Matthew had his appointment at the Special Infant Care Clinic on Thursday, and all went well. (He was even cheerful during almost all of it, which was amazing given that it was an 8 AM appointment and he'd been up from 4 to 6 AM. Yep, that was just as much fun for Mommy as it sounds. And did I mention I had to teach that afternoon, too?)
He weighed in at 21 lbs, 10.7 oz (this was the not-cheerful part -- for some reason he always screams bloody murder at the indignity of being undressed and put on a scale), and had a beautiful blood pressure, something like 77 systolic. I was just about to say something like, "Very good, Matthew, you don't have to go back to see Dr. V [the nephrologist]", and in walked Dr. V! (She's fabulous, and it was great to say hello to her, but we're happy not to have to see her in a professional capacity any more, at least for Mattie.)
Two of our favorite doctors (one of the fellows and one of the attendings) were running the clinic this time -- too bad Mike wasn't able to be there!
Mattie's growth charts looked great. He's something like 3rd percentile for height and 10th for weight for his actual age, so that's pretty good (and 50th percentile for head circumference, also good). They said we could go off the preemie formula and switch to either toddler formula or whole milk. Yay! I figured our chunky monkey didn't really need the high-cal formula any more, but I'm still slightly nervous about making the switch, even though there's no good reason to worry. It's not like he's ever been especially picky about the taste of his milk; he used to swig it right down even with his vitamins and blood pressure meds mixed in, so I'm sure it will be fine. We'll find out soon, anyhow -- we're reaching the bottom of the last can of Enfacare today.
The physical therapist checked him out and said everything looked fine. The speech therapist did an assessment, too, and commented that "his social and cognitive skills are fantastic." (Go Mattie!) He didn't do "touchdown" for her, but he did answer, "What does the hot dog say?" (In case you don't know, the hot dog -- canine, not frankfurter -- pants.) But when we got the overall report, he was rated as average for both receptive and expressive language. (I assume that's for adjusted age.) That seemed right to me for expressive, since he's not saying a ton of actual words right now (dog, duck, and occasionally mama, and he signs milk and more), but I was a little surprised at receptive because the kid seems to understand an awful lot.
The doctors think those scores are totally fine, especially since he's walking and doing so much with motor skills. The doctor said it's not uncommon for kids to work on one and then the other. And of course, after I got home, I realized that I'd underestimated how many sounds he's saying (he's doing "s", "sh", and the occasional "f" and "w" that I didn't mention). Ah well, no big deal. (Dear Matthew, if you would allow Mommy to get a full night's sleep, she might be able to remember all of the wonderful things you're doing to report them to the doctors. Love, Mommy.) I also suspect we're on the border of some language gains, because he'll occasionally repeat things we say in ways that sound a lot like real words (he's done this with baby, fresh, and water recently, although only about once for each one).
The last thing was a behavioral hearing test, very similar to the one James did (training them to look over at dancing puppets when they hear a sound), but a lot shorter. His hearing is fine. It was slightly nerve-wracking, though, because although I was pretty sure there's no problem with at all with Mattie's hearing (as he unfortunately demonstrates especially when he's about to fall asleep), there were some softer sounds where he didn't turn to the puppets -- but then they repeated it and he did respond, so it was fine. The audiologist said it's not at all unusual for kids not to respond sometimes, if they're distracted or whatever (and Mattie was definitely getting sleepy by that point, too).
We go back again in about six months, when they'll do more formal developmental assessments for both boys.
Grandma got the boys some foam letters to play with in the bathtub -- they were clearly a big hit! (Splashing is always a big hit, too.) (Umm, and apparently we need to bleach our bathtub grout.)
doing. (The main thing they're tracking now is his weight gain.)
Matthew had his appointment at the Special Infant Care Clinic on Thursday, and all went well. (He was even cheerful during almost all of it, which was amazing given that it was an 8 AM appointment and he'd been up from 4 to 6 AM. Yep, that was just as much fun for Mommy as it sounds. And did I mention I had to teach that afternoon, too?)
James is all decked out for the Tour d'France!
Mike made it safely to Arizona, and Grandma and I got the boys fed and into bed tonight, so all is well! 
Grandma has arrived, bearing some new toys for the boys! (The dog dish in the center picture is not actually a toy, contrary to Matthew's belief.)
Congratulations, Stormin'!!
After the playground (see below), we were going to take a dip in the indoor pool. But by the time we got ready (and in our case, got the car packed, since we had to check out), the sun emerged! Hooray! So we were back at the outdoor pool. 
Mike and I hadn't had a chance to try the water slide yesterday, but it looked like fun. And Tash and Nora were willing to hold the babies for us, so we went for it. It was a surprisingly fast and thrilling slide, all in the dark! It was great! (And best of all, no lines!) The adults and Izzy went a couple of times, and then Daniel wanted to go, so Tash held him on her lap going down -- the look on his face as he came out the bottom was rather terrified! But Mommy and Daddy were there to console him, so he recovered quickly. :)
Just like yesterday, Matthew loved the water, especially walking around in it. James liked it well enough, but he was definitely ready for naptime, so he was a little more mellow than yesterday. 
Although the forecast was for a sunny weekend, we woke up this morning to rain -- not exactly what everyone had in mind for a beach day! But it had the nice side effect of making the morning more leisurely. When everyone was up and about, we headed to the hotel cafe (the Muffin Pan) intending to get some breakfast...but they were out of food. Apparently everyone else had the same idea we did! (The same thing happened at the lunch place at the hotel pool yesterday; they were out of many of the menu items when we arrived. Even though this hotel serves food, they seem unusually surprised by people actually ordering/eating it!)
But that too was a blessing in disguise, because we went across the street to Shoney's and had the breakfast buffet. We hadn't been to a Shoney's in a long time, but it turns out to be perfect for dining with families and little ones. They had a nice long table in a corner room and plenty of high chairs, and the waitress didn't bat an eye at the minefield of Cheerios that our two guys left strewn across the floor. (I don't know if they lose that many at home and we just don't notice because Stanley snaps them up, or if there were more Cheerio casualties because they were eating them off the table instead of their high chair trays. Either way, it looked like an entire breakfast down there.) Ah, how our standards have changed now that we're eating with toddlers! (And hey, they served biscuits and gravy, so I'm not complaining about the food, either!) 
It is a little insane to do an overnight "beach" trip with two babies, but we decided to go for it anyhow -- Cousin Daniel's Auntie Tash and Uncle Nathan (and kids) are in visiting all the way from England, so this was our chance to see them. I put beach in quotes because we spent most of our time at the pool today instead, which was great for the little ones -- Matthew and James (and Daniel and Issy and Ava) are all part fish; they loved the water. And at the pool we don't have to spend all our time preventing Mattie from eating sand (and rocks and shells and anything else he can grab).
on the beach! Lots of crowds.)
All is well here; just busy! We will probably be offline for the next couple of days -- have a great weekend!
Observations from today:
We tried bigger hunks of pears at dinner tonight, and the boys liked those a little better (though they still have a hard time holding on to them, because they're so slippery). James especially liked the ones he swiped off his brother's tray.
On the toddler menu today: green beans and pasta stars in tomato sauce. James made quite a mess with it at lunch (Mike captured it on video for me), but the boys both did pretty well with it at dinner. (Still messy, of course, but slightly less messy because Mommy puts less on the tray at one time than Daddy does!)
Here's the difference between mommies and daddies: I think that since we're paying the big bucks to have James on hypoallergenic, lactose-free formula (and since we still don't really know what caused the five days of vomiting over the fourth of July), that we should avoid giving James dairy. Mike, on the other hand, thinks that 
kids and mac & cheese go together like America and apple pie, so he bought some toddler mac & cheese (& carrots).
We went to the neighborhood lake this evening instead of our usual walk. (I thought it would be crowded on a Saturday, but we were pleasantly surprised to be the only people there, except for a swimmer leaving as we arrived!)
(and later I noticed he'd picked up the third as well). Cousin Daniel has some of those balls, and apparently Mike has been dreaming of getting some ever since! So that made his day and gave him a little more patience for looking through the rows of baby clothes. :)
The trial run with the potential babysitter went very well today (although it almost didn't happen at all, since my husband sometimes has a different idea of what "next Friday" means than the rest of the world does!)
The boys are constantly learning new things. Today James figured out how to turn his shopping cart around (so he's not stuck at the end of the hallway!), which was great. But Mattie seems to have learned how to pull hair, which is not so great. (And at least this afternoon when he was overtired, he thought it was hilarious when Mommy got mad and told him no. Uh-oh!)
chunks of canned pear today, and some mashed up potatoes with gravy from our dinner. They seemed to like the potatoes, but weren't so enthusiastic about the pears. (I was a bit surprised, because they seem to love the baby food pears.) The pear chunks are kind of slippery, so they had a hard time picking them up, and I think Mattie didn't like the texture so much. But that's okay, we'll just try again and let them get used to it. (Much as they might want to, they can't live on Cheerios alone!)
Remember the bet that Mike and I made about whether patient relations would ever return my call about not having people have to wait around at the pharmacy when they were being discharged? Well, I am delighted to report that they did indeed get back to us.
reasons why prescriptions weren't just automatically sent to the pharmacy (some doctors don't like to use the electronic system; they don't have insurance information for all the patients; some patients want to use a different pharmacy; the current system doesn't have a way of marking prescriptions for discharge patients versus other people), but said that they were working on making it better.
James has been very enthusiastic about opening the cabinets the last couple of days. Alas, Mommy and Daddy don't think the CD and video collections are appropriate baby toys (and these doors close in a way that seems a little too likely to catch baby fingers). So, we keep removing James from the area, but we need to find a better babyproofing solution soon!
Weekends are more fun when Auntie Nora is here!
The boys (and us!) are enjoying a visit with Auntie Nora.
