nuF retteL

What's wrong with this picture?

Seth "wrote" his name on the bathroom tiles. In case your curious he put the "e" up first. Looks like my incredibly gorgeous, kind, sensitive, smart husband maybe not only passing on his good looks, brain, personality traits and his fast metabolism, but also his dyslexia as well.


I know we can't know for sure because of one incident, but it is something we are looking out for as both Caleb and his dad are dyslexic. Not a real biggie though, it would just mean that Seth sees the world differently then I and he would have to work a bit harder academically as his dad has.

Not a Foodie

My mommy bought this...

with the intent of doing this...

It couldn't have been more horrible!

I was gagging and choking.
Shuddering and sputtering.

I nearly died!!!

Lucky for me the stuff fell out of my mouth.
She tried to give me more,
but I wasn't falling for that trick again.

Come on, Mom! Don't hold out on me.
Enough of this gloop.
Give me the good stuff!!!

Picture Post

Beach Babes

Assessments

I took Paul for his 2 year assessment and Morgan for his 7-9 month assessment this morning. Paul weighs less then I thought. According to our scale 2 months ago he weighed 3-4 more pounds then he does now and Morgan has actually lost 1.5 oz since his last check-up 6 weeks ago. The health visitor (pediatrician) didn't say much about it just that she wants to weigh him again in a months time.

Paul is a little behind as far as knowing his animals and their sounds or his body parts. He just doesn't care where is knees are or what a dog says! lol! He also doesn't put 2 words together to make a sentence yet, but considering that he just recently started saying anything at all I think he is doing very well. His vocabulary, in both English and Welsh, is increasing every day. His newest achievement is jumping, which he thinks is a pretty cool thing to do.

The only things asked about that Morgan is not doing is sitting on his own or saying "dada" or something similar. He is up to speed on everything else.

Growth percentages according to this percentile calculator:

Paul at 24 months:

your child is 26 pounds, and that is
at the 24th percentile for weight.

your child is 33.25 inches, and that is
at the 18th percentile for height

Morgan at 7 months:

your child is 18.6 pounds, and that is
at the 42th percentile for weight.

your child is 28 inches, and that is
at the 72th percentile for height

The only concern I have about these two is that Paul doesn't like Morgan. Really, he doesn't. Not a bit. He doesn't want anything to do with him. Paul is also mean to Morgan.
For example:

• He will take Morgan's toys and throw them across the room just so Morgan can not have them.
• If Morgan is crawling to him, Paul will push him away.
• Paul will try to crowd Morgan out when being held by either Caleb or me.
• AND heaven forbid Morgan touch him! THAT is just unacceptable!
  

He has no warm tender feelings for his little brother...at least none that we can see.

Seth and Jason are inseparable as playmates and I want that for Paul and Morgan. They are 17 months apart and so are perfect for being play buddies. Morgan loves Paul in spite of his mistreatment. So Paul just needs to get over his jealousy and realize what a great little guy Morgan really is.

Growing

Morgan is officially on the move. He has been army crawling for the past month, but has moved on to proper hand and knees crawling in the last week. He is also pulling up to his knees on chairs, boxes, ect. I've told him that he should really learn to sit before doing that, but he wants to get ahead of himself.



He keeps falling over and bumping his head, but it's all good, because it opens up more options of new stuff to teeth on.


The foods he has tried include: strawberries, bananas, toast, a peanut butter sandwich, a tuna fish sandwich and the odd cat here and there. :)


Good thing this kid doesn't seem to have any serious food allergies. Funny how the older boys are so eager to share when they are not suppose to. lol! Seriously, I haven't really started him with food yet. He is still happily nursing away full-time.

*WARNING*

I will be alluding to a four letter word in this next bit so if you will be offended...Don't read any further. :)


Seth and Jason are in love with dinosaurs. Their favorite movies being the Land Before Time series with Little Foot. Last night after Jason finished watching one of the movies he came into the kitchen where I was cutting potatoes for dinner. He was sweetly standing there holding his little dinosaur when I heard him say... "Mudder Fook" I just about went into shock! I asked him what he said, because obviously he couldn't be saying what I had just thought I heard. But it was and he did. He said it was his dinosaur's name.

I didn't say anything to him because I wanted Caleb to talk to him first. I couldn't figure out what he was trying to say and I thought maybe Caleb could. From what we could figure Jason was trying to be creative with saying "foot" so he changed the "t" to a "k". Then to spice it up even more he changed the "little" into "mudder"....because well, he is just so creative like that.

Caleb explained to him how it was Little FOOT as in FEET. Jason likes feet and we are hoping the connection will prevent him from saying his new made-up dinosaur name in public. How embarrassing that would be!!! I could just see myself turning 50 shades of red! Ahhh!

A Memorial

Today, at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon, Paul's hair met an early death.

At the tender age of just 2 years, the hair was cut from it's source of life and ceased to grow.

It was soft and silky and beautiful! I loved it.

Oh, poor baby hair!

Just yesterday Paul's hair was alive and happy,

and now, today, in the few short minutes it took to walk from kitchen to office the crime was committed and the hair is gone.

Why is it that I have a hard time finding scissors when I need some, but Jason can find them in just a few seconds of unguarded time?

It's hard to tell how long it will be before Paul's hair returns to it's former beauty...I'm guessing at least a year.

Jason, after taking his punishment, gleefully said to his victim..."HeHeHe! You're not Paul anymore!" (I just loved his repented spirit.) But he is wrong. This new buzzed boy is still my precious Paul even if he does look like a little stranger to me.

Tomorrow I will grow accustomed to his new look, but today...

...today I am mourning.

Doctor Visit

I took Seth to the doctor this morning. He has developed a strange non-itchy, no-pain rash on his face and arms. After some googling I diagnosed it as Fifth Disease, but as a good mother I took him to the doc so he could confirm my diagnoses. He did, but I didn't tell him that. For some reason doctors don't care for patients or their mothers, who self-diagnose.

Also known as Slapped Cheek Disease. It is a contagious viral infection and is quite common amongst children since there are pretty much no symptoms until the rash shows up. There is a good chance the other boys have it as well. It is pretty harmless. It just has that scary looking rash and a scary name to go along with it. FIFTH DISEASE sounds pretty serious! ...but it should be gone in a few days.

Been to London

Morgan turned 7 months old yesterday and the United States finally know about him. :) We drove to London to the American Embassy to register his birth, get his passport and social security number. What a long day!!!


We came very close to having a sitter for the 3 older boys, but it didn't work out in the end. So we all went. Which turned out to be a good thing. God was watching out for us even though it seemed to me like nothing was working in our favor. :) We left earlier then planned since we were taking all the boys so we would have more time for potty stops. Our trip started at 3:30am and we were rushing to make it to our 11am appointment! ...and that was with only one 1/2 hour stop. Traffic was horrible! We would have missed our appointment with our original babysitter plan!

The one picture of the Embassy that Caleb took before a guard came up to us and told him they don't like people taking pictures of the building. *oops*

We had a very successful trip.

• Morgan is now registered. We found parking, found several somebodies to give us directions, took the bus, ran through the streets of central London with four little boys, got Morgan's passport photos, and found the Embassy building...all in time for our appointment. *relief*

• We were able to get all of our pictures for our visa renewals next month for the same price that it would have cost us to get one set of pictures here in Wales. (American passport photos are a different size than British ones, so it costs more since not everyone sells them.)
• We each got a Krispy Kreme donut! ...not planned. We were surprised to see a Krispy Kremes in London and so had to get one. :)

• We went to Pizza Hut...which was planned, and it was very good!
• I got to shop at Ikea on the way home! ...also planned. I didn't think we would make it before they closed, but thankfully they were open until 10pm. All of the boys were sleeping. I thought of skipping it, but I didn't know the next time I would be able to go...so we woke them up. By the time we got in the store we only had 1 hour and 15 minutes to shop which was not nearly enough time...Ikea is a HUGE store! We got to see most everything, just not as closely as I would have liked. :) I will have to be happy with looking in detail at their website. :)
• We didn't get seriously lost!!! Why is it that when we have the choice of 1 of 2 ways we always seem to pick the wrong way? ...happened several times throughout the day yesterday.

We didn't get home until 3am! Traffic was just as bad leaving as it was going. Took us 2 hours to cover only 30 miles! The boys were really good. Between the snacks, the singing and the playing of "This Little Piggie..." they were kept pretty happy. After Ikea they slept all the way home. Caleb had to stop for an hour to take a quick nap. I wish I could have helped with the driving, but I am useless when it comes to nighttime driving.

I was very pleased with the boy's behavior. We didn't have any major meltdowns and they were pretty much well behaved the whole day! At the end of the day I was even happy that we were able to all go as a family. :)

Loved and Happy

Seth came home from school yesterday with flowers in his coat pocket. He found them in the playground. He was so excited and pleased with himself when he gave them to me. It was so sweet! Really touched my heart... This means that my independent boy, who was at school and playing with his friends, saw pretty flowers and thought of me. :) I feel loved!


Over the past month the suction power on my vacuum had nearly vanished leaving me with less then satisfactory clean floors. It was annoying me to no end...because everybody knows how annoying a vacuum that doesn't suck can be. I would empty the bag...give the filter a whack...nothing helped. Well, today I figured out that the filter actually comes apart to clean. (Duh!) SO...after cleaning about 1/2 cup worth of dirt out of my filter the vacuum is working as good as new! My floors are clean and that makes me happy!

Clean floors make Morgan happy too...

Snow Day

This was the surprise we woke up to Sunday morning...the first snow of the year!


Of course the boys wanted to go out in it. So they got dressed up and went out for 15 minutes to play at 9:00 in the morning. Jason had great aspirations of building a snowman, but as you can see there was no where near enough snow for that.


They had to be happy with just having a snowball fight and stamping around. The boys have been wanting snow all winter. I really didn't think we were going to get any, but I'm so glad we did. The rest of the day was filled with sleet, hail and rain and the snow was gone by the afternoon.


I hope that when we go back to the States the boys will get to experience what "real" snow is like. The kind where you build huge snowmen and it doesn't use all the snow in your yard. The kind where you can build snow forts and dig tunnels and play "King of the Mountain" on the snow heaps. Oh, and the sledding...I miss the snow of my childhood. Those were great times.