Boys Development

So the boys are doing very well with their development skills. Reed and I were trying to get an idea as to how many words Thomas and Matthew know and we were quite surprised at the list we came up with (which is not a complete listing by any means). Matthew is more advanced with the vocubulary, but Thomas is not far behind. Thomas is better at following a series of instructions such as "can you go into the living room and get the eagle out of the top drawer", Matthew does very well with this as well, but Thomas is a bit ahead of Matthew in this area. Thomas is very good at repeating ANY word that you say, but sometimes you have to prompt him to talk, whereas Matthew just babbles away with LOTS of words. Both can accurately point to and name your eyes, nose, mouth and ears. They know what their shoulders, knees and toes are (thanks to the Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes song and book we have). Matthew can accurately point to, name and make the sound that cows, horses, sheep, goats, chickens, roosters, elephants, cats, donkeys, dogs, pigs, ducks, geese, monkeys and moose make and Thomas can do many of these. They both can say and identify square, circle and triangle. They can say and usually identify blue, black and green (though they sometimes get blue and purple mixed up). They refer to each other as Brother and can say their own name plus their brother's name (though Matthew says his name as Mat-chew). They can properly name: Daddy, Mamma, Memere, Pepere, Grandma Mimi, Aunt Lisa, Aunt Erika, Aunt Sara, Aunt Sharon, cousin Abbie, Grandpa Nonken, plus the individuals at daycare and they know who Uncle Jeff and Aunt Sally are by picture but have a hard time saying those. They say three word sentences such as "I get it", Mamma get it", "Daddy get it", "Jacket off", "All Done", "All Gone" and other such phrases. They can correctly identify and say, Pooh, Tigger, Owl, Rabbit, Piglet, Eyeore, Nemo, Gill, Pufferfish (from Finding Nemo) and Barney. They say: vitamin, diaper, milk, here, brother, bell, Disney, bus, ball, muffin, juice, hello, bye-bye, DVD, music, boo-boo, pillow, ice cream, cake, bear, tractor, barn, hay, apple, cheese, peaches, bath, owl (if you show a picture of ANY owl to Matthew he will correctly say Owl), color, bird, mail, peek-a-boo, eagle, star, moon, bunny, hockey (of which they love to watch), snow, hippo, pee, more, stinky (in reference to a diaper mess), howdy neighbor, yee-ha, (both are what one of the pieces to their farm says), farmer, FBI and Interpol (they say and identify these as they come up when a DVD is playing), animal and many more. It is amazing how fast they are learning.

Thomas and His Cheerios

NOW we know where Thomas puts all his cheerios! We couldn't resist this one...

Matthew's Test Results

Hi everyone,

The doctor called with the results of Matthew's tests last week (we got the results much faster then they said we would). The biopsies were normal meaning that there is no inflammation in the esophagus, stomach or small intestines. Matthew does not have significant reflux, but he does have some. The times that I indicted he was in pain and/or choking did coordinate with a "reflux incident". This means that the times that he is waking up in the middle of the night in obvious pain are more than likely a bad reflux incident. The other times it seems to be a conditional thing--i.e. he is so used to sleeping with me or Reed that he has not learned to sooth himself back to sleep and just wants to sleep with me or Reed. The doctor suggests that we stay on the reflux medicine and he will see him again in March. Reed and I will have to determine how to handle the conditional side of this. But at least we now know if what we thought was pain in the night is and that some of his choking episodes are reflux related.

We are very glad that this testing is behind us and we at least understand the situation better than before. Saturday night Matthew managed to sleep through the night in his crib, however last night he woke up at 2 AM and was up until after 4 AM. So some nights are much better than others.

Love,
Sue

Matthew's Test is complete

Hi everyone,

Matthew, Mommy and Memere arrived home yesterday afternoon. Matthew's testing went very well though he did have a rough 3-4 hours while coming out of the anesthesia. Otherwise he was an angel the entire trip. Going down he only slept about 45 min in the car but had a wonderful time running around LL Bean in the afternoon as a stretching stop and a place to meet my sister and get the key to her apartment which is where we stayed Monday night. We all went out for dinner to the Macaroni grill where Matthew thought it delightful that he could color on the table and then decided to "throw" (actually knocked it) his plate off the table to shatter on the floor. Tuesday morning he never complained about not being able to eat. He was having a great time playing with Aunt Sara's kitties. At the hospital he did great and only got upset while I held him and the doctor held the mask to his face to put him under. The procedure only took about 45 min and then they brought me down to the recovery room to wait for him to wake up. When he did he was very mad, he did not seem to know who I was and he had restraints on this arms which only made him madder. It was a few hours of him screaming and thrashing non-stop (during which I almost dropped him three times) then he fell asleep for an hour and then woke up and screamed and thrashed for another hour. After that he seemed to settle down and I took the restraints off. He did very well the rest of the stay (even rode around the floor in a "car" for the evening and thoroughly enjoyed that) and we were allowed to leave around 8:30 Wed morning. He did sleep for a while on the way home and was very happy to see his Daddy, brother and Pepere when he got home. The initial report is that the anatomy of the esophagus, stomach and small intestine look good. We now have to wait for the results of the biopsies and the PH probe which will be late next week.

All of my thanks to my Mom and Sister for driving us, putting us up and being there through a very rough time and putting up with me.

Sue