Colin The Crawler

Tonight, as I was cleaning up the dinner table, I heard this:
Ellie: "Mom...where's your camera? I NEED IT!"
Jayna: "Run, Colin, RUN!"

As I peeked into the playroom, I saw Ellie videoing Colin so Andy could see what he officially learned today....Enjoy!

Jayna hates oranges?!

Recently Jayna has told us how she hates oranges, and they make her want to gag and throw up. I told her that ever since she first tried an orange (7-17-2003!), she has LOVED them! I had to find these photos tonight to prove it to her that her prior experiences with oranges have been happy!

Testing Milk.....

If you look close, you will see a little pink dot (blueberry yogurt!) on Ellie's hand. As we're trying to figure out if it is safe for Colin to have dairy residue on him, we determined that we needed to know if Ellie still has an allergic reaction when she comes into contact with dairy.

2 days ago, I had cheese on my hands and touched her fingers without her knowing it...and nothing happened.

Today, I put a pink smear of Yo Baby milk based yogurt on her hand, with her knowing....and still, nothing happened.

Being the person I am, I said "I want to smear some by your mouth now!" and Ellie immediately said "NO! I don't want a reaction! I need to be TESTED by the doctor first!"

So, we can only hope that she is slowly outgrowing her milk allergy....this is huge though, to have milk touch her and not have a reaction!!! I have always said that IF she could outgrow the contact reactions, we'd be able to do so much more! YAY ELLIE!!!!

UPDATE...01-29-09...Tonight Andy rubbed provolone cheese, cottage cheese and ice cream on her face....after a few minutes, her face was bright red, itchy and the hives were appearing. OH WELL....she was a trooper to endure it (she was SCARED!) and we know that ONE day, she'll be ok with dairy products! For some reason, it's always the ice cream that sets her over the edge. We don't know if it's actually the ice cream or if the ice cream just comes along when her skin has had enough of the dairy and starts to react. At any rate, at least we know now...no milk residue for Ellie!

He is FREE!

Free from the swaddling, that is!!!! At the 'old age' of 8 months, we can finally say we no longer swaddle Colin to put him to sleep!!!! Who would have thought that his addiction to being wrapped would last so long?!

We never wrap him in a swaddle anymore, and we don't even lay his blanket over him--this picture captured 1 of the 2 ways we see him sleeping. Either with the blanket on his back (he must be a magician!) or with the blanket over his face (and when I find him like THAT, I get scared!).

He is also addicted to the pacifier and again, we are CELEBRATING that after having 2 very addicted thumb sucking girls! Now...if only the rest of the house got as much sleep as Colin!

DID YOU KNOW????

• DYK that all 4 Glynn children have had some sort of food allergy/sensitivity at some point in their life?

• DYK that Colin was extremely fussy the first 8 weeks of his life?

• DYK that because of this, we stopped nursing and put him on Alimentum, a hypoallergenic formula?

• DYK that toward the end of July, Colin stopped his nonstop crying?

• DYK that last week, the lab at Theda Clark poked Colin 3 different times, trying to just get 4 mLs of blood?

• DYK that Colin's blood was sent out to a different lab and a pediatric RAST (Blood allergy test) test was run on it?

• DYK that the pediatrician called me yesterday morning?

• DYK that when he asked me how I was doing, I told him that I would answer that question once I knew what the test results were?!

• DYK that on all of the foods that the RAST checked, Colin is not allergic to ANY of them? (THIS is huge!)
  

• DYK that I was then able to say "I'm doing GREAT!"?!

• DYK that today, for breakfast, COLIN ate milk based yogurt with NO fussiness or allergic reaction?!

• DYK that we are praising God for this?!

• AND....DYK....that we also know that Ellie's day for this will someday come?! :)
  

Snow days....I mean COLD days....

The last 2 days have been no-school days for the girls--it is WAY too cold for children to be out! Jayna was on 'snack duty' for the kindergarten this week and she was very bummed to miss out on bringing treats these past 2 days. In fact, she did shed tears each morning, really wanting to go to school! But, once we got past that, all 4 children have happily enjoyed these days semi-trapped in our house!

We were able to ALL watch Ava's tap class--she was the only child who showed up yesterday! And today, the 'treat' was eating AT McDonald's before we ran a quick errand to Wal Mart! Ava and Colin have been able to get in their full naps--something that NEVER happens during the week as they both get woken up to go pick up the girls from school. And, I discovered something very interesting--it is amazing how fast chores and piano practicing gets done...when a child is desiring to play their Nintendo DS!

Colin also mastered something, although I'm quite sure it is unrelated to the no school days! He now is able to move all around a room doing a "half full crawl, half army crawl". We tried to play a game with the big girls last night and it was near impossible--we could not keep him out of the cards. We set up "The Trapper" and so far, he seems to love it. But, I'm sure that he will soon realize that everytime we are doing something 'interesting', he's being put in the trapper!

Brrrr....it is COLD here in Wisconsin!

DiViNg!

Ellie is taking diving lessons at the YMCA and just loves it! She had her 2nd class last night and Andy captured some pictures/video of her. She is such a water-lover and is willing to try ANYTHING! For your enjoyment, here is a picture of her diving and then video of her doing a back dive. I was so proud of her for doing it by herself; she was frustrated that she didn't keep her legs straight! Go Ellie!!!

Ellie's video of Ava tapping....

Or is it adding character to the wood floors?! Enjoy!

"I want to be a tap dancer when I grow up!"

Today, Ava has spent the day beaming.

When she learned how to walk, she discovered tap shoes in our dress up box. They were WAY too big on her...and when she learned to talk...she said "I want to learn to tap dance!"

She's had a love-hate relationship with those tap shoes, and so have we. WE have endured hearing them CRASH to the floor as she drops them off her feet during a meal. WE have taken many deep breaths, saying "Our wood floors now have character" from all the tap dings. AVA has lived in the tap shoes like many live in slippers. AVA has also suffered a pretty bad fall--because of the tap shoes. Last year, she was wearing her beloved shoes, stepped up onto the bathroom stool to turn on the light and slid off, onto the tile floor...hitting her mouth as she slid to the ground. It was during a blizzard; the pediatrician's office told us that it would take us too long to get there to have her teeth/mouth checked out--she was gushing blood and we could not tell if her teeth had been jarred. We frantically called the Schinschke's who live 1 mile away and Scott agreed to take a look at her in their house. Andy drove her over, spewing blood all over her jacket, and Ava was checked out in the Schinshke's laundry room--where the brightest light was! Ava still talks about "Dr. Schinschke looked in my mouth and I had to lay on top of the washing machine!" Turns out, that fall created a gash in her lip which did get infected, and her 2 front teeth are STILL loose! But, the love for those tap shoes continued.

Finally, today, she started her 1st tap lesson. Needless to say, she loved it, she can't wait until next week for her next lesson. The big girls have been talking about what they want to be when they grow up...and Ava's response was "I want to be a tap dancer!"

Cutting a boy's hair is much different than fixing the girls' hair!

Yesterday, we noticed that Colin's hair was looking a little feathery and it was driving us nuts. If you think of Andy's hair, you know it is NOT LONG at all......and now, Colin is following in Andy's footsteps.

Andy got out the one and only pair of lefty scissors we own--for paper (!) and he started trimming the "feathers". He didn't get very far as Colin was very grabby, and wouldn't keep his head still. He then went to use the clippers and they were not charged; so the hair cutting fun would have to wait until today.

Andy said to me "Now...don't get any hair-brained ideas and try to CUT his hair with scissors--it's dangerous." Right...I agree....he did say SCISSORS right?!?!?!

So today, I realized that the clippers were charged and I just grabbed them out of the bathroom...and Ellie caught the experience on video. For the life of me, I could not figure out WHY some areas of Colin's head look BALD....??!?!?!?!

When Andy came home, right away, he said "OH! You cut Colin's hair!" And I was quick to say "Not with SCISSORS though!" (And we wonder where our children get their literal behavior!) I then expressed my frustration with the bald spots and after questioning me, Andy realized that I never put a guard on the clippers! He said it was amazing Colin's entire head wasn't bald. He grabbed the clipper guard and we cleaned up the patchy haircut....and boy, does he look like a grown up little boy now!

From now on, the female of the house will style the girls' hair and the male of the house will take care of the lone male boy.....it just works better that way!

Enjoy Ellie's video taping!

McDonald's for lunch on New Year's Day!

Today, while Andy watched the Hawkeyes in their bowl game, I took the girls/Colin to a McDonald's playland. We had a very interesting experience!

Upon entering, we stood behind an elderly lady who turned and saw the 4 children and exclaimed "WHAT a beautiful New Year's blessing!" I smiled, said thank you and proceeded to order the food. I could hear the girls telling her everyone's name, including Colin's!

We proceeded to sit down and begin our meal as we always do: clean the table of any milk residue for Ellie, situate all of the girls' food and get A TON of ketchup. Finally, we prayed and started our meal.

A few minutes later, the nice elderly woman came back to talk to Colin--to his smiling, she said "I bet you know I'm a Great Grandma!" I then asked her how many great grandchildren she has--and she told me 7. I then asked her how many grandchildren she has--only 2, she said! I started talking to her about the # of children her grandchildren have, assuming that 1 of them had at least 4. We chit-chatted about children and then she told me that she has 6 degrees! I was shocked, thinking she meant educational degrees. When I asked her what her degrees were, she said some interesting letters and then leaned in toward me and decoded the letters--they were ALL acronyms of loving the Lord. After she translated her "degrees", she leaned in even closer and said "And I can tell you and your family love the Lord and speak the truth."

WOW. Just what were we doing that showed her that? I can tell you that we had a wonderful lunch, everyone was kind to each other, the girls used manners and talked to anyone who talked to them....just the ordinary expectations right?! It is true, that sometimes you JUST KNOW a stranger's way of life by their actions!

But it made me stop and think...of how important it is to LIVE OUT our beliefs as you never know who is watching! This elderly lady, a stranger to us, really blessed my day today. As she turned to leave, she took my hand and said "You are so blessed...your family is beautiful." She is right, they ARE beautiful and we ARE blessed.

We've always gotten a lot of stares and stranger encounters--I always assumed it was "3 girls in hair bows"...and then as of late, it has been "*4* children....." or "3 girls and then a BOY? That poor boy!". But after today's experience, I'm thinking that it is the love of the Lord that often shines brightly in our family...and what an encouragement to us to continue being who we are!

Happy 2009!

Happy January 1st! This photo is what we observed Colin to be doing last night...with assistance, thankfully! We figure that crawling is in the next couple of weeks....so we are re-evaluating what is at baby level in our house!