The Perils of Posting Pre-Coffee

Okay, I know there are many things I shouldn’t do before I’ve had my first cup of coffee, and apparently posting to the blog is one of those. As John so kindly pointed out last night, my post yesterday saying that I thought Colin would be done crawling by Ethan’s birthday makes no sense — Ethan’s birthday was this past weekend.

What I meant to say, was I thought he would be done crawling by John’s birthday — which is at the end of May. 

It appears that I didn’t even jinx myself by publishing that post: Last night, despite being very tired, Colin walked pretty much the entire block by himself. John was washing the dishes after dinner and looked out the window in time to see Colin strolling down the sidewalk … alone. He (John) was just starting to worry when he saw me dashing after Colin. (I let him get much farther away than I normally would because I kept expecting him to stop or fall.)

Apparently, in Colin’s mind, he has the walking thing mastered. He is now starting to work on walking down the stairs like Veronica is learning, rather than continuing with his backwards crawl method. Sigh. One more thing to worry about him doing while my back is turned.

I’ll post more pictures as soon as I can find where the cord to connect the camera to my computer disappeared to. Maybe after my coffee kicks in …

Daring to hope

Colin continues to walk more and more. He is now taking corners and has gotten so much better at adjusting his balance so he doesn’t fall as often. And when he does fall, he just gets right back up and starts walking again. That’s a big change: in the past when he fell he would crawl from that point.

He is very clearly proud of himself when he walks, which is great because that means he cares about walking and is motivated to make progress. (Which is a good thing, because we’ve now worn through the knees of just about everything Colin owns.) 

This puts the optimistic, hopeful part of myself at war with the superstitious “don’t say that because you just jinxed us” part. Because it does seem that every time I put a date with some type of progress with the babies, I set myself up for disappointment.

But I am starting to think that he may be walking by Ethan’s birthday. 

There. I said it. I may have just jinxed myself, but after the past two days the optimist is winning.

Getting so close

Colin is so close to really walking. So close. His confidence is growing, and he is trying to walk more steps and more often. And his balance is finally clicking for him, which means he is having more success. 

This weekend, especially, he has been making great strides (aren’t I punny?) toward independent walking. He has several times walked the length of the kitchen or dining room, and his ability to navigate turns is growing too. And tonight, before bedtime, he walked all the way from the bedroom into the living room, made a 45 degree turn, and walked across the living room to Ethan. Then he was so excited that he spun around in a circle and knocked himself over. 

Colin’s problem solving skills also continue to impress me. He is mastering the locks and fasteners on his two puzzles — which, as John pointed out, will not work in our favor here. He also now will do things like push a box over to the couch and use it to climb up. The boy wants to get where the boy wants to get, and he’s not going to take no for an answer. 

Roni also is making great progress — just in different areas. She now is doing really well at going down the stairs like a big girl, holding on to the wall or rail and someone’s hand. She is very proud of herself about this (as well she should be). (Colin now will scramble up and down the stairs, but he still uses the safer crawling down backward method — thank goodness.)

Roni also is starting to use a lot more words together in “sentences” — if you can call two words typically without a verb a sentence. The number of words she knows and uses regularly is impressive, and she’s working hard on getting “acidophilus” out correctly. (It’s very cute to hear her trying to say it.) 

They’re both at that fun stage where you can watch their brains working as they figure things out. And that’s so much fun. 

Teamwork

Colin and Veronica are very, very different in their personalities, and this definitely comes to play in terms of what they each can do. Colin is very adept at opening, unfastening and taking apart … everything. He mastered the child locks on the cabinets, he now opens all our doors (the downside of having lever handles), he can unzip and unload my backpack in a matter of seconds, will repeatedly flush the toilet if the bathroom door is left open … you get the picture.

Veronica is more verbal, and is more adept at thinking things through (and therefore, at following complex instructions). She already has taken on certain self-appointed “chores” around the house, including bringing down the bottles and putting them in the sink (with a little help reaching), carrying dirty clothes to the laundry shoot and finding specific books or toys (for us, herself or Colin). 

John always has the twins clean up their toys before they nap, or go outside or come downstairs to eat. We keep nearly everything in open canvas “bins” that slide into cubbyholes on the shelves upstairs. Both Colin and Veronica can pull these out (although Colin is more likely to do it) and find whatever toys they feel like playing with. We don’t keep things in any particular order in these, although I try to keep the wooden and plastic food in one, and their Mega Blocks in another. 

Apparently, one day last week when John was supervising cleanup, the three of them were throwing toys into whichever bin was handiest. But then Veronica realized other toys had gotten in with the blocks, so she carefully fished all the non-block toys out of the block bin and moved them to a different bin. She has now done that a couple of times with me as well. Very organized, my girl is.

The twins also have learned how to use each others strengths to get things done. The other night, Veronica was helping me look for one of Colin’s shoes. She was checking under the jukebox, and saw something. But she’s not very good at/comfortable with reaching under things. So she stood up and said, “Col-col” while pointing at the jukebox. Colin immediately came over, laid on his belly and fished out a number of toys (but no shoe — it was hiding in the toy box, a victim of Veronica’s overzealous cleanup earlier in the day).

(To be honest, I use Colin to fish things out from under the couch all the time — he’s low to the ground, very good at reaching and seems to enjoy the challenge.)

Veronica also doesn’t open the doors (although she’s tall enough and perfectly capable of doing so). If she wants to get into a room where the door is closed, she will rattle the handle and Colin will happily come oblige her by opening the door (and joining in whatever trouble she had in mind). Last week they got into Ethan’s bedroom while John was fixing bottles and managed to take apart all of his Lego creations in less than 10 minutes. (We’re now installing eye hooks out of reach on the critical doors to keep busy babies out.)

I have a feeling we’re in big trouble — together these two are going to really keep us on our toes.

An Explosion of Words

The babies are starting to talk up a storm. This past week, it has seemed like an explosion of words has hit the nursery (okay, we don’t really have a nursery, but it sounds nice). 

Veronica has long been talking up a storm, and I’m not sure I could even make a list of her words any more, she has such a nice vocabulary. But like any toddler, she hasn’t been very good at using them when she wants something. She prefers, instead, to revert to grunting and pointing. So we’ve been working hard to get her to use her words when she can say what she wants (save the grunting and pointing for things you don’t have the words for, sweetie). 

And finally, she is starting to get the hang of it. On Sunday she asked “please” a couple of times when she wanted to get a toy from Ethan or that was out of reach, which is much better than the previous point and cry or squeal approach.

We’re also pushing the two-word sentences hard with Veronica. But she hasn’t been as receptive to that, but she’s starting to do it when prompted. Last night, however, as we were saying goodbye to some of our neighbors who were going in for dinner, she turned around, waved and yelled what sounded like “Bye-bye baby!” I realized, about 10 minutes later, that what she really said was, “Bye-bye Barry.”

I was very proud of her for that one — not only was she being more sociable (from our girl who tends to be a bit reluctant around non-family), but she remembered Barry’s name and used it in one of her first two-word sentences. (Barry, you apparently rate high in Roni’s world.)

Colin qualified for speech therapy when he had his annual Early Intervention assessment, but we chose to defer that because he is working on so many other things (like walking) now. We have been talking with his physical therapist about possibly cutting back to every other week this summer (because of the progress he is making), which would make it more feasible to start speech. But now … Well, let’s just say his vocabulary is starting to blossom as well.

I made a list of Collin’s words last week, and already he has added a couple more. Right now he regularly says: choo choo (for train), bottle, tweet tweet (for bird), empty, woof woof (dog), pup, yes, no, door, daddy, on, off, up, please, dude, airplane, baby, belly, hi, bye, ball, shhh, eye, hot, out … and will sometimes say hair and teeth. And last night, he said something new, which I didn’t write down. So of course, I can’t remember what it was.

Even more impressive to me, is how much both Colin and Veronica comprehend. They both are able to follow multi-step instructions (although Colin often chooses to ignore us) and their ability to problem solve is great. (Or at least it’s great when they’re not tired. They are still little peanuts after all.)

Discharged

Today we had an appointment at the High Risk Clinic at Illinois Masonic (the NICU follow-up clinic). In a weird way, it’s always kind of fun going back to the hospital. We still know many, many people there and it’s a bit of a homecoming whenever we bring one of the babies back. 

It’s been a while since we were last at the hospital (or, more accurately, at this hospital) — six months I think, for Colin’s last visit and eight or nine for Roni. Some things have changed (you need a picture on your visitor badge now), but most of “our” people are still there — at the information desk, the clinic … we even ran into some of the NICU nurses in the hall. It was very confusing to Veronica to have all these people who she didn’t know making such a fuss over her. (Colin, the little social butterfly that he is, enjoyed the attention.)

Colin’s occupational therapist also works at the hospital doing the developmental assessments at the clinic, so it’s like getting an extra play session with her for the twins. When she walked into the waiting room this morning, they both got very excited and started saying hi. 

I sometimes wonder what the other parents waiting think when everyone clearly knows us and immediately starts talking to us and commenting on how big the twins are, and what new tricks they’ve learned. But really, it’s a notoriety that has come at a cost you wouldn’t want to pay, so be glad they don’t know you as well. It means your baby wasn’t as sick as mine and didn’t live at the hospital for a quarter of his first year.

Colin has gained a little weight the last two months — he’s up to 21 pounds 7 ounces (although I think the scale at the clinic weighs lighter than the one at our pediatrician’s office). Veronica is up to nearly 25 pounds (my big girl). They are both testing ahead of their actual age in fine motor skills (at about 23-24 months). Veronica is at about 18 months in gross motor skills (one month ahead of her adjusted age) — although I think it’s more a function of timidness when it comes to trying new things than any kind of a delay. Colin is at about 14 months in gross motor skills.

The upshot of this morning’s appointment is: Because the twins are doing so well (Veronica) and making such good progress (Colin) and are well-followed by their very extensive team of doctors and therapists, we have been officially discharged from the high risk clinic. Yeah!

Unfortunately, Colin also started coughing last night, and the doctor said his lungs sounded very wheezy. So we’re back doing the albuterol treatments every four hours, and may need to go to either the pediatrician or the pulmonologist if this doesn’t clear up over the weekend. It also means his lungs haven’t healed as much as we had hoped, and we probably will have to be back on the QVar again next fall. *Sigh* I was really hoping he would have outgrown the need for the inhaler. 

Sliders

In most things, Veronica is a cautious girl. Like her big brother, she prefers to watch and wait before jumping into anything new. When greeted by “strangers” (which includes some of our neighbors whom she has known since she was a little baby), she often becomes a statue, frozen in place until they move on. But baby girl has found her thing — the one place she is fearless: the playground slide.

Since the weather has been so, so nice of late, we’ve been hitting the park nearly every day since early last week. I took the twins to the park nearest our house on Tuesday morning last week (when John was sick), and reintroduced them to the slides and swings and things. Colin tackled everything with great relish; Roni needed a lot more coaxing to do anything. 

Tuesday afternoon, we went to the playground at Ethan’s school. Veronica was running around like she owned the place, and suddenly was not satisfied with the littlest slide. She wanted to do the medium slide, and then the big one. As long as we were holding her hand, she was willing to try them all. 

Yesterday morning, we went to the corner park, which is fairly new and has some great climbing things that Colin likes. Suddenly Veronica was doing the slides by herself. I no longer had to help her sit down and scoot forward. In fact, I had to run to get to the bottom of the slide to keep her from shooting right off. 

Colin, on the other hand, is a swing guy. Where Veronica trembles with fear in the swings (and I’m talking about the bucket swings for babies here), Colin loves to go high and lean back to feel the wind in his face. He also likes to climb up and down. And to scramble right to the edge of the big drops (where bigger kids can get to the climbing ladders and poles) like he’s going right on off the edge. (The only two times I wasn’t close enough to grab him, another Mom stepped in and plucked him from the edge. But I don’t doubt that he was NOT planning to stop. The kid has no fear.)

We’ve been enjoying the abundance of neighborhood parks, along with the abundance of good weather and sunshine. The playgrounds and parks are hard sometimes with Colin not walking. He will drop down and crawl anywhere — and he nearly gets trampled when he does because no one is looking down as they’re running around. But it doesn’t seem to bother him, which in some ways is too bad. It might encourage him to try walking on his own a bit more if he wasn’t so comfortable on all fours. 

Sigh. We’ll get there eventually.

Things that go bump in the … afternoon?

I long expected Colin would be the first one to reach this milestone, but I wasn’t prepared for it to happen quite this early. But at nap time this afternoon, Colin managed to climb out of his crib. And he landed with a large thump … and a big cry.

He’s got a big red bump on his forehead, but otherwise doesn’t seem to be any worse for the wear. And John was able to get the mattress lowered a little further, which I hope will be enough to keep monkey boy from going bump in the night tonight. But once he figures out how to escape the crib with the lowered mattress, we’re sunk. Because Colin is perfectly capable of being very quiet when he wants, and can get into all sorts of mischief without even leaving his room.

Veronica, I suspect, will be more like Ethan was. Even after we moved him into a toddler bed, he wouldn’t get out of it until we told him it was okay. She recently discovered she could pull things (books) into her crib from our bed (which is right next to it), but she hasn’t shown any sign of wanting to get out on her own.

Night Terror

Veronica may or may not suffer occasionally from night terrors (crying inconsolably and inexplicably at night while not really being awake), but Wednesday night she was a night terror (for me at least). Actually, Wednesday was a banner night for all three kids (although Ethan’s sleeping problem was just a bad dream, and he was fast asleep again quickly once he climbed into bed with John). 

Veronica went down smoothly enough, and slept through the mini construction project outside her door. (We had someone come out and mount the TV on the wall — and put the cords inside the wall — to protect Mr. “Look What Happens When I Push This” Colin. They were running late, so they didn’t get to our house until about 6:30.) But at about 10:45 she woke up screaming. At the top of her lungs. And the girl has vocal projection that would make an opera singer weep with jealousy. 

Veronica is my baby this week (John and I each take a baby and trade off periodically), so I went in to calm her down. After patting her bottom and rubbing her back for a while, she seemed calm (but still awake), so I decided I would move over to the bed so I could lie down and just hold her hand through the crib slats. 

Big mistake. Little Missy stood up and started really screaming (and I thought she was loud before). Even rubbing her back wasn’t doing any good. From this point I tried every trick I had: Rubbing her back, patting her bottom, stroking her head, singing to her, shushing her, picking her up, rocking her. No good. 

Finally, while I was holding her in the rocking chair (going deaf from the screaming and ready to fall over from exhaustion), I decided I wanted to let her know I still loved her, even though I was frustrated with her screaming. So I whispered “I love you stinky face” (one of her current favorite books) in her ear. 

Mid scream she stopped, sat up and said, “Book?”

So we read Stinky Face in the dark (the advantage of a book in heavy rotation with twin toddlers — you can “read” it with the lights off) and followed it up with Please, Puppy, Please (the all-time favorite, which has been loved to shreds — literally). She finally was calm enough to bring her into bed with me. Unfortunately, it still took her another hour to actually fall asleep (at about 1:45).

Then, at 4:15, she sprang up screaming again. (Did I mention the opera-singer lungs?) And nothing would stop her this time. I finally got so frustrated/angry/wiped out that I plopped her in the rocking chair with her books, turned on the light and went back over to the bed to lie down. Neither of us slept again, but at least she stopped screaming and I didn’t have to worry about her waking up the boys (if they were still asleep). 

Veronica, after about 4 hours of sleep, greeted the day cheerful and ready for anything. Mommy, not so much. 

Veronica got to take a nice nearly-three hour nap. Mommy got to work. 

Surprisingly, Mommy ended the day feeling more refreshed than I’ve felt in weeks. And Veronica slept through the night last night. (Or at least she was quiet all night. We can’t always tell if she’s slept.)

Even more surprisingly, she didn’t wake up Ethan or Colin (who is fighting a cold and isn’t sleeping very well himself as a result).