Randomness

I'm about to try to catch up on a month of stuff.  In no particular order:

We bought our new car last weekend.  It was the most stressful weekend of my life.  I can see where some people might enjoy the "game" of buying a new car, but Drew and I are not those type of people!  I, the one in our house to hates to do anything by myself and just recently in the past 8 years became able to go through a drive-thru by myself, had to take the lead in the negotiations.  I wasn't awful at it, but I definitely wasn't good at it either.  I did cry though and freak the salesman out.  Maybe I am awful at it!

The minivan is amazing though.  Drew is the primary driver.  I took it out for the first time on Saturday and I was a little freaked out the entire time.  I could drive it if I never had to actually park it anywhere and if I never had to change lanes.  I think sedans are more my speed.

Here it is!  We got it in a dark gray color.  We can't wait to take it on a trip somewhere!

Late last month, Chase had his follow-up visit with TEIS for his speech.  He didn't qualify for the free services because he was only 25% behind in speech, but not significantly behind in any other areas.  Between the time that the first TEIS lady came and the second one came, Chase had been making some strides in speech, but he's definitely not where the guides say he should be.  I am planning on taking him to a private speech specialist while I'm on maternity leave.  I would love to do it now, except I'm working 50 hour weeks now and will be working 55+ hour weeks in January and February, so there is just no time in the day to try to find a place and make appointments right now. 

We credit Chase's improved speech with all of his puzzles.  He is fantastic at puzzles and he now knows to say or make the sound of all his puzzle pieces.  He knows his shapes, animals, and vehicles.  He also knows what numbers are, but he calls them all "two".  We have flashcards as well that show all sorts of different things and he knows almost all of them now!  I got these for him around 18 months or so and he had little to no interest in them at first, but now he likes going through all of his flashcards and saying what is on them.  He does the same thing with his shopping cart.  He'll lift all the food up and make us tell him what it is.

Lately Chase's new loves are Blue's Clues and Pocoyo.  He knows most all choreography from Blue's Clues and loves to laugh at and dance like Pocoyo.  He's also been saying "Weee" and "Whoa" a lot!  Whenever we spin him around or if he's sliding his socked feet on the tile floor (which he LOVES) he'll say Weee and whenever Drew opens the minivan doors automatically, he'll say Whoa!!  He loves playing with his Matchbox cars, puzzles, play fruit and veggies, and his riding cars (he can zoom across the house!).  He's also learned to use his play hammer in workbench and will sometimes hammer the crap out of his workbench!  He loves Cheezits and we have to hide all snacks now because he will hunt them down and raid the pantry if he finds them.  He loves to color and draw!  He LOVES to play our Google Image game where we show him various pictures from a Google Image search and he tells us what he sees.  I've been meaning to videotape this because it is just so cute how excited he is when he plays his.  He's a big talker now, although most of the time we don't know what he's saying...but it's progress.  We've been teaching him who Santa is and what Santa says.  Chase doesn't say "Ho, Ho, Ho" though.  Instead he says "Who, Who, Who!".  It's very cute!