Cream of Potato Soup

And we're back!

We had a nice, relaxing week off here, and I'm much saddened to see it end. We spent the majority of the week in Cleveland, the land where Mike and I are only part-time parents and Evan always gets his way. Ev got to play outside a lot, and do things like eat Cheetos and M & M's whenever he wanted and run naked in the water from the hose. He got another haircut (those seem to happen more and more often now) and he was very well behaved for it--if I didn't know better I'd suspect he's growing up.

As for us, Mike and I took in two baseball games and did some shopping. We even went out for margaritas one night, which is just about unheard of. It was a good week, and I'm glad it happened when it did. From now on, we're busy every weekend until mid-August. It's crazy. Somehow the summers just get packed with things to do, reunions, picnics, visits from friends. It's all going to be a lot of fun, but very hectic too.

Luckily, Evan's in bed early tonight, and I think I'll turn in too. Mike's working on some design stuff downstairs, and the house is quiet. It's so nice to finish these days off with some peace and calm before life really starts up again and things get crazy.

Posted by jenny at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike's on vacation this week, so we are checking out. We don't have a lot planned, but relaxing is on the top of the list. Jerry's home briefly before he leaves for Italy, we've got access to some Indians tickets, and we've got nowhere we have to be for a few days. It all sounds good to me.

I guess we'll be around, but if you don't hear from us, don't be alarmed! We're just having some fun family time. See you in June.

Posted by jenny at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is Mike's 28th birthday! Happy birthday, Daddy! Evan and I hope you get everything you wish for. Here's to another great year.

Posted by jenny at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yeah, nevermind about the second half of Evan's eval. I guess that's not happening for another two weeks or so. We will wait on the edge of our collective seats until then.

The "v" key on my keyboard is VERY sticky.

Some good news today! Since Mike kept hounding our insurance provider (with help from the HR department at the college), they agreed to pay for Evan's speech therapy. The OT is still under review, but I can handle that. Yay Mike for complaining loudly and often.

Tomorrow we head back to Pittsburgh for therapy #2 of 12. Fun for all.

Posted by jenny at 05:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today was the first half of Evan's yearly evaluation for EI (the therapists that see him in our home). I can hardly believe it's been a year since his last eval--last May seems like a million years and a million therapies ago.

So his SLP evaluated his self help skills, social/emotional well being, and language skills this afternoon. He scored at 30 months for self help (great), 28 months for social/emotional (right on target), and 13 months for expressive language, 18 months for receptive language (yikes). Well, this is not a surprise anyway--I'm glad he's on target in the other things at least.

Wednesday will be the second half of the evaluation. He'll be seen by his other therapist for gross motor, fine motor, and cognitive skills. I'm not expecting anything unusual there, but then again you never know.

Posted by jenny at 06:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Yeah, not really, but if you keep saying it maybe you'll believe it.

Today was our first therapy session in Wexford, and it was okay. I guess after fighting to get Evan in there for the last 3 months, I had built it up to being the best therapy ever. You know, some palace with golden doors and free massages and refreshments and just the right program that's going to have Evan talking in just three weeks!

Not quite, but everyone there was very nice and Evan did incredibly well the entire time. He liked OT a lot--his therapist was very energetic and he played well with her. Of course it helped that she had tailored the activities to Evan's preferences (playing in water, active play), but I have a feeling that working with her will do him a lot of good.

His speech therapist was also very nice, but Evan is going to have a little more trouble there I think--simply because speech isn't as active and it's in a tiny office instead of a big open gym. He tried though, especially when the SLP wanted him to blow bubbles with her. The SLP would like him to have a longer session with her, but I think trying to keep Ev on task for longer than an hour would be a futile exercise. I guess we'll wait and see.

I didn't enjoy spending the greater part of the day on the road, so we're going to have to make the days more interesting. Maybe we should ask Alan to meet us for lunch, or make a dinner date with Kelly or Beth? Maybe Evan will get the chance to know greater Pittsburgh this summer. That sounds worthwhile to me. I can teach him to say "Monongahela".

Posted by jenny at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really like this whole nice weather, play outside all day thing. Evan has a lot of fun, and it wears him out so he goes to bed at 8 o'clock. It works for me--welcome summer (almost).

Not much is going on here, really, besides spending all of our time running around outside. We're looking anxiously forward to our first therapy in Pittsburgh this week, and we're looking sadly toward the departure of our friends April and Dean from Meadville this weekend. It's going to be a lonely place without them, that is certain.

I installed our own little window safety system on our second floor windows this afternoon. Now you can only open them so far--I was obsessed with worrying that Evan was going to fall out a window. You may laugh at my fear, but it happened to a little boy in Pittsburgh last weekend. I'm a chronic worrier, I get it from my dad.

For right now, I'm tired, so I'm going to bed. How's that for excitement?

P.S. The fact that Evan has been sleeping all night every night in his own bed for the past few weeks makes me really rethink the whole "have another baby" bit. Man, it's nice to be able to stretch out for once and not wake up with a little butt in your face.

Posted by jenny at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there--the new moms, the moms-to-be, and the experienced moms too! I hope everyone has a nice, relaxing day filled with love. Evan's been loving me up all morning, so I'm a lucky Mommy myself.

Posted by jenny at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Long time no post, I apologize. Actually, it hasn't been that long, it just seems that way. We did go up to Rochester on Saturday to meet the new baby. That all went fine, and Evan behaved as well as can be expected. I have to say, though, that I feel guilty any time we have to spend that much time in a car in one day. I know how grumpy it makes me so I can only imagine how it feels for a two year old. But Evan did his best and I can't ask for anything more than that.

In other news, Evan's been having a ball playing outside. Last night when I got back from my workout, Mike and Evan were playing in the back with two neighbor boys. Ev was running and shouting and laughing, having the time of his life. Mike was also playing dodgeball with the older boys (read:beaning the boys with a kickball) which they thought was great fun.

These boys are fairly new neighbors and I get the feeling that there's not a lot of parental involvement there. But Mike was great, and I commented to him how much fun it would be for Ev to grow up with a dad like him. Mike likes to play, and that's awesome. He's really enjoying Evan more as he gets older, because there's so much more to do with him than there was when he was an infant. There's nobody like a dad to roughhouse with or play ball, and Evan's a lucky boy in that respect.

We also got confirmation of our therapy in Pittsburgh. We'll be going Thursday afternoons starting next week. I'm excited to get this party started.

Posted by jenny at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)