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.

First night away from Emmalyn

I had been able to avoid any overnight travel for work until this point but I couldn't avoid it any longer.  I finally had to spend my first night away from Emmalyn (hey, I made it 7 1/2 months).  I had a team meeting with my entire team and my clients that would require 2 nights away.  It was incredibly hard to leave.  I had planned to pump the entire time so that my milk supply wouldn't be affected but once I got into that hotel bed, I lost all drive to get up in the middle of the night and pump when she would normally eat.  A good night's sleep totally won out.  Luckily when I got back, my supply was still okay.

The first night we had an appreciation dinner right off the river front in Cincinnati at the aquarium.  

This is the cute pic Peter sent me of Max ready for bed.  I missed him so much!

They brought in a penguin for us to pet.

I tried it.

One of my clients, Ted was all about it.

Mike and Dave (client contacts for another client) presenting an award

Ted's commonly used phrase

Britt sent me this pic the next day of my cute baby.  It was nice to get pictures of what my kids were doing even though it made me miss them.  I tried to Facetime with them every night.

After a long day of meetings, the next night we went out for another team activity.

These characters were excited to wear the Kool-Aid shirts we all got

I thought this centerpiece was festive, pretty, and super simple.  I need to remember this!

Facetime with Emmalyn.  She was so happy to see me.

The meeting went well.  The clients were pleased, my team was pleased, and I was pleased.  AND I was super excited to come home even though it was nice to get away from it all and have a little break.  I really do enjoy work travel but I don't enjoy it enough to sacrifice time at home unless I have to.

This is what the clouds looked like on my way home from the airport.  It's like someone up in the sky was watching me....kind of creepy.

Yeah for being back with my kids!  Here's some of what they are up to lately:

Max is certainly keeping me doing what I "should" like when I am driving with one hand he will remind me to keep two hands on the wheel.  Or, if I cough he will tell me to cough into my elbow.

He's whiny more and more and has started throwing more fits (with tears!).  His whining really gets to Peter.

He continues to shock me with what he remembers and will bring up something from awhile ago.

I don't like his hair short but you do see his dimple more when it's short...

He will make comments on the weather.

He knows when his birthday is.

He still hasn't learned how to recognize a compliment and so I have to prompt him by saying" so and so just paid you a compliment, what do you say?" and then he will say thank you.

He is really polite.

He has no interest in being pushed to play with someone or pushed to play a certain way if he doesn't want to.  He is stubborn in that.

His independence is growing.

We make Maxwell only use the big potty now, where before we would let him pee in the little training potty and poop in the big potty.

He's not tall enough to reach light switches yet.

He's a timid boy.

I love them I catch him singing to himself.

He really wanted us to put up the Christmas decorations, which was fun.

On the plane right home from Utah he asked then the girl was going to bring him food (He was referring to the flight attendant...we might regret having him fly first class if he expects flight attendants to always bring him food!)

Since we got back, Maxwell has been really focused on Utah and says things like, "I want to go to the other Utah" or "Are we still in Utah?" or "We have a Utah car" - - referring to the rental car with the Utah license plates.

Emmalyn is moving all over now.

She will pull up to standing on me.

She has big smiles for everyone but that doesn't mean she wants them to hold her.  She was super clingy to me in Utah.

I learned, in Utah, that she really needs time to just play by herself with her toys rather than having to engage with people constantly.

She is banging things.

Emmalyn does a great job swallowing pureed food.

She HATES it when other people are eating and she isn't.

She wakes up multiple times every night but usually I can pop the binky in and she will go right to sleep.  She has been getting up to nurse at 11 pm and 4 am every night.

Figuring out how to do it with 2 kids...(1 of whom is starting to read!)

On May 5 (cinco de mayo!) I ventured out with the two kids, by myself, for the first time.  It felt like a really big accomplishment.  We went to the bank.  Not IN the bank but instead through the drive through...baby steps here, people! :)

Both kids in the car!  

Sweet baby (yes, she's still in her pajamas...)

We got this darling card along with a cute outfit from my nanny Monika - so cute!!!

One sweet sleeping baby.  

(Notice he is laying the wrong way in his bed and is laying on TOP of his blue pillow.  What you can't see is under his head are his stuffed animals and other blankets.)

Sweet sleeping baby #2 - Binky never stays in while she sleeps, it pops out pretty quickly

One of the struggles we are working through is how I keep Max entertained and happy while I am nursing Emmalyn.  He always wants me to play with him and doesn't want to play by himself while I am nursing.  Today I was able to talk him into playing with his trains.

I have found that play-do will always work.  He LOVES playing with it and when most everything else will entertain him for 10-15 min, he can play for over an hour with the play-do.

I had mentioned earlier to my neighbor, Mary Ann that the late afternoons are the hardest because when Max gets up from his nap he's more needy/whiny and I'm completely wiped from trying to hold it together.  I watch the clock counting down the minutes until Peter gets home.  

She texted me a few days later and asked if she could came over to visit and help.  She was so kind and took Emmalyn and let me lay down for a much needed nap especially since my throat has been hurting and I feel like I might be getting sick (Max was napping too).  I told her to wake me up when Max woke up but she let me sleep and took care of both of them.  Then, once I was up we went outside and I held the baby while she gave Maxwell some soccer coaching.  I am so incredibly grateful for her friendship and support.  My kids are also lucky to be growing up next door to people who love them too.

  

Parental Bragging Time!

Max has been learning sight words for awhile now.  Hayden was learning them as part of Kindergarten and so Brittany would work with Hayden on learning these at night, after school.  Well, since Brittany watched Max that meant that he was a part of Hayden learning these words.  Max started learning them to and there were times that Brittany had to hold the flash cards so Max couldn't see because he would say the word before Hayden would.

So we have built upon what sight words he learned with Brittany and have worked on them with him as well as using sight word apps.  We also got some sight word books for Kindergarten and first grade.  He's doing a great job.  Take 3 minutes and watch this - I am pretty proud of him!  (He's not even 3!)

Video - Maxwell reading a book

Maxwell helped Momma water the flowers in the planter

Giving his little sister a kiss (Notice her awful baby acne?!)

Max is doing awesome at swimming lessons!  He's ready to move up to the next class but they won't move him up because the typical age range for the next class is 4-7 years old.  His coach, Coach Katie, thinks he would be okay being with the bigger kids but the manager of that location won't go for it.  So, we are stuck at this level until he's at least 3 years old.  It's frustrating because he's just doing things that he can already do but Katie is going to try to challenge him as much as she can until he moves up.  There are 3 other kids in the class so she isn't able to focus 100% on him but he still enjoys going so we are going to keep him in classes and try and challenge him when we start going swimming too.

Her baby acne keeps getting worse.  It's taking over her face!

This was a nice gift sent by my client contact at Perfetti.  It gets major points for presentation!

Video - Maxwell LOVES singing happy birthday.  Luckily we have lots of friends and family lately with birthdays who have given him the opportunity to serenade them.  This was for a friend in our neighborhood.  I stopped the video when he was in the middle of asking if she blew out her candles.  He's always concerned about that.  :)   

Max does great with talking.  He's usually very clear and has a huge vocabulary.  He amazes me with how often he uses difficult words correctly - like ACTUALLY and WHILE  (those just don't seem like typical words used by a 2 year old).

A couple of his commonly used phrases lately:

"supposed to, got to"  - He says this instead of saying just one of them.  For example, he'll say "You're supposed to, got to put your shoes on"

"That's a great idea..." - For example, "Ooh, Ooh I can eat some crackers?  That's a great idea..."

"Who's that little guy?" He refers to most people as "little guys".  (He has also called poop in the potty little guy - for example he pooped in the small training potty and when taking it to dump it in the big toilet, he looked at it and said, "who's that little guy?")

"What do you want" - This is the phrase that gets asked over and over again when he's playing pretend restaurant

"I don't know" - We are hearing this a lot lately.  It's his default, quick answer even though he may know.