Duh!

So we are working with Jack on making some new sounds. One of the new sounds he is making is the "D" sound, and it comes out as "da da da" or sometimes "duh duh duh". The three of us were hanging out this morning when I said "Jack, we get to go to your school tomorrow" to which he calmly replied "duh". So apparently he already knew that we had school tomorrow. It gave Michelle and I a good laugh this morning but I'm sure when he replies "duh" to our statements when he is a teenager we won't think it is so funny.

Earlier this weekend, Nana and Papa (Curran) stopped in for a visit on their way up North. Jack loved spending time with one set of his Grandparents and I'm sure the feeling was mutual. It was great to see him interacting with my parents, and really reassuring that his attachment to Mommy and Daddy didn't seem affected by their visit. He loved playing with Nana and Papa, but returned to Michelle and I for appropriate things like comfort, feeding, etc. It's always great to see his attachment progress when we have visitors. We are sure Jack is looking forward to his trip to see Grandpa Tony and Grandma Sherri in a few weeks as he loves seeing his extended Forever Family!

Yesterday we took Jack to the aquarium (where we saw the seals from a recent blog post). Jack seemed to enjoy the whole experience and really seemed curious about everything he was seeing. He touched a horseshoe crab and a hermit crab without any hesitation at all. Much to my chagrin, he also had no reservations about touching a snake. Daddy doesn't like snakes so you may notice that Michelle is the one holding him as he touches the snake! We are going to buy a season pass to the aquarium since it is pretty close to our house and Jack liked it so much. We figure we will be there once a week, and they even have a program called "Toddler Tuesdays" where they have animal themed crafts and stuff for the little ones.

On the health front, we had another follow up appointment with the Opthamologist this past week. Jack's eyes have been turning in some since his surgery, though nothing like how they were before the surgery. Anyway, since the surgery we have been patching his right eye for a period of time each day. The doctor said all we should do for now is continue patching his right eye so his left eye strengthens and moves closer to fully accepting the surgery. As of now there are no plans for a second surgery and the doctor thinks that continued patching may negate any need for another surgery at all. We'll keep you posted on that front!

Happy Valentines Day!

Shouldn't everyone get a Valentine's Day gift like this? Breakfast in bed!

So cold that seals are invading down south?

Not much new in Curran World, we just haven't made a post in awhile so we thought we would check in. Jack is still doing very well as are Michelle and I. Jack enjoys his play group though he has only been twice so far. We sing songs, play in the gym, color, finger paint, play with puzzles, etc. His favorite thing to do at play group is play with the child sized broom they have in their kitchen play set. I guess we need to get him a broom to go along with his vacuum. He and I were in the garage the other day and instead of grabbing a power drill or something he grabbed a mop. That's okay because Daddy doesn't know how to use a power drill either (not that I would have let him play with a power drill...)

Speech therapy is going really well and Jack is really learning some good sign language to help him talk to us. So far between Michelle teaching him signs and his therapist working with him, he knows the signs for; more, help, please, milk, apple, eat, banana (sort of), up, down, all done (sort of) and maybe a few more that I am forgetting right now. He picks signs up really quickly and the signs are making things a lot easier for him. They have cut his frustration levels way down since he can more or less tell us what he wants most of the time.

A week or 10 days ago, he really started to have trouble with his afternoon naps. Since we brought him home, we have kept him on the same schedule that he had at the baby home with a morning and afternoon nap of about 1.5 hours each. He rarely took two 1.5 hour naps in a day though, so we wanted to get him into one longer nap instead of two anyway in the hopes that he could get a consistent good long nap. So, when he started having trouble sleeping in the afternoons we saw that as our opportunity to get him to one nap. We want his one nap to be in the afternoon to split up his day so it has really been an adjustment for him to stay up all morning. Around 10am I have to treat him like a concussion patient because all he wants to do is go to sleep but I need to keep him awake until after lunch! So far he is getting a fairly decent nap in the afternoons, but we live very close to a Naval Air Station so the jets often wake him up. I actually had to take Tylenol during an afternoon recently because of the relentless jet noise so you can imagine how this interrupts nap time.

When we are not working on speech stuff or nap times, we have been venturing out a little to see what is around our house (remember, Michelle and I just moved here before we brought Jack home so we don't really know our surroundings yet). We have found some cool parks that we can't wait to visit when the weather warms up, but the other day we hit the jackpot when we stumbled upon an Aquarium that had seals on display outside the building (for free!) I think Jack thought they were giant swimming dogs because he barked at them.

Anyway, just an update for you from our end. On a side note, we are following the blogs of several couples who are either close to travelling or are on their 1st or 2nd trips over to Russia right now. If any of you guys check in with our blog, know that we are right there with you on your journeys! Keep up the great work, and safe travels!

That silly mouse

We have updated our layout, and removed an outdated Lilpie counter. We have also added 2 new Lilpie counters that show how long we waited (start to finish), and how long we have been a family of 3. Of course, the profile picture needed to be changed as well!!!

In much more exciting news, here are some pictures of Jacks first trip to ChuckECheese! He absolutely loved it. He loved the games, the rides and even the pizza. We took him during non-peak hours so he didn't feel too overwhelmed. We hope to take him back soon, because Daddy had just as good of a time as Jack did!