The girls are learning new things every day. Every time they do something really cute, I think that I should blog about it, but then I forget! Their babyhood is almost gone, and I am afraid that I will forget all of the really sweet moments that we are having at this stage.
Holland is especially growing up fast. I swear, within just a few days she wakes up a whole different child! She has recently climbed (fell) out of her crib for the first time. She has also peed once in the potty (for my mom), and has pooped in the potty once. I didn't even notice when she pooped in the potty the first time. She told us she needed to go, and we put her on the potty. She kept standing up and didn't really want to sit. I kept encouraging her to sit back down and try to go potty. Finally she stood up and shut the lid to the potty, so I put her diaper back on and she promptly pooped in it. I didn't think any more of it until the next day when the bathroom was smelly and I couldn't figure out why. I lifted the lid on the potty and looked in to see a little poop right there in the bottom! She had gone and I hadn't realized it. I felt bad that we didn't get to have a poo-poo party! I did congratulate her, but of course by then she had no idea what I was talking about. There is definitely some interest in using the potty, and I think we'll be able to master it over the summer.
Holland's language development is just amazing lately. She is stringing sentence together better all the time. And it's not just that she has a great ever-expanding vocabulary and an awesome memory, but that she seems to really GET it. She understands so many concepts, and can listen and follow multi-step directions really well.
She loves to help, and will go get something from the other room and bring it back to me or to Eden. She can sometimes be really sweet to her sister (when she's not crying or yelling at her), and will pick something up that Eden has dropped and give it back to her. The conversation goes like this: "Here you go Eden, thank you Hanen, you're welcome Eden." She has started talking for Eden a little bit, when she wants her to say a certain thing.
I walked into her bedroom a couple of weeks ago to get her, and she exclaimed "polka-dot pj's mama, cute!" What a nice way to wake up. She's also so sweet at saying please, thank you, and excuse me. It's the best to hear her always saying "thank you mama" and "excuse me Eden."
Yesterday I was picking them up from my parent's house and I called her into the living room to get her coat on. She yelled from the other room "wait a minute!" perfectly clearly. It was so funny.
She also has this really goofy fake laugh right now. She covers her mouth and bends over and says "hahaha, mama funny." She's telling us all the time when she thinks something is "funny." So cute.
In some ways it is nice that we get to enjoy Eden's baby-ness a little longer. But she is becoming a big girl now too, in her own way. She put three words together for me for the first time the other day. She was in her highchair and ready to get down. She said "all done, up, walker" with the sign for each word. I was so impressed!
She makes up her own signs for the things she wants, to help us understand. For a long time we couldn't distinguish between "wa" for water or drink, and "wa" for walker, so she made up her own signs. An index finger in her mouth means she wants a drink, and she waggles two fingers like they are walking to mean walker. Now we can understand the words "drink" and "walker" but she still uses her signs at the same time. Really adorable.
Eden is currently obsessed with Blue's Clues. She can spot a paw print a mile away, and gets SOOOO excited. She points and exclaims "cooo cooo" (means "a clue, a clue"). If she sees Blue she puts both hands up by her face and opens and shuts them, and says "boo, coo." Her favorite game in the world is for us to hide the "clues" that we cut out of paper plates and colored paw prints on. She will look for her clues all day, and gets SO EXCITED when she finds them. She will run across the room in her pony walker to get the clues. We spend hours doing this. Hiding clues works great during PT, because Eden will basically do anything to find a clue. Hilarious.
Eden's voice is slowly getting louder, her articulation better, and her expressive and receptive vocabulary are growing. But we're still pretty much the only people who can understand her. She has quite the odds stacked against her when it comes to volume control with her voice. With 30 days on mechanical ventilation after she was born, a PDA ligation that may have damaged her vocal chords, a severe hearing impairment, and low (no) tone in her trunk due to the CP, she has a lot of obstacles to overcome. Even as a tiny baby her cries were little more than squeaks and hisses, and her voice is very very soft and quiet.
To work on volume was have practiced "calling." We "call" daddy, zippo, mommy, nana, and Holland, but Eden's favorite is daddy. She puts her hands up around her mouth and calls as loud as she can "daaaa, daaaa." It's the quietest yell you'll ever hear, but getting louder all the time. As her "calling" has improved, we see her voice getting louder and her articulation improving. She is also getting more two syllable words, and attempts to say more words on demand. Some recent favorite words (of ours) are "thank you" and "sesame street."
Eden LOVES LOVES LOVES her walker. She asks for it all the time, and wants to spend all of her time in there. I love that she lately wants to hold my hand and walk with me when she is walking. I can't wait until summer and we can stroll down the sidewalk together. Wait, I take that back. I can wait.
