Andy & Jessica

With our first born, Jude, I wrote a whole page in his baby book for every month until he was 3. I’ve never had time to do that for Levi and Asher, which I feel a little guilty about. It’s quite helpful to look back and see exactly what Jude was doing at a certain month to see how Levi and Asher compare.

Levi is now 25-1/2 months old. He barely talks, but says the following words:  choo, choo, car, Bobo (the silly monkeys from Diego), Mama, Dada, Jude (his latest new word), Boco (one of the Thomas the Train trains), blue, two, Bob (Bob the Builder), caca (color), e! (meaning he wants to go to Internet Explorer and surf the web (which he has been doing for months), eat, go, wow, poop, pee, and yeah.  He also says the sounds of most of the letters and has for quite awhile.  He counts in a mixture of English and German, “Eins, two.”  Levi is brave and will go head to head with Jude.  Levi is super sweet to Asher and has never hurt him.  Levi is a little technie and navigates the iPad and Android tablet like a pro.

Asher is 7 months.  He has no teeth yet, which is unusual for my boys.  He is up on all fours and rocks for practice, but mostly pulls himself around with his arms.  He rolls like crazy and sits up unassisted.  He likes bland foods like oatmeal and rice cereal and no fruits yet.

Jude turned 5 yesterday. It was a huge, big deal for him. It was kind of a huge, big deal for me too. I can’t help but to remember back to a year and a half ago when we were told about his brain tumor and didn’t think he’d make it to 4. It’s just so wonderful that he is doing so well. I pray everyday that the dumb cancer stays away from him.

The day before his birthday we hosted an Easter egg hunt for his best friends from the neighborhood. I came up with the idea after my sister disclosed that she and her boys had been doing Easter egg hunt training and collecting data regarding their trials (typical for a scientist like my sister) in preparation for the big hunt with Jude and Levi. The hunt we hosted was a big success. The kids found 130 of the 132 eggs and everyone got plenty of candy and other fun surprises in the eggs.

The hunt even turned into an impromptu birthday party for Jude since earlier in the day he chose to get 32 angry birds cupcakes as his birthday cake and we knew we had plenty to share. 6 more kids showed up and they all had a water gun fight and rode on Jude’s new Dune Racer and stayed for over 5 hours.

Since I had to work on Jude’s actual birthday, the night before his birthday (the day of the egg hunt), we let him open his gifts. He got a Scooby-Doo board game that he found advertised in a Scooby-Doo book and wanted so much that he wrote down the name of the game so I wouldn’t forget to get it for him. He also got an electric car racing track and a couple small things.

On his actual birthday, I was feeling guilty that I had to work and not be with him so I picked him up some waterguns (since I noticed all the other kids had way cooler guns than him the other day). I gave those to Jude after work and he had some fun shooting them off outside (and by accident, inside).

Recently all 3 boys were coughing and not looking their best so we decided to bring them into the walk-in clinic in the morning so I could still get to work at a decent time. We were surprised to be told that Levi should be transported by ambulance due to his low oxygen levels. Levi ended up spending a week in the hospital. Jude magically turned 5 a couple weeks early and came for occasional visits, but mostly was at his grandparents’ house. I fought for a breastfeeding exemption to the strict visitation rule that allowed me to keep Asher with me. The nurses helped me monitor Asher and he had to be admitted a couple days after Levi. They were both full of wires — IV, and constantly receiving oxygen. Was hard to handle. The boys were down the hall from each other and got discharged the same day.

Now we’re having to bring Levi back in for taking a shovel full of sand in the face (Jude did it by accident).

We spend an absolute fortune on medical coverage and medical care for our family each year. It’s getting really frustrating.

Jude laugh/cries everytime he remembers that his birthday is less than a month away. A laugh/cry is simultaneous laugh and cry when thinks of something that is really great but for which he must wait. He also does a laugh/cry anytime I tell him that we’re going to see Ivan in X days. Jude’s birthday will fall right around Easter so we’ll probably just celebrate his birthday separately with our families during the Easter celebration and have a small immediate family thing on the actual birthday. 3 parties is always better than 1.

Age 5 seems like such a big boy. I’m not sure I’m ready for this. At least I won’t have to send him off to school like other mothers since we’ve been homeschooling him for quite awhile already. It’s working great. Jude does 1st and 2nd grade work mostly.

Andy just can’t keep his predictions straight. Less than a month ago, he predicted Levi would be the first of our boys to marry (since he’s such a sweetheart). Today he predicted that Asher would be the first to marry since he’s such a charmer. It was kind of funny since Andy didn’t remember his earlier prediction.

Levi is a little techie like his Daddy and big brother Jude. He loves to surf the web. He yells out “e! e! e!” This means that he wants to go to Internet Explorer (“e” icon) and check out his favorite sites — Thomas and Friends in English and a similar site in German. We have tabs for his favorite sites and I was impressed when I learned recently that he had by himself navigated away from a page I put him on to his favorite Thomas in English site. So, the little kiddo could use a mouse before he was 2. Not bad. He’s also really cute to watch on the iPad or Android tablet. He knows where all his favorite learning games are and swipes the screen like a real pro. Adorable.

Asher is about 15 pounds and almost 6 months already and has developed a weird routine of only pooping only every several days. Recently Andy bought Asher a box of 250 diapers and opted for the size 1 diapers that only go up to 15 pounds or so since they were cheaper than the size 2 diapers that would have fit him for longer. Asher keeps exploding out of the new size 1 diapers so we are going to have to abandon the new box and switch to size 2s. This means that we definitely have to have another baby so we can use up those size 1 diapers.

Jude has been telling me frequently that I am the “best Mommy in the whole world.” Of course it is heart warming to hear that. Recently, I challenged him. I said something like, “Actually, I don’t think you have the best Mommy in the whole world. I think I do.” He sounded enraged and said something like, “What? Who? Grandma Forbes?” Then he went on a 5 minute or more tyrade about how I was better Mommy than her, specifically citing our bedtime routine of praying and then me telling him a funny story. He said adamantly, “Does she [Grandma Forbes] pray? No. Does she tell a funny story? No.” Then the next day he noted to me that he knows I’m not the best Mommy in the whole world since the mommies in heaven are better than me (since they don’t sin) but that he still thinks I’m the best mommy in the whole world. Definitely fun to have such a big fan.

Asher Basher (as I sometimes call him) is sitting up and crashing down and pulling himself all around (that rhymes!). Yesterday for the first time he was sitting up on the bed (when I propped him up) and then after 20 seconds or so, he would crash to the side or crash forwards. He is also army crawling and dragging his legs behind him. What a cutie! This will be trouble since we’ll have to ensure that Jude and Levi don’t leave any little toys on the ground where Asher will be able to get them.

Little Levi turned 2 yesterday. We had our families over for a Thomas the Train – themed party. Levi seemed not at all bothered when Jude dominated the present opening. However, Levi was not a push over when it came to playing with his new trains. He shared with Jude, but didn’t give all the new trains to Jude at the same time. Jude spent quite a bit of time sobbing since Levi wasn’t sharing good enough, in Jude’s opinion. If only Jude will share as good as Levi when Jude’s birthday rolls around!