In to the woods, part 1

We took the kiddos camping the weekend before last — the twins first camping experience, and our first with them. It was … interesting. Unfortunately, we had the worst possible weather for camping — in the 90s and very, very humid, followed by wild storms that lasted all night long.

We have been trying to get a camping trip together with our neighbors for close to four years. Our plans were somewhat interrupted by my pregnancy and then the arrival of Colin and Veronica. So this year, we were determined to make it work, and we decided to join them on their annual Father’s Day camping trip to the Kankakee River State Park.

John thought he was going to be working that weekend, so my sister agreed to join us so I wouldn’t have to try to keep an eye on all three kids by myself. Fortunately, at the last minute John was able to wrap up his work and come along for the fun. (He may have regretted that later, but …)

We hadn’t been to Kankakee in years, so I made sure I printed out directions from Google maps before we left. We loaded up the van, loaded up the people, and away we went … to the Kankakee County Fairgrounds, which is at the end of a dead-end road on the far side of the “metro” area. Apparently the address listed on the Park's website was incorrect.

So, after much ado that turned what should have been an hour and a half trip into a nearly three hour trip, we arrived at the campground and got set up. Ethan immediately joined the other kids and started playing, and the three adults went about setting up camp and keeping the twins out of trouble. (Poison ivy must like hot and dry conditions, because it was everywhere.)

I knew Colin and Veronica would like camping — they both love to be outside and get very upset when we have to come in. They like exploring, and love dirt and plants and sticks and stones. And I was right. The heat didn’t seem to bother them nearly as much as it bothered me, and they had fun exploring. Veronica was fascinated by the daddy long-legs (or “Daddy Legs” as she called them) and Colin seems to have fun wherever he is.

I was very worried about how the sleeping would go. The twins aren’t what you would call good sleepers — it’s rare even now that we get a night where they both sleep through — and when you’re in a tent the whole world knows when you’ve hit a rough spot. But that first night, they actually did surprisingly well. Both twins slept pretty much through, until Veronica woke up at 4-something in the morning and was delighted to realize we were all together:

“Col-y!” “Mommy!” “Daddy!” — announced in a voice that pretty much precluded any more sleep.

>> To be continued … 

Colin enjoying some fresh fruit in his new camp chair, courtesy of Aunt Deb.

Roni in her new camp chair too.

We really shouldn't compare

Veronica is very verbal. I can’t even count the number of words she knows, and she has been talking in sentences (she averages three to five words now) for more than a month. She also speaks fairly clearly, so we generally can figure out what she is saying without too much trouble. 

A typical morning with Veronica will start with her coming downstairs and saying, “Good morning Mommy. How are you?” (I’m not sure whether she understands what she’s asking with the how are you, or if she just knows that’s what people ask each other … but she does ask.) She still doesn’t use verbs consistently (Roni shoes on. Go outside.) But she is capable of explaining fairly complicated ideas already. 

Colin, on the other hand, has a good vocabulary but is very hard to understand when he speaks. Part of that is because he almost always has his hand in his mouth, but he also tends to drop either the first or last part of the words. He also typically still only uses single words and really isn’t putting words together into sentences (two word or otherwise) yet. 

So during Colin’s six-month EI evaluation, I asked about getting him evaluated for speech again. The speech therapist came out this afternoon and spent some time playing with Colin (during which she is doing her evaluation).

The speech therapist told John she would imagine it’s hard not to compare Colin and Veronica, but that he is on target (for his actual age) for speech. Veronica is just a verbal overachiever. 

So yeah! We won’t be adding another therapy session to our weeks. We will, however, do a follow-up in three months to make sure Colin is still progressing on schedule. Because, hey, that’s what you do when you have a crew following your child’s development. 

Growing, good

Just a quick post with good news: Colin had his monthly nutritionist appointment this morning. He gained 8 ounces in the past two weeks, and has grown half an inch since last month. 

That puts him at 22 pounds 8 ounces and 32 inches long. He now is sitting at about the 13th percentile for his adjusted age for both height and weight (the last month we’ll be able to use the adjusted age since they officially stop adjusting for prematurity at two years). He is up to about the 6th percentile for his actual age. 

For a boy who wasn’t even on the growth chart until he was 19 months old, that’s pretty good.

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.