I'll start with the youngest. Lily is a blossoming, sassy, independent 14 month old! She started walking at 11 months and is now running and trying to climb on everything. This leads to a veritable landscape of bruises on her forehead in varying shades of blue, purple and yellow. She is quite taken with the cat lately, much to Sylvester's dismay. He puts up with a lot but draws the line when she tries to ride him. This leads to a mix of scratch marks in amongst the bruises. I shudder to think what people might think from time to time. She gets into trouble so fast, that I simply can't get to her to stop the inevitable bump or scratch. Her next big adventure is to have tubes placed in both ears on March 4. Poor baby has had 7 (yes...7) ear infections since April. This last round required two rounds of antibiotics to clear up and she still has fluid on her ears. Even at well baby visits she has always had fluid on her ears. I am worried that it is starting to affect her speech. I know all kids develop at different rates, but Lily is much further behind verbally than Joshua was at this point. I have noticed that her hearing when she has an infection is affected and seems to be more affected with each infection. She still has a growing vocabulary but the words aren't very clear. We know what she is saying but I'm not sure anyone else does. So far she says mama, dada, bubba (for Joshua), puppy, ball, book, bye bye, uh-oh, down, gramma, grampa, banana and snack.
This past month and a half has been spent looking at school's for Joshua for next year. He is in pre-K now, but with his birthday falling a week past the cut off for kindergarten, he will be doing another year of pre-K. We have been happy with his daycare/preschool up to this point, but he has outgrown it and it's time to move on. We were informed on Friday that he has been accepted at Covenant Christian Academy for the fall and we are thrilled. They were are number 1 pick and I think Joshua will really blossom and flourish there. He seems to be a pretty bright little guy but gets bored if not challenged. I think we've been lacking on the challenge part of his education this year at his current school and I'm really excited to see what the new school will hold for him. Joshua is starting swim lessons next month and I'm hoping to undo some damage from a previous swim school. I started Joshua in water baby classes at 6 months and a local swim school that is very popular. He progressed and was doing fantastic until just before he turned 3. At that point he was starting to push off from the wall and actually swim out to me. The instructor wanted him to work on holding his breath longer and everything culminated with the instructor actually pushing Joshua back under water as he was reaching for me and holding him under! I have never been so furious in all my life! Joshua, of course, was traumatized and we spent all of last summer just trying to get him to put his face back in the water. I have found a different swim school that is closer to us, cheaper and comes highly recommended. They are aware of what happened and have assured me that NOTHING like that will happen with them. I wouldn't push the issue so much except both sets of grandparents have pools in their backyards so it's imperative that he learn to swim. We also started t-ball this past weekend. Eric opted to be assistant coach this go around and the head coach is awesome! Our first practice was a resounding success and Joshua is so excited about the season. He's on the Rangers so that helps too. He and Eric went to several games last season and watched the World Series. Since Joshua is a lefty, Eric is really hoping to cultivate a love a baseball.
Eric and I have been doing well. Seems like life is always going 90 miles an hour but we still make time to get out together. Both of us have taken up target shooting. In fact we each got a rifle for Christmas. We are doing our first tournament together in April! A couple of years ago I would have said you were nuts if you told me I would enjoy shooting, but I really do enjoy it. I could never hunt...but killing paper is fine by me! We are both looking forward to spring in general. I love all the tulips and daffodils that come out this time of year. The weather has been absolutely nuts this winter. 75 degree days in January followed by a 4 day freeze where the temperature didn't get above 20! NOT your normal Texas weather. I actually enjoyed the cold snap. I grew up in Colorado, so snow and ice don't really bother me. The rest of the city, however, flipped out! I don't remember the schools or businesses ever being closed for so many days in a row. My office even closed down for 4 out of the 5 snow/ice days!
