In Search of Myself

Our growing family

Well, we've been thinking for a while that Jake needed a playmate, so . . .

Random stuff from this week

(just a random entry about hanging out with Priscilla and the girls this week)

Speech "delays"

(This post is mostly for me as I try to work though Jake's speech[or lack thereof] issues, so it's ok if you don't read it.  But if you have issues with or are curious about speech development in toddlers, you might want to read it.)

So I Googled "toddler speech delay" because I was curious on just where Jake sits on the spectrum (because he is approaching two and a half and I want to know if I'm being dramatic or impractical in worrying, OR if I'm being too laid-back about it and should possibly be worrying more.)

The first thing I looked at was two books by Thomas Sowell, Late Talking Children and The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late.  Reading through the reviews, I found some interesting things that may apply to the Jake-man.  I've bolded the parts that I found relevant.

The basic conclusion of (Late Talking Children) is that there is some unnamed, unstudied disorder which seems to make children who are very very left brained talk late. These same kids seem to excel at math, logic and computers. It is possible that the late talking is just a function of the analytical part of the brain talking all the new cells for a while and "robbing" the speech center. This is not the case with all children who talk late, just those who are perfectly normal in every other way (can understand and perform other functions normally or at an accelerated rate).

(The Einstein Syndrome) is the Follow-up book to Sowell's "Late Talking Children". The first book was mostly anecdotal evidence, but this book includes far more data, from more scientific research. He worked with Dr Camarata, a speech and language pathologist from Vanderbilt university for the research of this book.
Yes, as before, many people will criticize this book, as they did the first. The people who will criticize this book are either the para-professionals that stand to lose money from unnecessary therapies, or the parents of children with serious issues who read no further than the dust jacket, and don't read the book with a critical enough eye to realize whether or not their child actually fits this special sub-set of late speakers. We have a strong family history of speech delays, and math intensive careers. Both my husband and father in law fit the profile, as engineers, both late speakers. I am such a strong advocate of this book, as I am a mother of 3 late speakers who fit the profile so closely it is almost scary to see it in print. It is as if they have been watching my household. All 3 of my late speakers are now speaking, and all share the extremely advanced mechanical and spatial perception skills addressed in the profile.

If you have a child that is late with speech development, seems frustrated with communications, strong willed & defiant, prone to tantrums, good at solving puzzles, loving but sometimes aloof, concentrates on some tasks, ignores requests to perform other tasks, not the least interested in potty training, exhibiting some autistic or PDD tendencies but having exceptional memory and surprising intelligence, then you need to get this book. Don't be put off by reviews of the professionals, the book has some information that will help concerned parents bypass those professional egos and cut to the main issue, how to best understand and help your child.

I've suspected for a while now that this may be the cause of his speech delay -- that kids can only really move forward in one thing at a time.  At first he was an early walker, then he started getting really good at puzzles.  I can't tell you how many people have told me after watching Jake for just an hour that they think he'll be an engineer .  Almost everyone who watches him during church services (we take turns) has made that comment, as well as random friends who observe him while we hang out.  And not that I CARE what Jake does when he grows up (as long as it's respectable and legal), but I think it's interesting that his actions strike so many people in the same way.  It's really reassuring to see someone saying that his tendencies may be normal, or at least other kids are like that, too.  I'm not going to run out and buy the book (because I'm reading like 6 right now as it is), but I'm glad I came across these reviews.

Color Me Happy

So the other day I was laying in bed with Jake, trying to make him go to sleep.  He wanted to talk, so I was letting him be silly and wind down.  He patted his head and said "Head."  Then he said "Brown."  And I said "Oh, is your hair brown?"  He laughed and said, "Yeah."

Then he pats my head and said "Brown."  "Is mommy's hair brown, too?"  "Yeah."

Now remember, the lights are out and it is pitch black in the room.  Then he said "Gin?" so I asked, "Jake, what color is Elmo?"

Jake: "Red!"

me: (mouth hanging open) ???

Jake: *giggles*

me: "Well what color is Big Bird?"

Jake: "Le-low!"

me: "What color is Cookie Monster?"

Jake: "Blue!"

me: "What color is Telly?"

Jake: "Pink!"

me: (laughing and in shock.)  "What color is grass?"

Jake: "Green!"

me: "What color is sunshine?"

Jake: "Le-low!"

me: "Wow, buddy."

Jake: *giggles*  "Gin?"

The Learning Curve

I always loved school.  I'm book-smart, which hasn't helped me much in real life, but I love to learn new things.  I love to TEACH myself new things.  I honestly hope that I never stop learning.  Right now I'm trying to learn PhotoShop.  Dude, it's kicking my butt.  (Thank you, Sheri's live-in hottie/darlin' Robert, for the gift of PhotoShop.  I finally got it to install and I will love you both FOREVER.)

People say "Oh, PhotoShop is so easy."  F*ck you.  People also say that HTML is easy.  It's so not.  Don't let anyone ever tell you HTML is easy -- they are LYING to make you feel stupid.  HTML is confusing and too technical and if you make one wrong keystroke the whole code is off.  (Shelly e-mailed me a few weeks ago and couldn't figure out why a picture wasn't working -- she had typed "img scr" instead of "img src."  The only reason I could figure it out is because I've been doing it for over a year now and I took a "professional development" class in HTML, then spent a week studying the book we used.  And really, I still can't do anything complicated, just the easy stuff.) 

And yes, I'm good at photo editing, but that's with programs that make it pretty idiot proof.  The 2 programs I use have graphic menus with labeled icons for what I want to do, and it's all there, I just have to click on a certain icon.  Photoshop is completely technical (but I will have more control over each element, which is what makes it so attractive.)  You have all these buttons and file menu options, but none of them quite make sense and you don't know where to start or what does what . . . and there are TONS of tutorials "out there," I just have to take the time to FIND them, figure out which ones are actually useful and will make sense, then read through them and get my bearings.  It's really important to me to learn this, and I think it will be good for me in the long run (if nothing else, to have one more skill that is semi-marketable/something to fall back on or use for free-lancing.  And I can use it for digital scrapbooking, which is the new craze.)  And you all know how deeply I feel about photography -- PhotoShop is THE program that professional photographers use.  I want to be good, and I want to figure this out.

So if any of you know anything about PhotoShop, send some love my way (and when I say love, I mean ideas, links, or book titles I should get.)  ;o)

P.S. I just ordered from Amazon: Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Classroom in a Book, which I think will be a good starting point.

A shot of Self-Esteem

Friday afternoon on my way home from work, I stopped at Walgreens to pick up my mom's pictures.  I parked about 10 spaces from the entrance and hopped out of my car.  I was in a good mood, and I was kind of in a hurry, so I was walking down the sidewalk in my own little world.  A man was getting out of his car right by the entrance, started to go inside and looked my way, then did a double take.  I had almost walked to where he was at this point.

He stopped and said, "You know, you couldn't look any better."
"What?"  I slowed down to figure out what he was talking about. 
"You are very pretty," he said.
"Oh."  I'm standing in front of him thinking I . . . umm . . . WHAT?  But what I said was "Thank you."
He looked at me, dead serious, and said "I mean it.  You are absolutely beautiful."
At this point I smiled genuinely because hey, that's sweet.  So I said thank you again and walked inside -- quickly to the photo area -- to avoid having to contour what could turn into a pretty awkward conversation.  I was all set with the "I'm married and have a two year old" speech, but he didn't say another thing.  He went his way and I went my way.

So the rest of the day, of course, I was thinking about it.  Thinking maybe his contacts got put in backwards.  Maybe he just has a thing for tall chubby girls with glasses.  But the really weird thing is, this has happened before.  And people, I'm not agreeing with the guy.  Because I didn't look all that impressive on Friday -- sure, I had been playing with my lipstick in the car because I was bored at a stoplight, but lipstick and a happy face?  That's not really enough to warrant beautiful.  But the other time it happened was in college . . . at Walmart.

When I was in college I would go to Walmart late at night when I didn't feel like going to bed, and I would just kind of wander around to amuse myself.  I always ended up buying SOMETHING, but mostly I just liked to see what they had in that was new.  And in college I also wore a lot of "earth mother dresses" -- you know, the kind that are gauzy, have embroidered flowers on them, very flow-y.  So I'm wandering around the women's clothing department in a daze -- and I'm 19 and not fat yet -- and I notice this good-looking Middle Eastern man watching me.  I didn't think anything of it -- because hey, sometimes I randomly look at people, too -- until I rounded a corner in the pajamas and he walked up to me.  He said "Excuse me, but you are so beautiful" in a REALLY sexy accent.  Gosh, I can still remember his voice today.  He looked so sincere and sweet.  I told him thank you, then started to step away.  He quickly said "You are . . . you are married?"  I told him "Yeah, sorry," because I didn't want to have whatever conversation that would follow if I'd said no.  Because you know, I'm all about being told I'm beautiful, but I don't want to start dating a stranger whose eye I catch at Walmart.

And these random events just cement one theory in my mind: everyone is beautiful to someone.  Ya know how, especially when you're single, you see a less than attractive women holding hands with someone or with a wedding ring and you think "well DAMN, someone loves her and no one loves me?"  Some people just are attracted to certain characteristics.  It's not that you have to look a certain way or have EVERYONE think you're gorgeous -- it just takes one person to appreciate the way that you do look (and ok, it helps if you like that person back.)  Or maybe you just need to put on lipstick and smile more.  (Ha ha!  Just kidding.)

My mom rocks

Ok, just for one day I'm giving up my "Queen of the World" title and bestowing it on my mom.  Why?  Because she took these kick-ass pictures of Jake.  I am very impressed.  I have always enjoyed her pictures and she is really the one who inspired my love of photography, but usually her style of taking photos is drastically different than mine and we always disagree on how to take pictures.  But I absolutely love these.  When Priscilla saw this first one, she said "Aww, he looks like an all-American boy!"  (And you know I have a scrapbook page of these picture in progress on my dining room table as we speak.)  That's my DAD'S baseball hat he's wearing, by the way.  Jake's head is HUGE.  He just outgrew a hat for sizes 4-8 (kids, not like a toddler sizing.  We're talking his head is the size of a third grader.)  But I still think he's cute.  ;o)  As always . . . click on pictures to make them POP.

What should I write about?

So I've been working on pages for Jake's Mom&Me album . . . except I haven't felt much like WRITING, I just want to put the pages together.  And I'm ok with some pages being half-finished and the flip-up elements having nothing to flip up for (because little dude can't read yet anyway.)  And you guys know I love this picture of Jake and me blowing bubbles, and I figured out what I wanted the page to look like, except now I have no idea what I should write about.  The actual picture will flip up and essentially say what I said here when I first posted the picture -- just that we were having fun together chilling out during Christmas break.  But the "window" element of the page flips up, too, and I have all this space to write whatever I want, to tell him about life or tell him something I want him to know . . . but I have no idea where to start on this particular page.  Every page will have a different theme, and most are obvious to me and I have no problem knowing what to write, but I don't know about this one.  Any ideas?  Anyone?

Is that for me?

Thursday afternoon I stopped by Target on my way home -- had to buy a gift for L's baby shower (a girl from my Sunday School class who I *kind* of know/am getting to know better). While I was there, I bought a few things for Jennifer (Ryan's mom) and her twins. I don't know if my church is going to give her a baby shower, because the general rule is a shower just for the first baby, but hopefully we will do something. But I wanted to get her a gift, regardless. I got her two Classic Pooh 3-6 month outfits (she's having twins, remember, and her kids tend to be big, so 0-3 mos. would be pointless), and two 12 mos. pull-over sweaters (which I think her June babies will be able to wear by Christmas.) One is blue, one is red -- they were $5 on clearance. Anyway, is freaking EVERYONE pregnant right now? (Aside from me and Sue?) I swear I saw like 7 pregnant women in Target, and 2 newborn babies. And maybe pregnant people just happen to go to Target because that's where they have all the great baby stuff, I don't know. But it really seems like it's everyone.

So I take the gifts home (after picking Jake up from my mom's) and sit down to wrap them up. When I was done, I put them on top of the entertainment center so Jake couldn't reach them. He pointed to them and said "Rip? Rip?" He thought they were presents for him and he wanted to open them. I said "No, they're not for you. Do you want me to wrap up some of your toys so you can open them?" "YEAH." So I used all the left-over Sesame Street wrapping paper I'd kept in the garage (which Jake tries to grab every time I step in there for something) and Jake kept bringing me Fisher Price Little People to wrap up. You wouldn't believe how much fun he has doing this. We sat in the floor for 45 minutes. He was very disappointed when all the paper was gone, and I promised him we would buy more paper on Saturday. And he helped me clean up all the paper. (We do not make messes at our house without cleaning up afterwards, everyone helping. He's so funny. He now says "Mom. Help me.")

Saturday afternoon we went to a Dollar Tree close to our house that we'd never gotten around to going in. Holy crap, it was huge. Dollar Tree is getting to be a big thing 'round these parts, and this was like SUPER-Dollar Tree. We found the wrapping paper section and Jake picked out a roll with dogs (big surprise) and one with baseballs. I also let him pick out a pack of stickers. So everyone, take note: it takes about $3.27 (counting sales tax) to become your child's hero. ;o) I actually really enjoy silly little errands like this with Jake. We came home and spent TONS of time in the floor -- went through ALL the dog paper and half the ball paper. Here are some pictures -- I think he had a good time. ;o)

Give me a hug

Friday night Priscilla's husband had to work overtime, so we decided we would hang out at my house.  But he had their only car, so I had to go get P and the girls.  I learned that a Ford Taurus WILL fit three carseats in the back seat!  I was shocked.  The kids looked SO cute all sitting back there together.  (I wish I had gotten a picture!  But it was dark.)  Jake and Elauna were in HEAVEN sitting next to each other in the car.  They were so excited.  Lana was leaned over to Jake's seat, trying to hold his hand -- it was SO CUTE.  I left my extra carseat in the car so that in the future I can easily pick Elauna up anytime.  Everytime we were in the car for the rest of the weekend, Jake would pat the seat and say "Lana.  Lana sit." 

So P and I decided we were just gonna chill out and work a little on her scrapbook, although I really only got one LO worked on -- and I'm *almost* done, didn't even finish it!  But it's hard to be really productive when you have to keep jumping up to deal with the kids and you're talking and getting distracted.  Jake and Lana amused themselves and had a blast, while P and I sat at my dining room table with Aowyn.  A is getting so big (5 months old!), and rolling over and smiling so big.  She really likes me (and why not?  I'm the best auntie ever), P says she doesn't smile at a lot of people or let just anyone hold her.  I was hugging A and told Priscilla, "You know, I really don't think it's normal for me to love your girls as much as I do." And she said "But they're your surrogate girls, and Jake is my boy, and then we don't have to have one of our own."  Dude, it's so true.  She totally gets me.

I got some really funny pictures of Jake and Lana playing together on our stairs -- Jake will FINALLY hug her (he doesn't hug many people on cue), but it's still more leaning against her than a hug.  Lana is THRILLED that Jake's finally ok with her hugs (she's SUCH a loving little girl.) [click picture to see details.]  Even though they see each other 2 or 3 times a week, they were broken-hearted when I took the girls home.  On Sunday P had to stop by my house to give me back my cell phone, which had been in her purse since Friday (because we're BOTH completely flighty), and Jake got all excited.  He said "Elauna?  Elauna?" and we had to explain to the poor kid that she wasn't coming over, but maybe tomorrow we would stop by to see her.  And I know I say it a lot and you're all probably tired of hearing about it, but everytime we hang out I realize that I am SO blessed to have a best friend nearby to spend time with, and I am truly thankful.  (And I think Jake is, too.)