Siblings

What is it about your brother/s and sisters that makes you revert back to being 5 years old? I went to listen to my brother talk in church today and could not stop myself from making faces at him from the back row. I made him stumble just a little while he was speaking, and while he was hiding a grin and continuing, I was about to bust up laughing. Then during the closing hymn, I messed up the words. Maybe more than once, and my sister kept laughing at me. So I elbowed her repeatedly and she laughed harder. I think my parents were embarrassed by their adult children. I got a look from my mom that said, "You're almost 30 years old and have 2 children who you wouldn't let act like this during church. You're the oldest, try to set a good example for your brother and sister. (mantra of my childhood)" I left quickly after sacrament to change my clothes because I thought for sure my brother was going to beat the snot out of me for messing up his talk. That's what you fear when your younger siblings get bigger than you. Lucky for me he thought it was funny and I escaped unscathed.Without spouses or children there, it made me kind of miss just the 3 of us.

Boots

Am I a minority or a majority? This is what I want to know. I love this look. But I have a hard time finding boots that I can zip up over my ginormous calves. Typically when I wear my pants over my boots, I just don't zip them up all the way and no one is the wiser. I feel like I can do alright in the skinny jeans, but my calves are strangled. If I were my mom I could fit 17 pairs of pants between my legs and my boots, because her legs are so dang scrawny. Alas, I'm not built like my mom. Do they make extra wide calf boots in a 6 1/2?

I'll Do It Myself

Dylan has been saying this a lot to quote the Little Red Hen. It's also my mode of operation. So I've spackled, and sanded, and wiped, and vacuumed the dust. Now can I please paint them so we can switch these rooms.

This room is one of the more hideous in our house, and a little messy right now. This is the room Dylan needs to move into. And will once I can get Wes to commit to a bed size. We have a full bed in there right now that I'm willing to just let DVS have instead of spending the money to buy him a twin. Wes argues that it's too big for a 3y/o. I'd still rather go for not buying a new bed.

This is Dylan's room right now. It's huge. Way bigger than a kid really needs. The reason why he's in that room. It had a set of hooks at a convenient toddler height when we moved in. Wes doesn't understand why this room needs to be painted. He thinks it looks just fine and I'm just never happy with anything.

Why I'm at a standstill. Wes needs to decide on a bed size so I can get a bed set, then pick paint to match it. I know what color I want to paint my new sewing room/office/workout room. Just waiting for it to become important enough to Wes.

In Between Hair

I miss my long hair...
It was really pretty. It helps me feel feminine.

I miss my short hair...
It's SOOO easy. And it doesn't matter how messy it is, because that works too.

Right now I just have this hair...(Dylan took the picture. He's been stealing my camera, and sometimes he takes a decent pic.)Bleh! Could there be a worse haircut?
Until it gets long, then I'll get bored, then I'll cut it all off and start over.

DVS is 3!!

Today is his magical birthday. He's 3 on the 3rd. Too bad he's probably too young to remember this. He's been more excited about his birthday since Halloween, than he was about Christmas. We had his birthday party on Saturday for convenience. So as far as he's concerned his birthday is all over. That's what he told me that evening after everyone had left. Months ago he decided that he wanted a truck birthday party. And that's what we had. We took down the Christmas decorations last Monday in an effort to separate his birthday and Christmas, and as soon as they were down he asked if we could decorate for his birthday. Anyway, since his birthday is over, yesterday on the way home he asked me what Grandpa was going to be for Halloween. He's apparently unaware of any holidays between January and October.We are in a ward who let him start Sunbeams yesterday since he only missed the deadline by 3 days. I'm very grateful for that, he was starting to struggle in nursery since there was a new teacher every week. I was told that while all the other new Sunbeams were shy, he sang all the songs and volunteered to help during sharing time. When he was asked if he brought his scriptures he replied that he didn't have any, but his mom would get him some. I'm proud of him for being out-going.He may have a cape/blanket on in this picture, but he has an imagination a mile wide. When it's snowing he pulls out an imaginary umbrella and truly believes it's keeping him dry. He puts on pretend costumes and zips them up before acting out whatever character/animal he is. He has a mouse named Petey that lives in the cereal cupboard with his grandma and grandpa. And a baby named Mushroom that sleeps in his shoe basket and likes to be wrapped up in his blanket. It's all so real to him and fun when he lets you play along.As I look back at pictures of him, I get sad for the loss of baby chubs. He's turning into a little boy whose vocabulary is greater than his ability to pronounce words. I wonder who he's going to be when he grows up, then quickly back track and decide I don't want to know anything beyond the funny little kid. I'd be fine if he was never potty-trained as long as he stopped growing up. I feel very blessed that Dylan came to be a part of our family. I never thought that having kids would be such a humbling and rewarding experience.

Maisy Dean is 9 months (next week)

This is a little early, and I'm at work so I'm stealing these picture off my mom's blog.This is a funny, sweet little girl. Dylan was never much of a snuggler, but when she's tired she'll just lay her little head down on your shoulder. It melts me. Also she has the squishiest chubber cheeks on the planet that I could kiss a bajillion times a day.
Her little dimple when she grins, makes you want to see it over and over again. She loves her brother and is always getting in his way. I'd like to think that she loves her mom more, but it might be a toss up. She's getting better and more consistent at signing "milk" and "finished". She hasn't really picked up signing "more" yet. What I really love is that for the last couple of weeks she's started repeating sounds like, "babababa". This doesn't mean "bottle", it's just noise. And even though it's just noise right now, yesterday she started with the "mamamama". Cruising furniture is just beginning. I spend a ridiculous amount of money on clothes for her. I never knew how fun it would be to dress up a little girl.I'm nervous about her having a little play purse and tea set. I'm not sure how to do the ultra-girly thing. The saving grace is how tough she is. She's taken some good hits and spills without too much fuss. Give her another year and she'll really be giving it back to her brother; he'll deserve every bit of it.
Also her hair is starting to come it. I'm a little worried about fixing little girl hair. Headbands have been really easy.

Long Time Coming

I am about to step on to a BIG soapbox. Stop reading now if you're easily offended when it comes to your kids.

I was at a work party on Saturday and a fellow PT brought her little boy who is 2 months younger than Maisy. Cute kid; except for the helmet. I was flabbergasted. How could a PT let something like this happen? Just because we don't work in peds doesn't mean that we can't notice that our kid's head is always turned to one side creating a flat spot. So what do we do? We stretch them until they're symmetrical. It's what we do. How could you let something like this happen? I can't turn off the PT in me. I hold a kid and I'm facilitating their muscles or challenging them somehow. I can't stop.

Also as a PT we know what normal gross motor development is, and we should be freaking out if our kids aren't reaching those milestones. Just a refresher: (I'm super glad that someone else said this first on instead of me, because I'm strongly of the same opinion.)

Rolling back to stomach - may occur later because we do not place our children on their stomachs to sleep and therefore they are not playing in this position as earlier as children were in the past

3 – 6 months:
Hold head up in supported sitting
Rolls
Weightbearing on forearms, elbows, and hands when on stomach
Reaching with one arm when on stomach
Gross motor skills start to emerge at 4 months therefore increase floor time
Concerns: arching back – this prevents normal development

6 – 9 months:
Transitions into sitting from all fours
Sits independently
Uses trunk rotation
Pulling up to knees
Crawling
Protective reactions
More floor time – develop proximal control in shoulders for use later (handwriting)
Look for a variety of movement patterns
Spend less time in walkers and saucers – these increase toe walkers

I don't care if you sleep your kids on their back. SIDS is scary. But they need to spend every waking second (exaggeration) on their stomachs to ensure normal development. The fact that both of my kids crawled at 6 months does not make them freaks. So everyone quit being surprised. And to quote another study that I don't have the reference for kids need a minimum of 81 minutes of tummy time/day. Their back sleepers, they hate being on their stomachs. I get it. Be the parent and do what's best for them. Increase it slowly everyday, until they tolerated it better.

Sometimes I wonder if the head shaping helmets are some kind of racket with SIDS studies. No one is going to do a study to see how real SIDS is. In the mean time, kids have an increase in torticolis and flat heads. As a PT I should be stoked that the torticolis is increasing business, but seriously those head shaping helmets are around $3500. We know that cost is crazy inflated because it's a medical supply, but still.

Deep breath. Step off the box.