Friday, February 29, 2008

Updates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwlK3GC3lXs
Ken's video of our kitchen remodel to this point


2/21/08

I swear I think Quin has a crush on Dora. As soon as she appears on the screen he gets this huge smile on his face and stops what he's doing to go up to the TV. His ears have cleared up there is still a little fluid but our ped. feels the tiny bit remaining shouldn't interfere with hearing. He recommended that if Quin isn't saying a couple more words (in addition to the two he has) in the next couple weeks, we should set up an appointment with an audiologist and rule out a hearing problem. He does hear things but I notice they tend to be on the higher end of the scale, so it's possible he's missing sound on the lower end. Ken thinks it's just because he's pretty easy going and what makes him happy is pretty basic. Since we're meeting those needs without much effort from him, he doesn't feel the need to talk. 5-10 words at 18 months is considered normal so I'll give it a bit longer. It's so hard not to compare but I know Alex was unusual, he was babbling at 7 months and by a year speaking sort sentences. He talks a mile a minute now and his vocabulary amazes even me. I wonder where he gets some of the words he knows. Quin tends to be a much more physical child anyway and there are things he does better than Alex like catching and throwing a ball. (Alex still has trouble with that) I still can't help but worry a bit.

I hate cold bathrooms, so winter is the worst cold porcelin in the middle of the night is no fun. It finally dawned on me why my bathroom is so cold. It has an outside wall. I was gathering up clothes to put in a basket to take down to the basement and the ones closest to the wall were ice cold. Duh, I've been in this house three years and I just figured that out.

2/29/08

WooHOOO!!! We have a date for the granite to be installed. Next Wednesday, Ken has lined up the gas hook up to the stove top and the plumber for the sink. By the weekend we should have a working kitchen once more. That gives us three months to get things finished up, like the tile blacksplash and the cabinet trim. Just in time for our joint birthday party. That'll probably be the first time more of our family will see the new kitchen.

Ken almost gave me a heart attack today about the party. We we'r discussing what we need to bring to VA for his father's 80th birthday party tomorrow. Then he confirmed our party was over Memorial Day weekend. I said yes on Sunday. "I better check and make sure I didn't book that day. Oh wait all my spring weddings are Saturdays" I swear I would have smacked him if we had booked it. We picked the date before Christmas so we could get the word out to family, that way they'd be prepared for the invite. (My family mostly, I know my immediate family will come but some fo the extended family says they'll come then they back out whenever I try and host something. If they're gonna back out I want to know early on.)

I was talking with Alex's teacher Monday. She told me I could probably start working on simple addition and subtraction with Alex at home. His number recognition is the best in the class. He's also one of the youngest, I think there is only one kid younger than him, and a couple others that are a week or two older. She said none of the other kids are even close to ready. And the only time she can work with him is right after lunch when he waits for me to pick him up, and the other kids are settling down for naps. That's not a lot of time. Yay!! the John family math gene has bred true in at least one of my kids.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Happy Chinese New Year

Gong He Fat Choi

Welcome to the year of the Rat, or mouse if you prefer, either way it’s a rodent.

The year of the rat is auspicious for all new beginnings. It’s a time to turn over a new leaf and take a fresh look at the world. Spirits rise in the Rat years and market economies begin to show and upward turn. Discoveries and inventions are especially prevalent and, for all, opportunities abound.

Leadership sits well on the shoulders of those born in the year of the rat. For, just as this is the first sign of the twelve, so Rats like to be head of the game, at the forefront of the action and where they can give orders. Restless and inquisitive, these are busy people whose minds are constantly on the go. Above all they are clever and instinctively shrewd. As the Chinese say even in times of scarcity, Rats somehow always know where sacks of grain can be found. No wonder, then, that these remarkably resourceful creatures are the supreme opportunists and arch survivors of the Animal signs.



From east west astrology by Lori Reid




Not much going on, on the kitchen front, just minor things this past week. Ken set up the wiring for the oven and a couple extra outlets. They came and measured for the granite. We should be getting the replacement trim today so they can finish up the cabinets this weekend. Ken being the engineer that he is, has been particularly anal. The cabinets on the return are slightly off square, each one is an 1/8 inch off so overall it is ¼ inch off. He’s been trying to figure out how to fix it without taking everything apart. Mostly because the facing has been glued into place on the backside and the cabinets are screwed together in such a way that it’s really hard to get to a couple of them.

Thursday was Quin’s well baby appointment. I made it so we went right after I dropped Alex at school. I mentioned to the doctor that I was starting to get worried about Quin’s lack of vocabulary. He has three words at this point Mama, Aweh (Alex), and Dada. He gave me some numbers for hearing testing because he’s not really making animal sounds or pointing to body parts and such when I say the names either. When he checked his ears there was a lot of fluid. I got a script for some antibiotics, I guess it looked like they’d been like that a while. His first ear infection and I didn’t notice. I guess I figured his discomfort when lying down was from all the teeth he was cutting. They’ve been coming through one after the other the last two months. He has almost all of them now. The Doctor did say that they may not test Quin until 18 months because it’s a bit early to worry too much. It may also be that he had the fluid in his ears so long he wasn’t hearing anything correctly.

I spent Thursday evening and Friday doing last minute stuff for the book fair. Ken got home around 4pm, very jet lagged. He wasn’t very functional but he needed to stay up until at least 9:30 or he’d never get back in the right time zone. I had to wake him the next morning at 9:00 so I could go over to the store and make sure everything was set up. Came back home fed the kids lunch put Quin down for a nap and took Alex back over to the store so he could help me with story time. We picked Bear Snores On and Snowmen at Night to read. Ken came by after Quin woke up and got Alex and I went to work. Lucky me I ended up in receiving, actually it’s not a bad thing. I had a migraine so dealing with people would have been a trial. I’d taken enough painkillers at that point it was just a dull throb. At around 8:00 I was freed to help clean up the store which looked like a bomb had gone off. It was in a good cause and with the sales the book fair brought in the Goddard PTO will take home almost $600, especially since it wasn’t a lot of work on their part.
Sunday I wasn’t supposed to wake Ken until I was ready to leave for work but he got a bug up his butt about the oven cabinet and figured out it was made in such a way that we were supposed to cut it to fit our specific oven. So he worked on that until I went to work. My job Sunday was to take down January displays and put up February ones in the kids department.

Monday was back to routine, almost. Ken was home to meet the guy doing the granite template. I took Alex to school, came back played with Quin a bit, fed him put him down for a nap went and got Alex. The teacher said he’s doing really good with his numbers and he’s one of the youngest in the class. Of course part of his motivation was this week’s subject is trains and the game they had on the computer was Thomas. It is pretty amazing watching him lately, he spells out all the words he sees. I see the understanding between letters and sounds and written words starting to click. I worked again Monday night and Tuesday was back and forth to the dentist day for cleanings. Silly me back in August, when Quin wasn’t really mobile, I figured I’d split up my cleaning from Alex’s. Take Quin with me in the morning have a friend watch him in the afternoon when I took Alex after school. That won’t happen again next cleanings are back to back. But my friend Jean was really great about watching Quin for both appointments. She said she’s just returning the favor of me taking her oldest to gymnastics class the last few weeks because she’s had to take the baby to weight checks at the doctor’s office. He wasn’t gaining enough weight and it was becoming a failure to thrive situation. He’s doing much better now on the right formula and gaining about a pound a week.

Yesterday was gymnastics class and playgroup lunch at Chuck E Cheese. I don’t mind these as much anymore most because my kids collapse in exhaustion when we get home at 1:30-2:00. Last night was the PTO meeting. My son isn’t even in elementary school and I’m going to PTO meetings, weird. Not sure how long this will last but I’m doing a self portrait a day challenge this month. I’ve kept up so far. I know I couldn’t do a whole year. I’ve been trying to do just a photo a day challenge for a year and a half now, and the days I miss add up to about a week a month. I’ll upload what I have so far and try and post them.