Logan re-connected with his Teddy a few weeks ago when he found him in one of the toy bins; he now sleeps and goes everywhere with him.  He uses Teddy to dance around and says hello to us just like he did with the original Teddy.  Connor, as a copycat, wanted a bear too; so we handed him the one given by aunt Julie.  Now he is in love with his “Bear Bear”.  Whenever he sees him, he calls “Bear Bear” and gives him a big squeeze.  He looks for him in the bed every night so he can sleep with him.  The past couple of nights, Connor asked me to hand him both Bear Bear and Mickey so he could hug both of them while I read him bedtime stories.  When Stuart went back in to check on Connor tonight, he wanted to be picked up along with both Bear Bear and Mickey to get a daddy hug.  

     Connor loves to copy every move of Logan, and now his new thing is going potty.  After watching Logan using the toilet before bath, Connor now wants to do it too.  He waits patiently for his turn, and is excited when I pick him up to aim into the toilet.  So far for the past 5 nights, nothing comes out yet, but I still cheer for Connor; he is so proud and is then ready to go into the bathtub.  Now Stuart and I can even use “go to potty” as a way to get Connor running into the bathroom each night.

     The first night we were at the grandparents, I decided to let the boys sleep all together with me.  I thought they would like this special treat as Mckayla and Marcus always love sleeping together, but I guess I was wrong.  The boys were excited to sleep with me, but were indifferent about having each other on the bed.  The bedtime reading was tough as Logan was interested to read one of his level’s books, but Connor did not have enough attention to sit through too many words on a page.  So I finally rushed through a book together, and we all laid down for bed.  Connor fell asleep relatively fast, but he was such a flipper that I had to keep an eye on him throughout the night to keep him from kicking Logan.  He was also a light sleeper at times.  When Logan asked for water before he fell asleep, Connor popped right up and said “wa-wa”.  They both drank and finally all fell asleep.  During the night, Logan asked for water again, and Connor popped up once again asking for it too.  We then slept through the night fine until Logan woke up early at 6am.  He tried to stay in bed, but finally woke up poor Connor at 6:30am.  We then decided to sleep separately the other two nights there.

     Taking one day off along with the boy’s one day spring break, we had a four day weekend to drive down south to visit the grandparents.  The drive was smooth; Logan was very excited to see the grandparents, asking for them periodically.  The boys did well, no whining; we made it down in total of 6 hours including a lunch break.  Logan warmed up to the grandma and grandpa right away; Connor was more shy.  We spent the afternoon and evening playing at home with the grandparents.

     The weather was beautiful this weekend, so we and Grandma decided to hit the beach in the morning.  As I was not prepared for such nice weather, we had to go pick up some shorts for the boys first.  Logan did not need any warming up at the beach; he started playing with the sands, and later proceeded to go walk in the water with daddy.  Connor was a bit more reserved, wanted to be held by me and played together initially.  But before long, Connor had a blast with the sand too.  We spent almost two hours at the beach before picking up lunch and heading home.  We all took a long nap, then spent the afternoon playing in the yard.  Grandma prepared us a great meal to celebrate a belated birthday for Grandpa.  Andrew and Julie were sick, therefore their family were not able to join us.  Logan and Connor were so happy to spot the birthday cake after we finished dinner.  They were so silly and giggling as they ran back and forth to look at the cake.  We sang to grandpa and enjoyed the chocolate cake together. 

     On Sunday, we thought about going to the beach again to take advantage of the beautiful weather.  But surprisingly, Logan kept saying “we went to the beach already, we should go to the park”.  Before we left the house in the morning, Logan started to complain of back pain initially, then turned into a tummy pain.  We did not think Logan was faking it as he showed some discomfort on his face while holding the areas.  This was the first time Logan ever had such a complaint, so we were worried.  However Logan still interested to go to the park, so we did.  It was a nice big park locally that we visited.  Logan was playing well as usual which finally eased our mind and he didn’t complain about it again.  We went home to have lunch and to take a huge nap before our afternoon activity, an egg hunt at grandma’s beautiful backyard.  Logan was very excited this year for the hunt; he ran for his first found before Connor was even ready.  Connor did not take long to learn the concept, and followed Logan’s lead walking around the yard to find more eggs.  They both had fun filling their baskets with eggs, and were eager to look inside for their prizes.  Both boys were into ninjas lately, therefore, their biggest joy was finding a few ninjas in the eggs.  We spent the evening hanging out together.  The boys enjoyed watching grandpa flying a helicopter in the room, and they both wanted grandma reading stories to them.

     We spent more time with the grandparents on Monday morning before we packed up to start our journey back.  Connor managed to take another nice walk with grandma before we had to leave.  Logan was very sad to have to say goodbyes to grandma and grandpa; Connor was very good giving them goodbye hugs.  During this drive, the boys did not sleep as long; they spent more times playing together and fighting for toys as well.  We decided to take our time, stopping twice to let them walk around.  After a total of 7 hours and a small meltdown from Logan, we made it home.  We spent sometime in the yard stretching out before enjoying dinner at home.  Afterward, for some reasons, Logan suddenly got upset by something small, and set off his worst tantrum ever.  He was in his meltdown for an entire hour while Stuart tried to deal with him.  I had to keep the nosy Connor occupied before he kept wanting to check on Logan.  It was sad and tiring to wrap up the nice weekend this way.  Stuart and I can finally rest up now.

     We celebrated Scottie’s birthday after dinner today.  We sang to him and enjoyed the cupcakes on his behalf.  The boys loved the cupcakes; Connor even licked his plate.  Scottie did enjoy some tuna afterward.  Happy Birthday Scottie!

    We received a written report on Logan’s assessment from school yesterday; it was quite thorough which I was impressed.  The teachers’ observations were similar to what we think of Logan too.  It was nice to have read that before going in for the conference today, so I could be prepared.  We went over the scheduled time again as the director had many personal stories to share.  The conference was productive.  They felt that Logan has improved dramatically since we had the conference in Nov.  He is participating more in group activities, and is being more active with outside plays.  He plays well with his friends, and he shows great interest in drawing and writing.  They claimed that Logan is a kid who is “slow to warm up”; he often stays on the sideline to observe until he is ready to join in.  Once he does, he follows instruction well and plays well.  They gave me some hints how to work with his preference, and as well as how to redirect him when he gets disappointed sometimes.  I also got some advice how to encourage Logan to play more independently.