The Walkers inside the Beltline: Graduated!

Happy Birthday to our little boy who is not so little anymore. He is now 37 inches and just over 30 lbs, which puts him in the 25th percentile for three-year-old boys. Not too bad for a two pounder!

Despite the rain, we had a great birthday party!

Yes, he had a pink cake. What can we say - he loves strawberries!

Thanks to Aunt Jen, Pop-pop, and Gamma Jan for the bounce house!!

Three generations of Raymonds in the bounce house!

Chloe still gets a little "love"! :)

Birthday cousins!

Turning three seems like a big step - clearly out of babydom and moving out of toddlerhood. I guess we have a "preschooler" now. It also means that Jake has aged out of Early Intervention services. For the past year, the only service he was receiving was speech therapy. And now he's out of speech therapy too. Our SLP told us she couldn't continue to charge us in good conscience. She did give us some warning signs to look for as he gets a little older. Apparently many kids do not have "L"s until they are 4-5, and Jake might not have "blended Rs" (and other consonants) until he's 5-6. Which means you can look forward to a lot of "geen" (green), "keen" (clean), and other fun words when you talk with Jake! :)

The other HUGE graduation we celebrated this Spring was graduating from the Duke NICU follow-up clinic. Jake went through a full Bayley's assessment, where he did at or above age level for everything except gross motor. Even that was within the normal range, so they told us not to come back! We are not taking it personally!! We are so proud of Jake for overcoming so much. He is definitely changing the bell curve for 27-week wimpy white boys (the affectionate term they are given in NICUs the world over).

This Spring we also enjoyed a great (if quick) visit from my old (long-time??) friend Jenny. She brought Jake one of his favorite gifts - his own angry bird! She needs to move closer!