Mallrats

It was raining today, but we took the boys on a lunch outing to the mall near us. (There were a surprising number of small children in the Chik-Fil-A! It was good to see that we're not the only ones who are sometimes failing to model healthy eating habits for our kids. Hee hee.)

The mall wasn't too crowded, so the little guys had a great time walking/crawling around. Matthew always likes being on the go, the faster the better. Jamesie discovered the fake rocks in the potted plants, and decided it was his mission to take them all out of the pot. (Yes, we put them back before we left.)

In the first picture, James is considering going as Gilligan for Halloween. (No, not really.) In the second picture, Mattie is dressed in his big boy clothes (shirt/onesie compliments of Auntie Kimberly, pants compliments of Grandma).

Little Sister

Okay, so she's not Matthew and James's little sister, but we enjoyed a visit from C's little sister, the adorable Miss Ellie, today. Eight and a half pounds sounds huge, but she feels like she weighs nothing at all!

Mattie has had a rough couple of days. We thought he'd outgrown the separation anxiety phase, but apparently it's back, or something else is going on -- he was extremely clingy yesterday and today. Plus he has at least one bottom tooth coming in. And as Matthew is not the type to suffer in silence (all suffering must be done at the top of his lungs), it has not been too peaceful around here.

James, meanwhile, has decided that I'm a human elevator. Just about every time I pick him up, he "eh-eh"s and points toward something high up -- the mantel, the entertainment center shelves, or the window, and isn't satisfied until I lift him up to check it out.

Picnic

The boys had a good time at my department picnic this afternoon (and fortunately, the rain held off until later in the day!) Mattie just wanted to walk everywhere and explore; since we didn't let James crawl, he was happy to be sociable. :) And they were both enchanted with the helium balloon that one of the students brought.

They were not the youngest ones there this year, nor were they the only twins!

In other news, Mattie had one of his first tastes of Cajun cuisine tonight -- he chowed down on red beans and rice (well, mostly just the rice) with gusto. Jamesie tried it too, but we're not sure if more than a few grains made it into his mouth! (He did eat some hummus-dipped Cheerios, though, so he's getting some new tastes little by little.)

Moo

Yesterday evening we were running an errand (carpet shopping to complete the downstairs "playroom" renovation) out near Fearrington Village, so we stopped by to show the boys their first real live cows! They don't allow you to touch the animals, much to James's disappointment. (He either recognized them as cows or understood the word or both, as he said "ooo" for "moo" several times! He also seemed excited about the donkey.)

On the way home, we stopped for pizza and ate outside in Southern Village. The boys were very well-behaved!

Mattie has a new word: "up!" He used it when he was climbing up his slide (and he was able to go up the steps, get his feet out from under him, and slide down all by himself this evening). He also used it when he climbed up on a bench (a piece of furniture known as "the red thing" in my family). It's his new favorite thing to do, now that he can use the fireplace hearth as a stepping stone. Just when you think you have an area babyproofed, they discover a new trick!

James was so cute the other night -- he was splashing in the tub (he's a champion splasher), and he clearly wanted Mattie to join in. When Mattie turned around to try to play with the faucet, James tapped him on the back. And then when Mattie did start to splash (with some encouragement from us), Jamesie was so happy! He just started laughing. Very sweet!

He's also funny because he loves putting things into containers these days, and usually he starts out with whatever usually goes in there (we have some blocks than go in their own square container, a barn that comes with a set of animals, etc.), but then he'll try to stuff something huge in, like a toy truck. Still figuring out those spatial relations!

Boys Now

My friend reported that after visiting us, her three and a half year old commented, "It was a surprise! The babies are boys now."

Tell me about it, kid. :)

Speech

At James's last Special Infant Care Clinic (SICC) visit back at the end of June, they recommended that he continue seeing his developmental therapist but that she would shift to working more on speech. Well, that's fine in theory, but she's not trained in speech therapy, so it hasn't actually worked out in practice. So we asked our Early Intervention coordinator about getting a consultation with a speech therapist, partially to see whether he needed additional therapy, but also in case that person might have some new hints or strategies we might use. (We were influenced by the fact that the person who evaluated the boys for physical therapy way back when was so awesome -- even though they didn't end up needing PT, we felt like the suggestions she gave us for exercises to do to help with tummy time, etc., were extremely helpful. We thought maybe something similar would happen with a speech eval.)

At first the EI coordinator was going to set us up with the speech pathologist in her office, but then she had second thoughts because that person isn't trained in working with hearing loss. And, James's auditory-verbal therapist is trained in speech therapy as well (which I think we had forgotten), so instead we had a meeting today with her and with the EI coordinator to decide how to proceed.

One issue with speech evaluation with a child like James is the question of what standards to use. There's his chronological age (16 months), but with babies born this early, no one really expects them to be at their actual age developmentally yet. Then there's his adjusted age (13 months), which is a more appropriate benchmark generally, but then there's a third one for hearing loss -- his "hearing age", which starts from the time he got his hearing aids (early May). So, James is a bit delayed in speech for his adjusted age, but he's way ahead for his hearing age, and as his therapist said today, for a child with auditory neuropathy and moderate to severe hearing loss (though she misspoke there -- James has mild to moderate loss), he's doing "absolutely outstanding."

Overall, her take is that he's doing really well, and that speech therapy would not be useful at this point. What we've been doing in the therapy with her is to try to get as much language input for him as possible, and then his speech should emerge from that, which it appears to be doing.

After this discussion, our decision was to not pursue a speech eval or anything additional at this point. We're very comfortable with that, but we wanted to explore the options given the SICC recommendation.  (My impression is that the SICC doesn't really take the hearing loss into account in their evaluations, and also, I think they want to err on the conservative/negative side in their evaluations so that a child doesn't get denied any services they might need.) 

James demonstrated his "yee haw" and "ei ei oh" (Old McDonald) while they were here.  His AV therapist asked if he'd been making any other kinds of sounds, like vroom for a car or bam bam, and when he heard her say "bam bam", he banged his fists together!  So cute!  (And good listening!)

And, also today, he said "ooo" in response to "what does the cow say?" and he said "ball" ("ba") and crawled over to get his ball.  (He'd said "ball" in his ball pit the other day, but I wasn't sure if he really was saying ball or just babbling with his "ba"s -- but this time was pretty convincing.)  He also said "duck" again when he was looking at a picture of a duck in the book. 

He's also imitated "bye bye" a couple of times (in an adorable high-pitched voice), although he may be saying "di di" instead.  And he imitated "uh oh" after he threw his cup out of his high chair.  (I'm waiting until he's a bit older to explain to him that it's not really an "uh oh" if you drop it on purpose.)

With all that, I think his speaking right now is AWESOME.  Super-genius baby! 

It's also a big relief to have him actually saying some words (or, you know, the toddler version of words).  The fact that he was understanding what we said was reassuring that we weren't dealing with the worst case auditory neuropathy scenario ("never able to understand or use spoken language" -- you can imagine that booming around in the back of my mind, the monster under the bed), but now that he's using words as well, I am breathing easier.  (As usual, Mike stopped worrying about the worst case long before I did.)

The photo is from dinner tonight -- we gave the boys refried black beans (and let them eat with their hands).  Mattie loved them and just shoveled it in (and on); Jamesie didn't quite know what to make of it, and I think ended up with more of it on his legs than in his mouth.  :)

Pajama Boys

Mike didn't think Mattie had been getting his fair share of blog pictures lately, so here he is in his after-bath PJ glory!

Labels

We may have mentioned before that the state of North Carolina has a wonderful program that pays for a first pair of hearing aids for babies and children under three.  (Hearing aids cost several thousand dollars, so this is a big deal for most families!) So, this is a fantastic thing and we're very grateful for it.

But...

We got the hospital bill in the mail for James's last pair of earmolds, and part of it had been paid by our regular insurance.  Another part had been paid by "Crippled Children."

Oh my.  Ouch.  Don't you think they could find a name that's not stuck back in the 50's??

(And of course, our first reaction was, "he's not crippled!")

The Many Faces of James

James was performing for the camera at dinner tonight.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Happy birthday to Grandma! We love you and hope you had a wonderful day!

The boys had their 15-month pediatrician appointment today (yes, about a month late), and everything went well. Mattie once again screamed bloody murder at the mere thought of getting weighed and measured, but they got a weight of 21 lbs, 15 oz with his diaper on. That puts him in the 10th percentile for weight for his actual age (woo-hoo!) and he's 29.5 inches, so 5th percentile for height. Jamesie was 17 lbs, 7 oz on their scale (a bit heavier than we'd been getting at home), and if I remember correctly, 27.5 inches -- so he's still below the growth charts but chugging along in the right direction.

They got a bunch of shots that they didn't appreciate (several of the big ones -- flu, MMR, chicken pox), but as usual, didn't cry for long.

Little Hurricane Matthew was on the go, exploring the examination room during much of the visit. At one point he used the baby size chair to climb up on the adult-size chair, and almost took a header off of that one. "He's probably going to learn some things the hard way," the doctor commented.

Nicole said that when she turned on the sink today, Matthew said, "water." (Of course, it's probably another of those "one time" words that we won't hear again for another few months!) And I think he and James are both starting to do the sign for "all done."

Ba Da Duck

This morning, Mike showed James his cowboy toy and James said, "Yee haw" (or his version, "ee-ah"). Later in the morning, I held out his sheep toy and said, "James, this is the sheep. What does the sheep say?" and he looked right at me and said, "Ba." (In fairness, James says "ba" a lot in his babbling.) And in the bathtub tonight he was reaching for the rubber ducky and said something (twice) that sounded a lot like "duck." Mike tells me James also looked at him and said "Dada."

So while one or some of these might just be chance babbling, I think somewhere in there we've got a first spoken word, one that's actually communicating rather than just imitating. Wow!

James is also in the pointing and "eh eh"-ing stage. He seems particularly interested in whatever is up high, on shelves or the mantels. I have explained to the boys that we put things up high because they are not for babies, but the boys do not seem swayed by this argument.

Like Mattie, James is also getting the hang of doing his shapes puzzle (at least one piece at a time!) And he really enjoys "playing" the piano. They both like putting things into containers and taking them out. (I am happy that they enjoy throwing the balls back into the ball pit just as much as they like tossing them out!)

Oh, and Jamesie was teasing his brother the other night. I'd let Mattie down from his high chair after dinner, and James was still in his seat eating a graham cracker. Mattie was standing nearby, and James leaned down and held down the cracker -- and when Mattie reached for it, James pulled it up out of reach and smiled! And then he did it again. :) Too funny! Fortunately, Mattie didn't care.

Mattie's new trick for today was putting the gears back on the posts on his gear toy. And did I mention that he's started sometimes coming over to us and giving us hugs? So sweet!

In other news, in addition to the three top teeth he's got coming in, James has at least one and maybe two new bottom ones appearing as well.  

[Photos are from yesterday.]

Playground Morning

Our trip to the playground this morning was more successful than last time, in that Matthew only tried to eat the mulch once! :) The boys really enjoyed the slide, both climbing up it and going down it (with help).

Jamesie was having fun walking (holding on to my hands); unfortunately, his cute little sandals kept coming off, so I ended up letting him go barefoot. I had learned one lesson from last time, though, and had him in these light long pants so he could crawl around on the equipment without scraping his knees. Mattie was a little tired, we think, so he mainly just wanted to wander around drinking his bottle.

There was a little girl there wearing a hat, and James looked at her and did the "hat" sign! (He did it again later when looking at a lady wearing a headscarf. Mike thought maybe James wanted his own hat on, but nope!)

[We don't know who the little kid behind Mike is in the tunnel picture.]

Dis and Dat

When Matthew goes around pointing at things (which he spends quite a bit of time doing these days), it sounds like he's saying "this!" and "that!" (although since he's a baby, it comes out as dis and dat). This evening he was pointing at the Brutus Buckeye doll, and I said, "Do you want Brutus?" and he said "Brutus!" So, all you OSU fans out there should be pleased that the boy is being raised up right.

The boys were a little fussy this evening before our friends came over, so I asked if they wanted to watch some Baby Signing Time (which almost always works to settle them down). Matthew immediately walked over and pointed to the TV. Yikes, that's a little scary!

I think James was doing the sign for "eat" yesterday before dinner. The actual sign is bringing closed fingers up to your mouth, and he did it more with an open hand, but it seemed like he meant eat!

James stood by himself for three or four seconds this evening -- his balance is improving! And he's doing pretty well walking just hanging on one-handed to an adult's hand. Yay James!

Jamesie is up above 17 lbs -- about 17 lbs, 3 oz according to our home scale. Mattie, meanwhile, is hovering just under 22 lbs, which means a new carseat is in his near future (since his current one only goes up to 22 lbs). We are going to be sad to lose the great snap-in stroller that goes with that seat.

Figuring It Out

Grandma is off to the beach (en route to home) -- the house feels emptier without her here!

The boys are both into climbing these days; they like climbing up their slide both ways (with a little help), and they try to pull themselves up on the kitchen set and (alas) the baby gate. James loves to climb on the couch but isn't big enough to get up there himself, so he's happy when an adult will give him a boost!

Mattie has been Mr. Puzzle-Solver the last couple of days. One of their favorite toys is a set of plastic stars with holes in the center that go on a post; they've been good at taking them off for a long time, but Mattie has now figured out how to put them back on the post. He did it over and over again to make sure he had it, and he was so pleased with himself! They also have a little caterpillar truck with two cylinders; when you push one of them down, the other pops up and makes a noise, and when you push that one down, the first one pops up again. The boys had never paid much attention to that aspect of it, but Mattie figured that one out the other day, too. And then this morning he was very happy to be able to get the triangle puzzle piece in the triangle spot.

He did the sign for hat today when I said that the cowboy had a hat on, and then he pointed to the cowboy's hat. Smart boy!

Mattie also has two bottom teeth coming in, one on each side of his current ones. We'd been trying to transition him from formula to (cow's) milk, but he had some intestinal unpleasantness. I'm hoping that maybe it was the teething or something else causing that instead of the milk, so we'll try again with the milk in a few days and see how it goes (no pun intended :) ). 

GQ

Auntie Nora and Uncle Adrian have had a mystery subscription to G.Q. appearing in their mailbox recently* (much like we've been getting mystery issues of Wine Spectator). However, I think this pose of Daniel's in the first picture may provide the solution -- he's the one that's been subscribing! (This is what happened when I said, "say cheese!")

The only downside to a visit from young Daniel is that you have "Yellow Submarine" stuck in your head for days afterwards, due to his current obsession with it. :)

There has been a lot of talking around here recently. It sounded like Mattie said, "Whoo whoo" when he saw his toy owl this morning, and then later in the day when Mike mentioned playing on the slide, Mattie got excited and said slide over and over. We're pretty sure he also says "baa" when you ask him what the sheep says, though he's not as consistent with that one as with the cow. And Jamesie has been doing some good imitating; he imitates "baa" for the sheep sound, and was doing a version of "e-i-e-i-o" (the Old McDonald chorus) the other day. I think he also did the sign for book this evening when he was looking at Mattie holding a book (and heard me say book), but I'm not quite sure about that one.

We went out to eat tonight since Grandma is leaving tomorrow. We picked a family-friendly place (the Loop), and the boys were good. James was okay in his carseat (a little fussiness that was soothed with a graham cracker), but Mattie got restless after a while, so we put him the restaurant high chair. He leaned back as far as he could go and put his foot up on the edge like it was his own little Barcalounger. And then he was fascinated by the other little kids sitting near us.


* The GQ thing is especially funny if you know Uncle Adrian, because his preferred attire is jeans and t-shirts with math jokes on them.

A Few More from Yesterday

Just a few more photos of the happy extended family!

We are Family

We had a wonderful visit from Uncle Henry, Aunt Helen, Aunt Ann, Uncle Dave, and Cousin Chris today! (Plus Auntie Nora, Cousin Daniel, and Grandma -- a full house!) And yes, we let Chris in even though he was wearing Miami colors. :)

We wish they could have stayed longer, but the beach is calling. :)

Playspace

The boys are enjoying their newly-renovated downstairs play space (once the carpet is replaced the renovation will be complete). The ball pit was supplied by Daddy, kitchen and bouncy horse are compliments of Grandma Linda.

The twins are also having fun with their big-boy cups of water (and "fun" here equals "lots of spilling", so they mostly just get them at dinner when they're going into the bath right afterwards!)

(And I'm apparently spending too much time at the hospital pharmacy, since the check-in lady greeted me with, "I was just thinking of you the other day!")

Toothsome

We haven't captured a picture of it yet, but James is getting three of his top teeth in! The edges of the two middle ones are just starting to peek out, and one next to them has emerged a bit more. Go James! (He's been remarkably cheerful for a kiddo with that much gum action going on!)

And on the second try, Mattie decided he enjoys watermelon. He also enjoys having his own bowl, just like a big boy!

Toddle Monkey

Mattie still has that same cough hanging on, so his pediatrician wanted to get a chest X-ray (mainly to make sure he hadn't aspirated anything, I think). He went to the hospital for that this morning, and we went to the doctor this afternoon. The X-ray looked fine, totally normal, which was good (and as expected).

The pediatrician was going to try him on a month of inhalers (pulmicort and albuterol), but then she asked whether we had tried giving him Claritin or Zyrtec (antihistamines) before bedtime. She had thought that was one of the things we'd tried, but we hadn't, so she switched to doing that instead. It seems like the right decision to me; the inhaler medications are basically for asthma-type conditions, and to me his cough sounds more like phlegm in the back of his throat than anything going on with his lungs, and it happens mostly when he's lying down, not when he's active. So, wish us luck -- maybe this will do the trick! (Of course, I'm sick right now with a cold, which means that there's a good chance he'll get it, which may put us right back at ground zero again.)

The pediatrician said that although the two medications are very similar, Claritin might be slightly better because Zyrtec can sometimes have a sedating effect. (We're like, "and that's a bad thing??" There are definitely some nights that we wouldn't mind a little sedation!)

Beyond the medical stuff, Mattie seems to be learning new things at an amazing rate these days. He's really into books, and will bring one over and sit in your lap to read to him. (So adorable!!) His particular favorites right now are the Old McDonald had a Farm book, a baby signs book, and a couple of ones about colors with different pictures (especially pictures of babies). When I was reading the baby signs book to him, he did the signs for "hat" (patting head), "dog" (patting leg), and "eat" (hand to mouth). Wow! I haven't seen him use "dog" or "eat" to actually say those things otherwise (not surprising with "dog", since he says dog already), but it's cool that he's doing them in imitation of the book. He also responds, "ooo" when you ask him what the cow says (which is kind of interesting because he can say "m" sounds just fine otherwise).

And he seems to be entering the slightly annoying toddler phase of reaching for something he wants and saying "eh eh eh" until he gets it or gets distracted from it. :)

I think he's also getting another bottom tooth; I felt it poking out from his gum, which might explain why he was a little fussy today. But a dose of baby Tylenol and now he's sleeping peacefully. :)

Jamesie is doing fine, too. Mike says he stood up for a second or two on his own today -- he's definitely working on putting the pieces together for walking.

P.S. Congratulations to J, Y, & big sister C on the birth of baby Eleanor! We are looking forward to meeting the new kid on the block!

Labor Day

We celebrated Labor Day in the traditional fashion, by grilling. (Amazingly, Matthew was distracted enough by having more people around that he didn't decide the hot grill was the most fascinating thing in the world until the festivities were almost wrapping up.) We were delighted to spend a little time with our friends before their new daughter makes her entrance into the world (scheduled for tomorrow).

The boys tried some watermelon but weren't terribly impressed with the texture, although Matthew enjoyed the pasta part of Yvonne's pasta salad. (And, in the bottom photo, dumping his cup of water down his front, quite possibly on purpose.)

We were sad to have to say goodbye to Grandma today -- she's headed up north for more visiting with Cousin Daniel. We miss her, but we are so happy that she was able to visit for a while (and save our bacon when Mike was out of town!)