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.
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.
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.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
First Day of School
Today is Vincent's first day of school. His teacher is Mrs. Stanton. I dropped him off less than an hour ago and I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the next 2 hours! Here's a photo of him before we left the house. I'll try to get a pic of him with his teacher soon.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Tres Hombres, Indeed!!!
Baby Ripley is a BOY!!! We are thrilled to welcome another little boy to the team family!
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tres Hombres
There's a great little Mexican restaurant in Carbondale called Tres Hombres (for the Spanish-challenged, that translates to Three Men). In case you missed the Facebook announcement, we are expecting baby number 3 on December 28 (or later, as I suspect). Anyway, we don't know the gender yet, but we're guessing for several reasons that this one will be a boy as well, so we have been referring to all the kids as Tres Hombres. Watch, this one will be a girl and we won't be able to say it anymore. We haven't decided yet whether we'll find out the gender, but I have seen so many cute baby girl things, that I think I'll have to find out just so I don't go buying a boat-load of "just-in-case" outfits!
In other news, Vince recently celebrated his 3rd birthday and of course we've been potty training. It started out kind of rocky, because none of us knew what we were doing, but Vince is finally getting the hang of it. Today was Day Two with no accidents! He's finally starting to warn me before he goes pee and we can make it to the bathroom without having an accident. It's nice to be able to say that I have only one child in diapers for the next 6 months, anyway. He has to be completely potty trained before school starts in August, and I had my doubts for a while, but now I'm pretty confident he'll be ready. He'll be going to preschool 5 days per week, from 8am - 11am.
Anthony continues to develop well. He is adding new words to his vocabulary every day and saying them quite well. He still has an oral fixation and I'm sure he misses his pacifier: he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. Literally. Clothes, toys, tools, puzzles, Bosley. All of it. He is learning to swim and made a lot of progress today in our dear friends Stephanie and Chip's pool. He's quite a bit younger than Vince was when we started using the little floatie vest suit, so he's having a slower time of it. Vince is an old pro at this point, swimming around all on his own (in the vest and floaties, of course).
Baby Ripley is growing fast. Vince loves examining my belly to see how much it's grown each day. I had a little bit of nausea and a lot of fatigue, but those have both gone away in the last couple weeks. I'm feeling great now (at 14 weeks) and just waiting to be able to feel the baby moving around.
We visited my Aunt Susie a couple weeks ago and the boys adored her. She took us to a beautiful park nearby and we all had a great time.
Hope you enjoy these recent photos:
In other news, Vince recently celebrated his 3rd birthday and of course we've been potty training. It started out kind of rocky, because none of us knew what we were doing, but Vince is finally getting the hang of it. Today was Day Two with no accidents! He's finally starting to warn me before he goes pee and we can make it to the bathroom without having an accident. It's nice to be able to say that I have only one child in diapers for the next 6 months, anyway. He has to be completely potty trained before school starts in August, and I had my doubts for a while, but now I'm pretty confident he'll be ready. He'll be going to preschool 5 days per week, from 8am - 11am.
Anthony continues to develop well. He is adding new words to his vocabulary every day and saying them quite well. He still has an oral fixation and I'm sure he misses his pacifier: he puts EVERYTHING in his mouth. Literally. Clothes, toys, tools, puzzles, Bosley. All of it. He is learning to swim and made a lot of progress today in our dear friends Stephanie and Chip's pool. He's quite a bit younger than Vince was when we started using the little floatie vest suit, so he's having a slower time of it. Vince is an old pro at this point, swimming around all on his own (in the vest and floaties, of course).
Baby Ripley is growing fast. Vince loves examining my belly to see how much it's grown each day. I had a little bit of nausea and a lot of fatigue, but those have both gone away in the last couple weeks. I'm feeling great now (at 14 weeks) and just waiting to be able to feel the baby moving around.
We visited my Aunt Susie a couple weeks ago and the boys adored her. She took us to a beautiful park nearby and we all had a great time.
Hope you enjoy these recent photos:
Visiting Susie in Columbia, MO
Little Blue Eyes making a run for it.
Vince decided it was his turn in the stroller...AJ was up to the task.
At Chip and Steph's pool
Nana and Papa Jim came for Vincent's birthday week
Vince, sporting Papa Jim's hat
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
