Our little Micah turned two! He is so smart now. He knows that you’ve turned off the music toy so he turns it back on. He has day to day memory now so it’s a sad day when he loses his favorite car toy. I can’t wait to experience the terrific twos!! He is so fun.
They let me leave the hospital about 6 hours after I had the baby. It was such a blessing because I only had to be gone from my first child, Micah from 10:00 am to about 8:00 pm that evening. We had a heartwarming experience taking the baby home. Micah was just at awe with the new baby.
Micah said “Baby.” “Hi Baby!” “Happy.” It was so cute. Here’s the movie and a couple of pictures:
Here is our first family picture after coming home. I was so happy to be with home with the new baby and Micah!
This is our friend who stayed with Micah while we were at the hospital. She was happy to meet the baby too!
But don’t worry just because we left the hospital 6 hours later doesn’t mean they abandoned me. The midwives came to visit me at home for 5 days after the birth. How awesome is that? I got to go home to be with my family and sleep in my own bed. Happy day! 🙂
Ah… some peace and quiet! I fell in love all over again. Despite the prodromal labor, this is much easier the second time around! It may have been the amazing midwife I had but labor was relatively low impact compared to my first (and I thought I had a good first birth)! This time labor was only 40 minutes (18 min pushing), no tearing and I was home in 6 hours. I’m recovering really fast and I feel good. I’m super grateful for my Ireland birth experience. Although US maternity care is fine… they just do things a little different in Ireland!
We got a box of pipe cleaners at the Euro Shop. Micah had a lot of fun with them! It was a great way to past our time while waiting for the baby to come.
We made a spider and reenacted “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”.
“Out came the sun and dried up all the rain!”
“And the Itsy Bitsy Spider went up the spout again!”
Micah is a brilliant little child. He is 21 months old. He can:
Count from 1 to 6 skip to 9 then 10
Knows, says, sings, and recognizes all the ABCs (Struggles with W… he thinks it’s M)
Match colors
Match shapes
Knows his basic shapes: Triangle, Square, Star, Circle, Moon, Heart
Knows his colors: Green, Blue, Purple, Orange, Yellow, Red
Knows animals and animal sounds: Cow, Pig, Duck, Sheep, Dog, Cat, Elephant, Giraffe, Penguin, Fish, Lion, Tiger, Bear… oh my! The list goes on.
Loves to read pictures in his book (example: A – Apple, B – Ball…)
He loves to point out letters and numbers where ever we go!
He loves to count his toy cars
He loves to sign to songs: Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbean, Nephi’s Courage, Wise Man/Foolish Man, I love to see the Temple, Open Shut Them, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes… are just a few of his favorites.
He knows the difference between a: fire truck, race car, ambulance, bus, train, tractor, van
He can make different noises for “car sounds”: Beep Beep! Boom! Vroom! Zoom!
He can spend an hour organizing things
Micah has always done well to routines and he is really good with verbal prompts:
Are you hungry?
Are you tired?
It’s nap time, close your eyes and go to sleep.
It’s night night time
It’s still night night time (for the odd times he wakes up in the night)
Close the door
Go back to your room
Clean up your toys
Do you want water?
Do you want to read a book?
Say “Bye Bye” to ______ (We say bye bye to everything)
Dada has to go “Bye Bye”
Can you say Hi?
Fold your arms
It’s time to pray
Lately, I’ve realized that Micah needs to be playing, stimulated, or learning every minute of the day. Whenever he gets bored then he starts throwing a tantrum. He needs more than just play time with toys. I recently felt inspired to add structure into his daily routine by making his play time into learning time. I try hard to make sure Micah never gets bored. It has worked so well! Here are some ideas I’ve come up with:
I will alternate activities throughout the day and week. It has worked so well that Micah wants his own free time. The last few days he has been going into his room for 30 to 45 minutes and he’ll close his door to play with his toys by himself. I didn’t know what to do with myself! I thought he was making trouble but really he just wanted time to himself. 🙂
Went with our Brazilian and Romanian friends to Glendalough in Wicklow last week. We’ve already been once but we loved it so much that we had to go again (first Glendalough trip post)! We love hiking the Glendalough trails and having a picnic. It was such a nice day to be out at the lake too! I love the sun… I think it was the first time I felt like I should’ve put on some sunscreen.
37 weeks in this picture … moving right along. We hiked to upper lake… pretty good for being full term right? Ok so it was an easy hike but still. 🙂
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