· Piya's Perspective · 

It’s almost 1am. I should be asleep.  Kids will be waking me up around 6am.  Instead, I’m messing around on the computer.  Waiting for my eyelids to get too heavy to keep them open.

I apologize for the lack of updates.  I think last I wrote was about Caitlyn.  And while much has happened even with her, I shall spend this post about Simeon.

Passover: Back in March, I believe I posted (even if shortly) about reading to the kids in Simeon’s class for Purim.  A few weeks later, I worked with his class again to share another Jewish holiday tradition.  It was a very fun and messy time making matzoh.  After the kids went back to their classroom for lunch, I finished baking the mini matzoh and cleaning up.  They got to eat their creations for dessert and as I was saying my goodbyes, one by one, a few of the kids got up and gave me big hugs.  Made my week.

Bathroom Breakthrough:  Simeon has been getting much better with the whole potty thing.  A few weeks ago, I noticed Simeon was not only waking up in the morning dry, but he was waking to go to the bathroom at naptime then going right back down.  So, when I came back from a trip to Kansas and Simeon was asking again to skip Pull-ups, I said ok.  And he was dry in the morning!  It’s been a couple weeks now.  He’s had a couple accidents, but we’re diaper/pull-up free with at least one kid.  Woohoo!

Teacher Conference: When Simeon hit the 6 month mark in his current class, we met with his teacher to see how he’s progressing.  He’s doing great.  The teacher is really impressed with his math skills.  He can recognize numbers in the twenties, count up to and down from 20 and even do some basic math.  He’s also really good with his letters and can read a few words.  Though he’s not always good about sounding out words – he generally recognized the letter pattern and knows the word from memory – but it’s still great to see and sounding words out will come in time.  He’s able to compare groups of objects and determine larger/smaller and the motor skills we were worried about when we had our 6 week conference seem to be coming along. 

Some of the items of concern seem to stem from his size.  He’s small for his age and I really didn’t think size would come into play for awhile.  However, with his math and reading comprehension at the higher end of the class, he is grouped with the older kids and thus wants to play with them as well.  The older boys play rough, so Simeon wants to play rough with them and winds up at the bottom of many piles.  He’ll scream to get up, but he’s like those toys that get knocked down and jump right back up.  Getting heard by the older kids is difficult unless he screams, at which point the teachers make their presence known (even if not actually getting involved) and the other kids just don’t want to deal with it.

This may also be part of the reason for his recent ‘sneak attacks’.  He’ll lean on somebody or elbow them, then act as if he hasn’t done anything.  But once the kid responds in kind he screams bloody murder.  We’ve noticed this a bit at home with Caitlyn too.  She’s fine.  She walks near brother.  She’s on the floor and upset, but you haven’t necessarily seen him do anything.

Speaking: His diction has gotten much better and he’s much more understandable.  Most of the time anyway. 

I’m sure there’s more, but I’m finally getting tired again and should take advantage of it.

I seem to be getting worse at updating this.  My apologies.  Since there’s quite a bit to update, we’ll do this in sections and hope I don’t miss anything big.  Forgive any incomplete thoughts or jumping between topics.

In this episode – Caitlyn.

She is not only walking, but she’s walking fast.  One of the teachers at the daycare refers to her as the Escape Artist.  About a month ago, she managed to speedily crawl out of the room when a mother came to pick up her son.  Caitlyn just zoomed out between the mother’s legs and the teacher literally had to run to catch up. 

She has recently moved up to the waddler room.  The first day went great.  I dropped her off in the infant room and due to teacher/child ratio, they moved her up before I even left and she didn’t even look back.  The next day, I dropped her off directly in the waddler room and she had a very rough morning.  It is now 2 full weeks since the start of transition and I’m happy to say yesterday and today were both extremely smooth drop-offs.  Which was very good since Simeon happened to have accidents both mornings and I had to run back to help clean him up.

Caitlyn has always shown a desire to take off her shoes and socks (which isn’t all that unusual for kids her age), but I’m happy to say she’s also recently shown an interest in trying to put them on herself.  She’s also very good about helping with coat, shirt and pants too.

The cutest thing she’s recently started is telling us when she needs her diaper change.  If you see her go to the cabinet in the family room and pull out a diaper, you know her next step is to go sit down on the changing pad in the next room.  Granted last night she seemed most interested in just taking a bunch of diapers over to the changing pad and returning for more.  You can never be too prepared for a diaper change :).

She’s slowly but surely getting more teeth.  At this point, Simeon had most of his teeth – or at least it felt that way.  So far, Caitlyn has 2 front bottom teeth and 4 front top teeth.  On the bright side, she doesn’t explode the way Simeon did.  On the other hand, she just gets grumpy and it takes much longer for each tooth to come in. 

While she isn’t saying much in the way of audible words, she’s babbling quite a bit.  I’ve started putting her on the phone with my parents and in-laws when they call.  Adorable!  Unfortunately, she’s quite upset when I have to take the phone back.

Other Caitlyn interests:  books, building blocks, whatever brother is playing with. thankfully the weather is getting nicer because she is showing that she really enjoys playing outside too.

It’s a bit late, but at least it’s here…

A week ago last Monday night was the beginning of Purim.  Purim is a joyous holiday celebrating the success of the Jews avoiding mass execution.  It’s a holiday where you get dressed up in costumes, make lots of noise, east cookies and drink merrily. This year, I managed to have a costume ready for both Simeon[1] and Caitlyn and had made plans to meet Ari (and potentially his brother and sister-in-law) at the synagogue for the evening festivities.

The weather was against my plans.

The morning started off snowy, but not horrible.  At some point it had changed to rain and was even clear at times – such as lunchtime.  A bit overcast, but nothing coming down.  Within the time it took to walk from the car to my office, it went from overcast to blizzard.  I get a message from Ian and a call from Ari trying to figure out the evening’s plans.  In the end, seeing that temperatures would get as low as 20 degrees that night we didn’t want to risk driving on black ice at 10pm, so we just went home. I can’t tell you how disappointing it felt to drive home with the sun shining :(.

I at least felt a little bit better on Tuesday, Purim day, when I went to Simeon’s classroom to read a story called ‘On Purim’ by Cathy Goldberg Fishman. I didn’t manage to bring any Hamantaschen as I had hoped, but I brought along some noisemakers and the kids were more than happy to make loud noises whenever I said Haman.

Now I just have to figure out what I want to do for Passover.

[1] With the help of my friend B, I found a pair of long-sleeve spiderman pajamas, red slippers (aka Spiderman boots) and a red hat with think black lines to turn into a mask.  Simeon had no interest in the hat whatsoever, but loved the rest of the outfit. 

Last week was Simeon’s second trip to a hospital since the beginning of the year. I get the feeling Simeon is going to test my stomach strength a lot this year.

Just as I was starting an online conference call, my cell rings and I see it’s the daycare.  I quickly let my coworker know that I need to take this call and indeed I am being requested to come down.  Simeon has a cut on his chin and may need stitches. Apparently he was trying to flush the toilet with his foot and slipped. 

This incident report is a keeper – all the teachers and students of the school were now having to go to ‘bathroom boot camp’.  Seems the teachers have a tendency to flush the toilet with their feet (since the toilets are sized for 2-4 yos) and the kids emulate them.  Of course it would be my son who demonstrates why this is a bad idea.

Joy of joys, this is right before naptime.  I get down there, look and say…ok, here we go again.  Except this time I try to avoid ER.  It’s 12:30-12:45 and a trip to the ER could mean not getting back in time to pick up Caitlyn.  I call the pediatrician who says they would fit him in and can do stitches, but I’m really just looking for suggestions near my office at this point, not wanting a 45min drive.  So I then call a nearby Urgent Care Clinic asking if they do this. 

UCC: How old is he?
Me: 3
UCC: Where is it?
Me: His chin
UCC: Sorry, we won’t do that.

Basically, a 3 year-old’s face is still developing and they don’t want to risk liability issues with scarring.  I call the doctor’s office back and when I finally get somebody, I ask if it makes a difference that it’s on his chin.  They too, won’t touch it.  So…1:30, I’m finally on the road with two kids freshly woken from short naps and heading up to Ari’s office.  After agonizing over whether or not I should let Ari go or just go myself, I leave Caitlyn behind with Ari (who waits for his brother to come pick them up) and head to Children’s Hospital in Seattle.

Thankfully it was a slow day and we’re seen quickly.  Slow enough that I think everybody there that could look in on him did.  Learning experience for at least one guy who came in just to watch.  And after this experience, if it’s not life threatening I’m going straight to Children’s again. The entire experience just felt so much better than the ER. 

In the end the cut was superficial.  The nurse practitioner gave me 3 options: do nothing, get sutures, use glue and steri strips.  I didn’t feel the need to put him through the trauma of stitches, but since I was there I gave the go ahead for glue.  He only whimpered a tiny bit and otherwise just wanted his popsicle – yeah, the association is probably starting to form already…get hurt at school, go to the hospital and I get a popsicle!  *sigh* I am proud to say I didn’t even get queasy this time.

And unsurprisingly, none of the strips lasted 24 hours – guess he’ll have a matching scar to daddy on his chin.

Quite behind…again.  Let’s see…

Caitlyn’s Corner
She’s officially one year old as of a couple weeks ago.  Being only one, she didn’t have many requests for birthday happenings, so we combined it with a superbowl party and celebrated the birthday during halftime.  It’s amazing how big she’s getting and how close she is to walking.  She does realize she goes much faster on hands and knees though, so if you convince her stand she immediately falls to her butt and starts crawling if she wants to go anywhere else.

Had her 1 year wellness check about a week ago.  All is good.  She’s tiny in head circumference and weight (5th percentile) and average in height (50%).  Other than being tiny, she’s looking good.  I’m still trying to get used to this doctor though.  I really liked the pediatrician we were using when she was born, but the doctor moved out of state.  This doctor is good at what he does but his bedside manner doesn’t compare.

She’s so close to walking.  The daycare noted they saw her take 3 steps yesterday.  And I think we managed to see one step over the weekend.  In some ways I hope she starts walking because it will slow her down.

She’s also waving and saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ and kinda blowing kisses.  Cute!

Simeon Stuff
His speech is getting more and more clear, which is wonderful.  Unfortunately, what’s really getting clear is the fact that he’s three years old and has his own desires.  In order to get him to do anything we generally have to make it a race or tell him not to do it.  Hopefully that will work for awhile.

He’s generally very sweet with his sister and it’s fun to watch their interactions.  Recently he’s been reaching out to her in the car and holding her hand.

He’s definitely a smart kid.  He knows his numbers (counting and recognizing 0 to 30 and 20 to 0), his letters, shapes, colors, and more.  Recommended by my sister-in-law, I got him Hullabaloo and he loves it.  Does a great job following instructions.  He has amazing hand-eye coordination too – using the mouse, playing soccer…he can even consistently hit a ball when thrown (versus from a t-stand).

What we do need to work on is fine motor skills.  We’re not sure if it’s motivation or muscle development, but he gets frustrated very quickly when he can’t do something and the meltdown makes it even harder.  My next ‘project’ is to build a geo board and we can work on stretching rubber bands.

Last but not least is potty training.  Saturday was a bit difficult and he had accident after accident.  However, he is getting better and starting to let us know before he has to pee.  On the way to daycare/work this morning, he said he had to pee.  I should have just pulled over to the shoulder and been done.  Instead, I got off the next exit, drove down the street and stopped in a Lowe’s parking lot.  I couldn’t believe his pants were still dry.  I quickly jumped out, got him out of the car, pulled down his pants and had him go right there.  He probably wouldn’t have made it if I had to lug 25-30lbs of baby and carseat into a store then try to figure out where there bathroom was (probably all the way in the back of the opposite side of the store).  I was really surprised when we got to daycare and as I was signing him in, noticed he was holding his pants.  The teacher commented that he did indeed have to go again as I was walking out the door.

The ending of our journey was not as uneventful as I had hoped.

After a 7 hour stay at the airport, our flight took off an hour late.  Only Ari still held a glimmer of hope that we could make our connection.  When we touched down, we learned that our connection had been delayed as well and hadn’t actually left yet.  Glimmer of hope spreads.  Ari’s brother, managed to get out pretty quickly in hopes of holding the flight.  Caitlyn and I followed quickly behind.  As I get out, Ian points across the hall, “that’s our flight'”.  Literally across the hall is the flight to Seattle.  Gate completely closed and the electronic sign notes the departure at 9:55.  I look at the clock – 9:50.  After R has joined me, I notice the departure time has changed to 10:00.  Then, after Simeon and Ari arrive, it’s pushed back to 10:05.  Finally, the airline mercifully stops showing the continuing delay.

Meanwhile, Ian has been standing in line to find out where we’re spending the night.  Ari heads over to the counter to join him while Simeon happily plays with a little girl his age.  When the guys return we see we are set to stay at the Wellesley Inn.  Well, everybody except Simeon who has apparently been set up in a different hotel.

Next morning, we wake up bright and early to catch the shuttle and try to get seats on the 8:30 flight.  Thankfully there is nothing exciting about this last leg back home.  Lack of sleep and overall frustration has left me with no patience, but otherwise we get home around 1pm and that is that.  It was a rough night back home for both kids, but last night they were back to normal routine and happy.  Thank goodness.

Getting a call from the daycare generally means one of two things: a quick followup to a morning discussion or come pick up your kid.  Not having had any questions the morning of Jan 8, I was a bit nervous when I saw the daycare number show up on my cell phone after setting up my laptop.  Unfortunately, it was the latter. More specifically “Your son was hit in the head with a block.  As a parent I would take my child to the doctor for potential stitches so could you come and take a look.”

I immediately pack back up my laptop and find my boss to give him a scrum update. For those unfamiliar with scrum, it’s a very quick daily update meeting.  Each person with an update has three questions to answer: what did you do last 24 hours?  What will you do the next 24 hours? Any blocking issues?  The entire meeting shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. 

I gave my boss my last 24 and next 24 and ran off.  Seems my co-worker finished my update for me at the meeting.  Any blocking issues? Yes, a block.

As for the rest of the head injury story, Simeon was just fine.  He did wind up with a staple in his head for a few days, but he’s a tough little boy.  He was done crying by the time we got to the car and only cried again when they cleaned up the wound and stapled it.  They quickly handed him a popsicle and I gave him some orange juice and that was it.  Considering we were long past lunch and naptime and he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, it’s no wonder he was starting to melt down.  I took him back to daycare for food and a nap and figured I’d see how he was when he woke up.  Even without any pain meds he woke up from nap a happy boy.  The only reason he’d wanted to go home rather than back to daycare was because I made the mistake of offering computer time.

Heck…the boy did better than I did.  I had to sit down twice to stop the lightheadedness and prevent getting sick.  At least I didn’t cry.

Getting the staple out was even easier.  I was quite nervous, but in the end it was nothing.  The doctor (or nurse) and I distracted him by talking about the sesame street characters on his shirt and he barely even noticed anything had happened.

Trip highlights to write about later:

Realizing 9pm the night before our flight we don't have Caitlyn's birth certificate and still had almost all of our packing to do.

By the end of a day of flying: we've left behind multiple items for the kids either at home, in the car or on a plane, including Caitlyn's diapers and formula and Simeon's coat; worried we'd miss a connecting flight at the opposite end of the Atlanta airport and had to take 2 taxis to our hotel after learning the hotel shuttle had stopped for the night.

Simeon danced non-stop for 3 hours at the family reunion dinner and wound up eating somebody else's leftovers only after the dj shut down for the night.

While waiting to get on the cruise ship, Simeon became a 'man' and peed in a bush.

Caitlyn started whole milk after we purchased a full can of formula and spent the cruise working on a new tooth.

After multiple notices that kids must be 100% potty trained to be in Aquanauts, we enrolled Simeon anyway.  By the end of the cruise we had 2 new pairs of shorts and a shipwide famous pirate.

It was absolutely adorable to watch Simeon play with a couple of local children at Altun Ha - running around, going up and down the little hill and holding hands.

I managed to complete the trio of items on the cruise ship bracelet: boogie board on the flowrider, rock climb and take Simeon ice skating.

Succeeded in my must-dos:  see some mayan history (Altun Ha) and take Simeon to the beach (the tide pools at Costa Maya were perfect).

Celebrated my brother's birthday and Caitlyn's birthday.  Although a little early, Caitlyn enjoyed a chocolate brownie covered in whipped cream.  She rightly covered herself in it and was nice enough to share with the waitress too.

Simeon not only watched a couple of the live cruise ship shows, but he did wonderfully - staying quiet, paying attention and clapping at the right times.

Simeon also got a much needed haircut on the ship - there was more hair on the floor than left on his head.  He shocked all of us when he chose an apple over ice cream for his sit still bribe.

After a visit with multiple grandparents, the kids received plenty of gifts.  We wound up purchasing an additional piece of luggage and shipping home 50lbs of bath products.

Although it's not quite over, we're over halfway through our 6 hour wait at the airport and hopefully we won't have another exciting flight experience going home.

Caitlyn is also getting big.  Almost one year old already…hard to believe.

It’s cute how she seems to idolize Simeon.  Whether or not he’s paying attention to her.  Whether or not he’s trying or has already succeeded in tackling her.  She is very interested in what he is playing with and laughs at almost everything he does and says.  In some ways this is bad - he’ll talk gibberish or be way too hyper and rough and her laughing is basically a signal to him to keep doing this.

Caitlyn has reached the stage of putting in and taking out.  She spent 10 minutes or so the other day with a bowl, a sippy cup lid and part of a playdoh piece.  I think she only stopped because I picked her up to get dressed for bed.  She also loves doing this with all the cabinets and drawers in the kitchen. Whereas Simeon focused on one or two cabinets (which is the point where I moved all of the bottles and kid plates and such into the interesting cabinet), Caitlyn goes for any and all of them.  We have quite a bit of babyproofing of the kitchen to finish up.  Ari picked up a couple of things yesterday to hold the two-door cabinets closed and Simeon easily pulled it off.  If it’s that easy for Simeon, it will be pretty easy for Caitlyn in a few months too.

She didn’t manage to meet my expectation of walking by end of year, but she’s starting to stand up for a couple of seconds without holding onto anything.  Walking is not very far away.  She’s already proven she can climb the steps and does quite well cruising around the furniture.  She especially likes pulling herself up on the trash and recycling cans.

The girl is a monster eater.  Although I haven’t seen her put anything in her mouth after a dumpster diving session (thank goodness), she has attempted to see if the cat food is as good as Maggie makes it seem.  Aside from not having seen her turn anything down, she seems to have acquired her brother’s love for blueberries and added on a taste for quesadillas. We ordered a kid’s quesadilla at Agua Verde the other night.  The kid’s portion was a huge half quesadilla and I think she ate 3/4 of it, along with some beans, rice, formula and a taste or two of Simeon’s soup.

We are officially in trouble.  Caitlyn’s first recorded word: bye. 

Both kids are growing so quickly…it’s hard to believe Simeon is 3 years old and how much he keeps developing.

Yesterday morning, Ari was kind enough to try to get me out of the house for a workout, but I discovered I didn’t have any workout clothes, so Ari went in my place.  Before I packed up the kids and headed out, I convinced Simeon to do something other than play on the computer.  In doing this I discovered some fun options for Simeon when we fly to Florida later this month.  He loves writing/drawing and loves numbers and letters.  So, for the trip I’m going to print out some connect-the-dot pictures and maybe even some mazes and matching games.  I don’t think he’s quite ready for color-by-number, but we could potentially try that too.

A little bit later, as I was getting ready to leave the house, I bent down to talk to Simeon and felt a pain just above my knee.  When Simeon asked what was wrong, I told him I had an ‘owie’ and he proceeded to give it a kiss.  Quite a few kisses actually.  In the evening, on the way downstairs for his bedtime show, he discovered my knee still hurt.  He made me stop so he could give it another kiss.

His next sympathetic moment was later that day.  We sat and watched Finding Nemo. When Nemo gets taken away Simeon was extremely upset.  His voice was clearly distraught and he was close to tears. He even looked a bit teary-eyed at the end when it Dori and Nemo are in trouble.

Within the last month or two, we have discovered just how important naps are for Simeon.  It wasn’t until my sister-in-law made a comment soon after moving out here that I looked up information about night terrors.  One of the triggers: Fatigue.  Sure enough, if Simeon misses his nap he wakes up crying – about 2-3 hours after going down.  I do my best to wake him up – generally getting him to go to the bathroom.  He’ll ‘wake up’ 2 or 3 times in total before sleeping the rest of the night.

I have started working on convincing Simeon not to crawl into mommy’s and daddy’s bed early in the morning. For the most part the plan has been pretty successful.  Friday morning, I asked him to go back to his room and read books.   He said ok then went back to his room and turned on the light. Then, after cleaning up the 3rd floor playroom on Friday (it’s actually a usable room now!), I moved the playmat with streets and buildings to Simeon’s room along with his cars.  Saturday morning, when Simeon showed up at my bedside, I asked him to play with his toys in his room.  Again, he said ok then went back to his room and turned on the light.  Later, I moved some additional toys into his room.  Sunday morning, he was waking me up at 6:30am then, upon request, returned to his room for an hour before coming back.  Woohoo!

Potty training has been going really well too.  He still has accidents, but the key is to make sure he stops in the bathroom at least before and after car rides.  His teacher told me this morning that he even went to the bathroom without prompting one day last week, and the few days he’s been great about telling me has to to go before pooping.  In fact, now that I think about it, he even told me he needed to go before peeing yesterday. And the big breakthrough?  He was dry when he woke up this morning!!