Words, Words, Words

Nicole continues to be our little sponge, soaking up every word and often repeating anything you say. Not to imply that she "knows" all of these words that she repeats, but I think she does know several of them. Let's see...what does she know...here goes:

-She continues to count to 10!!!!
-She's starting to show signs of knowing the alphabet. We have one toy, Leap, (that Kaitlyn really likes better, so she pushes his tummy to sing the ABCs often) and when Leap starts singing, Nicole will get several letters here and there as well as getting the overall tune of the song. It's awesome!
-Shoe
-Night Night
-Light
-Water
-Minnie
-Daisy
-MaMa (love hearing that one...it wasn't like this was her first word or anything...I waited a long time for this to become a regularly used word)
-DaDa
-Bubble
-Baby
-Melmo (for Elmo)
-Outside
-Hello
-Bye Bye
-Uh Oh
-Oh My
-Oh Toodles
-Oh no
-No No No
-She says choo choo when she sees a train
-She says meow when she sees a picture of a cat
-And more....

Now, for Kaitlyn...drum roll please...we're SO excited that her vocabulary is picking up!!! When Nicole counts to 10, she absolutely joins in. I don't know that she could go from 1 to 10 all the way, but she definitely has 3, 8, 9 and 10. Then, she also does the same thing with Leap when she pushes his belly to sing the alphabet. She has several letters in there as well as the overall tune to the song too!!!! How fantastic. I think we just needed to be patient (which we were told plenty and never ignored, but when it's your kid, seems like we just wanted to do everything we could). She also has words. Here goes...

-Light
-Dog
-Daisy
-MaMa (same thing here...very exciting for me)
-DaDa
-Duckie (this is a new one - and a neat one becuase she's asking for her favorite toy which is cool) -She still does the same 6 animal noises
-She signs "more" quite often
-Yeah (always accompanied with applause)
-Baby
-Up
-Hi
-Bye Bye
-Cir Kin (or something like that - it comes out a bit like the word certain, but she's saying circle)
-And there are times that it seems like she's trying to say something if we say, "Kaitlyn, can you say ____."

And that's that! They're both doing great!!! I've waited for so long for them to talk. It's going to be that old saying, "Be careful what you wish for," right? :-) Oh well.

Aquarium Visit, Playing Dress Up and Other Photos

Just hanging around the house with mommy after her appendix was removed. (Woke up New Years Day around 6am not feeling well. Back in the days of alcohol and parties, I would probably have dismissed it, so thank goodness I'm a boring old parent now who didn't do anything crazy New Years Eve. Anyway, I tried to go back to sleep and couldn't and thought a trip to the ER would be a good idea. Turns out I was right.)

Sitting in our new chairs that are just our size. I think they like having their own place to sit and play.

Playing dress up with our tu-tus. I came home from work last week, and they ran to the door wearing these. This was the first time I saw them wearing them and it was to die for. They just looked so cute.

Nicole finally wearing her head band. She wasn't a big fan. It didn't last long.

Kaitlyn with the full ensemble...magic wand and all, although it's upside down. :-)

Photos from our first trip to the aquarium:

Nicole pointing at some fish.

The girls LOVED running through this tube that goes beneath a smaller exhibit. They would run to one end, see me or Mike, scream, turn and run to the other end, and then do it all over again. Did we mention there were fish? It's all about the little things at this age.

The girls were fascinated by Deepo. He's obviously a rip off of Nemo, but this character was walking around the aquarium the whole time and we stopped not once but twice for hugs. They really liked him, Kaitlyn especially.

Looking at the fish with DaDa.

More fish with DaDa. This is the underwater tunnel leading back toward the whale sharks. For those who have been to the aquarium before, I'm sure you remember the VERY SLOW moving sidewalk in this tunnel. Kailtyn thought that was the greatest thing. She would get on and then get off. I don't suppose they've ever seen a moving floor before. As previously stated, did we mention there are fish at the aquarium? :-) We bought annual passes though, so we'll be back. I bet each time we go that they'll get more interested in the fish.

A Long Hiatus - Sorry

It's been a while and a lot has happened. Let's start with Christmas first. We had a wonderful holiday, and the girls got lots of nice toys and a few cute outfits as well. They completely don't "get it" yet, so next year will probably be the first Christmas around our house with the huge excitement. Nonetheless, they enjoyed this holiday. And they're enjoying all their new toys.

Nicole playing with an ornament. This one survived. (See below.)

Kaitlyn with her pom poms. Santa left those in their stockings.

Wow. We each got Cabbage Patch twins this year!!! Here's Kaitlyn looking at hers.

Grandma with her three grandkids. What a photo!

Nicole playing with ornaments on the tree. Kaitlyn wasn't too into the tree, but Nicole sure was. We ended up putting our play yard fence around the tree but finally had to take it down Christmas morning. I think she broke 4-6 ornaments this year in the short time that she had access to the tree. This particular one she's grabbing right now was a Christmas gift to me from my mom this year and it lasted all of about 4 hours on our tree before she broke it. Oh well.

Seond thing to update is their 18th month checkup. Both kids lost in percentiles for weight.

Nicole still gained weight but just not on a proportionate basis which is why her percentiles declined. She in the 78th percent which is great. And she's 97th in height!!! She may be one tall cookie. A good balance between height and weight. The strange thing with Kaitlyn is that she not only declined on the percentile scale, but she actuall LOST weight from her 15 month checkup. Needless to say, the doctor wasn't crazy about that. Kaitlyn is now in the 3rd percentile for weight and 50th for height. The doctor has insisted on a very high calorie diet for her (but obviously not for Nicole which presents an interesting cooking challenge). Specifically, our doctors said Kaitlyn should have a pasta with butter and cheese every day!!!

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Also, the pediatrician still agrees with me about the few oddities that I've noticed with Kaitlyn, so we will proceed down the path of going to visit a developmental pediatrician who will evaluate her. She still has her bouncing stim and she's still not talking at the rate she should be. I think Mike and I are talking ourselves out of the fact that she might be autistic and instead think she might be on the autism spectrum but somewhere very mild where it's called something else. And I don't even know if Mike agrees with me on that. We'll see what the doctor says in March (it takes a long time to get these appts).

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On a postive note, we do have more words than we did for our last post. Kaitlyn continues to say many animal noises: duck, horse, bee, owl, snake, and lion. She also says baby, bath and ball. And recently she's begun to say circle and I swear I heard the word cookie yesterday. There are a few other words too, but I can't remember right now.

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Nicole on the other hand is really starting to babble. She says: uh oh, oh boy, oh my, oh no (lots of phrases with "oh"), and my favorite...Oh Toodles (anyone who has watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse will get that one). You can say to her, Nicole do we need a Mousekatool, and she'll respond, Oh Toodles, which is exactly correct. That's what Mickey will say on the show. She also says shoe, night night, bubble, and touchdown. Now, here's what's really impressive!!!! I don't think this is normal...I could be wrong, so pardon my excitement if this isn't impressive...my 1 1/2 year old child can count to TEN already!!!! WOW!!!