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Monday, August 28, 2006

Long time no see

I know I know, I'm a terrible blogger. But, I suppose I have an excuse. I give "mad props" to all those moms who have 3 or more kids. It's rough! Oh my goodness. Ever since Katie was born, I feel like I've been running a marathon...daily. I promise I will post her birth story soon, but for right now I will just update you on everything:

Emma: things are going well with Emma, she spent 6 weeks in a day camp called PEAK. She LOVED it!!! They did crafts, went on field trips, did educational stuff, and spent a ton of time outside on the playground. This child is TAN!! I don't know where she got the tan gene from but it wasn't her father or I. She starts 1st grade in one week. EEEEEKKKKK! How did I become the mom to a 1st grader?? She's so excited. We went & bought her school supplies last week, including a new backpack, and a couple new outfits, and new shoes. She also lost her 8th baby tooth while Aunt Kammie was here last week. Wow, it's crazy how fast she's growing up.

Sarah: Sarah has had some issues this summer, I'm thinking mostly due to the new baby. She started pulling out her hair, bit by bit, on the left side, until she'd managed to get out about 1/3 of her hair. She's been unofficially diagnosed with trichotillomania and we're working with her on sensory issues. We decided the easiest way to help her was to cut her hair, so now she's got a cute pixie cut!! She looks like Tinkerbell, complete with impish grin.
We also put her in a toddler bed a week ago. That's still something we're working on. Her favorite thing to do is stand at the baby gate in her doorway & chuck things out of the room, or completely empty her drawers and diaper stacker - or both. She's definitely in that "two" stage. Oh it's fun..
We're still continuing sign with her & she knows about 15-20 signs. She's still not verbalizing very well, but she definitely has inflections in her voice to denote changes in mood & intent.
She was also part of a study this summer. It was done by a doctorate student at CMU regarding kids with dev. delays and them imitating a bahavior seen on a video. She was on the young side of the spectrum, as they were looking for kids aged 2-5. I'm definitely an advocate for anything that will change how ppl view kids with dev. delays.
And then there's Katie. Wow, how time does fly. She's already almost 3 months old. She's so alert and looking all around. She follows you with you walk past her, and loves to be in the middle of everything. She's still nursing like a champ and I'll have her weighed & measured this week, so I'll update on how big she is, but I'm guessing she's probably over 12 lbs. now. She's definitely got the "Schmechel family thunder thighs", haha. This kid's got some chunky legs, that's for sure. We think she's either going through a growth spurt or teething, because the past couple of days she has been CRANKY! It wouldn't surprise me on the teeth, this is when Emma started teething, and she got her 1st 2 teeth by 4 months.
Jeff finally got his promotion from last year made official. He'd been "interim manager" since last August when his boss took another job. But, he was made permanent. Congrats Jeff!! His new official title is "Associate Director of Residences & Auxilliary Services". He's also starting the fall semester of college tomorrow. So once again, he's doing triple duty: full-time employee, half-time college student & full-time dad.
As for me, well aside from having Katie, not much else is new, lol. My mom is still planning on moving out here, and is actually going to visit us for 10 days pretty soon. We're hoping that she'll be moved out here before the end of October.
So that pretty much sums up our lives for the past 3 months. You can actually check out a whole bunch of pictures, including newborn pics of Katie, here.