The Math Books …

By request, the math books we have been reading are a series called MathStart and seem to all be written by Stuart Murphy.  They teach patterns, sets, counting, subtraction and addition, etc.  They also recommend other children’s books at the end of each one that explore similar topics, as well as other ways to reinforce the ideas.  I don’t know why it never occurred to me to look for math books – we have read many science and nature non-fiction books.  We read a lot of non-fiction.  It looks like they are shelved under around 515 in non-fiction, but the stories read like regular picture books.  We liked Seaweed Soup and Monster Musical Chairs a lot.

Seth is 2 year 9 months old!

 

Mostly I just look back and all I can see is this flu that enveloped what feels like the whole of March.  But I’m sure we can find something about Seth in there.

Biggest news, of course, is that Seth is all potty trained.  He very very occasionally has an accident, but almost never.  He goes all by himself without anything extraneous, but he likes us to go with him, for moral support I guess.  He really is self-sufficient.  And this kid has serious bladder control.  Like he can hold it for hours and hours.  And I would say maybe half the nights or so, he is dry at night, too!  Which is pretty crazy to me.  Go, Seth!

Seth seems to be falling in love with me a bit.  He is always cuddling me and telling me he loves me.  He also tells me often that I am cute or that various body parts are cute, e.g. “Your butt is so cute, Mom”.  Well, ermmm, thanks.  But I love it!  He brings me flowers – it is so sweet to have an admirer.

Seth has learned to write the letters in his name and what they are.  I’m not sure if he puts them in the right order or not.  He likes thinking about letters and numbers, too, since Andrew is so into them.  We have also spent a lot of time the last couple weeks reading math books (they are stories that just incorporate math themes … I really like them) and also Magic School Bus stuff.  Seth is always happiest with a pile of books around him.

Seth is getting excited about having a birthday party – we’ll have to have a good one for him since he hasn’t really had a friend party before.

Seth really talks so much now.  He narrates everything and wants to explain everything to me.  It is so cute.  And his vocabulary is always expending.  He called something “stylish” the other day – no idea where he got that.

Fun things this month:

• flu, flu, flu … so fun!
• Shaw Nature Reserve and Purina Farms – we went yesterday and I think the boys had a lot of fun.  Seth wanted to go back upstairs at Purina Farms and play longer and he seemed to enjoy the dog show.  The boys loved the nature classroom at Shaw Nature Reserve and just really enjoyed running around after staying inside for so long.
• We tried out letterboxing – you follow a set of clues online to find a “treasure” – a box with a little log that you stamp and also a stamp for you to stamp your book.  We found our first one in Rocket park.  Seth seemed to enjoy it. It was an adventure.
• We went out to eat at Fitz and Seth had his first orange soda float while we watched them bottling root beer.  It was pretty cool!  He loved it!
• Another trip to the butterfly house without Andrew again.  Seth really liked seeing the butterflies, but didn’t want to play on the playground afterward because it was too crowded.

Cute pictures for a sick family

We are sick ... boy what a couple of weeks. First Katsu got sick. Like 103 fever flu that went on for a week. Andrew succumbed last Thursday and Seth on Friday. Katsu started feeling a bit better and then Logan got it. Then, Katsu got the fever again on Sunday. Secondary infection, perhaps - no, in fact, it was the flu AGAIN. And after a few days of coughing, I finally got the fever yesterday. And not thinking took Sudafed for a couple of days before it finally occurred to me that it was reducing my milk supply, making Logan even more unhappy. And the flu seems to have brought on a pretty bad case of eczema for Logan that is just weeping everywhere and he won't stop scratching ... and of course, it took me a while to figure out what that was. But somewhere in the middle of all that, I got Logan's portraits taken (pre-eczema). And after missing 8 days of work and his boss even calling in very concerned, Katsu was finally back at work today (of course, leaving flu-y me with 3 kids in different combinations of sickness/wellness. And yes, with the exception of Logan, we all had flu shots this year. Oh, yes, and when I took Logan to the doctor (conveniently right after his fever broke, and thus was a pointless $25 visit), he weighed 22 lbs, meaning we have to switch his car seat like right now. Yes, he is only 4 months. Big boy.

So, enjoy the pictures.

Andrew is 4 years 10 months old!

Andrew has been a little melodramatic/sullen this month.  His new favorite thing to say “Nothing is going right in my life”.  I have been working to help him identify the good stuff that goes on, but he gets really focused on the bad stuff – basically, anything that isn’t exactly as he wants it.  He tends to throw a tantrum (i.e., run off), but is back pretty quickly or gets distracted in something else.

Andrew is SO sweet to Logan.  He takes care of him and talks to him several times during the day … like for 10 minutes or more.  He will bring him toys, talk to him, sing him songs, give him hugs and kisses, and even try to teach him to roll over (he likes to roll him over, too, but that makes me nervous).  He is a good big brother to Seth, too, when they aren’t fighting and he is trying really hard to choose the right and not get mad at him.  He will kiss Seth at night very sweetly.

He is really into building.  He builds very elaborate “cars” with his trio sets, but honestly they are more like buildings on wheels.  He also is really into the Lincoln Logs, as well.  He builds big buildings.  Guns built out of Trio or Lincoln Logs are very popular.

He is still really really into drawing and writing.  His drawings are starting to get a lot better with recognizable people and pictures.  He made a whole book for his friend’s birthday party this week.  He is really getting into spelling and probably spends like an hour a day spelling words on a page.  He LOVES it.  He has some creative spelling (Hphy Bhwrstdy – or something like that for Happy birthday).  But I am glad he is really working on the sounds.  He always runs out of room and writes words starting on the next line but he lines the letters up very nicely.

We had a parent teacher conference this month and he is really doing well at everything.  His teachers said he has made great strides and surely will before kindergarten starts as well.  He has improved with social skills (though he still has a hard time negotiating and talks to the teacher about situations a lot) and is playing with the boys now.  It is tricky since they said he is a gentle soul and there really aren’t any other boys like that in his class.  Hopefully in kindergarten.

We also went to a meeting about kindergarten next year and I told Andrew about it.  He is SUPER excited and can’t wait.  He says it is everything he likes to do, which is pretty much true.  Seeing that he spends hours upon hours drawing and writing and reading everyday, I think he will love it.

Andrew really loves nature and science.  He absorbs everything the preschool’s nature lady tells him and loves to tell us all about nature.  Everytime we go to the library, he loves to get books about animals and nature (non-fiction) and also movies about animals.

Andrew has gotten really skinny – I feel like he is mostly skin and bones, now.  I was a little concerned when I weighed him this month (to see if he’d outgrown his car seat harness) and he was only 35 lbs – if anything he has lost weight since he turned 4.  But he eats quite a bit.  At the birthday party Andrew went to, the hostess said he ate a ton!  She was shocked.  So, I guess it’s not from underfeeding.  Maybe Logan will be skinny one day … ha ha ha.

Andrew is convinced he doesn’t sleep at night and tells us about it all the time.  He says he only takes a couple naps, but most of the time he is awake and he comes out of his room and does chores.  I wish!

Fun Things Andrew Did This Month:

• Watching airplanes at the airport when we took Katsu there.  Andrew sure missed his dad while he was gone.
• Valentine’s Day – Katsu was gone, but we started the day with a box of chocolates each, we had heart-shaped sandwiches for lunch, and had fun looking through Andrew’s valentines.  Andrew spent a lot of time writing out each of his classmates names and putting heart stickers on his Cars valentines for each of the girls.  He was so excited to go to Valentine’s party at school this year – he was sick a few days that week, but I made sure he got to go to his party.
• Magic House – Andrew loves to climb up the tree they have there and the slide.
• Jambalaya for Mardi Gras.
• Making cheese, yogurt, and treats with Mom.
• We made lots of dumplings this month – twice when friends cancelled so we did it at home, and then we finally got to do it with our friends.  This is pretty exciting for Andrew since he loves dumplings!
• Another movie night at the History Museum – Horton Hears a Who.
• A science themed birthday party.  Andrew was so excited to tell us about the experiments, but especially about the rockets.  He thought the goo was the best thing ever and played with it for like an hour at home.
• We tried out letterboxing – you follow a set of clues online to find a “treasure” – a box with a little log that you stamp and also a stamp for you to stamp your book.  We found our first one in Rocket park.  Andrew was fascinated and told everyone he met that we went treasure hunting, including the family going by when we found it.  They had a pet snake with them that they were eager to show us.  It was an adventure.
• We went out to eat at Fitz and Andrew had his first root beer float while we watched them bottling root beer.  It was pretty cool!

Logan 4 month Stats

Weight: 20 lbs 12 oz – > 98%

Length: 26.25 in – 85%

Head circumference – 43 cm – 90%

Cute as ever.

Logan is 4 months old!

I can’t believe he is already so old.  I know I say that every month, but his life is just speeding by.

Logan is enormous.  I will update with his stats when he goes to the doctor on Monday, but last time I weighed him he was 20 lbs!  He is so chubby, just rolls and folds everywhere.  You can barely see his wrists and ankles, it seems like.  He is pretty long, too, I think, though, because he isn’t as chubby as I would expect based on his huge weight.  He just keeps growing and growing and growing.  I put out all the 6-9 month and 9-12 month clothing and just use whatever fits.  I swear, most of the 6-9 month stuff seems too tight on the arms as soon as I brought it out and some of them seem too short, too.  He wears size 3 diapers but they leak quite often – I am hoping to finish them up soon and put him in size 4, where I hope he will stay for a long time.

Logan got his first hair cut this month with the clippers.  Mostly in the back and along the ears because it was getting seriously long.  He didn’t mind too much.  I was worried the first day because his trademark sticky-uppy hair was gone, but after a day it was back.  Yay!  I just think it is so cute.

Logan has had a tough month of sleep.  The first couple weeks were great – he was consistently doing 7-3 or 7-5 every night.  I was completely spoiled!  But then, he started to break out of swaddles and now he detests swaddling because he wants to suck his hand, so we have been trying to rework his sleep.  I try to get him to go to sleep on his own in the night sometimes, but he is not ready for that, yet, most of the time.  Last night was better and he at least slept from 11-5:30 without waking up so hopefully he is getting used to the non-swaddling.  He prefers to nurse or be rocked in our arms to sleep, but he goes to sleep much easier than Andrew did.  And if he’s tired enough, he can sometimes go to sleep on his own.

As I said, he is now a thumb sucker.  He is sucking on his thumbs quite a bit, but not quite vigourously enough to be self-soothing.  But I bet he will get there.  It is pretty cute and I am hoping he will self-soothe better than the other boys because of it.

Logan is working on rolling and sitting up.  He did roll from tummy to back completely on his own this week, but we’ll see if he really has that skill.  I can tell he tries to do it, though and I can see him working on trying to rock on his arms.  But when we are trying to get him to roll or rolling over, he is much more content on tummy-time.  He will tolerate it for a lot longer now and we do it a lot during the day.  He also likes to sit in my lap or between my legs on the floor.  He is also starting to sit up in a high chair.  when I prop him up on the couch, he uses his muscles to pull himself forward into more of a sitting position but then falls over.  He is gripping things pretty well and is starting to grab for toys if they are sitting in front of him.  He gets really excited to sit on his activity mat and grab the toys and will kick his legs.

I can tell that he is starting to be very attached to me.  He loves Katsu and is excited when he is home, but he really loves me.  He will watch me wherever I am and stare and wait until I come back.  I am worried he will get separation anxiety young like Andrew – twice this week he burst into tears when a stranger was talking to him.

Logan is still nursing about every 3 hours during the day.  I think he is starting to show some interest in food – he even seemed to like the rice we fed him on his 100-day Japanese feast.  I might start him on solids earlier than the other boys.

He is a huge cat napper, but the last few days he has taken a consistent 1+ hour in the morning and maybe one other nap that is over 45 minutes, so I am hoping his naps with consolidate a little bit.  He generally wakes up around 7 and goes to bed around 6:30-7 at night.

Logan loves to talk and have conversations.  He loves to laugh, especially when you are laughing and he will laugh along with you.  He smiles whenever you pay attention to him.  He also loves being kissed and will give kisses back (mostly to me).  I love it!  He opens his mouth wide and then lunges forward to your cheek or lips.  So cute!

Logan enjoys going outside and gets excited about being in his stroller and loves looking around.  He generally has fallen asleep by the time we get to the park.  He likes being in a sling outside as long as he is facing forward, but he still probably prefers being held.  He likes to be held facing outwards.  He likes standing in my lap and also likes laying on my legs when I am on my back.  He loves doing the rhyme “The Grand Old Duke of York” and is so smiley and happy whenever we do it.  He is starting to sit still through me reading stories to the other kids – for maybe 10-15 minutes or so.

Fun Things This Month:

• Lots of days at the park.  It has been such a mild winter.  Logan even enjoys the baby swing most days.
• Celebrating his 100 days old.  We took video instead of still photos, so we will have to post it sometime.  We actually did it closer to 110 days since Katsu was out of town.  Logan really seemed to actually enjoy the food, much more so than the other boys.
• Outings with the boys – to the zoo, the history museum, play dates, the library.
• His first baby story time.  He seemed pretty interested in the songs and books for such a little guy.  We will have to do it again.