First Hair Cut--Before

My boy got his first haircut.  And I cried.  I didn’t understand crying over a haircut.  Its just hair.  And then I got HIS hair cut.  In a matter of minutes, he went from my baby to a BOY.   I had her leave most of his hair on top–I have spent too many hours pushing that back as he nurses; I’m not ready for it to be cut.  I got it cut at the barber shop on base.  She wanted him to set by himself  in the chair!  HAHA.  He did really well.  I had to hold his head still a couple times.   They gave him his first sucker–orange–and he LOVED that.

First Hair Cut--After

Jim’s parents were visiting earlier in the month.  We spent one week here and then went over to the Big Island for a week.  We had such a wonderful time both weeks.  I did a trip report, posted photos and the link to the rest of the photos on our family blog, if you want to check it out.

If you’re the praying type, I’d appreciate your prayers.  This deployment is doing a number on me.  Mostly I’m doing okay with it mentally but I’m WAY tired and quickly approaching burn out.  And, mentally, I have my moments.  Jim’s leave getting pushed back six weeks was really my tipping point.  On the plus side, we’re half-way done!!!

I’m not sure I’ve talked about it here but we’ve had “issues” with Ben and eating.  He has been taking solids for months now but wouldn’t swallow anything.  I met with the hospital’s feeding team about a month ago.  They strongly suspect, based esp. on the history of all the horrible troubles we had with latching, that its simply a matter of training the mouth and tongue muscles on how to swallow.  With latching, I’d finally get him on well and then, the next nursing session, it would be like he’d completely forgotten how to do it.  So they instructed me to do a positive reinforcement food (they got him to swallow chocolate pudding, so chocolate pudding it is!) every day to help with the training, in addition to continue offering a variety of other food.  Its working!!  He will generally swallow most any foods, asssuming he’s hungry and the food is in really small pieces.  He loves foods with strong flavors–lime yogurt, pepperoni, taco meat, chili, etc.  He doesn’t do well with drinking yet.  He is better with an open-faced cup than a sippy or straw cup.  But, like nursing, its like he forgets how to do it.  After several attempts, he’ll swallow but then has to start again the next time.  But we’re working on it.  I don’t mind if he skips a traditional sippy but it’d be awafully handy if I could get him to take a straw cup at least, especially considering his delight in dumping cups!!

A few days the kiddos were playing outside.  I had some scrap wood out there from a printer shelf I built.  Elizabeth was busy playing with them and Ben was toddling around.  Then I heard Elizabeth say “Ben, its your turn to come over here and play Jesus dying on the cross for our sins!”  What?!!!  “Ben, you have to stay on the cross.  Jesus didn’t run away and you can’t either.”  At that point, I decided I better rescue the nails and hammer that were still sitting outside!!! LOL

New Car Seat Recommendations from AAP

I’m thrilled to see the AAP come out with this!  Elizabeth rear-faced until 2.5 and Ben will stay just as long, I’m sure, if not a little longer.  I have other links that talk more about why rear is better, if anyone is interested.

Keep your toddler in a rear-facing car seat until age 2 (not 1)

Lori O’Keefe
Correspondent

New research indicates that toddlers are more than five times safer riding rear-facing in a car safety seat up to their second birthday. Following are some safety tips for car seat use:

All infants should ride rear-facing in either an infant car seat or convertible seat.

If an infant car seat is used, the infant should be switched to a rear-facing convertible car seat once the maximum height (when the infant’s head is within 1 inch of the top of the seat) and weight (usually 22 pounds to 32 pounds) have been reached for that infant seat as suggested by the car seat manufacturer.

Toddlers should remain rear-facing in a convertible car seat until they have reached the maximum height and weight recommended for the model, or at least the age of 2.

I’m hesitant to say the words out loud as it sounds so definite.  I’m starting to get a lot of questions, though, now that E will be 5 in the fall.  Sooooo….After much prayer and discussion, we’ve settled on homeschooling Elizabeth. Taking it on a year-by-year basis. I have some reservations about doing it, especially during deployments. I’m also confident, though, that if this is meant to be an every year thing, I’ll get through it.

She’s currently in a 3-day a week program.  They call it preschool but I would describe it more as a playschool.  They do very little that is actually academic, learning is done mostly through play, etc.  I wasn’t thrilled with the program when she started it but its gotten better over time, especially after she got moved into a different group with a much better teacher.  She enjoys it, it provides her with some distraction from missing Jim that is ever-present in our home and its given me some down time.  But come the fall, many of the kids will be moving into Junior Kindergarten at the public schools and she’ll be outgrowing the program.  So we plan to pull her out sometime next fall.  We may be moving a year sooner than we expected, so the timing would work out well.

We have some curriculum that we’re currently doing.  She loves math and wants to do it at least once a day.  We tried phonics in the fall and it was a disaster.  I pulled it out a few days ago and she has soaked it up.  We’ve worked through one handwriting book and will start the next one next week.  We are going to the Big Island in April, so I’m prepping a volcano unit.  We do a lot of lapbooks b/c we don’t need any set curriculum.  In the fall I plan to add a little more structure and formal curriculum but how much we do will really depend on if we’re moving early 2010 or not.

As for why…There are a lot of reasons.  But it boils down to this…Elizabeth will get lost in a regular public school classroom of 25+ students.  In large groups, she is quiet and observant.  She shines in small groups.  If I could find a school with 5-10 students in a class, we’d likely put her in it.  But that isn’t going to happen!  She would be the middle-of-the-road student who mostly does what she is asked, completes the minimum, doesn’t cause much disruption but never really comes out.   HSing her and getting involved with co-ops, enrichment classes, etc. where she’ll get the attention she needs in a setting that suits her personality.

We don’t intend to do it through high school though nothing is set, of course.

I have no idea what will happen with Ben or any other children. We’ll figure that out when the time comes.

In some ways, I’m sad about it. I’ve envisioned this time when I’d send her to school and I could do my grocery shopping, volunteer work, etc. during that time. And this little vision of driving her to school in the minivan and dropping her off. Volunteering at her school. Going in for parent-teacher conferences. I can’t deny all those ideas & visions I’ve had. But the more I pray about it, the more I come to terms with it all too.  And we’ll figure out some way to make some of those things, like volunteering, still happen.

So there it is.

Okay, okay.  I lied.  I didn’t come back yesterday as promised.  Not that it appears anyone but Julie is reading anyway.

Ben’s birthday was good.  We celebrated when we were in IN, so we didn’t have a party here. We did go over to $1 scoop night at Baskin Robbins with friends.  She has a daughter a year older than E and her other daughter is a couple months younger than Ben.  She cloth diapers, too, and that’s actually how we staretd talking (she saw Ben in an adorable fleece soaker I had).  The girls played at the park together all summer and into the fall.   Surprisingly, Ben did eat a little ice cream (Whirl of Change…the Obama ice cream! )

Stolen from Lisanne’s blog:

The first seven people to respond to this post will get something made by me. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

• What I create will be personalized and intended for you.
• It’ll be done this year (2009).
• You will have no idea what it’s going to be. It may be knitted, sewn, papercrafted, used in a bubble bath, related to photography, graphic design-y, or perhaps a mix CD. I might even bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that’s for sure!
• The catch? You have to put this offer in your journal as well and make seven things for your friends! (If you have already done this, then I will happily add you to the list.)

I stole this directly from her, so don’t count on anything knitted. LOL  I’m not planning to take it up.

1. jen S.

2. Jen T.