it’s been a while

Probably because nothing much exciting has been going on here. We’re plugging away, we’ll have our Baby Emergency Fund fully funded as soon as our paycheck hits our account on Friday. When our second paycheck comes this week, we’ll be able to pay cash for my oral surgery. And we’re selling a bunch of stuff at the Post-Wide Yardsale on Saturday. So that should knock out almost half of our smallest debt. Then that will be completely gone by September. Add to that the 2 people who have looked at our car! And if we get THAT sold this week, we’ll pay off about $2000 with one big bang (after using $2-3k for a “new” car), and then we’ll have $300 extra a month to throw at those stupid debts!

I can taste the freedom… it’s coming! I can feel it in my bones!!!

Shoot ‘Em Up – Our Vaccine Dilemma

When I was pregnant with Vincente, I did a lot of research on vaccines, deciding whether or not to vaccinate. I grew up in a family of non-vaccinators, and I believe that my parents had good reasons for not vaccinating. So I decided to learn what I could about all this vaccination nonsense. After a while I came to the conclusion that I didn’t really want to vaccinate Vince for a while. I just wanted to hold off. I talked to some other friends about this and read a few books, and decided that was really the best plan for our family.

Well, now he’s 2, and we’ve got another needs-to-be-vaccinated child, and some of our life plans have changed (i.e. when Vince will start school – we previously wanted to homeschool, but our situation has changed a little, and we think I may be teaching full time, so Vince will probably go to pre-school and kindergarten). So now we want him to have many of the necessary vaccinations before school starts.

But then that raised the question of Joseline being vaccinated. With big brother bringing home all sorts of germs and nastiness from school, we feel like she should have some protection, as well.

But she’s SO little!

Back to the drawing board I went. I have spent several hours in the past week pouring over both sides of the vaccination argument, and reading a LOT from many different doctors – many of whom are middle-of-the-road as far as vaccines are concerned.

I came away from my vaccine-information-hunt with three conclusions:

1.) Vaccines are MUCH safer now than they were when I was vaccine-able age

2.) My children need to be vaccinated – for their own safety, and for the safety of those they interact with

3.) There has got to be a better fit of vaccination schedule for my family than the CDC’s one-size-fits-all schedule.

I found three very good “schedules” for vaccinations (not counting the CDC’s one-size-fits-all schedule), and merged the three along with some other advice into the

Rowley Family Immunization Schedule:

General Info

- only mercury-free vaccines, and aluminum free (where possible)

- check titers for antibodies before administering 2nd + doses

- our children are exclusively breastfed for 6 months, and breastfeed for at least 12 months

- preferred brand for Hib vaccine: HibTITER

-Vaccines-

Hib at 4, 8, 12 mos (check titers at 7 and 11 mos)

DTaP at 6, 10, 15 mos (check titers at 7 and 11 mos)

Rubella at 17 mos, 4 yrs (check titers previous to 4 yr booster)

Polio 2 years

Varicella at 5yrs (check titers)

MMR starting at 12 yrs (check titers)

This is only what works best for our family, based on our family’s lifestyle and personal beliefs about our health and the way our bodies work. I don’t want to convince anyone that our vaccination schedule is the best, just that it is the best for our family – and that you DO have options with how to vaccinate your children.

Basically I would stress two things:

1.) If you don’t want to put in a lot of research to come up with your OWN PERSONALIZED vaccination schedule, then use the CDC’s schedule, or Dr Sears’ schedule

2.) If you are at all uncomfortable with the CDC’s schedule, MAKE YOUR OWN (but PLEASE do the research!)

References:

Dr Robert Sears’ Alternative Immunization Schedule

Dr Stephanie Cave’s Alternative Immunization Schedule

Dr Donald Miller, Jr.’s Alternative Immunization Schedule

Hooray for Blessings!

The Lord will bless us when we try to do the right thing. I’ve always known that, and I am feeling it much more lately.

To bring you up to speed, Russ and I have made a pledge never to buy anything or do anything that requires money without FIRST planning it and budgeting for it. If we can’t pay cash, we don’t do it. SO…

We have received about a $170 a month blessing just today, which is AWESOME. Here’s why – by mid-August, we’ll have our $1000 baby emergency fund; by Sept 15 I will be able to fully pay for (in CASH) my wisdom teeth surgery. Starting in October, we’ll be able to put an average of $400/mo. EXTRA toward our debts.

That means that we will definitely be out of debt by the time we leave Monterey.

On top of that, next week I am going to go to the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District office to apply to be a substitute or temporary teacher in the fall. Hopefully (after childcare costs) we’ll be able to put another $1000 or so toward our debts each month, depending on how much I work.

Even if we can’t sell our car (which we’re trying to do) we’ll be able to make this debt snowball thing start rolling. And once it starts rolling, there will be no stopping us!

bedtime stories

  Papai has a unit test on Friday, so yesterday I told him to lock himself in his office and only come out for family prayer – I would get the kids ready for bed, and then after family prayer I would put them to bed. Well, as soon as he tried to go back in his office the kids attacked! Read us a story! Hold us! Love on us! We miss you! So, Russ, being the great Papai he is, took a few minutes out of his studying and held his babies and read them a book. I wish my old camera worked, because I wanted to take a video of Vincente laughing and laughing when Russ was playing with them. It was so perfect. It’s times like these that remind me of what a great little family I have. I love these bedtime moments. They are always so sweet and tender and so relaxed.

 

sunny day

Ah, the sun, the sand, the shore, the waves crashing on the beach, a perfect ending to a perfect weekend. We spent the day on the beach in Santa Cruz with the Wildes. It was fabulous. We didn’t even really do much. Just bummed around on the beach. I like bumming on the beach better than bumming at home – you’re bumming around either place,  but at least when you go out to the beach you feel like you’ve done something that day.

Mostly, Russ and Dan went out on the boogie boards, and Michelle and I sat near or in the tent with the babies, while Vince jumped around in the sand, explored the rocks, ate bananas and sandwiches, and made friends with some other little kids on the beach.

 

The babies were pooped after a while. Okay, well, Ethan mostly slept the whole time. Joseline was awake for the most part, but she was bored with Ethan (since he was just sleeping) and kept squawking at me, begging me to take her out to see the ocean. When I did, she would just stare at the waves crashing on the shore. It was really just a peaceful day. No rush to do anything. Just … living. That pretty much describes our weekend! (oh yes, that and potty training Vince – which has been WAY wonderful)

I got some pretty great shots – even with my dinky camera. It actually works really well out in the sun. Indoors is where it has problems.

On the way home we stopped at “Top-a-Lot Yogurt” in Santa Cruz. It was a self-serve frozen yogurt place. Think DIY Coldstone. You grabbed a cup, filled it with your choice of 6 different flavors of frozen yogurt, and then topped with any of dozens of toppings from candy pieces to fruit to sauces. Then they weigh your treat and you pay 39 cents per ounce of goodness. I think our total (including Vince’s chocolate ice cream topped with marshmallows) was something like $11. And Russ got a HUGE bowl of ice cream with just about every topping that had anything to do with peanut butter (pb cups, Butterfinger pieces, peanut butter syrupy stuff, chocolate syrup, etc). I should have taken pictures of the place. There are way too many things to think about these days now that we’re taking a two year old to the potty all the time.

This evening, some new friends from Delta Co. came over to hang out. It was a lot of fun. They have a daughter just about Vince’s age, and they are both potty training, and they both had accidents tonight. It was adorable. Okay, well, it was fun having friends over. The kids were exhausted, but they played pretty well together, considering. Joseline went to bed almost as soon as we got home. She was worn out from the beach, even though all she did was hang out in the tent with sleeping Ethan! I’m super ready for bed, but I’m waiting for Russ to finish some Chinese homework.

All in all, I am very satisfied with this weekend. I told Russ that I am neither anxious for him to go back to work tomorrow (like I usually am after the weekend – geez, just go back to work already! You’re messing up our routine!), nor sad to see him go back to work. It’s like the weekend was perfect, and I am completely content for life to just continue as normal! I think that is the sign of a perfect weekend.

Potty Training Part II – Days 2 & 3

Saturday – potty training went well in the morning. He didn’t have any accidents. Then we went to the beach. Russ tried to get him to go in the port-a-john, but to no avail. Then Vince spent most of the rest of the day in the ocean, or sopping wet on the beach, so we kind of let go for a while. I think he held it in, mostly. Vincente fell asleep on the drive home from the beach, so we just put him in bed in his undies and crossed our fingers.

Miracle of miracles, he didn’t pee in his bed! He woke up dry, so I told him to get on the potty as soon as he got out of bed. He threw a fit, though, and finally he asked me to hold him, but he peed his pants just as I was lifting him up. It would have been the best day of potty training had he not peed his pants.

Sunday – our first attempt going out while potty training. We tried to get Vincente to pee before Sacrament meeting, to no avail. Finally, he did pee halfway through Sacrament meeting and then again (a LOT of pee) halfway through the second hour (I hung out in his nursery class to make sure he would go potty, since he’s still not asking to go – although one of the times during Sacrament meeting, he told Papai that is was “potty time” – he didn’t actually pee, though). Anyway, after the second hour, he was getting really tired, and still hadn’t peed again, so we decided to just come home. He fell asleep on the way home, and we just put him in bed in his undies. Hopefully when he wakes up he will be in a better mood and go to the potty. I’m thinking we’ll probably just put him on the potty, whether he wants to go or not. He only had one accident today, before Church, and it was a pooping accident (I was trying to take a nap… so luckily I wasn’t the one who got to clean it up). I’m hoping now that he will poop on the potty – we’ll see.

*as you can see, our camera captures motion very well… as in, it captures THE motion… not “in” motion… but you can get an idea of how excited Vincente was to be wearing “quecas”! I can tell that he loves to wear undies. Last night he even refused to put on a Pull-Up at night! Of course, a few minutes after he had laid down, he wet the bed. After that, he didn’t refuse. But I think it’s great that he wants to wear undies! Now he just has to get used to this potty thing! Oh yes, and the picture of Vince in his camo shirt is from a few months ago when he asked to sit on the potty, but never went pee*

*UPDATE (7/6/09)– Vincente did in fact go poop on the potty on Sunday night! He went when I was at church for a teacher training meeting. I am sooo happy that he pooped on the potty. It’s like that was the big hurdle to overcome on our way to being completely potty trained! He is really good at holding his pee until he needs to go, and if he starts peeing a little, he realizes it and stops and runs to tell us he needs to pee on the potty! Our little man growing up so fast.

can’t resist

My little 3.1 MP camera actually produced a few good pictures today! (It’s hit and miss with that one!) The good pictures, coupled with a bit of touch-up using Picasa, and I have a few really adorable portraits of my little baby girl. I love her SO much. I don’t know what life would be like without her. She already has her own little personality.

Joseline is very chill – very mild tempered. She never gets really mad, unless she’s really hungry and I have delayed feeding her for too long, or if Vincente gets a little rough and smashes her leg with a toy truck, or knees her in the head while he’s jumping around on the bed. She certainly has a “mad” cry, and she uses it mostly in those situations.

Otherwise, she just hangs out. She’s perfectly content just to lay on the floor and do nothing. Even if we leave the room. Eventually she’ll start squawking. I say squawk because it’s not really a cry. It’s like she’s yelling “Hey, where’d everybody go!? Don’t forget about me, now!” Then we come into the room and as soon as she sees us she just beams at us the most adorable smile in the world. It melts my heart every time she smiles at me. She loves people, and shows it by melting their hearts with her smile!

She’s also quite the talker. Especially when Russ and I are sitting around talking, she joins in the conversation, yelling at us, cooing, squawking, etc.

We sure love having her as part of our family. It’s amazing how different your children can be from one another.

 

Potty Training Part II – Day 1 continued

Alas, we are almost finished with day one of potty training. Unfortunately, Vincente didn’t have a bowel movement today yet – which means he will probably have one before he falls asleep. Which means that he will need to stay up until he has a BM (unless he passes out before that).

As I type this, he is sitting on the potty. Unfortunately, he’s using potty-training as an excuse to keep getting out of bed (even though he’s in a Pull Up). We’ll see what happens.

If he would actually have a BM during the day, then I wouldn’t be letting him get out of bed 100 times a night.

Perhaps we will have to start implementing the 2-times out a night rule (thanks, Trisha!) but probably not until he starts self-initiating pottying.

As it is, today was a lot less crazy than I thought it would be. And way more successful!

Three cheers for potty training! :D

Potty Training – Part II – Day 1

Okay, so we took a rather long hiatus with the potty training business, due to me getting a wicked sinus infection, then having a baby,then getting mastitis, then getting something else, etc etc.

We’re back at it! And lucky us, we started just about where we left off!

Yesterday we told Vincente “Tomorrow, you get to start wearing underwear! No more diapers for you!” Which was actually perfect timing, because I used his last diaper last night when I changed him for bed.

This morning after breakfast, Vincente donned his “cuecas” – underwear. We started right away sitting on the potty, and we went straight to the big boy potty with his little ducky potty seat. We had him sit on the potty for about half an hour with no pee. During and after the first experience with the potty, he drank two 10oz sippy cups of water and juice.

Up until nap time, he only had two accidents. He’s to the point where he will pee in the potty every time we make him sit on it. He’s still not “asking” to go potty, or going to the toilet by himself, but at least he’s peeing on the potty.

We’re just going to be more vigilant about making sure he sits on the potty probably every half hour until he starts answering “Yes” to the “Do you need to go potty?” question. Right now his answer is always “No.” Or rather, “Nope.”

Tomorrow we’re going to a beach party. It will be our first real going-out-after-potty-trained experience. I’m going to bring plenty of extra clothes, but there is a bathroom nearby, so hopefully we’ll be able to make it to the potty often enough for him to figure it out. Wish us luck!

I have a hand?!

Joseline has officially discovered her hand. That’s right. Just one hand – the left hand. I don’t think she’s quite aware that she has two. If she’s actively looking at her hand, you can get her to grab stuff, too – I just put a toy up next to her hand and she slowly opens her hand and adjusts it so she can hold on to whatever I’m holding up for her! It is so fabulous. Maybe I will get a video of it (if my little cheap-o camera can handle that).

faces

bobbing along, singing a song…

… on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea!

Yes – that is where our one precious set of car keys now resides. On the bottom of the beautiful briny Pacific ocean.

Thankfully, we are just finishing Dave Ramsey’s “baby step #1” which is getting together a $1000 rainy day fund. That means we’ll be able to replace the keys, no problem. (I think loosing very expensive car keys would qualify as an emergency).

Unfortunately, it was our only set of car keys. That makes replacing them a little more expensive. Also, since we were just finished with our baby fund, we were going to start saving money for oral surgery. But now we’re going to be back at BS1 (get $1000 as fast as humanly possible). So all the extra money will be going back to the baby emergency fund. Which will probably take another 3-4 months. And THEN we’ll be able to cash flow my oral surgery (unless something happens… again).

So, wisdom teeth – you better stay put for another 6-8 months.

*bonus points to whoever can name the movie my title comes from*

Beyond Time Out

I’ve posted about this book before, but I wanted to post again because I found some more things in this book that I absolutely LOVE.

First of all, the reason I like this book above most other parenting books is that it is so consistent. It doesn’t give you 10 different ways to deal with 10 different types of situations. And it doesn’t require a lot of creativity (which is essential, in my opinion – some parents may be naturally creative when it comes to raising healthy, independent children, but more often than not, we sometimes find it hard to respond immediately AND creatively all at the same time). This book teaches you how to respond immediately and effectively.

Okay, so a few little gems from this book.

The author has a specific chapter about sleep. In this chapter she talks about the phrase “go to sleep” and how that is a very ridiculous thing for us to tell our kids. No one can “go to sleep” – your body falls asleep when it is in the right state. You don’t “force” yourself to go to sleep, so why would you tell you kids to do that? Sometime you fall asleep as soon as you hit the pillow, other times you lay in bed for ten or fifteen minutes before you finally fall asleep. The author suggests using the phrase “let sleep come to you” instead of “go to sleep.” If you think about it, there’s not really a “mean” way to say “let sleep come to you” – you can’t yell that and sound at all serious. It’s a phrase that lends itself to sweetness and loving interactions. Anyway, I’ve been using that with Vince now, and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside just SAYING it!

This next part really hit me. Hard. I’m just going to quote her straight up, because I don’t think it’s ever been said as well…

“Mothers have gotten so caught up in the performance mode of mothering, taken on too any obligations, gotten compulsive about the house and the kids and the dog and the yard and the school volunteering, that they can’t ever be in the moment. They have to get things done, they have places to be, calls to make, obligations to fulfill - and their children have become part of the have-to list.Truth be told, more often than not, the kids are treated as if they are interfering in getting the rest of the list done efficiently. ‘You have to let Mommy finish this – can’t you see I’m busy? I have a million things to do, and you are driving me crazy. Go and find something to do.’ Kids are sensitive. They get it. Life would be easier for mom without them.

“Moms, of course, have a hard time hearing this. But I offer it as a much-needed wake-up call. This is no way to live… I instruct…moms to take all of the have-to’s out of their lexicon. It’s time to concentrate on putting some fun back into the routine, to be sure you are connecting with your child for at least twnty minutes a day in what I call a shared joy, where both of you are in the moment, together and feeling good… Spontaneity is an important ingredient. Get rid of the clock and simply enjoy the time you spend with each other. This will quickly help your child to settle down.”

She says doing the above will help your child become “securely attached” instead of “insecurely attached” (if you’re unfamiliar with those two terms, take a class on Child Development, or just Google them).

I love this because I have fallen into that trap with Vincente – telling him to go find something to do away from me so that I can fold the laundry, do the dishes, pay the bills, have a few minutes of time to myself to read or whatever. I forgot about how involved I used to be. I used to let Vincente do the laundry with me when he wasn’t even ONE yet! (basically that meant that he would pull himself to standing on the side of the basket and throw all the laundry out onto the floor) But now that he’s almost 2 1/2 and is actually able to help with some of the household chores, I’m shooing him away.

This advice was very timely for me.

I hope I never fall into that again. I love my kids and I want them to know that they are more important to me than paying the bills or cleaning the house! And that being with them makes me MUCH happier than either of those things!

Oh, What do you do in the Summertime?

Vince decided to read a book to Joseline today. She loved it. Joseline loves to look at Vincente and she is completely content to just lay around as long as he is in the room entertaining himself. She’s entertained just watching him!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby Becca

I just started scanning in all my old stuff that I WAS going to scrapbook (so that I can just use my digital scrapbooking program). Anyway, I came across this baby picture and thought I would post it:

I think she definitely has Russ’ eyes. I think we have a few pictures of Russ as a baby, but I don’t know if any of them are good enough head shots to tell resemblances – but I promise that those eyes are VanDuren eyes (Russ has his mom’s eyes). I’m pretty happy about that, because ever since I met Russ I wanted our kids to have his gorgeously almond-ish shaped eyes. She has my facial structure, I think (which is also good, since Russ looks like a man ;) )

When Joseline is a little older I want to get a portrait done just like mine. That would be so cool. And dude, I am adorable! 

Vincente Speaking – Part I

“Put it right here.” (while indicating where his second helping of pasta should go on his plate)

“I need some cake.” (speaking of the pumpkin pie we had after dinner… really, Vince, you NEED some pumpkin pie? Really.)

“Clean up the maggots.” (referring to his fridge alphabet magnets when he was picking them up off the floor)

“I like Bradley-Connor.” (of course, Vince talking about his two very best friends, Bradley and Connor… even though he refers to them as one person)

“I see Tehbo.” (translation: “I would like to watch Dumbo, please.”)

“I need choo-choo train!” (his proclamation during the opening credits of Dumbo. He has this strange need to act out the part where the train starts moving at the beginning of the movie… complete with his toy train lifting its front end off the ground and saying “Whoo-hoo!”)

“No, I do it.” (his statement of independence)

He’s started saying such funny things lately, I’ve decided to collect them to post on the blog. I’m sure no one will laugh as hard as we do over some of them (the “put it right here” thing was HILARIOUS – you had to be there, but goodness it was great. So was the “I need cake” statement. Gotta love precocious little two year olds!)

Our Total Money Makeover

I read this book a few years ago (summer 2007) when we were headed up to Washington state to work at a Boy Scout camp. We read it at a friends’ house, and I loved it, but Russ and I didn’t talk about it a whole lot, and Russ never read it, so we didn’t really learn much from it.

Anyway, when Russ went to basic training, I was able to pay off a few credit cards with all the money we were making (since I was living with his folks and didn’t have to pay rent :D ). Well, then Christmas happened (Christmas wouldn’t normally have happened this way, but our Christmas last year happened to include some very expensive plane tickets. We were so depressed about using all our money (and mostly money we didn’t have) on plane tickets, that we stupidly decided to spend even more money we didn’t have on gifts. It was mostly emotional spending, I think.

Well, we’ve gotten over that, and a few months ago, we swore off our credit cards, and we started “power paying” our credit cards. It seemed like we weren’t making any progress, and then I remembered Dave Ramsey’s book, and so I checked it out from the library. Actually, I put a hold in at the library for it, since it was already checked out and about 5 other people were in line before I was!! 8-o

I got the book just last week, and I have devoured it all over again. This time, with Russ, and we are well on our way to having our $1000 Emergency fund set! We’ll be done with our Emergency fund by August, and then we’re going to start attacking our debt like you’ve never seen debt attacked.

On top of that, we’ve decided to wait to buy a house until we can put 100% down (or really close to 100%). Since we’ll already be used to living on nothing (or close to nothing) we’re going to keep living on close to nothing, even when we get real jobs. Then we’re going to save every last penny we can, and eventually, we will have no debt, two cars, and a house – and no payments… I’m stoked. We almost decided to sell stuff to jump start paying off our debts, but then we realized that we really don’t own much “stuff” and the things we DO own help us to spend less money each month – who needs to go to the movies when you’ve got a 47” TV in your living room? And we have our Blockbuster movies by mail thing, so we get to watch all the newest movies in the comfort of our own home, which is much cheaper than Russ buying $5 movies from WalMart all the time. So, we’ve cut down drastically on our budget, allowing us to save more and put more towards our debts. We’ve even started talking about eating mostly rice and beans to save money on food. We’d probably get really healthy, too! ;)

Anyway, so that’s where our total money makeover is right now. Our goal is to be completely out of debt (besides student loans, since the govt is going to pay those for us) by December 2010. Don’t think we can do it?! Watch us. and on a $47,000 income – where about $19K of that is rent because we live in one of the most ridiculous states in the union.

I recommend this book to everyone. Even if you’re debt-free. It will change the way you look at money. The guy is very Christian, too, so he spends almost a whole chapter talking about how when you’re filthy rich, you should be giving away a bunch of money.

Read it. Now.

nothing much

I don’t have anything really to write about tonight, but Russ has finished studying (and it’s only 9:30!!) so he’s writing a few pages in his novel that he’s been working on. My hubby the fantasy writer! He’s actually pretty good! I proof read his first six pages while I was waiting at the Monterey County Offices (too bad I didn’t have more than six pages… I was there for a loooong time).

Anyway, other than that, nothing big is going on here. Oh, well, we are thinking about moving out of the military housing. Downsizing, if you will. We’re trying to find a cheaper place to live so we can start paying down our debts faster. We’ve started our Total Money Makeover – but I’ll put all that in another post.

We haven’t made any definite decisions about moving quite yet. We are looking around to try and find a place that is big enough but cheap enough. We’ll probably end up in a little 2 bedroom apartment, but we’ll save around $300 a month in rent… $300 that will go toward paying off our debts that much faster. We’re “gazelle-intense.”

I will be sure to post again if and when we decide to move. It won’t be far – in the same city, hopefully. We may possibly move down the road to Marina, but so far we haven’t found anything down there. We found a few properties in Monterey, but nothing really what we’re looking for. Plus, we really kind of want to stay in our ward. So we’ll see…

A New Age – part II

Now here is Joseline’s post. She is getting SO BIG! It’s amazing how time flies when they are so little and growing up so fast. She laughs now. Full out gutsy little laughs. It is so cute. And it’s not very hard to make her laugh. She talks and talks and talks. Russ’ company is playing softball and at the game Tuesday night she spent most of the time talking to her blanket. It was adorable. She loves being out at the ball games. I took these pictures of her last night, but the camera was being all freaky, and they originally looked like this:

AH! Anyway, I discovered that changing them to sepia fixed the crazy coloring.

 We love our little Joseline – almost 3  months old! Time is going by so fast here. I can’t believe we’ve already been here for nearly 6 months. That doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but that’s almost half of our stay here! I love being here, and I love the friends we’ve made here. I’m glad that we’ll still get to know these friends when we move back to Utah. Hooah, UTARNG!

 

A New Age

This is an update on Vince, along with a few pictures. I took him to the pediatrician on Monday, but he had actually stopped stuttering ever since Saturday (at least). I think maybe there was a lot of trauma all in one short amount of time, and on top of that, he was going through a growth spurt – the kind that make your child crazy. I was reading a child development book or article or something once that said that kids have a "growth spurt” at their year birthday, and at their half-year birthday, and that it’s like a switch is flipped and they are psycho children for a few weeks. Then, just as suddenly as it started, it stops, and your kid will return to normal, but they will be more advanced in their development. Vince is back to being his normal self, but at the same time, it’s like he is an older version of “himself” – and of course he is older, but you know what I mean – it’s like he grew up over night. He’s a different kid (more mature in a lot of ways) but still the same kid as he was before all the trauma. Anyway, he’s doing great, the pediatrician was really nice and respectful and listened to my concerns, but also reassured me that it was probably normal, and he doesn’t have any neurological damage or anything. She said to bring him back immediately if he starts having problems again.

On that note, he was GREAT at the pediatrician! He got on the scale, he let them measure him, he even relaxed for some reflex tests!! I was SO impressed. My kid has never been so good (okay, that’s not true – in the past 4+ weeks he’s never been so well behaved, and he has NEVER had the cognitive skills to do “complicated” things like “relaxing” (I means seriously, if you tell an 18 month old to “relax” what does that mean to them? He understands what it means to RELAX! Cool, eh?)

So I’m feeling a lot more relaxed about the situation, and I am very much enjoying my new and improved Vince. He’s such a great kid. I am so blessed.

We pulled out Russ’ really old Sony laptop and let Vince play on it. Here he is mimicking his Mamãe – when I’m reading blogs or articles on the internet, I usually put my head in my hand – just like that. Adorable!