Are you tired yet of this catch up we are doing with the blog and all our updates?
OK good because here is another one well over due.
It has been a rough couple of months with potty training and night terrors. I think we are finally back to everyone sleeping through the night at least until 6:30am.
Hallister, 4 1/2Personality: Very, very talkative. From the moment he gets up he asks: where are we going, what are we doing, what is for breakfast??? He has started to enjoy building with "real" Lego's. He is very creative. He always wants to be with someone except with the Lego's, he doesn't seem to mind playing quietly with those while the others nap.
Sleeping: Three month's ago we moved him into Liberty's room. Preston was keeping Hall up, getting out of bed. It worked quite well moving Hall in with Liberty. We would watch on the video monitor that if Liberty woke up early (around 6:30am) Hallister would crawl in her crib and entertain her until we came in to get them (7am). It was very sweet. Despite him and Preston not getting along we are so thankful he is still nice and helpful with Liberty. He has complained lately about being in a girl's room, so we moved his bed back in with Preston two weeks ago and just didn't bunk them. We moved all the toys to Liberty's room. That has worked out quite well.
Food: His favorite food is chicken nuggets with honey mustard and pepperoni pizza. For breakfast he loves pancakes or waffles with cool whip and strawberries and also he looks forward to his every Saturday morning trip out with Jonathan to get donuts. He will only eat apples without the peel.
Shows: He enjoys some new shows on Netflix, The Neverland Pirates and Bubble Guppies. They have good lessons about sharing. He is at an age where he is just absorbing everything so we try very hard to filter out stuff he doesn't need to see or hear.
Education: Our friend in Lifegroup is going through school for Speech Pathology. She was assigned a speech test to perform on 7 kids to tell where they are at speech wise. We were happy to let her do the tests on the boys. Her results for Hallister showed he can talk as well as a 5 year old. That was very encouraging! Thank you all for your prayers about our education decision. We feel peaceful about sending Hall to Texas Montessori and God provided a way financially for us to send him there. He will start Preschool there going three days a week in September!
Size: Hall wears size 4T shirts now, some 3T pants are too short for him but 4T is too long, so we have to roll up the waist. He wears size 10 shoes.
Personality: He is still our funny man. His smile and laugh are so cute. We call him P-man, which actually became a funny nickname when we started potty training two month's ago. He is pretty quiet and likes to play by himself. His vocabulary has really increased and he says complete sentences, not just mumble jumble. He is like Jonathan in the sense that he wants to know how things work and will take them apart to figure it out. The problem with that is we are the ones that have to put it back together. :)
Potty Training: We felt it was time and wanted him to be trained before swim lessons. He rarely has an accident during the night. He does great out in public, telling us when he needs to go and not being scared of strange potties, but at home he does not always say something. We take him about every hour. I know that if it gets quiet then he is laying somewhere playing and probably about to go #2. He has even held it in for three days, but laxatives helped with that. We have now figured out he goes #2 after breakfast and right before naps. We set him on the potty with the Mobigo (a small hand held kid video game) so that he will relax and "let it out". HA, I know, too much information. We don't give him liquid after supper and that seems to help him not pee in bed. Although he does wake up usually between 6-6:30am having to go. He won't yet go get on the potty himself but call for us to help him. At least we are down to one being in diapers.
Sleeping: The hardest thing with Preston lately is not being consistent with his naps. I will put him down then he will use the excuse of needing to potty to get up. I'll set him on the potty with the Mobigo, go do laundry, come back and he has fallen asleep on the potty. If he doesn't nap then often he will fall asleep in his high chair at 5:00 while eating supper. As soon as I try to transition him to his bed though he wakes up. This has been a consistent struggle and since I don't get a break like I used to I feel more worn out when it gets close to supper time.
Doctor Visit: Six months ago when he went to the allergist and we found out his allergies we stopped giving him things he is allergic to. He doesn't have tomatoes or ketchup. He drinks Lactaid or Almond Milk. Trooper, the cat we fostered, went back to be with her family. The allergist had said his tonsils were enlarged and adenoids as well. Preston still puts his hands in his mouth and drools some, but not as much. We took him to an Ear, Nose, Throat doctor thinking she would suggest getting his tonsils and adenoids out. She actually said his tonsils were NOT enlarged and his ear echo results showed his adenoids were not enlarged as well. She said to keep giving him Zyrtec regularly (to help with his grass and molds allergies) and Nasonex every night before bed may help him not have to breathe with his mouth open. We were all ready to hear he needed surgery but since he has not had tonsillitis perhaps things are getting better and that is not what he needs.
Education: Our friend in Lifegroup performed the same speech test on Preston and we learned he has the vocabulary of a 2 1/2 year old. She was encouraging though and said once he is not around Hallister as much he will start to talk a lot more. He will go to Mother's Day Out in the Fall, we are not sure yet if it will be one or two days a week.
Size: Preston wears 2T and 3T shirts, and 2T pants. In shoes he wears size 8.
Personality: Very talkative, and surprisingly enough she says more words than she does sign language for now. She always likes to be with someone, sitting in their lap or close to them. She loves bath (still does the sign for that) and likes to put things in things....such as bracelets in her purse, blocks in a basket or even cars where they are supposed to go. She loves to sing "If you're happy and you know it" and likes to dance. She also likes to be chased and play hide and seek. Basically whatever her brothers are doing she wants to be doing. We learned she can climb up the playhouse ladder and also get on the trampoline by herself.
Food: Lib still has her Tyson chicken nuggets pretty much every day. I make gluten free waffles or give her the frozen gluten free Eggo's that HEB has. We have tried new foods and it seems that if the wheat is frozen she doesn't itch after eating it. She can now have Pillsbury frozen biscuits and Gorton's MSG free fish sticks. She seems to rotate between strawberries and apples if she likes them. We have tried giving her greens, cucumber and celery. I am not sure how much she actually swallowed, I think more of the cucmber than the celery. I also found Glutino pretzels and she loves those.
Sleep: Just as Preston and Hall had night terrors, Liberty has gone through her phase of them. I think now it has passed, but about two months ago she would wake up during the night crying and not be consolable. She has never been one to like rocking so we pick her up and walk around the house a little but while patting her back. I would change her diaper, pick up the three pacifiers that were most likely on the floor and hand them to her, then put a sippy cup of water in the crib. (We did find that she was soaking her diaper during the night so we now put her in overnight diapers.) She typically sleeps from 7:30pm to 6:45am.
Education: She is going to Mother's Day Out this summer. It has been very nice to have a break and good for her to socialize. There are only 4 kids in her class. It is neat to glance in the doorway if I arrive early and see her playing with girls. This past Spring there was not room for her in a class. She doesn't always nap at MDO so when she gets home she will sleep for two hours.
Size: Liberty weighs 24 pounds and is 30" tall. In clothes she wears 18-24 months. She still fits in some 12 month pants. In shoes she is between a size 4 and 5.
Sorry for the very long update, but hope you enjoyed it. We are thankful for the moments we have as a family. We know that this tough, restless season will pass and we will grow closer together.
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