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.

Into the Wild

A few days ago I was in the living room and heard Drew bounding down the stairs. He had previously been in the bathroom so I looked up the stairs to make sure he had his pants pulled up and wasn't going to fall. (Yes, pulling our pants up is a constant issue at our house!!) When I saw him he was completely naked and had the biggest smile on his face. Then he shouted out that he was ready to go live in the wild. Poor kid wants so badly to live outside with the animals.

Bedroom Mix Up

We had to move Cade out of his room to get ready for the baby. The plan has always been for Drew & Cade to share a room, but as the date approached it became a somewhat scary idea for us. Cade has always been an awesome sleeper. He goes to bed every night without any noise at all and sleeps all night through. It has been this way since he was about 6 weeks old. Drew on the other hand seems to get worse at sleeping every month. Bedtime has been an ordeal every night and has been very frustrating for us no matter what we try. So, thinking about putting Cade in with Drew has made us slightly panicked that our good little sleeper would be ruined.

Realizing that we had six weeks until the baby would be joining us, we made the leap over the weekend and moved Cade. It has been nothing but shocking really. The first night, Drew told Mitch how happy that he was to have Cade in his room because he likes to have people around him. We've known that he's always wanted us to stay in his room at night or sit where he could see us but didn't want to fall into that trap so we've left him on his own which has caused the long bedtime battles. Now with Cade in his room, we hardly hear a peep out of him and he only comes out if he has to go potty most nights. We do sometimes hear lots of giggling and jabbering and Cade can't even talk yet. I can't imagine what it will be like when they get older and can fully communicate with each other. Hopefully this is a sign that we will actually get some down time soon. I can't imagine having time to relax or accomplish something before I have to go to bed. Just in time I guess for another baby to join the mix and start keeping me up.

Vacation

We just got back from a week of relaxing on the beach in Florida. It was such a great time. We flew which was a first for both boys and they did awesome. We were a little nervous about it but everyone around us on both flights commented upon landing how well they had done.

We spent all but one day enjoying the beach. Drew loved jumping into the water and acting like a crazy three year old boy. I think he probably could have stayed out in the water for hours every day if we could have. Poor Cade wasn't as fond of the beach. He would fall or get pushed and end up with his face covered in sand. He would also get mad at the water when it would come up too far and disturb his play area.

We took a day and went to a nearby zoo. It was so hot there but we still had fun. The boys seemed to enjoy getting to look at the different animals and luckily they had lots of shaded areas to help you avoid the heat. The zoo definitely wasn't as good as the Omaha zoo but it was still a good time.

Mitch was also able to talk me into going to Disney for a day. I really had not planned at all to do that since our kids are so small and it was 90 degrees. I didn't cave until 11 that morning when we were leaving the beach. We ended up being there from 3:30 until 12:30 which made it nice to miss a lot of the heat and crowds. The boys had a really good time even with staying up until after midnight. It'll be fun to go back when Cade is older.

You can follow this link to see pictures of our fun week.