10 years

How can it be that 10 years have gone by?  Seems like yesterday we were in our mid 20's and just
starting out on our adventure together.  Feels silly that it had to take four years for us to realize we
couldn't live without our best friend.  Look where we are now.  10 years on, almost seven years of marriage under our belts and a crazy, silly, loving five year old.  I am so thankful for the last 10 years.  They have been some of the most wonderful, happy, sometimes trying, crazy and fun filled years of my life.  We have changed and grown up together.  He still makes me laugh like he always has and I love him for it.  I adore the way he loves our boy and how he's still crazy about me.  And yes I know 10 years is nothing compared to some, but it's our start.  Hopefully we will have another 50 plus years to act like kids together.  To drive around drinking Slurpee's listening to Queen together.  To drive each other crazy together.  To watch our kiddo grow up together.  To watch our some day grandchildren grow up together.  I love you more then you'll ever know my love.  Thank you for everything you have done for me since we met 14 years ago and still continue to do today.  You are wonderful, loving, hardworking, silly, aggravating, frustrating, kind and immature at times, but I love you still.  Here is to whatever this crazy life throws our way and the years to come.
I love you.

Flys

Maxton is a fast growing young lad.  We bought him a toddler bed in March and by June, he had outgrown it.  Looking back we should have just bought him a twin bed then and not even bothered with the toddler bed.  Live and learn.

When we decided to get him a new bed, I decided that it was also time to change the decor of his room.  I love his Where the Wild Things Are decorations so much.  But since that was how we decorated his room when he was a baby it was time to change it up.  Originally when I thought about changing his room I had wanted to do vintage robots.  He has a few Funko Pop robots on a shelf in his room but I was having a hard time finding anything else that wasn't out of my budget expensive.  I happened to be at Home Goods one day with a friend when I came across a canvas wrap and fell in love with it.

Vintage (and non-vintage) planes became to new decor idea.  A long time ago I had played around with the idea of doing planes, I just wasn't sure if I would be able to find anything other then model planes and a new pictures.  Then came Pinterest.  That black hole that we all know and love.  (Funny side note, a couple girlfriends and I who got married around the same time, think that we should get do-overs on our wedding planning and get to have Pinterest weddings.)  So many awesome pictures and ideas flooded my screen.  Sadly several of the things that I would like to get are still a bit out of my price range.  I would love to find a replica propeller but they are crazy expensive!

Probably my favorite thing in his room right now is the duvet cover I scored from Pottery Barn Kids.  I love to peruse their website every once in a while and dream buying all the things for Max's room.  Most of the time however, the things I would like to purchase are not on sale and even some things that are on sale are still too much.  I happened to be looking at bedding 4th of July weekend and they were having a big sale.  Lots of stuff on clearance and then an extra 40% off clearance items.  Can it be I thought?  Can I actually purchase the duvet cover I want?  Sure enough!  Ended up paying $32 for a $70 duvet cover.  Not too bad.  And it could not be more perfect for his room.  When I had mentioned to my mom about wanting to redecorate Max's room the first thing she said was "So I suppose you're going to want to paint in there too?"  Nope.  I LOVE his two orange walls.  Most of the vintage planes things I find are blue and red.  But the PBK duvet cover is blue and green and orange!  I don't think it could be any more perfect for his room!  Even the curtains in his room go with the duvet cover!  They have kind of a vintage feel to them.

This week I decided that I wanted to add something to his room.  Pictures for the walls are still coming, I just need to make up my mind which ones I want.  I have a marquee U in our living room and Max loves turning it on and looking at it.  So why not get one for his room.  He had a big orange M in his room already so I wanted to find some that spelled out a word.  Max and I headed to Michaels to see what they had.  In their summer clearance section there was a couple shelves with buffed silver marquee letters that would have been perfect.  Alas because this was the clearance section I was only able to find one letter I needed.  There were a couple other styles of marquee letters but I couldn't find one that I liked.  Then I came upon a display of DIY sets that were also on clearance!  Yippy!  And thank goodness I was able to dig and find all three letters that I needed!  The sets come with stencils for the letters so that you can use scrap book paper for the background or paint them.  I was hoping to find some paper with some sort of airplanes which I was unable to do.  We even went to Craft Wearhouse which has a very large selection of scrap book paper and they had none.  I was surprised and sad.  Instead I picked out some vintage looking stripes in red, white and blue.  I showed Max and he happened to see the other side and turned it over.  Dark blue with vintage looking little stars.  Perfect!  Thankfully it didn't take very long to put them together.  Although I was missing my Exacto knife when it came to cutting the little circles out for the lights.  A regular razor blade was a tad hard to work with.  I am so happy with how they turned out and how great they look in Max's room!

I just love the little stars.  Maybe if some day I find paper with planes I will change it out.  For now I think they look great.  I had thought about using them for a night light since Max sleeps with one on, but they are too bright.  Even just one is too bright  I would love to get this night light for him some day from PBK but again not in my budget.

Now to decide on pictures.  I'm leaning toward some cool patent blue prints I've found and some cool photos of WW2 planes.  Thank you once again Pinterest, you haven't let me down yet.

Maxton, our blueberry eyed boy

I'm sure that most who read this, if anyone does, knows who Maxton is. Our energetic little boy is 3 1/2.  As every parent says, where has the time gone?  And stop growing up so quickly.  The days have just zipped by since he was born.

Over the last 3 1/2 years it has been a great adventure watching Max grow and change into a rambunctious toddler.  He has always been just a little behind in his development but never behind when it comes to height and weight.  The last time we weighed him, about 2 weeks ago, he was 38.6 pounds. I just measured his height and he is just shy of 42 inches tall.  He is quite frequently mistaken for a 4 sometimes 5 year old because he is so big.  With that there seems to come expectations that he can do certain things.  I can understand.  However, coming from someone who does not know him it's hard.  One of the biggest expectations is speech.

Max is speech delayed or language delayed actually.  He has pretty much always been able to make sounds and baby talk when he was little.  He started saying hi and a couple other words fairly early on but little else. I have always been concerned about him talking being an issue.  I've been told by my MIL that this is a common thing with the males in her family, so I wasn't completely surprised.  I was however, surprised how it would affect the three of us.  Also in turn my parents and several others in our lives.  The amount of frustration that comes along with this has been overwhelming at times.

Taking him to Sabbath School and having the teacher ask him to say his memory verse, telling the cashier at Fred Meyer thank you for his sticker, telling someone his name, it's just assumed that he can do these things.  But he can't.  The looks some people give him and us hurt when he can't respond in the way they expect.  And it hurts because it makes me feel like I've done something wrong, even when I know I haven't.  It is very hard not to compare him to other kids his age, and even younger.  I have shed many a tear in frustration and sadness when I feel like I can't help him.  I try to not let him see that but when he does he is the sweetest boy.  He hugs and kisses me and you can tell how empathetic he is and I love him for it.

We decided early on to only teach Max two signs to help him.  He knows please and thank you.  I did not want to teach him a whole bunch of words and have him come to completely rely on signing.  Sometimes I regret not teaching him more since he has been struggling with speaking but I'm now glad we didn't teach him more.

At his 3 year well appointment our pediatrician had some concerns.  And suggested we see about some therapy.  We had already begun the process of having him tested or evaluated for speech therapy through the public school system which was recommended to us by a family friend.  When we first thought about putting him in some sort of therapy I had no idea how we would pay for such a thing.  And no idea that we could do it through the school district.  I am so thankful that the public schools offer these programs.  Without them, we would have been lost.  We had his first evaluation before Christmas just to see if he qualified for services.  After he turned 3, two lovely ladies who are both speech therapists came to our house for a more in depth evaluation.  They determined that he would definitely benefit from speech therapy and set us up with our first appointment.  Since the middle of January, Max has been going once a week to have therapy with a very nice lady, Anne Marie at the primary school down the street from us.  I feel we have been so blessed to have her to work with.  She has been so patient and understanding with Max.  Yes, it is her job as a speech therapist, but she has been great.

Since he started therapy, his language skills have improved a lot.  He still has a long way to go though.  He still struggles with full sentences and calling people by their names.  He prefers to call most people mom and has just recently started calling Zac by his first name.  We figure it's what he hears everyone else call him, so he can too.  He knows lots of words and is always picking up new ones.  Like today, I set up his small play tent in his room and now he won't stop saying tent.

Last week we received a progress report of sorts from his speech therapist.  Since his therapy is through the public school, he doesn't have therapy during the summer.  She said she is very impressed and happy with how he has progressed over the last six months and can't wait to see how he has been doing when the school year starts again.

In the meantime, we just take it one day at a time.  Working on colors and letters and every day words.  He still uses the word for the sound something makes when talking about it.  Beep Beep is car, hoo hoo is owl (or all birds really), woof is dog and meow is cat, things like that.  He's slowly getting there but this will be something he probably struggles with for a long time.

I came across this article on FB awhile back and it so perfectly fit how I feel about this whole thing I wasn't sure how else I could say it.  So if you're interested, it's a great read.  http://www.scarymommy.com/mom-speech-delayed-child/

Thanks for reading.

Welcome to the family

I have started and abandoned four other blogs before now.  One of them I was writing in while we were planning our wedding, so I guess I'm okay that that one was "abandoned".  I began another one shortly before I turned thirty-one, just over two years ago.  I had really hoped that I could keep up with it but life gets in the way and I honestly forgot about it.  So here I am, starting a new one.  The idea of writing a family blog came to mind several months ago, but I wasn't sure what I would write about exactly.  I don't have any great words of parenting wisdom to share with the world like some parenting/family blogs I have read, just our experiences as a family of three.

Mainly this will be about our adventures as a family, married life and raising a bouncy, happy, emotional, speech delayed little boy.  Some ranting perhaps, and some raving too.  Not entirely sure why I chose to start now when the little is almost three and a half.  Then again, why not now.  This is as good a time as any.

I love our family of three and wouldn't change anything.  And just to make things clear, I love having an only child.  Yes, I would love to have another but we have decided to make him our one and only.  And that is perfectly okay.  While lots of friends are having their second and third little's, one friend just had her eighth, ninth and tenth (the most adorable triplets I've ever seen), we are quiet content with our one.  He is the light of our lives and we are so grateful, thankful and blessed to have him.

Thanks for reading.  Come back soon for more adventures in the life of The Uhacz Three.