Starting to move

We're moving out in less than a month.

Crazy! John and Anna were both born during our time at this house. The yard has been changed a lot. We've had three sets of neighbors on one side, two below us, and one on the other side (but they've moved out and it has stood empty for a few months now, though they still mow the lawn). I've met other moms in the neighborhood but never really connected with anyone, sticking with the social group from the University instead. I do wave to a lot of people when I take walks, though.

We don't have a place to move to yet, so the movers will be moving our stuff into storage for about six weeks. I am really thankful Dan's post-doc comes with a moving allowance!!!

I'm nervous about the move. I don't want to be the only mom on the block surrounded by a bunch of college students but I don't want to live in the suburbs, either. We have driven so far to church for so long that we are tired of it! I want to live by church and within the church community and also have the church connected to Dan's work community!!! I'm scared that we'll go to a church close by just to find out that everyone commutes in and we're not in the community afterall.

I don't want to break the bank on living expenses.

Sigh. But I'm not really worried, not like I was when we didn't have an apartment before we got married. I love where we live now and I love our landlady. She'll be raising the rent by 40% when we move out. (We suggested it - that'll make it market rate!) I am thankful for God's provision here and am excited about how He'll provide for us in the fugure.

The Pen is mightier than the Huge Crayon

While on the topic of John's fine-motor skills, we would like to share with you some discoveries we made in John's artwork. This first piece shows that when given lined paper and a pen (not a bulky crayon), John writes characters on the lines!


This next piece shows that John is still a scribbler when it comes to buky crayons (the blue), but with the pen he tries to fill in the spaces and not cross the lines!


And finally, this shows that he loves curly-haired dogs (again, ignore the blue crayon).

I am so proud.
-Dan

Yes, they are different children

I have NEVER met someone with as high of a pain tolerance as John. If he falls and scrapes his knee so that it is bleeding, I might not find out until I notice the blood on his pant's knees. He can bite his lip open while falling and stop crying within twenty seconds, then point at the table edge he fell on as if to ask, "You think I look bad? You should see the table!" This has been an consistent pattern in his life and I just figured it was because of the laid back attitude Dan and I took in recognizing hurts.

Then God gave us Anna. We're the same parents (although we do point out if John has hurt her so that he'll be more careful) yet she has responded differently. She FEELS pain and TELLS you about it.

With John, I didn't know about teeth unless I saw a rash, after which I would search for a tooth and usually find a new one. With Anna, it is totally different. She has had a fever for the past few days. No redness in her throat, no enlarged lymph nodes, perfect ears, or so the doctor said this morning. If I put her down, she SCREAMS. I felt her gums and, yes, she's working on a tooth.

Her lower pain tolerance is evident in everything, although I don't know how much of it is due to earlier movement than John. At Anna's current age, John was usually just sitting up with a Boppy behind him. Anna, on the otherhand, can pull herself up to standing, fall down, and then scream about it. Some of it might be frustration and suprise, but some of it is hurt, as her poor little first tooth is showing!

Legos picture

The Lego barn, custom built for John's circus elephant.


Anna's mother's day card.

A cake per week...

Adds up to a lot of cakes!

My first try at fondant!

A mock wedding cake for when Beth and Scott visited. The layers are 8" banana cake with lemon buttercream/lemon curd filling, 10" carrot cake with cream cheese icing, and 12" vanilla/chocolate cake with buttercream and ganache filling. Most of the banana cake is in our freezer, the grad students ate the carrot cake, and we took the 12" cake to home groups - what wasn't eaten was left or tossed!
This cake was an adaptation of a Martha Stewart recipe. It was really good, except for a big HOLE in the middle! I'm still perfecting the recipe - it came out better the second time with only a 2" hole. I'm going to try adding more liquids next time.

Large and small motor skills

Anna is really advancing in the large motor skill world. She crawls everywhere so we've started closing the gate at the top of the stairs again. She can pull up to standing, so we lowered the crib mattress. She likes playing with John's toys, especially his pull-leash dogs, but John hasn't played with those in months so it usually doesn't seem to bother him. She likes exploring everything with her mouth (AAAH!) and loves it when John fawns all over her. She even likes it when John sits on her, within reason. She makes all sorts of noises with her lips and loves being held by everyone.

John, on the other hand, is doing great things with small motor skills. His speech therapist (ST) suggested we put away our "chunky" crayons because he has the small motor skills (and desire) to use small crayons. He loves "writing" with pen, and again the speech therapist was impressed and suggested we refer to what he does with a pen as writing and what he does with crayons as drawing. I now ask John whether he would like to draw or write and he usually chooses to write. John tries to hold the pen in the correct writing grip and gets frustrated with himself when he realizes he isn't holding it properly. John draws little dots and squiggles which really do look like little letters.

I took the first "John built this" picture a few weeks ago. While the ST was here, he built a "barn" for some animals with towers on top. I didn't think much of it - I knew that John had carefully placed each brick, but he always does that. The ST, on the other hand, kept telling me of reasons why it was so neat. I think the picture will be one in a long line!

The ST (I fell like I'm getting a child development class with her!) told me that John is at a point where color introduction would be good. No problem, I was ahead of the game.

Last week, when we went to Firestone to see if we really needed a new radiator, John and I played a game. The tiles are gray, with black, red, and blue scattered about randomly. I stood on a black tile and told John to find another that was black and stand on it. So there was no confusion, I moved to another black one and repeated the command. He then walked to a black one and looked at me. He continued to at least five other black tiles before getting to the end of the waiting room, stopping and looking at me while standing on each one. My mother watched.

John's speaking is increasing a lot. He really is beginning to communicate well, though he still doesn't say "mama" and only a few words would make any sense to someone else. He can say "No", "Dog", "Vroom", "Baaa" (bark), "Choo choo", "Dada", and a few other things very clearly. He is beginning to repeat consistently, as long as I use short sentences and short words. He might try to say "Cow" but will not do anything for a word like "Giraffe."

Treating torticollis - Effects on Mama

When the PT started treating John, she told me to carry him in my left arm so he would look forward to the left.

I'm pretty strong now, but my left bicep is significantly bigger than my right. Weird.

Signs you've been baking lots of cake...

You take the cake out to fill and frost and can't remember what type it is. Oh well, that's what vanilla filling is for, right?

I tried a new vanilla filling recipe and Dan loved it. I didn't taste it before filling the cake, so when Dan came home from work I gave him a spoonful to try. "Do you like it?"

"It tastes like ice cream!"

Great! Cooks Illustrated always comes to the rescue!

We met Grace and Andrew the December after we got married. They went to UCLA, attended the same church as my sister, and got married at a church down the street from ours here. Dan talked with Andrew a lot because there aren't a lot of young, technical guys at our church. The also have two littles, a boy and girl, just a bit shifted from ours.

In January, Andrew was diagnosed with cancer. He and Grace blog about it at graceandrew.blogspot.com. It isn't an encouraging, easy read, but it is a helpful read as he and Grace lean on God during this difficult time.