Snips and snails

I was going to call this post "Potpourri" because it's a bit of a miscellaneous type of post but then realized potpourri doesn't sound very manly or boyish. That's where the "snips and snails" comes in.

I haven't done an update on Ren lately so I thought it was time. The one thing that has become obvious about Ren is that he loves hockey. The first sign was when he and Claire received mini hockey sticks from my sister and her family. He immediately repeated the word hockey (although it comes out as "uppy") and kept saying it over and over with a gleeful look. He loves playing with that mini stick and likes watching the actual game on TV. He even gets crazy-excited when he sees hockey pictures in the newspaper. On the next rainy day where we have nothing exciting going on, our craft will be to create a scrap album of hockey pics for him.

Ren was a little shaky and not quite steady on his feet when we met him. In the short time we've known him, his abilities have grown and he has proven to be quite a climber. He does the small climbing wall at the playground with ease and can quite easily climb ladder-style equipment as well. He is very adventurous and brave, always wanting to try new things. As a result, he has suffered a couple of boo boos. The latest was yesterday when he went down the slide on his tummy (feet first thankfully) but bounced his head back on the slide once he landed. Within two minutes, he had a massive goose-egg on his forehead. (Yes, I was supervising but I was busy with the other toddler and didn't see him go down until it was too late.) This was my first experience with such a boo boo so I called our 24 hour health link number and had a good long chat with a nurse who soon assured me (based on my responses to her questions) that he should be just fine. Today, the goose-egg is already much smaller.

We saw the occupational therapist, Cara, for the second time this Tuesday. She thinks Ren is doing well all around in gross and fine motor skills. He is still delayed as expected but between his two appointments with Cara, he has made great strides in catching up. I found one exercise particularly amusing. Cara asked Ren to clean up the small blocks by placing them in a bag. Instead of grabbing one or two as she expected, he reached out his big paw and grabbed five - five! - blocks with one hand. In the next movement, he used both hands to cup even more blocks to place in the bag. Cara remarked how smart and efficient our boy is. I had to agree!

Language continues to come along. It seems to come in spurts. This week, Ren finally began answering in the affirmative with "yeah!". Ah, what a difference not to hear "Na!!!" all the time (something he would say even when it was clear he wanted the offered item). Yesterday on the swing, he said, "higher" for the first time. Clearly, this was something he learned from his high-flying sis.

Speaking of Claire, he has been fairly constant in his treatment / regard for her. He tends to be very sweet and gentlemanly with her, which can lead to very cute scenarios. Just yesterday, she was hanging out underneath the kitchen table when he saw that she was about to crawl out. Immediately, he stopped what he was doing and ran over to offer his hand to her in assistance. That soon turned into a game of "rescue" where they took turns going underneath the table and crying "help me!" until the other helped them out. The two also love to dance and play song and dance games together such as Ring Around the Rosie or Sleeping Bunnies.

As we suspected very early on, Ren is quite easygoing in a lot of ways: wearing sunglasses (no problem!), putting lotion on him, giving him medicine, etc. Even when we go for medical appointments, he's pretty easy to keep happy while we wait and if it happens to be a not-so-pleasant appointment (like getting blood drawn or something) he cries but doesn't thrash around and use his strength to fight back as I thought he might.

It's been very interesting to see the difference in the genders. I never knew how much stock to put in gender differences but I'm starting to now. Ren really does do all the typical "boy" stuff: climbing, taking things apart, getting into everything, ramming the walls with toy shopping carts or strollers, running cars or other toys along the walls (now I understand why some families are always re-painting!), not obeying when he's told no, etc. I'll admit, I do stress about some of this in the sense that hey, that's our nice stuff - why does he have to ruin it?! I'm sure part of my reaction is because I grew up in a family with 7 kids and I remember many of our belongings being wrecked in some way or having parts missing and I think I suffer flashbacks whenever Ren gets quasi-destructive. But I'm trying to breathe deeply and not sweat the small stuff.

Well, it's probably time I sign off so I'll end with a few pictures.

One day earlier this week, it was actually sunny enough for sunglasses:

Ren had his first pony ride on Mother's Day at the zoo. He loved it!

Marianne and Rod spent the morning at the zoo with us. Here we all are with cinnamon, the horse Claire and Ren both rode that day.

I love pictures of little kids holding hands! Oh, and check out Claire's new bob. We love it!

Paul's dad has spent the last two work weeks (basically Monday to Friday) with us to give me a break and to help Paul out with all the yard work and other things to do around the house. It's been amazing having him here! This picture was taken right before Wally took Claire to her toddler class this morning: