Weekly Update

I'm so glad I made this goal of writing on my blog once a week! HA! I'm already failing at it. It's funny how little I feel like I actually do but yet I never have any spare time. I complained to Josh about a weekly obligation we have and Josh replied, "simplify your life." And I was like umm how much more simple can it get?! Some days I don't even leave the house! It's a strange phenomenon. Anyway, this week-

This week we took Cooper in to the doctor to get him a referral to start speech therapy again. We decided waiting until he's 3 is just too long and if we can get in early it would be nice. Plus Cooper seems to have made a developmental leap where he is being pretty receptive to learning things, he learned how to count to five on his fingers this week, so now would be a good time to go back to "Teacher Judy." And as further proof that I've forgotten how to speak to adults I told the doctor that the speech therapist we had seen before was "Teacher Judy" and then I was like wait, I guess that's not her actual name.

The appointment was... disappointing. I expected her to just write us the referral and say good luck. Instead she expressed concerns about Cooper being on the autism spectrum and wrote us a referral to see the speech therapist and also a developmental specialist in Seattle. Then she started telling me that Cooper would be able to go to regular classes in school and I was like why don't we see if there's anything going on first before you make Cooper's education plan.

So I'm frustrated and disappointed and want to punch the doctor in the face a little bit, and also want to cry when I see every other toddler in the world doing something like analyzing their genetic code under a microscope. I hate childhood development. I just do. But Cooper is my little buddy. So I'll swallow all the sour stuff and slap a smile on my face while I help him do whatever it is he needs.

My mommy gut, certified by Oprah, doesn't think there is anything else going on besides speech problems. Maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see. But then again I love to overreact and diagnose my children with everything imaginable so one would think I would have caught this already.

So that's Cooper's news. The longer he goes without talking, the dumber everyone is starting to think he is. Hahaha. I have this fantasy where I'm telling a teenaged Cooper stories about his childhood and I tell him you just wouldn't talk for so long, we were taking you to speech therapists and special doctors in Seattle! And then we laugh together about what a stubborn stinker he was. That's my hope.

Now for our neglected child- Ruby is still kicking it, baby style. I don't think she'll be ready to sleep train at 4 months. I guess I don't really know but she seems way too small to me to sleep all night without eating. She seems too little to think about starting solids in a month too. Did I really start feeding Cooper solids at 4 months old?! I thought he was so big at 4 months old. Anyway, Ruby is an angel, she seems to understand I have a toddler boy and she does a lot of sitting happily in her bouncy seat. I just love her.

I am trying to get outdoors more. Every summer after a pregnancy I get super antsy to get out and go because I feel like I sat inside for nine months. I've made a goal of two trail runs a week. I love getting out on the trails but spring in Aberdeen can be really rainy so I tend to lean towards going to the gym but I've made a goal to go rain or shine during those small, pre-planned times when Josh can take the kids. My grandpa inspired me to spend more time exercising outside rather than inside. I smile to myself when I think of the fittest person I ever knew, and the quiet, connected way he went about it. Papa never went to the gym, he never ran with an iPod or tracked his distance with the Nike running app, he never wore trendy spandex, and he never ran organized races. I remember when Papa was teaching me how to run sprint ladders to increase my endurance and I asked him for precise times for sprinting, jogging etc... But Papa never ran these sprint ladders on a treadmill, he ran them outside, and kept track of distance by counting each time his left foot hit the ground. He was the true outdoorsmen that Papa. So this weekend we're taking the kids hiking up at Lake Quinualt. It's supposed to be a sunny Saturday so depending on my children's disposition, it could be a really amazing day. It's hard to hike with young kids, did you know that? Probably because it's no fun to sit in a hiking backpack all day when you're two.

So that's about it for this week. Loving on my kids, worried that Cooper has special needs, and trying to enjoy more outdoor time.