Tada!

The kids ate an early lunch today after Alexis finished babysitting them. Usually we (Nadia and I) eat our lunch during Ian's 4th meal, but today we ate during his third meal. This meant Nadia wasn't going to have her nap right after lunch, and since it was raining outside, I decided to get out some cookie cutters I got at a yard sale this summer and some Playdoh. They had a blast. Nadia was in a giggly mood, and she raised her arms and said "tada!" like she was taught at gymnastics. Ian thought it was funny and imitated her (said "da!"). They kept doing it back and forth. Sometimes Nadia started it, and other times Ian started it. I enjoyed watching and laughing with them. It was a great moment for Ian because he usually doesn't imitate, especially verbally. He is making a lot more attempts at saying words now. He often says one sound from a word such as "ma" for milk, "no" for nose, "uh" for truck, etc. The words he pronounces the most clearly are "no" (which he often repeats for emphasis - "no, no, no"), "eye," and "ball."

Yesterday I decided that I wasn't going to try a new tactic for Ian's naps yet. I thought maybe we're close and shouldn't give up yet. Yesterday he screamed for 80 minutes (much longer than usual) before sleeping in his crib for 25 minutes. He then slept another hour in my arms. Today he only cried for 10 minutes (YAY!) before he slept 35 minutes in his crib, and then he slept another hour in my arms. Eventually I know he needs to take his whole nap in the crib, but it feels like progress that he's taking part of his nap in his crib. He's doing really well at night. This morning he didn't wake up until 7:10! The earliest he's awakened over the past 7 days was 6:30! I actually had my shower and got dressed before he woke up this morning. Bliss. Now if I could just get to bed a little earlier. I've been staying up until 10:30 grading every night lately. I went to bed with a headache, and I woke up with a headache. The first thing I did after getting out of bed was take 2 Excedrin. It's not really the way I like to start my day, but I am exhausted from trying to juggle two full-time jobs. Yesterday I did make some progress on setting up one of the courses that will start in a month (the one I've never taught as an online course before). I asked Alexis to babysit 6 hours a week the next two weeks. She did 4 hours a week last week and this week. I also asked if they'd do 4 hours a week starting in September.