My Boys

The latest on Nate:
He is very excited about the baby coming. He has enjoyed being able to feel the baby kick and even hugs my belly goodnight. Sometimes Nate seems like such a big boy! And other times... I'm very aware that he is every bit of four years old!
Nate-isms: Nate says the funniest stuff sometimes. If you ask him how to spell his name he will say: "N-A-T-silent E." How cute is that? ;-) When we're getting ready to go or piling out of the car I will ask Nate "Are you ready, Freddy?" and he almost always replies "I am, Sam".
Most mornings Nate wakes up around 7:30am, gets up and closes our bedroom door and plays quietly with his legos in the game room for awhile. Ah... I love it. 1- it lets me sleep in(or at least stay in bed) a little bit. 2- I get out of playing legos! ;-)
Nate and I have been able to have a little more time alone together with Joe in school. We usually take that time to go to the library or park. Its nice only having one kiddo to keep track of - but I'm constantly reminded that luxury will be short lived!
Nate is full of energy and does not fully understand why I cannot always keep up with him lately. He wants me to climb to the top of the play ground with him and that just isn't going to happen right now.

Joe Update:
We switched his school schedule to Mon, Wed, Fri instead of every day. He was not doing so well with missing naps all week long and therefore I was not doing well. ;-) It has helped our week to go alot smoother cutting back to every other day. He meets with his therapists at school on Wed and Fri so he's not missing any actual therapy time. He's still pretty tired in the evenings on school days but at least he's getting naps(and occasionally sleeping in) every other day to help compensate and get the proper amount of sleep.
Joe has continued to become more mobile. He is now doing a sort of "bunny hop" to get around. He'll lunge forward onto hands and knees and then pop his knees forward and then lunge again, repeat, etc. He's become more actively interested in both his toys and just getting into stuff in general which I have to remind myself is a good thing. ;-)
Another cool thing is we have noticed Joe combining signs. At meal or snack time he has signed "more" and "drink" back to back and then a moment later he signed "more" and "eat" together. Its not super consistent yet but I have seen him do it on multiple occasions. Any progress in the area of communication is huge for him (and for my sanity).
It is difficult having a non-verbal three year old who is basically developmentally the equivalent of eight months old (give or take). He has progressed enough now that he actually has an opinion but not enough to actually communicate what that opinion is. So we have been dealing with more temper tantrums from him that are probably mostly out of sheer frustration that he cannot express his wants, needs and feelings to us effectively. I've had a few meltdowns myself over his lack of ability to communicate. But we are thankful for the progress that he is making in this and other areas.

Both boys have transitioned into "new" beds this past week. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that Nate was still in a toddler bed until a few nights ago. I'd been scouring craigslist for the past several months for bunk and/or trundle beds and when I was lucky enough to find something in our price range it was already gone by the time I tried to get it. So, when my sis-in-law offered their old trundle to us for a good price I jumped at it! Nate is happy to be in a real big boy bed and Joe is handling the switch to the toddler bed well. We'll probably move Joe to the trundle after awhile but figured he'd do well having an interim period with the toddler bed. Their room is not very big so it will be nice to eventually only have the twin bed in there. I was pretty pleased with the deal I got on the two twin comforters. They were originally $45 each but I got them on clearance for under $9 each! Yeah for Walmart clearance! ;-)