Happy New Year

This week we celebrated Gavin’s 4th birthday. Wednesday morning, I took him to the mall where he was able to play with some other boys around his age. Then, we went to Build-a-Bear and got a new outfit for his bear, Sword. (He named the bear Sword) Can you guess which costume he picked?? Well the pirate one of course. The only other option that had a sword with it.  After that, I let him go to McDonalds where he got to play with more kids. He had a blast with me in the morning. In the afternoon, I went to work, and Mom made special Star Wars pancakes for dinner and then they watched Cars2 while playing with his new glow in the dark race track.  Heather said that Gavin started to tear up toward the end of the night. He said, I’ve had so much fun on my birthday, but tomorrow my birthday will be all gone:( 

Gavin also started a new class last week. The class is kind of like a preschool setting. I drop him off every Friday for 2 hours. He seemed to really enjoy it. I am hoping for a bit more peer interaction than the first class, but we’ll have to wait and see. 

Gavin’s started hanging out with Ethan at ABA for about an hour on Thursdays now too. He just loves that.  The therapist are working on getting the boys to interact and play more together.  They are also giving Gavin some skills to help teach Ethan too. 

Ethan has lots going on too. He started a new round of treatment for chelation about a month ago. I will go over all the details of that in another post.  At Christmas time, Ethan had gotten into a loaf of bread which sparked a new yeast infection. (click this link to learn more about yeast infections) We started to see all those great symptoms; aggression, temper, crying, poor sleeping, uncontrollable giggling for hours, terrible rash on his cheeks.  His pediatrician gave us another round of antifungal.  After starting the meds, Ethan transformed back to his normal self almost overnight. Ethan was discharged from physical therapy this week, so that will be one less thing he has to do during the week.  Although, we will probably just send him to ABA earlier.  At the last post, we said goodbye to the great Ms. Ashley. This time we happily welcome back the new best therapist in Texas, Ms Amanda (applause) We are so happy to have her back with Ethan. It’s great to have someone who connects with him and sees the potential in him. 

Not too much going on with Heather and I. I made it past the 90 day probation at Costco, so I guess I am going to be there a while.  I am still vlounteering for the city’s Live Green program. My major contribution so far is to their blog. I have been writing a series of well received blogs regarding natural healing. If you have yet to check it out, click on the link in the top left corner.  Look for the title, “When I get that feeling, I want Natural Healing”.  
I started studying for the GRE this week. Completely overwhelming right now. I’ve been out of school for nearly a decade, so getting ready for this exam is a daunting task right now.  Anyone with advice on the GRE or graduate school please send it my way.

Heather is teaching her heart out as always.  This year Heather’s New Year’s resolution is to refocus on herself. She is always trying to help and please others, but this year she is making time for herself. 

That’s the update for now. I will have a new post about Ethan’s new treatment within the next week or so. 

Happy Birthday to Gavin

Gavin was born 4 years ago today. Gavin was a fussy little baby the first 2 weeks of his life. Mom had to bounce on a stability ball which was the only thing that would quite him down.  After that, he has been a perfect little boy.  He walked at 11 months and was potty trained at 2. By the time he reached 3, his vocabulary was almost as good as mine.  Gavin has been the best “big” little brother. He tells Ethan how much he loves him all the time.  He encourages Ethan and gives him praise when he does good things. Gavin is always trying to teach Ethan new things. He has picked up some ABA skills and works with Ethan almost every day. He tells me, “ I want to learn him”, “I want to help him learn”.  He is just the cutest most sweetest little guy any body can ask for.  He also tells us that he loves us all the time too. Mom gets to hear it more than me of course, but that’s okay.  Gavin is such a mama’s boy.  He loooves his Mom. The other day he asked me if I had to work that night. I told him yes I did. He then replied, “ya know, that makes me a little bit happy. That makes me a little bit happy because that means me and mommy can play a lot tonight.”  I love how he knew I wasn’t going to like him saying he was happy I had to work, so he cushioned the blow by saying just a little bit happy.  What a guy. 

Here’s another cute story. Last night, I was working and Heather was sick. Gavin sees Ethan go to lay next to mom on the couch. He says, “ Ethan you shouldn’t snuggle with mom right now because she’s sick and you don’t wanna get sick buddy.”  Then, as he’s going to bed he tells mom to get lots of sleep so she can feel better tomorrow. How cute is that?

Now, while he is the sweetest and kindest little 4 year old, he does LOVE to fight. It’s my favorite thing he says.  He can’t get enough swords and good guys and bad guys.  In a couple years, he’s going to be inflicting some serious pain on me.  I gotta say, I’m a little scared of him at 5 or 6. He packs a pretty hefty punch for such a small guy.   

 I can not believe that I now have a 4 and 5 year old. (I wonder if I will say that every year???)  While Gavin’s language is continuing to develop and he is beginning to show us his critical thinking abilities, he still has some of the cute speech of a little kid. My favorite is when he asks for one of his favorite breakfast foods. Pancakes. “mom can we have some pannakes today” Just too adorable. 

We love you kiddo and we are soo proud of you!!!!!!!