Summer Summary

I feel bad when I don't blog, but then I think about the fact that no one probably reads this anyway :) I promise to do better. In the meantime, here is a summary of our summer thus far:

Vacations...

We went to Pensacola, FL for a week with Dave's family and to Kansas City, MO for about 5 days for Dave's cousin Justin's wedding. I'm sure you all saw the pictures so there's not much to recap on those trips, except that I am SO thankful that P&E actually walked down the aisle :) Woo hoo!

We would like to take another trip sometime in August - October, but we're not sure. We priced out a week at Beaches Turks & Caicos for the low low price of $12K...uh, that's not gonna happen. Club Med is an option since they are geared towards families as well. We'll see. Of course Dave would like to go somewhere sans kiddos. Dream on hubby ;)

Appointments...

In my last blog entry I said no more appts for the girls until age 3, but then I called to check in with Perry's plastic surgeon (for her hemangioma on her hand) and they are no longer seeing hand patients, so we've been transferred to a new doc at Children's. So of course he wants to see her to do an "assessment" so to speak. Shouldn't be a big deal, I think it is healing quite nicely.

Ella's ortho appt went well. They did x-rays and had her walk around and she was such a big girl! I was so proud of her. She IS knock-kneed (and that's the medical term) but not to the point of it being a concern right now. He said it may get worse before age 3 but then she should start to *straighten* out. He does want to see her next year though to check in with us...which is good. And he said Crocs are a great shoe b/c of their supportive arches...sweet!

Luca has his 15 month appt coming up at the end of this month and we need to get him in with the pediatric GI doc to do the celiac blood test. Not that we think he has it, but they recommended all the kids be tested since I have it.

School...

We got put on the waitlist at United Services but they said they don't think they'll have 2 openings before school starts...so we got recommended to the Saint Peters branch. It's a lot further than I wanted to drive, so we're not sure what we'll do. For now, P&E are still at PDO in Harvester (for the summer) and are registered for the year as well, but we'll see. They have a preschool there too, but most schools want kids to be 3 by August 1st and unfortunately, we're not. :(

Oh and a cute story from PDO. I asked if P&E play with other kids or if they gravitate towards each other all the time and the teachers said they do a little of both. They have the kids hold hands to walk to the playground and the teachers have been making an effort to get P&E to hold other kids' hands, but on the way back in that day, Ella grabbed Perry's hand and when the teacher came over, she said "I hold Perry's hand"...and that was that :)

Activities...

We are now official members at the YMCA here in O'Fallon. In addition to becoming members, I signed up for an aerobics class and signed all 3 kids up for a gymnastics class. They can all go together b/c it's 12-36 months. We'll get discounts on classes for the kids now and a lot of the aerobics classes are free, along with the nursery/child watch. So maybe P&E will be back in dance class soon?

We are also season pass holders at Six Flags. After our great experience at Worlds of Fun, we thought we'd give it a whirl. It's fun, but not as kid-oriented as WoF was. Dave and I hadn't been in years so it took us awhile to get reacquainted with the park. The kids' area is very spread out too. And I forgot how hilly it is...pushing 2 strollers and 3 kids around is quite the work out. Maybe we don't need that Y membership?? LOL!

Talking...

The girls are talking more and more, which is great! They know lots of colors...red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, white, black, gray, and khaki! Yup, khaki! And it is SO cute to hear them say it. Ella loves the number 2. Everything is 2. 2 trucks mommy? 2 monkeys mommy? 2. 2. 2. Of course we hear a lot of grunts, groans, and moans still too. It's a process.

Luca still mumbles "da da" all day long, but occasionally if you ask him to say things, he will repeat you. Especially "dog" and "no". And he's working on molars right now so he's a big drooly mess ;)

Potty training...

Yup, we've started. Today is actually the first official day. Ella is in big girl panties. I decided Perry's not quite as ready as Ella is, so Perry is in a holding pattern right now. She'll wear pull ups occasionally and her big girl panties OVER her diaper/pull up and she'll watch Ella in the bathroom, but no potty training for her yet. Ella has gone pee on the potty about 5 out of 7 or 8 times. The other times, she says she needs to go, but really doesn't. I figured as much. We just had our first accident. It was about 5-10 minutes before I was going to have her try again and she went...in her panties, in her shorts, down her legs, in her sandals, on the carpet. Of course it couldn't be the tile or the deck. Ah well. At least the first accident is out of the way. I thought for sure she'd be upset about it which would work to our advantage, but she wasn't. So we'll give this whole thing a few more days and see how it pans out. If it turns out that she's not ready, so be it. Cuz Mommy's certainly not ready ;)


I think that's about it on our end. I won't dare say that we're not exciting, b/c every minute of every day is a thrill ride. Till next time!