Atrovent, my new best friend

Colin is still miserable with his cold, poor little guy. He’s all stuffed up, so breathing is hard, and his lungs are a little wheezy, so breathing is even harder. On Sunday night, I broke out the emergency inhaler the pulmonologist prescribed at our last visit to help Colin breathe easier. And like that, Atrovent became my new best friend. 

Okay, I’m exaggerating quite a bit there (what, me?), but it really did make a difference. Colin screams like you’re torturing him (which I guess in his eyes we are) when you give him  a treatment, and you have to pin him to the bed to do it. But within 10 minutes each time, he was breathing easier and back asleep.

Ironically, and fortunately, Colin’s regularly scheduled follow up appointment with the pulmonologist was yesterday. John took him this time, so he could meet the new doctor and ask his questions. Colin’s lungs are doing pretty good, just a little wheezy on the right side. No sign of the bronchiolitis at least. The doctor said to just keep doing what we’ve been doing for treatment.

He was worried, however, because Colin has fallen back further from the growth curve. We’ve been trying to get him extra calories since his last appointment, but I wouldn’t call it an all-out effort. (It’s too hard to make all-out efforts with two babies.) But now we’re going to have to step it up more. The pulmonologist also wants Colin to get started in speech therapy now (we were going to wait a bit until he started walking) to address some of his eating issues. 

So … I’ll be calling Early Intervention this week to schedule another assessment with the speech therapist and we’ll see when we can shoe-horn another session into our week. I do feel blessed, though, that we live in Illinois. I have heard horror stories from other parents on some of the online boards I visit about their EI experiences in other states. It makes me appreciate everything our program provides even more. 

Prayers for Colin to heal quickly, and that Veronica and Ethan continue to stay healthy. (And that Mommy and Daddy survive the chaos.)

Wall flower and social butterfly

It’s interesting to see how your kids, who all share the same genetic material and have been raised together in the same environment, all develop their own personalities. It’s even more interesting with the twins, because there isn’t even a time gap with their upbringing. 

Veronica is very much a Mommy’s girl (or Daddy’s if Mommy isn’t around). She still is very reluctant to go to anyone who isn’t Mommy or Daddy — even people she sees every day — and likes to bury her head in our legs if someone comes over to say “hi” to her when we’re out. In social situations right now, Veronica is very much the wall flower: she likes to watch from the sidelines and assess the situation. And she is very happy doing her own thing.

Colin, on the other hand, seems to make friends wherever we go. The last three or four times we’ve been to the park, Colin has found another baby/little kid to play with. Yesterday afternoon, when John took the kids to the park so I could make dinner, he apparently had three friends — twin boys and a little girl, all between 15 and 18 months — that he was playing happily with while Veronica explored. 

It’s funny to watch, because Colin also basks in adult attention. Remember, this is the boy who stopped crying after his first surgery to smile at the nurse when she called him cute. He is very aware of people’s comments, and often gives people a big grin when they say something nice about him and Veronica. 

It’s also fun to see how Colin and Veronica already are inventing little games to play together, even though they can’t talk yet. Sometimes can keep themselves in giggles for a good 20 minutes at a stretch. Veronica loves to run away from Colin, squealing, as he “chases” her around the room. (I use quotes on “chases” because it’s clear sometimes that he has no idea they’re playing a game, although other times he is a full participant in the fun.) They also have been known to play peekaboo with each other, which is funny to watch. 

Of course, we’re not immune to the sibling rivalry, especially when it comes to nabbing space on my lap after I get home from work. Veronica especially is prone to throw punches, slap and push to get her way. Colin is more of a head butt guy — although he also does that as a sign of affection. (A painful sign, sometimes, because he hasn’t developed a good sense of when to stop his forward motion.)

This age (almost 16 months actual/13 adjusted) is a lot of fun in many ways. (It’s exhausting still in others.) I just wish I had more time and fewer chores so I could just play all day.

(I jinxed us, by the way, with my last post. Colin now has a cold and is VERY congested. I broke out his inhaler last night, along with the saline spray and the nasal aspirator — really ticked him off, but at least it cleared him up enough to fall asleep.)

On the mend

After what seems like an endless period of round after round of sickness (it was really only three weeks and two rounds), we’re finally all more or less healthy again. Veronica’s croup cleared up fairly quickly after the steroid dose, and the virus that lingered for another several days seems to have departed. Colin never got the croup, and whatever caused his fever seemed to pass quickly too. 

We’ve been taking advantage of the unseasonably nice weather, and spending a lot of time outside. Veronica would like it even better if we spent all of our time outside. Whenever she comes downstairs, she immediately goes to her shoes and points to them, then points to the door. Or she’ll bring her shoes to me wherever I happen to be, and point to outside. The girl loves her dogs, and they’re all outside the house. So that’s where she wants to be too.

Colin also likes being outside, and it helps with the exercises he’s supposed to be doing for occupational therapy because he crawls on all fours when he’s outside (as opposed to his indoor army crawling style). That helps build his core strength, which he needs to be able to stand on his own. (Hmm … maybe I should try crawling too if it builds core strength.)

Now that the leaves have fallen from our ash tree (the first in the neighborhood to lose its leaves), we have the added bonus of big piles of leaves to sit in, throw in the air, crawl through and generally enjoy thoroughly. Colin especially likes to sit in the leaves and pile them on top of his legs. 

Veronica also enjoys a small measure of freedom when we’re outside, because I end up spending more time making sure Colin is keeping up with us. She will range quite a ways down the sidewalk while I’m trying to help Colin practice his walking. And the farther she gets from us, the faster she starts moving. Fortunately, she’s still much slower than me, and has shed her habit of dashing toward the curb to play in the street. (Darn block party fun.)


Colin isn’t really any closer to walking on his own, although he continues to practice and has gotten very good at cruising. He also is much smoother at getting up and down from standing (although this week he has starting letting go while apparently trying to do a twisting back flip, and has been whacking his head on the ground a lot). His physical therapist started the paper work today to get him orthotics to help with his walking/standing. Apparently it takes about three weeks to get the paperwork through, then we’ll have to take him in for a fitting and wait for them to make the orthotics. But they should help stabilize his ankles in the proper position, and make it easier for him to balance and walk. 


We’re also in the midst of another long run of appointments with all of Colin’s doctors. He had the urologist appointment two weeks ago (we need to schedule his next surgery for either December or January), he sees the pulmonologist next week, the neurologist the week after, then both babies have their (rescheduled) 15 month appointment and will get their second flu shot (and some others). Then Colin will see the dentist (his teeth look like they may have thin enamel, which is common with preemies) to make sure he doesn’t need calcium supplements or sealants to protect his baby teeth. 


It makes me tired just thinking about all those appointments, and Colin’s load is far less than many babies born his weight/gestation. It just makes me very glad we live in a big city because at least all of his doctors are close by. In fact, we can walk or take the train to all of them, which makes life much easier.

Crap. Croup.

Both babies got sick over the weekend — Colin had a fever and Veronica was just “off” on Sunday morning. By Monday, she started coughing. We canceled the babies’ 15-month check-up appointment, which was supposed to be on Tuesday. They were supposed to get shots, and with Colin’s fever we knew that wasn’t going to happy. 

On Monday night, Colin’s fever broke and he started to feel better. But by Tuesday morning it was clear that a trip to the doctor for a sick baby visit with Veronica was in order. 

So I canceled my morning conference calls and Colin and I hung out while John took Veronica to the doctor. He was the third person in line when the doors opened, and the waiting room was full in no time, which is why I kept Colin at home with me. Our doctor is on vacation, but substitute doctor was actually the one we had seen before (the doctor who was surprised when we said that Colin and Veronica were preemies). 


Turns out Veronica has croup, which, of course, is contagious. So Veronica got a prescription for dexamethasone — a strong oral steroid, and ironically, the same steroid I was given before the twins were born to help develop their lungs. Unfortunately, the strength the doctor prescribed didn’t come in a liquid. So John had to crush up the three little pills and feed them to Veronica in some yogurt.  


Her cough is sounding better now, but little girl clearly is not feeling well. And, consequently, she is not sleeping well either. This afternoon, she napped for a whopping 15 minutes. I walked with her in the stroller for more than an hour, hoping she would nod off. She was definitely in a zone, but no sleep. 


The doctor also wanted us to keep Colin and Veronica separated, so Colin wouldn’t get sick. Well, aside from the fact that they’d been sharing toys before we found out what Veronica had, we discovered that even with both of us home it’s nearly impossible to keep two 15 month old babies apart. They want to be with each other, and they always want what the other one is playing with. 

So now we’re watching Colin closely to see if he’s going to end up with croup too. Fingers crossed that he doesn’t, since it potentially could be much worse for him. And here’s hoping Veronica feels better tomorrow and is a little happier.