January photos

Just a quick photo update.  All is well with the Biggs boys, though we are currently suffering through our third cold this winter. :( But since I last updated, Julian turned one and he stopped wearing his helmet!  I will try to write more another time.  Here are January photos in the meantime.

Finally, an update!

Trying to get back into blogging!

Julian will be one year old next week - hard to believe!  He is doing wonderfully.  He has four fully reliable words - "gat" for cat, "ba" or "a-ba" for ball, "buh" for book, and "da" for dog.  He also babbles a variety of sounds and calls all cars and trucks "ca".  He is very funny though - everything is a ball, such as when we were at the market and the pile of oranges made him desperately reach out going "ba, a-ba, a-baaaaa!".  For a while, however, only our Samcat was a cat - but now he is calling all animals other than dogs "gat"!

He is not yet walking independently, though loves to walk holding onto our hands and while pushing Teddy's shopping cart.  He is eating a little bit better, though it comes and goes.  He enjoys avocado and guacamole, cheese, crackers, applesauce, yogurt, and ground beef.  He loves playing with his brother's toys - second kids are lucky! He pushes the trains along the track on the table, he plays with Teddy's new castle with great concentration, and loves leafing through all the paperback books.  He also enjoys colouring and puts real colour down on the paper with the crayons, though he also likes to eat them, of course.  He has a great attention span and is very good at self-entertaining, though also is social and loves to play with others.

Things are going well with the helmet - he continues to tolerate it fine, and we have seen a good amount of improvement.  The overall asymmetry is down to 7.1mm from 10.5mm to start.  We will probably finish with the helmet after six months of wearing, because the change will have been enough.

Theodore is also doing pretty well.  He continues to enjoy preschool, and has made some friends there.  He enjoys the circle time, music, and especially outdoor play.  

We stopped his private speech therapy, but he continues with the school district twice a week.  One of those days there is another little boy in his session, which is great.  His speech has improved dramatically and we are thrilled!  He sings and tells us sentences.  He has even started playing games with his toys where he makes up little stories for the trains/dolls/etc and narrates it out loud.  We are still working on pronunciation and complexity, but we're so proud of his progress.

Christmas was spent in Canada, and we had a great time.  We were all extremely sick before leaving and didn't really recuperate until nearly Christmas Day, but were glad we went (and glad for some TLC after a hellish week of coping here on our own!)  We were in Brampton one week and Ottawa a second week, and saw all our families.  Theodore absolutely adored playing with his cousins Austin and Alexandra in particular - it was lovely to watch them play.  And while the cold weather was quite shocking to both boys - and Theodore was not impressed with having to bundle up - the snow was well-received, especially by Theodore.  Ottawa was buried in it, which was great.  Theodore also really enjoyed the Santa aspect of Christmas this year - we wrote him a letter, left out milk and cookies the night before, etc.  It was fun to see!

Winter here in California is not as cold as back home, of course, but we are still all a little bit cooped up at present (and everyone but Billy has a bad cold again!)  Still, we try to get out as much as we can, to the store and park.  We just started a Gym Kids class all together - Teddy used to go before Julian was born, but now there is an ages 1-4 class that we can all attend! 

I will try to update again after Julian's first birthday with his stats from the doctor's visit and party pictures!

Here are photos from December; photos of Brampton and Ottawa are on Facebook: Brampton photos; Ottawa photos.

And two videos from December:

Silly noises:

Little reader:

Just a media update

No time for a proper update right this minute, but wanted to post the photos and videos that I've had ready for several days!  Hopefully a proper update before the holidays.

November 2012 photos:



Videos (there are a lot!)

Julian's silly noises:


Julian rocking out:



Julian driving the train at the park for the first time:


Teddy singing his ABCs:


Teddy singing Twinkle, Twinkle:

October 2012

Another month gone by!  Here's a quick update:

Not too much new in Theodore's world this month.  Still enjoying preschool, playdates, etc! Coming soon, we will be dropping his private speech therapy, but he will still have therapy twice a week through the school district.  We are all so impressed by his speech development, however.  His physical skills keep improving as well - last week he climbed up the slide for the first time!  He did enjoy Halloween - he was obsessed with pumpkins all month and is sad they aren't in stores any longer.  He did very well trick-or-treating.  We only went to a few houses but he said trick-or-treat and thank you, and was not scared or shy.  

Julian is now nine months old.  He is still wearing the helmet.  It's going well, though at our last checkup he hadn't had any significant change.  Grow, little head, grow!  He got a clean bill of health at his doctor's visit as well, though once again the Biggs genes are asserting themselves apparently, as he got longer but his weight has dropped down to the 3rd percentile.  He is starting to eat better and so we are just giving high calorie, high nutrient options and seeing what comes of it.  He is incredibly active, meeting all his milestones, vocalizes a lot, and very happy, so we are not worried.  In fact, he officially graduated from physical therapy this week!  

We've had some lovely weather lately, so are enjoying as much outdoor time as we can before winter.  We had a great visit with Auntie Suzie (who is Teddy's new best friend) and Cathy this week, and Auntie Suzie will be back on Thursday.  We had a fun party for the election last night and are looking forward to Thanksgiving in a few weeks.  Other than that, life continues as normal!

Here's the photos and video!

Busy busy:

Catching Up

I got September's photos posted a while ago, but haven't had time to write a blog post - apologies!



The big news for Theodore, of course, is that he turned three last month! He was super excited about this and loves telling people how old he is now.  His actual birthday was a Friday, so he went to preschool as usual, and then in the afternoon we went for frozen yogurt and to the park.  The next day we had four of his friends and their parents over for a little party.  Everyone had a fun time!

He has also been going to preschool for just over a month now, three mornings a week for three hours (9-12).  He adjusted to this really well and seems to be enjoying himself quite a lot.   They have a great outdoor play area, music twice a month, circle time, and a nice group of teachers and kids.  In fact, at pick-up recently one of the teachers, Miss Linda, pulled him aside specially to tell him he was one of the sweetest, most fun, and most gentle kids there.  That warmed this mom's heart!

As I mentioned last month, he was also assessed recently for services through the school district due to turning three and aging out of the Early Start program.  He qualified for speech therapy so we are now attending that twice a week.  It is meant to be a group program but so far he is a group of one...the therapist is working on it!  She's very nice and seems to be making good progress with him.  His vocabulary continues to expand rapidly, so we are really working now on articulation in particular.  He is still doing private speech therapy as well, though we have just changed to a new therapist because I changed all our days around a bit after letting our nanny go (once Theodore started preschool, I didn't feel we needed her help any longer).



Julian is 8 and a half months old now.  He has mastered the "traditional" hands-and-knees crawl and is astonishingly fast!  He is also pulling up and getting back down easily, and cruising along furniture.  He is our very bold and adventurous baby for sure. He is starting to eat more solid foods, especially if it's puffs - we dip them in purees and a reasonable amount gets in that way.  He likes to feed himself - he is a very independent child in general!  It's been so interesting to watch his personality develop in comparison to Theodore.

As you can see from the photo, he is now wearing the helmet I mentioned in the last post.  Everything has gone very well with it.  He adjusted quite quickly to wearing it, and now wears it 23 hours a day, with a one-hour break at dinner time (all the better to smear food into his hair!)  After two weeks we went for a check-up, and he had already had 1mm positive change in his head shape.  The measurements refer to the asymmetry on the diagonal of his head - 0 would be perfect, but since no head is perfect, we are aiming for 5mm or less of asymmetry.  He started the treatment at 10.5mm, so the change so far is great.  He does get a little itchy when it is off, and for a while was sweaty, but overall he barely notices it (though we are already, despite our best efforts at cleaning, noticing a slight funky smell - they warned us about this, but I can already imagine how it will be by the end of treatment!)



September and October so far were busy but fun otherwise.  We had a nice visit from Grammy Eileen that the boys loved, especially a trip to the train shop!  Unfortunately Grandma Carole and Granddad Bill were not able to visit as planned because Granddad suffered a heart attack two weeks ago.  I'm happy to report that he is doing very well, and we are talking on Skype every day to keep in touch instead.  We have also kept busy with playdates and outings, such as taking both boys up to the city for the first time to visit with my old friend Jeanette.  The rainy season started up last week, but before that we had a heat wave (over 100F one day!) and today it is warm and sunny again, so we are spending as much time outside as we can until winter sets in.

As always, here are photos and videos.  I put the photos up a while ago, as I mentioned, so they run through the end of September only (and my videos seem to be a little out of date too). I'll try to do October's photos and a blog post for them in a more timely fashion in a few weeks!



Julian just after learning how to sit up, early September:


Feeding himself squash, also early September:

Monthly Update

Another month gone by, another update!

Big news for Theodore: he is now potty-trained!  I decided to do the 3 day potty training method with him last week.  This involves going straight to underwear and consistently reinforcing that the child tells you when they need to go, and being very involved and positive for those three days.  Well, after a handful of accidents the first day, he got it, and was completely pee-trained by the end of the first day!  He is so proud of his accomplishment, and we are too. He especially loves all his new undies - I got fun  Thomas the Tank Engine and Mickey Mouse ones.  He also liked collecting stickers and chocolates while training - we did the second day same as the first, to reinforce, but he was done already!

In other news, he will be starting preschool next month.  He will attend a small Montessori school in Mountain View three mornings a week from 9 to 12.  I think he will love it, though it will definitely be a change.  We hope to do a visit or two before he starts.  He loves being around other kids though, and we also hope it will help his speech development continue to blossom.  On the speech front, he is about to graduate from the Early Start program due to turning three.  We thus had an assessment this week with the school district to see if he will qualify for extra speech services through them.  He is really continuing to improve so much, though he has a ways to go with vocabulary and articulation.

Julian is now almost seven months old.  He did great at his six month checkup, weighing in around 14 and a half pounds, and keeping fairly steady on the charts.  He has had his first tastes of solids, though he's definitely not keen on them yet.  He tolerates sweet potatoes, and absolutely freaked out at fresh homemade peas!

He has three teeth through, and they are sharp!  He is also still army crawling everywhere, and is very fast.  He also gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth, but can't quite get anywhere that way yet.  He abandons it often because he just wants to catch up to Theodore!  He absolutely adores his big brother.

On more serious news, we attended a clinic at Stanford and were told that he does indeed have plagiocephaly as we suspected, which is where his head shape is asymmetrical and flattened.  This is due to the torticollis we have been attending PT for.  At his age, given that he never spends time on his back anymore, it is unlikely to further fix itself, so we have opted to get a cranial remolding helmet.  It was a hard decision, but we think it will be for the best.  The asymmetry is quite noticeable, and the doctors also noted that one ear is pulling (shearing) forward, and his forehead is more prominent on that side as well.  So, we have our consultation/scanning appointment next week, and he will be fitted for the helmet on September 12th.  I will be sure to post with more information after the appointment and pictures when he is fitted.

Other than all that, we keep busy with playdates, park time, and continuing PT and speech sessions.  As seen above, Julian now loves the swing, and Theodore has graduated to the big boy swing!  He can't swing himself yet, but loves being pushed on it.  We have also had some fun family outings, like to the Day Out With Thomas event, where we rode on a real steam train with a replica Thomas engine.

Overall, an interesting and busy month!  Now we are just preparing for the start of school, and then looking forward to a visit from Grammy Eileen later in September, and Grandma Carole and Granddad Bill in October.  As always, here are photos and videos.  Rather too many photos, apologies, but hope you enjoy!

Slideshow embedding is not working...and leaving a big blank space...here is a link to this month's photos instead!

July/August 2012

Videos:
Julian and a roller toy at a play place last week:


Boys chatting and rolling:


Julian blowing raspberries (and trying to grab the phone!) a few weeks ago:

Quick Update

Hello!  Just a quick update to try to get up to speed here.

We had a great time on our trip to Canada.  Both boys loved being doted on by their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  I put photos of the trip on Facebook, and it's really too big of a job to go back through and put them on Picasa as well, so I will just link those albums:  Brampton and Ottawa photos; and Montreal/Wedding photos.  The boys were good fliers, and adjusted quickly to the time change.  Julian spent his first significant amount of time in the car, and did quite well, particularly on the Ottawa to Montreal drive! We were able to visit lots of friends and family, and in particular Theodore was able to have many playdates with children around his age.  He especially loved all the time he spent with his cousins Austin and Alexandra. And both boys were wonderful at the wedding - Theodore had a three hour nap that afternoon and then stayed up dancing and partying until 10:30 pm!

Since then we have just been settling back into our normal routine.  Billy had five days off work around Independence Day, which was fun for everyone.  We are doing PT once a week now for Julian and speech once a week for Theodore, and Theodore also has a gym class once a week.


Speaking of speech, Theodore has made huge gains in his vocabulary recently.  His word list is now well over 50 words long, probably even more as he has so many new ones, I can't keep up!  He is also able to put words together to form simple sentences: he will say "help please", for example, or his new favourite, "train time!"  He is much more willing to try new sounds and words, and is even refining words he previously had (such as saying train rather than just signing, or saying "eh-mo" for Elmo instead of how he used to just say "eh-eh-eh").  He will also tell you about his day in sentences - we just don't understand all of it yet.  But most of his words are quite clear, and we're extremely proud of his progress.


Julian is also developing wonderfully.  He started rolling when we were in Ottawa, and hasn't stopped since!  He can roll all around to get wherever he wants, and has also started army crawling.  He's definitely on the loose.  He's a very smiley, happy baby who loves his brother and desperately wants to put all of his brother's trains in his mouth, haha!  He will be six months old next week, so I am getting ready to start feeding him solids. He has actually been 100% breastfed from the tap so far - no bottles of expressed milk even - I am pretty proud of that achievement.

As always, here are some photos and a video. I will try to update after Julian's 6 month appointment with his statistics!

Theodore talking:

late June/July photos:

late June/July