Thursday, August 30, 2012

Ashlock ABC's


Jeremy can now identify all of the letters of the alphabet! To celebrate this, I am going to attempt an ABC post.

Ashlock ABC’s
Blast Off! Jeremy likes to listen to 3 Laurie Berkner songs while in the car. He has named them Blast Off, Buzz, and Saur-saurs (Dinosaurs). Sometimes he can be diverted to other songs but not always.
Calm: We ask Jeremy to be calm and take breaths when he is upset—he can say calm and can usually calm himself down.
Doctor Jeremy uses his doctor kit to give everyone shots and listen to their hearts, which he says go “beat-beat-beat.”
Elmo is still a favorite.
Football season is finally here! Jeremy and his GT friends have matching Buzz shirts!

Google: Christian got a new job at Google as a Marketing Manager for Google+. He is thrilled to start on a new and challenging project.
Hop: He is learning how to hop and jump, which basically looks like he is doing a hoe-down. His favorite song to rock out to is A-B, aka the ABC’s.
I-U is the way Jeremy says, “I love you.” Best words ever.
Jep-jay—Both Christian and Jeremy ask for Jeopardy every night.
Kitchen: Jeremy opened his pretend fridge and pulled out a giant stuffed penguin! Neither of us placed the penguin there, so this may be Jeremy’s first practical joke.
Lesson planning: I have officially resigned from teaching in order to stay at-home with Jeremy, but I have been dreaming of lesson planning a lot this week.

My Gym: We started classes at the My Gym, because I found a groupon for it. Jeremy loves jumping and running and swinging so much that we joined. They had unlimited classes for August, so Christian was able to take him to some weekend classes too.
Naer-my: What Jeremy calls himself.
Ostrich the Grouch: One of Jeremy’s puzzles has an ostrich, so each time he picks it up, he says, “ostrich, ostrich grouch.”
Picky eater: Although he is still a picky eater, he is willing to try many more foods now. He has realized that fruit is not gross but actually great. He now loves grapes, pears, blueberries, strawberries, watermelon, and more.
Quiet time: Each night Jeremy takes a bath then we read 2 books while he drinks his milk. This quiet time always ends in prayers, kisses, and night-nights.
Rainbow—He knows the whole rainbow of colors and points them out everywhere we go—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black, brown, and teal.

Steam engine: Jeremy loves choo-choos, so we took him to Los Gatos to ride a real train. He flipped out, burst into tears, and clung on to us for dear life.
Tayons, aka Crayons: When Jeremy colors, it’s like finding objects in the clouds. He draws a line and says “I” or draws a squiggle and says “snake” or a scribble and says “Pretty!” Yesterday, he drew a big < and declared it an airplane.

U-U: Anyone else would pronounce W as double-u, but Jeremy calls it a U-U.
Vacuum: Jeremy has an amazing amount of words that he speaks correctly and just a few that are not quite right. We can’t figure it out, but he calls the vacuum “Moose.”
Wooden puzzles are a newfound favorite quiet activity.
Xylophone? Yes, Jeremy still loves his musical instruments. I know, that was a big stretch.
Yak! For some reason, Jeremy loves it when his computer says “Yak!” He can push the Y button over and over and over again.
Zebra v. Striped Horse—Jeremy correctly identified a zebra at a park, while an older girl called it a striped horse.

 Jeremy at My Gym class

Zebra or Striped Horse?

Best Friends


Jeremy has a Leap Frog toy computer that reads blog entries and emails aloud. Last week, Scout says, “Today I played with my best friend at the beach.” So, this conversation ensued.
Me: Jeremy, who’s your best friend?
Jeremy: No response.
Me: Aaron? Aaron is probably your best friend.
Jeremy: No.
Me: No? Who’s your best friend then?
Jeremy: Jan-Jan (aka Aaron’s mommy)

Jeremy and Aaron riding in their matching carseats.
The boys driving the fire truck at the children's museum.
Good times in the backyard.
Waiting in line at Gilroy Gardens

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Family Changes


This month we said hello and goodbye to our new baby.
     We had just decided it was time to start expanding our little family, so we were overjoyed to find out that we were pregnant again. Looking around our tiny house, we were a bit nervous about where all the gear would go, but we were excitedly discussing preparations. Jeremy could move to his big boy bed; the baby’s birthstone would be diamonds; we could use the beautiful cradle my dad made; what should we name it? Is it a boy or girl?
     However our thoughts quickly changed on Wednesday, August 22 in the afternoon. Jeremy and I had just gotten home from his playgroup, and he was napping. I started feeling severe pains in my stomach and called Christian at work. I knew something was wrong. Christian came straight home from work to find Jeremy screaming and poopy and me curled up crying. We called our OB, and got an appointment to see her. While at the doctor’s office, I started vomiting and the pains worsened. Our OB did an ultrasound and could not see the pregnancy in my uterus, so we were sent to pathology for blood work and to radiology for a more in depth ultrasound. They then realized that I had an ectopic pregnancy located on my left ovary. This had ruptured and was bleeding into my abdomen, which was what was making me faint, dizzy, and vomit.
     My OB called an ambulance and time seemed to speed up. I got an IV, Christian called family and close friends, a nurse played with Jeremy, everyone loaded up, and we headed to the ER at Stanford. Thankfully, Jana was able to come and take care of Jeremy until Christian’s mom could come down. Joyce stayed all night with Jeremy, so Christian could spend the night in the hospital with me. Everything happened so quickly, we flew through the ER and into OR #6, where my OB was able to do the laparoscopic surgery and remove about a liter of blood from my abdomen. Fortunately, she was able to leave everything intact, so we should be able to get pregnant naturally again. For future pregnancies, they will just monitor me earlier to ensure everything is where it should be.
     Christian stayed home from work the next few days to take care of everyone: me, Jeremy, and Molly. He was amazing. And somehow, Molly knew that something was wrong, so she stayed close and took lots of naps with me. On the hand, Jeremy had no idea anything was wrong, which is probably for the best.
     I know that God has a plan for our family and our tiny baby and that he chose His home for the baby to grow up in.  At this point, we are still sad and grieving for our loss. But I know that God will heal my soul, just as time will heal my body.

18 month update

Stats

Height: 31.5 inches (20th percentile)
Weight: 23 pounds, 11 ounces (44th percentile)
Clothing: 18 months
Shoe size: 6.5
Diaper size: 4 during the day and 5 at night

If you give a mouse a cookie…he is going to ask you to read it again. And if you read it again, he will want to you to read it again…and again…and again. Jeremy loves books and being read to. He is able to sit for short story books now, but his favorite by far is “Mouse.” I tried to buy similar ones, like If you give a pig a pancake; however, that just added to the pile of favorites and seems to remind him that what he really wants is “Mouse.” In addition, somehow he got confused and now calls pigs “pancakes.” Oops. I wonder if he thinks he is eating pigs for breakfast…
Jeremy still loves Elmo and Sesame Street. The other day, he opened a trashcan, looked inside, and said, “Grouch?” Also, he loves his magna doodle, which he calls “Picture” He constantly brings picture to us and demands a “Gouch!” (aka Oscar the Grouch). If he approves of your drawing, he will color it in or carry it around with him for a while. If not, he erases your masterpiece and demands another one. We have drawn a lot of grouches recently. Actually, Christian is getting pretty good at them.
“Outside!” He loves being outside. The park, sandbox, ride on toys, his Cozy coupe, bubbles, water table, wagon, and swimming are all some of his favorite pastimes. He loves meeting his playgroup at different nearby parks for playtime as well as just playing in the backyard. Truthfully, if he is cranky, his mood instantly changes just by going outside.
As you can see, Jeremy is fully talking. He is not quite stringing words into sentences, but he says the name of everything and knows how to express what he wants. He knows tons of animals and what they say. He knows the rainbow of colors and names most things by their colors. Walking through the grocery store is just a constant string of colors, “Red, blue, green, red!” He has a puzzle that has shapes and colors. For a while, the purple star was missing, so Jeremy would walk around saying, “Star, are you?” (I HATE missing puzzle pieces, so I eventually bought a new one.) He holds phones to his ear (backwards) and says someone’s name like “Dada! Mimi? Papa. Drew?” He is learning to identify letters and knows about 7-8 of them consistently at this point.
We can’t believe that he is a year and a half now. It seems so weird to start counting in years and not in months!
 Jeremy pouring water at his water table.

 Star, are you?

Christian's very impressive Grouch.

Promises


I am going to do better! I promise. I plan to post more frequently, and I am going to try to look back over the past 18 months too.  Check back soon. :)

July: What we are up to


4th of July: We went to Shoreline Amphitheatre to see the fireworks. Each year, we sit out on the lawn snacking, chatting, and playing while the San Francisco Orchestra performs on stage. Jeremy got to taste a donut for the first time (yum) and ate lots of Brie off of crackers. He stayed awake through the whole concert. The fireworks finally started around 10:00 (2 hours past bedtime). Jeremy watched a little, then said “all done, night-night” and laid his head down on my shoulder and went to sleep. Who goes to sleep during fireworks? Oh well, we enjoyed the show.
 Our family waiting for the concert to begin.

Aaron kicking the soccer ball.
 Jeremy picked it up...
And placed it in the hole.
Jeremy's first bite of a donut :)
This is actually Aaron's hat: Jeremy refused to wait in line.
Happy 4th of July!
4th of July Week: Lucky Christian was given July 4-8 off in order to properly celebrate America this year. So we spent one of the days getting organized and packing up some of Jeremy's "baby toys." We also visited CuriOdyssey, a children's museum, with our friends Wei, Jian, and baby Elliot. Jian works at Facebook, so we got to have lunch and take a tour of FB. It turns out that there was a marathon that ended on their campus, and we got to cheer for Mark Zuckerberg as he walked across the finish line.

Jeremy angling for a better view of Elmo as we assemble Expedit.

Apparently, 2 adults can assemble Expedit in less than one Sesame Street.

Engineer in the making? At CuriOdyssey

Christian, Jeremy, Wei, and Elliot

Elliot and Jeremy eating lunch at Facebook

THE Facebook Wall

Writing on the wall.
The Next Week: Last month, my brother found out he has testicular cancer. So, I went to Phoenix to help out with one of his chemo treatment weeks. Because his immune system is comprised, he is not able to be near children, so that means that Jeremy was not able to tag along. Fortunately, MiMi (Christian’s mom) was able to come down and spend the week playing with Jeremy. They did playdough, puzzles, puppets, everything together for the week. I missed my little guy a ton, but we got to videochat everyday. While in Phoenix, I drove my big brother to his treatments and was able to help out with some of the cooking too. I was so glad that I could be a help to them during this challenging time, but I was also thankful to get home to my boys.
The End of the Month: Christian and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary by going out to an amazing dinner at a Michelin star rated restaurant. Jana and Paul watched Jeremy, so it was just a bottle of wine, a great view, and each other.
At Redeemer Lutheran in Atlanta, GA

8 years of marriage + 1 toddler = 1 happy family



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Baking Gingerbread Cookies!








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