Eyes: good

The title says it all. We had the 2 hour appointment at the Eye Guy today and again nothing needs doing. I had to sit on Ciara so that they could get the eyedrops in and the Eye Guy could only make a guestimate with her eyes as she screamed and flailed around during her eye exam so he couldn't get a really good look (that was with no torture instruments, just shining a light to look in her eye). Enya also protested strongly to the eye drops but cooperated brilliantly with all the other tests and exams.

As we were already in the city we had a lovely wander around the centre and so long as we kept moving the girls were happy. I love walking around the shops at Christmas time, it kick starts the festive feeling seeing all the decorations. Somehow I really need that this year, as I haven't really got the Xmas feeling at all yet. It was especially nice to get out the house again as the last week the weather has been so wet we've only been outside for doctors and therapy visits.

Talking about therapy, we finally had our Speech therapy assessment yesterday. The therapist (Hr H) was really battling to engage with Enya, hopefully that will get better as she gets used to him. Yesterday though she watched him with a very serious suspicious look on her face and kept moving out of his way when he wanted to touch her for exercises. We have another appointment in 6 weeks and in the meantime a load of exercises to do. The theory is that she has reduced sensation/awareness in/of her mouth and this is the reason she stuffs her mouth so full and pockets her food in her cheeks and under her toungue. So the exercises are aimed at increasing her oral awareness. Z's reaction was to laugh so I guess once again the exercises will all just be done by me.

Rainy day entertainment: unpacking the plastic drawer for the 20th time in a day

Neuro update

Normal!!

I was concerned as the neuro wanted to continue seeing Enya although she's discharged Ciara. Yesterday though I found out Enya's EEG is normal and has been for a while (I've asked before but I find the german doctors are really closed mouthed and it's difficult to get answers from them). She is only bringing us back as Enya is still receiving therapies.

For the first time since the girls were released from NICU, I got to hold one while blood was taken. I've mentioned in the past that Enya always has moist feet and the neurologist noticed this yesterday and wanted to check her thyroid levels (I love how the neurologist is the one noticing this and ordering this test!).

Apropro therapies: the speech therapy appointment was a wash out, our appointment was at 11am. We were there early (for once) and at 10 minutes to 11 I saw the therapist (Hr H) take another patient in to his room. I thought oops I obviously had the wrong time in my mind and the appointment must have been half past 11...but then our play therapist came to collect Ciara. We'd arranged for her to see Ciara while Enya and I were with the speech therapist so we wouldn't be distracted. Apparently Hr H was running late and so we all started off at play therapy. Unfortunately by the time Hr H came to pick us up at quarter to 12, the girls were so overtired they had hit the nonsense hyperactive stage (effects of spending 2 hours in variuos waiting rooms) so we had to cancel the speech appointment and have rescheduled it for next week instead.

Today I went to visit my old boss to start the ball rolling about going back to work next year August. Z and I now just need to sit down and calculate how many hours are worth working (the joys of tiered tax systems, I'd really resent working for more hours only to take home less money) as I'm going back part time. I also need to decide if I'd rather work fewer longer days or more shorter days. The good news though is that it looks like I'm going back to the hospital down the road from me so the Kindergarten will be 5 minutes walk from work.

It was great to see my old colleagues, although there is such a high personnal turn over there that not many faces were familiar, and to show Ciara and Enya off to them. I was especially brave today and for both the work visit and play group left the pram in the car- both involved quite a bit of walking but the girls are getting better about holding my hands when we are afield and if not, winter coats are great to grap and hold onto!

stamping and talking

The encouraging thing about talking to our therapist today was she mentioned Enya's temper tantrums are mostly an age thing. All that I described she seemed to find pretty normal for a 2 year old.

Her advice was to try talk it out with Enya, you know, ".... I know you are angry because the blocks won't go together, take a deep breath and lets try again together..." kind of thing. Another thing she suggested was to get her to stamp her foot rather than hit out or throw things- less destructive!

We've got a big week coming up next week again, all the dreaded 6 monthly appointments. We'll see the Neurologist for Enya's EEG check up (hopefully the last, please please) and the Eye guy (YUCK..please no glasses) for a check up of their retinas which they forgot to do at or last appointment. This time I'm taking the girls sunglasses with as knowing my luck we'll have brilliant sunshine after that appointment (medically dilated pupils and sunshine= very loud unhappy baby/toddler). We've also finally got the speech therapy appointment and our last regularly scheduled visit to the Preemie follow up clinic- any further appointments will require a referral from our paeditrician. This last appointment is a little bit scary as they are doing a LOOOONG test to determine exactly how delayed (if at all) Ciara and Enya are developmentally. I fear Enya might land up getting sent back to physio again as she still has a real beginners running gait but we will see what Dr L has to say.

Did I mention they can now jump with both feet in the air, Enya in paricular delights in jumping around until she falls onto her bottom- in essence jumping with joy. They have to earn points for that skill !?

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.

play therapy swing

Ciara in the swing


The whole swing in profile

This is mostly for my mom, who quite rightly didn't understand my explaination of what the swing looked like. Enya usually hates all play ground swings but loves this one at play therapy. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of Enya lying back all relaxed in it as I had to distract Ciara with the mini carousel. Ciara would have otherwise hogged the swing-she is a huge swing fan and doesn't like to share it with her sister!

Word of the day is sista (sister).

AWOL again

Sorry we were visiting friends up North last weekend and then had a friend, Julie, come to stay this week. We're really proud of Julie as she has just completed her first Ironman triathlon!!

We also had our first play therapy appointment yesterday, it was just questions about what Enya does, doesn't do, likes and doesn't like. It will however be a weekly appointment for the next little while. I had to laugh though, as during the appointment Enya was offered a bell in a tin which she proceeded to take out, but then immediately wanted to put the lid back on the tin. Variations on this theme happened several times during the appointment and it culminated with the therapist asking me if I always get the girls to help me tidy up (mostly yes). Enya also amply displayed her most recent tricks, one good, one not so good. She is now pointing with her index finger at objects (sometimes even objects we've named for her), she has also started banging her head on walls, furniture or floors if she doesn't get her own way. This is purely attention seeking (she watches us and stops if we leave the room or turn our backs on her) and the therapist fully agreed with our chosen response saying if we react it will be positive feedback for a negative action, if you know what I mean! Ciara has also done this a few times but Enya does it constantly. We're at 6 weeks and counting for a speech therapy appointment, although I'd rather not start until after next weeks physio check up is out the way anyway.

Just to round things off it looks like both girls are coming down with something, they've been off their food for the last few days and this morning Enya was wretching before she even got breakfast. She only drank 30ml of watered down milk (I know they shouldn't get milk if they are nauseous but my girls refuse all other liquids particulaly when they are ill) and ate 5 spoons of cereal. Cosidering that her mornng bottle is her main source of liquid for the day, today is not going to be pretty!

lose one, gain one

...is a fair summary of our visit to the preemie follow up clinic yesterday.

The Doc was very impressed with the progress Enya has made and agrees with the plans we have in situ for monitoring appointments with the physio. She also agreed to Enya continuing the play therapy (although we are on the waiting list and will now probably only get seen towards the end of the year). Her comment here was that Enya needs it not because she is delayed but more because she is so distractable and all over the place. She has difficulty settling down and concentrating on one toy or task.

While we were already there, I thought I would raise the point of Enya's eating, as she is still pocketing her food and it can take her ages- minutes- to swallow a mouthful of food (not so much purees, they go down as easy as water, which is why they are still on the menu). The doc has referred us back to the speech therapist (ST) for a review at how Enya is eating. I may just use the time before we get our appointment (another waiting list, last time it took us nearly 2 months before Enya was seen)to go to a ST away from the Kinderklinik, as the therapist we had there was less than useless.

Thankfully the doc saw no need for the girls to have any hearing tests or ST for their speech even though they are still very limited in what they actually say.

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.

Preemie followup reports again

They arrived this morning in the post and for once were better than I expected. Ciara's says she has slight speech delays for her adjusted age, while Enya's said she had slight delay with fine motor coordination but she is on track with her gross motor milestones. Considering that we are back in physio due to concerns about her walking ability (definitely a gross motor ability) I was very surprised to read this.

We are still battling through with physio at home though I had (ahem) dropped back to once a day. Today Mrs W. suggested I do the harder technique only once a day and the easier technique twice a day, since Enya doesn't cry or fight the easier technique I probably will do it. I was hoping she would say we could think about stopping again but although there has been definite improvements in Enya's foot positioning and stability when walking she still has very obvious truncal deficits. They are only really noticable when Enya runs around nekkid as she is able to compensate for them very well. I sometimes wonder if it is possible to "fix" this or if she will always have this weakness, perhaps to a lesser degree though.

After our weekly physio screamathon we went to visit Z at his work. He didn't see the girls this morning as they were up at 6 am for breakfast (due to Ciara going to bed without solids last night-she didn't like what was on offer!) and as he had a very unsettled night's sleep, I let him sleep in and did the breakfast battle alone (aside: it is so much easier than it was with feeding them at the same time, now that they both hold their bottles themselves). We had lunch in the work cafeteria, Ciara tried green beans and even chewed on some pork, Enya nearly choked on some potato and then refused everything except yoghurt. Dinner will just have to be extra healthy tnight to make up for lunch I guess. Z's colleagues were amazed at how much the girls have grown and were suitably impressed by their walking skills and Enya's still present black eye. Z enjoyed the surprise so we may have t repeat the experiment at some stage.

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!

Shoes and wagons

I now have two daughters with outdoor shoes, we gave in to the inevitable and picked up a new/old pair of shoes for Ciara as she has already outgrown her first pair. Thankfully a friend had a pair of size 23 shoes that her son wore for only a few weeks before outgrowing, which she gave to us. Enya was hysterical for the first 10 minutes of wearing "big girl" shoes, she kept lifting her feet up as though she was stepping over an obstacle, after that she was fine just fell a bit more than usual.

Apropro falling... even in the short space of time that we have been doing PT again, I have noticed an improvement in Enya's walking and posture. Her tummy is not quite as protrudent as it was in standing and her foot postioning seems to be a bit better (not quite as turned out) and she seems a bit steadier on her feet. I guess I just have to suck it up and admit that she really did need this course of physio ;0).

Today though I took the day off from treating as we had Krabbelgruppe (playgroup) this morning and this afternoon I went to the aforementioned friend for tea. The girls really enjoyed being amongst other children at the play group (mostly I think because there were new toys to play with). We practiced somersaults on a thick mat which Enya of course loved, as well rocked them in a blanket and played with hoola hoops. The best thing about Krabbelgruppe though was they have a little wagon which one child can sit in and the another child can push. Needless to say all that practice with the laundry basket came in handy, my girls loved it. Excuse the poor picture quality I only had my mobile phone with ;0)

Torture begins again

We had our first appointment with the physio yesterday and it was as loud as ever.The physio, Mrs W, was pleased with Enya's posture and walking ability, especially the foot positioning. I kind of got the feeling Mrs W wasn't at all worried about her, unlike the preemie follow up doctor, as she could see the improvement in Enya over the last 3 months where the doctor last saw Enya in May 2008. We are only doing one technique this time but Enya screamed the entire 30 minute session. Everytime Mrs W let her go to rest Enya would crawl across the table to me and cuddle into me crying pitifully, this is definitely NOT for the faint hearted!! However I must say after the session I noticed that Enya's tummy was not bulging as much as usual (could also be because she was still crying thereby increasing her muscle tone generally including the abominal muscles).

The sweetest thing though was after Enya was dressed again at the end of the session, she was still crying, you know that pitiful cry after they've been crying for a while where they hiccup every so often! Anyway Ciara came up to her, looking all concerned and then she put her arms around Enya and gave her a cuddle or two. Unfortunately she nearly knocked Enya off her feet which made Enya cry even harder but the thought to comfort was there, which was lovely to see. At home they mostly just steal each others toys with no worries about upsetting the other!

After the session I aske Mrs W how long she thought we would be coming this time and she said probably for about 6 weeks. I also asked how often I must treat per day (usually they say 4 times) and her answer was what I can manage and a maximum of 12 minutes per session. I think she realizied there was no way in hell I was going to manage 4 times a day, although I will try for 2 times per day! The only thing that makes me feel at all better about this, is at home although Enya still crys she only crys during the technique i.e. she stops as soon as I let her up, makes me feel less the mean mom torturing her poor defenceless little child!

Nice while it lasted

Looks like we are heading back to physio again. We've just got back from the Neurodevelopmental assessment(preemie followup) and while the doc there was very pleased with Ciara, she is a bit concerned about Enya's low truncal and hip tone. Although I did mention a couple of times that Enya has only been walking about 6 weeks she didn't like Enya's posture, foot positioning and that Enya is still so wobbly. So hey ho it's off to fight with Vojta we go!

We even have an extra follow up appointment in June now just for Enya. If the physio is impossible or doesn't improve things, she will consider sending Enya to get her hips checked out by the orthopaedic specialist and perhaps shoe inserts to improve her foot positioning. Please all cross fingers and hold thumbs that it doesn't come to that. I'll be ringing Mrs W. for an appointment tomorrow (she's off sick today otherwise she would have been at the appointment with us).

B@~%$"!!!! I was so hoping we wouldn't need to do this again!

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.

No more Physio

Enya has been discharged from physio!!

We landed up getting to physio late as I only realised late last night that we had our appointment today at 10am (I had to buy a thank you card and gift for the physio, do you also do that?). Thankfully Mrs W. is used to ditzy mothers and forgave our tardiness.

The session was harsh as ever, with Enya just lying there crying hopelessly by the end, but watching her feet positioning pre and post treatment it definitely helps. Usually her feet are pointing sideways when she stands but after the session both feet were pointing forwards and she was more stable when walking with support. Nonetheless we are now taking a break from physio, although Mrs W. will join us for our next Neurodevelopmental/Preemie followup in March just to check how things are progressing. YIPPEEEEE!! For the first time in 15 months, no physio! (The girls started physio when they were just 4 weeks old)

Mrs W. also said she doubts Ciara will need any further physio although Enya might at some future date. I can live with that!

Z is away for tonight which means I have my Precious girls all to myself. Poor Z hates being away from them but someone has to bring in the bucks;0). Thankfully it is only 2 days away and then 2 days working and then he has 2 weeks holiday again. There is a bit of a 2 theme going here, isn't there.

De-baby-fying

I know there isn't such a word but there should be! Even the physio has remarked that the girls have lost their baby look and now look like little children (usually when we are out we get asked if they are little boys). So in the spirit of things I've started getting rid of the little baby stuff. I'm still hoping that Z caves in on another sprog so I'm not selling anything yet but it's all getting packed away.

In the kitchen we now only have 6 bottles and umpteen sippy cups lying around where previously we had over 13 bottles, with their associated tops and nipples, bowls and spoons drying on tea towels. The sterilizer has also been packed away and we are now down to only 2 boxes of formula on the kitchen tops where previously we had 3. Yes, Ciara is now drinking normal milk and we need to just finish the one box of formula before we change Enya to her AR formula mixed with whole milk too. I've packed half the bibs away too as now that we only give them 2 bottles a day, we really don't go through many at all. Unfortunately our usage of the bib with sleeves has increased with the recent vomit fest we had. But with 14 of those bibs, I have enough ;0)

We've also moved Enya into the front facing car seat so no more baby carry car seats for us. The baby seats used to always clutter up our entrance hall which now seems so much more open with out them. We've even got rid of one of our prams that we borrowed from our next door neighbour. From feeling a bit cluttered with all the baby stuff, our flat now feels bigger and more ours again. Unfortunately toys remain strewn all over and I think that's not going to change for at least the next 10 years though!

Talking about car seats, I had a first yesterday on the way to physio. Enya puked up in the car. Neither girl has ever been sick in the car before so this was very surprising but on discussing this with Z later we came to the conclusion she had been too hot. I had put her in her snowsuit in the car and the journey had been extra long due to traffic jams and the horrible weather conditions. She got overheated and puked all over her snowsuit, car seat and even hit a towel lying in the foot well. Thankfully she didn't hit the car upholstery so once we got the car seat etc. out, the car didn't stink. Physio was fun with her being so odorous though. Good news in physio was that we should finish up by the end of the year. Mrs W was very pleased with how Enya has progressed in the last 2 weeks (of which one week we didn't do any therapy at all due to illness), her feet positioning is much better and there is just the last remnants of the blasted abdominal control to achieve before we are discharged.

Gotta go, a little monkey has just crawled past me and from the odour that followed her, a nappy change is urgently required ;0)

graduating to a "big girls" carseat

Today I went out and bought Ciara a front facing car seat. She is over 9kg (20lb 5.5oz to be exact) and I'm sick of lugging the baby seats everywhere. Unfortunately it will be a while before Enya graduates to the "big girls" car seats as she is still around 7.6kg (16.7lb). We haven't tried out the new car seat yet but it seems so much easier to get in and out of than the infant car seats. With only one infant car seat lying around the house now we are going to have fights, both girls love to play around with the straps and clasp on it ;-).

We also attended the Vojta course today with Enya being used yet again as a model/practice object. I like to participate in these training courses as:
1) I know as a physio how important hands on practice is, preferably on real patients, as it is only through experience that you learn to do the techniques properly. I'd rather they practiced under the eagle eye of Mrs W.(our physio and the instructor) than on some hapless kid out in the community.
2) By watching I pick up quite a few tips on correct techniques and tricks to use when Enya tries to weasel her way out of a position.
3) They always do a very thorough assessment and discuss all the problems identified in just as much detail.

Unfortunately today it hit me hard. We were hoping that Enya would be finishing up with PT soon, but the problems identified today make that unlikely. On a gross motor level she has some patterns of movement equivalent to her ACTUAL age i.e. 13 months, BUT she is being held back by her poor abdominal tone which means that her rotation is limited and she has an extreme lumbar lordosis (hollow back) in standing and crawling. This is impacting on her crawling, stability in standing and even on the shape and positioning of her feet (narrow feet always pointing outwards). We have been working on her abdominals for what seems like forever now and it seems to me that it is extremely unlikely we will fix this problem in 3-5 weeks like was originally suggested.

I know I have lots to be thankful for considering where we started from, at the beginning of treatment both girls were considered very high risk for CP, but after a year of daily Vojta torture sessions I'm more than ready for a break!

This is exactly like just before the discharge from hospital: when people started talking about discharge, what was routine became unbearable and torturous. The final weeks dragged depressingly slowly by. I'm filled with the same kind of impatience and frustration now. I just want it to be finally over so I can enjoy my daughters without having to dread the daily torture sessions.

Better than expected

We had a really good physio session yesterday, Mrs W was really pleased with Enya's progress. Enya is coming up onto her hands and knees more and more often and she can already bring her knees forward. Mrs W said she even saw her bring her hands forward once (I didn't). I hasten to add the reason Enya (and Ciara for that matter) are so good about bringing their knees forward is that, in the treatment rooms and here at home the floor is not carpeted so they can slide their knees forward. That being said Ciara is lifting one hand in the air and bringing it forward. I am so ready for them to be crawling so they no longer cry everytime I pop out of sight!

We now don't have an appointment for physio until next month. Yes, I mean SEPTEMBER. Mrs W is on holiday and is quite happy for us to continue to muddle along until then. She has given me a contact number for one of the other therapists if I feel in need of checking but said the girls are doing fine and it is not neccessary to see them before then if I'm happy with how things are going. Hopefully by September I will have 2 crawling babies and then it's goodbye Vojta!!

I have to add Enya discovered herself in the mirror yesterday at therapy. We placed her down in front of the full length mirror like we always do and for the first time she looked at her reflection and started laughing and trying to play with the "other baby". She was up on her hands and knees, rocking wildly and trying to pat hands with her reflection. She must have continued for about 10 min, Mrs W and I couldn't stop laughing. I tried with a mirror at home and she started to do the same again, but when I tried with Ciara she just ignored her reflection.

Oops munchkin is awake again, gotta go...

Summer has returned

After freezing our a&*£s off for the last week summer has finally returned in full force, which means I can't make up my mind if my daughters' shiny red cheeks are due to the heat or could they finally, at the age of eleven months, possibly be getting their first teeth!!

We met up with our neighbour from the Kinderklinik today (we had planned to meet 2 weeks ago but it got cancelled as the baby P had a fever). This little P from the hospital weighs nearly as much as Ciara now and is at least as big, although corrected she is 2 months younger than my two! Isn't it fantastic how babies can grow (at least when they eat they can), last time we saw her she was still in preemie clothing and weighed 2 and a half kilos.

I sent Z in my stead to physio this week as I hit rock bottom, the result is that Ciara is no longer getting physio and will now just be monitored while Enya still continues with the full program.

Ciara is now rocking so wildly on her hands and knees that her knees slide forward but she hasn't figured out how to move her hands forward. She has also sat from her hands and knees down onto one hip a couple of times, but hasn't figured out how to sit up properly yet. Enya is now trying to get onto her hands and knees but battles to keep her knees together. She does however watch her sister and then tries to imitate what Ciara is doing. They are taking more and more notice of each other and what is really cute is Ciara sometimes seems to be trying to comfort Enya when Enya starts to cry- probably just coincidence but cute nonetheless.

Delays

I know intellectually that it is expected for such premature babies as ours to be developmentally delayed but it was really underlined this weekend.

We had the summer family day with Z's volleyball friends yesterday, one of the ladies had her daughter, lets call her M, 6 weeks after our girls due date (her daughter was also a couple of weeks early). M is sitting by herself, crawling and even attempting to stand. Ciara and Enya are rolling all over and Ciara is going onto her hands and knees but no sign of sitting or forward movement.

I know they will do it in their own time and M is doing this all very early but it just brought it home once again that the effects of their premature birth will accompany them long term.

I'm also fed up with Vojta therapy, more and more I have the feeling that it is pointless torture, that I'm not doing it properly and I'm sick and tired of always being the one that has to do it (Z refuses to do it at all anymore). I want to drop it but our paediatrician has already said if we stop Vojta, we will not get another form of physio prescribed! I would prefer to do Bobath therapy which is a gentler technique. As much as I hate Vojta, I know the girls need some form of physio therefore I have no choice but to continue.

Sorry just feeling a bit down today!