Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy New Year!


I've been meaning to post our holiday card, but haven't been on the right computer. If you click the photo you can see it larger. The images span December 29, 2006 to December 3, 2007.

We wish everyone a very happy, healthy 2008!

Decorating the Tree




Thane's 4!

After weeks of “I can’t have a birthday” and “I can’t have four,” Thane celebrated his birthday pretty happily, despite his birthday being postponed on account of snow.

The big surprise for our family was that Thane decided to join us at the table and frost his own cake. I have some shaky video of his first lick of frosting, and the way he cringed and said “No way!” when we asked if it was good. I thought he might lose it, but he is gaining so much control of hi s gag reflex.



He really enjoyed blowing out the candles. In fact, we had to light them a couple of times so he could do it more than once.




He also enjoyed opening his presents. The biggest hit was the Pat Pat Rocket that Karen and Wayne managed to get for us while they were in stock at a Target in Biddeford. Of course, it is easy for me to say it was worth the effort because I didn’t do the work! Seriously, though, Thane really loves it and Karen tested it for lead before she mailed it. If you look at the picture, which also shows one of his new horses, he is actually moving a character up the stairs into Rocket. It may not seem like much, but it actually shows something pretty major a little guy on the autism spectrum!


My biggest laugh comes from my warped sense of humor. Dave didn’t put S’Mores together beforehand, so check him out screwing in the batteries. This wins for my obscene toy photo of the year. When Braeden was in Montessori, we were doing a 4th of July Parade and Dave was inflating Uncle Sam. The air inlet was . . . guess where?


And, in case that photo of Dave wasn’t silly enough, check him and Braeden (and Dora) out wearing mini Bilibos.


Last is a not so great photograph of Thane’s cake at his birthday party. The back story on the cake is that I finished baking it and let it cool on a rack – first getting a nice grid pattern in the top of one half of the cake. I figured that would be the bottom. I put the cake on a pan and started frosting it. It seemed to be going well until I put the top layer on. As I was frosting it I realized that it was really rather lopsided. I am not sure how it happened, but I was grumbling in my mind about my ugly cake. Thane walks in and in his charming and very breathy way said, “Wow! It’s perfect!”

After I started writing on it, Braeden decided he wanted to come in and help. His initial idea was to use white to make a symbol that it wasn’t for children under three. He decided instead to go around it. Thane came in and decided he wanted to do the red. In fact, he wanted to use all the red. I figured I should let it all go . . . besides, who would notice the fact that the cake is lopsided when it had kid graffiti all over it?!? They were happy! And everyone enjoyed eating it . . . other than Thane.


Another amazing thing to see is that the boy next to Thane with the blower is six months older. At one point he was close to six inches taller than Thane and 15 pounds heavier. Nothing makes it more obvious that Thane is no longer Failure to Thrive than seeing him next to a peer! He sure has changed a lot in so many ways!

All right, I have one more. The dog just looks cute under the tree.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

A Gift for Santa

Thane makes me smile a lot lately. Today he saw that I had purchased a small Santa for someone. He was interested in it, so I told him I had a different one for him. I pulled out a little musical Santa with a gift box. He jumped back when it started singing, but he warmed up quickly and opened the box. There was nothing in it as I had planned to use it on Christmas, so he ran to go find a present for Santa. He tried several little cars until he found the right one. He also spied the reindeer in the bag, so he pulled it out and had it say “Hello, Santa.” Santa replied, “Hello, Deer!” Maybe you had to be there, but I was totally charmed!

Snow Day!






These photos were taken late afternoon on Monday – about mid-way through our snow accumulation of 14-15 inches total. It’s funny because two towns to the south there is only about six inches, and two towns to the north about eight, but we have a bit more elevation around here than a lot of coastal towns.

Thane had no school on Tuesday either because most places had a 2-hour delay. Around noon he started asking for his “Snow Soup.” It took me a minute to figure out he meant his snowsuit as I would have never thought he wanted to get bundled up like that on purpose. Luckily his big brother was willing to take him out afterschool because I wasn’t really up for having to chase him through that much snow!

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Heard Around

“Good job, Bwaeden! You’re a hero!”

“I wuv you,” from Thane without saying it first.

“Mama, mama, I peed in the potty! I so so big!”

Upon seeing a Santa getting into a Ford: “Where is Santa’s sweigh? Where is the sweigh? Where does Santa go? Santa goes to the North Pole!”

And the funniest in awhile, complete with arms crossed, puffy pout, and stomping. “I mad! I stomp! One, two, three four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty five, twenty-six, twenty-seven” pause “twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten” pause, look at fingers, see everyone else laughing and give up being mad.