Cade: Our Little Hero

In the last couple weeks, Cade has saved Mace's life at least twice.  The first time Mitch had taken the boys upstairs while I was cooking dinner.  After a little while I heard the door open at the top of the stairs.  I thought it was Mitch so I told him that supper would be ready in a couple minutes so he could go get all the boys.  After a couple minutes I was hearing a lot of grunting and noises coming from Cade so I went to the bottom of the stairs and checked out the commotion.  What I saw made me sprint up the stairs as fast as I could.  Cade was on his knees at the top of the stairs holding Mace's shorts as Mace was hanging over the top step.  You could see Mace's little bottom so I knew Cade had a good grip on Mace while he was trying to wiggle his way free to get down the stairs.  Cade is the one who opened the door but then realized Mace was going to fall down the stairs and had to stop him from doing that.

Then today after lunch the boys got down and I put Mace in the living room while I went back to the kitchen to make his bottle.  I heard a lot of screaming from him about 30 seconds later.  He had made his way quickly back to the kitchen and was under the counter where they had eaten lunch.  I think he has realized that they are all giant pigs when they eat and there are always a plethora of crumbs to choose from after meals.  I generally can't keep him away more than a tenth of a second in order to get the floor clean so I'm usually sweeping around him.  During all the screaming, I saw that Cade was grabbing at Mace's mouth yelling "out!!".  I got down on the floor with them to try and figure out what was going on and saw that Mace had gotten a giant chunk of apple off the floor and had shoved it into his mouth.  Cade knew he shouldn't be eating it and was trying to get it out of his mouth.  I'm so glad that Cade loves his little brother so much and is always looking out for him.

Brotherly Love

I must be dumb.  I never knew the boys would start fighting this early.  In my head, I thought they wouldn't start fighting until they were about 10 & 8.  Boy was I wrong.  There is fighting between Drew & Cade all the time now.  They fight over toys, or who gets food first, or who gets to sit where if they are watching a movie, if someone is making too much noise in the van.  It's crazy.  

This week has been a really good week though.  Drew has been the best big brother.  He has spent his days explaining things to his younger brothers and coming up with games for them.  He has volunteered to keep Mace out of the kitchen while I load the dishwasher and has asked what he can do to help me clean.  I've heard him talking in the sweetest voice to Mace that just melts your heart.

Yesterday Drew and Mace played forever in the "top bunk".  They took the cushions off the loveseat and pretended it was Drew's top bunk and the floor where they put the cushions was Cade's bottom bed.  Mace loved getting to play with his big brother.

This morning, Cade wanted to play with the V.Reader.  He's not very good yet at doing it by himself so Drew got it out and played it with him.  He was explaining everything, teaching Cade what he needs to do in order to work it.  They were so cute holed up in the couch watching a story together.

It's so nice when there's a break from the fighting.  I know that it is just going to get worse as they get older so I really love the quiet moments when everyone is getting along and life is as it should be.

This is Why I Stay Home

I was just in the kitchen making banana bread while the three boys were playing in the living room. Drew & Cade built a house out of the couches and blankets.  Then they were pretending that Mace was the Big Bad Wolf.  Drew even had safety glasses on for safety while building their house.  It was so cute to listen to the three of them playing together so nicely and to hear the fun stories Drew weaves while he plays.  That child has a very large imagination and Cade is always willing to go along for the ride.

Cade's Speech Troubles

Back in October I spoke with Cade's doctor because I was concerned with his lack of speech.  He only had a couple words that he used and he didn't imitate sounds.  This was so different than or experience with Drew.  Before Drew turned two he was speaking in 5 word sentences and always used proper pronouns.  He just talked and talked and it was never silent at our house.  So when the only noise we really ever heard from Cade was "aaaaaah", it didn't seem quite right.  Our pediatrician told us that he needed to learn 3 new words a month for the next three months so that by Christmas he should have added 9 words to his vocabulary.  When we came to December, we had gotten Cade to say about three new words a month but he only said them once just repeating us.  He failed to incorporate any of them into his speech.  The doctor then referred us to a speech therapist.  We had to wait until February to get in to be tested.  It was an hour of the therapist playing with him observing and asking me tons of questions.  When it was finished he was determined to have a speech delay and was eligible for therapy.  Then we just had to wait to get on to the schedule.

In April, we were finally able to start therapy.  We now go once a week and spend 45 minutes with his therapist.  They play fun games and work on making different sounds and do exercises to get his mouth working properly.  They also work on signing as a way of having him communicate.  Baby Signing videos were suggested to us by our therapist so we've gotten a bunch from the library to watch.  The boys really seem to enjoy watching them and are quickly picking up different signs.  Drew really seems to be getting into learning signs too.  He's always asking me what the sign is for a word he's interested in and he's always showing the little boys the proper signs.  At first when the therapists seemed to be pushing signing, Mitch and I really questioned it.  After all, we were paying a lot of money every week for them to get our son to talk using words.  I have now come to see that signing has become a very good thing in our house.  Cade is using many signs now instead of just pointing and grunting.  We know what he wants most of the time now which is so great.  I think it has made him more comfortable with his ability to communicate with us and so now he's trying to say even more words than ever before.

We also started with the AEA and have 2 people come to our house once a month to work with Cade.  They have been here once for testing and once for therapy and Cade loves having them here.  He seems warm up more more quickly with them being at our house instead of an unfamiliar location.  He is such a little ham when they show up.  I'm so happy that he enjoys having them here and plays so well with them.  Hopefully that will transfer into quick progress.  I think in the fall I'm going to request that they come more than once a month.  The more access he has to all these therapies the more progress he makes.

Grandpa's 80th Birthday

We recently went to Missouri to surprise my grandpa for his 80th birthday.  Everyone in the family was able to make it, so it was fun hanging out with everyone.  We swam in the lake, played yard games, enjoyed homemade ice cream and even had a volleyball game in the rain.  It was such a fun, relaxing weekend.  The boys did so good swimming in the lake this year.  Cade loved it and Drew was more comfortable than last year. It'll be fun next year when Mace can swim too.    

Boys swimming

Washers & ladder ball

Grandpa with his cake

Mitch & Cade on the boat

Drew on the boat

Grandpa & Grandma and the great grandkids

Grandpa & Grandma with the Smiths

Smiths

Mace in the kiddie pool

Eight Years

 

Mitch & I recently celebrated our eighth anniversary.  It's hard to believe we have been married for eight years now and have been together for 15, which if anyone is keeping track is half of Mitch's life (eek).  We had a nice quiet anniversary.  My parents offered to watch the boys for us and we enjoyed a nice dinner downtown at a restaurant we hadn't been to before.  Then after a trip to Home Depot & Dairy Queen we headed home to watch a movie.  It was just nice to spend time together without the craziness of having the boys with us.    

Current Happenings

What's going on with our family right now?  Let's explore the little men's lives.  

Mace is getting into everything.  He's 10 months old now and can army crawl at a frantic pace.  He's pulling up on whatever he can grab and loves climbing onto the stairs to follow his brothers.  Peek-a-boo and patty cake are among his absolute favorites currently.  He lights up now when Daddy comes home just like the older boys.  It's so fun to see.  In the last month he's had a few sicknesses and has stopped sleeping through the night.  He's getting up 2-4 times during the evening which I'm hoping ends soon.  He's now sleeping worse than he ever did as a new little baby.  

Cade is entering the terrible twos.  The last few weeks have been a little rocky with Cade.  He has started throwing some fits and is getting familiar with time out.  He loves his brothers and is always copying everything Drew does.  Drew has been taking advantage of this lately trying to get Cade to do naughty things to get him in trouble.  When Mace is upset, Cade is right there bringing him a blanket trying to comfort him.  He's so sweet.  We are entering the third month of speech therapy for Cade.  He still does not have many words but he's started making improvement.  

Drew continues to amaze us with his wit, strength, energy and smarts.  Today I had him helping me on a project outside doing some plantings.  He was not listening to what I wanted him to do to help with the project and was doing what he thought should be done.  Then he informed me that four year olds should just be able to do whatever they want.  (Sigh)  Drew currently is working on reading, spelling, adding and subtracting.  He is a very bright little boy but you really have to work on catching that small window when he wants to focus on learning.  He loves being outside playing in the water or digging in the yard.  If Mitch is outside working on a project you will find Drew nearby.  He loves being involved in everything.  

Welcome Back

Lately I have had a few times when I needed information about the boys when they were younger.  So, I've looked to this blog to see if I had written about it.  Being on here looking at all the stories we wrote about the kids made me sad that I haven't written more.  We have been so crazy busy that we never even talked about Mace's birth and he's 10 months old now.  Poor neglected third child.  I'm really going to try and be on here more often and keep up with the happenings of our life so I have something to look back on after they grow up and aren't my little boys anymore.