Random Cute pics

Enjoying a peach

First hot tub experience, don't worry I checked the water temp. and it was appropriate.

helping daddy pull "weeds"

Rece reading to Carmine...he loves reading to anyone.

Mr. cool dude

Messy Boy

Carmine has signed his first sign, milk! He is also starting to wave and clap! He has waved a couple times, the first time at himself in a mirror and the second time to Rece in the morning. The clapping is not quite together yet, but you can tell he is trying. He is getting better with solids. But he still has to be quite hungry to actually eat much of it. But right now his favorites seem to be avacado, pear and peaches. We have tried peas and will be trying potatoes today! He just still really enjoys the boob! ;) Rece cracks me up everyday! He is so funny and knows it. Today I caught him making two stuffed animals kiss! And he was on the ground crawling around going under Carmine's crib like the dogs do, so I think he is really starting to use his imagination and make believe play a little. A long way to go still but this is the first sign of it I guess! He also reads all day, out loud to whoever will listen or just to himself in his room, like he is doing right now.

Update on Rece

Well, we had our follow up meeting with our service coordinator for Rece's evaluations. First of all, the numbers that were missing last time I got through the evaluation summary. In speech he is only delayed about 1 month. So no speech therapy was recommended. In fine motor and cognitive he was at a 24 month level, so about 7 months behind. So, next week some time I will be getting a phone call to set up occupational therapy and probably physical therapy. And with the preschool for the next couple of months I will have to take a wait and see approach. I am not really clear on what will go on with the preschool. If he qualifies for the special education preschool then he will start in January, but if he doesn't qualify then I probably won't even attempt it until the fall, cause I am just assuming that he won't be potty trained, which he has to be to start at almost any preschool.
Obviously I would prefer if he was completely "normal" and on track but at this point I hope he qualifies for the preschool just because I think it would be so beneficial for him and for me. But if the therapy helps then it shouldn't be such a struggle everyday and then maybe preschool wouldn't be such of relief. We will see.

7 Months

Rece at 7 months
Carmine at 7 months...
Ok, they have identical smiles, but their face shapes are unmistakably different!
I couldn't decide on my favorite picture this time so I am posting a few.

Catch Up!

It takes forever to upload pictures onto here with dial up so I just never have enough time during the day anymore. So here is the last week...

Some eating....
Carmine sampling a banana! He wasn't so sure about it just like the babyfood. We have tried avacado, banana, rice cereal, mango and apple and he really just doesn't care about any of them. Oh well, I am still nursing 5-6 times in a 24 hour period, so he is getting plenty of food.
And Rece after some yummy corn, just about the only veggie I can get him to eat.
And some playtime...
Beth, Averie and Baylor came down and spent a couple of days with us. We have kind of gone from taking Averie and Rece's picture to taking Baylor and Carmine's. They are a little more cooperative!
A new milestone...

He started doing this on the 10th! He can't fall on his butt gracefully yet, but he stood there long enough for me to take about 7 pictures and then some.

And the state fair...

We rode on 2 rides. This one can spin if you spin the wheel in the center. We ended up riding with 2 boys about 8. So of course they wanted to spin. We let them for a little bit, but I think Rece started feeling it, so we had to put it to a stop. He liked them and wanted more afterwards but we moved on to more eating.
Rece and I shared an elephant ear and of course he loved it.
Then we went into the petting zoo. He really liked feeding the baby goats carrots. Carmine just kinda hung out in the stroller the whole time and was a good sport.

Catch Up!

It takes forever to upload pictures onto here with dial up so I just never have enough time during the day anymore. So here is the last week...

Evaluation

Well, some of you know what a hard time Rece has given us at times. It has gotten to a point where we thought we should have him evaluated by our county's 0-3 program. So we started that process a few weeks ago and yesterday was the evaluation. It took place in our home so he was being pretty typical which was good. There were two women here, one did the gross motor, social/emotional and self help areas. She pretty much asked me questions about what he can/will do or not. The other woman was evaluating his speech, fine motor and cognitive areas. She was just playing and interacting with Rece for her part. The results of their evaluations were even a little worse than I expected. He has a delay in every area except social/emotional, in that he was at a 33 month level. He is 31 months right now. In the fine motor, speech and cognitive she said there were slight delays, but I didn't get numbers. In gross motor he was at a 21 month level and for self help he is at an 18 month level. They said that these evaluations were pretty broad and that they didn't cover everything but they give an estimate. On top of this I gave them a list of issues that I see with him on a pretty regular basis. This is the list I gave them:
no reaction to almost all loud noises and the reactions he does have a pretty severe, he is very loud, squeals to where it hurst others' ears, babbles still, hits other kids non-aggressively, never stops moving, runs into things, loves spinning and being tossed, kicks to wall in bed, prefers music/Tv very loud, eats paper, crayon, chalk, etc., tears things, stuffs his mouth too full, throws food, bangs cup on table, spits milk, bothered by 1 hair on hand, hates having most food on hand-yet won't use silverware, won't sit/stand in sandbox, afraid of climbing, late milestones (walking at 18 months, first word at 12 months), touches everything in a room, loves opening/closing doors, pinches nipple for comfort, hard time transitioning from wake to sleep and vice versa, chews on crib, wants us to repeat him, eats a lot for his age, always hungry, enjoys his face/tongue being washed.
I know that is long but that is Rece. So they will take all of that into consideration and I should be getting a phone call next week sometime to set up another appointment with our service coordinator to decide where we should go from here. It could be a preschool readiness program, a playgroup, Occupational therapy, etc. or all of the above. We have been thinking for a little while that it is a Sensory Issue like Sensory Integration Disorder and both the evaluators aggreed that a lot of the problems seem to stem from sensory problems. And if we were questioning that before I am pretty set on that after our lunch today. We went to a buffet for lunch today and I got him some jello. He has never eaten jello before because it feels funny, but today he started squishing it in his hands. I could tell he didn't like the feeling based on his face but he kept doing it but then he started gagging just from the feel of it. He almost threw up. I felt so bad. I took it all away, he almost started crying because he just hated that feel on his hand. So no jello for him until he understands all of this and is ready to try again.
So I will be happy to get him started in whatever he needs to help him get through all of this. And then in January, when he turns 3, he will most likely start preschool. That will be very bittersweet. I know that this is what will be best for him, but I am going to be so sad sending my baby to preschool. It will also be nice for Carmine because that will give me some one on one time with him, but still very bittersweet.
This has not been hard for me to deal with until we actually got the results of the evaluation. And it still isn't really hard, just a different feeling then I have had before. It actually gives me some relief. It makes me think I do know my son and it makes me feel better that I am not crazy and just unable to handle him. But as a mommy, I can't help but wonder what I could have done differently. Don't worry I know it isn't my fault but I think every parent wonders this when anything happens, no matter how big or small. And I find myself doing things a little differently with Carmine in some aspects, especially food. I will be happy once this all starts rolling, well it has already, but I will be happy when progress starts showing. Now that I have gotten this out there, I will make sure to keep everyone updated about what we are doing with him.
Sorry for the rambling, but I have been having these thought for a while and just not quite ready to share.

A couple Firsts

Carmine's first solid food! A few months ago I decided I was going to make my own baby food. So I started a little while ago and we have quite a freezer stash. It is actually really easy and not time comsuming at all and so much cheaper and tastier and healthier! We gave him avacado on Sunday. He did so great. He opened his mouth at first sight of the spoon. He made some funny faces though. But he kept opening up. I don't think he ate too much because he kept spitting it back out, but he has done a little better since then. He kept grabbing the spoon and he would actually get it in his mouth. And he also enjoyed playing with a cup. He can't quite figure out how to get the water out but he was close. And yesterday he got bananas. Right now he only gets a little at lunch time. I am taking it nice and slow, I am in no hurry to have him on 3 meals a day or start him weaning from breastfeeding. Once he starts getting more in him then I will probably add a breakfast.

His first non-baby tub bath! I decided to switch his bath tub to the big boy bath tub since he is sitting up pretty well. Plus we had such a hard time getting Rece to lay in the bath tub that I said from the beginning that Carmine was going to lay. He loved it but of course he loves any type of bath.

The Reception!

The best part of course! Rece was a little freaked out by the dj's loud noises at first but in no time he was jammin'! We left at about 11:30 and Rece was wide eyed the whole time until he hit the carseat.

Daddy and Carmine both looked like they had been drinking (only one of them had!)

If you ever need to pick up girls take my son, because he had every single young pretty girl at the wedding/reception pick him up at least once through the night. EVERY SINGLE ONE!

This is the best picture I have of the two of us in a long time. This was in the car as we were getting ready to leave.

I have video of Rece dancing that I will try to get up here. Overall we had a great time and we also got some pictures taken of the 4 of us by the photographer. And the next day Keith and Hope headed to Italy while we watch their dog!! for 14 days!!!

The Limo Ride

My mom drove our car over to the reception with the kids so that we could ride over in the limo. I would have been ok driving over, but I know Hope wanted the whole wedding party to ride. We got some cute pictures.
me and Anupa

The Limo Ride

My mom drove our car over to the reception with the kids so that we could ride over in the limo. I would have been ok driving over, but I know Hope wanted the whole wedding party to ride. We got some cute pictures.