brother friend

Winter has flown by here at the House of Gjertsen, and Spring is finally in the air. In January Abby was struck simultaneously by hemorrhaging pinkeye (no pics I promise) and “explosive arthritis” that sidelined her for about a month and a half with awful back, knee, and ankle pain. She murmured, “Thank You, Jesus” each time she was able to pick up Percy in spite of the pain; this happened so many times that she was worried that Percy might start thinking that his name was Jesus. At the time we thought Percy’s hefty size might have brought the mystery illness on (he tipped the scales at 26 lbs.) but it turns out it was an auto-immune syndrome brought on by a GI virus we all had back in December. Steroids have Abby feeling much, much better. (Thank You, Jesus.)

John’s father had a stroke in February, and he has been making a steady recovery ever since with the ceaseless help of his wife, Betsy, and his team of docs and therapists. He is home from the hospital now and can walk, eat, and talk again, but more slowly than before the stroke.

At 3.5 years, Valor finally conquered potty training. It only took 6 months {hysterical laughter}. We used sticker charts for the last three months, which made it easier to see patterns and record successes like “perfect potty days” and “dry nights.” (Big stickers were for poops in potty, little for staying dry and peeing on potty, sad faces for accidents). For a long time he knew what to do but didn’t care enough to do it when it needed to be done. We had to have consistent negative consequences, not just rewards, to get him to start trying. Whenever something changed, like a grandma visited or we went to a friend’s house, he would immediately “mess up” to test whether the consequences were still in effect!

The last thing he mastered was learning to take the initiative to go without anyone asking. Today he went and did 90% of the  job without even asking for any help. We are loving the dramatic decrease in conflict now that he is potty trained and self-motivated. Potty training has been the hardest stage of parenting Valor so far!

Valor is developing in other ways, too. He is quickly learning to read and can read early reader books. He doesn’t particularly like the “work” of reading, so I try to do a little bit every weekday after Percy goes down for a morning nap. We are working through The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading a lesson or two at a time. If I wait until before Valor’s nap or bedtime, he’s too tired.

Valor loves to categorize his toys and food now. He builds more complex structures from his blocks. His drawing, coloring, and writing have improved quite a bit as he has learned more fine motor control. Some of his favorite drawing subjects are “machines” that do things like scoop ice cream or blow up balloons. He just started making up stories that start with “Once upon a time…” He asks good questions, like: “Why don’t fairies ride in a ferry boat?” and “I see your ring, Grandmommy. Did you get married or something?”

Valor has been asking more questions about death and heaven and James recently. He told me one night that he didn’t want to die “because he liked all his stuff.” Since then we have talked about the fact that everyone dies, and that if we believe in Jesus and ask Him to forgive our sins we don’t have to fear death because we will live forever with Him (like James). We have had a few discussions about heaven, which he wasn’t excited about until he learned that it would be lots of fun, even better than he could imagine. It has also been interesting to see how he has grown to love James and identify as his brother, even though they never met. Valor likes to say, “First popped out James, then popped out Valor, and then Percy!”

Speaking of Percy, during this time he has made huge transition from sitting, to trying to pull up, to standing with help, to (in the last week) pulling up, and even to walking with someone holding him upright. Of course there are a lot of frustrations, bumps, and bruises as he takes more risks for bigger returns. Yesterday he stood up and tumbled over the side of the bathtub and got rug burn on his nose from the bathmat! Add this to the other mishaps at the hands of his brother, and he’s learning to be a resilient dude.

One day Valor said, “Percy is my brother-friend.” Valor does take being a big brother seriously–from sharing his soft “mimis” (and forcing him to lay down amongst them to “sleep”), to warning me when “Percy’s goin’ for it!” and about to get into something bad, to comforting him when he cries, saying “It’s okay, Bubba.” The boys love to be together, and no one can get a belly laugh from Percy more reliably than Valor. Our prayer for them is that they will always be “brother-friends.”

Percy is also developing his unique characteristics. It’s hard to know which elements come from being the put-upon second-child and which are actually in his genetic makeup…but he is able to sustain individual play far longer than Valor could at his age. He is not as eager with a smile for other people; he seems to be more contemplative and introverted than Valor. He “dances” and responds to music more than I remember Valor doing. His favorite book is The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss, which he giggles throughout.

He’s moving slightly earlier; after about a month of “backing up” and rocking, at 9 mo. he developed his own way of “scooting” which is featured in a movie John will post very soon. Percy has lost 2 lbs. since he started moving, down to 24 lbs. now at 10 mo. He got his first tooth just after 9 months, and the second just after 10 months, with two more coming soon! Lack of teeth have not held him back at all in the food department; Percy eats almost as much as Valor does of table food, and he’s not very picky, either.

He understands some words/phrases (no, banana, more, all done, Percy, don’t eat, don’t touch to list a few), doesn’t talk meaningfully yet (although he frequently babbles things like “ah dah!”), and just started vigorously shaking his head when you say “no.” As you may have already noticed, he has quite a luxuriant mop of hair compared to Valor’s at this age.

Recent conversation between John and Abby:

A: (notices Percy scoot around the corner into the next room) He’s off.

J: (absently) Yeah?

A: He eats paper.

J: Oh. (hurries after Percy)

So that’s life at the House of Gjertsen right now: enjoying spring, convincing Valor he still needs naps, pulling stray business cards out of Percy’s mouth. John will post soon about our trip to Orlando, including a music video!