Two and a Half Years Old

Twirls 2.5 Year Checkup

Jaide 

Height: 2 ft 11.25 in (44%)
Weight: 29.0 lbs (54%) 

Siena 

Height: 2 ft 11.25 in (44%)
Weight: 28.8 lbs (51%)

They are doing great.  While Dr. Tosto and I were chatting about the twirls they were crawling around the floor acting like puppies.  They even tried to lick her feet!?!  HAHA!!!  We all had colds that week and Siena developed an ear infection, so she's on an antibiotic for 10 days.

We spoke about the pesky Molluscum that has broke out another round of bumps - I HATE THAT VIRUS!!!!  And now that I'm prego and my immune system is depleted I caught Molluscum from the girls - again!  Ugh!  I will post more about it after we see the dermatologist again.

The other concern is their delayed speech.  Dr. Tosto recommended that we continue working with Early On.  Early On Michigan is a federally funded system of early intervention services for infants and toddlers, birth up to age three, with disabilities and/or delays, and their families.  When Jake and I decided it was time to start trying for child #4 we signed the girls up to be assessed through this program.  We knew they were behind and we were looking for anything to help us catch them up.  At first they sent their assessor lady to work with the girls in our home to see if they are behind.  The assessment was very thorough and comprehensive.  She concluded that they were behind in speech expression, but not reception (they understand us they just can't talk back).  So now she comes to our home once a month til they turn 3 to help us with new goals - she is trained to help us figure out what to work on in what order.  She breaks it down to manageable chunks.  She also works on tips to potty train them and transition to toddler beds.  I told her that I'm not interested in potty training right now, mostly cause it's so much work and I'm still so nauseous.  But we've got lots to work on.  She said it takes 3 months for a change to become permanent before implementing something new.  So we're working now but we want to have things done at least 3 months before the baby comes.  Then the speech therapist comes to our home 3 times during that interval.  She has already come once to help us.  She gave us specific games to play and things to work on.  She also told me that they don't work on speech articulation til after they turn 3 - so I'm trying to focus on just adding vocabulary rather than worrying about if anyone besides me can understand them.  For the first appointment the speech therapist asked me to put together a vocabulary list for the twirls.  I assembled it (organized by our daily routine) and found they know ~50 words.  The therapist laughed and said families with an engineer make the most detailed and best word lists!  haha!

While working with speech we've also been working on adjusting the twirls to nursery.  Previously one of us would stay in there with the twirls.  Mostly cause I just felt bad leaving the leaders with two SCREAMING toddlers.  One time during the closing song of Sacrament meeting Jake told Jaide to clean up so she could go to nursery.  She looked up at him in fear and immediately started screaming!  Poor girls have anxiety about the whole thing.  We finally spoke with the leaders and they told us to just leave them screaming and they would handle it.  Yay!  I was waiting for someone to volunteer.  So for several weeks Jake would put the twirls in Cindy's lap and just leave them screaming in her arms.  But then one day it just stopped.  Within 3 weeks they were running down the hall to the nursery, excited to go play/sing/eat and not worried about us at all!!!

Also, the twirls have been learning new words rapidly.  But more importantly they've started putting together sentences.  Like "Help buckle puppy" and "Dad more water please".  Their quick nursery transition and the rapid speech improvement we feel is a direct blessing to our deciding to have another baby.  Say what you will, but the girls have had such slow progress in these areas until recently.  I feel that it is a tender mercy from Heavenly Father helping us know that we're doing the right thing for our family.

Other Doctor Stuff....

I went to my allergist to check things out with the pregnancy.  Dr. Leo told me "I have no concerns for your asthma right now [looking at all of my girls in his office], I have other concerns for you but they don't have to do with your physical health."  hahah!  He used to work with the LDS church while in med school providing asthma resources in third world countries.  So he likes to tease me about my big Mormon family (but in a respectful way).

I took Scarlett to my latest OBGYN checkup.  They used the heart monitor to listen to the baby (heart rate right on track at ~150).  Dr. Bernardoni then let Scarlett hold the monitor and wiggle it around til she found the baby.  Pretty darn cool!

While at home, Siena used her toy stethoscope on my belly and said "baby" I thought it was totally adorable - and so did Jake, until she went over and did the same thing to his belly!  haha!

Scarlett was playing doctor too.  She took my temperature and told me "You're really hot.  You're going to need to stay in bed all night and not get out to potty.  You're going to need a reeaaalllly big pull up!"  Gee, thanks.

While we were at the Summit for preschool in October I walked passed this wood cabinet full of Canton flyers and advertisements.  I noticed some familiar faces on there - look how little the twirls were: