Family

Kent and I travelled to Ohio to visit his family. His brother and sister-in-law were up from Tennessee with their four kids. We haven't seen them in about 2 years, so we wanted to make sure we were able to see them while they were only 4 hours away. We packed Alex up in the car again and made the trek back to Ohio. He actually did great in the car, which is not like him. Unfortunately, he has started to scream at bedtime and naps, which makes for very frustrating travel. We ended up having to sit in the room with him until he fell asleep. Other than that, he had a great time getting to know his cousins and another aunt and uncle.

It was quite entertaining to watch Alex observe the kids as they played. Katherine was jumping rope on the porch outside and he just sat there and really observed what she was doing. He did the same thing with David as he was riding the scooter around. Sure enough, after about 2 hours, Alex came back outside, picked up the jump rope and attempted to jump. It was so funny! He then put that down, walked over the the scooter, grabbed the handle bars and then with my help to balance the scooter, put his one foot on the bottom and his other foot he held up, and we took off. I guess we know he takes in what goes on around him.

Taking a look at the wagon


Slide


Katherine playing at the park


Swinging with Grace


Video of the kids playing outside


Video of "the scooter" and homemade ice cream


The Thompson kids


Playing some baseball together


Kent was trying to beat Jeffrey to home plate


Alex has also really started to use his signs to communicate. He still hasn't said any words, but through sign he says: more, eat, dog, banana, baby, signing, time, water, bird, drink, milk, train, car, and sometimes bike and thank you. He actually starts Speech Therapy tomorrow (9/2), so we'll see if the speech therapist (Emily) can work her magic. He will be meeting with her at our house once a week for an hour. I'm not sure what they'll do with a 17 month old, but I trust they know what they're doing.

In other news, our bathroom is finished and looks great! Alex is loving his new bathtub, and so are we as it is much easier to give him a bath now.

We also took Alex to the beach again today. Probably for the last time of the season. He took off when we arrived and LOVED the sand and water. It's funny how in just a few months, he has really changed in how he reacts to things. Unfortunately due to this bedtime routine of screaming and waking up a lot at night, he was tired and only lasted about an hour before he started to get really crabby. We decided to just pack him up and take a walk on the waterfront. We were walking and realized that Alex has drifted off to sleep. About 2 minutes later, there was an ambulance that was leaving the waterfront area (literally RIGHT NEXT to where we were walking) that put his siren on and woke Alex up. He was terrified!!! We calmed him down and kept walking. He seemed to be fine in just a short time.

At the beach


Video of the beach, playing in the waves


More video of the beach