Speech

Jacob has been in speech therapy for a month now and he is doing fantastic, he is speaking sentences and loves his speech therapist.  He lights up whenever he sees her. 

I love that I get to take a few hours out each week to have some middle of the day one on one time with him.  He always begs me to stay home with him so this week I took the day off (we have his Bright Horizons visit too).  So much fun spending time with this guy!

Lots of Catching Up to Do

I seriously don't know where the time goes but it's flying by.  I can't believe Friday is August 1 and what is even crazier is that I just went school supply shopping for Riley!  Craziness!  So, July was a busy month, the weekend after July 4th my parents came for a visit and the Marc's cousin and his wife came the following weekend.  So here are some pictures of July since it's all a distant memory now!

We write a note for Riley every day for school.  The teachers read it at circle time, Jacob wanted to write a note for her too!  He loves his sister so much, this morning when she left for school he said "Wait! Wiwey hug!"  So sweet!

Marc had to go to the city two days in a row for a conference which meant super early mornings for me and long afternoons, he brought me a box of chocolate as a thank you!

This girl is officially 5 1/2!

He loves lemonade!

Little man gets cuddly when he's tired!

This made kindergarten official!  Final registration and teacher assignment on August 19th!

Pedi's by Nana!

With Nana and Poppy!

Making cookies for Riley's half birthday

Jacob wearing his thinking cap!

Decorating cookies

I didn't realize Riley had picked out blue frosting when I agreed. Mommy fail!

Yeah, these were internal cookies only

They sure were yummy though!

Blue mouth!

Jacob's first trip to the dentist, this was as far as we got!

Summer = s'mores!

Deliciousness

Tie dye twins

We busted out the Wii...

Getting a little help from daddy

Ri was pretty good

Ri was in the pool and came out and left two perfectly shaped footprints

Jacob also went to his first movie - Planes 2!

I was overly optimistic, we went potty 3 times in an hour and 45 minutes!

In Other News

Things have been sort of crazy for Jacob, poor little man is so sensitive and his whole world is a little chaotic right now.  His seperation anxiety is at a all time high right now and drop-offs take a good 20 minutes for me.  We started him in speech therapy about three weeks ago and he's doing fantastic, after three weeks he is now beginning to speak in sentences, it's amazing.  His speech therapist is AMAZING and she is super pleased with his progress.  I still see him struggle to find words but he is making huge strides.  He's also being evaluated for Sensory Processing issues which may be a cause for his history of biting (knock on wood, we seem to be behind that) but he's now become the biten and got bit 6 times last week, all by the same kid (it's seems I'm not the only crappy mom in the school). 

The bigger news, we have decided to move him from KinderCare to Bright Horizons.  I've been unhappy recently with how he's progressing, he's arguable regressing, one of his teachers would yell at him when he had a potty training accident which has led to regressions so Marc and I toured Bright Horizons two weeks ago and were in LOVE!  Our friends Jenny and Josh sent their Jake to other locations and had great things to say about it and we were just so impressed with the facility, program and the teachers in the Early Pre-School room seem a perfect fit for Jacob's personality.  It's also a 7:1 student/teacher ratio until he's 3 1/2 versus the 12:1 that he's in now.  KinderCare has been fabulous for us for the past 5 years and Riley thrived beyond our expectations there but Jacob is a different kid with a different personality and we were trying to make him fit into Riley's mold and that just doesn't work for him.   It will be sad to leave KinderCare, we've been there since Riley was 4 1/2 months old but I really think Jacob needs a smaller environment with more personal focus to thrive.

I'm very optimistic that between the Speech Therapy, possible Sensory Processing diagnosis and a fresh start at a new school, Jacob will be a much happier camper.  Only downside for me, I now have to make Jacob lunches!  I've been spoiled having breakfast, lunch and two snacks served at KinderCare!

Give Them Wings and They Will Fly

I've been quite the negligent blogger these days, updates with photos are coming soon.  It's been a busy summer, I can't believe next week is August!  Lots of fun is going on out here with lots of visitors in July.  So those updates are coming soon!

Riley continues to have a blast at her camp program at the elementary school.  This past week they took a field trip to a bouncy house place.  I've been dreading this field trip since I got the schedule of events in May.  We've had to hold her back from so many birthday parties because she hasn't been able to go in bouncy houses really since January when she began casting and we were pretty cautious prior to that since her muscles have been weakened by all of the castings.  I just hate taking her childhood away from her, she's had to be so "adult" about so much since her regression and her surgery and the last thing I want is to alienate her from her classmates so I made the decision to give her the decision and to trust her.  Kind of scary putting that responsibility into a 5 1/2 year old but I have to give her wings eventually and I personally believe it's important for her to learn the limitations of her feet and overall body health.   Dr H does not encourage trampolines or bouncy houses in general due to injuries he sees but he never told us no.  She has been released to all activities, if it's extra rigorous he recommended she wear her AFO (which she still wears most days - you should see the funky tan line she has on that leg!) but she can't wear the AFO on the bouncy house which made me EXTRA nervous.  Either way, I would have blamed myself if something happened so I figured I'd empower her in the process.

So when she asked me the day before her field trip if she could bounce, I told her "Riley, I'm going to trust you.  Just know that if you overdo it and hurt your foot, it could mean another surgery or the rest of the summer in a cast.  But I trust you to know your foot so I'm going to leave it up to you."  Scary stuff!

All day I waited for a phone call that she popped a tendon or twister her ankle.  I never got a call.  Fortunately, I had a meeting near home from 3-4 so I got to get her early.  She didn't mention a thing to me so I finally asked, "How was the field trip?"  She responded "Good, my foot feels good, I didn't go crazy and I took lots of breaks.  My foot feels good!" 

Phew!  I'm really glad I left the decision up to her, I think knowing she had that power led her to make the right decisions for her foot but also allowed her to be a regular Kindergartener. 

Cheers to growing up, maturity, and making responsible decisions!

Family Fun Weekend

Wow, what a fun weekend.  Monday came out of nowhere and I was dragging big time at work!  Marc and I had a nice 4 day weekend, we got free tickets at the game the weekend prior to Thursday's Giants game so we both took the day off and headed to the Giants game...without the kids!  It was a fun time and a beautiful day in the city!  It's so much easier to navigate without a 5 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old in tow.  The Giants lost but we got to check out the whole park, including the new garden which is pretty cool and so San Francisco.

Friday we had Riley's friend Bella and her parents and brother over to BBQ.  Riley and Bella are now at different schools so they miss each other a ton.  (On a side note, the other day we were driving and Riley says: "My friends from my old school, we're all separate now, but we're still friends. . We'll be friends forever."  It was just about the sweetest thing ever!  We really did get lucky with a great group of friends her year, we don't have the same experience with Jacob and his classmates.)  We broke our drought rules and filled up the kiddie pool and water table and let the kids splash around.  I felt a little guilty but there are literally no water activities anywhere in the area and kids still have to have fun!  We did fill the small one and not as much as normal so we were conservative.  After we BBQ we walked down to the park because its a designated "Safe and Sane Fireworks" ignition spot so we watched all of the crazies light off their own fireworks.  Some people were hardcore.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed it!

Jacob loves helping me bake...

I think he uses me to lick the spoon!

Little Dude loves Water Play!

They look so ridiculous in this tiny pool but we're in a major drought, so beggars can't be chooser!

We stepped Family Fun Day up a notch, our version of a water slide

Jacob had to get in on the action

Poor Jacob, always trying to keep up with Riley and her friends!

Besties!

4th of July Cuties!

Dublin's version of fireworks, notice the cloud of smoke!

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Saturday  we had my friend Aimee's little guys 1st birthday.  She's my friend whose husband passed right after Riley's surgery so her little guy's 1st birthday was a big deal.  All of his friends and their families came, there must have been close to 60 people there, she has a pool so we all went swimming and it was lots of fun!  Riley adores her daughter Reese, so they ran off and we barely saw her the whole party.  Both kids took like 3 hour naps so if that's a measure of fun, it was a good one!

Only picture I got at little Calvin's birthday party

Sunday we had another birthday party! This time it was our neighbor Kai's birthday.  The cul-de-sac down has a nice group of kids with siblings both Riley and Jacob's age so we spend a lot of time down there.  Kai just turned 3 and they had a water gun birthday party at their place so we all hung out, got squirted (shhh, more drought breaking) and then had pizza and cupcakes!  Then it was naps before heading up to our friend Elisabeth and Ian's neighborhood pool for more swimming with their oldest Owen and to meet their newest, Henry.  The guys had pool duty while us ladies (and Henry) sat in the shade and drank margaritas (Henry did not have margaritas for the record).  Jacob is looking out for my hydration because he came out of the pool and said "Momma, no drink wine, drink water."  Little guy is always looking out for me!

Cupcakes with the birthday boy and neighbor friends

Jacob takes his food seriously

Show me you muscles big boy!

Every day we leave a note in the mailbox at school for Riley, Jacob wanted to write Riley a note Sunday night.

We've started giving Jacob chores (vacuuming is a favorite) and in return he gets "money!" so Sunday Marc asked him to de-stem our grapes for the week.  His attention to detail was amazing and he was cracking me up.  Riley was upstairs doing her chores for her $1 so Jacob was with just Marc and myself and he was such a little ham.

And just like that, it was Monday.   What a fun weekend!

Sunday Funday

Sunday we took he whole family to the Giants game.  I've been with Marc, Riley's been with Marc but Jacob hadn't been and we hadn't been as a family so when our Sunday plans fell through, Marc was able to secure 4 tickets for us to go Sunday.  We had a great time, we went to the Public House for lunch and then headed up to our seats after a round of batting practice at the kiddie field.  Jacob of course ate his way through the baseball game, popcorn, pretzel, ice cream.  The boy loves the junk food!