Watching closely. . . .

Some may call me paranoid or overly-sensitive, but since child #1 was language delayed I have been consciously watching child #2 to make sure he is on track in this area of his development. Interestingly, Joshua was also delayed in his gross motor development which goes hand in hand with the language delay so I thought maybe we'd be in the clear with Matthew as his gross motor abilities are on target, if not beyond, for his age. Matthew has lots of single words, but rarely is uttering a two word phrase which is where my concern lies. In the past few weeks Matthew has become a bit more stubborn about repeating words or answering us with words when asked to do so. The annoying "grunting" has appeared instead of words many days. Still, like his older brother at this same age, he understands everything that is being said to him and can carry out directions easily so at least I know there isn't a bigger issue.

I emailed my friend and case worker from Early On who worked with Joshua to help with his language delay and let her know of my concerns. She reassured me that the was still pretty much on task for his task for his age, but to watch and make sure he doesn't fall behind. Hopefully her suggestions help in bumping him up to saying those two word utterances. Since Joshua was so delayed it was easy to keep up on the list of words he was able to say, but I haven't made a list of Matthew's words until yesterday. Once I put down all the single words he is already able to say at 21 months old I was actually surprised - it's a list of 47 words (an 18 month old should be saying 10 words and expands to 50-200 words by 24 months so Matthew is definitely on his way)! Now it's just helping his make that next jump to two word phrases and if not I know just who to call to help. Hoping we don't end up needing to use Early On, but thankful that such a helpful resource is available in case we do.

Snowboarding

Our winter-loving child loves to spend hours playing out in the snow, crazy if you ask me. He loves to sled, build forts and generally just play in the snow so we wondered if he'd like to snowbaord. A couple weekends ago Owen brought over his snowboard and let Joshua try it out. We really thought there was no way Joshua was going to try it since he doesn't like to try new things or take risks. I think watching Owen show him what to do helped. Surprisingly Joshua actually snowboarded and asked if he could get one. Well, this is not the time you go shopping for such an item as they have pretty much sold out or been clearanced out in most stores so we hadn't really been looking. We happened to be at Dick's Sporting Goods on Saturday and they actually had a little kid's snowboard for a decent price. We purchase it figuring if Joshua didn't end up riding it Matthew, our little risk taker, would in future years. Yesterday was cold, but sunny so we spent the afternoon trying out Joshua's new snowboard on the hill by our house. He did really well and we are proud of him for trying it!

Rocker

Yesterday Joshua brought a note home from school with a bunch of dates for special days at school. As I was entering all the dates in my phone I realized that Rock Star/Hip Hop day was the next day! Time to do some quick thinking and throw together a rock star look for my 5 year old in a matter of hours. I pulled out his "Born to Rock" shirt from last winter that is a bit small but was going to have to do in a pinch. Then it was off to Walgreens to find some hair gel to help his hair spike (which I am pretty sure his hair is not very capable of doing) and some color to spray in it. I found some "Spike Glue" and talked him into glitter spray rather than the original green he wanted as I figured the glitter would be less noticeable than a color and would likely wash out better too. So today we got him all ready fro rock star day except when we went to spray his hair the can of glitter spray wouldn't work; he was bummed, but thankfully got over it pretty quickly. Can't wait to hear how rock star day went when he gets home. . . . and we'll see how well the spike glue comes out of his hair!

Two Peas in a Pod

With Joshua and Eli, my cousin Missy's son, both in the same Kindergarten class this year it made it possible for Missy and I to take turns swap younger kids and take a morning every so often to volunteer in the classroom and have a little "me" time to run errands/shop alone! It's been fun to see Matthew and Matea interact during these times. These two kiddos have lots of similarities in their personalities. Interestingly, they seem to have their own level of communication! It's great for my little bugger to have this social interaction and have to navigate and learn sharing, cooperating with one another and taking turns. Yesterday both Matthew and Matea spent about 45 min. playing with jiggle jelly so I finally remembered to grab the camera to snap a picture of these two cuties!

Colorful

Please excuse the lack of blogging as we've entered the season of winter blahs. Have no fear though life is still hopping in the Hager house, just no major things to blog about.
Matthew has taken a liking to Joshua's markers despite my many attempts at steering him toward the washable crayons to no avail. He is actually pretty good about keeping the marker on the paper when coloring which is shocking to me. However yesterday he decided to branch out from coloring books and color on his face instead. I was only a few feet away from him when he did it, but I was vacuuming and the little stinker had his back turned to me. I actually thought it was quite funny, but stifled the giggles and hid the markers. Thank goodness they are washable markers and thank goodness he chose his face as a canvas rather than our walls, furniture, floor, etc!!!!

Christmas Trees and the train, just a bit belated

I meant to take the boys to the gardens before Christmas, but by the time I realized we still hadn't fit it in it was the week of Christmas and I figured it would be crazy. I didn't really want to monitor a 20 month old around all those trees and breakable ornaments while trying to maneuver around a crowd. Since My cousin Missy found herself in the same situation we decided we should make a visit before the train was put away until next Christmas. We went last week and there was hardly anyone there which was so nice! The kids enjoyed looking at all the trees, at least for a short time before they begged to go see the train. The train exhibit gets bigger and better each year and is so worth going to see, especially with kids! Joshua was very good at noticing all the little details on the buildings (all the buildings in the exhibit are made out of natural materials). He was excited to discover a replica of the theater where we saw Peter Pan not so long ago! The other highlight for the kids was watching the birds in the conservatory. We had a wonderful, relaxed morning at the gardens!

Watching the train car pass by.

Matthew was enthralled with watching the train . . . at least for a few minutes!

Joshua, Eli, Matthew and Matea watching the birds eat.