18 months

Collin Michael

18 months

Height: 32 inches (42%ile)

Weight: 23 lbs 12 oz (22%ile)

Head: 18 3/4 inches (46%ile)

Words:~40

Our sweet little Baby C is 18 months old. I may have mentioned before how different it has been for us the second time around. I feel like all of Will's "milestone" ages were carefully planned for and professionally documented. Collin turning 18 months went something like this:

Monday: Well-child check

Tuesday-Friday: Normal hectic week

Saturday: Pick Collin up from Kids Care at the gym to discover a RAGING case of pink-eye. In the car on the way to Mayo Express Care try to determine if Collin is 18 months old (minimum age to be seen) yet. Never registers that I took him for his 18 month well child check 5 days earlier.

Sunday: Go to blog Collin's 18 month stats and realize the most current picture I have of him is a month old. Take pictures. Email photographer about setting up a sitting over spring break.

I tell myself that our laid back approach will be good for him. Fingers crossed!

Arizona

Lucky me! I got to spend the last week of February in Phoenix, AZ! A group of us for Riverside attended the Professional Learning Community Summit. For those outside of education, it is like a 4 day rock concert for nerdy teachers! It was so great to hear incredible speakers with a team of teachers inspired to move forward. The 60 degree temps were nice, too!

Danielle, Marie, Michelle and I at a restaurant in Tempe that Franny recommended.

The Riverside crew: Michelle, Malachi, Marie, Danielle, Will and I

I also happened to be in town to celebrate Kevin's 22nd birthday!

I stayed through the weekend to hang out with my family. They were bummed that I didn't bring "the babies" with me, but they let me stay anyway.

Mike survived 6 days with the boys. The house was still standing and pretty clean. I will say that the new bedtime routine I came home to was "sit on the couch and watch the olympics until everyone falls asleep" and Collin wasn't too happy with the transition back to sleeping in his crib. Everyone was happy and healthy! I can't complain!

Mike's Yoga Article!

Wes Emmert: Yoga and finding your physical activity niche

Eat. More. Please.

I've been playing with iMovie.

The backstory here is that the first round of Valentine's Day pictures went a lot like the first round of Christmas card pictures. When we tried again I was armed with fruit snacks and Collin was cooperative. When I went through the pictures later, in search of the best one, I noticed Collin was signing one of three things in almost all the pictures:

Eat.

More.

Please.

The Tooth Fairy

After 6 years, 4 months, 2 weeks and 6 days of life,

Will Repede FINALLY lost a tooth.

This was a very exciting event- first tooth, first tooth fairy visit, it happened at school the day of the Valentine's party (note red kool-aid mustache!), but it was also good news because he was a little more than a week away from a visit to the dentist. As you can see in this picture, his two permanent bottom teeth have already grown in behind the baby teeth. Loosing your wiggly tooth at school is much more fun than having it pulled by the dentist.

The other bottom tooth is loose and Auntie B is giving him tips on getting it out.

This one is just funny.

Happy Valentine's Day

The boys in their Valentine shirts.

Our "heartbreaker" and our "handsome little devil" reading Snuggle Puppy.

Me and my Valentine on our first date-Prom 1996. That was during Mike's bald phase. One of the other parents asked him how his treatments were going. I'm glad he's grown out of that.

Our 14th Valentine's Day-skiing at Welch

We've lived in Minnesota for 10 years now, with our closest relatives over 300 miles away. Since our family is the target demographic of this blog, I will say that there no positives and only negatives to living far away from your family. One of those negatives is finding people to guilt/pay to watch your children so you can have time together. My sister Bridget moved to Chicago a little over a month ago and asked when she could come for a visit. I sarcastically suggested Valentine's Day so Mike and I could go out and she jumped on it! She came on Thursday night, went to Riverside with us on Friday and volunteered for Will's Valentine's Day party and then watched the boys all day Saturday while Mike and I went skiing. It was FANTASTIC! We had a great day, Will tested the boundaries of having Auntie B in charge and between her day of babysitting and afternoon in a kindergarten classroom we have provided her with free birth control. Aunt Franny is moving to Des Moines in a few weeks and we can't wait!

Everyone Should Share (Will and MLK Day)

Here's a little background on Will and his curiosity about Martin Luther King, Jr. and civil rights (aside from being born into a family of crazy white liberals). A few years back we were all hanging out on the couch on a lazy Sunday watching a kid's video on VHS. Mike and I dozed while Will watched the movie. When the tape ended the VCR shut off and the TV was tuned to PBS. We woke up from our Sunday afternoon nap to find Will attentively watching Eyes on the Prize. The was probably 3 at the time. In the weeks that followed he kept asking when we were going to watch "that Martin Luther King movie" again.

Fast forward a few years and a lot has happened. We elected our first black president, who happened to be the family favorite. I've attended a series of trainings through my job about the importance of talking about race and the effort to eliminate racial predictability in achievement data. Will started school at one of the most diverse elementary schools in Rochester.

Toward the end of December a flyer came home outlining the school's plan for a Martin Luther King, Jr celebration in January and invited students to participate in a poster and essay contest. Being a teacher mom, we got out our picture books about MLK and Rosa Parks. We read them and then I asked Will about his dream (required for poster contest). He said his dream was for "it to never go back to that way of whites only again" and then he drew this poster and submitted it for the contest.

In the past few weeks we've had many conversations in the car about MLK as they have been talking a lot about this in school. He tells me he gets sad when they talk about it, "mostly about the dead part" and asks if we can go see Martin Luther King, Jr's grave. Early last week I learned that Will's poster had been chosen as one of the winners and that he would be recognized at the all-school assembly. Aside from being a very proud mom, I was excited for Will to be recognized for something that has been a real interest of his.

Here are some shots from the assembly:

Here he is with the principal reading "Everyone Should Share"

The principal announcing the other winner, a 2nd grader.

Will and his classmates with his award winning poster (that my mom refers to as "Everyone should share and have jazz hands").