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Today is Drake and Lucy's 2nd birthday (though I still think of their real birthday as November 5, their due date)! We had a fun party for them this afternoon and I am exhausted. I'll write more later and include some pictures.
Posted by Kelly at 8:28 PM 3 comments: 
Beach babies

We just got back from a week in Ocean City, NJ. It was fabulous. We rented a great house a block from the beach with my parents, sister and brother. My sister's boyfriend was also there for a few days, as were my aunt and uncle, my Dad's cousin, and family friends. It was definitely a full house at times, but I loved seeing everyone and we had many hands more than willing to help with the twins.

D and L loved the beach. They were completely exhausted and starving at the end of each day from all the fresh air, sun, swimming, digging and general beach action.

The kids daily routine was wake up, breakfast, beach from 9:30 until noon, back to the house for lunch and naps, back to the beach from 3:30 until 5:30, home for dinner and baths, and bed by 7 (my routine included coffee in the morning, a beer and a book on the deck during naps, and vodka tonics with my mom and sister in the evening). One evening we took the kids to the boardwalk and let them loose on the merry-go-round and the "flying dumbo" ride. They both did great on the rides. Drake was able to sit on his own horse for the whole carousel ride and loved going up and down. WIth Drake's crawling, Drake was definitely the sandiest toddler on the beach. I am still finding grains of sand in various crevices. And his knees are totally exfoliated, too. But he did great crawling in the soft sand, the hard sand and in the little waves. He loves water and really enjoyed when we'd take him out to the deep water to kick and "swim". There were a gaggle of toddlers on the beach daily (it is August on the Jersey shore after all) and Lucy had fun playing with the other kids. She was highly into digging and playing in deep holes that older children had dug in the sand. I think it was great for her to be with a bunch of typically developing kids her own age (and a little older). Though it made me a little sad wishing D could be in on the action, too. He'd get frustrated when we'd help him into a sand hole because he couldn't crawl out. So he spent more time crawling around and playing with the adults or by himself. We missed a week of therapy and I didn't make him wear his glasses (didn't want them to get scratched with sand), so he (and I) got a much needed break from all that. He went back to CCS Monday, and his PT commented on how much more verbal he is just since last week when she saw him. Then his nanny said the same thing to me yesterday. It's true, he seems to be in a verbal spurt right now -- repeating things back more frequently, saying more new words, including a two-word combo: "all done"!

So a great vacation and now, back to the real world!
Posted by Kelly at 11:22 AM 2 comments: 

Well, they're a comin'...

Drake has clinic in September and they are going to prescribe him his first set of AFOs. He has been using a pair of borrowed AFOs during therapy and now it's time for his own casted pair, ones that fit his feet perfectly.

I am reminded by his therapists that AFOs are a good thing: it means he is ready to do a lot more standing and they definitely help him with that, as they force him off his toes and onto flat feet. But I can't help think this is his first "equipment".

He will start out wearing them only an hour or so a day, when we are working on standing. He still crawls and W sits the majority of the time, and the AFOs hinder that, so they don't want him to wear them all day yet.

Posted by Kelly at 8:29 PM 3 comments: