Third week of November - School pictures and all kinds of testing

Maxwell playing soccer with Jason (note the gloves on Max's hands..he was playing goalie)

I did some REAL labor in the front yard flower beds taking some plants out.  I had to work hard with a big shovel to get these stinkers out.  

After - -all cleaned up for the winter.  I can't wait for spring when it will be colorful again.

Rocking her pebbles ponytail

Her hair is really growing now

Emmalyn and her best friend, Landen on their way to pick up Maxwell from his classroom.

My handsome kid on picture day at school.

Cheeeeeese

His pictures turned out great - I thought they did a great job of capturing his authentic smile (which can be hard to do)!

What a mess! (Poor Britt had to give her a bath she was so messy)

Post bath play-dough fun

Happy Emmalyn

Pouty Emmalyn

Mad Emmalyn

Playing at the park

Maxwell brought his sunglasses with him to the park and his bag that he likes to wear at messenger bag style.  The kid loves to wear sunglasses.

This time was the first time I've seen Maxwell sit normal on the swing and try to pump his legs.  He doesn't have it down but it was fun to see him try.

There's that curl on her forehead - - -it shows up every once in a while.

Reading with Momma

I made an appointment for Maxwell to get a flu shot.  He was so excited last year that I thought he'd be happy about it but he wasn't.  He cried - - with tears.  :(  I think the memories of the 4 shots he had to get in August probably are a little fresh.

It was a busy week for Maxwell at school...

First - Maxwell is now a "non-napper".  That means after lunch when all the 3 and 4 year olds have to go take a nap, Maxwell doesn't have to.  He hasn't been actually going to sleep for a little while now but the rule was that a child had to stay a non-napper until they were 4 1/2 (which he won't be until February).  The school made an exception for Maxwell since he wasn't sleeping anyway and it's not like his behavior went down when he didn't get the nap.  He was OVER the moon when his teacher told him he could be a non-napper.  He's wanted to be one for a while now.

Max also took a vision and hearing test at school.  The state says all kids have to be tested the year before they go into Kindergarten.  So, he passed the hearing test but the results from the vision test say that he needs to follow up with a visit to an ophthalmologist.  The paper they sent home said that the results were inconclusive.  So he didn't pass but he didn't fail either.  My thought is that maybe he was joking around or not behaving well when they were trying to test him so they couldn't say conclusively that his eyesight is okay.  So, I will take him to a doctor but I imagine it will be a waste and they will just say that his eyes are fine.

When they did the testing, we also had Maxwell go through an Intelligence Test.  I've always thought he's pretty smart but wondered if that was just my perception as a doting parent and that he was just a typical boy.

I'm including the results in my blog not because I want to brag on him but for journaling purposes, I'd like to come back and review results.  Who knows how buried that email will be in 5 years, etc.

He took what is called the Slosson Intelligence Test (SIT).  So his SIT IQ level is between 131-153.  It wasn't an exact number, but a range.  Anything above a 128 puts him at a 96% level compared to kids his same age.  That's as high as the levels go.  The description of his ability is "very high".  Maxwell was 4 years and 2 months old when he took the test and the results of the test showed him at a mental age of 6 years and 6 months.

The test analyzed performance in mental age (so comparing him to a 6 year 6 month aged child) strengths and weaknesses and listed him as having a mild strength in vocabulary and a mild weakness in similarities/differences.

They also analyzed his chronological age strengths and weaknesses and listed him as having a moderate strength in vocabulary, a mild strength in information and no significant weaknesses.

Vocabulary is defined as: "This involves word knowledge, expressive language, and verbal fluency.  It relies on memory, language development, and the storage of information. A word may be presented as FORK for a younger child and DEMOCRACY for an older child.  Both would need to define and describe them.
Information is defined as: "This is general knowledge which is gained from long term memory and educational experiences.  Questions may include names of body parts, objects, dates, historical/geographic facts, and other information gained from general understanding.  For example, a  young child may be asked to point to a shoulder, and an older child may be asked who George Washington was.

It was interesting to read the results and see what they observed in Maxwell.  I would have been really interested to see how they delivered the screening and came to the results.

A quick break between visitors

It's been a busy 3 weeks of October but our fun month of visitors isn't over yet!  We had a couple quiet days alone before our house was filled with family again.  You would think that at this point it would be great having our space to ourselves again but instead I just couldn't wait for our house to be filled up again.

love those cuddles

Just keep on smilin'

Max wrote this note to give to his dad to tell him where I was taking Maxwell for lunch... "We are getting Mcdonalds now. To Dad".

Playing at the park

Painting his pumpkin

This little stinker reached into her diaper and played with her poop during her nap.  So that bought her a trip straight to the bathtub.

Emmalyn is now 18 months old!!!  Emmalyn will say "excuse me" when either you or her burp or fart.  She is starting to say "poopy" when she's poopy.  She is talking a ton.  She did really great navigating the little steps at dads without sitting down.  She loves her brother and wants to be by him.  She loves puppies and will make dog, cat, and monkey sounds.  She tries to count but doesn't have it down yet.  She is now noticing letters and will point to them (not correctly) and say A, O, B Y. Etc.  She loves to sing..."Row, Row, Row your Boat" is her favorite and she will demand that both Peter and I sing with her in the car,.  She will say "momma" until I start singing and "daddy" until he starts singing too.  Her hair is a mess.  She's getting better at a spoon.  The few days that I was away from Emmalyn in Vegas, I still pumped.  I got one  oz of milk between a couple pumpings and that was soooo frustrating.  I think I'm done pumping.  I've passed the point that I stopped nursing with Maxwell and that makes me happy.  We'll see...

It's May! (Mom's favorite month)

May is a great month.  Spring is in full swing.  The weather turns solidly into swimming weather.  I get to celebrate my anniversary with Peter, my birthday, and mother's day.  It's a great month!

My little ray of sunshine

I had a diet coke with lemon at work - in honor of my mom (it was her soda of choice)

Uh oh.  It's amazing how quickly this can happen.

Video - Her cute "bye" along with the perfect wave

Lucky Maxwell got the rare treat of some Cheetos's.  Look at those messy fingers.

We were invited to Avery (Maxwell's friend in the neighborhood)'s birthday party.  It was a gymnastics party.  Maxwell was too timid to do anything.  His little sister on the other hand, she found something pretty quickly that she loved to do.

After like an hour, we finally got Maxwell to do something.  He refused earlier, even with Peter and I offering to help him do stuff.  So eventually we got him to talk to one of the "coaches" and she was really good at engaging him while the rest of the kids were enjoying some food.  That warmed him up a little and he at least sort of participated after that.  Peter thinks he just needed to feel comfortable with the adults/coaches and also didn't want to be embarrassed because it was stuff he's never done before and didn't feel confident he could do it.  

I wish I knew exactly what his barriers were because it's so hard as a parent to see things that you know your child would enjoy and yet they won't even try them.  Maxwell is such a great kid and there are some really outstanding things about him.  I know my parenting can make an imprint on who he ends up being as an adult and I don't want him to jump into anything but I also don't want him to be scared of trying new things or be scared of failing.  I really hope I can help him learn to overcome this.

Getting ready for the "snowball" fight (Maxwell is sort of with the group)

Look - he's doing it!

He was good to go with the parachute, but he'd played with a parachute before at Kindermusik

Birthday girl and Maxwell

This is his "cheese" face

We wrapped up the day with a swim in the hot tub at Mary Ann's.  Maxwell was excited to swim and I also let him wear a pair of flippers we'd been given.  He had fun!

Want to try it out, Emmalyn?

Noooooooooo!

She loves playing with this playset

Peter made Maxwell a "car" he could drive.  He had a lot of fun playing with it.

Our regular Sunday trip to Costco.  

Hi momma!

Sometimes I have to pinch myself because it seems so crazy that these two cute kids are mine ...I'm someone's mom!

Emmalyn got to take her first big girl bath!  She loved splashing but kept trying to stand up which just stresses me out.

Maxwell was chosen as the star student for his class so that meant he had to bring a poster with pictures of himself.  I had seen other posters outside the classrooms at the school.  There were some where the child clearly didn't do anything to put it together and then there were those that didn't look a perfect but you could tell the child had a hand in creating it.  My thought process is, who is this poster really for?  THE KIDS.  So who cares if it's perfect.  I wanted Maxwell to create the poster and then have pride in what he did.  

He did a great job of putting stickers on it, glitter glue, letters, and choosing where to put each picture.

Glitter glue hand print

It worked!

He did a great job on his poster

(not sure where his other shoe is)

He was so proud - way to go buddy!   (Next time I need to start working on the poster much earlier than the day before it's due.  Sheesh - - it's like I was in school all over again.  I clearly didn't learn my lesson about procrastinating.)

Maxwell's sleep routine now has to include socks.  He doesn't like to sleep without socks on.  He gets ready with his 3 P's - Potty, Pull-up, and Pajamas.  Then we brush his teeth.  He gets to play the iPad for a few minutes and then we read some books followed by cuddling and singing songs and turning on the sound machine.  When I turnout the light and go to leave, he says, "Good night, don't let the bed bugs bite, I'll see you in the morning light, don't let the super heroes get you."  

Maxwell definitely wants a partner lately.  He wants someone to shower with him, play with him,  and he wants to help me.  He loves to brush his teeth.  

The other day he asked to workout with Brittany because he "needed exercise".

At swimming lessons, he has a great backstroke with good arms. His front stroke is improving but there's still lots of room to grow.  It used to be that when he was doing his front stroke he would roll onto his back when he needed a breath and now lifts his head back so far ends up going vertical and losing all momentum. 

Maxwell, like everyone, has some bad habits.  His bad habits are saying "oh my gosh" a lot, wiping his hands on his shirt, picking his nose in bed, and playing with himself when he's pooping.  Hopefully he will grow out of these bad habits.

Emmalyn sorta says the following words - more, diaper, Leah, banana, yea, yes, max, dad.  She says "Momma" a lot - to get my attention and to communicate.  She sweetly gives me kisses a lot, loves Brittany and Joe.  If I had her to someone else, she will scream so hard she will start to shake.  She's a little drama Momma.  She's learned her first body part - her belly! (She sometimes will get "hair and "toes" but not all the time.)

Emmalyn is very chatty and talkative especially in the car lately. If someone is in the shower she will stay outside the shower, begging to join.  Diaper changes are tough right now due to so much squirming and fighting.  She also fights taking her vitamins.

Emmalyn has not been wanting to nurse for very long lately.  I don't know if that's because she quickly is able to get the little amount that's there or if it it because she's not interested in nursing anymore.  It more seems like the second option unless she's using me as a binky to go to sleep,, which she has been doing in the morning once I bring her into our bed.  She doesn't always want her 4 oz bottle of breast milk anymore but loves drinking water out of a sippy cup. I gave her some cow's milk this week and she tried it but didn't like it.

Both kids like asparagus which I think is pretty awesome!