How'd We Get Here?

Last Sunday morning (3/15) Gabe lost his first tooth.  It had been wiggly for a while now, at least since early January when we noticed his permanent tooth had already broken through the gum and was growing behind his baby tooth.  From that point on we started wiggling that tooth, and even more so after a dentist appointment when the dentist said that if the permanent tooth gets to be the same height as the baby tooth the baby tooth would have to be pulled!.  Aaahh.  

Gabe definitely didn't want to have that tooth pulled and neither did we so we kept reminding him to keep wiggling.  Finally last weekend as we noticed that the permanent tooth was getting a bit high we said we really need to work on that tooth.  Saturday morning we tried giving him an apple hoping that would do the trick but he said that it hurt but the tooth felt looser afterwards.  That evening at the dinner table he had wiggled it enough that it was hanging by a thread and Sunday morning while he was in his room reading as he does every morning because he's up at the crack of dawn he twisted it and out it came.  He didn't come running to tell us, he waited until we were up and we were all so excited!!.  

We gave him a special tooth pillow to put it in under his pillow so it would be easy for the tooth fairy to find.  She found it and left him a whole dollar.  Gabe was also super excited to tell his friends at school since he is finally not the only kid who hasn't lost a tooth yet.

It's hard to believe Charlotte is two already, where has the time gone?  I suppose if went back to look at our post for Gabe's 2nd birthday I probably would've said the same thing, every parent no doubt says the same thing at each birthday.  

Watching her grow and learn and blossom into the sweet, funny, smart little girl she is at two has been a lot of fun mixed in with a lot of work and patience.  She is very different from her brother even though she copies everything he does.  Her sentences and language amaze us, she comes out with full sentences like "I need a cookie" and "Where did Gabe go?", most phrases from her are 4-5 words which seems pretty impressive, at least to us it does.   She never stops talking, never.  The only time I'd say she is quiet is when she's sleeping or perhaps when she is watching ELMO!.  Her all time favorite!

She loves to dance and jump and be very silly.  She has also decided that anytime that she is said "No" to that she will start to cry and run off to her room and sit in her rocking chair until someone comes to see her or she is ready to come back out with us.  She adores Gabe and the feeling seems to be mutual.  She still sometimes stares at him like she did when she was an infant.  I suppose even then she was taking it all in just like she does now, every move he makes she tries to copy and usually successfully and in some super cute way.  The two of them are very close and Gabe really wants to share a room with Charlotte so we have begun the process of trying to do that.  Our goal is sometime in the summer although Gabe is quite anxious for it so we'll probably do some baby steps to get there sooner.  

To finish off she had her 2-year appointment and of course is growing beautifully.  She weighed 30 lbs. (75th percentile), 35.5" tall (95th percentile) and I think her head was 19.5" but I don't quite remember that one.  

So, there it is.  I could probably write pages and pages about what she is doing and the fun stuff she says but Elmo is done and now I must figure out what we're going to do for the day.

We had our first Parent/Teacher Conference a few weeks ago with Gabe's kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gagnon.  Our expectation going into it was that it would all be good, that we'd hear that he was the exceptional little boy that we know him to be.  Let's just say those expectations were met and we walked out of there quite proud of the little guy.  

The conference started off with his teacher asking us how we thought Gabe was doing, how he likes kindergarten...etc.  Our answer was we think he's doing great and that he seems happy.  We never have to argue with him in the morning to get him off to school, there's no pushing him on the bus or tears shed at the thought of going and to us that is a good sign.  He's happy and that means the most to us, although we do want him to learn something too.

Mrs. Gagnon pretty much told us everything that we already knew, that Gabe already knows his letters, can count well up to one hundred and is reading like a champ and so she has been doing her best to challenge him a bit.  The kids have journal time when they draw a picture and try to write a sentence about it.  She is working on having Gabe write 2, 3, or 4 sentences.  Her goal for him is to by the end of the year to be doing some kind of 'story-telling' with his journal.  

For his reading Gabe participates with his class but also goes to a first grade class to do some additional reading lessons.  Mrs. Gagnon said that because Gabe is already reading that his lessons will focus more on "reading to learn, not learning to read" so he'll be reading more non-fiction types of books.  

She also told us that Gabe is very polite with both his class mates and the other adults in the school.  According to her he has 'charmed' everyone he has met.  

It was a pretty awesome meeting, who doesn't love hearing great things about their kid even if you already knew it.

Hope everyone got lots of treats and not many tricks.  I think the whole country got it's biggest Halloween treat a few days late on Nov. 4th!

It's September 10th and I struggle a bit on this date because I usually find myself thinking a little bit more about what we went through on this day 5 years ago then what happened to our country and thousands of other families on 9/11/01.  I think it's probably normal but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a tad bit of guilt that goes along with it.

It's hard for me to believe that the boy I put on the bus this morning was having surgery on his head five years ago today.  I can still feel the pit in my stomach and the lump in my throat as if it were yesterday.  

I look at this beautiful, smart, loving, caring, funny and amazing boy of ours and feel so grateful that we had that option to correct what was wrong when we did and with such success.  Where would he be today if we didn't have that choice?  From our research we knew that there was potential for increased brain pressure and vision problems in addition to the difference in his physical appearance.  All reasons that I'm glad we took whatever risk was involved to prevent him from having to face these problems in his future.  Life is hard enough isn't it?  

I also always find myself looking at everyone's head that I meet.  Looking for a similar scar to Gabe's or just the actual shape of their head.  I sometimes am surprised that along our journeys I have yet to see anyone that looks like they had the surgery or for that fact didn't.  The odds of having sagittal synostosis are like 1 in 4000 to 1 in 8500 so I suppose it's logical that I wouldn't see anyone with it, I mean have I seen that many people in the last five years?  I don't know.  

Anyhow, here we are five years later and every day I fall more in love with that little boy of ours.  He continues to amaze me and make me smile in so many ways.  Not that I wouldn't feel the exact same way if he hadn't had the surgery, but I think I feel that much more grateful for who he is today because of it.