Reminders and new approaches

It seems like every time I stop adjusting the babies’ age to account for their early birth and start thinking of them as just plain old babies (rather than as preemies), something happens to remind me that they aren’t. 

Today, Colin and Veronica’s occupational therapist (Deb) did their assessment for Early Intervention. She and I had talked some about this when Veronica had her follow-up at the NICU last month (Deb was the therapist at the clinic at that point — they rotate through), and I knew that in fine motor skills, Veronica is ahead. I also knew, from watching him, that Colin has very good fine motor skills as well.

Deb’s official assessment (according to John, who was here for it) agreed with that — Veronica’s fine motor skills are between 13 and 15 months and Colin’s are between 13 and 14 months. But Deb did say a couple of things that kind of threw me (although they didn’t surprise me).

Veronica is behind in measures of movement — standing, cruising, being willing to take steps; she’s where she should be for her adjusted age. So there we go again — adjusted age. I had finally stopped thinking of Veronica in terms of dual ages. She was just my almost year-old baby. And now I’m adjusting her age again.

Okay, so to be perfectly honest with myself, I already knew she was behind her actual age in these things. And I’m not worried about it — she is starting to stand up and is beginning to show a willingness to take steps while we’re holding her. It was just hard to be jerked back to the whole “preemie with an adjusted age and an actual age” way of thinking. 

Colin, too, is behind on his movement. No surprise there, since he’s still not sitting on his own (which is more like a six month skill). John and I were hoping he would sit by his first birthday, but that clearly isn’t going to happen (we’ve only got five days) and we’re okay with that. We’ll just have to wait a little longer.

When Deb was asking John if we had any concerns, he explained that we’re not really worried about Colin because he continues to make progress, albeit slowly, and he seems like he isn’t completely skipping any milestones. He’s just getting there on his own pace. She agreed, and then told John (reassuringly) that there is a saying that if they’re sitting by 2, they will walk.

And that was another painful reminder — of the risks Colin still faces as a result of the circumstances of his birth. We have known from the start that Colin faces a huge risk for cerebral palsy and developmental delays and problems. And that he might never walk. His list of risk factors is daunting (very premature birth, extreme low birth weight, bronchio-pulmonary displasia from the ventilator, steroids to get him off the ventilator, long time on oxygen). The fact that he shows so few problems is something we celebrate every day.

But somehow I have never really thought about the fact that he might not ever walk in concrete terms. Until today. Being told that he likely won’t face that hurdle brought home the fact that he does. (My twisted mind, right?) And it made me a little sad. 

But then Colin smiled at me and Veronica crawled over and gave me a hug, and all seemed good again. 

For 15 minutes. Then, while I was cooking dinner, both babies fell apart and started fussing nonstop. Which brings us to our new approach — to bedtime.

Neither Colin nor Veronica are good sleepers. They both still wake up (multiple times) at night wanting/needing to eat. They aren’t good at putting themselves back down, and they take micro naps. We’ve tried a variety of approaches (Veronica will cry for at least 2.5 hours if you try to let her cry it out), but nothing works really well. 

So tonight, spontaneously, John and I decided we would start putting the twins down before we eat dinner — starting now. It didn’t go very smoothly. Lack of planning will do that to you. But it was nice to be able to go out with Ethan after dinner for a bike ride, because the babies were already in bed. 

I hope (more than you can imagine) that after a few days, Colin and Veronica will adjust to this new schedule and will start sleeping better. We all need that.

Babies' Baptism

Today, at long last, Colin and Veronica were baptized. We were fortunate enough to have our family able to join us for the celebration, with their three aunts serving as sponsors. They did fairly well, overall. 

Another little girl was baptized this morning as well, and she went first. Veronica went second, and was not very happy about being dunked in the water, as you can see. 

So by the time we got to Colin (who was last, by design, in case he freaked out), he knew what was coming. He didn’t even wait for the water; he just started crying as soon as Pastor Michelle picked him up.

Both babies settled down right away after getting back into their towels, which was pretty impressive considering it was in the middle of nap time, and I think they enjoyed being the center of attention. 

We had a very nice celebration afterward, with the extended family, at our house. Colin and Veronica’s favorite gift was actually the gift bag from Grandma Fiegel. They spent a lot of time fighting over it and passing it back and forth. 

It was a very nice warm up for next weekend, when we celebrate their first birthday.

(I put a few more photos on the photo page, if anyone wants to see more.)

Hello, I'm here

During the past couple of days, Colin has really stepped up his efforts to interact with Veronica. John reports that he is quite often trying to get her attention or to touch her. And for the most part, she seems to ignore him.

Today, however, he found the right way to get her to pay attention to him — at that moment at least. He was apparently playing with Veronica’s hair, and it was making her laugh and laugh. I’m sure that made Colin happy. Finally, a reward for all that effort. She finally noticed that Colin is here. 

(Okay, she has been aware of Colin for a long time, and loves to do things like grab his face or pull his hair. But this was noticing him in a fun way, so it’s different.)

Veronica’s typical response to Colin trying to get her attention.

Hide and seek and cobra pose

The babies are developing at a rapid pace these days. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up (both mentally and physically). 

Colin appears to have recovered pretty much completely from his surgery. He is still regenerating a lot of tissue, so his surgeon wants to see him again in three months, but the surgeon is pleased with how everything looks so far. Colin certainly has not suffered any decrease in mobility as a result of having surgery. He has mastered the army crawl and occasionally works to get his knees under him while he’s motoring around. 

Colin still is not sitting unsupported. Both his occupational therapist and his physical therapist are both working with him on this (as are John and I). We’re getting closer … but still no success. I am hoping we’ll get him sitting by his first birthday, but as that’s just around the corner, I am suspecting disappointment. 

Colin has, however, completely gotten over his dislike of being on his tummy. In fact, for a larger portion of the day, Colin looks as if he is showing off his perfect cobra pose. My little yoga master. It’s become the complete opposite of his previous habits — now if you lay him down on his back, he almost immediately flips onto his stomach. That is a nice change.

Veronica is determined to become a big girl in all aspects of life. She is losing interest in drinking from her bottle during the day (but has not quite gained an interest in taking her milk from a sippy — but we’re working on that). She also prefers finger foods over purees; wants to sleep in the big bed, not her crib; and will crawl off and amuse herself on her own. 

This last habit caused me a bit of a fright the other day. I had gone into the bathroom and left her playing with her toys in the living room. When I came out again a minute later, she was gone. I called her and looked everywhere for her, but she seemed to have vanished.

Just as I was starting to get a little worried, I finally found her in Ethan’s bedroom, where she had crawled and closed the door behind her. (More incentive for Ethan to keep his room picked up.)

The babies are much more aware of each other now, too. They have started to fight over toys, and each will get very upset when the other takes a favorite away. They also are thinking farther ahead now.

Veronica has discovered that as a sitter, all she needs to do to keep toys away from Colin is turn her back to him. She spent a good 10 minutes playing with something he wanted and every time he would crawl around to try and grab it, she would just turn a little so he was behind her again.

Colin, on the other hand, has a couple of times (that I’ve been here to witness at least) seen Veronica look at a toy, and then race over to get it before she does.

They do sometimes also play nicely together. They both love our LeapFrog music table (we had the same model for Ethan, and he also loved it). Right now we have the legs off so it sits on the floor (so Colin can reach it), and Colin and Veronica will often play at the table together.

I spent a good 15 minutes the other evening trying to capture the moment on film: Colin was on his side, pushed up high like he was getting ready to sit up, playing on one side of the table, and Veronica was standing with her butt up in the air, bent double playing on the other side.

Unfortunately, Veronica seems to have a built-in camera detector. Even though I was behind her, the minute I picked up the camera, she turned and crawled over to me to try and grab it. We repeated this scene several times before I gave up. I’m sneakier than they know, however, and I will succeed at some point.