Baby Blog

Rocking this post bullet-point style, because if I don’t, we may not see a new post until September…

These busy two months, we:
– Visited the petting zoo at the library with Cole and JD, then came back to our house for lunch and playtime.
– Went to Ethan’s 3rd birthday party at an indoor amusement park in RI. The rides and cupcakes were a hit; your fake non-dairy, non-gluten pizza was not. (But with a little distraction and some pretzels, there were no major meltdowns.)
– Went to the Toe Jam Puppet Band fundraiser for CNS. We got there a little late and Seb, you were a little hesitant to enter the room full of kids and loud music. You mostly hung by me and never really joined the group. When we left, we asked if you had fun and you definitively told us, “No, it was not fun.”
– Started and finished all of our BPS evaluations – speech, OT, PT, child psych and educational – plus had our IEP meeting. Seb tested in the average range for all of their tests, although they admittedly did not see him interact with other kids. They were on the fence with whether they would even consider him in need of services although I think we could have pushed them for a placement since we had an outside diagnosis. We didn’t, and decided since what we have in place right now is working so well, we would stick with it and just up the hours. So next year, Seb will be at CNS three days a week and FUSE (where he currently does his social skills group) two days a week. We’ll also continue with private speech, OT and ABA, at least while we can fit it all into his schedule. He’ll have one more year beyond this coming one before Kindergarten, so we can reevaluate and see where we are next winter. (The funniest thing coming out of the evaluations was during the child psych testing. She was showing S pictures of things where one important part was missing, like a car with a missing wheel. When she got to the picture of the horse without the tail and asked S what was missing, he very confidently stated, “The cowboy.” Very creative. No points awarded.)
– Started ABA therapy. Seb was emphatically not a fan at the start. Not sure if it was because it was in our house or just the nature of “getting to know him” vs starting real work at the beginning, but we endured several weeks of massive tantrums and not allowing mommy to leave the room. FINALLY, with some real work started, he is working with Lindsay and doing great. We’ve had a few sessions in a row at the beginning of May with zero tantrums at all. He still will say, “No, I don’t want to do work,” but then immediately walk over to his chair at the table. Lindsay has found that a varied array of office supplies (mechanical pencils, wipe off boards with markers, etc.) is a great incentive to get him to work. And block design, which was one of the things he wasn’t able or willing to do during the initial evaluation, has been a breeze for him. They are up to nine blocks and super complex structures and he is flying through with no problem.
– Spent a week in AZ and three days in Las Vegas. Arizona was wonderful as always, but Sebastien really fell in love with Vegas. I’m pretty sure he’d move there if he could. When we were checking out our room at Trump Towers, he opened the closet and said, “WOWWWW, what’s this room??” So Trump impressed him. And to this day, every time he sees a picture of the Eiffel Tower, he calls it out and says, “From Las Vegas!” Which… well, we’ll correct that at some point down the road. His favorites were the pirate show at Treasure Island (saw it twice) and the volcano erupting at the Mirage (also twice). We also saw the Shark Reef, the animatronic Greek gods, ate lots of yummy meals and played at the pool.
– Celebrated Easter in AZ and went to the big celebration in Grammie and Pop-pop’s development. Archer sat with the Easter bunny for the first time, but unfortunately the picture didn’t quite come out due to user error on the part of the camera guy hired by Vistancia. (Grammie was not pleased.) Seb still loved the bunny and thankfully Pop-pop had his camera ready for that encounter.
– Took the boys to a Red Sox game – Archer’s first! It was a chilly day and not a lot of action on the field, so we only made it through 2/3 of the game. Actually, the boys probably would’ve stayed – it was me who was freezing!
– Saw Sesame Street Live and Disney on Ice, all in the same weekend. Ra and Papa got to come to Sesame Street with us and both kids LOVED it. Disney on Ice took a bit longer to warm up to (ok, there was an epic tantrum involved) but ended well.
– Endured the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Thankfully we had decided not to take the kids that day, but many were injured and it was a sad week for our city. It was surreal to have such news so close to home – the apartment where we lived when Sebastien was born was just a few blocks away and Nick had been at MIT the same day that the police officer was killed, leading to the lockdown of the city.

Sebastien, you:
– POTTY TRAINED!! Woop woop! You decided one night before we left for Arizona that you wanted to wear underpants to bed. While I don’t recommend starting potty training with bedtime, we ran with it. I made a 10pm trip to Target for big boy underpants, stickers, lollipops and a variety of small prizes. You didn’t necessarily LOVE using the potty, but you totally “got it” and had very few accidents after the first couple. We had a slight setback when we got to AZ and you refused to use the potty at all, but once we got home, we got back on track no problem. Next step is trying to convince you that potties outside the house are not so bad… No accidents, but you just hold it all day long.
– Corrected yourself one day, saying, “Bigger and bigger. Not digger and digger. Bigger,” which was a little sad, I’ll admit. It’s tough to see some of your adorable toddler-isms go away as you get older! You still can’t really say the “v” sound though, so at least I have that. (“It’s berry berry windy outside!!”)
– Said, “Hi Mom!!” to me as I came to get you at school and started hugging Daddy goodbye at drop-off. Those seem like really little things, but they were things that weren’t happening prior to this month. There has been such a difference in things like your back and forth conversation and meaningful eye contact. It’s probably some combination of food, therapies and just getting older, but the gluten and casein free diet has definitely played a part. Even people who didn’t know we changed something have commented on how “clued in” you seem these days.
– Have been more flexible and less likely to get upset with each transition or when something doesn’t go your way. You’re even trying some new foods – you’ve started eating chicken breast (when NOT in the shape of a nugget) and pork chops.
– Solidly know your ABC’s and love singing them at school. The ending is still “now my know my ABC’s” and still adorable.
– Have been really into the planets and one particular (very long) book about space. You know all of the planet names and most of the moons. And you pronounce Saturn “SAT-A-REHN”.
– Need to “touch Archer! TOUCH ARCHER!!” all the time.
– Have started asking why questions like this: He’s angry because, umm… (pause)
– Started shaking your head yes and no, which I didn’t even realize you weren’t doing until you started doing it.
– Ask where EVERYTHING comes from, particularly food. Doesn’t necessarily make you more likely to eat it, though.
– Serenaded us with “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on the way home from Sesame Street. Kill me with cuteness.

Archer, you:
– Got some more teeth! Top right (not center) on 3/3, top left center on 3/4, top right center on 3/6 and top left on 3/22 for a grand total of six teeth. And not quite in the order they are supposed to break through!
– Absolutely die laughing when Seb is going up the stairs ahead of you. Every time. I have no idea what is so funny.
– Love blueberries. LOVE. Would eat a whole package a day. Also love: toast with hummus, mashed potatoes, any kind of meat. Do not love: bananas, avocados, most veggies.
– Mastered crawling in Arizona, we speculate because of the carpets. Slowly at first (dad called you “the turtle” for a couple weeks) but eventually much faster. You can also get from crawling to sitting up and are starting to walk while holding onto things. You especially love the Radio Flyer walker wagon.
– LOVE being surrounded by people. You were way more interested in the people in the stands at the rodeo than in the gigantic bulls three feet from your face. You are super smiley and make friends wherever you go.
– Have turned diaper changes into wrestling matches. Which reminds me, I need to put more toys by the changing table to try to thwart your efforts to throw yourself off of it!
– Love when we sing songs to you, particularly the Itsy Bitsy Spider. It doesn’t even need hand motions for you to smile and laugh. And you bounce up and down to music or singing, although not consistently enough for me to be sure that you are dancing!
– Have some silly nicknames at the moment, like “Porcupine” and “Artichoke”. And Sebastien often calls you “Archer Marcher”.
– Sometimes snuggle by pressing your cheek against mine and holding it there very peacefully. Love it.