Heidi is seven months old now, but I think she thinks she's much older than that. She seemed to go from sitting to crawling to pulling up on things overnight. She is all over the place now and wants to walk so badly. She crawls quickly but really only crawls on one knee and steps on one foot. She has such a personality and is very vocal when she wants to be. She eats solid food 3 times a day now and takes 4 bottles. She dropped the one she used to take right before bed. Now she sleeps from around 7:30 to 7:00 or 8:00 the next morning. It's wonderful. She is wearing a size 2 diaper now, but since I weighed her and she weighs 17.2 pounds, I bought a box of size 3 for when she's finished with her 2s. She is so much fun to watch. She pays attention to everything and will get into anything she can get her little hands on. She loves her brothers and wants to be right in the middle of whatever they are doing.
Alex went to the orthodontist the week after Christmas and had a rapid palatal expander placed in the roof of his mouth. His upper jaw is narrower than his lower jaw, and it caused a cross bite. The expander was placed in order to widen his jaw and correct the bite. For the first 20 days that he had the expander, we had to turn the screw in the middle of it once a day. For the first eight days it was complete torture for him and for us. He was so afraid I was going to gag him, and my patience was so thin that we both ended up getting very upset about the whole situation. But, miraculously, from one day to the next, he decided that he was going to toughen up. He and I came up with a plan for how he could tell me when he wanted me to slow down or stop turning the key, and it seemed to work well. We eventually got to where I could turn the screw with one attempt and what used to take hours (in the very beginning) now only took less than a minute. He went back to the orthodontist on the 21st day, and everything is looking great. He goes back at the first of March to be evaluated again. The next step in the process will be for him to have braces placed on his top teeth. He's actually kind of excited about it because he'll be able to choose what color bands he has put on with the brackets.
Isaac seemed to have grown two inches overnight. I just noticed in what seems like one day to the next that his pants were too small in the waist and too short. He is getting so tall now and looking so grown up. He is doing well in school overall but seems to be challenged in English class. It is his least favorite, and he seems to be distracted very easily in that class. He is very capable, so we are encouraging him to pay better attention and to try harder. If he doesn't, there will be consequences. But, overall, we are very pleased with how he is doing in middle school. He wants to play baseball again this spring, but we have yet to figure out how we're going to make that work since Alex also wants to play soccer and we have a baby girl who has a schedule to work around. It has been a dilemma that I have been thinking a lot about, because I think all of my children should have the opportunity to do some of the things they want to do. I know everyone can't do everything they want to do all the time, so we just have to figure out how to balance it all.
