AMomTwoBoys

Today is my birthday.  WHOOT!!!!

I’m 31.

Which is apparently REALLY old to sweet little bitches babies like Jen and Katie who have never seen The Princess Bride or Ice Castles (which is being remade!!!!!!) and don’t even know the show Greatest American Hero. They’ve also made it their life’s purpose this past week to make me feel old.  But really, I just feel bad for them because they’ve missed out on SO MUCH GOOD STUFF.

ANYWAY, I’m going to get a pedicure and have lunch today with my girlfriend Hannah.  Without kids!  So my genius self thought it would be a great present if my husband and the boys stayed at my in-laws house last night.

Because OMFG, a night of quiet, watching shows *I* want to watch, sleeping uninterrupted, not waking up to an alarm, and then getting to watch the news in the morning?!  HEAVEN!

Except, I miss them.  And I feel guilty that I wanted a night alone for my birthday.  But they’ll be home tonight for my birthday dinner and for cake.  And Dylan promised to sing me the Birthday Song.  So I should just get over it and enjoy my day, right?

RIGHT?

Also, Mom, Dad and Court?  It’s fucking garbage day.  I’m pissed.

I was talking to some people about earlier about someone with a lazy eye.  Which made me think of Zach, because if we hadn’t been proactive in his care, he would have one.  And, I guess technically he DOES have one since whenever we take his glasses off his right eye shoots towards his nose at alarming speed.

So I went back into my photos to look for a picture of him from when we first discovered his vision problems.

And then I spent the next 30 minutes looking through all sorts of photos.

Isn’t that how it always goes?

That’s when I came across some videos of Dylan.

Remember him?  He’s my older kid.  The one I haven’t talked about much lately because he doesn’t have vision or speech issues.  And issues are easy to talk about.  They’re interesting.  You can’t be bored of them or not care, because then you’d be an asshole.

And I know you don’t want to be an asshole.  Especially at Christmas.

But talking about Dylan’s sudden and intense love for all things Wii isn’t as interesting.

And the whining, OH MY GOD the whining.  He has mastered it.

He’s also suddenly obsessed with writing and drawing.  And he loves to take baths and showers.  He could spend HOURS in there, just relaxing in the water.  I’m beginning to think he’s part fish.

He starts a majority of his sentences with “dude”.

You can see his brain working when he’s trying to come up with a plan.  It’s funny.  And frightening.

He loves to sing.  But only when he doesn’t know anyone is listening.  Or if it’s just me and dad and Zach around.

He’s shy.

He’s also starting to bust out of his shyness.  Last week our neighbor came over to talk to DJ.  As they stood in the driveway, Dylan ran outside and said “HEY!  Come inside, I want to show you something!” and then spent 10 minutes explaining the intricacies of Wii Ski to the poor guy.

I spent those 1o minutes trying to slyly hide my string bikini underwear in the laundry pile that I had just thrown on the chair.

Anyway, my point in all of this is that he’s a pretty awesome kid.

Even if I don’t talk about him as often as I should.

This is one of the videos I came across today, from June 2008.  He was just over 3 years old.

Notice* the popsicle on his mouth.  I probably used it as a bribe.  It worked.

*Ignore the dying flowers in the vase behind him.  I write for Aiming Low.  What do you expect?

Those two things really don’t have anything in common.

Except that they’re both happening in my house today!

And I only write two posts a week on average, so I sure as hell wasn’t going to write two posts in one day.

I mean, really.

Also, I’m having fun using Shakespeare quotes for my post titles.  My High School English Teacher would be so fucking proud of me.

Anyway, I was at Target the other day, aimlessly wandering the toy aisles over and over again, when I figured going down the girl toy aisle wasn’t that bad of an idea.

There are a couple of girls on my list.  Plus, Dolls!  And pink!

It was like being in a foreign country.  But without the umbrella drinks and hairy men walking around in speedo thongs.

So I happened to look up and see a rack, with no prices, of Zhu Zhu Pets. I’ve heard of them, but honestly, it pretty much went in one ear and out the other.  So I took one and looked it over.

A fake hamster?!  That I don’t have to keep clean, feed, or, you know, keep ALIVE?  SCORE!  Dylan would be all over that!

I took it to the little price scanner thingy to see how much it was going to set me back.  When $7.99 showed up on the screen, I couldn’t get it in my cart fast enough.

So then I came home and I put Zach down for a nap and I started wrapping presents.  And when I pulled the Zhu Zhu pet out of the bag I decided to send a tweet about it:

And within in seconds I had 4,395,502 replies there were all pretty  much the same:

I suddenly realized I’d made the purchase of year and I didn’t even know it!

So I got Zach back in the car, headed BACK to Target and snatched the remaining Zhu Zhu Pets out of a cute little girl’s hands.

Just kidding.  Kind of.

What I’m trying to say is that I have a Zhu Zhu pet to give away to one lucky person!

His (her?) name is Chunk and he/she is all white.

It’s still in the package.  Don’t let the photo fool you.

Just leave a comment telling me who the lucky recipient will be.  And don’t worry, I totally won’t judge you if you want it for yourself.

You can earn extra entries by tweeting about the giveaway.  Just be sure to leave a separate comment with a direct link to each individual tweet.  Also, you can get another extra entry by following me on twitter, again with the individual comment.  AND, if you can leave a comment telling me what my last post on Aiming Low was about….you guessed it, another entry!

That’s, like, 436 possible ways to enter!

Open to US Residents only. Contest closes at 4pm Pacific time tomorrow (Saturday, December 19th).  At which point I will choose the winner via random number drawing from all eligible comments.  I will email the winner and as soon as I get your shipping address, I’ll send it out via Priority Mail.  I can’t guarantee you’ll have it by the 25th, but if you win and get me your address ASAP, it’s very likely!

Good luck!

*P.S. Dylan has a cold/cough combo.  He’s not sick-sick, but I’d be really annoyed it someone else sent their kid to school if they were sick like he is.   Because…snot.  So…that’s that.

**UPDATED!  The winner was comment #64!  Congratulations Erica!

Which means Zach is witty as all get out.

We got the report from his speech evaluation yesterday.

I was fully prepared to be told that yes, he is speech delayed.  BUT, not enough to qualify for services.

So, when she started talking about making appointments and scheduling visits, I was a bit taken aback.

I think my exact words were “UM.  Does this mean he qualifies for services?”

To which she looked at me like I had two heads and said “YES.”

But I know she added a silent “you fucking moron.”

APPARENTLY, even though he’s well advanced in EVERY OTHER ASPECT, he’s a little behind in expressive speech.

And by a little, I mean, HOLYMOTHEROFGAHD my 28 (almost) month old was placed in the 9-12 month range.

GAH.  I mean, I KNEW he was behind, but dude.  He didn’t even complete all the skills that a 9-12 month old would?!  CHRIST.

To say I was surprised would be putting it mildly.  I was SHOCKED.

But not in a bad way, though.

I’m not worried about him.

I don’t think there’s anything WRONG with him.

He did so well in all the other areas I wan to have it tattoo’d to his forehead.

Classy, no?

So, what does this all mean?

It means that we get to have two days a week of speech therapy beginning in January.

We set a few goals, and by the time he turns three we want Zach to have AT LEAST 100 words.  Which sounds like a lot to me, but the therapist said a 3 year old should have many more than that.

We’re also going to reevaluate him in April, and if he’s progressing as well as I suspect he will (hello, he’s brilliant, remember?), we will cut back to one day a week.

I’m fairly confident that I will kick myself for this in a few short months.

He’ll be talking my ear off about quantum physics and explaining why he loves Dora the Explorer and hates Thomas the Tank Engine.

Actually,  I’d kind of like an explanation for that.

Happy Holidays, to my internet friends and family!

I can’t even begin to tell you how important you all are to me.

Thank you for being a part of my life.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy, prosperous and fun-filled 2010!

~~~~~

If you’ve shared your holiday card with the rest of us, please link to it below!

And trains are the things little boys dreams are made of.

We started the day by making a train out of cardboard boxes.

We ended the day racing a train on the freeway.

Unfortunately, Dylan was asleep.  But Zach did his best to wake him up by screaming “CHOO CHOO!”.

It was a good day.

*WAPOW!*

Don’t forget the Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange is tomorrow!

It’s baaaaccckkkkk!

Since a lot of you may not have been around these parts last year, let me introduce to you the Bloggy Holiday Card Exchange! You can check out this link to see the original post from last year about the idea, and this link to see the results (but somewhere along the way the Mr. Linky disappeared. BOO.)

If you don’t feel like clicking on links and reading, I don’t blame you one bit. Here’s a quick rundown of what it’s all about, copied and pasted from last year:

If you’re like me, you send your Holiday cards to all the people in your life who mean something special (and maybe a few who you feel obligated to send one to!). If you’re also like me, your internet friends would definitely be counted among the first group. Except they’re internet friends, so you don’t necessarily have their mailing address, or even their real name, and sending out an extra hundred cards would make life difficult. THIS is the next best thing. It gives us an opportunity to share a bit of our real lives with people who make up some of our best friends. And it also gives us a chance to say “Thank You” for being such amazing friends.

How it works:
I’ll be posting my card here on Tuesday, December 15th. If you’re so inclined, you’ll do the same on your site. You will then come here and add your (direct) link to the Mr. Linky on my post. Then you get to spend your day visiting all the other sites that have posted their Holiday cards as well. Some you’ll know, some you won’t. Either way, it’s a ton of fun and it’s so neat to see everyone’s cards and maybe you’ll make a few new friends along the way!

You DO NOT need to post your actual card. If you want to make a new one up for the interwebz, or edit the one you sent to friends and family, that’s totally cool. Whatever you want to do works for me. If you’ve posted your card on your site before the 15th, that’s cool too. Just add the link to the list.

Here’s the code for the handy dandy button if you’d like to display it and let people know you’re participating. The more the merrier!

<a href="http://amomtwoboys.com/2009/12/announcing-the-2nd-annual-bloggy-holiday-card-exchange" target="blank"><img src="http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/oo160/DomesticExtraordinaire/bloggy.jpg" border="0" /></a>

And, a big, huge, slobbery THANK YOU to Domestic Extraordinaire for lighting a fire under me and for creating the awesome graphic!

Questions? Comments?

Eight months you’ve been gone.

We miss you, Maddie.

We love you.

Always.

Why, here I am, Juliet!

Reclining by this lovely miniature bridge!

But, OH. I find myself suddenly so very tired. I think I will rest my head upon my fist.

These are Dylan’s preschool pictures, in case you hadn’t figured that out already. They were taken the first week of November and I picked them up on Monday.

They CRACK ME UP.

They also provided an explanation for this, which was nice, as I had been puzzled by his pose:

We also visited Santa on Thursday. Dylan had decided he would “stand next to him” since “some kids do that.” He requested an airplane that drops presents and a robot that makes cotton candy. Let me tell you, Santa is very concerned about being able to furnish these gifts.

Zach was not AT ALL interested in even looking in Santa’s general direction. Until the photographer spent 10 minutes bribing him with toy trucks and candy canes. We eventually convinced him to sit on the floor in front of Santa, with the understanding Santa would NOT make eye contact or speak to him or, god forbid, touch him.

That Zach, he’s such a divo.

Zach seems to have taken this line, from William Shakespeare’s King Henry V*, to heart.

He had his speech evaluation today. It was SUPER entertaining. I really wish I’d had a video camera, because he was freaking adorable during it. (I know, it’s not really that surprising).

Beyond his speech evaluation, they did a full on motor skills assessment. He did stuff that I had NO IDEA he was capable of doing. I mean, I’ve never put different colored cups in front of him with coordinating bears and asked him to match the bears to the cups. He did it without blinking. He matched shapes without thinking twice. He stacked itty bitty blocks precariously high. Okay, that I’ve seen him do before.

He fed a baby doll. HE USED SCISSORS. He threaded teeny tiny beads onto a shoelace. He demonstrated his ability to understand “on top of” and “under”. He pointed out all his body parts. Well, not ALL of them, but you get the point. When asked to hold her hand and stand on one foot, instead of picking one fit just a little bit off the ground, he stuck his leg out as high as he could. It was as if he was channeling Scott Hamilton or something.

He charmed the pants off of the women who came to evaluate him. THAT, I’ve also seen him do.

He said, maybe four words the entire time. Mom, cup, more and bye.

He did a lot of the usual grunting and gesturing that he does so frequently.

He laughed. A lot.

In the end, she told me he is far ahead in his motor development, which didn’t surprise me. And that he’s “way behind” in his speech development. Which, also, didn’t surprise me.

She is going to write up her full report, and present it at their next meeting. At which point the panel will decide if he qualifies for services. Apparently, as of October 1st the laws changed, so instead of a 30% deficit, he will need to show a 50% deficit in language development to qualify. Because he is 27 months old, he will have to have the speech abilities of a 13.5 month old. I have NO idea where he is on the spectrum. I suspect he’s not quite that far behind.  But who knows.

I’ll find out in two weeks when they come back to give me the report.

She made me feel better about having him evaluated.  He IS significantly behind.  Whether or not the state thinks he’s far enough behind is another story.

*Also, I had no idea he could read Shakespeare.  He is ridiculously talented!