Ben's a Biter

You may ask--how can a one year old get into trouble at school and get sent home from day care? Well, Ben's day care has a rule that if they bite 3 times in one day, they have to go home. Now, Ben hasn't done it yet. But, he's reached 2 several times. After that, I think they begin to keep a close eye on him so he doesn't have to go home. It's not just him. All the others do it too--they ended up just putting all the biters in the same classroom. So, I'm guessing it's like WWE in there.

Last Friday, the 3 other boys were playing around when I got there. Ben, on the other hand, was strapped into the table and could only watch. Mallory, Ben's teacher, said he was being extra aggressive that day. He didn't bite but he was pinching and pulling hair. Seriously? I don't know what he thinks he has to prove. I guess that's just the difference in boys and girls.

On Sunday, I put Ben in timeout for the first time for pulling Maya's hair. I keep thinking of Adam Sandler in Big Daddy--"Quit pulling your sisters hair!!" He knew exactly why he was put against the wall. And of course, his lower lip went down further than it ever had. It was pretty sad, but I still wish I had it on video.

You could say that Ben is a little spoiled. As soon as I get to his room at day care, I put his jacket on and he bolts out the door saying "tucker, tucker, tucker." That would be his word for sucker. The girls at the front desk usually have a bowl of candy for the kids after the day is over. Normally, I wouldn't give a one year old a sucker but Maya finally saw all the other kids getting them and Ben obviously has to have everything that Maya has. I know, I know--excuses, excuses. Let's just say we pick our battles.

For Maya, we got some very good news about 2 weeks ago. In our school district, there are several tuition-paid preschools that you have to put a request in for. There are twice a week half-day programs and 5 days a week full-day programs. We put in a request for the better 5 full-day program and the people that did the paperwork basically told us, there's no way she's getting in and we should probably put down an alternate. So, we put an alternate down for the twice-a-week one for the school closest to us. A week later, we got confirmation that Maya got into our alternate choice. We were pretty bummed out. For one thing, it would be a bit of a pain to pick her up from school during the middle of the day and then take her to day care and then go back to work. But, it wasn't that big of a deal--we would have found time to do it. Mostly, we wanted her to get into the 5 day program because we really want her to catch up on her speech. Luckily, a couple days later, a spot opened up in the 5 day program and Maya was the next on the list. We talked to Marge, Maya and Ben's parents as teachers lady, and she said her preschool teacher is one of the best in the area. Although I have noticed Maya making some good strides since changing classrooms, it will be nice for her to be in a real classroom with a teacher that has a Master's degree in education.

Like I said, Maya is making some strides in her speech. Linda, her speech pathologist, has been working with her twice a week. And, I really believe it is helping. No matter how many times we would repeat a word, Maya would reach a point that she would not cooperate. I think a big thing was that it was Mommy and Daddy telling her what to do. Linda gives her homework for us to work with, but she told us that we shouldn't worry if she doesn't cooperate. She said it was perfectly normal for kids to be uncooperative with parents. So, we didn't push it. But now after several months, she will sit down with us and work on her words. There are times she still gets frustrated when we can't understand what she's saying. But lately, I've noticed that when that happens, she's actually using new words (in her own way) that she never had. So, it's definitely progress. That being said, Linda said she will be recommending her to get intensive speech therapy starting next fall. If that happens, she will be getting twice as much time with her. I know she has a lot of work to do, but I'm grateful that everything is falling in place and she's getting the services she needs.

Our Day Care

We seemed to have accumulated a lot of stuff through the Christmas holidays. We were able to get everything packed in our van. But, we had stuff strapped to the top and we were up to our neck in toys inside the vehicle. I just want to let everyone know, there is no reason why children should have so much stuff. Seriously, look at this picture and tell me you don't think it's a day care.
They have a house, a slide, a tunnel, two kitchen sets, 2 race tracks, 10 or so cars/trucks, and who knows how many babies. They're getting mighty close to having everything a kid could ask for. So next year, please lay off a little bit. Don't get me wrong, they love toys. They just don't need so many.

End of Year Activities

So much has happened in the past few months. So, I better start documenting.

1. Ben spoke his first words.

His first official word was "ball". Hopefully, that's a sign that he'll grow up and become a professional baseball player and buy his parents a shiny new house. Since then, he's added "dog", "tree", and "bye-bye". Lezlie swears she heard him say dinosaur. But, I'll believe it when I see it. It's pretty cute. Every time he sees anything that looks remotely like a dinosaur, alligator, tiger, etc., he sticks his hand out and says "Roar!" But then again, he does the same thing with his giraffe.

2. Ben has taken a liking into pooping in the tub.

This is just a natural occurrence now. Part of it has to do with my wanting to get all of the work done as soon as possible after getting home from work. Cook food, feed kids, and then bathe kids. Those last two don't go well close together. Maya is a good investigator and usually spots the dirty deed quickly and tells us. Part of the problem is that he's so constipated all of the time and the hot water helps him out. We've tried straight juice, applesauce, and other things but he still struggles to get it out.

3. Maya started speech therapy.

We've noticed that Maya has had trouble with her speech for probably a year and a half. And, we've passed these concerns onto her Parents as Teachers worker, Marge. From what I understand, it is very hard to get help early on due to the strict requirements. But, when kids turn 3 the funding and requirements change. So, once Maya turned 3, Marge quickly recommended Maya for an evaluation. First, they checked her hearing. That was fine. Then, they did a speech evaluation. They noticed the same things we had. She tends to leave off the ends of words. And, she substitutes a lot of consonants with the "b" sound. So, she was officially accepted to receive speech therapy twice a week for a total of one hour. And, they even come to the day care.

We were definitely relieved that she was finally gonna get some help. Part of me thinks we should have done something ourselves earlier. But, the therapists seemed confident that they could get her on track before she started kindergarten. We were also glad to find out that her therapist was Linda, Maya's choir teacher from church. It's not that she has trouble getting to know other people. It's just that we can easily get status from Linda every week at church.

4. Maya changed classrooms at daycare.

This is something that has kind of bugged us, but I think in the end, it has all turned out good. About a month ago, the daycare started splitting Maya's time between 2 classes. I would bring her in the morning to the 3 year old room. Then, Lezlie would pick her up from the 4-5 year old room. We initially thought that they were doing this to shift kids around due to classroom size limits. But, after a little prodding, we found out that she was being moved because Maya and her best friend often get into it with each other. This is a perfect explanation to us, but what bugged me the most was that they seemed to be hiding this information from us. Maybe this wasn't the case. Who knows? Anyway, she seems to be happy in the new room. And, her new teacher asked if it was ok to copy her speech homework and work with her on it. That's something her previous teacher never would have done. And I have to say that it's good that she'll be hanging around older kids that are a little more mature. I'm not saying that Maya is an angel. But, the 3 year old kids definitely fed off of each other with respect to orneriness.

5. Maya started Sunday school and "sort of" participated in her first Christmas program.

Our church gave us the option to enroll Maya into Sunday school. The age limit is 3 and Maya barely made the cut but we decided to give it a try. And lucky for us, she loves it. If we say we're going to Sunday School, she becomes very excited. They start Sunday school with kids from all age groups singing and dancing. And, then they go to their classrooms, do a lesson and then go off to do a project at a separate station. For a busy kid like Maya, this is great. In the meantime, Ben plays in the nursery and we sit and converse with the other parents.

The kids practiced for the Christmas program for the past month. And, Maya was set to sing "Go Tell it on the Mountain" with actions also. Then, I took her to the official rehearsal and saw that the 3-4 year old "lambs" were going to be front and center of the church. My first thought was "That's not gonna work out". And I was correct. She didn't fuss. She just really didn't understand why Momma and Daddy weren't up there with her.

I'll leave you with a couple short videos from the Christmas program.

Our Boy is One Year Old!!

This year, we had the privilege of having a full house two months in a row. First, for Maya's 3rd birthday party, and then for Ben's 1st birthday. Let's just say that the more and more Maya and Ben get to know the rest of the family, the more Lezlie and I feel guilty that we live three and a half hours away.

Well, we decided to have a mini-birthday party on Ben's birthday party with cupcakes for Mommy, Daddy, Maya, and Ben. We quickly learned that Ben does not like icing. He went ballistic because he could not get the icing off of his fingers. I don't know where he gets his cleanliness from. It's surely not me. I have a hard time eating lunch without dribbling something on my shirt. But, maybe it is just the new feeling/sensation of stickiness.

Not thinking, we also scheduled his 1 year doctor's appointment on his birthday (like he really knows). But anyway, he had to get his finger pricked and get a couple shots. I was dreading the finger prick since I've had bad experiences with those. But, he didn't even flinch. However, when they wrapped his finger with a band-aid, he went ballistic again. So, maybe he's just a little finicky about having things stuck to his fingers.

Ben's birthday party was on the Saturday after Ben's birthday. Lezlie and I decided that it would be a great idea to have sandwiches and chili. Sounded like a good idea, but we didn't bother looking at the weather. And of course, it ended up being in the 80s. But, everyone said they enjoyed the food even with the odd fall weather.

Because Ben has spent most of his first year playing with babies, batons, and doll houses, I made sure to tell everyone to get him some "manly" toys. And so he did. He got several trucks, a helicopter, and many other toys. To be honest, we haven't even opened them all yet. We like to stuff several of them in the closet for those times where we need some cheering up. Then, it is perceived like we are the best parents because we bring presents out of thin air.

Since he had the problem with the cupcake a few days earlier, Ben was smart enough that he didn't even really try to dig his hands into his birthday cake. We tried to shove some in his mouth but he would have nothing of it. But, he would take a spoon and attempted to eat the cake with it. Again, I don't know where he gets this from.

Thank you all for coming up to celebrate!!!