Two at once

I'll jump back in with our visit to the dr yesterday for checkups. Wow, it takes a long time to do both kids! Between the weighing and measuring, the physical exams, and the discussions about development, I think we were in that room for over an hour!

Ethan first. (Because he insisted on going first yesterday.) His last weigh in was Halloween and he was up to a whopping 32.5lbs. Now, he is the exact same height and only 30lbs. This boy has gained (and kept on) only 10lbs since he was 5 months old!! Because his BMI is good and we've already proven that he can gain weight, we're going to leave it alone for now and just weigh him at Edward's checkups to make sure he doesn't lose more.

Otherwise, our boy is just fabulous. Gross motor skills are great as evidenced by his riding a big-kid scooter. Fine-motor are way above average as evidenced by his learning to write letters. (That one has also shown us that he learns by doing. Ethan had no real interest in learning his ABCs until he realized that he could make them. Now we introduce a new letter every few days.) Language skills are great. Social skills are great.

We were most proud of the dr's comments about Ethan's social skills. He said that you could tell our boy comes from a good home with good parents who don't fight b/c of the way he interacts with others. This seemed to stem particularly from the way Ethan would express his dislike of something, but then sit and listen while the dr explained what he was going to do, followed by agreement that it needed to be done. If only he'd do that at home!

The one suggestion that the dr had for us was to push him more. He's at an age where there are almost no limits to the amount he can learn. Our dr is chinese and is all about doing what you can to increase IQ and give your kid their best chance at success. He wants us to make sure he is exposed to lot of music, particularly making it. And he wants us to introduce new sports, like skiing, ice-skating, biking (on a two-wheeler!), gymnastics, etc. I think we're going to start with a tumbling class and maybe get some roller-skates in the spring. A bike can wait until we move.

On to Edward. He's up to 10lbs 15ozs and it shows. Not quite the porker his brother was, but the rolls of fat are coming along nicely. So nicely in fact that he's gained more than twice what they expect in the last two weeks. And we've had to move to size 2 diapers!

Last time we talked about the types of stimulation we should use to increase his IQ, so our only real discussion at this appt was about sleep. Now I know that most of you will want to hurt me when I say that he sleeps probably 17-18hrs a day. BUT, it's they way he does it thats the problem. Lately, he sleeps in short bursts, typically not longer than 2 hrs. Then when he's awake, he eats really often. And cries b/c he's tired and can't fall back to sleep.

The dr said his first instinct when he hears about sleeping like this is that the baby is hungry. But obviously Edward is getting plenty to eat. So we think that the real problem is gas bubbles formed by air swallowed when he cries. (I may have started the problem by eating a bunch of raw broccoli a while ago. Those painful bubbles caused the first bought of wails, resulting in more bubbles.) So it's possible that if we can get him through a day or so without much crying, the sleeping will get better. Plus we're only two weeks away from that magic 6 week mark where night sleeping improves. Can't wait for that.

So that's the general recap of Ethan at 3yrs old and Edward at 1 month old. Pictures to come tonight or tomorrow.