Archive for May, 2009
Anna is doing great! She survived her preschool experience; actually she loved it! She will be returning to Burlington for preschool next year. We have Anna signed up for some fun stuff this summer. She’s doing her therapeutic riding again this summer and we also have enrolled her in Camp Helping Hands. This is a constraint therapy camp held at Boulder Community Hospital’s Mapleton Center. It is a week-long intensive therapy camp that includes casting of her non-affected arm. We are curious how Anna will respond to other kids in casts! Supposedly they do a lot of fun stuff with the kids. We are also getting ready for our trip to Alabama. For those of you who do not know, we will be returning to the ACQUIRE program at University of Alabama in mid-August. Alabama in August…hot and humid and buggy…what fun (NOT).
Noah is growing like a weed! We had his 4 month appointment in mid-April. He has dropped a little in his growth percentiles. He is no longer in the 95th+ percentile for height and weight! At his appointment he weighed 15 lbs. 9 oz. and was 25 1/2 inches long. This put him in about the 85th percentile for each. Noah has hit all his other milestones – he surprised me and the doctor by rolling over from his tummy to back on the exam table. I’d never seen him do that before! Unfortunately, he had a lingering ear infection – a remnant of his viral upper respiratory infection. We’re taking him back to the doctor this week to see if the ear infection has cleared up on its own. I hope he gets a clean bill of health because I really do not want to give him yet another round of antibiotics. In other news, we think that little man is teething. He is a drool- monster. He goes through multiple bibs in a day and everything goes in his mouth for a good chomp! I still don’t feel anything poking through his gums though. Last bit of news…Noah sat in tripod all by himself on Monday! He couldn’t sustain it for long, but he definitely held himself up for a few seconds.
Neal and I are doing okay. We’re both exhausted! Noah’s been acting like a newborn at night lately – wanting to eat every 2 hours. This makes for a very fragmented night without any quality sleep. I’m hoping this will change soon!
May 27th, 2009
And congratulations to my brother, Colin, on landing a new job with GE just days after graduating with a shiny new MBA from Columbia Business School.
Enjoy D.C., bro!
May 23rd, 2009
Congratulations to my cousin, Pat Steadman, who just won a special election to become Colorado State Senator for District 31. The swearing-in ceremony is this coming Friday. Visit http://patsteadman.com for all the details.
We’re so proud of Pat, and know he’s going to do great things!
May 23rd, 2009
Happy Mother’s Day momma! We hope you have a great day.
Anna says:
Thank you mommy for all that you do for me. Thank you for playing with me, especially princesses. Thank you for letting me watch Diego and Dora and Ariel videos, and for helping me with my stretches.
Thanks for taking me to ride Doodle the horse, and to visit Susan and Lisa, and my friends at preschool and daycare (except that one boy I don’t like). Thank you for my baby brother — he’s not so bad even though I wish he was a sister. Thank you for taking me to Old McDonald’s and making me smoothies and for making sure the Big Bad Wolf doesn’t get me. Thank you for playing raincloud and for singing songs and reading books to me. And for giving me just one more hug every night. And a kiss. And a hug.
I love you momma. You are a very good momma.
Noah says:
Smile! SMILE! Gaaaaarrrr. Aggle, flaggle klabble. Snurp. Rumpy flappy. Gaaaaaa, brrrrrrrr. SMILE! SMILE!
(Momma! I love you momma! Thank you for boobies! And snuggles. And holding me when I’m tired. And boobies! Momma! Love! Love!)
Neal says:
What she said. And he said.
Thank you for being so damned amazing, hon. Thanks for keeping this ship afloat, for keeping the kids happy, putting up with me, and somehow managing not to go crazy(er) from all the stress and lack of sleep. I really don’t know how you do it.
You are an amazing momma. And we love you so very, very, very much!
May 10th, 2009
Wow. What happened? It’s been a busy while of things here lately.
April was… filled with birthdays! Happy birthday dad! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to Roby and Colin! Anna helped make cakes and blow out candles and open presents. Yeah cake!
Noah’s growing like a weed. Huge thunder thighs on the boy (check our pics on Flickr), but otherwise he’s just pretty large-ish like his sister was. Such a happy kid, though, full of smiles and smiles and more smiles. He generally behaves himself except right around Anna’s bedtime when he gets grumpy and starts to lose his little mind. Yeah, bedtimes are tough these days in the Enssle household!
Anna’s been doing well. She’s getting more and more used to Noah every day, and she’s even being really sweet and loving with him lately. (Though from time to time she does ask us when we’re going to get her a sister…). She’s pretty much adapted to preschool, and is doing well there, too. We just had her evaluation with the school district therapists and, contrary to our own expectations, we’re probably going to “mainstream” her and keep her at Burlington instead of Tiny Tim. The hope being that she’s enough of a social butterfly that she’ll work hard to emulate the other kids and what they’re all doing on the playground and in the classroom.
Meanwhile Tara’s been somehow managing to keep up with a sysiphean workload. She’s back to work part time, and balancing all the drama at work with Anna’s horseback riding, PT, OT, preschool, and daycare appointments. Oh, and the whole breastfeeding thing keeps her running on about 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I’d like to say I help out but it really seems like a drop in the bucket these days compared to her crazy schedule. (Thanks hon!)
Debbie joined us for a week, and it was wonderful. I think she had a great time with the grandkids, and she was an enormous help around the house. With her help we’ve finally got Noah’s room painted, curtains hung in the living room, some furniture re-arranged, and mostly caught up on laundry. Oh, and we ate well, too!
Work has been good for me. We’re busy! Very busy! Which is great in this economy, so I’m not complaining at all. Frankly, I’ve been spoiled of late, since Tara managed to let me sneak away for a couple days of camping and rock climbing with the guys from work, and then to a conference last week in Vegas. (‘Twas my first time in Vegas! Wow. It’s full of stars…). I owe her lots and lots of babysitting.
Max is annoyed at the dearth of lap real estate these days, but he’s getting by as best he can.
Well, enough said for now. Hopefully you’re all a little bit caught up. Really just the usual crazy insanity here.
May 9th, 2009
