Back on track??

I haven’t posted in such a long time, mostly because I just haven’t had the energy to do anything. We were sick here (in some combination of family members) for about six weeks, and that really has taken a toll on my energy (especially since I was sick for three of those weeks myself). We finally all seem to be more or less back on track, health-wise at the moment, though. Thank goodness.

We’ve had many things going on recently. Veronica is starting to work on talking, and is trying out new words regularly. But she’s not a baby who likes to perform on demand, so if she says a new word for one of us, it’s nearly impossible to get her to repeat it for anyone else. I suspect it’s going to be like her walking — she’ll work on it privately until she feels like she has it mastered, and then she’ll be off.

Colin is teething (I suspect Roni is too, but  not as obviously). Poor little guy has, to my best estimate, six teeth all coming in at once. He had one break through (one of the canine/pointy top teeth) while we were on vacation, and now it feels like the other top one and all four molars are working their way through. 

So he has become a major chewing machine. After he chewed through three or four board books, John was forced to take all the books away before they all were destroyed (Colin also likes to bend the pages in half). He since then has chewed through several teething toys and has started gnawing on the tables and his high chair. Our front window sill is lined with little teeth marks.

His physical therapist was over when he chewed through the teething toy, and recommended these sticks to us. They’re designed to help people who have had a stroke learn to chew again, but she said they’re pretty indestructible — so we’ll be ordering some for our little guy. It’s either that or a doggie chew, which I thought would work. But John shot down that idea. I guess he doesn’t like the thought of Colin crawling around with a bone in his mouth. (I thought it would be kind of funny — I guess that says something about my warped sense of humor.)

So my fingers are crossed that we’re through the illnesses for now — we didn’t have to take Colin to the hospital at all, but there was one night I was seriously considering it. Having a sick baby is exhausting; having a sick baby with lung problems is even more so.