Running

Spencer likes to run! I had no idea. Like not just around the house, but for a pretty decent distance. We went out exploring this weekend to a place our friend told us about and started walking down a road to see what we could find. We didn't find much, but we ran the whole way because Spence started it and we had an awesome time! I love that little guy. It was so fun.

Halloween

I've always liked the concept of Halloween and the thought of dressing up in an awesome costume, but I can't say that I've had a lot of success over the years with stellar costumes. I've rarely managed the type of costume where everyone knows what I am and are sufficiently amused/impressed so it feels like I've been successful in whatever it means to be successful at Halloween. However, now that we have a couple of kids, this is the second year running where our costumes have been awesome. Well, the kids at least. This year they stole the show and Bill and I just rode their coat flaps of awesomeness in our no costume laziness, but their costumes were fantastic.

Both kids absolutely adore the movie The Lorax. I know, it has a totally in your face message to share about conservation that you may or may not like, but the dialog is fun, it's got depth, the music is fantastic, and Bill and I still get a kick out of it even after Spencer watched it every day for a good chunk of this last year. I can't say that about many movies. It was a no-brainer a few months back when we decided to dress Spencer as the Lorax for Halloween. Genevieve was a tad trickier to think what to do on that theme, but we decided to dress her as a truffula tree and oh it worked out so well. I'm so proud of these costumes because I made them and the kids rocked them. They both absolutely adore the hats, and cried whenever I tried to take them off. That's my kind of positive response from a kid. :) You can't ask for much more than having them be bothered when you try to take away what you gave them. Lol!

So behold, the Lorax and his truffula tree:

Parenthood is such a roller coaster

I've been thinking a lot lately about how there are some really rough patches in parenting. I'm in a huge one right now. Spencer is stretching my abilities to the limit right now with his needs. I sincerely hope that my abilities are expanding with all of it, but since I'm not finding a lot of solutions for how to help the poor kid out, that is up for debate. We've been going through quite the rough patch, with what feels like the same old problems with eating and his ability to try new things and deal with change.

Ever since July when our pediatrician identified that he was indeed having beyond normal struggles with some of the details of living, we've been on a journey to try to help him develop better. We've been doing speech therapy to help with his problematic eating for several months now. It seemed like we were really making progress, but in the last couple weeks he's totally regressed and I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall at every single meal trying to help him eat healthy and happy, or just even eat at all. It's exhausting. We're back to a very limited selection of foods he'll eat and everything feels like a huge power struggle. I would rather not have it be that way, so I'm constantly trying to find new ways to interact with him so we can work together rather than at odds. But every time I reach out looking for solutions, the information I find is just depressing because it doesn't seem to apply to our particular situation and nothing I try really seems to bring improvement. I have no idea what will help him out to get through this struggle and it consumes my thoughts and time far more than I would like. The worst part is I see no end in sight and it's just rough. This is the biggest parenting hurdle I've experienced yet and it's a doozy.

This week he was screened for a 3K program, basically an early preschool program through the school that is particularly for kids with speech or occupational therapy needs. He pretty much knocked it out of the park. He was so far advanced on everything they screened him on that they were falling over themselves to compliment his abilities. They had such good things to say about how he did things the very most advanced way he could for their tests and that he was so impressive. That was pretty awesome, especially since it's so easy to look at the couple areas he really struggles and forget that he's an incredibly smart little boy who is far advanced in so many other areas. He definitely didn't qualify for the program, which is fine. It's nice to know that he doesn't even register on their charts for having any problems. But it also means that I don't have a ready made program to put him in that is free and will help him out. That would definitely have been the easy route, though I'm relieved that it's not necessary. Now it's back to the drawing board to probably find a preschool or Moms Day Out kind of program that will get him in a more structured environment where hopefully being around other kids more will help with the couple areas that really are hard for him.

It's hard to keep my head above the water right now. I love my little guy to pieces. He is so fun, creative, inquisitive, and loving. He learns things so fast. For heaven's sake, he's not quite three and he can count essentially as high as he wants to. He regularly barters for everything he wants. He started doing that on his own. He knows the entire alphabet and is learning the lowercase letters too, since most kid ABC stuff is in uppercase. He knows all the shapes and has a huge vocabulary and a pretty decent attention span and is just fantastic in so many ways. Probably because of all this, it's really hard to understand why he has such a mental block on eating. When he's cranky beyond cranky because he hasn't eaten anything of substance for hours, but refuses everything offered, I just wish we could explain it to him and have it actually register. Believe me, I've tried and I keep trying, but it just hasn't clicked yet.

One of these days he and I will figure out how to work together on this. I really hope that the time comes sooner than later when this issue will be a thing of memory only. Just like sleep seems like such an obvious skill but babies have to be taught how to do it successfully, apparently eating is much the same. My little boy just seems to be a little more resistant to learning than some others. Heck, maybe my expectations are out of proportion. That's another thing that is hard to know since he's my first child. Maybe it's okay to eat graham crackers and toast and pancakes all day every day and he'll just figure it out on his own. I'd like to think that's the case, but I'm afraid it's not. But who knows? In two years maybe I'll look back and wonder why I freaked out so much about it. But for now the next meal is such a hurdle that I can't even imagine getting to that point.

So anyway, like I said, this has been a rough patch. I hope we get through it soon and we're all still in one piece. We started potty training at the beginning of the month and it seemed like an all encompassing issue that took all my thought. Now, three weeks later, it's a minor detail in the daily schedule. Some things still need to develop there still, but it's not top of mind. I just keep praying that somehow eating will turn out that way too sooner than later. I keep feeling like all the frustration he shows in other areas and the freakouts will calm down once he eats a reasonably healthy diet. Only time will tell. Whoever is reading this, just keep rooting for us. We could use it.                                        

Nothing special, but good times

I don't have a single picture from this week. We went apple picking. We watched some great football. We went to parks. Spencer is potty trained for the most part. I built a second higher chair for Genevieve like one I did for Spencer already. It's been a good week. So good I apparently couldn't document it with pictures.

We did have something funny happen today. I wanted to go on a walk, so we brought the bike trailer in to setup so we could use it. As expected there were a bunch of bugs in it since it was on the porch. A few spiders, including some jumping ones, a cockroach, some Japanese beetles, and a cocoon greeted us. That was plenty exciting, but as we were taking care of those Bill saw something scurry across a book on the floor and turned to find a lizard had been on it too and now decided to run behind our bookcase!  Dang! Thankfully he was able to coax the thing out and transfer it back out to its natural environment. Needless to say I found some room in one of our closets to store the bike trailer from now on. I'd like to be able to use it without a bug infestation the next time I want to pull it out. Hello South Carolina and all your bugs!

Tomorrow and Tuesday are Fall Break for Bill. Hurray! Having never had one of those at BYU, it is delightful to be able to have him around for a few more hours. He's still got plenty to do, but I'll take what I can get!

Oh, and knock on wood, I think we have had our last 80+ degree day for the year. I thought that was the case two weeks ago, so my fingers are crossed. That's right, it's snowing out west in a bunch of places, but we still have swimming weather. Good times! I find I'm missing the cold fall weather like crazy, but a temperate winter is nothing to sneeze at, so I'm trying to be patient. The weather here really is fantastic. It just goes to show it's hard to be content with what you've got even if it's fantastic.

It's been a big weekend

So many things have been crammed into the last few days. Not so much events, but just stuff happening that took my attention and wow, I am worn out, but generally happy about it all.

First, Genevieve has been teething lots, which brought on a cold, which she passed onto Spencer, which they must be passing back and forth to each other because their noses are both just pouring. Neither one seems to mind that much anymore, though the first day or two they were miserable. The cold is not so great, but having teeth is.

Second, the timing felt right, despite colds, so we started potty training Spencer again on Thursday. I somewhat changed methods Friday morning and we are on day two of that and seeing lots of success. Spencer is way more excited about it and apparently gummy bears and fruit snacks are potent motivations for him. It could be because he never gets to eat those things on normal days. :) He only had one accident today after I don't even know how many yesterday. He climbs like a monkey onto the toilet himself and is totally on top of the peeing part. Still working on number two and also going of his own accord, but I upped the reward from three gummy bears to a pack of fruit snacks for success and he seems pretty motivated. lol. I have high hopes that in a few days he'll be done and by the end of October he really will be.

Speaking of the end of October, since it's only the 5th and all, I'm really excited for it to come because I feel like in that many weeks several things that are causing me either stress or excitement will be resolved for good or bad, though I'm hoping good. We've had some crazy things happen with grad school funding as well as my job being slow. That's been stressful. We've had this potty training excitement/awfulness to experience. I feel like there are about eight other things, but maybe it is just that and they just loom in my mind, covering up everything else or just seeming really big. Oh, the end of October also means Halloween and I made the cutest dang costumes I've ever done for the kids and I can't wait for them to wear them. That's of utmost importance too. Hahaha!

For now though, the kids are cuter than ever, and so fun together. Genevieve doesn't seem like a baby at all anymore. She's into everything and nothing seems to be out of her reach. She thinks she can do anything Spencer can, and it's amazing how much she really can do. They are the best little buddies, even though sometimes they know just how to drive each other crazy. It really is such a fun time playing with them. And now for the picture explosion from this week, in no particular time order.

They were watching a movie together. Personal space is of no consequence. They love cuddling up.

This was my project this weekend to keep my sanity. I don't have any money at the moment for the big pieces of furniture I want to build, but Spencer could use a step stool at the toilet and I had the scraps. In between rushing to the bathroom all day the last two days I managed to throw this little thing together. The legs are totally skewampus because I used my jig saw so I didn't have to get the big saw out and I wasn't terribly accurate, but it's flat, it works and even looks decent, it saved my sanity on day one of potty training, it didn't cost me a penny!

There weren't any baby swings. She was totally okay with that.

Turns out she doesn't care which parent. Just keeping swinging guys!

She will bite anything that looks like food. I had to swipe the jalapenos from the garden before she got a hot surprise. The bell pepper didn't bother her at all. 

He doesn't just pound on the keys. He really tries to play. Now he likes having music up because that's how he sees me play. I'm so excited to put him in piano lessons in a few years. :)

She fell out of this chair onto her head literally three times but was so mad when I finally had enough and took it down. 

Bill scored these relics at the wind tunnel when they were cleaning it out and all four of us love them. So comfy. Newer chairs have no contest on these.

She climbs up on the little chair and just sits contentedly. It helps that she has a hard time getting down. Hahaha!