Soon?

Maybe I should have mentioned in my last post that "coming soon" was a relative term. :) Where oh where did the past month GO?

Even now as I sit down to type, the baby (8 months old now!) is starting to fuss. Figures.

Ok, 20 minute break to feed baby and put him down for a nap. Now where was I?

Right. Catching up... Will I ever be caught up? Maybe when my kids are all in school full-time? That will be in about 5 years.

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The above was written a couple of weeks ago already. Seriously, the Summer is flying by so fast I can't believe it. Between a bored 8-year-old, a tantruming 4-year-old, a strong-willed, potty-training 2 & 1/2 year old, and a newly-crawling 8-month-old, life is chaotic to say the least.

What have we been up to? Here it is in a nutshell. Yes, the condensed version is all I seem to find time for lately. Sorry.

Seth has been job-hunting. He was a contractor at a company that no longer renews contracts beyond 2 years, so as of June 30th, he has joined the Unemployed. No fun there. He spends hours searching for jobs, tweaking his resume and writing cover letters. He has had several phone interviews, but so far no face-to-face interviews. So he is busy searching and doing all that. It takes a lot of computer time! (Therefore, since that takes priority, most of my computer time lately has been from my phone, and I don't do well with typing on that little iPhone keyboard, so this is a treat to use the laptop uninterrupted for a bit!)

Ethan is bored. He is always asking if I will play a game with him, or if he can play on my iPod, or if we can go to the beach / park / library / restaurant , etc. We have been going to the beach quite a bit. I need to get him in swimming lessons. He loves the water and wants to learn to swim. He also loves science and wants to do science projects around the house. He is always asking if we have vinegar so he can make a volcano, or blow up a balloon, or make crystals, etc. He is reading about space and wants to look at the moon through his telescope. He is interested in cooking and wants to help me bake (which I haven't done much of due to all the warm, humid days!) Yesterday he told me he thinks he'd like to be a chef when he grows up. Although this may come from watching Ratatoullie a lot lately!

Kibby misses school. She always asks to "go to school and see Ms. Julie" (her teacher this past year). She also wants to go to church several times a week. She was evaluated at the Clinic again, this time by a psychologist. (She was referred back in January but it just took this long to get her in! 6 months!) Anyway, the Clinic did some testing and decided not to redo the ADOS test for Autism that the school district had already done over the Winter because after reviewing the report saw no reason to re-test. That meant only 2 hours at the appointment instead of four! Yay! The recommendation was that Kibby stay in Special Ed preschool with the speech therapy included, but to consider adding Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy as well. From what I understand this is a pretty intense one-on-one therapy, recommended for 20-25 hours (or sometimes up to 40 hours) a week with a qualified therapist. They work on developing adaptive behaviors while decreasing target behaviors by breaking goals and tasks down into smaller tasks for the child, and rewarding each small success, thereby increasing the likelihood of the child repeating the desired behavior. (Does that make sense?)
So we are looking into that for her. There are waiting lists and insurance hurdles, so it's been a process already. We are also looking into getting her a caseworker to help us navigate all of this, and to get the most help for her right now when she is young.

Ruby is 2 and a half, and is our drama queen, silly entertainer, and definitely a strong-willed child! She loves to watch movies, play outside, go to the park, to church, and to go swimming at the beach. She always asks for her "swimming soup". I love that so much I don't want to correct her! Is that bad? :) She is currently learning to use the potty, and isn't too thrilled so far. She will hold it in and beg for a diaper. Um, yeah. It's a work in progress, but I thought it might be easier to train her now before Ean starts walking!

Which brings me to Ean! He started crawling a couple weeks ago, and is getting to be speedy already! My gut is telling me he will not walk at 9 months like all of his siblings, and I have to say that makes me happy a little. :) I am NOT ready for that yet! Even though it's exciting to see them reach new milestones and it might have been cool to say "all my kids walked at 9 months" - I now know that they already are growing too fast and won't mind my baby slowing down a bit! He is starting to try to pull himself up on furniture already, though, and we have found him pushed up onto his hands and feet (instead of hands and knees) when crawling, which I find amusing. I should point out that he doesn't actually move then. He stays that way until he remembers how to get back down on his knees or topples over. :)
He likes to "dance" when he hears music, too. When he is crawling and hears music, he kind of bops up and down a little. It's hard to describe exactly, but so cute.

Whew! The laundry is calling once again, as Ean just overflowed his diaper in the baby swing. (Yeah, he still likes the swing! Unreal, but the weight limit is 25 lbs, and he doesn't try to climb out of it, so we've let him enjoy it as long as he wants to so far.)

Until next time! Forgive me for not proofreading - if there are typos I hope you'll all understand! I still have photos to post, so the next one will probably be mostly cuteness and less words. :) Hope you're all enjoying your Summer!

Sisters

Proof that they don't always fight:

Kibby is learning to tolerate her sister, and even play with her. It's what I've been hoping for, that they would become best friends. It's heading that way... Of course they still fight and squabble over things on a daily (even hourly) basis, but I am starting to see more love and caring between them, too.

If Kibby gets an owie, Ruby wants to kiss it all better. If Kibby accidentally hurts Ruby, she is now saying, "sorry, Ruby." without prompting. Heartwarming.

This may not seem like much, but even a few months ago, Kibby mostly wanted nothing to do with Ruby. She would ignore her or fight with her, but very rarely show her any love, interest, or compassion. To see this starting to change does my heart good! :) There is hope!

Sisterly love. :)

Birthday Girl!

Happy Birthday, Kibby!

Yesterday was Kibby's birthday. Here she is telling us all how old she is!
Anybody notice what's missing?

Two of her gifts - Strawberry Shortcake dolls.



She loves Strawberry Shortcake. She watches the 2 Strawberry Shortcake DVDs that she owns all the time! (I do mean all. the. time!) One of them is called Strawberry Shortcake, Berry Big Journeys. (I won it for her from my friend Sarah's blog. Thanks, Sarah!) Kibby loves to watch it, and she calls it "Strawberry Shortcake Big Germs". :)

She also got some Color Wonder paint & marker kits. She loves to draw and paint and color. She had gotten some Color Wonder stuff from her grandparents for Christmas and has been coloring pictures a lot lately. Since Christmas, when she wants to color, she will tell me, "I just want markers for Christmas, I just want to draw!" all in one breath, rushed together. It's the same phrase, said in the same tone, every time. That's just how Kibby is.


Here is some of her recent artwork:
This used to be more of the norm for her. She would fill entire sheets of paper with just purple. Every single white spot covered with purple marker or crayon. I'm happy to see she is expanding her love of color beyond just that one!



I had asked her to open her eyes instead of squinting them shut (how she usually smiles for the camera!) and she signed "awake" for me! :)



She used up all of her finger paints in about an hour! I looked over and realized she was using gobs of paint at a time, her little fingers nearly stuck together. Ah well, I thought... she is having fun. She was so focused at her creations, too!

Switching gears a bit, we have been having quite a few appointments for her lately. She has been having tests done to see if she will qualify for Early Childhood classes. So far she has had two speech / language evaluations, a vision test, a hearing test, a meeting with a social worker, some academic testing, and she has two more to appointments go. She will have an autism checklist screening done next week, and she will also see a developmental nurse practitioner. I hope to have all of the results compiled by our meeting with the school district in mid-February. I will update around that time to let everyone know what we find out!

For now, we'll keep up the artwork, one day at a time!

I'm growing!

I'm getting bigger!

See?

This was me just after Christmas. (I'm thinking hard!)

Here I am on New Year's Eve. So excited I can hardly stand it.

But I do like to try to talk to Mommy!

And here I am most recently. All 13 and a half pounds of me. :)
(And it's Mommy's fault I look green here. I thought she was going to fix that...)

See you soon! :)

A Very Late Christmas Post

Only nearly a month late...

Merry Christmas!

Kibby provided our laugh for the morning, when she got her stocking, she went from Grandma to Grandpa saying in an excited voice, 'TRICK OR TREAT!!!" and held out her stocking to them. Ah, Kibby... Great enthusiasm, but wrong holiday. :)

Checking out their stocking gifts and candy.

Ethan got a chore chart. It's magnetic, and I still haven't thought of a really good place to put it where the little ones won't be into it and either rearranging the magnets or losing them, or worse - choking on them. Ethan was (still is) pretty excited about it, though.

The girls got fleece slings that Grandma made for them. Ruby loved hers and I have a couple dozen pics of her wearing her baby that morning. Kibby liked hers but wasn't nearly as excited. She chose to carry a Care Bear in hers.

Here is Ruby when she first opened hers. My mom had made them each 3 dolly blankets and a sling. Ruby immediately gave hers a snuggle!

Our family of six! (Wow, nobody is crying!)

One month already!

I can't believe Ean is already one month old! Here are some recent pictures:

Here he is trying to talk to Seth. (We were trying to get him to smile!) He is beginning to find his voice and says "ah" more every day now!

Yesterday (the 2nd) he smiled at me for the first time! And I don't mean in his sleep, either! The first time he did it, I thought it was unintentional, but then he did it 3 more times! He was so alert and just studying my face as I talked to him for about 10 minutes. Of course I didn't have my camera nearby, and trying to get him to do it when I do have my camera around is still difficult. It won't be long, though, and he will be smiling a lot more! :)

Catching Up

It has been a busy few weeks in the Mango household, so I'm a bit behind in posting some important events!

First of all, our little Ruby turned 2 at the end of October!

Birthday Girl!

Blowing out the candle.

Hooray for Cake!

Opening some presents.

Baby Ean, 8 days before his arrival! Please ignore the dark circles around my eyes and lack of make-up! Focus your attention instead on Ruby! She already loved to give her baby brother kisses! :)

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Next came Halloween. It seems so long ago!

Or maybe that is just because we're out of all the "good" candy already?

Ethan was Darth Vader again, cousin Isaiah was a pirate, Kibby was a princess, and Ruby was... well, we weren't sure. I got the costume at a used children's clothing store, and at first I thought it was a bunny, but we're now thinking it's really a lamb. What do you think? Either way, I think it's way adorable on her!

Lamb or bunny?


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Next up is some more recent pictures of Ean. Ean with his siblings, Ean by himself, Ean being held, Ean crying... you get the idea. :)

With his sisters.

Hungry enough to eat his own arm!


Ruby just can't get enough of him.

I may never get a nice picture of all 4 kids... Someone is always bound to have their thumb in their mouth or not be looking this way... I'll keep trying, though! My blog header needs a new photo, for one thing!

We have a hard time keeping Ruby's hands off Ean. Not for lack of trying. We are constantly reminding her! Hands off, please! Well, off his face and hands, at least. Since it's flu season and all, you know...

He's always hungry! :) Here he is trying to eat the pillow!

Not happy, but look how strong he is! Holding himself up.

Until next time!

One Week

Ean is already one week old. Wow. Actually, he was a week old yesterday, but I didn't have time to put up a post then. I don't really have time now, either, but wanted to post a picture or two.

Or five. :)

So tiny!

Look Mom! A smile!

Sleeping on Mommy.

Listening to Ethan talk to him.

First shot of all four kids together. Of course Ean wasn't looking, Ruby's clothes have water dripped on them, and Kibby is displaying her newly-found wacky fashion sense... but I couldn't take another at the time because my memory card was full! I do think it accurately conveys how crazy life is right now, though, so it's definitely a keeper! :)