Our Quiverfull - Noah's birthday and updates

Aug. 15, 2007

Noah's birthday and updates

I have been a bad blogger lately! We haven’t had any sort of big reason not to blog – I just honestly haven’t been able to get to the computer for a few days. This is an incredibly busy month for our business, so all of the computers with internet access are being used for the business or by children who need online access for homeschool work all day.

Noah had a wonderful birthday. I was so proud of him! There is a slideshow at the end of this post with recent pictures and birthday pictures. He opened his presents most of the way himself and genuinely enjoyed them. He really raked it in because we didn’t have many baby toys that were appropriate for him at all. He has played with little baby rattle-type toys up until now and his birthday seemed like a great time to bring his toy collection up to speed. He is still enjoying and being challenged by his new toys.

I made a little pretend cake by frosting an upside down bowl to look like a cake. He had a marvelous time smearing it all over and making a big mess. After a few minutes he put some in his mouth. He didn’t seem upset and didn’t gag, but he didn’t try tasting any more either. I just can’t tell you how happy and blessed I was to see him opening presents and playing in his frosting. He’s never made a mess before!

His therapy is continuing to go well. He is making the most incredible strides in his gross motor development. He is pulling up to a stand in his new little crib, and yesterday during physical therapy he got himself into a sitting position all by himself! His therapists are very pleased with his gross motor progress and so are we. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started crawling before too long.

He isn’t making the same sort of strides in his other areas. The children and I keep trying to get him to say “Mama” but he never has. He’s never even made that sound by accident. The children were trying to get him to say it when two of his therapists were here and I asked them when we should start to be concerned about his total lack of speech. They told me that they were actually quite concerned now and had been waiting to say something until after his surgery on the 22^nd. Noah doesn’t actually say any words at all. We used to think he was saying “hi,” but either we were mistaken or he stopped saying it. He doesn’t babble much at all and doesn’t really laugh. He will chuckle if tickled, but doesn’t do that wonderful belly laugh that most babies do. When the therapists mentioned speech concerns, I immediately thought of autism since we had been through that before with our second born, but they assured me that Noah is engaged, communicating, and responsive – just not talking. He does wave bye-bye very nicely and appropriately and they told us that we should work harder at teaching him sign language since he seems to understand the concept of signs or gestures. The children have memorized all of the signs from the Baby Einstien sign language DVD and we use the signs a little, but we need to get more serious and consistent.

After his surgery we will get Noah’s hearing tested and get a speech evaluation for him. His hearing was tested at birth but it is possible things have changed. I know he can hear since certain sounds will wake him up, but maybe he isn’t hearing enough or the right way. I am so accustomed to thinking of language issues in terms of autism that this is strange to me. I can’t understand why a bright, communicative baby wouldn’t babble or laugh or talk.

Noah is up to another great trick – he is eating a little puffed rice! We found a bag of all natural puffed rice at Walmart on the cereal aisle. It is the whole brown rice grain puffed up so it has a melt-in-the-mouth texture. Noah seems to really enjoy picking up pieces of it and eating them, and is obviously very proud of himself. (He actually claps after each piece, and if anyone watching doesn’t clap they get a dirty look LOL. He obviously doesn’t have a shortage of male ego!) He will only eat a few pieces a day, but we are thrilled to see him willing to eat at all!

We have received some of the loveliest notes and packages in the last few days. My husband’s aunt sent a large care package with a set of Legos for each boy, a beautiful angel figurine for each girl, and a gorgeous hand-knit blanket for Noah. She also sent the three DVD set of Sarah Plain and Tall for our family movie nights! A friend and fellow author who has been going through some fierce fires of her own sent a dear note and a financial gift, and yesterday we got a big box from an anonymous blog reader- quite mystery!! I was sitting nursing Noah the other day and thinking about how I really probably won’t have time to incorporate a lot of fine arts study into our homeschool this year. We’ve had to streamline and simplify everything and I didn’t see how I could add in something “extra” like that this year. I was feeling guilty about it and wondering what I could do. The very next day this anonymous package came filled with . . . .classical music resources!!!! How incredible is that??!! There was a huge stack of “The Story Of . .” CD’s that tell the story of various composers. There were music-related picture books and coloring books and a music study guide and timeline and even some fun audio book cd’s for the children to listen to. Even I’m not too busy to put in a cd for the children! I have some other CD’s – I forget the name of the series but most of you probably know of them. There is Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery, Beethoven Lives Upstairs, etc. I won’t have time to fully use the study guide but I want to sit down with the older children and use the guide to put the CD’s in chronological order along with the CD’s we already have, then institute a plan of listening to them over lunch or in the afternoons. It was the most amazing gift, both because of the generosity of the giver and because of how it spoke volumes to me of God’s love and provision for us. I hope you are reading, Anonymous Music Sender Friend! We thank you so much!

I wrote the honestly amazing story of Noah’s pregnancy and birth and meant to post it before his birthday. It’s been sitting here on the computer for over a week now. I posted it as a separate blog post right below this one, so you can scroll on down and read it or not. Jeff is also working on a wonderful post with some amazing news that he wants to share, so stay tuned!

I’m ending this post with the above promised slide show. I don’t think I need to write a thankful list this time. These pictures really, really are worth a thousand words!

Love

Kate and Jeff (and Noah!)

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Comments

Aug. 15, 2007 - The slideshow is working

Posted by chelelew

Hi Kate and Jeff -- love reading your blog. Haven't had a chance to read the lastest update about Noah and his birthday. Wanted to let you know that in Internet Explore, the slideshow isn't working. It's scrolling but says that the code must be goofed up or something to that affect. Just wanted to make you aware. Thank you for creating this blog.

www.homeschoolblogger.com/chelelew