Rowan: 4 yrs. 2 mo.

Rowan, Rowan, what do I say about her?!  She is a tough little cookie.  At times I feel like she is more mature than her brother at the same age, other times I feel like she is less mature.  And even sometimes I forget that she is 2 yrs younger than Liam, because often times she is trying to be just like him!  She is quite stubborn, and knows ALL my buttons to push at any given moment.  I really wish I could be more patient with her. She is doing really well at school, although recently she has been testing her teacher and not being the best listener in class.  She has taken a liking or rather love to art, and she paints and draws VERY well too, especially for her age.  She continues to enjoy her dance class, although we were pretty embarrassed at her dance recital at Christmas time when she decided to pull her skirt down while she was dancing.  When they told us that the recital at the end of the year costs $50, but to participate was optional, we opted to not do it.  We thought she could use another year of maturing before we do that.  She is mostly a picky eater, although we were very thrilled that she tried and liked an Indian meal, Coconut Korma, that Mike made.  

One phase that we are very glad is mostly over now (knock on wood), is she kept waking up in the middle of the night and would insist that we sleep in her room, or she would sleep in ours.  She also would not go to sleep at bedtime without one of us in her room.  It lasted at least a month + and we even asked her Dr. about it. She said we had to be very firm about her staying in her bed, and us in ours.  Finally, she got past that phase (hopefully) which we are very glad about. Although bedtime is still crazy, her not wanting to go to bed, getting out and being loud so Liam can't sleep...I still will take that over her insisting we are there till she falls asleep.

Shortly after her 4 year check up, we had to take her back to the Dr.s for an infection on her flumb (as she calls it). She was playing with some winter gloves, and I asked her to take them off, and she told me that she was using it to make her hand feel better because it hurt.  The room was dark, and at first glance I thought she had wiped her nose and had a booger on it. Then I realized that her thumb was all swollen and looked very infected.  It appeared to have swollen up over night because it didn't look that way the day before!  I called the Dr. right away, and they got her in.  They drained it, took a culture and bandaged it up, and she was on antibiotics for 10 days.  All I can think that happened was it got infected after I trimmed up a hangnail.  But, the Dr. said kids hands get so dirty and it could have been from anything.  The test actually came back positive for Staph and Strep! Really glad we got the 'White Boo Boo Mystery', as Liam named it, treated ASAP.  When she was at her 4 yr check up on 11-27-13, she weighed 31.8 lbs (23%), and her height was 37.5" (9%) 

comment by Gramdma B on 02/14/2014
Rowan is such a sweety! She is all girl though, with all the crazy stuff that goes with that, I still haven't figured it out:) We love her like crazy.

Liam: 6 yrs. 2 mo.

Well, Liam turned 6 a few months ago. He still loves going to school, and we just had his first parent/teacher conference last week.  The teacher told us that they expect the kids to be reading at level 2 by the end of January, and at level 4 by the end of the school year.  She said he's at least level 12, which is the highest level they are allowed to test at in Kindergarten.  We were pretty proud of that. At the start of the year, they sent home a reading program that is online called Raz Kids.  He started out very motivated doing the reading and quizzes very quickly.  Although, he kinda burned out on them as they got harder, but is somewhere near the last of the first grade levels (Level J).  We don't want to push him too hard so that he doesn't like to read, so we are having him read paper books to us at night again, like he was doing in pre-school.  We started the Complete Collection of Curious George a few days ago, and hope this helps getting him to enjoy reading again.  One of his Christmas gifts this year was a new tablet because his old cheap one fizzled out just after a year of use, but unfortunately he has become very hooked on his games lately. Somehow we will need to encourage more reading and playing with toys and less game time.  I think having warmer weather soon will help, I think everyone is getting a little stir crazy this winter.  At his 6 year check up (12-10-13)  we actually started to see a new Dr. that is closer to home.  Her name is Dr. Vargo, and so far we really like her.  His weight is 43.4 lbs. (35%), Height 3 ft. 8.5 in (31%).  

comment by Grandma B on 02/13/2014
He is such a sweetheart. I think he will be excited to be able to be outside playing again too.