Three Little Boys Update

Knowing that the newest addition to the Carpenter family is coming soon, we have been sensitive to preparing our oldest as he was hit pretty hard with the birth of the twins last time. The twins really don't GET what is coming I am sure, though they do kiss my tummy and say, "Hello baby" once in a while when prompted. I have been working to spend some quality time with Josiah each day when the twins are sleeping doing activities together, and for each page he completes in his book, he gets a sticker on a chart. When he reaches the end of the line, he gets to go get a Slurpee with Daddy. When his WHOLE activity book is completed, we are taking him to the Rainforest Cafe for a reward. It has been a challenge to get him to want to write letters, but it has paid off because NOW I find he has been writing his name at various places we go such as church, MOPS, and Awana on his craft projects! Yeah!! He has also been pointing out letters and naming them as upper or lowercase as well when we read! This is a start! I hope to really get him in a groove for learning with me at home, so that in September it won't be such a shock to start schooling together. Josiah is posing here in this picture with Mater (the teddy bear) and Rhino.

The twins are doing well and growing more each day. Daniel is our wordsmith and just tries so hard to say most every word he can. He also listens to songs and picks out the rhyming words at the end of each phrase to sing along with the songs he knows. He say a yarn ball on TV one time and pointed at it and very emphatically said, "Mommy's ball!" That made me laugh...hard!! He is also very sensitive and compassionate, and when Caleb is throwing his fits he wants to "help" by letting Caleb out of his room (which of course I don't want because Caleb is in the room until he can calm down). He also want me to kiss his owies and sometimes he kisses his own owies if they are reachable! He has to have one comforting hug after a bonk usually and is unconsolable until he gets that "ug" as he calls it.

Caleb is so funny! He throws himself headlong into things, very literally! He runs into walls 'cause he doesn't really watch where he is going and throws himself down for tantrums regardless of what might be in the way. He gets many boy war wounds this way of course! We are praying to help direct his strong will into something that will lead him towards the Lord, and know that if he does go that way that he will be a mighty soldier for God indeed just like his namesake! Below is a picture of Caleb from the other day when he just threw SUCH A FIT about taking his nap. It took me an hour and half to get him to calm down and sleep. Not sure what put him into SUCH a frenzy, but man was he a bugger to get to sleep. Same problem happened today too! Notice in the picture that he is sleeping sitting up. He insisted to NOT be laying down and was so tired that he fell asleep that way instead, but after this picture I laid him down and he didn't wake up.

Sweet little Caleb-ee!! I took him to the speech/hearing clinic on Feb. 1st and by one point he qualified to get some extra speech help from a therapist (free service) who will come to our home and work with him for some early intervention. Of the two, he seems to be more interseted in developing his motor skills than his verbal skills, so this will be good for him I am sure. I was told to work with him on putting two words together (for now he just says one word at a time) and also to get him to answer the "what's this?" kind of questions when looking at books and the world around us. Currently, when I ask that he just stares blankly at the page or just points at the thing I am pointing at (copying my motor skill). When I point at the page and say, "Where's the baby?" he can easily point out the baby, so that is a good start. The overall analysis of the speech therapist was that he was mild to moderately delayed in his speech and as I said, he barely qualified for the intervention, so thankfully the delay isn't super severe. When I took him for the hearing exam (that was required when getting the speech test), they said his hearing was perfectly fine, so that was good to know also!