Wednesday, January 27, 2010

15 Month Check Up


Weight: 23lbs (although he was pretty wiggly and I think he's closer to 24lbs) - 25%
Height: 32in - 75%
Head: 49cm - 90%

Mobility
Micah now walks everywhere and can get up and down the stairs with ease. He can also open and close doors and drawers. He's usually pretty persistent and determined when he wants something he can't have or do like turn on and off the T.V. or dig through my night stand drawer. As a result I have resorted to locking some doors from the outside (particularly bathroom doors) when I cannot devote my attention solely to him.

Feeding
Micah has at least 11 teeth now and handles table food very well. He has breakfast at 8am, lunch at noon, a snack at 4pm and supper at 5:30pm. Most of his meals now are finger foods with ocassional things I spoon feed him like applesauce and yogurt.

He prefers to feed himself and lets you know what his preferences are at meal time refusing to eat anything unless he gets what he wants. However, usually the old "out of sight, out of mind" trick seems to work well with him.

Sippy cups are no longer an issue and he drinks about 20 ounces or more of vitamin D milk in one day.

Sleeping
On average, Micah sleeps from 8:00pm - 7:30am. Sometimes he'll wake at 6:30am and go back to sleep and other times I have to wake him up at 8:30. Regardless, the earliest I'll get him out of his crib is 8am unless we need to be up early for a specific reason.

He's transitioning from two naps to one by taking one short nap in the morning usually at 11am that's about 45 minutes to an hour and one longer nap in the afternoon from 2 - 4pm. However, lately if he sleeps an hour in the morning he's less likely to take a long afternoon nap. There have been a couple of days that he has taken one long 3 hour nap, but then he's usually crabby the next day. My goal is to get him to take one long nap from 1 - 4pm every day.

Communicating
Micah communicates very well. He can sign: "milk," "all done," "more," "book," "nigh, nigh." He can say: "mommy," "dada," "da-din" (jackson), "cra-grr" (cracker), "nigh, nigh," "ah-me" (amen), "Bapa" (Papa), and he mimics and tries to say more and more every day.

He'll cry and or throw a mini-tantrum if he doesn't get what he wants, but it usually lasts seconds and as he gets older we will definitely begin to discipline the behavior, but right now I feel he's too young to understand when he's throwing a tantrum.

However, he gets disciplined on a pretty consistent basis when we know and MICAH knows that he is being directly disobedient. Usually that entails touching something he's not allowed to or going up the stairs when we tell him not to.

I've thought about "baby proofing" those sort of things to prevent having to battle with him. I think I would if I was convinced that he didn't understand what I expected from him, but it is SO CLEAR that he understands when he's disobedient. I've come to the conclusion that the battle is worth it now so that I don't have to fight a WAR months or years from now. Consistent boundaries bring a sense of security (especially to children) and Micah is testing those boundaries which is a good and natural thing for him to do.

Playing
Micah's favorite toys right now are anything that has buttons and makes noises and anything his big brother is playing with at the moment.


As of late he's also taken a liking to fleece blankets (which is what he sleeps with) and the other day insisted on carrying one around. I'm trying to put the kabosh on that one, but we'll see.

He also loves to hide in closets, forts, cupboards, etc. He can sit through whole books now, but Bible story time is still a struggle (especially when we're explaining the story to Jackson).

Micah ADORES his big brother and mimics him in just about everything that he does. (I'm secretly and publicly hoping that that will aid in future potty training, but we'll see).


Micah is a pretty active player and I now have to use the cry room in church (we do not have a nursery) during the sermons, but he'll sit through most of the singing.

Micah loves to play outside when we can and is very brave at the playground going up stairs and down slides without any fear or hesitation. I may have a dare devil on my hands.

Personality
Micah is quick to laugh and smile and even quicker to make someone else laugh and smile.

He's shy around strangers and will cry with a babysitter or at the doctor's office, but once he gets to know you he's a hoot. He's definitely a child that should make you worry if he's off playing by himself not making a peep (that usually means he's into something he's not supposed to). I think he's going to be my "sneaky" one. So far he's not a "people pleaser", but loves doing his own thing. He loves to cuddle unless he's really tired and then he'll insist on laying down in bed. His exictment and smile when you walk in the door makes you feel so loved.

I'm blessed to have you Micah! I love you SO much!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

School

Why is this such a difficult and confusing decision for me? I guess it's a sign that I'm taking it seriously and wanting to make the right choice for my children ... right?

Anyway, Colin and I have talked about school a lot more this year than we ever have because Jackson has definitely begun to show interest in more structured learning and because we have several friends whose kids are starting school and/or making decisions about home school, public school or private school. We still haven't made an official decision and I realize that the decision might change a million times even after we think we've made it.

I feel like part of my lack of decision making is because we don't REALLY know where we'll be living when Jackson hits school age. Which, by the way, Colin and I do agree that we'd like to start Jackson in Kindergarten when he's six ... at least we've made that a final decision. Where we are will make a difference (in my mind) of how we decide to school.

Colin and I still have a lot to talk about as far as what kind of educational experience we want for our children and how socialization fits into that as well. We need to answer big lofty questions like: what do we want our children to get out of school?

Whatever we decide for our children's future education I'm also trying to live in the present and presently Jackson is HUNGRY for learning. So, we decided to start a curriculum called "Five in a Row."

"Five in A Row" is a literature based curriculum that takes one piece of children's literature per week and extracts different subjects each day.

For example, the first book we read was "The Story About Ping" by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese.

Our "school" time (which lasts about a half hour to an hour) Monday - Friday starts by reading the story of the week (I LOVE the idea of redundancy in teaching)and then we move on to a subject that is brought out in the story.

On Monday we studied Math and counted all the ducks in the book and practiced reading larger numbers.
Tuesday we studied Art and learned about different mediums and mixed primary colors to make secondary colors (I helped him draw the duck by the way, but he colored it).

Wednesday we studied Social Studies and talked about natural consequences and family relationships.
Thursday we studied Science and learned about buoyancy.


Friday we studied Geography and took a trip to China on YouTube.

You get the idea. It's been really fun for me and for Jackson and he begs to do "school" and will only call me "teacher" when we are. We've been doing "school" now since the middle of November.

The break we had with Thanksgiving and Christmas allowed me to see if Jackson was really interested in school or if it was just a phase ... he really does love to learn (surprise, surprise ... Colin and I are BOTH learners).

"Five in A Row" is really flexible and I really feel like it'll grow with Jackson until he's in the upper elementary school ages.

The only qualm I have with the curriculum is that the books can be hard to find in the library (at least our library) and I end up having to do inter-library-loans more often than I want to and our library doesn't have a smooth system for that. I recently went online and found a great website www.betterworldbooks.com and found most of the books on the book list for an average of $7.00, except the rare few that are out of print and are running for about $300.00 (I'll just skip those), but let me note that the proceeds go towards world literacy.

We're going to keep plugging away at "Five In A Row," but I'm going to remain flexible knowing that Jackson is only 3 1/2 years old. I'm excited about his love of learning! All the more reason to continue to keep prayerfully considering our education options for the future.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Thanksgiving and Christmas Pictures

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