Saturday, September 11, 2010

24 weeks

Baby Ripley is growing right on target. I had my 24 week check-up on Friday and my belly measured right at 24 weeks, and the heart rate was 140, which is perfectly consistent with the other boys at this stage! Hopefully Baby Ripley #3 will continue to be an easy pregnancy! I have my glucose test in about 4 weeks to find out whether I have Gestational Diabetes again. I'm hoping to dodge that bullet again this time around. Although, I am still convinced that my restricted diet was the only reason I didn't gain an obscene amount of weight with Vince, so it did have its perks!

Monday, September 6, 2010

First Day update and a little more...

Well, it took a while, but I'm finally posting the update of Vince's first day of school and his first couple weeks!

He loves school, loves Mrs. Stanton (see below), and loves learning. One of the pictures below is of both boys with their backpacks on. They played together like that for ages after Vince got home on the first day.


Is it me, or do they look more like mother and son than he and I do?


Two big boys, happily chasing each other around.


Mommy and the boys after Day 1.


We decided to do a full day every day (for my sanity). They do all their lessons in the morning and after they have lunch and recess, they take a nap in the afternoon. It seems like it would be a waste to pay for someone else to nap him, but it's been worth every extra penny so far. AJ can nap whenever he wants because we don't have to worry about syncing up with Vincent's nap or having to wake up early to go get him, and I'll be free to take the Bible Study class on the book of Isaiah that I've been looking forward to. I won't get back to town until after noon, so if he was going half days it would be more of a juggling act to find someone to pick him up, etc.

They have already memorized TWO Bible verses: Genesis 1:1 and John 1:3, which Vince recites perfectly. (I think they must use a Children's version of the Bible, because even I would have a hard time with John 1:3 in the NIV.)

They're learning shapes and numbers right now. They will do the letters A & B this month as well. It will be mostly review for him, but he'll have a better grasp of the importance and uses of all that stuff. My non-teacher mentality only got as far as teaching him to recognize all the shapes, numbers and letters. He was starting to tell me what sounds are made by each letter, but it was more guess-work than solid understanding. I happily passed him on to the pros for that stuff. He also knows how to spell his name, which I think he already could, but was never asked to do it until now.

He loves playtime in the preschoolers' playground. The ground is gravel, so he comes home filthy every day and always has rocks in his shoes, but he sleeps well at night, and that's all that matters...right? Every day when we pick him up he runs and hugs AJ, tells him that he missed him, and then the same to me. As we are leaving he begs to show me his playground, which we can see from a window in the cafeteria. It looks the same every day, but he is convinced that I'll be impressed with it. After the first few days of my saying, "Vince, tell me all about your day!" he started saying, as we approached the van, "Mom, let me tell you all about my day!" I found out on Friday that he doesn't talk hardly at all in school. When the teacher or her assistant asks him a question during story time (or whenever), he just stares at them and refuses to speak until they're forced to move on to the next kid.

Last Saturday I took the boys to feed the "ducks" at a park (somewhat) nearby. They're not ducks; they're geese. And I couldn't take any pics during the actual feeding because they're really aggressive and I was paranoid that they would start pecking at Anthony. So instead we have a pic of the boys, with "ducks" in the background. (Vince refuses to acknowledge that they're geese. He will only call them ducks.)



Anthony goes to bed first and Vincent helps me "tuck him in." I tried (unsuccessfully) to capture one of the cutest things I've ever seen. They always give each other a kiss through the bars of the crib. That night, by the time I got the camera, they were playing keep away, and AJ was teasing Vince. Still pretty cute. Don't mind the ghetto fabulous bows and fabric on the crib. AJ gnawed away at the crib rail, so we had to buy plastic covers, which he promptly tore off, until I clamped them down with some loose fabric and ribbon.


Tuesday marks 24 weeks of pregnancy. I'll try to take a belly pic tomorrow, but I might just wait until Mariah, Sidney and Gabe come over on Friday and have her do it after my OB appointment.