So apparently I'll just be sporadically updating here from here on out. Oops. :) Looks like I have a lot of catching up to do!
First, Christmas was great. We had a nice day at my in-laws' on Christmas itself and then left the next day to fly to Minnesota. It was probably our last flight for a long time - Tristan will be two soon and buying three tickets will be way out of our price range. Well, apparently the universe was worried that I would be too full of myself if I had spent five years flying with young children and never had a bad experience. On our flight to MN, Tristan screamed nearly the entire way. The only thing that kept him calm was if I walked to the back of the plane and stood in the bathroom with him (which didn't have a light). We were on one of those really small, narrow planes with only two seats on one side and one seat on the other. Thankfully, Ronan just stayed in his seat, watching a movie the whole time. But the worst part was when we hit turbulence, and so I had to go sit back down and Tristan just freaked the heck out. I felt so sorry for everyone around us. It took him a long time to calm down when we finally got to my parents house, but at least we all survived and the people on the plane were very kind and understanding. On the way back, he started freaking out again as soon as we sat down and I almost started crying, thinking we were going to have a repeat experience. Thankfully, he suddenly just fell asleep and slept from almost the entire flight back. Phew!
It was great being up there and seeing so much family. My aunt and uncle came up from Colorado with their youngest grandson and my cousin and his wife and their kids came over as well a few times. It was great to see everyone and catch up, and Ronan and Tristan had a blast playing with the kids.
Then it was back home and theoretically time for school to start again. Due to a series of cold snaps and snow storms, school has been canceled here more this month than I ever had off in my entire k-12 experience. Even both universities where I work have had several snow days. I'm really getting to the point where I'm ready for spring. It's not so much that I mind the cold, but I'm tired of forcing kids into coats and not having many options for things to do when the kids are home. I miss taking them to the zoo to burn off energy. But we'll survive.
In the meantime, Ronan still enjoys school more or less. He's making friends and even asked me to invite one of the kids over to play! That's happening tomorrow and I'm excited about that. Prior to this, he's never really shown much interest in kids in his class (or daycare before this) and I always felt a little bad that he didn't have anyone to play with other than his brother. He's also mentioned some other friends he wants to play with, so I'll try to get that set up soon too.
Ronan is also going to start speech therapy at school. His teacher pulled me aside the other day to see if that would be ok, which of course I said it was. I'm hoping it'll be helpful. He generally does ok, but I know a lot of people have trouble understanding him and there are still a few letters he just doesn't get. Meanwhile, I'm also waiting to talk to Tristan's pediatrician next month about Tristan's lack of speech. He really only has two solid words: "mama" and "no." He has a dedicated sound for "milk," but it's not really a word. He babbles like crazy though. I'm just thinking that by 2, he really should have more words than this. And it always sounds like he has such interesting stuff to say - I just wish I could understand him!
Overall, Tristan's doing pretty well at daycare. We still have the occasional biting incident (which I also wonder if that's connected to his lack of words), but that's gotten much better. The other big problem at home though is sleep. For over the past month now, he's gone from the easiest sleeper ever to one of the most challenging. Tom can usually get him to go to sleep now at bedtime, but then by around 11 or 12, the constant waking starts. It's also impossible to contain him now, since he can easily climb out of his crib and open his door. He'll sleep much more soundly if he cosleeps with us, but hopefully at some point we can get him back to sleeping all night on his own. He kicks a lot in his sleep.
As for me, things are going pretty well. I'm enjoying being back in the classroom. the start of the semester has simply reconfirmed for me (as if there was any doubt) that I am not stay-at-home-mom material. I love spending time with the kids, but by the end of the day, I'm exhausted, worn-out, and cranky. If I've been teaching all day, though, I come home energized and in a good mood. It's amazing what a difference it makes. I've gotten the introduction written for my dissertation and am in the process of working with other scholars to submit a proposal to present papers at the national Middle East Studies' conference in DC this fall. Cross your fingers for us!
Well, Tristan just dumped a bowl full of Cheerios on the floor, so I suppose that's my cue. See you in May, I suppose.
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