A First Time for Everything

I have a bit of catching up to do on this blog. A lot has happened in the last week or so.

Last Wednesday was Owen's first trip to the dentist. You might recall that Sophie actually went to the dentist a month ago. I was afraid her teeth were coming in wrong, so our pediatrician recomended we take her to Pediatric Dental Specialists. (It turns out what I thought were teeth were "Enamel Pearls".) I liked it so much there that we went ahead and made an appointment for Owen. The pediatrician had noted how brown Owen's front teeth were, so I was a little afraid that the appointment would be problematic. We tried to prepare Owen by getting some dentist books and hyping it up. It also helped that his school was also talking about dental hygiene and the dentist. (We had a friend who said he had his kids sit back in a chair and they shined a light into their mouths to practice, but alas, we found that out too late.) But I was worried that maybe we were sending him too early. He doesn't like us brushing his teeth and isn't very good at opening his mouth for us. Turns out he did just fine. You could tell he was scared, but with some encouragement he let the hygienist clean his teeth. There were no tears shed. She did have to spend some time on his front teeth, which she said is likely from iron supplements (which Owen did have to take when he was younger). He really enjoyed the train motif of the office (there was even a train going around the ceiling), and of course the surprise toy at the end. If you ask him now if he enjoyed going to the dentist he'll give you a smile and say "yes!".

And then on Thursday, more dental news: Sophie got her first tooth! For real this time! Which seemed to explain why she was getting up in the middle of the night. Overall I think she handled the pain fairly well.

Friday was another first for Sophie: her first trip out of town. Unfortunately the reason for the trip was not happy (my brother's wife's father passed away), but it was good to give Sophie (and Owen) some new experiences. Owen was able to play with his cousin Ben, who turns two this summer. I was able to see my brother and spend time with my parents. It was also enjoyable to see my sister-in-law's family, albeit under bad circumstances. Keith had to work so he did not join us, which meant that the car trips were just me and the kids. I timed it so that they were both napping, which worked well. It's gotten easier to do long car rides with Owen, even if he's awake. He is at the point where we can carry on a conversation (or play some verbal games) to pass the time. I wasn't sure how Sophie would handle all the excitement, but she did great. She wasn't happy if strangers held her, but I imagine that's normal to a certain extent. (I do worry that she is too attached to me since we are together so much. There were several people who commented on how lovingly she looked at me.) It was a bit stressful having to pack everything for the two of them, but aside from the annoyance of changing so many diapers, the trip wasn't difficult. Feeding for Sophie went pretty well.

Which brings me to Sophie's next first: taking over 5 oz from the bottle!! A whole feeding!! Lately she has been taking 2-3 oz. She has never taken more than 4 oz before this weekend. After we returned from Tucson on Saturday, we went to one of Owen's friend's birthday party, which is where she took the full bottle. Before this weekend I would have thought that eating in unfamiliar surroundings would be hard for Sophie, but she proved me wrong. This is a huge step for Sophie. I realize we still have a ways to go, but this brings me hope that Sophie will be a normal eater some day. [Update: She took another 5 oz on Monday at home!]

About a week ago I had bought some "Cars" underwear for Owen. I figured that Sunday would be a good day to try a no diaper day (his first) since we were planning on being home all day. Owen does well with going to the bathroom on the potty, but we always have to ask him to get on the potty(and sometimes he doesn't want to). I don't think he's ever said "I need to go potty" on his own. I take that back; he says it at night when we are trying to put him to bed as a stalling tactic. He only had one accident today, which didn't turn him off to wearing underwear, so I think we're making progress. He still hasn't asked to go potty, but hopefully that will come with time.

So a very busy few days!!

From O So February 2011

Owen getting ready to get his teeth cleaned.

From O So February 2011

Showing off his pearly whites!

From O So February 2011

Underwear!!

From O So February 2011

You can't see the tooth, but it's in there.


A few words about Rick Eck, who passed away from mesothelioma. Rick's smile was infectious and his hospitality generous. Rick and Sue have always welcomed us like family. Rick's obituary says that he was an advocate for people with special needs. I wouldn't be suprised if he had something to do with Sophie taking a full bottle. Last time I saw Rick he took me sailing on his boat in San Diego. I had mentioned that it had been two years since I had sailed (due to Owen being born). He told me not to let that happen again and that anytime I'd like to go sailing he would take me. Rick, it will hopefully be a while until I can take you up on that offer, but I'm holding you to it!

From San Diego August 2009

Rick with his wife, Sue, and grandson, Ben.

One Smart Cookie

Owen is not yet potty trained. He can be resistant to doing any kind of art project on his own, particularly drawing/painting, wanting us to do it instead. He has no interest really in drinking from a regular cup. He doesn't like big swings at all and has been reluctant about going down slides since last summer. He doesn't like brushing his teeth, having his hair combed, or his face washed. He will not sit in the bathtub, but doesn't like showers.

But one thing Owen can do is read.

I posted on FB two weeks ago about this new skill (January 24). That was the night that it finally clicked that putting sounds together equals words (the definition of reading that I'm going with. others might have a stricter definition). Joanne had taken Sophie with her food shopping as I was getting Owen ready for bed. As part of our routine, I read him three books. On that particular night, I started with Hop on Pop. I started on page 1, and we sounded out the letters.

"uh... puh... UP," Owen said.

I was a little surprised, but just figured he knew how it started. So we did the next word.

"puh... uh... puh... PUP," he said.

I congratulated him, giving him a high five, but still thought he just memorized the words on that page, so I skipped 10 pages ahead. In the next 20 minutes, with some prodding from me on what to do (what letters do you see? what sounds do they make?), he proceeded to read ball, wall, jim, bed, pat, sat, hat, bat, long, stop, snack (almost), and fast (which wasn't). And he was definitely reading--sounding out all the words and putting them together and saying the word proudly. "Fast" took a bit of time, as he kept on saying "frast". We went on to try the went, tent, sent page, but for whatever reason, he struggled with the font of the E's in the book, so we stopped.

The next morning, we did one word with the fridge letters, just to make sure it was a repeatable skill. It was. Since then, he has shown more interest in spelling, stopping in the hallways at school "what word is that?" or saying the letters of signs he sees. We've even started on a few two-letter sound combinations. He understands "sh" and "ng" well, which allowed him to read the word "shopping". And today, while over at my parents, I tried the more complicated rule of what "e" does to other vowels, using "pancake" as an example. That one may take a little time to stick.

So how did we get him to read before three, assuming we can take "credit"?

Owen has read to a lot from the beginning. I started reading him A Prayer for Owen Meany not too long after birth, and made pretty good progress, though we stopped for a time when he was 8-10 months, as he got too fidgety around then (digression: Sophie's World is still in progress. It just doesn't read out loud that well. We got Sophie the Awesome from a book fair at Owen's school, which is much better, and it's part of a series, so more to come there). Into his ones, we heard the bar for reading was 20 minutes a day. We were doing that before breakfast! He went through a long phase where on days he was at home, at least 2 hours were spent reading. When I picked him up from school in his old class, we'd always ready 2-3 books before leaving, among other things, so pickup time always lasted longer than drop off time. He did go through a phase where he only read at bedtime (late spring/early summer last year, I think), but he got back into character.

The other big learning tool has been Fridge Phonics. We got a set, apparently for his second birthday (I thought we got it earlier than that, but that's what the Amazon order history says), which he's liked a lot. My mother's friend then gave her two sets, one upper case and one lower case, that was an older version of the set. I remember one weekend, maybe around June, Owen stayed over and when I went over to pick him up, he had all 52 letters on the floor and we were sorting them into the upper case bag and the lower case bag. He got pretty much all of them, on his own, into the correct bags. Shortly thereafter, I took those letters with me, with the plan to swap them for my set, as I wanted Owen to have a set of lower case letters, having read that helps reading skills develop, since 90+% of letters are lower case. I never did give my mom the set we had at our house (sorry Mom, but you have a grandson that can read. I'm sure the inconvenience was worth it), so Owen has had three letter sets to play with, which we've put to good use (this is from October when Sophie came home):

From Sophie comes home

But the biggest factor is our time. I think the list at the beginning is instructive. In some respects, those things that require active repetition (art, cleaning, etc) we did less of or didn't demand enough from him (making it a passive activity for him), but passive repetition (reading) was easy. So Owen has been very advanced in a lot of memory-based areas. In his class of ~14 last year, he was the best at shapes and colors, knew the most animals, and recognized all the letters around 2, and had most sounds down not too long after that. Miss Barb, his teacher, told us she thought he'd be reading by the time he was three, so that gave us a goal, though we didn't look too hard for material to help us accomplish that. We just kept on doing what we were doing--playing with letters and reading.

When people commented on how smart he was, I would always (and still do) downplay it a bit, stating what he was/is doing is displaying a good memory. And I have no idea if it's an outstanding memory, or just the things that he remembers get placed into the "smart" bucket (shapes, colors, letters, words), rather than the more "cute" bucket (singing a long with songs, random recollections) etc. As a person who people think has a good memory (which isn't actually true--I just openly share what I do remember, not what i don't), I know that's not the end all of intelligence, success or happiness.

Going back to Owen's reluctance to do art projects on his own, when we want him to draw, or paint, or make something with play-doh, he'll often say "I can't", and part of me wonders if he wouldn't be better off just doing that with more confidence, even if it meant he wasn't reading until he was 4. Is he that developmentally advanced? Or is it just tradeoffs between traits and habits because of how we allot time to them? Will Sophie be more advanced than Owen in some of those things because she gets to see him and/or a change in how we divide time with active and passive repetition activities? I guess this puts me firmly in the nurture, rather than nature category.