Some updates

I just thought I would pass along a few updates on the kids.

Lydia is doing well and getting bigger. She'll be 8 weeks on Sunday. Her colickiness is starting to fade somewhat. She still tends to be more fussy in the evenings (aren't all small kids, I know Titus still tends to be?!), but those evenings of intense screaming for an hour or more seem to be lessening. She still has an occasional screaming period, but they're not as regular as before. She is also sleeping a little better as well. She has some good nights and bad nights, but she seems to be stretching out a little. She'll usually have one longer stretch, anywhere from 4-6 hours each night, so we're getting there. Occasionally she'll wake up in the middle of the night and decide she doesn't want to go back to sleep, so that will make for a long night, but we feel like she's making progress. She certainly much better than Titus, who was pretty slow to catch on to the whole stretching out thing. Lydia also smiles a lot more and her eyes are starting to follow things a little more. They change quickly at this age, as Colleen's parents have seen her a couple of times now and each time they see her they comment on how much she has changed in just a couple of weeks.

Titus is our little man. He turned 2 this month, and when we measured him on the growth chart in the kids bedroom, we found that he was over 3 inches shorter than Katelyn was when she turned 2. If you follow those internet growth prediction formulas on the internet and such, he's on pace to be about 5'6" or 5'7"! I guess that's what happens when you are continually in the bottom 10 percent for height and weight. That said, considering his dad is 6'3" and his mom is pushing 5'7", I'm quite confident he'll hit a growth spurt at some point and stretch on up there. But he's definitely on the short side. He's talks a lot, but he's still pretty hard to understand. He's putting words together and so certain words and phrases are identifiable (especially for mom), but for the most part he gets a lot of confused looks (at least from his dad!) when he talks, which only frustrates him. I think I've gotten about a thousand of those "Dad, don't you understand what I'm saying?!" looks so far. He continues to be very affectionate with Lydia and loves to give her lots of kisses. Of course, he's not particularly gentle with her, but he's trying to be very loving. He continues to be all boy and continues to have more bumps, bruises, scrapes, and cuts every month than Katelyn has had in her whole life! He loves big machinery (don't all boys?), and he especially loves tractors (burrooom, burroooommm as he refers to them). Colleen will sometimes take him to a tractor website and just let him click on the pictures of all the different kinds and colors of tractors. He just loves it. And when myself or someone from the church uses the riding mower to cut the lawn, it's a can't miss event for him.

Katelyn, unlike her little brother, continues to stretch right up. She's still hanging around the upper 10th percentile for height. She's taller than almost all of the girls her age, and is even as tall or taller than some boys her same age. She continues to be quite a gentle and loving spirit, eager to help her mom. What a contrast she is from her brother's rambunctuous, rough and tumble nature! She loves to read her books and watch Sesame Street. Even though she doesn't turn 5 until October, we are going to start home schooling her this year. If she was in the public schools, they wouldn't allow her to start kindergarten until she turns 5, but she is clearly ready to start and has already leared a lot of those beginning subjects. We don't know how long we will home school our kids (we certainly aren't planning on going through high school, but maybe through elementary school, we'll see), but we think we'll at least try them the first couple of years at home before we decide when to put them in a more formal setting.

We enjoyed a brief visit from Colleen's folks for a day as they passed through on their way home from Kansas, and are EAGERLY looking forward to a full week up at their place in two weeks (not that we are counting down the days or anything). It will be fair week (a huge deal in their small town). They'll have rides, games, animals, tractors (for Titus!) and good food, plus Colleen's folks' big blueberry patch will be at its peak, so we will load up on those little blue goodies, of which our kids love, and which are good for them! Titus especially loves them, and we envision him wanting to stay up in the patch and eat all day if we let him. Blueberries everywhere!! Colleen's brother and his family will be up for part of that week as well, so that will be fun. Unfortunately her sister's family from Kansas won't be able to make it, but we sure are excited to head up there. It will be the first summer up there for fair week and blueberry week in 3 summers. It's the sort of event that we try to do every year, but the past couple of Augusts we just haven't been able to make it up for.