Just days ago, we were enjoying pleasant weather, attending lots of 5 year old birthday parties (like 6 in 10 days), looking forward to the start of summer, and hoping John would catch up with his expressive language. Here's a little glimpse of what's going on now!
John - I contacted
Early Intervention about his delayed speech development, and we've had a few meetings, evaluations, etc. to get things set up. He'll be meeting with a speech therapist on his upcoming 2nd birthday for an evaluation. He has 10-15 words he uses or will repeat, but he's getting frustrated that he's not able to express himself. He understands everything we tell him, and he'll even follow directions better than his siblings! His ears are clear as of the ENT visit 10 days ago, and his hearing is fine. We're hoping he stays fluid and infection-free for the rest of the summer. We're also hoping he'll qualify for some speech therapy as this agency sends therapists to the child's home when they are under 3 years old. Oh, he's still doing the reflux and asthma meds, but he's seems to be doing fine with them.
Thomas - He's as happy as can be. Still enjoying friends, dressing up as a prince, a firefighter, Buzz, or his most recent costume - a snorkeler. He loves the "swimming" room at Marbles, and he kept asking for flip-floppers with a snorkel. I finally checked on them at a local sports shop and found a discounted high-quality set that I happen to have a coupon for. Now he and Amelia love wearing their flip-floppers up and down our hallway. We'll have to try them out at the beach soon! (Our extended family beach week is coming up later this month!) Oh, and Thomas was blamed for chewing up the seatbelt in the van. More on that later...
Amelia - Days after celebrating her 5th birthday and finishing listening to mom and dad read Ramona the Pest to her, she found a surprise...a LOOSE TOOTH! We happen to be keeping our dentist's little girl for a few days while they find a new nanny, so she got her tooth looked at right away. She graduated from preschool, and is itching to get her pencils sharpened so she can start Kindergarten on Aug. 25th. Both Amelia and Thomas signed up for the summer reading program at the library today, so she's been in her room reading to herself and wants to read some of the BOB books to me right now.
The squirrel - Since we have a carport next to our tree-filled yard, sliding van doors, crumbs in carseats and a bunch of people who are slow to load/unload, I had a huge surprise lately. Last Wednesday morning, I took all 4 kids (ours plus our friend Charlotte) to preschool dropoff before heading to Marbles in Raleigh. When I yanked the big double stroller out of the trunk, a squirrel popped out of the stroller and scampered away! He must have ridden all the way from home (30 or so minutes) in the back. Thankfully, we never heard or saw a peep from him. After returning home, I asked Thomas what he did to fray, tatter, and destroy the seatbelt holding his carseat in, and he claimed he did nothing. As I looked closer, I realized that the squirrel chewed up the seatbelt and dug at some of the plastic surrounding it. Just in case this happens to your car, have your $390 ready for the repair. Luckily, our dealership sent a driver home with me and took the van back to the shop so I didn't have to even deal with trying to move 4 carseats around or deal with entertaining 4 kids while it was repaired. (The whole story is horrible, right?)
And in other news, it's like 97 degrees here, some 12 degrees higher than the average for this time of year. No playing outside this afternoon, for sure! We need to join our neighborhood pool and get ourselves in that water soon.
She's been asking me to let everyone know it happened in case they don't recognize her anymore! We didn't have a tooth pillow ready, so we used the sweet little pillow cousin Allison made for her at Christmas one year. I stitched a little pocket on the front while she tapped her toes waiting. When Michael went in to exchange the tooth for a note and the cash, he found her clutching it tightly. He was able to get it though. She recently heard about Ramona losing a tooth, and she told me she was hoping for a diamond like Ramona got. We came to the conclusion it was more likely a DIME instead. 
