Where are your pants

We seem to have a recuring problem, Grant perfers to run around the house without his pants. Around Christmas, Grant started to trying to put on and take off his clothes. He's so pround of himself everytime he takes off those pants. He'll look over towards you holding up those trophy pants with one of his silly grins. He still struggles to get his pants on and his shirt off, but loves to take off those pants. He also takes off Norah's socks every single time I put a pair on her little feet. She ends up rarely wearing socks at this point because Grant insists that she doesn't need them.

Back to the pantless boy...One day this winter (it was blow freezing) I put his pants back on him a dozen times, I even gave him a timeout trying to get him to keep his pants on. In the end, it's not hurting him to run around the house without those pants, if he was really too cold he's leave them on, right? I am also thankful he doesn't do this when we're out in public, or at least he hasn't yet. Someday soon (I hope) he'll probably keep them on, before he's has any church or school performances, and a few years from now, he'll most likely be embarassed by these pictures. I love you Peanut, pants or no pants!

Zoo Day

Today as Grant, Norah and I were walking at the zoo, we watched two robins eating the scraps of food around the picnic tables. Seeing the robins made me remember being in first grade. We had a contest to see the first robin meaning it was spring and the birds were returning. I pretty sure I only remeber this because I won the contest and recieved the honor of placing the robin sticker on the class calendar. Ever since then I have always been on the lookout for the first robin of spring. I love spring, the fresh, crisp air that drives my sinuses crazy, and the newness of everything.

I have been taking Grant and Norah to the zoo about twice a month since this fall. I have so much fun watching Grant explore, while Norah gets some peace and quiet from her brother. Grant has become my little helper. He loves to push the automatic door opener as we go in and out of all the buildings.

Today as we walked through the big cat building, Grant roared at the lions, tigers and cheetahs, and before we left he blew them all kisses. Then there was Grant kissing the baby gorilla statue, my first thought was that's so cute. My next thought, I sure that is covered with so many germs, I hope he doesn't get sick. Oh well, we moved on.

On our way to the Australian animal building got checked out the bears. Then came the most memorable moment of the day. Norah was ready to eat, I learned the most quiet place to nursing at the zoo is the Australian animal building, especially when the kangaroo's are outside, like today. I got Grant all set up on the bench with his snack, then got Norah out, nursing cover over my head, then ready to sit down. Boom. onto the floor. Seriously. The bench was broken, it's been fine previously, but today not. Oh by the way the building is much busier than usual. Norah and I survived our fall. I quickly gathered all our belonging and moved down to the next bench, before the family walking in the door noticed our chaos. After that Norah made it know she was done. We quick peeked at the giraffes, then she cried all the way to the parking lot.

Norah's Report Card

Today, Norah and I went to the neonatal development followup program at Children Hospital of Wisconsin. Our appointment lasted 2 1/2 hours, that's a long time for my baby girl. She weighed in a 14lbs 5oz, 10%, she's still tiny but 10% is better than the 5% that she used to be! She just had a growth spurt, she's now 26 3/4in, that's 70th percentile. She'll be tall like her mommy and daddy. Her head circumference meausured 42cm, she's down to the 50th percentile. I guess I never thought of Norah having an 'average' head, but yeah Norah! After all the measuring was finished, we had playtime with the therapist. We met with an occupational, physical and speech therapists. Norah was getting pretty tired since this was her usually time to nap, but she did her best to show off her skills. She 'talked' to all the girls and made them all fall in love with her. They were trying hard to get her to pass a block from one hand to another, she refused. That was until they put it down and she picked it up herself and started passing it between hands on her own. Silly girl, just doing things the way she wants to do it and in her own time. The big bummer is that she refused to roll over and didn't want to push up at all while she was on her tummy. These are two things she does daily and we had been working on with PT for the last month. Oh well, she can do them and that's what is most important.

Here are her scores: her cognitive skills were at 7 months, her fine motor and gross motor skills were both at 6 months, her receptive language (talking) 7 months, and her expressive language is at 5 months. Her core muscles are still weak. Dr. Bear calls her her buddah baby and said her expressive language will come one she has better control with her core muscle. That she needs to hold herself upright then she can practives her mama and dada more. They told us to keep spending lots of time with tummy time, and spend time sitting up and playing with things out in front of her. These are things that we already do. Once we were done with the therapist and Dr. Bear, we were off for a hearing test. Norah passed! Yeah for another thing that Norah won't have to have done again unless she shows any problems in the future. We were told the same thing last month when she passed her vision exam. We'll keep working with Birth to 3, but we made it out of the appointment without being referred to anyone else.

I think Norah is dong so well, she hanging right in there trying to keep up with her motor skills. I'm just so happy she's doing so well after such a tough start.

Happy Birthday Grant

Grant turned 2 on March 1st!! We celebrated his big day with a trip to the circus. I wasn't to sure about taking to kids under 2 years old to the circus but Grant loved it! Grammy and Grandpa Zehrung came along for the fun.



We were seated by the entrance where the performers entered the arena, so we were able to get to the the elephants and tigers up close. Grant and Norah took a cat nap in the middle of the first act. Jason and I let Grant jump inside an inflatable castle.



I was so nervous ever time he fell I thought one of the bigger kids in there was going to jump on him and hurt him. He ended up fine in the end, but did require some extra coaxing to get him to come out. The second act flew by, in the end we didn't ride the elephants...maybe next year. After witnessing some road rage in the parking garage we made it to Buca's for dinner. Grant favorite part, one giant cupcake just for him.



I helped blow out the cupcake after he gave it a few good tries, and left some spit on the cupcake. Once at home again, it was time to open presents!! Jason and I were so excited about the trike that we found to give to Grant, but Grant found the vacuum cleaner to be his favorite gift.





Even though 2 if often referred to as terrible, I think Grant will come out with few of those moments. He loves his little sister, giving her hugs and kisses often. Every morning after I finish nursing Norah, he damands to hold snuggle with her.

I can't believe I'm actually doing this

I'm always looking to do something new, next on the list create a blog for my family and friends to keep track of our family happenings. I first wanted to create this about a year ago. A year ago today, my husband and I went for my 19 week ultrasound and discoved that I was having a baby girl!!! We also learned that she was going to have hydrocephalus. We don't always know what God has in store for our lives, but we take one step at a time to overcome the obstacles placed in front of us. Today I look at my beautiful Norah and am so pround to be her mom.