City kids

John and the twins were walking home from the park on Sunday morning when Veronica spotted a rat sitting on the curb. “Doggie,” she said, as she pointed to the rat. (Doggie is her default for any animal she’s not familiar with.)

“No, that’s a rat,” John told her. 

“Pretty. Pretty rat.” (To be fair, John said it did have a very nice, fluffy coat, so it may well have been a pretty rat.)

So there the three of them stood, Veronica admiring the “pretty rat” while Colin chanted “Rat! Rat! Rat!” beside her, until John told them it was time to move on.

“Bye-bye rat,” the twins both said as they waved goodbye to their discovery. 

Only in the city.

Growing, and growing up

Colin had an appointment with the allergist yesterday — out in the suburbs because you can get an appointment there about three months sooner than here in the city. We made the appointment early this spring, when it seemed like Colin was getting sick every time the tree pollen counts were high. Ethan was only about 19 months old when his allergies were diagnosed (which is really pretty young to have developed seasonal allergies), so we figured we’d better find out whether Colin was following in his footsteps.

He was a champ, and only cried a little when they were poking him for the allergy testing. Then he was off roaming the exam room for 15 minutes, leaving a wake of destruction. Probably the worst was after he discovered the garbage can and then managed to throw away two of his toys before I could stop him. (Thank goodness for a dishwasher.) So that was good … we don’t have to add a new doctor to our collection. 

He also weighed in at just a little over 22 pounds, and was 32 inches long. (Roni, for comparison, was at the doctor last week because of a mysterious rash, and was 25 pounds. And she’s still at least 2 inches taller than Colin, although we haven’t measured her recently.)

Colin is also making progress with his physical therapy. His therapist wants him to go two weeks now without wearing his orthotics so she can see how his feet do. Right now, the orthotics provide some stability, but mainly are to help keep his arch from collapsing. He already was spending a lot of time out of the orthotics, because they’re hot and a pain in the butt to put on. So as soon as we got the okay to let him do some walking without them, we jumped at the opportunity. 

At a minimum, Colin will be switching from the over the ankle orthotics he has now to an insert that is more like what adults get when they get orthotics. However, if his arches don’t show any signs of distress, maybe we’ll get lucky and be able to drop those as well.

And while Veronica really has started to surge ahead in her speech and mental development, Colin seems to be moving forward at a slower pace. Of course, his pace may be normal, but it’s hard not to compare them some times.

Veronica is working diligently on learning her colors, and is fascinated by the concept of “two.” She points out whenever we see two of anything. “Two doggies.” “Two noisy cars.” She also is starting to pick up on social graces, asking me how I’m doing when she comes downstairs, and is asking a lot of questions. “Mommy shoes on. Mommy going outside too?” 

Yesterday, I said I was going to quickly run downstairs to get something to eat, because I had missed lunch. John must not have heard me, because as I was leaving, he told Veronica, “I guess Mommy’s going downstairs for something.” She then told him, “Mommy go eat. Lunch.”

Of course, after having said Colin is making slower progress, I must admit that he is making cognitive leaps of his own. We dug Rainbow Fish out of the gigantic “books Colin can’t touch because he’ll tear them apart” pile (because he’s been doing better recently) earlier this week, and he’s been reading it quite often ever since. At nap time the other day, John asked him to find a safe place for his book so he could get ready for nap. He opened it up, looked at the picture inside and said, “Fish.” He then carried it over to the fish tank and placed it against the glass, picture facing inward, so the fish could see their friends in the story. 

Colin might seem like he was making faster progress if he would ever take his hands out of his mouth. He is hard to understand to begin with, but it’s nearly impossible to make out what he’s saying when he’s talking around a mouthful of fingers.

Biker babes

We finally, finally got the twins out in the Burley for a bike ride. I so desperately wanted to be able to take them out last summer so we could start doing family rides (and I could start exercising again), but Colin wasn’t big enough or strong enough to sit upright and wear a helmet. So the Burley sat in the garage and gathered more dust.

Several weeks ago, we moved the piles that had accumulated on top of the Burley, dusted off the cobwebs and set it up again. (I had collapsed it a couple of years ago [finally] to make more room in the garage.) But then we ran out of time and it got shoved into the back of the garage again.

Last weekend, we put the twins into the Burley, just sitting in the garage, to see what they thought. Veronica started crying immediately — shades of Ethan in his younger days. We again ran out of time, so we didn’t push the experience any further. Until last night.

At dinner, Veronica kept asking to go for a bike ride. “Helmet. Bike. Mommy bike. Helmet.” So we decided to seize the moment (despite the poor pre-bedtime timing for a new experience) and give it a whirl. John moved the van onto the street so that we would have room to set up, and I corralled the squirmies, er I mean the twins. 

The minute we walked into the garage and Veronica saw the Burley set up, she started to cry and ran back to the steps to get into the house. So we told her that she could ride her bike, and I would take Colin for a ride. It took a few minutes to convince her we weren’t lying to her, but she finally settled down.

Colin loved his first ride (around the block), but somehow managed to pull his helmet off so that his head ended up tangled in the straps that are meant to be on the side. After we untangled him (it took John, the neighbor’s nanny and I to get him extracted), he was ready for more … and so was Roni. 

And she loved it too. I heard lots of happy squeals from the trailer as we did our next two laps. Yeah!

Big kid

I have so much to write about, but so little time. We’ve been busy with all the spring activities and end-of-school-year fun, which has left me with very little energy to write. So here’s a bit of a catch-up.

June is another month of many appointments for Colin. He sees the allergist and the urologist this month, has his six-month review with Early Intervention and then the twins have their two-year-old checkup the first week of July. Yes, you read that right — Colin and Veronica are almost two already. 

Colin’s walking continues to improve. Right now he’s at about a 14-month-old level for his gross motor skills — which makes sense because he’s been walking for about two months. He is just starting to run, and is getting better at that skill very quickly. But he still struggles with his balance and we cannot get him to look where he’s going, which is especially problematic as we’re working on actually walking up and down the stairs, rather than crawling. 

Colin also is adding lots of words to his vocabulary — but I’m not sure how many anyone besides our family would understand. At this stage, he should have at least 20 understandable-to-the-outside words. By my estimate, he’s at about 15 that others would be able to make out. Not too far off, but for the most part he still sounds like he has a mouth full of gravel when he’s speaking. (Of course, the fact that he typically has a mouth full of fingers doesn’t help the clarity of his speech — but that’s another story.)

Veronica is full-on into the Terrible Twos, and apparently has inherited Mommy’s temper in full measure. We had one morning last week where she ended up in time out before I was even able to get her diaper off in the morning. It was not a good day.

On the other hand, her verbal skills and cognitive development are amazing. She regularly says four or five word sentences, and initiates conversation regularly. Yesterday, when John brought her down for breakfast (where Colin and I got an early start), she walked up to me and said, “Hi Mommy, How are you?” Her speech, overall, is very clear. Of course she still has several words that sound alike to me, which causes problems when I can’t figure them out contextually. Again, that temper.

We also can see Veronica making huge leaps developmentally as she figures things out. 

Last week, she and John and Colin where playing a pretend eating game the twins enjoy outside (they “pick” food off our neighbors’ fence posts and feed it to each other). John was a few feet away from the twins, and Veronica “picked” something for him to eat. She started to walk over, then she must have decided it was too far because she “threw” the food to John and said, “Catch.”

They’re both also aware that they’re not babies any more. John has been working with them on the difference between baby and big kid or baby and boy or girl, because honestly it gets a little embarrassing to have the twins pointing to a three- or four-year-old and shouting “baby” when they go by. 

Veronica now feels she has this down. If you ask her what Colin is, she points to him and says, “boy.” Then if you ask her what she is, she responds, “Big kid.”

“Isn’t Colin a big kid too?”

Veronica (pointing to Colin): “No. Boy.” (Pointing to herself) “Big kid.”

So the world is divided into three groups in Veronica’s world: adults, boys and big kids. And no amount of arguing is going to change her mind.

Back from the blogging break

I have not been very good about posting recently. I’ll have to admit that spring has been a bit overwhelming between work, the babies (who really aren’t babies any more), end-of-year school performances and gardening.

I promise to write a more thorough post soon, but for now, this little haiku (in honor of Ethan’s new-found love of poetry) sums up life of late:

Babies with head colds

Both getting molars as well

Mommy needs some sleep.

Vacation – from the inhaler

It’s May, and that means we’re officially on vacation from Colin’s inhaler. I am fairly certain the pulmonologist will want to put him back on this fall again, because with his last cold he needed to have more Albuterol treatments, but at least for a few glorious months, we no longer have to pin the boy down and make him breathe through the mask.

Let me tell you, those treatments may have only been two minutes long, twice a day, but they felt like an eternity. (I can just imagine what Colin thought about them.) One of the side effects our doctor warned us about with the QVar is slower growth, another is problems sleeping. Hey, we have both those problems! 

Obviously, the benefit of keeping Colin’s lungs healthy, and him out of the hospital, has outweighed the potential effects the QVar may have had on his weight gain and sleep. But now that we’re able to take a break from it for a few months, I am really, really hoping he’ll get a growth spurt (and maybe sleep through the night somewhat regularly). 

Speaking of growth, the nutritionist was here last week. Colin did gain weight this month — but only enough to barely top his weight from two months ago. (He lost weight last month because he was sick and not eating.) So he is now up to 21.1 pounds and 30.5 inches. For comparison, Veronica is 32 inches tall. (We didn’t weigh her at the visit, so I don’t know for sure what she weighs. I would guess she’s close to 24 pounds now though.)

So we continue to make as many calorie-dense foods as possible for Colin, and are trying to add as much fiber to his diet as well. (We’d like to be able to take him off the Miralax at some point too.) Colin is generally a good eater and will try many more things than Veronica will. But he also never stops moving, and now that he’s walking he is burning even more calories. Add to that the fact that breathing is more work for Colin (and therefore burns more calories too), and you can see why we struggle to get enough calories into him.

Unfortunately, the calorie-dense cooking often works at odds with my attempts to lose weight. (Really, you think I’m going to be able to have a loaf of banana blueberry bread sitting on the counter and not have some?) But the high-fiber diet will benefit us all. Who in this country probably couldn’t use more fiber in their diet?

I am not Bobby

Yet that is what Veronica insists on calling me. To make sure I understand that she is referring to me, she will identify everyone in the room (Eeeth, Col-Col, Daddy) and then poke me while saying “Bobby.” Or, if no one else is in the room, she’ll find a book with a mommy in it, and point back and forth between me and the picture while saying “Bobby.”

John, of course, thinks this is hilarious and now calls me Bobby as well. I guess it is an improvement over “bubby.” Sharing a name with an exercise ball is somewhat deflating. 

I’m not sure why she has landed on calling me Bobby. She can, and does, say the “m” sound for other words. I suspect it’s a combination of Becki and Mommy, but I will never know for sure. I also suspect that this is one of those cute phrases that I will miss when she is a little older and no longer uses cute little phrases. 

Colin’s walking is progressing by leaps and bounds. He is losing the Frankenstein pose and keeping his arms at his side most of the time. He can still be a bit wobbly, especially if he is tired, but his gait is more like a typical almost-two-year-old’s now. Our biggest problem with him continues to be trying to get him to look where he is putting his feet. He simply will not pay attention to what lies below. 

He plows through any obstacles that are movable. Bigger things he either falls over or bounces off of. He spends a lot of time hitting his head, which can’t be good for him. This habit is especially problematic on the stairs, where he will plunge off the edge because he’s busy staring at the lights, or the trees, or the speck of dust … I am surprised we haven’t had a dislocated shoulder from all of the times he has ended up dangling from the hand one of us is holding. 

We’re working on that in physical therapy now, along with stairs and jumping. Both babies love to work on jumping when we pull out the Mother Goose book and read “Jack be Nimble.” They both squat down low and spring up when I read, “Jack JUMPED over the candlestick.” Veronica can get airborne on her own; Colin needs a little lift from Mom to get off the floor. 

So we’re continuing to take advantage of the nice weather for lots of walks (building endurance), physical therapy at the park and extra time “helping” in the garden. Which is why I have been so bad about posting.