10 word sentence to me so I think he is starting to improve in that area.

Melissa if you have any ideas of things I could do to work on Adaptive and Cognitive skills please let me know.

Gymnastics Meet

Tonight our family was planning on going to Tot Shabbat and then to the BSU Gymnastics meet against my alma mater (UW), however Piper was running a fever so Mommy stayed home with Piper while Daddy and Pennington went to the Gymnastics meet. Pennington stayed home from school Tuesday - Thursday this week with a fever and cough. Piper didn't show signs of the fever until last night. Oh the joys of having sick kids. The worst is when the second one doesn't get sick until the first one is feeling fine again. Why can't they just get sick at the same time?!?!? Below is a picture of Pennington with his buddy Buster.

A' Poo-Poo

This is one of those posts that I just have to do so I never forget. Piper talks about poop a lot. She is constantly saying a' poo-poo with a french accent. One really amazing thing about Piper is that she has told us twice now that she needed to go poo-poo and lone behold the girl has gone poop on the potty twice. I'm obviously not getting my hopes up about this but Piper is definitely interested in the potty and regularly tells us when she needs her diaper changed. She has only been to school four times but I am sure in the next few weeks she will start going on the potty at school. My hope is that both of the kids will be potty trained by August. Oh the thought of never having to change a diaper again is wonderful. However, I can see how it is nice sometimes to know they have a diaper on just in case they have an accident. Since Pennington had Hand, Foot and Mouth in mid December he has totally digressed when it comes to potty training. He is now totally fine with wearing a diaper instead of a pull-up (or as Pennington would say a pull-pup) or underwear. This is 180 degrees different than two months ago when he would fight us when we wanted him to wear a diaper to bed. I'm hoping that being back in school will get the potty training back on track.

Mom's Birthday

For my birthday, Johnny made a wonder birthday dinner for the whole family. When I say whole family I really mean it. My husband, all of my brothers, both my parents and the kids were able to be at my 29th birthday dinner. I also got some really awesome gifts from Johnny and the kids which included a new camera. This is good news for the blog as I will hopefully be taking more better quality photos. Below are some pictures from my 29th birthday.