Update

I'm very behind on updating this blog - apologies! Life, as you can imagine, has been busy, plus due to my own incompetence I've gone through several phones recently, and have had to dig them all out to import and sort photos. Anyway, let's get to it!



Julian is now three months old. He is a truly wonderful baby. Overall he has a very chill personality, and loves to smile and laugh. He will hang out contentedly on his mat or in his swing, which is a nice change from Teddy's more high needs infancy. He loves his big brother and enjoys watching him. He is also a dedicated thumb sucker, which amuses his big brother to no end! He nurses well, and is gaining weight well. At 3 months he weighed in at 11 and a half pounds. As I mentioned previously, he had to re-do his newborn hearing screen, and he passed with no problems.

We have been dealing with one small issue however - he has mild torticollis, which means that he doesn't have the full range of motion in his neck/head on one side - in his case, his left. It is not severe, though because he tilts to and favours the one side, when lying down pressure on his head is not evenly distributed, and so his head shape is a little lopsided. We decided to pursue physical therapy to be proactive about the issue, and because we have a relationship already with Teddy's former therapist who we love and trust. We have had four sessions, and definitely the head shape is improving and we are working on stretching and strengthening the neck muscles. Unfortunately, Julian rather hates the therapy, to put it nicely, though at his latest session he enjoyed himself for 20 minutes before realizing he was supposed to be angry about us manipulating him! We will probably go for only a short while, so it's not a long-term problem.



Theodore is now 2.5 years old. He celebrated his half birthday in March with cake and some new trains! He is really blossoming and doing very well. He graduated from physical therapy in March, though in reality had not needed it for a while, but we love his therapist and he had so much fun we thought we would keep on. He runs, (almost) jumps, dances, and loves to kick his soccer ball around. He has really built muscle strength and loves to move his body, which is wonderful to see. He is still attending speech therapy, though only once a week at this time for scheduling reasons. While he still has a pretty severe delay he is making progress. He has several new words since I last wrote, and also is signing words very consistently and using these words and signs to truly communicate with us. For example, he will regularly sign "eat" when he is hungry, and when he goes on outings he comes home and tells us via signs and words that he saw trains, birds, etc. He has a word for all the colours and enjoys using those in particular, and is especially proud of his "bus", which is extremely clear and said often, with pride! He continues to love his trains and books most of all his toys, though he also enjoys art, playing outside, and music. He has started taking on chores around the house and really likes being a big boy who helps out: he will put away the cutlery from the dishwasher, throw things out in the garbage, and put dirty laundry in the basket. He is a funny, sweet kid, and while he can be stubborn and mercurial (hey, he's two!) we really enjoy him and his personality.



The transition to two children has been going quite well. Theodore is, in general, pleased with his baby brother. There are definitely challenging moments, but those are usually resolved with snuggling up on the couch with a Thomas the Tank Engine video while I nurse the baby. He really enjoys lying next to Julian on his mat and holding his hand and looking at him. We still try to do lots of outings, and are currently enrolled in a Music Together class, which was appealling because I was able to bring both Julian and Theodore. Theodore loves the class and we all have a lot of fun at it every week, and listening to the CD at home!

To help me out during the day, we have hired a nanny, Myisha. She comes twice a week, currently on Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 8 to 5. She takes Theodore to his speech therapy which is a big help for me, and does activities, outings, and lunches and nap time. She will also watch Julian so I can shower and nap! She is a very fun young woman and Theodore really enjoys spending time with her, which is great.

Other than those sorts of updates, life continues on daily. Billy was able to stay home from work for one month after Julian's birth, which was wonderful. After that, my parents came to stay for two weeks to help out. We definitely appreciated that! Since then we also had a short visit from one of my oldest friends, Nigel, and have had various friends over for visits. In June, we will be travelling to Canada for three weeks, going to Brampton, Ottawa, and then Montreal for Billy's sister Catherine's wedding. It will be Julian's first trip!

Time to finish this update and post it, finally! A huge slideshow follows - all of February, March, and most of April. I also have one short video of Julian from March. Hopefully in the future I will update more frequently and then the photo albums will be less epic!

Photos:


Chit-chat in March: