We've had another fun marathon Halloween. Highlights this year included the school Fall Festival, Ward Trunk or Treating, Mom and Zuri helping out in Rori's Monster Bowl Halloween activity at school, Mom and Zuri helping out in Kai's school Halloween party day, Dad attending Rori's Halloween pizza and treat party, and finally doing a little trick or treating in our own neighborhood. We are grateful that for Lance's class tonight they had them turn in their papers and then let them have the night off. Now if only we can manage enough energy to get through the rest of the week- silly having Halloween on a Monday. I'm all for Halloween getting switched to be the last Saturday of October every year.
Astronaut (there has been lots of talk about space and NASA at out house for months):
Cupcake (she picked it and stuck to it never wavering):
Butterfly (Our 2nd baby girl to use this costume):
I've been attending some meetings for parents of preschoolers with the NV chapter of AGBell to get more ideas about ways we can better be on top of things with Rori and her hearing. AGBell stands for the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. I've started attending this night class with them that is every other week and is broadcast from the John Tracy Clinic in Los Angeles. It is pretty amazing to be able to teleconference and directly ask questions and talk with an expert there. Technology is pretty incredible. I'm learning how to better be an advocate for Rori and getting some better understanding about the correlation between hearing and receptive and expressive language. It also gives me an opportunity to be with other parents (a few are even other parents from Rori's class). The ongoing struggle for us is figuring out what applies to us and thus where we fit since Rori's hearing loss is not severe. I think this will be an ongoing balance throughout this journey.
This past Saturday AGBell held a bowling fundraiser that we attended as a family. Rori was one of the recipients of her very own bowling ball and bag that she got to pick out a week ago which was so nice. She and Kai LOVED the bowling and had a blast. It was nice to meet some more families and to get to meet kids of all ages that have varying degrees of hearing issues. Throughout my life with my sister I've witnessed that other parents are one of the biggest and best resources for guidance and advice. I know that you can learn so much from those who have been through it before you. So we are glad to support AGBell and have them as a wonderful resource.
Rori and Lance with her ball and bag that she picked out.
Rori being filmed by a local news channel doing a piece on the event. She wasn't nearly as concerned about taking turns or which lane she was supposed to be on as say her brother.
Kai was very serious and dedicated to his bowling game. :)
This is Rori and her buddy from school Peyton. They just moved back to Henderson from UT. Peyton's Mom, Ashlie and I have become friends as we get to chat everyday at school pick-up. Peyton is just a couple of months older than Rori. He and his older brother Jack both have cochlear implants. Their older sister Addy and Zuri also share the same birthday which is fun. As you can see Peyton is super cute.
This is Kai and Peyton's brother, Jack. The boys are the same age and both in Kindergarten this year. They've had fun hanging out together a few times at various things like this.
This is Rori's teacher and a few of the other kids from her class that were at the bowling event. I thought it was super cool of her teacher to give up her Saturday and attend.
This last month has gone by super fast filled with busy weeks and weekends. Zuri has been pretty patient about being dragged along to all the various appointments, school drop-off's & pick-ups, soccer practices and games, and on and on.
She is this super smiley little thing that loves to flirt with everyone who gives her any attention. She is enjoying introducing some solid foods in to her diet, sitting in the bumbo chair, and immediately flipping from her stomach to her back (the back to stomach still isn't very consistent yet).
Kai and Rori just can't get enough of her and she is generally pretty thrilled by them as well. We gave her a little hair trim last week but we still get tons of comments about her long hair. Most notable about the hair recently though is how light it is starting to come in in the front. It will be fun to see what it does.
Zuri is still stirring a little earlier than we would like in the morning sometimes, but if we pop the binky back in she usually will quiet back down. I think she likes being with us (she sleeps in the walk-in master closet) and knows that if she ever settles back in to being a consistent non-waker she's getting the boot and moving in with Rori. We've never had a kid in with us this long and maybe that is part of the issue.
Our favorite thing with Zuri right now is to lay her on her back and tickle and blow rasberries on her. She just laughs and laughs which makes all the rest of us laugh. We sure love this little girl.
Zuri enjoyed her first taste of rice cereal a couple of weeks ago and then sweet potatoes this last week.
She wasn't too sure about it that first night of rice cereal but has been gobbling it all up ever since. This little girl was way ready to start getting in to the good stuff. She watches every bite the rest of us take and even swats at our plates or food in our hands if we let her get too close. She's kind of a skinny mini these days (for being so super tall) so we're hoping it will help her chunk up a little. Next up is probably squash. Yummy!
The tooth fairy was FINALLY able to make a stop at our house. Kai has been dying to lose a tooth, so when he finally got a wiggler on the bottom he was thrilled. He wiggled that tooth for all it was worth and ate as many apples as possible for weeks. Then on September 25 he was having an after dinner apple snack on the couch and that sucker popped right out. He pulled it out of his mouth and looked at me with the largest eyes you've ever seen. That night the tooth fairy came and left him some coins and a 1st lost tooth certificate. He went to school the next day proudly displaying his new gap.
Somehow we've jumped in to October. I guess that is what happens when your days are busy with school drop off's and pick up's and errands and baby naps and feedings smashed in the middle. Everyone (including Lance) seem to be enjoying school. That is one of the many things I am currently very grateful for. We are also grateful that Lance's parents made a quick trip down to visit us this weekend. It was great to be with them and fun that they got to see some of Kai's 1st soccer game of the season. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of their trip or soccer due to my camera having some issues. I will be very grateful when the camera is back up and running. Before the camera issues we did get these random shots from over the last few weeks.
Miss Zuri turned 4 months old today. She is one cute little thing that gives us lots of big smiles and cooing. She thoroughly enjoys the attention she gathers everywhere we go when she flashes her smiles around. We also get a lot of comments on her long wisps of hair. We are in full swing of that awkward baby hair stage- short on top, long at the crown, little bit of mullet in the back. :) I need to do some trimming, but we waited so long for Rori to get any hair that it is hard to take away any of Zuri's. The long hair is dark, but the new stuff coming in looks like it might be light.
She still likes to be held and have Mommy or Daddy in site a little more than we would prefer, but we are getting a bit more breaks from the play mat, swing, and bouncy seat. She has spent quite a lot of time being shuffled around in the car seat over the last few weeks as we've been figuring out the school routine with Kai and Rori. I'm hoping this will help her learn to like the car seat a little better. Her hands are in her mouth quite a lot these days. This plus an occasional first drippy nose and lots of drooling make us wonder if the teething process is beginning.
Our great sleeper has decided to mess with Mom and Dad some over the last few weeks. We've been trying to determine if this is due to the possible beginning of teething, or due to us having to alter her nap schedule due to the other kids school, or due to the fact that she's sleeping with a binky, or due to the fact that she might be thinking about starting to try some food other than milk, or due to the fact that she seems to like to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, or due to the fact that we are still swaddling her, etc.
Fortunately the immediate solutions of popping back in the binky or a quick diaper change in the dark is all it has required. Not a huge deal unless she decides to do this several times in one night which she has done a few times. I know we have been extremely blessed by her sleeping so well up until this point, but it has been a little extra frustrating because she did do it so well for so long. Next we will try taking out her 10:30pm feed and not popping the binky back in. Then we can deal with not being swaddled, her rolling over and waking herself up, and all the other things that can mess up sleep as they come. This is one of the tricky things about the newborn stage for me. Things can so quickly go awry and figuring out why isn't always easy. Lance and I have both commented that it is hard to be frustrated with her for too long because she's really good at flashing you a huge grin- even in the middle of the night.
After one particularly long night last week I heard this song for the first time on the radio on the way to school.
It won't be like this for long applies to lots of different aspects of life. Sometimes you want to speed through parts and other times you just want to soak in the moment. Who knew Hootie sings country now? Well probably lots of people other than me. :)
We love this little one and are excited to be watching her develop more and more in to her own little personality.
Here are Zuri's 4 month stats:
Height: 26 inches; 97%
Weight: 14.3lbs; 55% (she's dropped % quite a bit in weight to be right on target with the %'s of her siblings at a similar age.)
Rori had her first day of preschool today. She has been so excited to go to school just like Kai. I wondered if her excitement would fade when it was time for me to leave, but she did great and wasn't phased at all. When I said goodbye to her she said "Bye Mom" and went skipping off hand in hand with a new friend from her class that she had just made.
This is the next big step of the Rori Story we've been on this year. When Rori turned 3 a few weeks ago she graduated out of the Early Intervention program and in to the school districts jurisdiction. In anticipation of this Rori was evaluated by several people from the district over the summer- speech therapist, nurse, school psychologist, hard of hearing coordinator, etc. Then this Tuesday we met with all of them to do her official IEP where they would tell us what services the school district would be willing to provide her based on her hearing.
We feel good about the outcome of the IEP as they accepted her in to the program that we had been hoping for. It is a language intensive preschool for kids who wear hearing aids. There are currently 7 kids in the class counting Rori (they can have up to 9) with one teacher and 1 full time aid. They also currently have 1 little girl in the class that is a "typical hearing" student who is there to be a good speech example. She is the one Rori went skipping off with. We met with the teacher yesterday and I thought she seemed great. She was enthusiastic and appeared to be very organized which speaks to me.
The good news bad news is that she will go to school M-F from 9:10 - 1:10pm. I know it is going to be so good for her, but I'm selfishly going to miss my time with her. I'm sure I'll be posting more about all the cool things she will do in this class in upcoming posts, but so far everything we've seen looks awesome. They will be academically prepping the kids just like any other preschool, but in addition the teachers are trained to specifically work with kids with hearing issues (who aren't deaf) to help expose them to as much language as possible in these early years. In addition there will also be a speech teacher that will visit the classroom a few times a week to work with the kids. We're really excited about it and hope that this will be a great thing for Rori for this first year of preschool. Assuming we follow the same August birthday wait to be an older pattern that we have done with Kai this could be the 1st of 3 years of preschool for Rori.
Thankfully the school offering this cool program is just about 10 to 15 minutes away from our house which is pretty amazing. But, it is going to be interesting figuring it all out with Kai's different school hours in the mix. Lets just say our mornings are going to be a little nuts. I am really looking forward to getting settled in to a routine though.
Hopefully Rori will continue to be excited about going. When I picked her up today she told me how much fun it was and she had done "great". Now she has a long weekend to rest up before a shorter week next week due to the holiday. Hopefully that will help ease her in. We were a little concerned about such a long day for her, but we'll see how it goes. She was super excited to get to take her own lunchbox today too like Kai.
So now I'm down to just one kid for a good portion of the day. It will be a little like going back to the Kai baby days. It will be nice to have that extra 1 on 1 time with Zuri. Maybe I'll even be able to get to some of those projects that I can never seem to find the time for. We'll see if Zuri agrees to that though since when she is awake she is probably the most demanding of the 3 at this time.
