Nur is 22 Months

Development
Nur has almost been home for 1 year, and it's so hard to believe.  He's just a different kid all together.  It's hard to believe that when he came home at 10 months, he was sitting up, but wasn't mobile at all.  He couldn't pull himself up or anything.  Now, he can be found running around the house or the yard.  He jumps and climbs things, he runs backwards, just for fun, and he is so physically strong. Someone who has become a dear friend of mine recently came to visit.  She had also met Nur when he first came home.  She couldn't get over how differently he was.  As she perfectly said, "Nur now has so much light in his eyes."  He really does. 

Nur's comprehension is also wonderful.  If we say something to him, he knows what we are talking about.  One of the things he loves to do is put TT's pacifier in her mouth when she drops it.  I'll say Nur, but Sissy's paci back in, and he gets so excited, picks it up, and plugs it in her mouth and they both laugh.

We have started working with Nur on drawing and he's pretty good at it.  We haven't figured out if he's right or left handed cause he's always switching hands, but I wouldn't mind my child to be a lefty like his mama. :)  He loves when we let him scribble on things, and often times he likes to hold a crayon in each hand and color with both hands at the same time.  Our fridge is currently covered in his artwork.

Nur still hasn't found his words.  I've been thinking a lot about this lately, and I think his inability to communicate with us directly affects his tantrums.  His tantrums are out of pure frustration.  He WANTS to tell us something.  To get his point across, but he still can't, and when we guess his need wrongly, his tantrum ensues.  I'm thinking about calling Early Intervention again to have him reevaluated.  He tested out of this in May, but I am noticing how far behind the speech aspect is. Nur will find his voice.  That I'm sure of.  For now, he babbles constantly, and often times imitates our sound very well.  Some of his favorite sounds are:
Baba
Mama
Dada
Papa

Food
Nur is the best eater ever, and has gotten so good at feeding himself, and will actually grab the spoon out of my hand so he can hold it and feed himself.  Some of his current favorite foods are:
Oatmeal
Animal Crackers
Peanut Butter Toast with Honey on top
Homemade chicken noodle soup
Spaghetti (or any pasta with red sauce)
Mac-N-Cheese
Yogurt
Applesauce

Nur is our easy child to feed.  He will eat what his mama makes him.  YAY!

Personality
Nur is very laid back and easy going.  He loves to cuddle, and be held.  Nur is no hurry for anything, and takes his time with everything.  He always gets things, but on his own schedule, and not anyone elses.  Nur is very kind to his little sister, but sometimes he lets her get her way too much, although he is starting to fight back a little and take back what is his. Nur loves to laugh, and has one of the most infectious and beautiful giggles I've ever heard.  Nur is also very sensitive, and his feelings can get hurt easily.  When something doesn't go his way, Nur tries so hard to be brave, but his bottom lip will come out and quiver, and it just breaks my heart. 

Nur has the funniest jog I've ever seen.  Taher and I have coined it the "Jovial Jog."  I tried to capture it on film, but a front view would have been better.  He almost gallops.  It's hilarious!

Things He Enjoys
Pushing trucks around all day long
sitting on T and I's lap to read books
Going for walks
Pointing out every bus, car, garbage truck that drives by our house
Pointing out airplanes in the sky
Playing outside
Snack time
Listening to music and watching You Tube videos
Running in circles around our house while giggling
Playing with markers, crayons, paints, etc
Puzzles

Things We Are Working On
Tantrums and unecessary whining.
Sharing toys
Verbalizing

Happy 22 months Nur!!!  So hard to believe that in 2 short months, you will be a 2 year old! Love you so much little man!

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Nur and His Words

From day 1, Nur hasn't spoken much.  As he got more comfortable around us, he would babble quite a bit.  Then a therapist started working with him and although she was mainly focused on his gross motor skills, she did work to pull words out of him even more. And little by little, Nur started babbling even more.

But I've still been concerned.  His therapist stopped seeing him in late May.  They didn't pass him out of Early Intervention completely, but they did say to take the summer off and we would revisit.  As the summer went by, Nur became more and more capable in his physical skills.  I really see no discrepency between him and other kids his age when it comes to physical ability.  But as the months have gone on, he hasn't progressed enough with his speech.  I know I shouldn't compare  Nur and TT.  They are two different children.  Two different genders.  Two different circumstances.  But I do compare them.  I like Nur to stay ahead of her on all development things.  Afterall, he's older.  But this summer, TT has totally surpassed Nur verbally.  I'm happy for her, but I've been a bit worried for him.

So today, his therapists revisted him.

It was found that many of the physical skills he does, are at the 24 month level, so he is doing great physically, and the therapist decided he is DONE with her.  However, they also noticed his speech delays.  At his age, a child should have 50+ words. Nur has about 3 or 4.  (if that)  They observed him in his environment.  He brought one of the therapists a book to read with him, and he pointed at the animals on every page, saying, "AHH?"  His universal sound that has many means such as, "What's That?" "Look at this."

The therapist offered a lot of interesting insight.  She thinks that Nur's speech issues are related to his eating issues, which are related to his adenoid issues.  All interesting stuff.  So, she is going to work with him on eating, using his toungue more appropriately, and trying to get him to express himself more verbally.

I love my state that has so many amazing resources.  I think this will all be great stuff, and really help Nur!

1 Year Post Placement Visit

Yesterday, T and I rushed home from work as our social worker was going to be meeting us at our house to do our 1 year post placement visit.  Nur will have been home 1 year on October 17th, but the paperwork is due that day, therefore the social worker must come out earlier to have everything submitted by October 17th.

I no longer get nervous for these things.  I know we are good parents andI know Nur is a great kid.  I also no longer hope and pray that Nur will behave because well, he's almost 22 months old, and it is always very possible that he won't behave.  But the social worker isn't expecting him to.  She is expecting us all to act "normal" how we always act.

She asked a lot of questions about Nur's growth, how he eats, sleeps, what he enjoys, his temperment.  Nur had a couple whining sessions while she was there, but that isn't unusual for Nur at all. 

She was there about 30 minutes when she told us she has everything she needs and that our file was officially closed.  CLOSED???  What???  That is right, we will no longer need visits from a social worker.  Every year until Nur is 18 we will submit paperwork with an update on Nur, but no more visits.

Here is one of the reasons Nur whined when the social worker was visiting.  TT kept tackling hugging him.  He isn't a big fan of this, and she thinks it's hilarious. 

We have decided that October 17th of every year is Nur Day.  A day we celebrate as the day all 4 of us were together for the first time.  I feel like celebrating this day is very important.  We don't know what exact day Nur was born on, and that still eats at me a little.  But we KNOW what day he joined our family, and that day will always be dedicated to Khalil.

We have decided to celebrate this year at Chuck E Cheese.  The kids will love it.  We also invited immediate family to join us, but so far, it is just the 4 of us. . . and that is fine with me. :)  Because the 3 humans I live with are my favorite people in the whole world.

Raising a Girl. . . Raising a Boy

A parenting philosophy that T and I really agree on is regarding gender.  From day one, it was important to the both of us not to "push" our children in any one direction.  If Nur wanted to play with dolls, we were more than okay with that.  If TT wanted to live in jeans and t-shirts and play with GI Joes, we were okay with that too.  I have always had a strong belief that we are who we are because of inherent traits we are born with.  Is it genetic?  Biologic? A bit nature vs nurture?  I'm not sure.  All I know is that from day one, we have raised Nur and TT in a very similar way.  Yet as they both get older, they are making it known to us exactly what they are interested in.

Exhibit A:

TT and her doll.  She has been huge into dolls lately.  Ironically, it started when my sister had a baby boy on September 1st of this year.  Ever since then, we'd walk into a store and she'd run for the dolls and insist on carrying one until we left.  (One particular store we went to, I was going to buy her a doll, and it was $40.  Really? $40 for a little doll?)  When we go to school on Saturday mornings, she runs for the dolls and carries one around with her the entire time.  I was so happy to discover that TT actually owned a doll.  A friend gave it to me when TT was born, and I hadn't brought it out yet cause she was too little.  As soon as I brought it out, she and her baby have been inseparable.  They eat meals together, she goes on all carrides with us, and they sleep together.  And this baby, well, this baby has helped TT with her sleep issues! It's amazing!  She used to scream when I would put her down at night, but now I give her her baby, and tell her that she and baby must go night night, and she holds onto that baby ALL NIGHT LONG. 

Exhibit B:

And then there is Nur.  When he got home, we put a stuffed animal (T's as a child) in his crib and soft blankets, and he wanted nothing to do with them.  In fact, we have a video monitor on the kiddos, and it's so funny, cause when we put Nur down, he'll be laying down, and then he'll stand up, throw his stuffed animal and blankets overboard, and then go to bed.  He loves to sleep with nothing in his crib.  But trucks and cars, he is obsessed with! We have a huge window in our living room, and he goes crazy when cars or trucks or buses pass.  If we go to a toy store, he quickly finds the trucks and goes crazy.  He could spend his whole day pushing around trucks.  He wants nothing to do with dolls.  But he LOVES his trucks!

This is only one difference of many I've noticed in raising girls and boys, but I'll save the rest for another day.  Happy Monday everyone!

Daycare Revisited

When finding out we were expecting two little ones, we had to get really serious on what kind of daycare route to go with our kiddos.  When we were only expecting 1 child, we were leaning towards a daycare center.  I'm a huge structure person, and I thought a center could provide the structure we were looking for.  But, then I found out we were expecting two children, and daycare centers became unaffordable.  The centers in my area cost $1,300/month per child.  Although I was willing to pay that for one child, I was a little LOT scared to pay $2,600/month for childcare.  I mean, that seems steep, right?

So, daycare centers were quickly put off of our short list. 

The next arrangement we looked at were home daycare centers.  Now, I think these can be great and extremely affordable options.  I also know that I don't live in the best neighborhood so the close by home daycares in my neighborhood were not real impressive.  I liked the price, approximately. . . $1,000 a month TOTAL but T and I didn't have a good experience on the ones we visited.  Think about kids hanging out in a basement. . . all day long.  Think crabby old woman pushing her political and religious beliefs down the throat of these children.  Think of my kids clinging to my leg everyday when we dropped them off?  I realize we have a very small amount to sample this by.  We visited 2.  I know there are so many that are excellent, but we quickly became uncomfortable with this option.

Cue the nanny.

We then decided to look into the nanny route. We heard about a website http://www.gonannies.com/ I payed some price for a 90 day membership (About $75.00 if I remember correctly) and I placed an ad.  I told about T and I.  I said I was pregnant and due in July 2010 and that we were also expecting a child through adoption, and we weren't sure how old he would be (we didn't have our referral at this point) but that we expected him to be a few months older than our daughter.  We told what we were willing to pay per hour (not per hour per child, but PER HOUR. Period) and within 12 hours of placing that ad, we had about 10 people respond saying they were interested.  So, we started going through the applications, and we set up interviews at a local Caribou Coffee.

They were all good candidates.  It came down to 2 we really liked.  One being an older, retired grandma, and one being a young woman who takes college courses online.  It was a REALLY hard decision, but T and I both agreed on the young woman.  She is a very nice girl.  Comes from a family of 11 biological children, and the parents recently adopted 4 children out of the fostercare system. She has been to Africa before, she is going to school for nursing. She has previous nannying experience. We pay $11/hour, which adds up to approximately $1,800/month (ouch, but still cheaper than local centers), we also pay for our nanny to take 2 weeks vacation, 1 week sick time a year. We pay the appropriate taxes, a year bonus, holidays, etc.  We think we are pretty good employers, and although a nanny wasn't the cheapest option, it also wasn't the most expensive, and most days, our kiddos seem pretty happy with our nanny.

Here are some pros and cons of the entire thing:

PROS
I don't have to bundle my kids up every morning and haul them anywhere.  Nope. our nanny comes directly to our house. 
My kiddos are in their environment everyday.  They get to sit in their highchairs for meals, nap in their cribs, etc.
My kiddos have had an opportunity to really bond with one person, instead of multiple people which can be the case in centers.
After work, I get to drive straight home, instead of stopping somewhere to pick up the kids.
I get to control some aspects of the day.  I write out daily meal plans, and educational activities I would like them to work on.

CONS
It's hard being an employer.  Figuring out W2's, tax withholdings, and having difficult conversations from time to time.  Not fun!
My kiddos don't always get out as much as I would like to. (I don't let our nanny drive with the kids. I'm just not ready for someone else to have that kind of responsibility)
Not always a ton of structure. 
House gets messy in a hurry cause the kids are there everyday instead of somewhere else.
No great backup.  If our nanny calls in sick, we are screwed! This isn't the case at centers where they have multiple workers. This has only happened a couple of times, but it really leaves us scrambling. 

So, all in all, we are in a pretty good situation.  Not a perfect situation, but I trust that my kiddos are being well taken care of.  I think T and I went the correct route if what we have available to us.  If money wasn't a factor, we may would have gone another route.  My kids seem happy though.  And I'm glad they won't have the memories I have of being a child and dragged to the home daycare house of Mary Miller.  Oh, she scared me as a child! 

Are any of you in the midst of making daycare decisions?  Any of you really happy or not happy with the option you took?

A Few Happenings in our Household

My home state of MN has excellent educational resources. I'm very proud of how much is invested into the education of our kids, and I'm trying to learn about the resources available and take full advantage of them.  One of those resources offered is called Early Childhood Family Education. (ECFE) This is a resource that starts at birth and goes until kids are school aged.  There are hundred of different class options available and the main purpose is to really get kids ready when school does start.  Many of the classes offered are separating classes, where the children are in one area, and the parents are in another talking about parenting specific topics.  Because I'm away from my kids during the week, I really wanted to do a non separating class.  So, every Saturday morning, T and I take the kids to their class.  There are approximately 12 kids in the class, ranging from 12 months old to 24 months old.  They paint, draw, splash in water, read books, sing, and Nur and TT really love it.  Half way through the class, there is also snack time, and this week, Nur and TT brought the snacks.  (I helped a little) The kids must eat their snack around the table, and can't walk off with it.  Well, this is a hard concept for Nur.  You see, he loves to hang on to food, for hours at a time, and eat it at his leisure.  He threw the biggest tantrum of all tantrums when the teacher made him sit at the table.  Parents were staring at me. I felt judged.  Once again, his tantrums are surrounding food.  I'm so grateful we are in this class though. I'd be much more embarrassed if he was a kindergartener throwing this tantrum.  Oh vey!

TT gets up early.  Much earlier than I would choose to get up on a daily basis.  Whether we put her down at 7 or 8, she is always up around 5am.  I being the nice and wonderful wife that I am, try to let my husband sleep in on most days.  Well, let's be honest, I do much better on little sleep than he does.  I try to find things to do with TT that don't involve a lot of noise.  I feed her breakfast while watching music videos on you tube, than I take her to her room where we play, get her dressed, etc.  Then we usually do a photo shoot.  This girl is a magnet.  No matter what she is doing, it's just always so darn cute.  Here is our latest photo shoot.

I am trying to fit in exercising here and there, and high on my list is sit ups.  It isn't going too well because of these two balls of energy.

MN weather is bizarre.  A week ago today, it was 90 degrees here.  Then two days later, it only got up to 55.  What the???  So, we've been preparing for winter, and putting away our shorts and summer dresses.

I love these kids of mine and everyday I am so thankful for them.  They are my reason for being. 

Another Month Older

Nur = 21 Months

I can't believe that this son of mine is 3 months away from being a 2 year old!!!  Time flies in general, but time really flies when you don't have your son from day 1.  We will be coming up to a year of Nur being home in October.  I'm looking forward to that milestone. 

Nur is doing really well. He continues to sleep like a champ, and his appetite has tapered off some.  We are working really hard with Nur on feeding himself. . . something that he hasn't been very interested in.  We started over a week ago, and T and I had a couple very frustrating days.  I kept saying we just needed to give this two weeks, and we would see a huge improvement.  And it's less than 2 weeks later, and we see a HUGE improvement.  Now, if I try to feed him, he tries to grab the spoon from my hand.  Oh, he's messy to be sure, and some textures aren't the easiest for him to pick up, but he tries feeding himself at every meal, and he no longer complains about it. 

Nur is completely obsessed with cars, and trains, and trucks, and buses.  Is this a boy thing?  It's too funny!  And because school started today in our state, Nur Man will really enjoy watching all the school buses go by!

Nur is a total cuddler.  He'll stop whatever he's doing to come sit on my lap and hug me.  Sometimes I'll look over at him, and he's leaning in trying to give his sister a kiss.  This boy is a complete lover.  He loves music, and will stop whatever he's doing when music comes on. 

When Nur got home, he would let anyone hold him.  Now, if I'm holding him, and anyone else tries to take him, he whines and digs into my arm letting me know he doesn't want me to let him go.  This has been great for our attachment. 

Nur also has an independent streak in him.  He'll pick up a book, and sit there and turn the pages of the book and look at pictures.  He'll play with a toy truck and roll it across the floor.  He loves playing with other kids, but he also loves doing his own thing.

Physically, Nur is completely caught up.  He runs, and jumps (his version of jumping anyway), he climbs, and is just completely mobile.  Verbally, I'm worried a bit.  He babbles a ton, but he doesn't say words. He'll make animal sounds, he'll babble mama and baba, but not directed towards us, and he isn't great at imitating sound.  He'll catch up, and we'll continue trying to help him catch up. 

TT = 14 Months

TT's world is opening up a ton.  For a while, she would only go to me.  And if I wasn't available to hold her, she would follow me around until I gave in.  Yes, this girl has been a mama's girl from day one.  But now, she has a few favorites in her life.  She loves her baba and will go to him almost as much as she'll go to me.  She also loves many other people, mainly relatives.  Oh, and she loves boys.  I'm not ready for that!  When a friend of T's will come over, or an uncle, or something like that, she flirts! That's right, my 14 month old flirts! It's hilarious, and I hope this isn't a glimpse of what's to come.

TT is also what I would call a "whipper-snapper."  Okay, I don't know exactly what that means, but this girl is cute, has an attitude, is tempermental, charming, and naughty all in the same breathe! Yes, she keeps us on our toes.  She's so petite, but she refuses to be left behind, and she's always trying to keep up with her brother.

TT is obsessed with purses (Oh yes, I'm scared!) and likes putting objects in her purses and bags.  The other day, T and I couldn't find the car keys, and sure enough she had hoarded them in one of her bags. 

TT is also very vocal these days.  She is constantly mumbling and trying to imitate every sound she hears.  She likes to feed herself, and is a huge fan of chicken nuggets and nutella.  (Not together of course) She mostly sleeps well, and still gets up anywhere from 5am-6:30am. (I prefer 6:30 naturally)

TT continues to be obsessed with hats and "pretties" and is constantly bringing us stuff to put on her head.  Her hair continues to grow out of control.  Oh my! I just don't know what I'm going to do with it!

These two continue to be the best of friends, and for that, I am very grateful!