And then there were four

Our family has grown!  We are now 4 strong.  As we welcome Aiden into our family, we also usher in a new blog that isn't all about Michael.  Follow us at: gordon4strong.blogspot.com!

Damage Control

I feel like a decent portion of my time with Michael involves some sort of damage control.  We want him to be as independent as possible, but we need to balance that with his safety as well as our desire to not let him completely destroy our house.

This video illustrates my point.  I was cooking something on the stove top and he wanted to see so I let him sit on the counter.  I gave him a snack to try to occupy him, but before long he was reaching for everything in sight, trying to help me cook and nearly falling off the counter.  I don't usually have him eating off the floor with a ridiculously impractical utensil, but that was better than the alternative.

Tia Elsa

Lots of reading to catch up on

Farmer Mike

I couldn't believe what a consistent arc he was building with his toys.  He added about ten more after this picture and stayed with the same arc.  I think the first few he placed must have been slightly out of line, and he just naturally continued the same for the rest.  The next two times he did this, they were in a straight line.

Last day at daycare happened to be "wear your pajamas to school" day.  Here are a few of his teachers.

Cyberonics' Family Fun Day involved this "train" ride.  He loved it!

Where's Waldo?

Play date with Hannah.  Michael loved it!

Graduation celebration from the Little Gym.

Homemade pizza with Mami.  He's sporting his new haircut the next day when he got to eat the pizza.

Here's a video of Michael's graduation from the past Little Gym session.  Next session starts next week!

Hold It

We're working on potty training for Michael, although not in any aggressive sense.  He's probably close to 50% on the number of times he goes in the diaper vs the toilet.  But when he's at home without a diaper on, it's nearly 100%.  So that was the case this morning, Michael sans diaper, when he told me "peepee!" indicating he had to go.  Before rushing off to the toilet, I simply told him "Hold it."  Well I suppose he wasn't familiar with the expression, and he literally held "it"  :)  Pretty funny.

Why? ... Why? ... Why?

Last weekend I was hanging out with Michael in the morning, and after I told him something, he asked why.  I'm not sure he understands the concept of why yet, and I was a bit surprised he asked, but I answered.  And so it began.  As this was the first time we played this game, I had plenty of patience and after about 10 answers, he stopped asking why.  This came out of nowhere, and we suppose he got it from a friend at daycare.  Later that day, he did the same thing to me and again I played along until he was satisfied/bored.  This may be the first time where his short attention span makes life easier on us.  He hasn't asked why again, but I'm sure this will come up again soon.  I have no idea when children usually start this -- is it going to get much more frequent?

It's been a busy two weeks, and we have lots to share.  Here's a video of Michael reading a book to Mami.  How precious  :)

Participating in ULA XIII

Michael is extremely talented at Bolo Ball

Michael helping install the chair rail in his new room.  When he saw Daddy using a hammer, he ran out of the room and found his hammer that he probably had not used in two months.  And then later he brought out his toy battery drill and helped me there too!  I actually found two real screws in his toy toolkit the other day; not sure when he swiped them, but I'm glad all he did with them was store them -- and in the correct place no less!

Fun with stickers!

Silly boy.  Note that these are all completely different stickers.  He took the first ten off him (except the one on his cheek), then put another ten on.  I'm glad he likes posing for pictures.

Too cool

Caitlin, Buddy and Michael

Cup stacking twice in two days.  How crazy is that.

He made up his own song.  He mostly would call out everybody's name at the get-together, and hit the keys as he said their names.  It was actually pretty good.  And then he would run back to the main room and dance while singing his song.  We consider him to be a shy boy, but once he warms up to his surroundings, there's no holding him back.

Michael was soo excited to see Grandma Marie.  Happy 94th birthday!!!

Michael was leaping onto the sofa from the footrest, then watching tv for a few moments.  The first time he stayed still for about two minutes, which might have been a record.

Lily, Jaime and Michael.  Fun times!

Heading the pool for the first time this year.  He looks a bit more grown up to me in this one.  We're keeping his hair long another week until some family photos, and then it's all getting cut off.  Yikes.  I'm sure he's going to look a lot different then!

Crawfish!

Well another month has flown by.  And I would probably hardly recognize our boy from just a few months ago.  He's now talking a lot, and he understands almost everything we tell him in either English or Spanish.  He has gotten a lot better at counting, and knows 23 letters on a good day.  He enjoys jumping, but still has a hard time with his tricycle.  Here are a few recent highlights:

Video of Michael helping crank out some homemade ice cream.

Video of Michael trying a concentration game for the first time.  He also decided to display his counting skills at the same time.  In the week since this video, he's mastered counting to ten in both languages even better.


Posing proudly by the corn he planted.

Epilepsy Foundation stroll at the zoo.

Working hard for a living.

Kemah crawfish festival.  His first taste of crawfish, and he refused it.  It was a little heartbreaking, but then a couple weeks later at our crawfish boil, he ate them up!  :)

A birthday party at a spacewalk facility.  All sorts of fun to be had, and he wasn't scared at all to go down the big slides by himself.

Another party the same day... and more spacewalk time with his friend Luke!

Grampa came to babysit one night, which was such a treat for me and Amada.  Everything went great, but when we went to check up on Michael after Grampa left, this is what we saw.  Note to Grampa: we usually lay him length-wise on the bed!

Painting his new room!  I had to do a little bit of touch up work after Michael was finished.

Crawfish boil at our home!  Here he came inside to show off holding a live crawfish for the first time.