Updates

Sorry, not much in the way of updates going on here. I've been pretty lazy about taking pictures, and everything else is just going pretty smooth.

Gavin: continues to do well in school. Currently finishing up his first season of indoor soccer and will start the second season in January. He would prefer to just stay back and guard the goal, and is a little put off that we are making him play all positions so that he doesn't lose his fire when he gets back to outdoor soccer and he'll have to cover the whole field again. So we are working on that. He is constantly doing things that just surprise me with his creativity. He's been laboring over a picture for a few days now, and kept telling me he was working on a "dot to dot". Well, it's a blank piece of paper, but them he drew a dot pattern, and then connected the dots. It's a very cool little drawing that he's done, and the creating the dots himself seemed so smart! I have been very much on top of vitamins and omega 3's lately, and on the nutrition front, he's eating more of what the rest of us eat, less separate meals of his own. Meal time has become less of a struggle, and his behavior has been really great lately. Vitamins/nutrition/behavior all related? I'm convinced of it. I'm going to wait til the end of the week when I am back in the classroom and see if his teacher has noticed a difference as well. Gavin and I are going to join my uncles skiing in Colorado the second week of January so we are very excited and looking forward to that.

Sam: such a pistol! He seems to be adapting to the new nanny, who started last Thursday, very well. Right now he is going through a phase where he only wants to wear shirts with basketballs on them. Fortunately we have several, but it still warrants a mid-week laundry load. Fingers crossed, sleeping is starting to get better. The last three nights he made it to 4 am or later without waking up, so 7 or 8 hour runs of sleep. When he wakes up, rather than downing a whole bottle, he just drinks a couple ounces and falls back asleep. Hopefully this bodes well for sleeping through the night soon, something Daddy would appreciate before I take Gav to CO! Sam's latest tricks are jumping and getting both feet off the floor and wanting to do the stairs himself. He is also getting very good at feeding himself. He still won't give up his bottle for milk, but I'm not terribly worried. There are worse things to be attached to. He drinks other liquids out of sippy cups, and is getting very good at drinking thick stuff (like smoothies) out of his little Michey Mouse dixie cups.

On the food allergy front: Sam's reaction to dairy seems to be getting worse, so please do not feed him cheese, yogurt, milk, sour cream, butter, mac & cheese, etc. We do give him a few bites of yogurt here and there, but we'll ask that others refrain, because if I don't see it, I don't have a sense of how much he's ingested and if he gets too much it's horrible diapers and throwing up. I tried giving him a little peanut butter a couple weeks ago (he didn't test positive for peanuts but they told us to avoid just in case). The next day he had horrible diapers, but Chad was also feeling a little stomach bug at that time, so I can't say for sure it was the pb. But for now we are continuing to avoid it.

On the drinking front: the not waking 3 times/night does wonders for his fluid intake. We've been able to keep him within the 40 ounces pretty consistently. Hopefully it was just a bad habit that he's growing out of and/or if we keep him busier he doesn't drink out of boredom. We'll still re-test for diabetes at the end of January at his (gasp!) 2 yr appt.