Mr. Happy (7 mo.) and Miss Opposition (2 yr + 2 mo)

I've been meaning to write an update about both kiddies. I need to take Everett's 7 month pictures still, surprise, surprise.

I'll start with my happy lil man. Everett is doing quite well. He did have a hearing test recently that he failed. It stated he had mild hearing loss. He does hear, that's evident by his light sleeping, response to sound and babble. Many ask how they tested him. I sit with him in a sound-proof room with an audiologist across from us. There is a speaker in front of us, one to the left and right of us. One audiologist watches his ques while the other makes the noise through the speakers. I do notice he doesn't turn towards me when I call his name often, I'm pretty sure he hears me, I don't know if maybe he is uninterested? Leave me alone ma?! Anyway, what I saw at the test is his normal. She said she saw fluid in his ears so they wanted to give it 6 weeks and test again and then if he failed we'd see ENT. So of course I left and called ENT and had an appointment Monday. Everett will have enough challenges ahead of him, if I can resolve any of them, I will. The ENT who took out his adenoids was the one who saw us, I like her a lot. She spoke my thought exactly, "Let's be aggressive, we want him to be able to hear since it's important (of course) and a big part of development." I felt relief that I wasn't being over the top for wanting tubes so we could be done wit it. We both wished we had known he was struggling with hearing when he had his adenoids out so we could have killed two birds with one stone then. Anyway, she said she was going to look to see how much fluid he had in his ears. It was torture holding him down, I think he was more frustrated with being held down than in actual pain, but we both hated it either way. She said she didn't see any fluid and would rather hold off. So, we go back for a follow up in a few weeks and we'll decide soon if tubes are needed.

Everett is sleeping better, typical. He'll be up a time or two. Usually 10, 1:30, 5...roughly. Sometimes he'll sleep through the night, maybe once a week. Other nights he'll be up twice. Needless to say, it's now bearable! He's gaining weight and thankfully eating isn't an issue. (Until he got RSV) We're working on solids. He pretty much rasberries all the food out. We went to speech and got some tips, hopefully we'll pick up the pace with that soon. It's hard to find time after work as it is! I'll start worrying about that soon, not yet.

Everett is in a size 3 diaper, fitting better in his 9 month clothes than 6 month. He sometimes even wears some 12 month pj's and cozy outfits.

Everett is doing lots these days. He is a noisy little being. He loves being tickled and giggles up a storm. His arms are always going and he's grabbing at everything. He flaps his arms fast and hard as if he's going to take off flying. Anything he gets his hands on goes straight to his mouth. He sits up all on his own and has been since 6.5 months. He only tips over every great once in a while, usually when reaching for a toy. I'm sticking close right now to try and teach him how to catch himself and walk his arms out to his belly. His favorites toys are a blue octopus that plays songs and tells colors, a kitty cat that makes noise and crawls to encourage movement, the motzart song toy, his green ball that has beads, the wooden/string toy Aunt Branny sent, there are more but those are some of his favs. He likes to play on his belly even though he is in a superman mode and doesn't put his hands down.

Clara Beara -

Oh gosh, where to begin. You're 2 going on 20. You want to be in control, of everything. You have no problem speaking your mind and never have. You love emotion, you're fairly dramatic. You're sweet and loving but at the same time downright stubborn. You understand consequences but push limits so Dada and I need to stay firm with you, and we do, even when it breaks our hearts. You're a master manipulator and are really good at getting what you want, especially from Dada. ;) You're so smart, you surprise me with what you know all the time. Some things I teach you and other things you get from your TV shows or connections you make on your own. You love your brother, so much, it makes my heart so happy.

You can sing your ABC's by yourself. You love the happy birthday song best still. You know many songs and sing them all the time. Some of your favorites are: itsy bitsy spider, twinkle twinkle little star, mr. golden sun, jingle bells, rudolf the red nose reindeer, no more monkeys jumping on the bed, the list goes on. You loved Christmas carols this year and asked us to sing them to you all the time. You can spell your name and count objects correctly up until 13, I've heard. You can count higher but for some reason stop when you're actually counting objects at 13. You know all your shapes including hexagon, octagon, and even many 3d shapes like a cube, rectangular prism, semi-circle, sphere, and cylinder. You love to build, color, paint but you like it best when someone else is doing it with you and you basically watch. You like to observe if you can get someone else to do something for you, you will. In my opinion, you like the outcome better. I can see you get annoyed when I color and you think it looks "better" and you don't like what yours looks like. I started coloring sloppy to help encourage you to try more yourself. You have three "best friends" Nunu as always, who just got a girlfriend, Lulu who is another pink bunny we didn't need but knew you would be obsessed with so we caved. You also have kitty, a little cat I had that used to have a Santa hat on it that I kept for whatever reason that you love. We call Nunu a boy and a girl at times, s/he's transgender apparently. You love Nunu best and s/he has to do everything with you. If I used my brain I would have gotten you outfits for Nunu for Christmas. I thought of it after. You always want him to be wrapped up in a towel, wear a diaper, jacket, you name it...if you do it, Nunu does too. Nunu even has to get check-ups at the doctor, thankfully our doctors play along. Nunu has many nicknames: Noons, Noons-a-doons which is your favorite. You love being read to and reading on your own, after reading a book to you a few times you have all of the words memorized and I can leave words out and you'll fill them in. I'll ask you to read them to me and you can look at the pages and tell me what the words say. You are very into dancing and like to turn on your music and dance, everyone around has to dance too. You've been doing puzzles a lot lately, you're doing some challenging ones lately and after we do them a handful of times together, you'll do them on your own. You get frustrated sometimes but you stick with it and figure it out. Dada is teaching you your colors in Spanish. You don't know much Spanish at all yet. I'm starting to sign to Bubba and you're remembering your signs, you used to use them all the time before you could talk. You're more adventurous. You jump off the couch and climb on and off the bed with ease, I like that you took your time with this, you're typically a cautious girl since you don't like getting hurt. You're not a brute. At all. You don't like boo-boos and we kiss them lots. You share well, for the most part. You're good at taking care of your brother. When you want something he has, you'll get him other toys to trade. You even take him his toys just to be nice all the time. If he is sad, which is rare, you'll do whatever you can to make him happy. You're not one to give affection to others, you'll blow kisses but for hugs you kind of lean in quite apprehensive. You'll give real hugs to mama, dada, and brother and real kisses when we beg. This is odd to me since both your dada and I are very affectionate with you. Sometimes out of nowhere you'll give big hugs and kisses and tell us you love us and you miss us. I guess it just makes those moments extra special. When you wake up in the morning or after a nap you're always ready to "Play!" When we ask with what you usually say your dollhouse or farm, even if it's not what you want to do, it's just habit. You love dressing up. Your favorites are kitty cat from your Halloween  costume, tutu, and a cowgirl since you like to "ride and rope" and yes, you have a lasso dada got you and you know how to use it. You love to be outside, anywhere, walking, wagon, and the park is your favorite. You're very independent at the park now, wanting to do everything on your own. Especially if AJae is there, you two run and play and it's so fun to watch. Your bike is too big for you. Lame Christmas gift since you still can't ride it.

Things you don't like:
You still hate having your teeth brushed. We go through phases when it's "easy" and hard. You've been losing privileges at night like watching a video and reading extra books because you give us a hard time. You don't like having your diaper changed, getting your hair combed, or any general maintenance. You don't like baths anymore because your hair is so long it's a pain to wash. You don't bathe often. :/ You don't like when we go to work but you're good about not crying, usually. You really haven't attached to any of your babysitters since Doe. No one is as good as Doe and Michael, we really miss them. It makes mommy really sad to leave  you when you're not excited to be with your sitter. Sometimes you'll use the potty but lately not much. You'll go in the morning usually which is good because you'll poo which is nice not to have to clean a messy diaper. You avoid it the rest of the day. I can usually get you on it once later in the day after I get home. We haven't really pushed the matter. Sometimes you don't want to nap and you definitely don't want to go to bed but we have a routine that gets you there.