"Yeah"

Mikey talks all the time now.  He is a little chatter-box.  We love it.  I don't know why I haven't posted a list of all the words he says,  I will have to remember to do that sometime.  The funnest thing is whenever we ask him a question, any question he always says, "yeah."

Doug had this conversation with him tonight while changing his diaper.
Doug: Mikey are you done pooping?
Mikey: Yeah
Doug: Are you going to poop some more?
Mikey: Yeah
Doug: Do you want me to change your diaper?
Mikey: Yeah
The diaper was changed and 5 minutes later he had pooped again.

Preschool Day 2

Today was James' second day of school.  He surprised me by being excited to go instead of screaming "No, not the one!" like I expected.  Also I no longer have any delusions about him being the most difficult kid in the class.  I know for sure that he is the most difficult kid in the class.  When I picked him up today, again he wasn't in the classroom, but walking the halls with his teacher.  When I asked how he did, they all looked at each other like "you tell her".  Finally his teacher said, "About the same."  Which means not good.  Finally she told me how he had a really hard time with things, and asked if I thought getting him his own aid would help.  So that is where we stand, James is having a hard time, it will get better, but it will take time.  And his teacher is going to ask that he has a one-on-one aid to help him be at school.

James Starts Preschool

Before I get to the point of this post I would just like to share my newest favorite thing.  Doug found out about this from some guys from work, and as it turns out we are the only ones I know that didn't already know about this, but just in case someone else doesn't know I decided to share.  So my new favorite thing is called Bountiful Baskets  Some ladies in Arizona started this.  You pay $15 and you get a ton of produce.  It is pretty fresh and you get 1/2 vegetables and 1/2 fruits.  This is great for our family because we eat so much more fruit and veggies now that Mikey loves them so much.

Bountiful Basket

Also I found James taking a nap like this the other day.  Yes he is actually asleep.

Taking a nap

Now on to the main event!  Yesterday James started Preschool!  I was so excited, James had no idea what "school" even was.  There are 10 other kids in James' class and about 1/2 the class are special needs kids.  After yesterday I believe that James is probably the most difficult kid in the class.

Going to School

1st day of school!

We dropped him off in the gym.  They had a basket for their baskets and name tags to pin on their shirts. James flipped out when they tried to take his backpack off.  And refused to let them put his name tag on. So I had to chase him down, pin his name tag on and take off his backpack.  Once he realized how cool the name tag was he was OK with taking his backpack off.  Then I had to pry Mikey away from the balls and carry him screaming out of the school.  It was fun to have some time with just me and Mikey.  We got to go to the library which we can't go with James.
Then I decided to pick James up on the bike.  I thought he would really enjoy it since he loves bike rides so much. The school is only a mile down the road from our house so it isn't really far, but the road is closed so we have to go on a detour around the block...3 miles.  I didn't think it would be so bad since we have gone to the park a few times.  But I was dying by the time we got there.
When we walked into the school I could see James in the vestibule with one of his teachers.  At first I thought I was late, but he was just having a really hard time in class and needed to have a break.  I guess he had a lot of meltdowns, he had a hard time following the rules and sharing.  We expected this but it was still hard.  To make it worse he didn't even care that we got to ride the bike home (which was awful).  He had a hard time the rest of the day.  I hope things go better tomorrow, but I think things are going to get worse before they get better.

When It Rains...

We seem to have gotten a lot of, well not really "bad" news, just not good news lately.  Two weekends ago we decided that since our place in Utah is just sitting empty for a few months and we really would like to buy a house we would go ahead and try and sell it and see what happens.  In order to do that there is a lot of work that needs to be done, (most of this we are just doing in anticipation to moving back in ourselves, but will really help it sale) tearing out a closet in the basement bedroom, painting almost every wall in the house, tearing out and replacing the carpet, and cleaning everything really well.  Last weekend the work went really well. We got the closet taken out, most of the painting done, and some carpet removed.  When Doug took the carpet out in the room he took the closet out of we noticed that water was getting in through the wall.  So that was disappointing to find.  Not a major thing to fix, but still has to be fixed.

Eating breakfast

Leaky Basement, you can't really see it very well 

Last Friday Mikey had his 15 month Check up.  Here are his stats:

Height: 30 1/2 inches (don't know the percentile, but it jumped from last time)

Weight: 19 lbs 13 oz (2nd percentile, he dropped from the 4th percentile 3 months ago)

Head: 17 1/2 inches

I thought that since Mikey had stopped nursing and was on solid food he would jump up in his weight a little.  No such luck.  I really had no clue how to help him gain weight.  This kid eats and eats and eats!  He is the best little eater and consumes more calories a day than James.  It is not just us that think he is a big eater either, everyone who meets Mikey comments on his eating abilities.  So the Doctor gave us some suggestions on how to add calories to his diet without adding food.

Cute Mikey

Then last weekend we went down to do some more work on our place.  As we were driving down I kept thinking of things I forgot: Noise machine (a must for me to sleep well), a few toiletries, shoes for both the boys, then the big one hit, PINK and PURPLE!  I debated turning around and just going home, but decided that it would be cheaper to buy a new blanket and hope the substitution would be ok (it was).  I also discovered that I forgot our pillows.  So after we got the kids to bed we got some more work done.  Friday night was awful.  I used James' backpack full of diapers and Doug used some towels for pillows.  The air mattress kept going flat, it was too quite, so I didn't sleep well.  And because I didn't sleep well Doug didn't sleep well.  Then about 5 am James woke up and got in bed with us.  Instead of going back to sleep like he normally does he decided to kick us.  So we got up and did some more work.  My dad came by and took James off our hands and Mikey took a long nap so we were able to get everything done and leave that night.
On the way home Doug kept commenting on how bumpy the road was.  Finally we decided to pull over and check the tires to ease our minds.  We found nothing wrong with the tires and were about to get back in the car and head out.  That is when I noticed the front driver side tire looked a little funny.  I put my hand on top and there was a huge bulge and it was completely bald in that spot.  So we unloaded the trunk, changed the tire and managed to get the old tire back into our already full trunk.  So now we are glad to be home for a while.