Our Little Owlet: the END of Winter 2013-2014

This winter has been brutal... in many ways. The temperature and snowfall has been record-breaking. We're not impressed. Also, illness has plagued our family for the last few months. We had a LONG stretch of health until January hit, and Asher has pretty much been sick since then. Between him being sick and my nieces all sharing their own illnesses with each other, we have only seen them a handful of times the entire winter... which especially sucks when they live down the road. They haven't ever gotten each other sick, but when Asher's sick, or when the girls are sick with something else, we stay away from each other to keep the healthy kids healthy. This has apparently been a very bad winter for illness all over, and it's no different at our house. I'm. SO. OVER. IT. It's incredibly frustrating to say the least. I know that when you leave your house and go out in the public you run the risk of infecting yourself or your kids with the bazillion germs out there. Obviously that's the case... what I don't understand is why SO many people find it totally acceptable to cart horribly sick kids all over, and to bring them to homes and play dates and classes and EVERYWHERE, infecting everyone in their path. Asher's gotten sick from the library (he ALWAYS gets sick from there, so that's why we never ever go anymore), from church, from his music class, from a play date at another family's house (where someone else brought their super sick kids), etc. So pretty much we can't leave the house with him unless we want him to get sick for 2-3 weeks. It's infuriating, and I'd better just leave it at that. SO. OVER. IT. Last Friday, he finally got over a 3 week illness of a sinus infection. By Thursday, he was sick AGAIN with a croupy cough, fever, stuffy nose. UGH.

We enrolled Asher in Kindermusik at the end of January. He LOVES it so so much. Unfortunately, he's missed more than he's attended due to illness, and no doubt due to catching viruses FROM Kindermusik. All the kids get their own instruments, so things aren't shared there, but they have many many classes and it appears as though toys and instruments are never cleaned/sanitized... not to mention the moms and kids that come to class very very sick, coughing and sneezing all over everyone, and with runny noses dripping down past their mouths. It makes me CRAZY. Kindermusik is incredibly expensive, and it's something that we have to greatly stretch to afford for Asher... now we are thinking that we have to pull him out of the class due to the fact that we are paying a lot, and he barely gets to go because he's always sick. Incredibly frustrating. He loves it so very much, he really gets into it, and he LOVES to sing and dance and really enjoys music. We're planning to enroll him in an "intro to water" class this summer to introduce him to swimming in a pool and water safety. Ross is also anxious to put him in a toddler soccer class, but I'm not sure how much Asher will want to do that, as he has shown almost no interest in playing with balls.

Asher is now totally smitten with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. We do not have cable, but regularly get him books and dvds from the library. He fell in love with Mickey Mouse immediately, and for his tv time every morning, now he only wants Mickey. The problem is that we do not get Disney Jr channel, the only channel that plays Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes. I've tried to talk Ross into cable, but it's expensive, and we are already stretched thin with me staying at home with Asher (which we feel is extremely important and a non-negotiable). The Mickey phase does not seem to be fleeting, he just adores it and plays with Mickey toys that my sister lent us all day, every single day. He's obsessed!

We are sick of winter (since it's SPRING!) and ready for warm weather and the END to cold/flu season. We are looking forward to trips to the zoo, and Asher is chomping at the bit to get back to Papa's farm to see the tractors/cows/chickens/cats. He talks about it every day! We hope to make another Watseka trip in the near future to visit family and for Asher to see the farm again. It makes for a LONG day since we can't really spend the night there, but every once in a while it's worth it.

We are planning a trip back "home" to the Wheaton/Aurora area in the summer for me to attend a VERY dear friend's baby shower. We are also plotting to plan a mini semi-local vacation for some time (to see family), so we will see how that plays out.

I picked out a very nice bed and bedding for Asher, and watched and watched and watched the price, so we got both on a VERY good sale. We will be transitioning him out of his crib soon. He's doing fine in the crib still, but is getting too big for it! He's SO tall!!! He's excited for his big boy bed, so hopefully that's a pretty smooth transition. He has zero interest in potty training at this point (he JUST turned 2 1/2), so it's not something I plan to push, as I think that is the exact wrong thing to do. He is getting excited for "underpants", thankfully I found some Mikey ones, so we hope that helps. When the warm weather finally comes, maybe we will try then if he's ready.

He's talking in complete sentences and paragraphs. He can spell and READ a handful of words including his name. He's quite advanced in language for his age. He can count to 100 unassisted, to 100 by tens, and also to 20ish in Spanish. He can identify probably 100 animals, as well as every shape and color (and has been able to do this for a long time). He's now into identifying labels/titles/gender, so that's been interesting. His early language acquisition has been quite astounding, but honestly I forget most of the time how rare it is for a kid his age to have such language skills. He's a bright bright boy... and SO FREAKING FUNNY. He's hilarious, and loves getting laughs from us. He's super silly most of the time. He's quite hesitant of new kids and takes a long time to warm up to other kiddos, though he's pretty friendly with new adults. The old ladies at church just adore him and gush over his beautiful eyes. He's a handful, but such a treasure to us!

Cousins!

Eating at the organic grass-fed creamery for Daddy's birthday!

He's getting so BIG!

the "calm down jar"... or "the ocean", meant to calm down a crazy tantrum-throwing toddler!

"The Helping Bear"... he sits on the counter and watches, then "helps" Asher clean up when the timer goes off and it's time for nap/bath/bed. It works well most of the time!

Christmas 2013! I can't remember if I posted this, but it's like the ONLY picture we have with all of our immediate family on my mom's side.

One of the very few play dates we had with the cousins this winter due to illnesses on both sides

Poor sick buddy!

Sick AGAIN

Helping Daddy feed the squirrels and birdies!

Kindermusik with Mrs. Kim! He LOVES it!

A visit from Mimi!

His REAL mini stethoscope from his pediatrician!!! He was so tickled! She bought it for him (since we see her so much, and since she's so impressed with his vocabulary/language... he always talks about her stethoscope when we see her)