First Bath Together Ends In Justified Screams

Ace and Valerie In The Tub

Since Valerie has been born her and Ace have always had separate baths.   They like to play in the bath tub, so it takes almost an hour to give them both baths, get on the PJs, and get them to bed.

So, I figured I would try and save some time by letting them bathe together.  Even though they are boy and girl, I figured that they are young enough that it would not matter.  There I go figuring again…

So, I wash Valerie first and then move on to Ace.  I’m washing his hair when he lets out a blood curdling scream… “Oooowwwwww!”

“What the hell did I do?”, I think to myself…  Did I scratch him?  Does he have soap in his eyes?

And then I look at Valerie…  She has a handful of Ace’s junk and I am pretty sure she was trying to rip it off!

Ace’s screaming was justified…  🙂

 

Where To Start?

It has been a long while since I have posted on this blog! So much has happened since my last post that I have no idea where to start…

How about I start on the morning of Feb 26th. Our family looked something like this…

…and at the end of the day it looked something like this…

Notice a difference?  The addition of a little person, you say?

Her name is Valerie.  Ace’s little sister.  Our new daughter.

I may be partial because 50% of her being came from me, but I think she is the 2nd cutest girl in the world…behind Momma of course.  🙂  Take a look!

Valerie In A HatThen a few weeks after Valerie was born Ace turned 4.  Can you believe it?  4 Years old!!

Ace's 4th BirthdayWe did a lot of fun things over the summer, but the biggest thing for Ace was starting school!  To get him ready for Pre-School he started in a pre-pre-school summer program.  He was so excited the first day…

Ace's First Day Of SchoolAnd then in August we took a much needed family vacation to Tennessee where we did all kinds of fun stuff including horse back riding, a helicopter tour, riding go-karts, going to the Dixie Stampede, hiking in the forest, and swimming in the pool…and in the river.

Sabrina and Valerie at Laurel Falls

Jared and Ace In The Swimming Pool

…and that brings us up to date!

Now I can make regular posts on here and bring my little place on the internet back to life.  🙂

Off The Beaten Path

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Ace and I like to get out of the house on the weekend. Momma doesn’t mind because she gets to sleep in. 🙂

Today we decided to go on a little nature walk.  We went to Three Creeks Park.  If you are friends with me on FaceBook (add me if not) you have probably seen the pictures from our previous visits, but this time we came in from a different entrance that we found last weekend on accident.

When we first walked in we were greeted by this gorgeous pond surrounded by trees.  The leaves are starting to change color, which made it even more inviting…

Three Creeks Park is spider webbed with walking trails…mostly paved, and some hidden gems…the dirt trails.  Ace and I prefer to rough it and take the paths less traveled…

Getting off of the beaten path enables us to see things that most people who are zooming by on their bicycles, or running with their IPods, completely miss out on.  Like the “Volcano Tree” as Ace called it…

And a giant patch of red berries which caught Ace’s eye…

After walking probably a mile back the curvy trail we found the highlight of Ace’s day…a small trail that led down to a bed of river rocks in the middle of the creek.

We spent probably 20 minutes there while Ace worked on his pitching arm by throwing the rocks into the creek.  Yes, he is a lefty… 🙂

And after his arm was tired from throwing and mine was tired from holding the camera we made our way back on down the trail.

It started off kinda chilly in the morning, but after all of this walking and throwing we had worked up a sweat.  Time to strip off some layers…

One of the most exciting parts of exploring these trails is not knowing where they lead.  I know that some of these trails make their way across the better parts of the East side of town, but luckily this one dumped us out about 300 feet from the truck.

We were both glad, because Momma had just texted us to let us know that lunch was about ready, and we had both worked up quite an appetite…  😀

Count Your Blessings? Easy For You To Say!

We have been concerned for a while about Ace’s lack of speech. He can talk…it’s not like he can’t talk…he just chooses not to most of the time.

Most parents tell us to count our blessings that he is so quiet, but they don’t see how frustrated he gets because he can not communicate his wants and needs.

So, we took him to a speech therapy evaluation, and they told us pretty much what we thought they would say. He is very smart, understands and can follow instructions, but has the speaking skills of an 18-24 month old…and he is 3 1/2.

While we were expecting these results, it is still hard to accept that your son, who is perfect in your eyes, is not quite perfect.

Ace will be going to speech therapy once a week for a while. They told us it will probably take at least 6 months to get him up to speed. Way faster than I expected…

He is so far behind in his speech skills that it is officially considered a learning disability, and so he qualifies to go to pre-school a year early…part of the “No Child Left Behind Act”.

So, wish us luck!

And to offset all of the bad news I figured I should give you all some good news…we are expecting again! 😉

We are at about 18-19 weeks…almost half way there! Ace we be a big brother in a few more months!

Speech Therapy?

I cannot believe it.  Ace will be 3 years old in 6 days!

At three years old there is the three year check up with the doctor…

Ace has always been small for his age, 4th to 5th percentile for his weight, but it looks like he is making some progress!  He was in the 25th percentile this time!

Ace  has entered the “parrot stage” and that leads to some interesting moments in our household.  😀  Special thanks goes out to his uncle Mike and Jason for teaching him to chant “Whitey Tighteys!  Whitey Tighteys!”…or more recently….”JEEEEESSSSSUUUSSSSSSS!!!!”

Ace is a jibber-jabberrer.  Constantly talking about who knows what.  It is mostly repeating what he hears on his cartoons, or his more recent past time…his Sesame Street game on the “COMPUUUUUTER”.

Ace is smart.  I would have to say quite a bit smarter than the average soon to be 3 year old…but he gets that honest.  😀  Just kidding…

No really… he knows all of his letters, upper and lower case…all of his numbers up to 20…the names of almost any animal that can be found in one of his books…the sounds that all of these animals make…and just about every inanimate object in our house…including the refrigerator, dishwasher, washing machine, dryer…you name it, he can tell you what it is.  The names of all the characters in the cartoons he watches…hell, he can even sing along with many of the songs on the radio..!

He knows how things work, and if he doesn’t he will play with them until he does. Ever see a kid roll his cars over to check that the wheels spin freely before playing with it?  Well, then you have never seen Ace.  😀

Ever seen a soon to be three year old hop up to the laptop, close all of the open programs, save your work if you left it open, then open a game for him to play?  Well, then you have never seen Ace.  😀

But there is one thing that concerns his doctor (and me and Momma too a little bit).  He has never asked for anything.  Ever! If he is thirsty, he might bring you his empty cup, but he has never verbally asked.

If he is tired, he may grab your hand and pull you upstairs to his bedroom.  But not once has he said “Bedtime!”

If I point to a picture of  Momma and I, he will call us Momma and Daddy.  If I say, “Go get your Momma!”, he will run to her.  But, he never says “Mommy come here.” or “Daddy, I’m hungry”

He is very self sufficient.  If he wants something, and can do it himself…he does.  If he can’t do it himself…he finds  some way to communicate to us what he wants.

I guess that asking for things is a very important step in the learning process. And somehow Ace is behind in that aspect according to all of the “experts”.

So, we get to go see a speech therapist for a consult just to make sure that Ace is on track.

Which, I guess is a good thing.  If he does need help learning in some areas, it would definitely be better to know now, rather than when he starts Kindergarten in a few years.

Have you ever had to take your children to a speech therapist?  What do they do there?  What can we expect?  Please share your stories in the comments!

Hostinger