My growing boys!

Wow, it has been some time since I have blogged much more than a cell phone picture with a short blurb underneath.  There are so many little things I want to mention or jot down on a daily basis and then just haven't lately.  I tell myself we'll remember the cute little things Christian or William did in 20 years, but the truth is, many of those things will be forgotten and the little things speak so much to who these little guys are.

First, Little Guy #1 a/k/a Christian.  Looking at him the other day I realized he is not a little guy any more.  He isn't even really a little boy anymore, he is a full fledged boy.  Was this the same little guy I cradled in my arms so gently as we rode from Pechory to Pskov?  He was tiny.  We talk all the time about how tiny he was, and it is hard to imagine now a little guy that barely fit into 9 month clothing at 16 months is now such a tall, strong boy!  I still love to rock this boy to bed, and baby him and peek in at him sleeping so soundly.  I tell him, even when he is all grown up and bigger than Mommy and Daddy, he will still be my baby.  But, he is growing up so fast.  Still innocent, still sweet and imaginative.  He is reading, he is writing so well, he is making so many leaps and bounds in math, with sequencing, patterns, estimation, even adding small numbers.  Amazing!  He is all sports all the time, but still finds time to play with and hug his stuffed animals.  He likes drawing really interesting and detailed pictures, likes playing games and likes playing school. He is an unabashed performer and loves to sing and dance silly dances.  I caught him singing "Christmas Time Is Here" the other day with a do wop take on the song.  It cracked me up!  I wished I'd had time to sureptitiously record him.   He loved Jim Carey's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and sometimes quotes Mr. Grinch as though Mr. Grinch were a real person.  He loves this E*trade commerical with , as he puts it, the "baby talking like a daddy" and also likes to quote the commercial.  http://youtu.be/Fmw23Ad9aLM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmw23Ad9aLM&feature=relmfu

He also loves football and be came a huge Texans fan this year.  He will tell you Andre Johnson and TJ Yates are his favorite players.  He told me the other night that TJ Yates was actually his cousin, and he wanted to know if we could invite him over to our house.  He told me he's going to be a football player when he grows up and he wanted to know if I could drive him to his games.  He said his Dad is going to be the coach . . . or the quarterback.  He said they are going to play inside a big stadium inside DisneyLand.  I can honestly see now how kids idolize sports figures, and am glad although he is starting to do that, he also still thinks his momma and daddy are pretty cool!

Mr. William, a/k/a as Little Guy #2 has grown so much this year.  He started wearing 18-24 month clothes and now his 2T pants are nearly high waters and he is starting to lose his toddler like body.  He can eat like nobodys business, and regularly comes to me in the afternoon and tells me he is hungry. I am seriously amazed at how much food he can eat!! Definitely going through a growing spurt right now!  His language is coming along.  Although without having another child with a similar language background to compare him to it's hard to know if he is progressing as expected.  I will say though that we finally got the results from the speech testing at our local public school and he did not qualify for services.  The speech patholigist said, "it's a good thing"  and I don't disagree with her, but I do wish we he could have received services.  I can't say I was surprised based on her comments to me right after the testing, but what did surprise me is the incredibly low (or should I say high??) threshold to qualify for services.  The 7th percentile!  And, according to the several tests the speech patholigist administered he was nearly at the 50th percentile, which shocked me.  I told her we must be around some unsually high performing children!  I need to go easy on William though from a language standpoint, but I feel like he is such a social guy, and his inability to communicate verbally very well gets in his way a bit, and his shyness I have noticed at times is due inpart to the fact that he can't interact verbally very well.  He will most often say uh, uh or un un if he can't say a word or even if he knows the word, but doesn't want to say it, for example "un dis for?"  meaning What's this for?  And I tell him, not un, what, what's this for.  And he says it.  He knows to say it, but doesn't.  He is still pretty much using one word-two word sentences, sometimes three or more, but it's the exception.  He is adorable though, and that and his almost always happy disposition are his best attributes!  At some point we will have him retested, and if we are able to financially, try private speech services again if he is still struggling in say 6 months. 

These two boys have had a difficult time adjusting to having a brother.  Each would, of course, like to have our undivided attention, so that has made for a difficult transition, but they are so happy to have each other and can get into an amazing amount of mischief together.