Good bye 2010

I won't be sad to see you go!!

As a fitting end to 2010 Enya woke up this morning with a gummy eye. Now I don't know what it's like in other parts of the world but in my corner of Germany life comes to a stand still between Christmas and New Years. Neither the Paediatricians nor the opthalmologists were open today, I landed up having to go to the emergency service at the local childrens hospital to get a prescription for eye drops (and even their service only started at 9am) which involved an hour and a half wait. Z is at his father's restuarant today so I had 2 bored girls to entertain and the waiting room is just chairs in a corridor- NOT FUN. THe only positive about this was that Enya got a thorough check up- yes, she has started another cold/cough having been sniffle free for about 3 days! At least I go into this weekend knowing her lungs and ears are clear.

Now hoping for a healthy 2011,

Happy new year to you all

The bees have it in for us

My foot is fine thank you very much, finally. I can't believe it took 3 days for the swelling to go down though.

Of course what made it even better (NOT) is the next day Enya got stung on her foot too. She was playing in the kitchen while I was in the bathroom, when she came through saying her foot hurt. Sure enough when I looked it was swollen and red but I coudn't see any wound on it, I suspected then that she'd been stung but couldn'confirm it until I found the bee lying on the kitchen floor. Thankfully the sting didn't detach from the miserable little blighter so Enya didn't get the full venom dose but she still had a sore and swollen foot for the next day!

At least allergies don't run in our family so we're not too concerned about allergic reactions to beestings!

Party preperations continue in the meantime, we'll have all the usual suspects over as well as my mom this year. Hopefully we'll have good weather so we can celebrate outside again.

out of the mouth of babes part 2

"Daddy mucky puppy"

"no sweety, that's Daddy IS a mucky puppy"

"Daddy mucky puppy"

"uh uh, Daddy IS a mucky puppy"

"That's right!" (very emphatically said by Enya)

Temper temper

We have seen a lot of progress in the last few months since starting play therapy (really huge progress in fact!!) but we still have a slight temper management problem.

Enya when she gets frustrated becomes destructive. THe amount of anger and frustration her tiny body contains on these occasions astounds me, you can see her almost bursting with it. She starts to scream and then gets an evil twinkle in her eye and looks around for something to throw, push over or, in the worst cast if Ciara is the cause of her temper tantum, to bite. It is amazing you can see her looking around and then focusing in on the object that she is going to take her aggression out on. We tell her off (and yes when she bites she does get a tap as well) but what we really need is a more constructive/less damaging way for her to let out her frustrations.

I think I'm going to have a chat with the play therapist tomorrow if she has any useful ideas. I'd like to avoid things involving hitting or throwing objects!

Sweet little darling, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth

coughing

Everything remains in status quo.

Enya has developed a lovely phlegmy cough but remains her usual quirky happy self so we're not too worried. Ciara just has the permanant dribble from the nose and Z remains down for the count, hopefully he'll start feeling better soon!

The only positives are at least I'm still healthy (yet again the last man standing) and secondly the girls are sleeping later in the mornings (averaging 14 hours overnight).

We also finally got our speech therapy assessment, 5 months after we were referred. At the time we requested it, Enya was only eating lightly textured purees and maybe two or three bites of bread, everything else she would refuse. She has improved dramatically since then (tonight she ate a tuna salad tortilla-totally surprised me as we've never tried tuna before, nevermind a tortilla), but still tends to pocket food under her tongue and has a delayed swallow. This appointment would have been really helpful 6 months ago, now I'll be happy if we just get some advice how to encourage her to clear her mouth quicker.

Enya did it

She did so well at physio yesterday that we're having a summer break! We go back in about 7 weeks for a check up and if she is maintaining the progress she made so far and continuing her development alone we won't need any more physio (although we may keep having check ups at regular intervals)!! I'm obviously delighted and I think Enya will be too, no more fights on top of the washing machine for us over summer (we have our changing mat on the machine and that's where we did physio too, as it is the right height and padded).

In other news they have both learnt to climb a ladder this past week. Our neighbour has a ladder set up for her granddaughter (Anna) to reach her slide and after watching her do it, both my girls decided to give it a try. Enya manages better than Ciara as she is more flexible and has less weight to heave up, but Ciara can do the first 2 rungs as well (then she freezes, I think she may have a little fear of heights as she does the same when she climbs the open metal grate stairs to our overhead neighbours). I want to take the ladder away but C and E also saw Anna running up the actual slide and if the ladder isn't there they try climb up the front of the slide too, Enya has managed halfway up the slide when Ciara distracted me for a second. Twins teamwork I tell you!

For today we have an exciting outing to the Preemie neurodevelopmantal clinic planned, this is the extra appointment Enya got after the last routine check up, where the doc freaked out about Enya's walking. She insisted on a 3 month follow up with a view to involving other specialities if Enya didn't improve- I'm really hoping she is impressed with Enya's progress as we all are. I saw some video from March last night and Enya has a much more stable and normal gait pattern now, even her tummy isn't as protuberent anymore. She will also get weighed and I'm quite intrigued what the scales say (I packed our scales away over a month ago), I doubt she has put on any weight but lets wait (weight ;0)) and see.

PS I bit the bullet and cut out the evening bottles, they are drinking well during the day even if they refuse everything but water. We'll see how things go for the next few days.

Snow again!

Come on it's nearly the end of March and we've had the meteorlogical (sp?) start of spring, where's my sunshine??? I can't believe how I never appreciated the good weather as a kid growing up in South Africa, by the end of a European winter I just want to up sticks and move back. Unfortunately Z was horrified by our visit to SA 3 years ago, I can't tell you how many photos of barbed electric fencing and 7 foot walls we've got, he won't even consider it.

Today, in between snow showers, we went to physio for our second appointment. I had the harnesses on the girls as I really didn't feel like trying to unpack/pack the buggy in the snow an I got a parking spot next to the physio building. Enya freaked out again when I put her down on the pavement with her harness on so I landed up carrying her inside. Ciara did really well on the harness (even if we had to take about 3 runs before we got across the road), now I just need to get her to hold my hand as well and we're set. I've heard some people object to harnesses on children but at this age I can't unpack my twins from the car alone unless I have some method of preventing them running off (across the road/parking lot and getting run over!!). even with the harness it's not exactly easy- I've resorted to threading my leg through the harness while I fasten/unfasten the other child from her car seat.

Physio was quieter today, Enya was easier to soothe between techniques and actually quietened down when I was doing the positions with her. Lately we've taken to playing/singing lullabys while we're changing nappies (it's the only way we can keep her still, she loves music!) and today she calmed down and listened when I sang to her during treatment (before you think I'm a mean idiot we've tried it in the past and it didn't work before). She still fights like a demon to get out of the positions but at least she hasn't been crying so pathetically this week. I would have been very satisfied with it all, if there hadn't been a slight incident at the end of the session involving another physio. We don't have an appointment next week but I will be tackling her at our next appointment as as always they didn't say anything was wrong directly but implied it indirectly instead!

Puketastrophe

It appears that having a cold and being in the car does not agree with Enya. We went to Ikea yesterday to get the table and chairs for the midgets and all I can say is thank goodness we had a towel in the car. At one stage I thought Enya was choking on her vomit. Needless to say we made an emergency stop with me scrambling out of the still moving car to get around to her side of the car to help her. For the journey home I was squished in the backseat between the car seats and thank goodness I was there as the last 5 minutes were a rerun of the journey there.

I can only assume it was something to do with the car motion though, because as soon as we got home she gobbled down a bottle of milk and devoured her dinner with gusto and without any regurgitation. She continues to cough and her nose is streaming but at least the temperature is normal again.

She is however in good form and managed to give us a heart attack yesterday as she finally managed to stand up in her high chair, even though both Z and I were in the kitchen supervising them after dinner. I have now installed a harness system on to her highchair to restore my peace of mind.

Ciara remains healthy with just a slightly snotty nose. Her latest trick is to unpack all our cupboards and shelves, with my bookshelves being a particular favourite. She also has her first 3 molars, again she got 3 teeth at once. Ciara now has 14 teeth where poor little Enya only has 6.

Sleeping

I don't know what I did right but the girls have had a 3 hour nap this morning and are one and a half hours into their midday nap. Hopefully they will be so well rested that they will be in a good mood this evening and we get to skip the 2 hour moan session from 4pm until 6pm!!

Ciara has been practicing walking in her first pair of proper shoes, at first she would only crawl with them on, but yesterday she started walking as well. She walks like she has concrete blocks on her feet whick looks very awkward and ungainly but at least she is now trying again. We decided not to get Enya shoes yet as she is still mostly crawling (although there has been a dramatic improvement in the last week in her walking ability) and we also got a bit frightened by the shoe sales lady saying that they grow out of shoes in 6-16 weeks at this age. Enya has smaller feet so we were thinking in a month or so we might go and buy a second pair of shoes for Ciara and give Enya the first pair. Depends if the girls have another growth spurt in the next few weeks!

monkey's wedding

In good old South Africa we used to call it "a monkey's wedding" when the sun shone while it was raining. So what do you think it's called when the sun is shining while it is snowing? Funnily enough it never came up in SA, although that is what it was doing here this afternoon.

I'm beginning to worry that people will think I'm beating up on my girls, Enya has her first black eye. I didn't see how she did it yesterday but she had a huge egg just below her right eye and this morning she has a black eye. Given how often they fall over and the fact we have no carpets o our tile floors, I'm surprised they are not completely black and blue. I guess the paediatrician was right, babies bounce although please don't test that theory out at home!!

Some good news is Enya has made a huge stride forward this week in her walking ability, basically since we started the exercises given to us by the Heilpaedegogin. She is more stable and not swaying quite as much when walking, she is also walking more and more. However if she wants to get anywhere fast, crawling is still her method of choice.

Kindergarten (Kita) and Fruhforderung

Well we have appointments to visit all 4 Kindergartens (yup I forgot one yesterday) over the next 3 weeks. The response was quite positive from all of them i.e. it doesn't sound like they are full yet so hopefully it will all work out. Thankfully I could arrange it so that Z will be coming with to at least of 2 of the Kitas, he always has sensible considerations and questions where I tend to get fixated on superficial things (colours on the wall and such like).

The Fruhforderung* appointment went much better than I expected, I think it helps that I went in with very low expectations! The therapist (we'll call her Mrs. R) noted after observing Enya briefly playing that she is all over the place. She can't settle down and concentrate on a game/task and this means she is not getting a chance to practice her fine control/coordination. Within 10 minutes Mrs. R said one appointment was not enough, she could give me a few things to work on at home but that is not enough. Enya needs help so that she can centre herself and concentrate on a task, right now she is unable to filter out extraneous objects and sounds and so is constantly distracted.

I have to pack away the toys so we only play with one toy at a time, for instance if we play with the building blocks, only have 10 blocks out so she is not distracted by the other 100 blocks or toys lying around. We also have an exercise I like to call "pack the parcel" : I have to pack Enya in to a cuddle with her arms and legs pressed to her body and give her a gentle squeeze and hold this for 3-5 seconds. This is supposed to help with her body awareness and to teach her how to keep still for brief periods. She gave us a couple of other games to play, the only problem is I'm supposed to play one on one. My girls get very jealous if they think I'm paying more attention to the other, if I try read a book to one, the other usually comes and grabs it out my hands or starts pulling/pushing on me to gain my attention. Now I'm supposed to try get 5 minutes alone with a child multiple times a day (she wants me to work with both Ciara and Enya), I think I'm going to have to try distraction and then hide behind the baby gates!

All in all it was a very informative and productive day, hopefully I will be able to put most of what I was shown today into practice without scaring Enya too badly (Mrs. R wants me to sing to her, now that is a frightening thought!).

*The best description for Fruhforderung is play therapy. They take mostly an advisory role showing how to encourage normal development through play.

On the mend

"What do you mean, you don't have this shoe in my size"


Ciara's rash is fading and so far Enya seems fine (she is refusing bottles but that, as the old faithfuls know, is nothing new) so hopefully "SICK" has left our house.

In the aftermath of this sickness though Ciara is being incredibily affectionate and keeps climbing on to my lap for cuddles. Yes, she is actually giving me cuddles, including laying her head on my shoulder. I'm making the most of this phase as I don't belive it will last long (Ciara is not usually very affectionate) but it proves the saying "every cloud has a silver lining".


Paper sea

Enya managed 18 steps a couple of days ago and has even mastered turning 180 degrees without falling. She loves walking between two objects e.g. from Z to me and back. She gets so much enjoyment out of her improved mobility and is practicing so hard that I really need to get my A in to G and go buy the girls some shoes for wearing outdoors. Ciara is a toddler now (pretty much always on her feet although still a bit unsteady) and although I would still class Enya as a crawler I don't think it will be long until she too prefers toddling to crawling.

Eating strike

Well the temperatures are down to nearly normal levels without any meds and the moods are slightly improved, unfortunately neither girl is really interested in eating. Even the morning and evening bottles are not exactly easy. Up to now I haven't started to panic but all bets are off if this continues too long.

Okay topic change: I've been a bit concerned as I didn't think the girls were understanding much.... until this last week. It seems like they have had another developmental leap forwards. If we ask them where something is, they look around. Now don't get to excited, they are not looking for the object we asked for but they are aware that we want something. They also both clap their hands and wave, as well as show us how tall they are when we ask them to. I've been trying to teach Ciara how to be gentle by stroking her with the command "mach Aii" ("make nice" is a fairly close translation), when I say the words she now strokes her own head. Now I just have to teach her to do that to others instead of hitting them or pulling their hair!

Enya calls me "meme" and Z is "dadee", she also says some other words like "heiss" (hot), "Eya" and "up" although they are not often used in context ("up" is being used more and more in context which gives you some idea what today has been like).
Ciara calls me "mama" and Z is however as yet unnamed, she also said "heiss" for the first time yesterday but is more interested in babbling than talking. They are both very vocal and babble all the time, just the connection with words is not quite there yet.

We knew they were likely going to be late talkers as we are bringing them up bilingual but it's still nice to see that some things are clicking in the speech works.

Not so happy 200th post

Well a double century in posts has been reached and soon I reach my first year blogging anniversary, who would have thought.

The not so good news is right now the girls are sick again. Saturday night was very disturbed with Ciara waking every few hours and being very hard to comfort. On Sunday Z noticed she was not her usual self while they were having their normal tumble hour on the couch (insert: Ciara can now get up on the couch by herself, oh joy!). With a temperature check the reason became crystal clear, she had a temperature of 40.1 C, that is a first!

Thankfully the temperature responded to paraceta.mol, although it is not yet normal it is now a low grade fever. Unfortunately though she is incredibly clingy, she just wants to be carried and petted and she is not eating! Can you believe I wrote that CIARA is not eating! Last night she even refused a Fruchtzwerg (yogurt) and went to bed with no dinner. Today this trend has continued and if it doesn't get better tomorrow, we are heading to the paediatrician.

Scary part is Enya also has a temperature this evening....tomorrow should be fun!

She walks

Well that happened faster than I expected! I was sitting on the floor playing with the girls yesterday when Enya stood up by herself and took off. She walked/ran 6 or 7steps before I caught her and would probably have done more as she was perfectly balanced. I should have let her do more but I was just so excited that I didn't stop and think.

Then yesterday evening she did it again 4 or 5 times, standing up alone and taking off I mean. Once she even managed 8 steps before she fell! The best thing is we are doing nothing, she is initiating everything, we don't even have to hold out our hands.

I was contemplating buying Ciara her first proper pair of outdoor shoes but I think I'll wait a little bit longer and get them both a pair when Enya's walking improves.

Wow, 2 walking babies!

*The picture is Enya cuddling her Tssszzzz

My little vomit comet

Yup, it's that again. Enya has vomited at least once a day this whole week. Initially I thought it was food texture but this morning and last night she vomited on perfectly smooth purees. It's also not that she is too full because she has done it a couple of times on the 2nd or 3rd spoon (at least that means not too much to clean up).

The epitome of timing was on Tuesday night when our water was turned off (our upstairs neighbours are renovating their bathroom after getting a gable put in). Of course this would be at dinner time. Dinner went great until as a treat I gave Enya a bit of mashed baked potato- everything and I do mean the whole 200ml bottle and 100g of Courgette gratin came up and landed everywhere. Needless to say cleaning that up without running water was fun!

She will have meals where she eats the whole meal (160g) without a problem although as the week progresses they seem to be coming less frequently. I can honestly find no rhyme or reason for her spews, she is not even doing her usual retching beforehand. If she is not better by tomorrow then we are off to the paediatrician again! At least she now drinks the oral.paedon (paedi.alyte), previously she wouldn't touch the stuff.

I really hate the smell of vomit and the way it lingers even after washing the floor and chair umpteen times!

Cuddles

Every morning when I go to get the Enya out of bed she leans in to me and gives me a big cuddle. During the day at odd intervals Enya will come crawling up to me, pull on my trouser legs until I lift her up and give me another cuddle. If I sit down on the floor she crawls onto my lap and pulls herself up into standing and gives me.. you got it another cuddle. I love this constant stream of affection, I used to always bug my family for hugs as a kid and it looks like Enya takes after me in this regard. Ciara on the other hand until recently expressed her affection with open mouthed kisses or by biting our noses, however in the last week she is also starting to lean in and rest her head on my shoulder for a quick cuddle. Double joy!!

Z has taught Enya a new trick: he asks "how big is Enya?", then she lifts both hands above her head and starts to laugh.It doesn't make a difference who asks the question she always responds with the same action. Too cute! We've tried it with Ciara as well, but she just doesn't get it yet.

For all that Ciara has always been the more vocal of the two, I have the feeling Enya will talk first. She is trying so hard to communicate, she will earnestly babble for minutes at a time pausing every so often to wait for a response from us. Ciara on the other hand started calling mama last week and appears to be slowly realising that when she says those syllables, she gets a quicker response.

I forgot to say we took part in another physio course this week, the good news is when I spoke to the physio she agreed that the neurologist had been talking out of her hat with regards to Enya's "tone issues". During the assessment the usual points were noted (poor abdominal muscle coordination leading to thoracolumbar lordosis and reduced pelvic stability) but a new point was asymmetry of the legs in standing and crawling. I had noticed the asymmetry myself (she stands with her left leg out to the side) but I'd thought that was just Enya's quirk, I guess not. Once again it was stated that Enya would not qualify for physio if she were not already in treatment as her gross motor skills are within 2 months of her actual age (12 and a half months to 13 and a half months). However as she has been in physio all her life pretty much, they would like to continue until the asymmetry is gone i.e. until she is walking at least. I know I've complained often enough about physio and I'm still not convinced that Bobath wouldn't offer extra stimulus but I will continue Vojta with Enya as long as necessary and by that I mean as long as I can see a need for it. A good thing during the assessment though was I saw Enya cruising on furniture for the first time ever. She has been standing for a while but doesn't walk along the furniture, she prefers to crawl the 2 steps to change position.

And lastly for today, Enya has finally got her vaccination after being cancelled twice. Unfortunately they said we've got to come back in 4-6 weeks for another set for both girls!

frustration levels

We're going through another patch where Enya is being very difficult to feed. She threw up on Z last night and me this morning. Almost every meal now she is retching such that we clear the area around her "just in case". Initially we thought it was due to the texture but she retches even if it is completely smooth, then the thickness but again even if we make it very thin she will retch, size of the spoonful is also not the cause, SO WTF is it ?!? She also is taking longer and longer to swallow the spoonfuls she does accept in her mouth. I mean come on we have now been trying to introduce textures for almost 6 months, she has been eating solids for 8 months. When does this get easier? We're lucky to get her to eat 300g in a day, which I know in comparison to some is a lot but it is such a fight to get her to eat these 300g that I sometimes just skip a meal to avoid the stress and aggravation. Ciara continues to eat everything we give her and look for seconds which underlines how little Enya eats even more.

I'm still preparing all their meals myself but I'm thinking of stopping and going to jar foods as at least if I then throw away a half full bowl,it's not something I've spent hours preparing for her.

In case you're thinking well at least she is still drinking her milk, she isn't! I'm lucky to get 350ml of liquids in total down her in a day. She is back to being very difficult to bottle feed and sippy cups just don't do it for Enya. She will take max 3-4 sips from a normal beaker and then she refuses that too.

Z once said if I wanted to take a week away he'd happily look after the girls by himself, it's getting to the stage where I'm going to take him up on that offer. My frustration levels are rising with every meal and I've just put the girls to bed because to be honest I don't trust myself around Enya right now. I know intellectually that Enya is not doing this deliberately but that doesn't help in the middle of one of our feeding fights.

Unfortunately the chances of getting any competent help or advice is remote, the SLT at our local hospital was incompetent and beyond useless when we went to him for bottle feeding trouble, the ESKB (behavioural team) were not much better and our paediatrician doesn't see that we have a problem, " she'll eat when she is hungry" (she doesn't) and "in 2 years time she'll be as big as her sister" (ha die ha ha)are his idea of help.

I need a break from this!!

Computer trouble

sorry I've not posted in so long but my computer is in the process of dying. It refuses to recharge on occasion or when I plug it in the mouse goes wild! Today it is however cooperating so I can update;0).

Both girls have got a third tooth now, Ciara is proving to be a bit of an exception and has got a top lateral incisor instead of a central one (at least I hope so or she is going to need lots of expensive orthodontic treatment). She is also starting to let go of support in standing and can maintain her balance for a few seconds before falling over. On Friday I even saw her stand up completely unaided in the middle of the bathroom mat, she immediately fell over but she is trying!!

Enya continues to be unsteady in standing, and is not attempting to cruise on the furniture. The physio remarked to me last week that we're going to have trouble with her as she is "hyperactive" i.e. unable to be still for a minute. Both Z and I have noticed this already, even when she is eating her feet are drumming on the stool. She loves music and I was wondering if I should register her for music classes in the hope that this will help soothe her down. She only has three teeth but has started grinding them none the less, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I can't stand that sound or the sound of people chewing food. as you may have guessed the radio is on during mealtimes in my house ;-).

I have started researching Kindergartens in our area, we're hoping to start them when they turn 3 but as the places are hard to come by you have to register early. For at least one of the local KG we are already too late to get places to start in 2 years time! I had briefly thought about registering them to start next year but none of the Kindergartens in our area take children from 2 years. In a way I'm glad about that as it gives me a good reason for staying home and spending time with them!

Other than that we had a couple of firsts last week. First time on a train and let me tell you german punctuality is not a myth but they need to think about disabled access a bit more. We landed lifting our twin buggy about half a meter down to the platform on the way home. They also only have one coach where you have room for a pram. Unfortunately on our way home from Cologne we were late so we had to jump into the first coach and the wheelchair/pram coach was the last coach in the train. There was no way to go through the train with our pram without taking the girls out and collapsing it and there was no way I was going to let my girls crawl on the filthy floor while I carried the pram through. We didn't want to get off and swap at the stations as they didn't stop long and as I mentioned lifting the prams in and out was difficult. In the end my mom landed up with spectacular bruises on her arms from manhandling the pram in and out the train and I spent the next 2 days with a nasty headache from stress! Another first is the girls had their first go in a swing, I took them for a walk yesterday to get them out the house so Z could finish doing our overdue tax return in peace and we went past a park. I saw the swing and thought we could try it, the girls LOVED it. I'll have to start taking them out for more walks along that route, maybe it'll help with my weight loss as well ;0). We have also gone back to our original pram where they sit next to each other as our home pram as the borrowed pram where they are one behind the other does not work for us. Whoever sits behind always kicks the back of the seat in front and leans over the side of the pram so she can see what is ahead. I'm glad we borrowed this pram and didn't buy it!!

I said I would publish a few pictures of Enya in her new shoes but given the computer problems I'll just post a link to where I bought them.

If I don't post in the next few days please forgive me, my computer will have completely given up the ghost (or I'll have chucked it against the wall in which case it will be beyond resurrection).

PS Enya has nearly cracked 8kg :0)

Not so rosy

The past 3 weeks have been fantastic especially when compared with the same time last year but as always it couldn't last forever.

Enya has vomitted (projectile vomitting) at least once a day for the last 3 days. It seems to be associated with eating finger foods although tonight it was with puree. She has also spewed what seemed like the entire contents of her bottle over me, 3 hours after she was given it. This evening after her spew she happily drank another 100ml of formula and ate the rest of her puree, so it is obviously not upsetting her. Me on the other hand, I am getting upset. I know other moms have to deal with this on a regular basis but up to now we have been very lucky. Being covered in vomit is NOT my favourite part of motherhood!

Both girls also have a slight temperature so perhaps its just another viral infection. They are also both very clingy and whiny so lets hope it doesn't last long!