Potty chair

Don't tell Elijah I'm posting these photos on the internet!



We haven't made much progress lately with potty training, but I feel good that we've gotten the process started.



I'm not sure why he was wearing boots as part of his potty attire, but he could not look any cuter, in my opinion.



Although we're not necessarily making progress with potty training, progress IS being made in other areas.

Elijah had a VERY exciting physical therapy session last night (once the initial standard drama ended). He initiated independent walking repeatedly and took up to TWELVE steps completely on his own each time. He is getting so so so so close!

Things I have heard E say in the past few days:

"Let's go find Daddy!"
"Let's go look!"
"Here comes Daddy!"

I'm so proud of our little talker and almost-walker!!

Suggles and snuggies

Jumping back into reality this week was a bit hard for me. I love spending day after day with my little man. It usually takes a while after a long break from work before I feel normal again. At least Dan has been home with Elijah this week (no daycare and no school), so I have been able to run home for lunch a couple times for some mid-day snuggles.



Speaking of snuggles, or "suggles," as Elijah calls them, the LoveSac is always the coziest place to hang out in our home, especially in the winter. Elijah has recently discovered this. And between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 p.m., you can find ME buried somewhere in the LoveSac's folds of glorious comfort.



Elijah caught another tiny cold last weekend that mostly just hung out in his nose. Then he caught another cold on Tuesday that worked its way down into his chest and airway. And his little body continues to endure The Cough. I thought we might be able to avoid long visits from that annoying guest this winter, but he has been faithfully hanging out in Elijah's body since Thanksgiving. We are praying for another nice reprieve! I do have to say, Cough still hasn't come close to disturbing our lives as much as he did last winter. Not even close. We have only had to get out the nebulizer a handful of times this year. Last year we had it out multiple times every single day for basically eight straight months.



This is the face Elijah makes when he is saying, "NOOO!"



And my little brother will be sooo jealous when he reads this. The super soft blanket that you see in these photos was one of my Christmas gifts this year. It's a Snuggie! With pockets!!



We hope everyone is having a good week and enjoying the last little bit of 2009! Thanks for checking in on us!

Happenings from our Christmas weekend

We hung out without clothes on, minus boots and a diaper. (Ok, only one of us did that.)



Elijah asked me a lot if he could take a "bite" of my water, or whatever I happened to be drinking at the time.

Dan and I poured sparkling pear juice into champagne flutes and Elijah thought it was hilarious to "tink" his milk cup against our glasses and say, "CHEERS!"

We snuggled up and watched some fun movies and read a lot of books.

Elijah enjoyed closing himself in the cupboard in the guest bathroom. This kid is not afraid of dark, enclosed spaces.



We did not leave our house much, which was nice and also not so nice. We learned that Defiant Elijah is more prone to exposing himself after being cooped up inside for a few days.

We made sure to tell Jesus "Happy birthday!" on Christmas Day.

We did NOT: clean, work on potty training, eat vegetables or do laundry (except for Elijah's sheets/blankets after the random bloody nose he got on Saturday night).

It snowed a lot.



Elijah played in the snow for the first time! Actually, he just sat in the snow. But he loved it!

He also refused a couple entire meals, which has been happening with increasing frequency.

He explored the art of pushing Mama and Daddy's buttons.

And he got a ton of loot from family and friends.



He loved ALL of his Christmas gifts, but his absolute favorites seem to be: Thomas the train flashlight and Elmo computer from Grandma, Thomas the Train book from Auntie Christine and toy motorcycle and latch board from Dan and me.

He thought it was hilarious to shine his flashlight (fwash-wight) on us or random objects and say, "SHINE MAMA! SHINE DADDY! SHINE THOBAS (Thomas the Train)! SHINE WALL! SHINE TB (tv)! SHINE UPSHAIRS!"



There was a lot of singing and dancing going on in our house, mostly to Elijah's new favorite "Uh Oh" song and also to "We Fall Down," which he likes for us to perform with actions. This got a little bit exhausting after multiple performances.

Speaking of exhausting, Elijah enjoyed being "flown" around the downstairs by Dan or me. "Mama fly? Daddy fly? Peeeeease?" Sweetie, you weigh THIRTY POUNDS!

Elijah started calling me "Mommy" on occasion, instead of "Mama." He also continued calling me "Baby Mama/Mommy," which he has been doing for a while. ??

Dan and I were constantly being asked to draw specific pictures on Elijah's magna-doodle. Things we drew: Big Squash (#1 request), Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato, The Peach (we're back in a Veggie Tales mode), a boot, a pocket (??), Lightning McQueen, yogurt, milk, Buzz Lightyear (this is tough), Thomas the Train, Percy the Train, Emily the Train, James the Train, a snowman, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, a cactus, a hat, our house, a water buffalo, and the list goes on..



We went out for breakfast on Christmas Eve and Elijah cried as he eagerly anticipated eating his french toast. "Fen toas, Fen toas, Fen toas!" was uttered through impatient tears until it arrived at our table.

I ate WAY too much food, but yum, Christmas treats are soooo delicious!

We spent Christmas Eve evening with Dan's family. Church was nice, dinner was scrumptious (homemade raviolis that DAN helped make) and family time was wonderful.

We played with play-doh and painted pictures.



We counted our blessings MANY times. We are truly thankful for all that we have.


We hope that all of our family and friends had a wonderful Christmas, as well!

Some videos, finally!

Like I have said before, it is really hard to get good video of Elijah walking. This is the best I could do for now.



Here is some of Elijah's talking, well, actually, singing. He's doing one of his favorite things..sitting at the computer and listening to music. He actually did a lot more talking (singing) before I turned the camera on (of course), but you'll get to hear a little bit of the sweet voice.



Today is the last day of my long weekend and I am sad. Tomorrow it's back to the real world. :(

Pics from the long weekend to come!

Hair, hair, everywhere!

I just grabbed Elijah and set him in my lap to give him a squeeze and he said, "Down, Mama. Play toys!" I guess that means he enjoys the things he got for Christmas!

We have had a good couple of days together. I have some fun Elijah pics to share, but for now I will leave you with this hairiness that Elijah and I currently live with. I think Dan is under there somewhere.

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Pretend sleep

One of Elijah's new things is to ask us to put him into his bed in the middle of the day. Things usually go something like this:

Elijah: In bed!
Me or Dan: You want to get into bed? Now?
E: Yes, Mom (or Dad). Pease, Mom (or Dad).
M or D: Ok, here you go.

Once in bed...

E: Suggle suggle! (as he snuggles with his blankets)
M or D: Good night!
E: Ight Ight, Mom (or Dad).
M or D: See ya!
E: See ya. Wight (light) off!
M or D: Ok, good night!
E: Mama (or Daddy) out!
M or D: Really?
E: Pease shut da door!

Once I close the door I listen in and usually cannot hear him making any noise at all. Or sometimes he will be fake snoring. I wait a few minutes and go back in and...

E: WAKE UP!
M or D: Time to wake up, Elijah!
E: Time gool!
M or D: Yes, it's time to go to school!
E: Miss bus!
M or D: You're going to miss the bus!

Do you think he's excited for school?

I love my silly kid.

A weekend full of Kickus joy

I have been extremely organized, productive and timely this Christmas season (it's the pregnancy). It has felt wonderful to be finished with the stressful parts of the holidays so I can actually truly enjoy the fun and meaningful parts. And it's not even Christmas yet!

We spent a lot of time with family and friends this past weekend and it was wonderful! This photo of Auntie Lynn ("Auntie Inn") and Elijah is my favorite from the weekend. My 10-year-old niece, Emma, shot this! I could munch on that deliciously chubby Elijah neck like it was a cinnamon roll.



Do I have a beautiful family, or what? Here are Auntie Lissa ("Auntie Issa") and cousin Kaleigh, ("Kayyee") snuggling.



And cousin Emma, the budding photographer.



I only have a two-day work week this week, woohoooo! We plan to spend Christmas Eve with Dan's family and the rest of the weekend is set aside for some quality Mama-Daddy-Elijah time.



Elijah is still coughing occasionally. Overall he is sleeping well, so we haven't let it stress us out too much. He got his H1N1 booster last week, so it felt good to check that off the list.



Have a great Kickus week, everyone! Thanks for checking in! (I will probably never pronounce "Christmas" correctly again. "Kickus" is just too cute!)

Happy tears are flowing

Recently at the place where Elijah receives outside speech and physical therapy, his therapists tested some of his adaptive skills to see how well he knows how to do things like get dressed and wash his hands. And, well, he just didn't know how to do any of these things. At first I felt like a pretty terrible mother for not having taught him these skills. I carried this weight around with me for a couple of weeks before I talked to Elijah's wonderful ECSE teacher about it.

She reminded me that we have not had the opportunity to teach Elijah a lot of adaptive skills because of his delayed gross motor development. Think about how difficult it would be to pull up your pants or go to the sink and wash your hands without being able to walk or stand independently. He isn't able to do lot of the tasks that fall into the "adaptive" category because not being able to walk greatly hinders him.

In order for Elijah to have qualified for the ECSE preschool that he will be going to in February (yay!), it was required that he need assistance in two main areas. A few months ago, those two areas were clearly gross motor and speech. Now that he's talking like a superstar, his two new areas are gross motor and adaptive skills.

We sat down and chatted with a team of amazing ladies yesterday regarding Elijah's IEP (Individual Education Plan) for special education. I choked back tears throughout the entire meeting because I just could not believe the amazing things that were being said about him and the positive things that were written on the report lying on the table in front of me.

The speech pathologist spoke first and she said that Elijah falls well within the normal range for speech (minus articulation), so her services are no longer needed. WOW! The occupational therapist said that, again, Elijah falls well within the normal range and that HER services are no longer needed, either. WOW again! The one therapist he does still need is his physical therapist (she will help him with both his gross motor and adaptive skills delays), so his PT wrote out some great objectives for him to accomplish while he is at school.

Elijah will start preschool on February 23rd! He will go for 2.5 hours, two mornings a week. His teacher and PT set some challenging yet attainable goals for him, so they will be working with him on his specific needs each time he is in the classroom. A lot of his goals have to do with him using his walker and this makes me smile. I love the thought of my little Elijah cruising down the school hallways in his walker! I asked him yesterday if he was excited about going to school and he giggled like he was the happiest kid on the planet. I don't know if he truly knows what "school" means, but he will get to find out soon enough!

I am so happy that he qualifies for this preschool program. I believe it will be extremely beneficial for his development in all areas. I think he is a kid who will really thrive in school. We met his teacher yesterday, and we already know the speech therapist who will also be in the classroom, and we love both of them. I am also happy that Elijah is doing well enough to get rid of speech and occupational therapy through the school district! (He still gets speech every other week through his outside therapy and will get assistance with articulation from the ST in his classroom.) Six months ago, we never would have dreamed that all of this could be a possibility before he turned three!

And, I keep thinking about the dream I had about one year ago. That pretty much sums up the rest of my happy tears.

I am so so proud of my little boy.

Junction on its way out? Could it be?

I'm recycling photos again.



Do you know how some weeks just stink? Last week was one of those weeks for me. Elijah was sick and coughing and none of us were sleeping. I was busy at work and trying to get Christmas gifts in order and dealing with very cold weather and snowy commutes. The whole week had an overall feel of gloom. Well, this week has been much better. Elijah slept through the entire night last night without coughing or making a single peep!! (I rarely use two exclamation points in a row!) And since we are all sleeping better, everything else seems to be going more smoothly.

We have even made progress with the Jungle Junction weaning! I've gotten Elijah to watch entire non-Junction shows within the past few days, which is a miracle. He seems to have a renewed passion for Veggie Tales, which is sweet music to our ears. There is a Silly Song on one of our Veggie Tales dvds that involves a giant squash sitting on Larry the Cucumber's hat and "squashing" it (ha!). Elijah has seen this Silly Song about a zillion times in his little life, but is suddenly unable to get Big Squash out of his mind. He had me draw about fifty pictures of "Big Gosh" last night and it was the first thing he asked for when I got him out of bed this morning ("Daw Big Gosh pease, Mama!" "You want me to draw Big Squash for you?" "Yes, Mom." I'm not kidding, these are the conversations we have these days! I love it!). And we love YOU, Big Squash, because you are not a character from Jungle Junction! Welcome to our home!

I really wish I could get some of Elijah's walking (he is doing soooo well with this lately!) and talking on video to share with everyone, but every time he sees the camera all he wants to do is watch himself on the display screen. We will have to try to get sneaky. But yes, he has the ability to take quite a few steps on his own now! He doesn't quite have the confidence yet, so Dan and I really have to encourage him before he will try it. And for security, he always needs to have an object or a person nearby before he will attempt it.

We have Elijah's ECSE assessment results meeting tomorrow! I can't wait! More then..

Pee-pop!

I have had a "pee-pop" (Elijah's word for "lollipop") sitting on the bathroom counter for a week now. He adores pee-pops, so I figured I could use them as a tool in my game of potty bribery. (Ha! That makes "pee-pop" a very appropriate "word!") Elijah will sit down on the potty chair and say, "Pee-pop? PEE-POP? PEE-EE-eeee-PO-oPpppppp!" which is followed by very sad tears rolling down his cheeks after I tell him, "You can have a lollipop after you go potty." Well, today he finally got his beloved pee-pop because he went poopy on the potty! Yay Elijah! Maybe we should start calling it "poo-pop?"

We will be meeting with Elijah's birth-to-three program teachers and therapists on Thursday to go over the results of his recent assessments and testing. I'm really excited to be able to explain what we find out in more detail. One thing I DO know is that Elijah has been approved for ECSE (Early Childhood Special Education) preschool! This is very exciting news! I think he will go to school for a few hours, two mornings per week starting in February. My baby will be going to preschool?! It makes me want to freak out just thinking about that, but I'll deal with that when the time comes. I'll be able to explain more after Thursday's meeting why he is eligible and what will be going on in his classroom.

The poor little cough monster is still coughing quite a bit, although I think it is starting to improve. His sleep is still getting disturbed, but less and less as each night goes by.

Elijah and I are hanging out at home tonight since it is FREEZING outside. This type of cold weather makes driving and running from building to car and car to building pretty miserable. Yuck! Oh well, we can handle it. At least we have a cozy warm house to come home to.

Have a safe, fun, WARM week, everyone!

Kickus is near!

I have some pics of Elijah baring his cute little bottom (why do I just want to pinch that cute bum every time I see it?), but I don't have the energy to get them off my camera right now. Plus, someday Elijah may not appreciate his bum being on the internet.

The holiday party on Friday night was nice. Dan and I treated that night as a special date night since we didn't have Elijah with us and since we got to sleep in ("sleep in" is relative) in a comfy hotel bed on Saturday morning. Elijah had a blast at Grandma's house. He was so excited to play the piano and sing for us again when we got there to pick him up. And again he did the sad "Bye, Gabba" when we left. :(

He had a cough (and snotty nose) all weekend that was bad enough to make Dan and me wince every time we heard it. I'm hoping it will run its course on its own, in standard Elijah Cough fashion. We got to know this "friend" very well, TOO well, last winter, so we are pretty familiar with him and his eccentricities, and his tendency to stay much past his welcome.

Well, Christmas shopping is done (yay!), Christmas gifts are wrapped, Christmas cookies are being baked this week (here and there, when I'm feeling up to it), Christmas cards are not being sent this year (sorry!) and Christmas cleaning will happen on an as-needed basis (yuck). We have some things on our Christmas Giving list to cross off, so we will focus on those things this week and next week. I love leaving the fun stuff for last!

Planning an intervention

I'm starting to plan this sick (yet happy) boy's intervention for his Jungle Junction addiction, so let me know if you can attend so I can prepare enough snacks.



Never before has he been so infatuated with anything. We will be in the produce aisle at the grocery store and he'll say, "Watch Dushin'? Peeease?" Ummm, no sweetie, that's not possible right now.

He will hardly tolerate watching any other show on television. Sometimes Dan and I will try to trick him into watching Little Einsteins or Sesame Street, but a few minutes in, he will say, "Watch Dushin' Mama? Peeeease?" Ugh, ok, fine. We don't let him go overboard with watching it. Maybe one show in the morning and one before bed. Still, he knows every line to every episode, and I'm not kidding. We'll be watching it (as Dan and I are gouging out our eyeballs) and Elijah will say, "Hep! Stuck wocks!" Five seconds later, Zooter the Pig will say on tv, "Help, I'm stuck in the rocks!" Kinda freaky.

He even has us take pictures of the tv while Junction is on. Then, throughout the day, when we say, "No, we are not going to watch Jungle Junction right now," for the 500th time, he will say, "See pishure Bungo Bunny?" as he hands us the camera. He then will sit and stare at the photos of all of the characters as he swoons and wishes he could be watching them in action on tv.

At night before bed and after prayers, Elijah always asks me to "Talk Dushin'?" So we sit and talk about the characters and what kinds of animals they are and so on. Sometimes I try to stump him with really hard questions like, "What color is the pond that Toadhog dips into?" or "What does Ellevan touch that makes him start shrinking?" and he gets the answer right every time.

So, please give me a head count for the intervention!

Snow, sickness and other bits

I was having fun playing around in Lightroom, so please forgive my repeat photos in this post.



Welcome to winter!! Blowing snow, cold car rides, long commutes to and from work, frozen nostrils...all the fun things have begun! Actually, I'm kind of excited to get Elijah out in the snow this year, once he is feeling better. We haven't really ever introduced him to snow (even thought we've had plenty of opportunity), so this will hopefully be the year for that. It has always seemed a little bit pointless (and unenjoyable?) to just set a non-walking baby down in the snow. It seems like it would be more fun if he could run around, but maybe crawling around with a bulky snowsuit on will work this year.

Well, Elijah has officially caught his first legitimate sickness of the winter. He is coughing and sneezing and a little bit congested and just doesn't feel well overall. We even had to get out the nebulizer for the first time in a while. Dan was home with him today giving him some extra love.



Our spunky boy has not been sleeping well lately. Even before he caught this cold he was waking up many many times during the night and VERY early every morning. And of course when that happens, Dan and I don't sleep well, either. At 4:30 this morning, when I heard Elijah start to make noise, I went into our closet to sleep until Dan woke me up at 6:30. It was glorious! Sorry, Elijah, but not being able to hear you in the early morning hours is kind of nice. Even if I'm sleeping on the floor of a closet.

Some unrelated stuff...

Elijah certainly has good manners these days. I hope this keeps up. He says "peeeeeease" when he asks for something, he says "ank oo" after receiving it and he even says "bess oo" when he hears someone sneeze and "suze me" after he burps. Yesterday he sneezed three times in a row and then said, "Sorry, Mama. Sorry." Silly kid, you don't have to apologize for sneezing. When I am carrying him in my arms and open a door for us to walk through it, he says, "Ank oo, Mom." :)



We have two more weeks of our It Takes Two To Talk class that we have been attending on Thursday evenings. When we signed up for this class Elijah wasn't talking much at all, so we were very excited about gaining a lot of insight from it. He has made so much progress since then that Dan and I don't feel like we have gotten as much out of the class as we had hoped. Very little content presented to us has applied to Elijah, which I guess is great. It means our little talker is doing super!

If you wouldn't mind, please pray for complete health for our little boy and for GOOD SLEEP. Thanks for checking in!

Grandparent love

(This morning's wake-up time? 4:19! FUN!!)

We brought Elijah to Grandma and Grandpa's house while Dan and I went out for dinner for his birthday the other night. Dan's parents are great with Elijah, as they are with all of their grandchildren. They have fun toys at their house and they are always so willing to get down on his level and play with him and give him undivided attention. Plus, they just have a loving, warm home, and he definitely picks up on that.

When we came back from dinner, we encountered a little boy who was beaming with happiness. Grandma and Grandpa's house is such a fun, comfortable place for him and that was so evident in his demeanor and in his actions.

I went into the basement and saw that Elijah was in the far bedroom with Dan's mom. He peeked out at me and then shut the door. He started doing his usual PEEK-A-BOOOOOOO-ing from the other side of the door and then he started saying, "Bye Mama! See ya!" When he came out of the room, he grabbed my hand and asked me to help him walk. We zoomed across the basement floor at about 15 miles an hour (this kid can move his legs FAST if he wants to!) and he raced up the steps on his own and crawled over to the piano. He and Grandma had been playing the piano while singing a song (with actions!), so he wanted to show us.

It was so cute. He played the piano while standing, so he would walk back and forth and push on the keys as he sang in his cute little sing-songy voice. When he was finished, it was time for cupcakes so we went to the dining room and got situated at the table. Now, remember that this kid has never enjoyed cupcakes or cake or anything with frosting on it (it's a texture thing). I set a cupcake in front of him and he devoured it. He asked for another cupcake, so we gave him one more and devoured that as well. We had to stop when he asked for a third.

After dessert he zoomed around in "Gamma kishen" and was so completely comfortable and in his element. When it was time to go, he was sad. This is the first time he has ever been sad about going home. He has a really cute little sad voice that he uses sometimes, and he used that when he said "Bye" to Grandma that night.

For so long, we were worried that the only place that would make Elijah happy was our home and that the only people who would make him happy were Dan and me. It is so amazing to see our little boy enjoying another home and other people so much. I love that he has such a genuine bond with his grandparents and that their home provides such comfort for him.

Elijah Spunkman Porta

Elijah's fancy chair and desk. :)

Apparently pregnancy equals motivation for me because I could not stop myself from being productive all weekend. Laundry, cleaning, Christmas shopping (almost done!), organizing...I was a crazy woman!

Another strange thing that appears to be happening (because me wanting to clean all the time IS strange) is that Elijah is needing less sleep and he seems to have more energy to exert by the day. We are still dealing with very early wake-up times (this morning was 4:45, woohoo!) and it really doesn't seem to affect him much. He gets a little tired and grumpy by nap time, but is otherwise the spunkiest little boy I know.



He loves to shut himself in a closet (or bathroom, or laundry room, or any room) and yell out at us, "PEEEK-A-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" That is our cue to come tickle him and have a gigglefest. Then it starts all over again and if it were up to him we would repeat this 5,309 times. Sometimes we have other things to do, though, so we get the sad Elijah face. Or the kicking and wailing and hitting.

Elijah's speech continues to blossom and we could not be happier about this. He is now saying 3-4-word phrases and he has also started including verbs in his speech. Like, "Daddy geddin' wipes!" or "Mama goin' 'a store!" Six months ago we never imagined he could possibly be where he is at now with his speech. He has totally blown us and his therapists away with all of this amazing progress.



Two months ago we had a plan to put him into a special education pre-school program once he turns three. Back then it was almost certain that he would qualify since he would need obvious assistance in two areas: gross motor and speech. Now that his speech is developing so rapidly, we don't know that he will be eligible for pre-school anymore. This is GREAT because it means he is doing really well. At the same time, we would really like for him to be a part of the pre-school program that I believe could really be good for him. We will find out for sure on December 17th when we get the results from all of the testing he has been going through lately.

This week is a busy week at work that concludes with our winter company sales meeting on Friday and Holiday Party on Friday night. Elijah will be spending the night at Grandma's house on Friday night so Dan and I can (hopefully) sleep in on Saturday morning after a long week. Yeah right, I'll be awake at 5:00!

I forgot to mention that Saturday was Dan's birthday! He turned 31! We did some fun things and even got out for a Dan-Megan dinner while Elijah had a blast at Grandma's house. I will have to write more about that later. Elijah has a new appreciation and love for Dan's parents and I LOVE THAT.

Ok, enough for now. Have a great week, everyone, and thank you so much for checking in on our spunky little boy.

Pregnancy so far

Minus the pregnancy fog I am in this week, everything has been going really well. We had a tiny scare early on, but it was short-lived and we didn't find ourselves worrying too much. I think we used up our worry reserves during my pregnancy with Elijah because we have been pretty relaxed about everything this time around.

My doctor suggested I do a nuchal translucency screen, so I did. I truly didn't care about the outcome, but we got great results back. I thought I would feel so much differently than I do. I thought I would be sick with worry about having another baby with medical issues, but I'm not. Dan and I want whatever baby God decides to give to us, healthy or unhealthy. I feel really peaceful about the whole experience this time around. I have complete faith that we will be getting the baby that is meant for us, no matter who he or she is.

I have only had a few undesirable pregnancy symptoms. I had some pretty yucky nausea early on, but it didn't last long. I've been tired and have recently started experiencing insomnia, which happened when I was pregnant with Elijah, too. I just don't sleep when I'm pregnant. And when I don't sleep, I do not feel like a good wife, a good mom, a good employee, a good anything. I need my sleep. So, everything has seemed a little bit more challenging this week.

Even taking Elijah to PT/speech therapy last night was beyond overwhelming for me. It was a really challenging session, but I'd like to think that I wouldn't have gotten as upset as I did had I been somewhat rested. It is difficult to know how to discipline your child at home when no one is looking. It is even more difficult to know how to discipline your child in public, when two other people are trying to assist with the discipline, and when you can hardly keep your eyelids open.

We really have not had to deal with a whole lot of "naughtiness" from Elijah, so when he does display naughty behavior it always throws us for a loop. Last night's session was awful. It made me confused and angry and I wanted to crawl into my bed and cry after we got home. I pray that I handled it even semi-appropriately and I pray that Elijah understood that his behavior was NOT OK and I pray that I can get some sleep soon so I can have a clear head and feel good about my parenting decisions.

Elijah's cough is getting much better and only ended up disturbing a few hours of his sleep one night last weekend. So far, his sicknesses this winter have been a Godsend! I don't even know if I would call them "sicknesses." Thank you, GOD, for this reprieve. Thank you thank you thank you!

We have some great news about some evaluations that were done on Elijah recently, but I'll save that for another time. It's time to go to bed!

Some News

We have a little announcement to make (it's not terribly shocking since I think it's been on facebook) and I (Dan/dad/husband of Beauteous Megan) thought I'd take the opportunity to say it here too. Just answer the following question and you'll know the exciting news:

Why does the most gorgeous woman in the world have two heart beats (one really fast)?

That's right, Megan is pregnant! She's right around 12 weeks and things are looking good (minus a few early worries). We are excited to add a member to the family as well as curious as to how in the world people care for two kids! We're looking forward to a less stressful pregnancy and finding out if Elijah will have a little brother or sister (a little girl worries me since she'll have her mother's beauty genes and I'll have to scare away/hurt a lot of teenage boys...I'm definitely up to the task though!).

Here are a few ultrasound pictures from our last visit:

The cutest little reindeer