Logan is 9 months old!

Well, the biggest difference is that Logan is on the move!  I can’t believe what a change that makes, even the third time around.  Logan is crawling and cruising everywhere.  He still seems to prefer cruising and will pull up on everything – of course, this means that he is often pulling things off on top of himself, like stools and boxes and tables – I have to watch him all the time.  Or at least I should be watching him all the time.  He is crawling a lot faster, too.  Usually towards the boys room – because he loves to play with their toys and only their toys.  He has no interest in his toys anymore.  He also likes to go toward the bathroom to unroll the toilet paper (how do they innately know how to do that?) and to the kitchen to eat cat food and throw water on the floor.  Ahh – the utter craziness for the next year or so now officially begins.

Logan is just such a joy.  He is happy and smiley most of the time.  He just has the most affectionate smile.  And I can’t get over how he has to come and give me a big kiss, even when I just leave for a few minutes.  He loves Katsu – we watch out the window for him many days and he is SO excited when he sees him, then he looks toward the door until he gets in, and then he claps his feet together (what he always does when he is excited and is SO cute) until Katsu holds him.  He also loves the boys, watches them incessantly, tries to play with them, and is starting to give them big kisses, too.

Logan visited his surgeon again this week.  She said he is healing fine and hopefully we won’t see her again.  If the abscesses come back, then he has fistulas and she will want to see him in the OR a.s.a.p.  But I don’t think that is really necessary, but I’ll talk it over with out pediatrician tomorrow and see what she thinks.  Hopefully it won’t come to that.

Otherwise, Logan is healthy.  He got two teeth in this month and I feel like he is still teething, but I don’t see any other teeth coming in yet.

Sleep, well, isn’t too great.  He wakes up some (though it’s been getting better since we’ve been home from Utah) at night and ends up sleeping with us part of the time.  He takes two naps a day usually, one nap longer (like 1.5 hours) and one or two naps shorter (like 45 minutes) and roughly 11-12 hours at night.

Logan doesn’t do baby food, but is eating table food like a champ.  He is starting to eat somewhat regular meals since we’ve gotten back from our trip and maybe nursing less (maybe).  He eats cheese, chicken, yogurt, meat, bread, tortillas, stew veggies, grapes, banana, apples, cereal, whatever we eat at dinner and think he can manage.  He chokes a bit sometimes but he chews and mashes well.  He also drinks really well from his straw cup, but he also really likes to try to drink from a cup.  He doesn’t fall asleep while nursing anymore and as soon as he is done, he rolls right off the couch.  When he’s done, he’s DONE.

He is still pretty quiet.  But he makes some babbles every now and then.

Wow – our trip.  Logan seemed to enjoy family when he wasn’t getting overwhelmed.  For some reason, he HATED our rental car and cried and cried whenever he even saw it.  I have no idea why.  He did really well on his first plane ride, slept some and was otherwise wiggly or flirting with whoever he could get eyes on.

Fun Things This Month:

• Surviving the heat!  This has been the hottest month EVER in St. Louis, the hottest year EVER.  11 days over 105!!  Average high of over 98 for July.  Ugh.  And poor Logan seems to get overheated easily, so we spend more time inside then I would like.  That’s easier for Logan, though, so he can crawl anywhere.  He really prefers to crawl on carpet.
• Science museum again – I think the dinosaurs still scare him and generally he gets a little overwhelmed with all the people.  I set him down so I could help the kids build an arch and he freaked out and came crawling at full speed crying to me.  Finding the nursing room helped, so we have a room to decompress.
• Visiting Utah
• Lagoon – I carried him around in the carrier the whole time.  We did do the train, which he seemed nominally interested in.  He liked eating grapes at the picnic.
• Rodeo – he kind of freaked out at the beginning because of all the noise, so I stood up most of the time with him in the carrier.  He did take a little nap and then did better.  He watched the events some.
• Dinosaur Park – Logan seemed a little hesitant of the dinosaurs, but enjoyed checking them out.
• Playing with family was really the rest of the trip.  He enjoyed Great Grandpa and Great Grandma’s house and especially the block tiles they had.  He also really enjoyed trying to steal away the Lincoln Logs at Aunt Karen’s house.

Our Trip to Utah: Day One

Day One – we are cheap.  Well, we pretty much have to be until Katsu gets a non-post-doc job.  Anyways, we decided we were too cheap to leave our car at the airport and since we don’t have anyone who can take us to the airport, we had to take the train.  So, we were quite the picture.  I had Logan in a frontpack, and a large ebags backpack on and was holding both Andrew and Seth’s hand.  Katsu also had a ebags backpack on and then was pushing the stroller which was loaded with 2 car seats and a booster seat with a diaper bag on back.  Yes, we travel light (excepting the car seats).  We were a sight!  And then, as soon as we stepped out, it started to rain.  Of course.  Thankflly, it only rained for a few minutes and then we were able to get on our way.  After walking to the train station, riding a few stations, waiting 20 minutes while the kids chatted up some odd Native American man, we finally got on the train, got our tickets, double checked that our bags did fit as carry-ons, went through security with EVERYTHING, got to our gate, ate donuts for lunch (I should have specified to Katsu that we could spend a bit more for more nutrition), missed the 10 second window they gave us to preboard before everyone else, finally got on near the end, thankfully were able to gate-check everything but the diaper bag since it was a small flight, and were off!  Flying with kids (and car seats!) is exhausting!  The flight was mostly uneventful.  Katsu had to call the day before to ensure our seats were together because they had swapped them, so we had the last row.  The flight attendant sat right between us (it was a 2-2 setup, pretty small plane) and gave the kids TONS of snacks and talked up Andrew a lot which was great.  All the kids slept some.  Logan was pretty wiggly at the end, but that’s to be expected. 

We deplaned, found all our gate-checked luggage and took off for the car rental counter.  I supervised the boys, who appeared to be trying to kill each other (greatly amusing the Asian family next to us) and Katsu tried to get the rental car company to take off all unnecessary charges but of course, they still managed to put a few on the bill.  The rental place outside was a mess, but we finally found our car – of course, the one time they don’t upgrade us, and manage to barely fit all three car seats in the back. 

We finally were on our way out – the kids adoring the mountains, and Logan did well till we got close to Ogden and then we was screaming.  We headed to my grandparents first and chilled for a bit – they weren’t expecting us, but we finally made it over to my Aunt Karen’s house and then had some mac n cheese for dinner.  The travel is done!

Seth is 3 years 1 month old!

A little late since we were on vacation, but it’s time for the monthly update.

Seth is so grown up for a three year old because he is trying to do everything that Andrew can do.  But he is still three with all the whining and some tantrums that come with that.  It is so cute when I tell him to stop whining because he tries so hard.  But the only way he can control all the emotion is to talk in this tiny whisper voice.  He even had a passing-out tantrum because he didn’t get to the car first when they were visiting his uncle Tomo.  I thought he was all over those!

Seth wants to be just like Andrew.  He is learning to write his letters and can write quite a few of them.  He also tries to read and sound out words.  He isn’t quite successful, but he watches Andrew and is trying so hard.  It is so cute!

After talking to my Aunt Karen, I realized that Seth is not a morning person.  I guess I just always thought of him as a little grumpy, but he really takes a while to wake up and be happy.  What insight!  Seth is really a good sleeper, though.  He isn’t napping much anymore (maybe a few days a week), but he usually sleeps later in the morning if he needs it and goes to sleep pretty quickly.

Seth’s coloring is really improving.  He is definitely past scribbles and is making more of pictures – though they look more like curving lines everywhere.  He loves to make pictures of cars or to draw maps.  He adds lots of details.

Seth definitely is more of a home body than me or Andrew.  He always resists going anywhere.  He is like that at home, but he was like that on our trip, too.  He usually enjoyed where we went, but boy, would he complain about having to leave Aunt Karen’s house where we were staying.

Seth’s voice has turned incredibly loud!  And it is still very high.  Cute, but loud.

Seth really tries hard to obey, but sometimes he is just full of energy (okay, always).  He has a hard time not running or climbing all over everything.

Seth is very loving.  He is always telling me how “I only love you” or “I love everyone in your family”.  He is very particular about who he loves. I guess it is true that no one loves you as much as a little boy that age.

Seth always wants to be independent and do everything himself.  He is also very helpful with chores.  He loves to dust and also to put away dishes from the dishwasher.

Well … mostly, the rest I can think of is our trip.  So …

Fun Things We Did This Month:

• Surviving the heat.  It has been SO hot this summer in St. Louis, hotter than almost the whole country.  We have had 11 days over 105!!!!  That is the hottest ever by that metric in St. Louis.  And with the humidity – geez, we’ve been under heat advisory for a good chunk of the summer, and when it’s that hot, unless we had swim lessons or something, it is hard to get out to the park.
• Seeing a Magician at the library.
• VP Parade downtown. We watched it from Union Station this time, so we could sneak in for AC as needed since it was a hot hot day.  Seth wanted to see the whole parade this time and didn’t seem to get bored.  We were going to see fireworks from Katsu’s air-conditioned work, but then there was a water main break and significant flooding, so we couldn’t go. Seth didn’t seem too sad because we got special snacks and watched it on TV while the boys laid on their futons.
• Science Museum – boys enjoyed playing in the digital area, which we really hadn’t played with much before.  I think we went twice this month.
• Zoo – we saw the new Seal Lion exhibit which we have been waiting for for almost 2 years. Seth was super excited to go in the underwater tunnel and see the seal lion swim over his head.  The boys were disappointed, but I made them wait for a day until the high was in the high 80’s.  Mean mom!
• Seth had his first friend birthday party at the park.  I only planned it a couple days in advance, but we had a good turnout.  His friends Matias and Lucas (and family), Mason (and family), Carson (and family), the Gage family (they just moved in and I can’t remember their little boys name), Owen (and mom).  A couple other friends were going to come but were sick or out of town.  And everyone brought presents which Seth was pretty excited about.  We went to a park with a huge splash area and everyone brought their own picnic.  We brought cupcakes, but Seth wanted to eat one as soon as we got there, so we all just ate cupcakes whenever and didn’t sing or anything.  He also opened the presents as they came.  But he had so much fun!  They got wet and ran around the playground.  And it wasn’t too hot in the shade.  I think it was a perfect friend party except (typical for me), no pictures because I forgot to take any.  I even brought the camera.  Seth’s favorite present was probably bubbles – he got a huge number of wands and loves playing with them!
• Finishing both summer reading programs. He won Cardinals tickets – we are going on Labor Day again.  I am hoping it is cool!
• Visiting Utah
• Seth enjoyed spending time with all the family members and talking about how much he loves all his family.  He enjoyed playing with his cousin and second cousins.  He also enjoyed wrestling with his great grandparents – who knew they had so much energy!
• Friday we visited Lagoon.  As soon as he saw the Ferris Wheel, he was super excited, because Dora rides in one in one of our books.  So, he had to do that.  Andrew wasn’t interested, so Seth and Katsu rode it twice, as well as a really big water slide twice, and the chair lift.  He also loved doing the bumper cars with Andrew.  It took him a couple times to figure out how the steering wheel worked, but then he did it over and over and over again.  He also liked the little kid rides.
• We went to the Rodeo.  Seth wasn’t sure about the bull and horse, but he really liked the parachuters.  He really wanted to buy curly fries, so we let in and they munched away on those.  We left early because it was already past 10 and Seth was a little disappointed that he didn’t get to see the motorcycles.  I was hoping the couple he saw as part of the Buffalo act would be enough.
• We finally saw fireworks on Pioneer Day at Karen’s house.  We were trying to get the boys to sleep, but gave up.  Seth was so excited and kept shouting and pointing whenever he would see one.
• Temple Square with Katsu.  He really liked the top of the Conference Center and would follow along to see where the water was going. 
• Seth really enjoyed playing with Lincoln Logs at Karen’s house, learning to play Shark, playing with water balloons, playing in Great Grandpa and Great Grandma’s fountain, picking berries, eating candy at their house, and having so many adults to play with.  Of course, if you asked him, he would say “Nothing”.

Logan

Guess who can crawl and is also cruising all over the furniture?  It’s amazing what a difference a week can make – he is all over the place now and cute as ever.  And his first two teeth are making their appearance – just waiting for him to start sleeping better again.

Andrew is 5 years 2 months old

Well, the month has been filled with ups and downs, but we are only about 1 month away to kindergarten – hooray!  I am excited for Andrew.  Maybe I will feel sad, too, but right now I am mostly excited.  He really needs time with other kids and thrives on structured time with someone (i.e., the teacher) teaching him things and giving him positive feedback.  Plus, he really loves learning.  So, I think it will be great.

I am SO glad I started teaching him to read this summer.  It has given him so much confidence and he is so proud of his abilities.  We are on lesson 53 and he has started wanting to do 2 lessons a day many days (we still forget and skip days sometimes).  He still guesses and hates to sound things out, but his reading speed is SO much faster now – he doesn’t have to sound everything out anymore and he has pretty good reading comprehension, too.  I am impressed.  He has the hardest time trying to remember the sounds that short and long vowels make, but he does pretty well.  I think he is probably reading at a level they would expect exiting kindergartens to read at, but I am not sure.  He does need more work with sight words though.  He is not too impressed with words that don’t sound out at all.

I reread the book “The Explosive Child” and realized that it describes Andrew to a T.  He has really poor impulse control, but thankfully in not too many situations – namely, when he wants something because he has a good idea for it but someone else has it, when he does not get to make the choice he wants, and when Seth upsets him by taking something.  And he obviously is very verbal, so thankfully communicating (at least communicating poorly or too little) is not a problem.  But his situations are really spur-of-the-moment, so the solution of planning ahead doesn’t work well.  I never know when Seth will take something of his and suddenly Andrew will explode.  But at least I can better recognize his behavior and try to work on his anger management and impulse control.  And it helps to read that Andrew is not the only one, anyways.  I think the summer when we are all home all the time really brings the issues to a fore.

This has been a SUPER hot summer – we just got over a streak of 10 100+ degree weather days with most of those being high, like 105-108.  It has been MISERABLE.  And Andrew had outside swim lessons twice a week, so that was tough because we not only had to be outside the house, but also had to walk there!  Swim lessons went well.  I can definitely see progress.  He is not thrilled about taking them, but swimming is a life skill – deal with it.  He is a lot more comfortable going underwater but he still tenses up.  He floats well, but he has a hard time keeping his body horizontal when they are practicing swimming.  We will start up lessons in September again and just keep doing them until he is proficient.  Swim lessons are cheap and close.  Andrew doesn’t really want to do any sports and I’m not going to force him.  We may or may not do gymnastics again.  Andrew seemed to enjoy it some, but only a bit.  He mostly liked racing back and forth with the other boys as a warm up and getting a sticker at the end.

Andrew is back in Primary, hooray!  He still is not a fan of church, but his teacher promised them these cupcakes and he seriously talked about them for a whole week.  And then it was fast Sunday so he didn’t get them.  So he talked about it for a whole nother week!  It must have been one fancy cupcake!  But at least he is going.  He always encourages us to read scriptures and loves to have me read him stories out of our set of Book of Mormon kid books.  I think the boys have already gotten more use out of them than we did when we were kids.  Of course, they are also used almost every day for forts and army strongholds, but you know …  I swear, Andrew is going to know the scriptures stories better than anyone I know.  The boys have loved learning about Gideon, Samson, Ruth, and Samuel this week in Family Home Evening.

Andrew’s drawing and writing keep improving.  He is really into doing activity books and sheets now.  He also has started making mazes this month.

Andrew has spent quite a bit of time playing elaborate battles this month, by himself and with Seth.  He also has been building huge creations with Trio blocks, usually pretty much every block, with secret hiding spots for soldiers and like 10 wheels so it can roll around.  They still get a lot more play time than the Legos, though he likes those, too.

Andrew loves playing with Logan and is really kind to him most of the time.  He really loves his brothers.

Fun Things This Month:

• Surviving the heat wave!
• Swim lessons – 7 sessions over the month – with his teacher, Chris.  He really liked his teacher and worked really hard.
• Finished Gymnastics lessons.  Enjoyed learning all the routines.  Most especially enjoyed getting stickers – he collected all of them on one shirt and refused to let us wash it.
• A couple baptisms with Daddy, one for a friend.  When I asked him how it was, he replied with all the refreshments, as a classic Funai.
• My parents came to town.
• Botanical Garden – saw the Chinese lanterns with them and ran around the Children’s garden. 
• St. Louis Basillica – Andrew was really excited to try to see all the Bible stories he knew.
• City Museum – Andrew had a lot of fun exploring everything, though he wasn’t quite as adventurous as Seth. 
• Chinese Buffet and Mr. Wizard’s frozen custard.
• Blueberry Hill – the boys loved the décor.
• Playing with (and probably injuring) Grandpa.
• Seeing a Magician at the library.
• VP Parade downtown.  We watched it from Union Station this time, so we could sneak in for AC as needed since it was a hot hot day.  Of course, Andrew wanted to see the entire 2 hour parade and collect lots of candy.  He was really excited to count each balloon that he saw and make sure he saw them all.  We were going to see fireworks from Katsu’s air-conditioned work, but then there was a water main break and significant flooding, so we couldn’t go.  Andrew was heartbroken (probably still is), but we got special snacks and watched it on TV while the boys laid on their futons.
• Science Museum – boys enjoyed playing in the digital area, which we really hadn’t played with much before.
• Zoo – we saw the new Seal Lion exhibit which we have been waiting for for almost 2 years.  Andrew was super excited to go in the underwater tunnel and see the seal lion swim over his head. 
• Picnic with friends at Tilles Park for Seth’s Birthday.  Andrew had lots of fun playing at the splash park.
• Finishing both summer reading programs.  He won Cardinals tickets again –now if it will just cool off!

Logan is 8 months old!

What a month!  Again!  Medically, this has been a bit of a doozy for Logan.  He was super super fussy when Katsu was out of town and I couldn’t stand it.  So, I finally brought him in to the doctor to have that and his bum checked out.  Well, he didn’t have an ear infection, but his perianal abscesses were draining.  I didn’t know exactly what they were at the time, but he’s had them since he was one month and they just keep coming back and now they are at two spots and whenever there is no abscess, there is a hole, which was kind of freaking me out.  Anyway, so they cultured the abscess and it cultured e.coli, so the doctor decided to put him on a different antibiotic.  Which was fine, until he got the stomach flu.  Plus, we made an appointment with a surgeon, who we finally met with today, and they surgically drained the abscesses (so sad to watch!) and she talked to us about what it is – probably a perianal fistula, and so if the abscesses come back, then they will probably do surgery.  Now that I understand what it is and was able to read about it, I feel a lot more comfortable about the whole thing, though I am still a little unsure if surgery is necessary.  Although he has had them for like 6 months now and they aren’t resolving.  So, that was a lot.  And the stomach flu – he had a high fever and vomiting and diarrhea and it was just AWFUL.  I feel like I haven’t slept well in a month or two.  Oh, well.  Poor kid.  And he is always so happy through it all.

Logan LOVES to stand and pull up and is even starting to cruise a bit on the furniture.  He LOVES pulling up and pulls up on everything.  He was even pulling up on a mirror the other day – so cute, and pretty tricky.  He is not a fan of just sitting and will bend over, roll over, and almost kind of crawl to get what he wants.  But once he realizes he is on his tummy, he rolls right off.  He is wiggly, wiggly, wiggly, and doesn’t want to sit still.  He has fleeting interest in toys, but mostly wants to stretch those muscles.  He does like dumping and he likes any of the big boy toys.  He also likes toys that make noise and also anything with mirrors. 

Logan is still just a happy happy baby.  Loves giving everyone smiles all around.  He is still a bit shy and likes to hold onto me when there are strangers around, but he is usually happy as long as we are in sight.  He even seemed to like Grandma and Grandpa quite a bit.  He is pretty affectionate and loves Mom best.  He gives me SO many kisses.  Especially whenever anyone else was holding him.  It’s like, “oh, good, I have you back.  I missed you so much.”

Logan is still a pretty quiet baby, but he makes a few noises every now and then.  No babbles, though.  He likes to laugh.

Logan still does not like being spoon fed, so we pretty much gave up on that.  He eats some finger foods, but chokes a lot.  Mostly, he likes to eat pizza crust.  That is his absolute favorite.  He is still mostly just breastfed.

His first tooth came in and I think I can see the lump of the second one.  He was pretty fussy for awhile before that came in.

He is napping much better and takes usually one long nap (1.5-2 hours), 1 shorter nap, and sometimes a late cat nap.  He was waking up pretty early, but is waking up more like 6-7 which is much better.  We have been using the fan to make white noise and that seems to be helping.  Night awakenings has kind of been all of the place, mostly due to illness and teething.

He isn’t growing much any more.  He has hardly gained any weight the last couple months, but he still looks huge because he was so huge to start with.

He had fun with Grandma and Grandpa and mostly had a fun month.

Fun Things This Month:

• Trailing along to many swim lessons and gymnastic classes – pretty boring for Logan, but he is pretty much always a good sport.
• Botanical Garden with grandma and Grandpa.
• Lots of splash parks – Logan likes to get his feet and legs wet.
• St Louis Basilica – not only was this place gorgeous, but Logan just kind of seemed in awe all the time and loved to look at all the lights.
• City Museum – Logan had a lot to look at here, and even walked through a few things with me, but mostly just observing.
• Magician – Logan liked to watch the juggling, of course.

Seth 3 year stats

Seth had an adventurous well-check on Friday.  He is up 5 whole pounds this year to 29 lbs and in the 25th percentile.  He is only 10% for height at 35.5 inches (up 1 3/4 in from last year).  So, a small guy.  He has another snaking “rash”/birthmark on his arm that is showing up now that he is tan, but the doctor thinks it is fine and we don’t need to see the dermatologist again, which I guess is good.  Unfortunately, the doctor also found a bead in Seth’s right ear!  Who knows how long that has been there.  She and another doctor spent a good 20 minutes trying to get it out, flushing his ear, tweezers, etc. but to no avail.  I guess the bead is exactly ear canal shaped.  So, tomorrow we are off to the ENT at the children’s hospital.  Hopefully, they can get it out.  Seth still denies putting it in.  The hospital’s webpage said that parents should know how dangerous putting something in your ear could be (well, duh).  Hopefully they are nice.  Seth was a pretty good sport at the pediatrician – let’s hope he’s good tomorrow.