Some Stats

We just switched to a new pediatrician. It took 3 visits to get all the kids their well-child check ups so that we could establish ourselves as patients. So we've been doing a lot of this lately...

 

I realized this is Silas' 4th pediatrician and he is only 5 1/2. I had kind struggled with whether to switch because we loved our last pediatrician. She was wonderful and I absolutely loved her. Her office was also a teaching practice so there were always medical students, which I really liked. But our new ped goes to our church and is honestly 2.5 minutes from our house. So when our insurance changed at the beginning of the year and opened the door for us to go to him, we decided to do it. It is so convenient and I think it's going to be good. It doesn't hurt that we can always catch him at church for a quick question (like I had to do last night!).

 

Since we've just had all these visits, I thought I would record our kid's stats and a couple things about them these days.

 

Silas is 3 ft, 9 inches tall, which is in the 69th percentile. He is 45 lbs, the 58th percentile.

 

Silas is a little sponge for knowledge these days. He came home from school today and told me all about the rays of the sun and how the atmosphere worked. It's fun to see all he is learning. And he is getting excited for next year when, as he says, "You're my teacher, Mommy!" I am getting excited too and am deep into picking curriculum!

Simeon is 3 ft, 5 inches, which is the 83rd percentile. He is 41 lbs, the 92nd percentile.

 

When I went to pick up Simeon and Lieren at church on Sunday, Simeon was thrilled to see me, but he wouldn't come to the door till he knew Lieren was coming too. He called and called to get her attention then they walked to meet me together. It was so sweet!

 

Lieren is 3 ft, 1 inch, which is the 20th percentile. She is 32 lbs, the 36th percentile. And no, you didn't read that wrong. Yes, Simeon is a good 4 inches taller than his sister and much closer to Silas in both weight and height. Lieren has always been our petite one!

 

Today Lieren came to me after lunch and said, "I just want to change one more time; just my shirt this time." I told her that was fine, even though she had already changed her outfit at least twice. When she came back down she was wearing a new shirt and different skirt. She loves to wear a skirt or dress. It sure is different than the boys around here, all of whom would be happy to stay in their pajamas all day!

Blaise is 2 feet, 9 inches tall, which is about the 75th percentile. And he is 29 lbs, the 30th percentile. I had to figure out his percentiles on my own online because I forgot to get a print out from the pediatrician before I left. But I think they are pretty accurate.

 

One thing I never want to forget about Blaise in this season is that right when he gets out of the bath, he wants me to hold him. He clings to me like a little monkey. Today when I took him out, I was standing drying him off and he said, "Sit, Mommy!" then pulled on me to kneel down so he could climb up on me. The wet is pretty worth the snuggle.

 

Blaise is also our happiest church nursery child. He always goes right to the nursery workers and even waves to me as I walk away and says, "Bye, Mommy!" I never knew how joyful it was to have a child go into class so happily at this age.

 

Ice Adventure

The warmer days were short-lived around here and it is back to negative temps tonight.  It has made for some very interesting adventures outside.  On Saturday we went outside and the 3 big kids immediately discovered a huge frozen "pond" in our front yard.  It was the weirdest thing to me; something one never encounters growing up in the tropics.  

So all the melting snow had created a huge puddle, which had then frozen across the top layer.  When the kids first walked on it, it held and they skated around on it.  But then it started to give, break apart, and they were then stomping in ice water.  In some places the ice would just bend under your feet but not break.  I found the whole experience completely bizarre.  Super fun, but bizarre.

Here is Blaise "skating".  He got so upset at me for holding on to him the entire time.  I finally let go so he would calm down.  He took about 2 steps and fell right into the water.  He wanted me to hold him after that.  I pulled up his snow pants and found his entire pants leg underneath soaked.  So I went up to the house and called for Shane to tag-team the ice adventure effort.

Simeon and Silas eventually made their way in but Lieren insisted on staying out longer.  She was really resistant to coming in when it was time, which is very uncharacteristic for her.  As I undressed her, I found her feet and hands completely dry.  Warm and dry.  No wonder she wanted to stay out!  The boys had stomped so much their socks were soaked when they came in.  But not our dainty girl...she stomped too but she must have figured out how to do it and keep the water out!

Icicles to Puddles

We still have a LOT of snow on the ground here. And today is a bit dreary again. But yesterday was warmer and gorgeously sunny outside. Our icicles have turned to puddles so we went outside to soak it all in...

It was more fun than we've had in a long time and yes, the kids got completely dirty! I threw their snow stuff straight into the washer and the kids right into the bath. Their boots are still a bit damp this afternoon...they really got into those puddles!

 

Not 1 but 2!

Silas lost his very loose tooth yesterday at breakfast. All of a sudden he looked at me and said, "What is this?!" And there it was...

Well, late this afternoon, I walked downstairs to discover all 4 children sitting together like this...

Their decision to snack on apples was a covert group effort, and was successful, I suppose. At least, I didn't know what they were doing till I walked in. If they were going to sneak anything out of the kitchen at least it was something healthier than their valentine candy. As they were finishing up, Silas commented that there was "something red on my apple!" And I knew right away he had lost tooth number 2!

It's a good thing we already told him he doesn't get as much cash for all his other teeth as he got for the first. And don't tell him but I had to borrow from last night's "tooth fairy" visit for tonight's!

 

Today's Project and Topic of Conversation

I think these turned out way cute!

And in other news, someone has a loose tooth!

It is quite the exciting topic around here and none of the kids know quite what to think about Silas' bottom tooth being loose. They don't know what exactly is going to happen when it falls out and have had lots of ideas of where and when it might happen. I told Silas about the "tooth fairy" this morning so now he is quite intrigued by the idea that you get some kind of surprise just for loosing a tooth. All these little conversations have reminded me of just how fun "firsts" are.

 

Icicles

We are dreaming of spring from inside today...

 

Two Are Better

Our Blaisey is getting four teeth in right now. Which means two things: he has not been sleeping as well as usual (yawn!) and I totally let go of any plans I might have had to start decreasing how much he has that pacifier (oh, well!)