The Mauldin News Desk

Ok, so 2 months between posts is getting better...

Where to begin? I guess I'll start with me. I had my checkup in March which showed no new tumor growth (yay!) and the inflammation is resolving. I can now keep up my regularly scheduled checkups every 4 months, which means I will go back at the end of July. When (not if) that comes back clear, I'll be close to the 4 year mark and then I only have to have checkups every 6 months. I can't wait for that! Then after I hit 5 years, I only go once a year. That's an awesome milestone and hard to believe that will be October 2014. I think I can, I think I can... :) Anyway, so that's the good news on me. So health wise I'm doing really well.

The boys are keeping me busy. They still go to Mother's Day Out twice a week, which they love! And I enjoy my 4 hour breaks as well. They had school pictures today and I was a little nervous, because of what happened last year. They try to get individual pictures of the kids and then siblings together. I'll show you what I got last year:

Teddy:

This was taken in between crying fits.

Charlie:

No, that is not a mistake. He didn't take a picture. At all! The only kid in the whole school that didn't take a picture. So I wasn't getting my hopes up. We took a practice picture before we left and this is what I got...

So I was extremely nervous about pictures today. I have been talking to Charlie about being a big boy and taking a nice picture and helping out Teddy and I think it sunk in, because they tell me that they got some good ones. Fingers crossed! I'll find out in a few weeks when the pictures come back.

We also started swim lessons this week. Teddy and I are in a class and Charlie goes in the class after us. We were initially worried about Charlie because he has to wait by him self (patiently, quietly, etc) while Teddy and I are in the pool. He surprised us and has been great! He sits and watches us and waits for his turn. Teddy on the other hand cried the entire session on Monday. It's a 30 min class with 5 other babies and their parents. Even when Teddy wasn't doing anything, he was crying. Gah! I was right there too. There's another baby in the class (who we actually know) that has been going for over 6 months and her mom told me she cried for the first 8 weeks. Oh my. We are in trouble! But when we went on Wed, he did a lot better. He cried at the beginning, but I got him interested in a panda water toy and he got distracted enough to actually enjoy himself. He actually pushed me away on the step! Progress! And Charlie has been doing awesome in the water! He has 2 other kids in his class. He listens and stays on the steps until it's his turn, he puts his face in the water and is doing really well. Here are a few (bad) pictures from the first day:

Charlie in his first class. Only one other boy that day.

Teddy desperately trying to get out of the pool.

The sessions are usually 12 weeks long (30 min sessions twice a week), but we have only signed up for 4 weeks. I wanted to see how they did (Charlie sitting by himself and Teddy how much he got out of the class) before we added any more classes. We'll reevaluate and add more if needed, which at this point, we probably will.

I'll just sum up the last few months with some pictures: