What an interesting holiday season we had! We had lots of fun hanging out together as a family and there are many things to update.
Zak finished up his semester December 12 with three A's and two B's. That seems like a very successful semester considering how incredibly busy he was. He finished a big project (an Expositional Commentary on Ephesians 3:1-13) for his most difficult class (Principles of Inductive Bible Study) which was worth 50% of his grade with a 95%. Not only did he finish with great evaluation of the work he did, I think he also grew significantly in his knowledge of the Bible and his relationship with God. I certainly can't speak for him in this regard, but I have seen evidence of this as he grows in his compassion for people and becomes increasingly more generous with his blessings.
It's been different being completely separated from the college for almost a whole month. We've only seen his classmates on two occasions. We had dinner at the home of one of his classmates and his family before Christmas which was a wonderful treat. Then we had several Multnomah students to our house for a worship service one Sunday when most churches had canceled services due to weather. We had 11 Multnomah students who walked here and 10 people from Agape who actually braved the weather enough to drive here! We served chili and rice and bread for lunch and it was a wonderful time of fellowship! We were very grateful for the meat my parents brought when they came! There is no way I would have been able to make enough chili to feed that many people otherwise!
Zak's latest challenge has been in regards to weight loss. He has put on a few pounds over the past few years (and past couple civilian months!) so he needs to get back within the Navy's weight requirements. To this end, he has been working out every day with a work out I got to design for him. And, of course, I get to feed him the nourishing food to help him meet this goal. So far he is doing very well and has moved from 220 to 211 in only 4 weeks. His goal is to be at 210 by January 12th and at 200 by May 15. I'm sure we will keep The People updated on his progress with this goal.
Since we have had lots of time to spend at home due to inclement weather and holiday free time, we took the time to finish some of the decorating of our house that was still incomplete. This has been a bigger deal to Zak than it has to me as I am admittedly more interested in function than form. However I have to admit that our house is more "homey" now that we have finished up some of the decorating. You can find pictures of this in the Mult-Home-Ah photo album. The cheesy palm tree was my idea. I grew fond of it during our Christmas season and wasn't willing to put it away!
One of the updates we made to the house and its decorations was a new big boy bed for Koa. I have been looking for the perfect bed for long term use that will work in his room. I wanted to do a bunk-bed-type so we could consolidate the beds when Caspian got big enough to need a big boy bed, but their ceiling is too low. So, I needed a "junior loft" bed in order to fit the bill. Of course, I also didn't want to buy it new since that just seems wasteful. We finally found what we had been looking for on Craig's list and made a short trip up to Vancouver, WA to pick it up. The crazy weather made it a bit of an adventure, but everything worked out really well. This was Stimple and Tutu's Christmas gift to Koa and we got to pick it up just a couple of days after Christmas. Now he and Caspian are roommates. It's nice to have them in there together and they make good roommates. They don't even seem to wake each other up very often. Their room is my favorite room in the house now. I think it is partially because that room stays clean most of the time and is easy to clean when it does get messy.
Koa is definitely two years old, and sometimes I hope that will be over soon. He protests anything that he thinks is not his idea--even if it was his idea! We spend a lot of time working on having a good attitude. That means that some days he spends a lot of time in the corner. This has been a great tool of discipline until recently. All of the sudden one day he decided that he LIKES the corner, in fact he LOVES the corner. So, when I would give him permission to come out because his attitude was better, he would say he would rather stay there. Back to the drawing board.
He really is a lot of fun to be around when he's not trying to be difficult. He loves to play pretend (maybe that's why the corner is fun) and will play with anything! He likes to make families out of any random objects he can find. In fact, his first family was a toothbrush, toothpaste and a bottle of grape seed oil. Then there were the dish brushes, pencil eraser, cups, silverware. His most favorite little guy is a gold-colored furniture bolt. He calls it his "treasure guy" and that is the first "toy" he looks for in the morning. I also have to be on guard or every cup/bowl shaped container will make it into his toy cabinet (or the living room floor) as a hat for somebody! Fortunately he is getting better and better about picking up toys and books and adhering to the "one toy at a time" rule most of the time. His mom is just a little bit crazy and likes the toys to be put away in an organized fashion (ie. balls and stuffed animals in the top drawer; cars in the middle drawer etc.) and he is pretty good at getting things put away in their proper place, as well.
He likes to play "introduction" with his toys. He'll say, "Hi, I'm Koa, what's your name? I come from Waikiki with Wes and Jessi." Then he proceeds to tell about the zoo in Waikiki because Wes and Jessi and Tracie took him to the zoo once. It is amazing to see the details he recalls from that long-ago trip to the zoo. He also likes to try to introduce himself to people he doesn't know (as long as I don't ask him to...) and he will tell them his name means "warrior" and he gets his curly hair from his dad.
He's also getting better at memorizing books so he can "read" them to Caspian. We still haven't gotten a good video of that, but I hope we can soon. He also has a knack for categorizing books. He recognizes when the artwork or story is the same or similar. For instance, he will know that it is a P.D. Eastman or Laura Numeroffe book even if it is the first time to read it. He also has pointed out other artwork when it looks similar. We saw a calendar one day with cartoon drawings on it and he said, "It's a Sandra Boynton book." and it did look very similar to her illustrations.
I don't think we have ever mentioned Koa's total fascination with Veggie Tales! He adores Bob and Larry, but Larry is definitely his favorite. He loves to look at the picture of Zak when he was Larry Boy for Halloween. He knows most of the songs on any Veggie Tale video he has seen and he asks daily to watch them! We've gotten pretty bad about agreeing to it and now he watches a lot more TV than we wish he did. We never got cable when we moved into this house, and it has been great. We don't miss regular TV. So, I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world if the only thing we ever watch is Veggie Tales and Signing Time. At least both of them are teaching him something. However, I don't want him to get in the habit of just vegging out (pun intended) in front of the TV all the time.
And then there's Capian... He is such a sweet baby, and very calm and content when his tummy is feeling well....which is hardly ever! Fortunately he is really good at soothing himself. He's a thumb sucker and he's good at it! He can find that thing almost instantly, and he will sooth himself right to sleep. He also usually just wants to lay on his tummy and sleep when he is feeling bad. So, that is a good thing, too, unless we are out somewhere that he can't really just lay around. Then it is really bad.
You'd never know by lookin' at him, but occasionally he will go 8-12 hours without eating for some odd reason. We thought there was some consistency to it, but now I am beginning to believe it is totally random. Like maybe he just eats like normal every three hours until he gets full and then he just hibernates for a while. He sleeps pretty consistently 7 hours at night but one night he went 12! I tried waking him up to feed him, but he would just get angry and go back to sleep. (Needless to say, I was up at three in the morning pumping!) Sometimes his strikes are in the middle of the day. He will wake up at regular intervals, but will just REFUSE to eat. Then he will be ready to go back to sleep in just a little while. Doctor Jen is baffled by it. He rarely ever acts like his tummy is upset when he does this. He will just be very content unless I try to feed him.
He has started becoming a little more regular with pooping which has helped with the upset tummy issue. For a while he was having solid poops most of the time, but I think that has resolved itself. Poor Caspian, all we talk about is his digestive issues when we give updates about him. He really is very sweet and mellow. He still has very tiny smiles and sometimes he will give us a little laugh which makes them especially cute!
We have used a Babywise-esque routine with both boys and they both have responded very well to that. Caspian doesn't need quite as much structure as Koa did. With Koa if we strayed from his normal routine very much we would have to detox for several days and get him back into his comfort zone or he would be a pretty fussy baby. Caspian will roll with the punches for the most part, but if we expect him to do that for too many days we get a fussy baby. That is what happened this past week when we went to Astoria. For the days leading up to it we were coming and going a little too often for him to get a regular nap and we paid for it part of the time in Astoria. So, we have been staying home and "detoxing" since then.
Right now, both boys are sick with a cold! So, we stayed home from church today. As you can see, that has given me time to catch up on posts that are way over-due! Hopefully my little boys will be back to health soon and we can continue with life as usual--as usual as it gets around here! :)
