These two nuggets love one another so much. Everett being the calm, cool and collected one makes their partnership easy. He shares and gives everything to sissy willingly when she politely asks. There's times I won't let him share with her, since she seems to always want whatever it is he has...girls. She loves him so much though, she typically takes a toy she knows he likes to trade him so she can have what he's playing with, which is nice, I guess. ;)
She has wanted him in her lap lately. She helps me hold his hand while we all walk together. He won't walk with one hand yet, he can, he just won't. They are silly together and make each other laugh. They're very playful and typically enjoy each other's company. If she's mad at him she'll push him away with her foot. If he's annoyed with her he'll grab her clothes or her skin and squeeze it tight with clenched teeth. Thankfully neither of those happen that often. I'm imagining the older they get the more it will happen. I'm so curious to find out if Everett will always be this chill with her or if he'll start to fight her on things more.
They're both doing so many new things, always.
Everett is getting close to standing independently. He can and he will for a few seconds and as soon as he realizes no one is holding onto him he sits down. He could also walk, but it's a comfort issue. His approximation which is how close he gets to saying words is improving greatly. He has been making great gains in speech and it's so fun. He doesn't come out and say words to us, I don't think he realizes he can tell us things yet which is strange because he'll sign things but not attempt to speak them. I'll tell him what I think he wants to say and then he'll say it but he doesn't come right out with it. I can't wait for him to call out "mama" on purpose. He says mama and he knows I'm mama but he doesn't call me to him or anything like that yet. He's full of babble and when he reads books he attempts to say most of the words or if it's animals he'll say the noise they make. Everyone is highly impressed with his receptive language, how much he understands. So, it's only a matter of time for him to become expressive. Once he has the skills to talk, he'll have a lot to say, there is a LOT stored in that brain of his. I'm working closely with speech right now trying to help him learn to communicate his needs/wants so that when he goes to school in August, communication isn't a barrier. We all know it will be, but hopefully less of one, that is one of my biggest fears for him. I can read his mind, his sounds, his cries...I really want others to be able to understand him like I do. So, we have a lot of work ahead of us. But, we're never afraid of a lot of work!!! :) He still doesn't want to self feed unless it's pretzels or pizza. So, that's what we're working on in OT and Speech feeding. Before August I need him walking, self feeding, communicating and at least working on potty training. Those are big goals. We saw ENT and all looks well in his ears. We see his eye doctor to check vision in Dec. He has to have his thyroid checked in Dec as well. Another hearing test will probably be in Feb. We are working on headphones so he can have more accurate tests but he's not a fan of headphones. It's still constant working. It's amazing to me what we all take for granted. It's amazing what goes into the basics like walking, talking and eating that comes natural for most. Good thing he's a hard worker! Everett can be a typical two year old boy when he unravels the toilet paper, throws everything in sight, plays in the toilet if the seat is left up, empties bins, makes big messes really fast. He is giggly and funny and he knows it and tries to get us all laughing at him. He is good natured unless he's stuck in his stroller or seat, he wants to be DOWN and moving at all times. He has a great attention span and works for long periods of time with his therapists.
Andre and I realized if we had a third child, how fast everything would happen. We came across a video of Clara at Everett's age and it's unbelievable what she was doing. Her speech and vocab was always earlier than most so it's even more crazy to think about. We are trying to enjoy the slow pace since this is highly likely our last go round with kids. We both want one more, but just can't imagine it. Life is crazy as it is, really crazy!
Clara is doing amazing things lately too, like, READING. Yea people, I picked up her book to read it to her, an easy practice reading book and she was saying some of the words she had memorized before I read them. Mind you this was a brand new book, we had never read before. She just had the actual word memorized. I had no clue how many words she has in that brain of hers. So I started asking her to sound the other words out and SHE COULD. It's the most amazing thing to see, especially as a teacher. It just happened, just like that. Which immediatly made me think of how hard it'll be for Everett, sissy will help! She could read most of the words except the blends like "th" and "ch" which she caught on quick and by the end of the book was able to read sh, ch, and th words. Of course she is stubborn and doesn't want to so I have to bribe her, but she can do it! She is very into science and not into art. She hates writing, drawing, coloring. She doesn't hate painting but nothing artsy is her favorite. She likes play-doh so she "molds". She likes to make ramps for her cars and make-believe is still cool to her. She builds structures out of blocks and can add and subtract small numbers in her head. She likes to watch movies, current favorite is the Elf on the Shelf movie and The BFG - big friendly giant. She claims she doesn't want to go to school but is a good girl and goes and does a great job. She is making friends and talks about them at home and looks forward to seeing them each day. She loves the park, beach and ultimate favorite is the splash park which is now closed until Spring. We have been spending time at indoor parks she likes a lot. She is brave, climbs high and does the big kid things all by herself. She is so brave but cautious, just like when she was 1 and learning to walk. She LOVES scary things, anything to do with Halloween and scary objects, monsters, spiders jumping out at her. She likes dressing up, doing puzzles, marble mazes she got for her bday, play-doh anything, slime, and being read to. Her hand eye coordination is getting pretty accurate, I wonder if she'll be into sports. She is currently in dance and is over it. She likes to be jumping on trampolines, flipping her body around the bars and balancing on the beams. She likes dance a little because her cousin Julia is in it, but she would rather do gymnastics. She said on our way to dance Monday, "Mama, I'm going to convince Julia to do gymnastics with me, I'll tell her she gets to do more fun things, more dangerous." Oh boy, music to mama's ears, "do this...it's dangerous", NOT! So after the Nutcracker performance we'll go back to gymnastics. She is also going to start violin lessons, a free program through Tiffany's church which is amazing and I'm super excited about. This age is so much fun, there's so much more but they're both awake from nap. Time to go!
Clara trying to get him to hold his head up...
My favorite one!
Andre being silly.
