randomly chaotic and frequently mundane

Gage lost his first tooth tonight.? I’m probably more excited than I should be.? What’s the going rate for the tooth fairy these days?? Anyone got change for a 20?? It was so cute though, cause he was trying to put it back in.? When I asked for it, he handed it right over and opened wide so I could put it back in for him.? Sorry little… it just doesn’t work that way.? The new tooth is already cutting through though, so he’ll probably forget about the first one in a day or so.? Of course, who knows when the second one is coming out…

Gage is doing really good.? Making all kinds of progress and the patch is helping a lot.? He’s not as aggressive as he was, not nearly.? He now knows his address and he’s working on his phone number and his birthday.? He’s writing better and hold onto your socks… READING.

We sit and read books all the time.? He sounds out the words, even the hard ones and when I correct his pronounciation, he repeats the word as I said it.? The first time he did it, I cried my eyes out.? I was so happy and proud.? Even now, I want to cry when he brings me a book and says “greed” (that’s how he says read).

gage is doing great in school so far.? the first 2 weeks have gone really well.? he’s right back into the swing of it all and doing good.? he’s talking more, i’m trying to get him to talk on the phone so he can talk to daddy every now and then.? so far no dice.? he runs from it when it’s on speaker and while he’ll listen for a minute to the regular handset, he puts it down and walk away without a word usually.? his two friends from last year are in his class again this year, which is nice.? they apparently hang out together during sensory room time and other activities.? their mom’s and i are going to try to do some play dates this year with the three of them, which should be fun.

we’re contemplating ritalin.? respiridal and ritalin were recommended to help with focus and aggression.? the issue was that he won’t take medicine.? whenever he’s sick, i have to slip tylenol, cough medicine, etc into his drink and hope he drinks it all.? he won’t swallow pills, won’t take liquids… but apparently, ritalin is available in a patch.? i’m thinking it’s worth a try.? the focus especially will help him learn more, might even help him to communicate even better.

Gage put himself in the bath.? He plugged the tub and started the water.? Then he got undressed and got in all by himself.? Now there’s a kid who loves to have his nightly bath!? When he gets home from school, he doesn’t touch the bus tire anymore.? He just runs up on the neighbors porch and sits on one of the chairs.? It’s cute.? They’re ok with it, which is good.? I think they think it’s funny, actually.

I keep a little sculpey out for him to play with.? He makes things out of it.? I know he makes fish and castles.? I don’t knwo what the rest of the stuff he makes is.? I’m trying to figure it out.? I’m hoping that eventually he’ll leave the little figures as they are when he walks away and I can bake them.? So far, when he leaves the sculpey he smashes it up into a ball or something again.? It’s a shame.? I want to bake some of these and make them permanant!? I’ll get them eventually.? Maybe I should try some of that crayola modeling clay… it doesn’t require baking.

Ok, I just have to post about this stuff… Gage is adorable (I’m sure I’ve mentioned that), but even more so while he’s discovering language and trying to talk more.? Much of what he says is repetition, but sometimes he babbles on and on and I just KNOW he’s trying to tell me something.? Lately he’s taken to trying to get me to repeat after him.? I’m doing it, because maybe if I say what he’s saying it’ll start to make sense.? If I can understand what he’s trying to say, maybe I can correct the way he’s saying it and then we’ll be on the road to better communication.

Anyhoo… Gage likes to count.? He’ll sit there and count to 30 over and over again.? one… two… three… through the single digits to the teens, fourteen… fifteen… sixteen… and into the twenties, where it cracks me up, twenty seven… twenty eight… twenty nine…

twenty ten.

I don’t know where he gets it.? He’s said thirty before.? As a matter of fact, I’ve heard him count as high as thirty five.? Maybe he got it from one of his classmates.? I dunno, but it makes me giggle (although I DO correct him).

Today he repeated some phrases from one of his sign language DVDs, descriptionss of the signs to help remember how to do the sign.? The first one was milk.? To sign the word milk, hold your hand in front of you and squeeze.? Like you’re squeezing an udder, get it?? Milk.? The description is “Like squeezing milk from a cow.”? Gage was signing milk and said “like squeaking milk from a cow.”? That brought a good giggle.

Later he was doing the same thing with monkey.? To sign monkey, well… it’s basically the monkey imitation we all did as kids.? Both hands making a “scratching” motion under the arms.? The description is “like a monkey scratching himself.”? Gage signs it great, but when he repeats the description it comes out “like a monkey crapping himself.”? Yes, it’s stupid potty humor and I should be ashamed, but I laughed for about 20 minutes the first time he said that.

Cute, no?? He certainly makes every day interesting.? But at least he’s trying, even the lady at Conoco commented last time we were in that since he’s started school he seems more extroverted than he was over the summer.? Of course he was standing there babbling at her while he was trying to decide which color bag of Skittles he wanted.

At some point last night, Gage came in my room and slept with me.? He brought a blanket with him and laid on top of my comforter.? For some reason, he was curled up by my feet, and his legs were over mine.? Tiger was curled up next to me with his head on my stomach when I woke up.? Which was also cute.? I think Gage started out cuddled with Tiger but he moved, actually.? Tiger tends to move away from Gage’s cuddles.? Speaking of cuddles, Gage is turning into a real cuddle bug.? He sits with me on the couch all the time and puts my arm around him and snuggles up against me.? He’s fallen asleep a number of times like that over the past week.? Not just at night either.? While he’s been sick he’s cuddled up and napped like that.? So I grabbed a few Z’s myself a couple of times.? It’s nice.

Gage s loving Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.? He keeps asking for it.? Last night he was singing the song Santa sings (jingle jingle jingle, you’ll hear my sleighbells ring…).? My mom has one of those little animated santas who walks back and forth and? sings that.? I wonder where she got it.? Of course she’s also got one that sings something like “jump into Christmas” and jumps up and down.? I remember when we were there last time my mom activated it for Gage and Woody was jumping along with it.? It cracked me up like you wouldn’t believe.? Seriously, you’d have had to be there to know just how funny it was.? Anyhoo, Gage seems to love Rudolph.? I wish I had more holiday movies to put on for him to watch.? As it is, I’ll have to be content with whatever they show on TV this year.

I was trying yesterday to get the computer mom and Joe sent me to play DVDs.? It says I need a decoder, so I download and install one.? It doesn’t work.? Frustrating.? I was hoping that I could start playing Gage’s DVDs on it since the DVD player is dead.

Here’s the picture of Gage from? Halloween.? It was taken post trick or treat, since he wouldn’t hold still for a picture before we went trick or treating.? Cute, no?? Not too bad for a costume made with no pattern.? I think it came out pretty good, and he made an adorable little bat.? Maybe next year I can dress him up as a character from Star Wars — since he seems to love it so much.? Of course that could change by next year… still, the tentative plan for next year is Luke Skywalker or Han Solo or something along those lines.? He’s already got a light saber.