Planning an intervention
Thursday, December 10, 2009
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 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!
Posted by The Portas 7:26 PM 5 comments Links to this post
Labels: Jungle Junction
Snow, sickness and other bits
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
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!
Posted by The Portas 7:39 PM 5 comments Links to this post
Labels: manners, sickness, sleep, speech
Grandparent love
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
(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.
Posted by The Portas 8:52 PM 6 comments Links to this post
Labels: grandparents, love
Elijah Spunkman Porta
Sunday, December 06, 2009
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.
Posted by The Portas 6:47 PM 9 comments Links to this post
Labels: photos, pregnancy, speech, spunk
Pregnancy so far
Thursday, December 03, 2009
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!
Posted by The Portas 7:11 PM 8 comments Links to this post
Labels: cough, pregnancy, sickness, tiredness
Some News
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
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:
Posted by The Portas 7:26 AM 17 comments Links to this post
The cutest little reindeer
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Posted by The Portas 6:24 PM 4 comments Links to this post
