Product Review

Disclaimer: I was given this toy free in exchange for this review.

My kids have a ton of toys, but the little kid inside of me can't pass up free toys, especially baby toys. Ebeanstalk sent Daniel a toy called a Skwish made by Manhattan Toy who specializes in developmental toys for kids. I had to wait awhile to write this as Daniel was not quite at the grab on and holding things stage when I received it. Daniel loves it, it has nice round knobs on the ends for him to gnaw on plus it has a tons of spots for him to grab on to. The toy makes a nice musical noise which helps keep Daniel interested in playing with it. The Skwish is deceptively simple looking at first glance but there are a lot of fun things packed into it for a discerning baby (even five year olds and three year olds seem drawn to it).

Now for what you all were waiting for:

Into the mouth.

Daniel is having a tough time deciding if he wants to suck his thumb or the toy.

So serious!

Bonus pictures:

Daniel has mastered both rolling from front to back and the tougher back to front. His favorite time to do it is when I am in the middle of changing his diaper.

Even more bonus pictures (I do have two other kids around here somewhere):

When I was taking pictures of the baby they wanted me to take a picture of the tow truck.

The first day of school part 2

All my fears and worries were for nothing, Harry went off with his preschool teacher just fine and there were no tears shed. I do think that my prep work (taking him to see his class every day after dropping Evan off) really helped him get to know his teachers so he would feel more comfortable with them.

Evan seems to be doing fairly well at school. He likes to go to the bathroom when bored, so I have given his teacher permission to make him wait. I was a bit worried that it could be a UTI but when he went all weekend with his normal pattern I knew he was testing his limits with the teacher.

I am celebrating my brief freedom by eating some gummy worms and not sharing. Daniel is taking his morning nap and I have some lofty plans to do nothing all morning, just because I can.

They get to take a stuffed animal to school for the first three days, it helps comfort the kids and tehy will have a special picnic with the toys on Friday.

My big boys!

First day of School

I know there are excited grandparents so I am rushing to put the pictures of Evan's first day of school up.

We got to meet his teacher last night when they had us drop off school supplies. She was not one of the ones that had attended Evan's IEP meeting, so I had not met her before. She seems really nice and has been teaching for 25 years, so I think she should be able to handle Evan. Harry was rather envious that Evan was going to school and he was not (the pre school starts next week). We made a visit to Harry's class room and met his teacher after getting Evan settled. Harry can have issues with me leaving him places (sobbing, clinging, ect) so I am trying to get him familiar with the new setting and new people. We will visit every day after dropping Evan off in his class room and hopefully that will help.

Evan rocking his cool Thomas the Train backpack.

Evan after finding his name tag. The picture is a bit blurry, it is hard to take pictures when you are also holding a baby.

Look! baby pictures!

I have been all wrapped up in back to school planning. Mentally I have had to prepare myself for sending my babies off to school. I have also had a number of appointments to go to and paperwork to fill out and supplies to buy. Evan starts on the 12th and Harry starts on the 19th and then it will be sweet freedom (or as close as I can get with three kids). I can't help but be anxious about Evan in particular. I want him to have a good time in school and I want him to have the tools to learn the things he needs to. Hopefully his IEP will be followed and I will not have to get squeaky.

Daniel is now three months old. He is such a cutie and is a rather patient baby for the most part. I still have to hold him a lot but he will also, on occasion, accept the swing as an alternative to mommy's arms. Sleeping through the night is happening more often than not, but he will now flip over in his sleep which will cause him to cry and wake me up. He is giggling and laughing a bit and is trying really hard to grasp toys that I hold out for him to look at.

Evan has also been making some strides developmentally. For the longset time Evan has just been scribbling when he "draws". When he was evaluated for school they thought it was related to his stroke and the new pathways he had to form to process the visual information. Lately he has actually started to draw recognizable pictures, they are of cars of course. I am quite excited about this and hope that it will translate to him writing.

This is Evan's picture of a tow truck carrying a car. I tried to get a picture of him next to it, but Harry went and erased it before I could.

Aww, how cute!

It just makes my heart melt.

Dome shot

This entertains him for five seconds and then he has to be out and on my lap.