None of us would be the same without Thomas. He is jumping, cooking, cleaning, wiping butts, teaching, and providing entertainment nearly every moment of the day for our family. He sacrifices his time and energy ... and is quite literally 100% dedicated to this family and a super dad!
I’m guessing most of you that are reading this blog are asking yourself, what happened to the posts? Where is Sherri? Well, the answer is really quite simple. Facebook happened. I opened a Facebook account, and I have spent what little time I have each day checking on old friends. It’s really fascinating. I have become “friends” with people I haven’t seen more 12 years or more.
And it has been really great to see how everyone is doing, seeing everyone happily married, and most with a couple children.
Another great thing about Facebook is that is much more interactive. No one ever really comments on the blog, I assume because it isn’t very interesting.
But just in case you do enjoy reading up on my family life, don’t worry, the blog isn’t disappearing. One of my favorite things about it is that I am able to literally keep a diary of our family, its activities, and how the children are learning and growing. For instance, I’m finally putting together Petra’s scrapbook for her first year, and I’m using the blog to go back and see what she was doing at each age.
And speaking of learning and growing, the children are doing just that. It amazes me how much they have grown in just the last month. I’m starting to realize I’m not going to have babies much longer. and they are both 22lbs. Here is a quick run down:
At 8 months old, Jasper is:
Signing for milk/bottle (just after 1 week of us showing him the sign)
Crawling all around the house
Pulling up on everything and walking around the furniture
Walking all around the house with a push toy!! He came walking in the kitchen yesterday morning, all by himself, pushing our little pink stroller, with a huge grin on his face (and let me add that I left him sitting in the living room just a few moments before)
Can imitate us when we say “ma-ma” or "bye-bye"
Waved bye-bye today for the first time
Eating more food - about 2/3 time he eats pureed food, and the other 1/3 he eats table food
Sleeping more often through the whole night! (I think he slept 4 nights this week without waking up)
Petra also seems to be learning and growing at lightning speed.
She can climb to the top of an 8ft slide and push herself down, and start over – no assistance needed – at our local park
Started saying 3-4 syllable words a couple weeks ago
Swam under water by herself … about 1 foot … by kicking (no arms yet)
Can hear an airplane a mile away and lets us know it
Will not stop asking us “book, read” - loves, loves to read
Still hates the tv or videos – which I have to think is a good thing
Is talking more and more, this morning she was in a precarious position and said "careful"
And I picked up a potty book from the library, and I think it may be helping - after just 1 read she has asked 3 times to go potty
We've been happily content lately and feel very blessed for so many reasons. Summer has been very enjoyable and I don't want it to end. Having the children at home during the day has been wonderful. They seem to enjoy the days much more now also.
One of the funny things is Thomas and I have always said we don't really want any of our children to swim on a swim team. Not that we dislike swimming, but we do not want to have to take them to early morning, before school practice. I think the thought is slowly creeping in now that it seems likely Petra may want to swim at some point. She absolutely loves the pool. She is so much fun and is so willing to try new things. She likes seeing us jump or dive in the deep end, and often wants to join us for the jump. Thomas will hold her while he jumps in, she probably ends up going under water about 3 feet, and when they get out, she's ready to go again. We can also stand 4-5 feet apart and push her back in forth under the water, she loves this as well. She is constantly trying to leave my arms and swim after Thomas while he swims around --- not realizing that she has to kick or use her arms.
She hit another big first today! We've been gradually getting her used to the idea of the potty. Some days she sits on it one time a day, other days not at all. And honestly, she doesn't sit on it very long before she wants to get up --- usually just a few seconds. So I was THRILLED today when she actually used the potty (number 1). YEAH!! I'm thinking the watermelon we fed her this afternoon helped encourage the behavior. =)
And Jasper is all over the place. But we don't think he's very fond of the pool. He seems to tolerate it for a few minutes, but doesn't really care for it. I can't really tell if we just taking him in when he's tired, or if he just doesn't like it. He seems to continually look at us throughout the day in a very disapproving way. And I keep thinking that when he starts talking he's going to have a few words with us about how he disapproves of our parenting techniques.
Oh, and Jasper got a haircut. I just cut off his crazy, curly mohawk that was left behind from his newborn hair. It looks so much nicer now.
Yesterday, Jasper started to crawl in succession. For the last week, he would crawl about one little step, drop to the floor, and then do a military crawl across the floor ... which honestly looked very difficult.
And then yesterday night, he started to crawl. I took the video today for all of you out there that I know want to see for yourself. He will be 8 months old tomorrow.
I'm am so far behind in posts; I have about 30 photos I want to add ... but no time.
But Jasper's pending adoption is too important to skip over. He's our little serious guy. He observes things around him intently. But if I had to descirbe him in just a few words, I would say-curious, energetic, and strong-willed.
He's been a joy, and generally he is very easy and sweet. We are learning that he is very different from Petra and we have to teach him differently. Moving him from foster care to adoptive placment has been a breeze compared to Petra's case. From the beginning we were told the mother wanted to place him for adoption. We received the paperwork this weekend that his mother's and father's parental rights have been terminated, the order has been signed by the judge. And the order also stated he would remain with us in pre-adoptive placement.
Legally, we have to wait a minimum of 30 days from the day the order was signed, which was May 22nd. So I called the adoption worker to see if she had the paperwork yet. She didn't ... so I tried to casually recommend she get moving on things. Basically, she has a lot of paperwork to finalize, possibly another home visit (I'm not sure) and then she also has to determine a court date that will work for everyone involved. We should have a tentative date in the next week or so.
The little guy is doing great. He is scooting and moving across the floor - crawling one step, then scooting, then rolling - it seems to be a variety of moves that get him where he wants to be. He also just started being able to go from his stomach to a sitting position. And is also now pulling himself up to a standing position. The biggest problem with this is that his favorite place to stand is in the tub. I can't keep him seated and it keeps me busy at bath time.
