A new season

The last few weeks have been pretty busy for us as we adjust to another season of life.

Back to school.

Be warned- this is a long post!

Although I love my job and have arguably the best.job.ever, it was harder to get transition back after this summer. Basically, I have spent the summer loving my kids, having fun at the pool and working (somewhat) on the house. I have realized that it is so much easier to get housework and chores done when I'm a SAHM. And these kiddos are so cute, snuggly and funny; its really hard to beat that! Skylar is Ms. Hilarious and makes me laugh all the time - usually when I should be disciplining her. Grey is coming up on a super-fun stage of life where he laughs all.the.time and is really starting to show even more personality. As they both grow and learn so much every week it is hard to go off every morning and leave them in someone else's hands; knowing that very soon I will probably miss Grey's first words and steps (no, I purposely didn't mention crawling... more on that later), and I wont be there to take Skylar to preschool for the first time.

BUT, I am so blessed to be able to have as much time as I have had, to be able to look forward to breaks, holidays and future summers spent with my loves.

So, a little more on the main stars:

Grey is sitting up very well now and really has no desire to be lying flat anymore. And yes, he is 7 months old and has never voluntarily rolled over from his back to his front. Never. Not once.

I was a little concerned about this, but his doctor was even more so since he is also not saying any words. I didn't realized he was late on that since Skylar was a late talker too... But, we set up a consultation with the Child Development Center in Greensboro and met with a PT and Early Intervention Specialist. With my background in Special Ed., it was a little weird being on the other side of the glass so to speak. They were super sweet, but Grey has really reached his "fear of strangers" phase and just cried huge little alligator tears every time they looked at or talked to him! The good news is that he is fine. Yes, he is behind on rolling over, but his fine motor skills (picking things up with his fingers) was above average and his gross motor skills (rolling over, sitting up) were just slightly behind average- not enough to alarm at this point. Socially, he was measuring way above normal so that is good! Their opinion was that he just really hates his tummy (yes, yes he does) and that he has a very even temperament with slightly low muscle tone. Meaning that since he is pretty content to just lay there and play by himself, there is no motivation for him to make the effort to move around to get to other objects. (So true- he wont even roll over for his favorite toy). Basically, he is fine for now- just keep an eye out to make sure that he isn't slowing down even more and falling further behind with other gross motor activities like crawling, pulling up to stand, walking.

So, as he has no desire to be on his tummy, I'm not sure if he will ever crawl. I envision him skipping that stage all together and just going straight to walking... (Remember, Skylar skipped the whole sitting up stage and went straight from crawling to pulling up/walking by 9 months).

Since that appt., Grey has really improved his sitting up skills and much prefers this position over lying down. And so we dragged out some of Skylar's old toys and he LOVES them! His favorite right now is this little sing-a-long stage thing that plays music and lights up when you hit the buttons. You can see the sequence here where he was looking at himself in the mirror and making faces. He also loves to stick his tongue out at people and curl it up. Charming, I know. :)

You can tell where his little fingers have left prints all over the mirror!

And the thumb- his loves his fingers and toes!

Here Skylar was trying to "help" him out and show him how to use his fingers to hit the piano keys and ended up throwing him off balance when he went to hit the buttons-- making him land on the big button with his chin instead. I guess he thought it was pretty cool since he decided to keep his chin there for a good minute. Either that or he just didn't have the energy to lift himself back up!

Skylar dragged in her chair and this picture from her room that we still haven't put up on her wall and told me that she was watching her tv... That girl has some serious imaginative skills and loves to pretend play now. So cute!

To help with Skylar's lack of social skills, we decided to enroll her in preschool this coming year. She's a very bright girl and already knows her ABC's, 123's all the way up to 20, and all of her colors, shapes, animals, etc. We can read her a book or tell her a story and then she will take a turn and repeat it back to us almost verbatim. Although sometimes she likes to spice things up a little. The other night she wanted me to tell her the story of the three little bad piggies and the one good wolf. They were bad because they wouldn't let him in to their houses to have some tea. He was just thirsty. :)

So, after looking around and going to see some of the nearby options, we decided on Jamestown Presbyterian Church right down the road from us. Of the several places we saw, this was the only one that Skylar actually liked and wanted to go back to. The last few weeks she has talked everyday about going to her school and playing with her friends. She will look at pictures of people on FB or blogs and she will say, "mama, you are looking at my friends from school? That one is my favorite friend." Most of the time, she has never met them before. :) I'm really excited for her to start this week (even if I can't be there to take her myself) and I hope that she makes a couple of good friends there!

By the way: It is nearly impossible to get a good picture of her on the swing. Especially when she wants to twist it up and let it go in circles. This one above is nothing short of a miracle!