Since winter is coming on, we decided it was time that Ian move on from a twin mattress on the floor, where he’s been sleeping for 9 months or so, to a big boy bed.  So last weekend we went bed shopping.  We found a great deal on a little boy’s dream bed, and after some help from Shawna’s parents getting the box home, since it wouldn’t fit in the car, we got it home, and it’s been sitting in a box in the living room since Tuesday. Yesterday morning, we assembled it.

He managed to sleep in it last night without falling out (we did put a higher rail on the long side), and spent a fair chunk of yesterday putting his stuffed animals down the slide (along with other, noisier things) - I think it’s a winner.

We were using Pooh stickers to bribe Ian to pee in the potty (to poo, too, I guess). We ran out of Pooh stickers, which is fine, because Ian is pretty much potty trained. He just pee’d on Justin’s tomato plants, but other than his, uhm, love of nature, it’s all good.

So last night, Ian asked Justin for a sticker, so Justin gave him some address labels from the local animal shelter. (I gave them $35 three years ago, and they’ve been sending me address labels ever since, in the hopes of getting another $35, and they’ve probably spent my original $35 spamming me to get more money.) The labels have cats and dogs on them, so Ian was happy.

Today, I was trying to rock Leah to sleep, and Ian was once again bugging the everlivincrap out of me. I finally told him that if he didn’t calm down and let me get her to sleep, I’d put a gate up in the doorway and lock him out of her room. He finally disappeared, and was so quiet I knew he was doing something he shouldn’t be. I finally got Leah out, and went to find Ian… he’d climbed up and found more address labels. Of course, next to the labels, there were some very temping pretty stickers with berries on them, so Ian put several of those with some address labels on his shirt…

What’s the going rate for mailing 35 pound odd-shaped packages?

Since Ian had chronic ear infections, and wasn’t talking at one year, his doctor ordered tests — to have his ears checked by an ENT, and his hearing checked at the children’s hospital.  The ENT said Ian’s ears are fine, and he doesn’t need tubes (although he’s had at least 4 infections since that visit), and his hearing was excellent.  His comprehension was also excellent for his age.  I was happy with those results, and didn’t think Ian needed any more intervention, but the woman who runs the speech pathology department at Children’s Mercy insisted that Ian needed speech therapy, and his regular pediatrician was encouraging therapy, too.  But there was a wait list for ST, and our insurance didn’t cover it anyway, and I didn’t think he needed it, so I didn’t worry about it.  That was last November (yeah, his pediatrician wrote the referral for his hearing test last April, Children’s Mercy has a 6 month wait list).  In January, I got a call from the speech therapy coordinator, saying, “Hey we have 3 openings, this this and this time and day, pick one NOW or we put you back on the wait list.”  Wow, ok.  So I picked a day, because I didn’t want to lose the spot, but I knew we couldn’t pay without insurance.  The coordinator sent me paperwork for a grant, and we qualified before the first appointment, so it was all good.

Anyway, I took Ian to speech therapy, even though I didn’t think he needed it.  Ian and I spend so much time together that I always know what he wants, even if he can’t talk.  To me, that’s fine, because if I hold out for him to say a word, it leads to a tantrum, and I just really don’t want to deal with that.  The first thing the therapist did was show Ian really neat toys, and then force him to say a sound or use a sign to get the toy.  Leading to… tantrums.  Yeah.  Ian hated therapy.  I hated watching him go through it.  He wouldn’t cooperate, he’d grab for the toys, the therapist and I would tell him no, and it was just sad.  I didn’t care if he couldn’t talk, I knew he’d do it eventually if there was nothing physically or mentally wrong with him.  But then the therapist would ask what Ian calls me, and I’d have to admit that my toddler couldn’t say “mama,” and I’d get sad about that and consent to more therapy.

Ian didn’t make progress in therapy for the first few months.  He learned a few signs, mainly “want more” and “cookies,” (yeah, the SPEECH therapist started off by teaching him sign language), but Ian wouldn’t make sounds–except “kaboom.”    Of all the words he could have picked up in therapy, why kaboom?  I’ll never know.

Speaking of cookies… part of her process was to offer Ian either cookies or juice, and get him to say/sign for one or the other.  Ian always chose cookies, but then couldn’t talk while chewing.  Then he’d get thirsty, but couldn’t/wouldn’t ask for juice, and she wouldn’t just let him have it.  That drove me crazy, because I knew the poor kid really NEEDED a drink and couldn’t get one, and I was too uncomfortable to speak up for him.  I thought maybe it was just my reaction to therapy, but Justin and his mom both went to sessions and agreed that it wasn’t working for Ian.

By his second birthday, he knew maybe 5 signs and 5 words.  Then Leah was born, and I couldn’t give Ian my full attention, and I couldn’t follow him to see what he was pointing at.  Then Justin’s mom was here for a week, and she was very interested in Ian’s therapy.  She came with us to a session, and worked with him the rest of the week, trying to get sounds out of him.  The next two week’s after her visit, we didn’t have therapy.  Guess what?  Ian started talking.  Non-stop, like a parrot.  He’d repeat everything, and he started retaining sounds and words.  It was amazing. (more…)

I’ve apparently been reading In the Night Kitchen to Ian too much - I woke up Saturday morning seriously wanting some morning cake. Not feeling like going out to get doughnuts (and that not really being what I wanted anyway), I dug around in The Joy of Cooking and came up with this, based on a modification of a couple of recipes. As Ian would say: Yum!

Shawna’s grandmother (Ian and Leah’s great-grandmother), Norma Nave, passed away in her sleep last night at the age of 90. It was not unexpected, she had been in poor health for some time, but had remained remarkably feisty throughout her health problems. She will be greatly missed.

Edited to add: Obituary at  The Examiner

Wow. Time just keeps slipping right on by, and I just keep not posting anything here. *sighs* So here’s some things:

• Week before last, Ian and Leah’s Arizona Grandma (a.k.a. my mom) came to visit for a week. Ian greatly enjoyed having another Grandma around to run ragged, and Shawna got a bit of a break from having to deal with two little people on my first week back to work.
• Leah is growing well, having put on about 2 more pounds in the last couple of weeks. She hasn’t been officially measured since her 2-week doctor’s appointment, but we’re approximating with the bathroom scale. She’s definitely not malnourished.
• Her eyes have stayed blue, and in the sunlight, what little hair she has is almost red; definitely much more red than Ian’s was. She seems to possibly have an allergy to something in her environment, possibly one of Shawna’s bath products, as she’s been getting a rash on her face after being held. The pediatrician’s office wasn’t too worried about it, but we’ll check back with them at her 6 week appointment.
• Ian is definitely taking the idea being a 2-year-old to heart, including the “wanting to be independent and do things for himself but not being dexterous enough or physically able to do things”, the “random mood swings and tantrums for no particular reason”, and the “strong opinions about what type of diaper, what pajamas, or what shirt to wear today”. I’m sort of envisioning this as being what having a teenager is like, except a teenager you can’t necessarily pick up and carry into their bedroom with, “I’m sorry, but you are going to bed now, and you’re not wearing your galoshes to bed.” We’re all learning the art of picking our battles, though.
• On the other hand, Ian is also becoming much more interested in creative play, crayons and Play-doh, building towers, squirt bottles, and other such. He also likes to “help” with many of the everyday things around the house - some of which (taking out the trash, doing the laundry, scooping the litterboxes) he is actually helpful with, and others of which (loading the dishwasher, vacuuming, doing dishes, putting ice in the glasses for dinner) he is questionably helpful with, but is quite offended if he is not allowed to help.
• We’ve determined that going out to eat (formerly one of our favorite pastimes) is probably something which is best limited to special occasions when trying to do so with two little people. In general, though, this will probably be a good thing for our wallets and our waistlines.
• Other random milestones: Ian and Leah attended their first They Might Be Giants concert at the KC Jiggle Jam; Justin (and Ian and Grandma Sue) participated in the Urban Photo Safari; Leah turned one month old; Shawna had her first night out without the kids tonight, and everyone is still in one piece.

That will be all. I’ll try to get more pictures posted soon.

The problem with things going well is that it doesn’t provide much fodder for interesting things to share with the rest of the world. (And in some cases, you’re afraid to brag to the world about how well things are going, lest you tempt fate and things stop going so well.) All that said, things have been going very well. Leah has been eating well, growing well, sleeping relatively well, and in general being a good baby. Her weight check last Tuesday showed that she was already back above her birth weight by 3 ounces, which is excellent - the usual rule of thumb is that babies should be back to within one ounce of their birth weight by 2 weeks of age.

Ian has been doing well, he seems to be adjusting well to his little sister - I think having me home to provide him extra attention has probably helped to balance out the attention being lost to little sister. I started working half-days from home last Wednesday, and went back into the office for the first time today (still just half-days this week, though). Ian seems to finally be getting past his “going-to-sleep” issues, or at least doing a lot better job of doing so, and it seems Shawna actually had a good first afternoon with the two of them at home by herself today.

We had a very mellow weekend - went to a picnic in the park on Saturday sponsored by our financial advisors. Aside from being a bit windy and brisk it was a nice outing - Ian got to spend some quality time in the bouncy castle, and we got some free barbecue and out of the house for a bit. Otherwise, the weekend was just spent keeping the house in order, doing a bit of shopping, and lazing around the house. I can’t say that I’m exactly ready to go back to work full time; working from home, now that I have a reasonably private space to do it in, was kind of a nice thing - I think I’m going to start trying to do it on a slightly regular basis, assuming it doesn’t get too many people at work upset.

I also finally got my new camera, which I am thus far enjoying - I will leave you with a few photos to enjoy.

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We’ve been home from the hospital for 48+ hours now, and so far everything is going as well as can be expected - truth be told, better than I expected. Leah thus far is a much more laid-back baby than Ian was, pretty content with sleeping a lot, eating a lot, and occasionally waking up long enough to look at the world around her for an hour or two, and then drift off back to sleep. I’m sure this will change, but for the moment, it’s pretty pleasant.

The hospital gave us the go-ahead to go home about 2pm on Wednesday, after both of the doctors had checked out mom and baby, and with some help from Shawna’s parents, we hauled out all of the stuff, and drove on home. It was a warm and pleasant spring afternoon, so after getting home, we hung out in the back yard for a while, enjoying the sunlight and first few blooming things of springtime. (Which, unfortunately, seem to be dandelions and violets in the back yard.) Ian played on his slide and showered his new sister with kisses, and Leah lounged on Mama and Dad’s lap, content to soak up the sun. However, being springtime in Missouri and all that, after an hour or so, it clouded up as thunderstorms rolled in, so we headed inside to introduce Leah to her new world. (Unfortunately, this also coincided with me discovering that my almost-2-year-old digital camera had given up the ghost, so I missed out on some good photo opportunities, until I went and got Shawna’s camera instead.)

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Leah (and Mom) are doing well; Leah has spent much of the past 24 hours sleeping, but did wake up long enough to eat her first good meal around 11:30 this morning, and has eaten well a couple of times since, when we could wake her up enough to consider eating. Mom has been trying to spend much of the past 24 hours sleeping, but it seems that about the time she starts to drift off, someone comes in to poke, prod, or measure her, or visitors arrive, so sleep has not happened as much as she would have liked.

Grandma and Grandpa brought big brother Ian to visit yesterday afternoon, but Ian was very suspicious of the little thing in Mama’s arms. During today’s visit, Ian was more curious and less suspicious, however, and at least leaned over to examine her a couple of times while Grandma was holding her. Great-grandma Nave, Shawna’s cousin Cassie, and Shawna’s aunt Vicki also came to visit today; Leah slept through most of the visit, but Great-Grandma was happy to hold her while she slept. Otherwise, it’s been a very quiet day, I think we’re all looking forward to going home to sleep in our own beds tomorrow night. (At least at home there aren’t people jostling up and down the halls all night and calling the nurse to the next room every 20 minutes.)

Leah looks a lot like Ian did at 1 day old, but honestly, most babies do. Shawna’s and her mom claim that they’ve seen a dimple - I haven’t caught her smiling enough to tell yet. She has the same long, delicate fingers and toes as Ian, and her legs are long and skinny too, if she’ll actually stretch them out. She likes to stay bunched up in a little ball - I guess if you’ve been that way for 9 months, it just kind of becomes habit. I’ve taken many more pictures, which I’ll post once I get home and have a better network connection. For now, I’m going to try to get some sleep, though.

Please welcome to the world Miss Leah Claire Ferguson.

Born: April 21, 2008 at 12:22pm at North Kansas City Hospital
Weight: 7 lbs 8.8 oz
Height: 21 1/4 inches

Mama and baby are both resting happily after a speedy delivery.