CINDY'S BLOG

My friend, who is scrapbook manufacturer that lives on the other side of the country, made the mistake of sending an order COD to a store out here and accepting a check. The check from this store bounced and she has been getting nothing but lies from the store owner. She is owed over $1000 for the merchandise she sent to this store. I talked to my friend about it over the phone and decided to go check out this store and see if it actually existed and whether or not it had my friend's products on display. (The store owner claimed they were not in her store.) The store is located in LA county about a 1/2 hour from me. I told Talia the store and she wanted to come with me. We took the Miata and drove the address and found the store. Much to my surprise, the store did exist. Based on the fact that they are not in the yellowpages and their website was down, I thought they had gone out of business. We went in the store and looked around. Sure enough, there was a huge display on one wall with a ton of my friend's products. It was a lot of fun playing spy! We took some pictures of the outside of the store and then drove to another scrapbooking store so I could buy some paper for Aidan's baby book. (I did not want to give the other store any of my business!) I emailed the picture of the store to my friend and told her what I saw. I later talked to her about it on the phone. She has been in contact with the police in the city where this store is located and will pass on the information I gave her. The store owner is looking at being charged with a felony for writing that bad check. She likely will also face fraud charges since she had no money in her bank account when she wrote the check. Hopefully, my friend will be able to get back her merchandise that this store has not yet sold.

I had the IFSP meeting today with our service coordinator for Jared and Riley's speech. (IFSP = Individualized Family Service Plan) She is recommending 1 hour of in home speech theraphy per child per week. Most likely this will translate to 30 minutes per child twice a week. She is working to get this all set up next week. Hopefully, we will hear back by Wed. and can get the theraphy going by the end of the week. They have been learning more words lately, but are still way behind where they should be. The main problem seems to be that they copy each others speech and have their own words for things. Getting individual theraphy should help with this. They will have another ISP meeting in 6 months to re-evaluate where they are and decide how to proceed.

For the past two weeks, I have been watching my neighbor's 18 month old while she takes my older three children to swim class. Three toddlers are much harder to keep up with than two. One starts pulling CD's off the CD rack, you go to pick those up, while another one gets into drawers in the kitchen and starts dumping stuff on the floor there, before you can get the CD's put back and get to the kitchen to get that one out of the drawer, the thrid has gotten into the bathroom and is running off with the girl's toothbrushes. It is exhausting! Having the play in the backyard seems to work out best. They are contained and there isn't much trouble they can get into back there. It is fun to watch how J&R interact with JP. J&R are so much alike and they expect JP to respond in the same manner that their twin would. The other day JP had two kid k'nex sticks. Jared wanted one and could not understand why JP was not giving it to him. Whenever J or R has two of something and the other one comes up to him, they will always give one of the objects to their twin. For the most part, J&R are usually playing to together and JP is off doing his own thing. J&R also communicate a lot in their own "twins speak" type language. JP has been picking up their "language". The speech therapist that came out to evaluate J&R recently said that they need to be around other kids their age that communicate better than them so they will start to mimic the better speech. Looks like just the opposite happened with JP!

It is hard to believe that Jared and Riley are now 2! The past two years have passed by at a furious rate. The majority of their first year is one big blur. The second year hasn't been nearly as exhausting as the first, but has still come with many challenges. I am no longer suffering from sleep deprivation, but I do spend most of my day chasing after two very rambunctious toddlers.

The dynamics between Jared and Riley are fascinating to watch. The other day Riley pushed Jared down and got put in time-out. He started crying and Jared when and got Riley's blanket and brought it over to comfort him. They are always doing that sort of thing, trying to make the other one feel better when he is upset. They do fight, usually over who gets some toy or other. It usually doesn't last too long with one of them giving in and letting the other have the object. It is interested how they will actually play together at this age. Other toddlers that come over usually end up playing by themselves while Jared and Riley are usually playing together. It will be interesting to watch this dynamic as they get older.

Most kids are thrilled when they loose their first tooth, but not Kayli. In typical Kayli style, she totally fell apart when her first tooth came out today. I suppose I should have expected this, given her history of strong emotional responses to anything new. She was upset for several hours. Later I was able to get a happier picture.

Aidan turned 4 years old today. He is such a sweet, loving little boy. His favorite thing is playing with his Rescue Heroes. He makes up all kinds of complicate scenarios with them. It is so fun to listen to him playing. His best friend is our neighbor's boy, Matthew. They play together really well, most of the time.