Highlights
- Calan turns 5 and has a pool party!
- The Grans visit and help celebrate Calan’s birthday
- Calan gears up for the “start” of school
- Evan gives up crawling and takes up walking!
Calan
Calan turning 5…
It’s become a tradition…the days leading up to Calan’s birthday on August 10th are filled with Calan counting down the days with happy anticipation and the arrival of Gran and Grandpa. Warm and fuzzy stuff for sure. While excitement is in the air, Mama and Dada are sure to temper it a bit (building things up to over-excitement can have it’s disadvantages at this age!). Nonetheless, Calan did great getting ready for both his backyard pool party on August 8th and his actual birthday celebration with family.
His party was just right. Perfect weather, and just the ideal amount of friends coming to have some fun in the backyard. This consisted of swimming, some sidewalk chalk and bubbles, pizza, a zip-line, and of course some fun presents and an amazing cake that Heidi made. As it turned out, many invitees had conflicts this year, but as with any party of this type, there is a sweet spot…not too many but enough to share with and make it festive. Calan had roughly 10 friends come including their siblings, from old buddies like Jake and Declan, and Josiah and Devna from pre-school, to new buddies from his swimming class this summer, Anthony and Jude.
For Mama and Dada, it was nice to have Joe August come for most of the event and Moshe with daughter Shayna, who came at the end and for the “after” party. We had a good time hanging with Moshe, and Calan fell back in love all over again with Shayna. He just loves pal’ing around with her when she visits. Josiah, Raya and Jose stayed awhile too, enjoying some grilled marinated chicken. As usual, Gran and Grandpa’s help at the party was invaluable – jumping in to prepare and set up, get pizzas, and the big task of watching “baby” Evan.
On his actual birthday, we kept it low-key. We revisited Heidi’s really cool, homemade cake, opened some more presents, and spent some more time in the pool (Grandpa and Evan included). Calan’s reaction to his presents unveiling was priceless as caught in this video. Among his favorite presents were some of his very own copies from the Magic Tree House series, a new Mickey Mouse and Mickey pajamas (setting the stage for his first trip to Disneyland coming up next month!), a microscope and of course the tickets to Disneyland. Somehow, we don’t think he’ll quite get that gift until the day of the trip in September. Thanks to all the “gran-parentals” for their gifts and bringing lots of smiles to Calan’s face. 🙂
Getting ready for school
With school just around the corner, Calan more or less decided not to wait for it officially. With Mama’s help, he delved back into some of his books from earlier in the summer, and geared up in his core subjects of Math, Reading and Science. We also met with his teacher Leina at River Oaks for the first time to go over the process and expectations for school away from school. Calan donned his new Cars backpack, filled with pencils, books and paper as he took on the full school spirit.
Getting stronger emotionally
Finally, something worth noting as Calan adds a year to his age is that he is definitely maturing when it comes to handling emotions and reactions. Simplifying it down, we’ve noticed the last couple of months that he is able to let certain desires or expectations go if they don’t work out in his favor. For example, in the past he would easily fall into a tantrum if he didn’t get to close the big garage door or lock the front door after someone leaves. Nowadays, he’s learned to be “okay” if the situation isn’t such that he does this. In fact, he’s conscious of it enough to verbally say “I didn’t get to close the door, but that’s ok. Mama did it.” He also has a bit more patience if he’s working on something; building a complex train-track for example. If it falls or stay connected just right, he’s more apt to use some of his intensity to solve the problem instead of just discharge anger over it.
As his brain develops, it seems that those specific types of situations where he wants to show his power and/or independence don’t 100% have to go his way for him to maintain a steady state. It says a lot about him growing, because we have worked on these things with him, talking and problem solving, and he’s gradually responded positively. But also, the fact that he’s aware of his new reactions in those moments shows that he is truly developing in the best way with these challenges.
Now, we’re not out of the woods yet… One big obstacle we still deal with, but is certainly getting better is when Evan is “on the loose”, that is moving freely on his own around the house as we all play together. At times, Calan may have toys, books or schoolwork out that he doesn’t want Evan to get to. He has a tendency to react intensely to this possibility, but these “explosions” are becoming less and less depending on the day as we work with him to both prevent and respond in calmer ways. As he revs up schoolwork, he’s also learning that it’s okay to move on from or fix his writing or drawing mistakes, (i.e. use an eraser!) instead of always getting upset. We’re not there yet, but it’s good to see him going in the right direction.
We’ve also been tested on this subject with the introduction of the food allergy therapy. Having to do the daily doses of SLIT, nuts, yogurt, nasal spray, etc. is good for his immune system development but it does create a power struggle since it’s just one more thing that he HAS to do. No one would want to feel forced to eat or take things every day that you might not necessary love, but Mama has gotten creative, learned some valuable patience and is the main one helping Calan adjust to the daily routine as smoothly as possible. It does come with a good share of struggle, but it’s a chance for Calan to become even stronger, right?
Evan
Our little baby made some big strides (literally) this month towards as he moves into toddlerdom. As we entered August, he was becoming more comfortable getting up on his feet by himself for a few moments. As each day went by, these moments became longer…3 seconds, 5 seconds and even 10 seconds or more at times. It was only natural that he practiced taking steps in these attempts to stay standing, and so it went; stand, step, plop…stand, step, step, plop…stand, step, step, step and plop. The extra padding in his diapers surely kept his rear end from getting sore. By the second week of August though, he figured out how to keep his steps going. His two or three steps lead to more and more until he was able to toddle across the family room on his own, reaching a destination where he could grab a hold of something. He always smiled and chuckled with glee as his legs rocked him from one point to the other. It was fun to watch, especially as he learned to make turns and would sometimes find himself going in circles around Mama or Dada or playing a chasing game with Calan. As the month continued, he started applying his new walking skills in place of crawling, and by the end of August crawling had nearly disappeared as his first choice of transport was to be up on his legs, waddling from place to place.
As Evan officially began walking this month (at 14 months), he also officially stopped nursing. He’d been waning for some time, drinking mostly Goat’s milk in the day with some breast milk interspersed and at bedtime for soothing. But he became less and less interested in what Mama had to offer, drinking less and less. This made it harder for Heidi to pump and keep up any kind of supply. Towards the end, it just became apparent that it would be too much extra work to try and keep it going for what it’s worth. With his age and clearly not wanting for it, breast feeding came to an end. It’s always interesting to see the difference in the kids, such as milestones and personality traits. In this area and at this age, Calan definitely still benefited from nursing to help supplement his diet and to help calm and soothe at bedtime. But Evan was perfectly content to move on at this point, stopping at about half the time as compared to Calan who was almost 2 1/2 when he stopped officially.
In the “speaking” department, Evan likes to let us know he likes balls as it’s a word he likes to try and say frequently. Often, when we’re playing around with a ball he’ll reach and say “Baaaaauuu”. It always causes us to pause a moment to absorb the cuteness of his attempt at saying the word. He also loves to say good-bye to people when they leave, including sitters. He seems to sense when it’s time, and will move towards the door and reach out as if to wave and say “ba-ba”, often repeating it a few times. Very precious.