So, little miss Avi is behind in her gross motor skills. She didn't really begin sitting up unsupported until about thirteen months! Quite concerning. However, her pediatrician has her on track to have an MRI and be seen by a neurologist, and she also is being seen by a physical therapist. She doesn't speak yet either, or even try to mimic sounds we make very much, so she's on the speech pathologist's radar as well. It's all rather frightening. However, her gross motor skills have progressed quite a bit in the last two months; she went from still needing support when sitting, to sitting herself up, and now pulling herself to standing! So, there is some sunshine peeking through the clouds, hopefully.

In the meantime, to help her with her skills, both physical and cognitive, we have started "baby school". Over the next little while, I'll try to post some of our activities. While the Internet abounds with many activities for children of all ages, there are very few formal type programs for children of Avi's age (I.e. 12-18 months). Part of this, I'm sure, is because at this stage children are mostly learning through play, which tends to be quite unstructured. So, what I'm trying to do is create a kind of checklist of activities for each day. Once I get it finalized I will post it here.

So, a bit of a hiatus in posts! Life has been pretty busy for the last 11 months, apparently. Big changes are heading our way; we've decided to sell the farm. There's a few reasons, which I won't get into, but the husband and I feel it is the best thing for us as a family. So, house hunting begins! The hope is to find a place where we can still keep a couple of horses, but just our own, not have to board others. So far, it's been rather discouraging, as the perfect house just doesn't seem to be out there right now. However, our house hasn't sold yet, so we have some time yet for the right place to pop up. Wish us luck!

So, I'm undertaking a new housework project; the laundry. And I say "project" because its going to take me at least a week, if not several, to get it all finished.

Part of the problem it that dear husband and I have WAY too many clothes. Last time we counted, he had over 60 T-shirts. I'm not quite as bad, as I purge my closet regularly, but still have way too many items. Now, the baby's clothes get washed every few days (at least once a week), but the husband and I could go a month without needing to wash any clothes. This is catastrophic, because I frequently DO go a month without washing an of our clothes (I hate doing laundry). But then, at the end of the month, I have a huge pile of laundry that gets so overwhelming I just pick a few random items and throw them in the wash. So, a good 3/4 of my clothes are typically sitting in apile on the laundry room floor, instead of hung neatly in my closet.

Here is a picture of my laundry room that I took today:

Pretty terrible, hey?

(The blanket hanging on the wall is actually covering an exterior door; its poorly insulated, and I've been having some issues with the water lines to my washing machine freezing up. Unfortunately, its not a standard sized door, so trying to replace it has been tricky).


So, the plan is two fold. The first part consists of organizing the clothes and slowly getting them all washed. I only do one, maybe two loads a day; our septic system is old and that much soapy water in one shot would be bad for it, and our well is a little slow (it fills a huge cistern, so we rarely run out of water, but I try not to push my luck, especially with a dozen thirsty horses sharing it.) I also have been following the FlyLady for a couple of years (as best I can), and one of her sayings is "It didn't get messy in a day, so its not going to get clean in a day either". So, slow and steady it is!