A thousand words

Or so they say.  Just because my kids are so cute, here are some pictures from the last few weeks.  Oh, and don't forget Hubby, he's cute too.  :)

Flying in front of an American bald eagle.  We love seeing how big they've gotten each year.

 Sunshine giving Bug some sisterly love.

 Playing barefoot with shorts and t-shirts in March!

Monkey

Bug playing the piano.  Sunshine or Monkey took the picture, I think they did a pretty good job, especially since I didn't know they had the camera.

Monkey and his bed head. 

Bug

Brotherly love.

Monkey being Monkey.

Sunshine

Going to her first dance.  It was a western theme.

Vicky

Teach the children, or save our sanity?

When we decided to have a third child, we heard a lot about how expensive this was going to be.  How were we going to be able to send them all to college?  Where was this new baby going to sleep (uh, in a crib in the then computer room)?  What about diapers (uh, I cloth diaper and I already own all of the diapers)?  What about formula (which is funny, I nursed Sunshine and Monkey and was lucky and never needed formula but no one mentioned two teenage boys)?  But there was one thing that no one, not one single person mentioned; the noise.  No one ever mentioned how loud 3 children would be.  Just so people are aware, this is not a linear scale, this goes up exponentially as they all fight for attention and with each other.


Monkey started talking when he was about 15 months, then he stopped.  It wasn't really very noticeable at first.  He had just been saying a few words and wasn't putting 2 words together yet.  Just the basics.  He learned how to walk at the old age of 18 months.  Yikes!  It was lots of fun hauling an 18 month old baby anywhere you might let a baby that age walk but you don't want him to crawl.  Regardless, right around this time is when he stopped talking.  We didn't realize it until he was about 2 or 2 1/2 when we noticed that some of the words he used to say he was no longer saying.  For a little bit we thought he might just start on his own but once we realized that was not the case it was off to the speech therapist we went.  After the first meeting we realized that he said about 10 words, 20 animal/vehicle sounds, and about 75 signs.  He was speaking at an 18 month old level and definitely qualified for speech therapy.  I was surprised when she told me that generally children who are late walkers tend to be late talkers since their brains can only focus on a skill that large at one time.


We have now been at speech for 2 years and he's come so far.  He has definite issues where I sometimes still can't understand what he's trying to say, just last night he couldn't explain to me what he wanted.  Strangers, especially those who don't have young children, still have problems understanding him.  It breaks my heart when he gets so frustrated, he knows what the sound is supposed to be and knows that when you repeat it back to him as he said it, that the word is not said the proper way.  He just can't get it.  He's been asking what letters words start with and last night he asked me what that unknown word started with...


Now some people hear that he's in speech and think that he must not speak or doesn't speak a lot.  This is not the case.  I can't get him to be quiet.  When Sunshine and Monkey are fighting in the car or I know Bug would be able to sleep if the 2 of them were quiet, I say "Let's play the quiet game!"  Monkey is quiet for about a block.  He will talk the entire way.  Sometimes he'll talk to himself, sometimes to me, sometimes he sings.  He just keeps on going, he's like the Energizer Bunny.  Needless to say, he has never won the "quiet game".  On the rare times he's fallen asleep, he usually wakes up a few blocks from our destination and will start up in his talking as if was never sleeping.


Now we have Bug.  Bug is 18 months and has been walking since he was 15 months (I have late walkers) and he has really begun to harness the speaking skill.  He repeats words in random conversations and then will often say them until you're ready to tell him to be quiet.


For those who might think that girls are quiet, this is not always the case.  Sunshine has a loud voice.  It seems to carry across the whole house.  I envision her on a stage some day, not needing a microphone.  Sunshine and Monkey only get louder when they argue, which is amazing in its own right.


I wonder; why do we push our children to talk?  This is clearly not going to have good results.  I will now have 3 children, all of whom have loud voices, talking at the same time. What will have happened to my sanity?  It will probably have been long gone by the time Bug is potty trained.

Here they are, being quiet!

Vicky

Where's My Monkey?

I recently bought Monkey a pair of camouflage pajamas.  I wasn't sure if he would like them at first, he turned his nose up at a t-shirt with a monkey on it claiming he doesn't like monkeys so I wasn't sure if he would like these.  I shouldn't have worried, he loved them!


We went over to my parents house the other night and we tend to stay a little late.  I always bring a pair of jammies for the kids to wear so they can go straight to bed.  I made sure I brought Monkey's new pair of camo pajamas.


When he put them on he made sure he stood in front of the plant.  We all played it up; where's Monkey?, I don't see him.  He would then come out from in front of the plant and announce that he had been hiding in camouflage.  We'd laugh and it went on a few more times.


He decided to go play but at one point he had gotten rough and I had to yell at him.  Before I could punish him though, he stood in front of the plant and stood very still with his eyes closed and arms behind his back.  When I said his name, he didn't move.  He was camouflaged.  He obviously couldn't get in trouble if I couldn't see him.  When I said his name he even said, "You can't see me, I'm camouflaged."  Now I ask you, how am I supposed to yell at a child when I'm trying not to laugh?

He had eaten something blue, I can only imagine what.  It had to have been sugar - lots of it - because this is the only shot I was able to get that was "in focus".

Can you see him?

He wouldn't smile for the longest time for the picture.  He kept saying I couldn't see him and I didn't know if he was smiling or not.

Vicky

Traversing We Will Go in a Chevy Traverse

I was recently given the awesome opportunity and responsibility to drive a Chevy Traverse for a week.  All I can say is,  I loved it!


I was delivered a red Chevy Traverse (Monkey won the "What color do you think the car will be" contest.) at the time they promised, between 9:15 and 9:30.  What a nice way to start the experience.  When I pay someone to do a job in my house, they're usually at least an hour, if not a day, late.  They let me drive their car and they deliver it to me in a 15 minute time slot.  Nice.


Sunshine, Monkey and I took a look at the car and at all the little buttons and gadgets it has.  I'm like a child when it comes to buttons-I love them.  Buttons are fun to press and finding out what they do and then watching them do it over and over again.  The first button to push?  The one on the key fob that automatically opens and closes the back/trunk/storage area of the car. We crawled in and around the car and I heard many exclamations of excitement from the two of them.  Sunshine was using fun words such as "Wow!", "Cool!" and "Ooh, Mommy, look at this!".  She has taken after her mother and also enjoys buttons, her favorite thing was the auto trunk open/close button.  Monkey had different interests and different words, "Ooh, dat's neat.", "I yike dat.", "Holy moly! Yook at dat!"  He's four and definitely has different thoughts on what is fun and necessary in a vehicle.  His favorite?  The hooks that you can hang your clothes up on.  He liked how they flipped up flat into the ceiling and how there was one on each side.  The one was worthy of many praises.

Monkey, inspecting the clothes hooks.

Sunshine, checking out the tv.  I let the kids watch a movie on the way to my parent's house, she happily announced that the tv did not make her car sick and she did not throw up in the car... whew!

Besides buttons, there are also other things that I enjoy but also need in a car.  I have 3 kids with 3 different types of car seats/boosters.  Sunshine said she wanted to be in the back.  She was able to get into the back through a center walkway.  The middle seats had captain chairs and both had the LATCH system on them.  I was able to put both car seats in, a rear and front facing seat.  I'm never able to do this.  I was able to get them in secure and snug.  I also liked the rear back-up camera.  If you've never paid attention to how big your blind spot is directly behind your vehicle, I think you should.  I had never realized it until about a month ago, my poor garbage can will never be the same.  Although it's funny, I realized that the garbage can is the same size as a child: my child.  The rear back-up camera showed me not only the garbage can but the lid that had been tossed on the driveway by the garbage men.

Poor Bug was teething, he fit nicely in his rear facing car seat.

Later in the evening, the five of us went out in the car and Hubby was also pushing buttons.  He liked the one that brought the side mirrors in.  As in, if you have a tight squeeze to park your garage you can close the mirrors so you're not wrecking the siding or the car.


All vehicles having a period of time in which it takes you to feel comfortable with it.  This amount of time varies from person to person and vehicle to vehicle.  For me and the Traverse, I felt extremely comfortable driving myself and children in it after a trip to the grocery store and ballet class.  I very much enjoyed driving the Traverse and enjoyed the entire experience.  Thanks again Chevy!

Waiting to be picked up.

Vicky


I have been in no way been given any payment or compensation for writing this post.  All thoughts and opinions are my own.  Thank you to GM for this experience.

Frustrated

So I'm very frustrated.  I can't get my camera to download things onto my computer.  Now this might not seem like a big deal, but darn it, who wants to read about things without having cool pictures?  This is so annoying.  So this post is about how I'm not posting and even better, I'm posting a post with no pictures.  This has got to be the dumbest post I've ever done.

Vicky