"Nicie says"

Mommy to Jacie, "What does Nicie say?"

Jacie to Mommy, "Nicie say "No No No!""

Mommy to Jacie, "What does Daddy say?"

Jacie to Mommy, "Daddy say, ummm, Daddy says, "Daddy!"

Huntington Gardens with Auntie Charmy

So - our second trip to the Gardens this past weekend was with Auntie Charmy, Daddy's sister. We went to see the "Color Explosion" exhibit which was great! We had a nice time walking around the gardens and Jac insisted that we go see the fish in the Japanese Gardens!

Fore more pictures from Flickr click here.

"Dab, dab, swipe"

Daddy has taught the boys to "Dab, Dad, Swipe" to clean their faces and mouths. It is super cute and Jac will say, "Dab, Dab, Swipe," and Nicie can say, "Dab."

Jac is pretty good at it now, he can get his face pretty clean after he eats, at least sometimes! Nicie is still more of a rookie at it but he gives it a college try if you ask him to!

Nicie running

Nicie has a really cute run! Belly out, small steps, and pretty quick! I love his run and so does my Mom - who requested a video if it - so here you go! And yes, I have already emailed you a version for your iPhone!

Huntington Gardens fun with the Bramlets

We had a great time at Huntington Gardens on Saturday (yes we went to Huntington Gardens twice this weekend) with the Bramlets. They have two kids, Odessa who is almost exactly one year older than Jac and Dyson who is 9.5 months. They are a great family and Odessa is great fun! Jac had a great time running around with Odessa and chasing her! He learned her name pretty quickly and was frequently chasing her calling, "Dessa!" Too cute for words!

For more pictures click here to see them on Flickr.

Cool guy!

On Sunday we went to Huntington Gardens with Auntie Charmy. It was alternately sunny and bright and dark and cloudy - we couldn't figure out if we were hot or cold!

We had a very nice time visiting the "The Color Explosion" exhibit in the Huntington Library. It was very cool!

When we came out of the exhibit the boys tried on my sunglasses - and Nicie even posed for a picture!

Jac dancing to the "Tomica Dance" video

Jac and Nic love this Tomica video on YouTube.



They watch it all of the time, Jac requests it at least once a day! He likes to dance to it, and sometimes he even dances to it when it is not playing! I love watching him dance! Nic dances also but he was alseep when I took this video!

I wish I could be this comfortable

Nic sleeping, originally uploaded by Taj and Joseph Chiu.

Kids have a way of being so comfortable, it is quite enviable! I am not sure I am ever this comfortable!

Jac talking!

Jac talks up a storm now. He is forming short sentences and putting together ideas from the past and the future. He can talk about things that happened a week ago and what is going to happen tomorrow (the past is easier than the future though!).

When we were visiting Grandma and Grandfather we asked him to say a bunch of things so Grandma could get a recording of him saying, "I love you Grandma," and "I love you Grandfather." The rest was gravy!

Books in the bedroom

IMG_3406, originally uploaded by Taj and Joseph Chiu.

We have a shelf in the bedroom with the boys' books on them. These are the books that have "stuck" in there, the ones we read the most often. We have three more shelves of books in the living room!

Nic - Self identification and Naming

Nicie knows who he is! A few days he recognized himself in the mirror, pointed at himself and said, "Nicie." Yesterday he pointed to Jac and said, "Jacie," and then pointed at himself and said, "Nicie." Today he turned my iPhone on, pointed at the picture of himself that is my background, and said, "Nicie." Whoa!

He has been naming all of us more, and he now very clearly calls all of us by name, "Daddy," "Mommy," and "Jacie." Now that he is calling us by name he has a different way that he says, "Daddy," than he used to say, "Dada." It sounds pretty different, I will try to get a recording of it.

He is really getting a hang of repeating words that we tell him, and is starting to mimic words much more closely. When he wants to know what something is called, he points at it and says, "that, that, that," over and over, until you tell him what it is called. Sometimes it can be very hard to figure out which thing he is pointing at, and since I don't want to tell him a duck is a cow things can get a little confusing sometimes!

You've gotta love the hair!

Jac spilled yogurt drink last night when he was sleeping and it got in his hair. You've gotta love yogurt drink as hair gel! I loved his hair so much I didn't even clean his head before we went out!

He was really this small

Sometimes I can't understand how small Jac was anymore. He has come so far, and we have come so far as a family. Lexi and Chris and Cooper, welcome to this journey. I am glad your beginning was not as rough as ours, but I hope your journey is as beautiful.

Sweet brothers

Yesterday morning I asked NIcie to go wake Jac up. Jac was pretty solidly asleep and not interested in waking up. There was a bottle from the night sitting on the floor next to Jac. Nic went up to Jac very quietly, picked up the bottle and laid it next to Jac's face, looked at Jac for a few seconds, and then came back to me.

It was the sweetest thing! They are so sweet to one another it is the most wonderful thing!

Jac is 31 months old

Jac is 31 months old! He is now headed toward three! Whoa!

He is turning into such a big boy! His language has absolutely taken off! He is truly narrating the world, and shaping it, using his language. Here are some of my current favorites!

"Very dangerous" - He says this when we are in a parking lot or near cars!
"Very careful" - He says this to Nic to tell him to be careful in a parking lot!
"That was" *pause* "fun" - Jac has learned the phrase, "That was" and he uses it a lot now. He usually has a pause between "that was" and the whatever he is talking about although tonight he linked "That was fun" all together! It is so cute though because he says, "that was" and then there is a pause and then "fun", or "phone" or whatever "that was!"
"Mommy, Daddy, Katie" or "Mommy, Daddy, Nicie" or "Daddy, Nicie" or "Mommy, Jacie" - Tonight he was linking all of our names together in different ways.
BTW, Katie is our new Mother's Helper. She is great and the kids have really taken to her.
You can now ask Jac if he had a fun day and he will tell you, "Wes." You can also ask him what he did during the day and he will sometimes tell you about something, and if prompted with a particular thing will tell you more about it.

Jac's language has reached a point where it is getting harder to write these posts. He has so many words and phrases! I can now ask him yes, no questions and get pretty good answers. I can ask him to pick between two things and he can do it. I can ask him if he wants to stay home or go out and he can answer!

I think Jac's enunciation is quite good. Katie has only been with us for about a month and she can already understand almost everything he says. Sometimes she has difficulty if it is new word that he is mispronouncing but usually she can get it. His speech is supposed to be evaluated pretty soon by a therapist from the Lanterman Regional Center so it will be interesting to see what they say.

I used to have a lot more feedback about Jac's progress relative to "normal" when we were getting Part C services in Colorado. Since he didn't qualify for services under the "budget-cut" changes to the policies here in CA he hasn't had any OT, PT or Speech therapy. I don't think he really needs it but it was nice to now how he was "doing."

Jac is still a little guy but it feels like he has gotten a bit taller. He is still very skinny but he feels so strong. When I carry him I can tell how strong he is as he pushes back against my arm to lean away from me. He can now climb over the side of the couch with nothing to stand on to get a boost from. He is running like crazy and has gotten a lot faster. He still falls occasionally but his ability to get a little off balance and then regain his balance has gotten way better.

It feels like his eating has generally gotten better. He eats so many different things and his volume feels like it is at least holding steady - good days and bad days, although Nic has those also. I don't feel as stressed about his eating as I used to. Now, I just feed him. I make all sorts of different things and see what they eat. We go to McD's sometimes, we go out to other things, we eat at home, we have snacks, we have M&Ms (we all love them), we eat! And we just eat!

Sleeping - Jac knows now when he wants to go to sleep. He wants to sleep in the bed usually, although sometimes he wants to stay on the couch! He has pretty much stopped taking a nap. He usually has a quiet period about the same time as Nic takes a nap, where he relaxes on the couch and watches YouTube but doesn't sleep. When he wants to go to bed he says, "Bed, Yogurt drink, under."

(Update - 2/12/10 - More phrases)
"Too much" - Jac says that something is too much when he doesn't like it. So if you are taking him in to something that he doesn't want to do, or into a place he doesn't want to go he will cry out that it is "too much."
"What are you doing?" - I wrote a blog post about this one before. This is another of Jac's phrases he uses when you are doing something that he doesn't want! It is generally yelled!
"Very dangerous" - Genrally Jac uses this to talk about cars in the street but today when we were riding on the bus and I leaned in to him a little too much and took up a lot of his space he said, "Momma, very dangerous," to tell me to move back!
"Buy it" or "Buy this" or "Buy it nnn" or "Buy more nnn" - Jac knows what he wants! He tells us to "Buy it" all of the time! He will be looking at something that we have bought for him and say, "Buy it" and we will say, "We did buy it, we bought it." This never seems to satisfy him! He understands if you tell him you are going to buy something when you go out!

Nicie's new words

Nicie has some new words!

Trash - which he calls Wa Wa (same word but different meaning for water!)
Wall - because he bumps into the wall a lot!

I know there are more but at 2 am they won't come to me! I wil work on this list more tomorrow!

(Update 2/11/10 - 1:33 am)
Okay - I figured out what more of the words are! Yeah!

Seat - Meaning his high chair
Apple - He really likes to chew on apples, although not necessarily swallow them. This is also true for grapes and tangerines. I think it is because he is teething but I can't blame everything on that ;)
Dog - He loves dogs and gets really excited when he sees them.
Woof - He knows the sound the dog makes.
Abby - Our friends dog - he has met her a couple of times.
Kick - He likes to kick his legs, at people and at things! At least he tells you when he is kicking you!

(Update 2/12/10 - 3:42 am)
More words! These are not new I have just had to write them down!)

Eyes - He knows what eyes are he points to mine and his own and Jac's and says "eyes"
Dump - He loves to dump out the bins of toys
Bottle - This comes out "Bo Bo" but it means bottle. We have been giving Nic a bottle for a couple of weeks now. We started it because it felt like I wasn't always able to give him enough milk. He is still breastfeeding well and he feeds for naps and for comfort throughout the day and then he nurses to sleep and then throughout the night. He does like to have bottles although he doesn't generally drink that much from them.
Cup - A sippy cuy. He likes to drink water and juice from sippy cups.

"Remember"

Jac has been having a little biting problem. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does it happens really quickly, before I realize that something is really going on.

A few days, the boys were playing, and it got contentious over a toy, and Nic tried to take it, and Jac bit him. It was a pretty hard bite that left teeth marks on Nic's arm, and the bitten area swole up a bit. Nic was very upset and cried for a bit, and as I worked to calm him down, I talked to Jac about what was going on, and why Nic was crying.

After NIc had calmed down, I saw that the bitten area had gotten swollen. We talked about that, and decided that Nic needed a bandaid, like Mommy had on her finger. The discussion about the swollen arm and the bandaid went on for a while.

This was several days ago and we have discussed it a few times since then, all initiated by Jac.

Tonight he said "swollen," which was a new word for him that came out of the discussion of Nicie's arm. His enunciation of swollen is a little unclear and I am not always able to immediately recognize it. Tonight, he said "swollen," and I didn't understand him. He said, "remember, swollen arm." Amazing!

He is such a little sponge! It is so fun to watch!

"I love you Momma"

Jac can say just about anything now it seems!

On Sunday, Grandma asked Jac to say "I love you." He said it but not very clearly.

We have been practicing saying different phrases, like, "Good morning Dadda," and "Bye, Bye Katie." Jac now has a great sense of praciticing saying things for the future and that they are not actually applicable right now.

So tonight I asked him to say, "I love you Dadda," and he did! And then he said, "I love you Momma!" I also asked him to say, "I love you Grandma," and "I love you Grandfather," the next time we see them. He said both!

When Jac said, "I love you Daddy," it flashed me right back to the NICU. I remember sitting for hours with him in Kangaroo care, and watching him laying on Daddy in Kangaroo care. The feelings that I had back then, to protect him, to help him grow up, to hear those words, were so strong, that as soon as I heard him say, "I love you Daddy," it took me right back there. I would sit, and think, "I love you little one, grow, and be well, we love you." It was a powerful flash back that brought tears to my eyes! My little boy is growing up!

"Momma"

Nic has started calling me Momma - sort of! Over the last few days he has finally! started saying Momma - but not all of the time - and it still doesn't really feel like it is directed at me! But I will take it! Except when he is crying about his diaper change and crying, "Momma, momma" - I think I preferred it when that was "Dadda!"

Welcome Cooper James Marsh

Congratulations to Chris and Alexis on the birth of their son, Cooper James Marsh, who joined us this morning at 10:02 am London time! We were all soundly asleep (or not so soundly asleep!) here in Pasadena when the news arrived!

We have received a few pictures but we are looking forward to many more!

Benecalorie and hGH

We have started adding a calorie supplement to Jac's night time bottle. It is a supplement called Benecalorie. It is a medical food and it has 330 calories in 1.5 oz - which is 7 cal per ml! Amazing! It is an oil supplement and it is hard to get it to mix with his milk, but I try! We started last week and I can't tell if it is helping him gain any weight yet.

We have decided that we are going to start Jac on hGH, which is Human Growth Hormone. There are lots of reasons that we need to do this for Jac all of which I don't want to explain right now, suffice it to say we have decided that it is best for him, and until he is old enough to decide he doesn't want it, we are going to give it to him. It is a daly injection, like an insulin shot, same kind of tiny, thin needle. We are waiting on the hGH until we get all of the approvals from the insurance company - hopefully we will get that in the next month.

Left handed

Nicie is most definitely left-handed. If you offer him something to hold he usually takes it with his left hand - and he loves to throw with his left arm. He has got some ambidextrousness going on also though - the other day he took two balls, one in each hand, over his head, and threw them, and hit me with both of them! Fortunately they were soft! He uses forks and spoons with his left hand and holds teething rings with his left hand.

Bam Bam

When Nicie is wearing a sleeveless suit he likes to stick one of his arms through the neck hole. I usually manage to keep him from doing it but this morning he did it and so ended up wearing a nice off-the-shoulder look.

Daddy said he looked like "Bam Bam" from Flintstones and I would have to agree! With his propensity for throwing, running and hitting it seems an apt nickname at times!

Twins?

We are constantly asked if the boys are twins. This is not at all surprising given that they are a similar size and unless you pay attention it is not obvious that Jac is light years ahead of Nic developmentally (14 months ahead!) I always answer, "No, they are 14 months apart." I get a lot of quizzical looks and head scratching and then people usually take a closer look and reevaluate and see that they are not twins.

The funny thing about this is that up until yesterday I was always just a little bit offended by the question. It seemed so obvious to me that they are not twins, and my Jacie is so much "older." Yesterday as I was watching them play together, and really enjoy one another (they have done this for a while but it really struck me yesterday), I realized that as soon as Nicie starts really talking (2-3 word sentences - like Jac is doing now) it is really going to be like having twins, in a really cool way!

My mind started wandering to what things are going to be like when the boys are 3 and 4 and are at more developmentally similar stages than they are right now. Oh man! It is going to be wild and fun! I better be on my toes with both of them watching me!

My boys!

Directed play

The boys have been playing "together" for a while now, more often than not it is more about having the same toy at the same time!

They like to chase one another, and that develops naturally at certain times of the day. Today, Jac decided that he wanted Nic to chase him. He went over, got Nic, asked him to hold hands, and then started puling him and saying, "chase."

Wow! I could see the future opening in front of my eyes as the boys start developing their own games, and making rules for those games, and getting the other one to play with them!

I remember doing all of that so clearly with my sister! The thing I remember most clearly are our Snoopies! We loved them! They were our friends and we created entire worlds for them to live in and stories that they lived out. They got to do all of the things that we wanted to do but didn't get to for one reason or another.

I can fully understand now why my parents' memories of us playing that way are so special. I can't wait! Yes I can! I love this time, but that is going to be just amazing!

"Trade"

Jac now understands the idea of trading. He has done it before but
today's example was perfect. Nicie had a phone that Jac wanted. We
offered and found Jac a different phone. He took the new phone up to
Nicie and said "trade," which Nicie did!

Sent from my iPhone

Nic is 16 months old!

My little boys are growing up so fast!

Words!
Dadda
Momma (if he really wants to - but not directed at me)
Top
Cap
Brother
Jac
No - Usually No No No
Boobie (which he calls Boo Boo)
Wa Wa (water)
Bump - when he bumps his head or something else (learned this week)
Eyes - he knows where they are and likes to point to them
Vroom - like the sound of a car
Button - comes out Bung
Batteries - comes out Bay
Out
Up
Down (Up and Down are usually used reversed - Jac still does this also!)

Lots of laughing! Really cute giggles. Mischievous ones and sweet ones!

Running - or chasing and racing as Jac calls them.

Throwing - everything! Balls, and anything else he can get his hands on. He has great accuracy and distance and he loves to do it!

Climbing - he follows Jac's lead on this one and climbs up on my desk chair and onto the couch using anything Jac can find to make them taller.

Sleeping - some! He usually gets up later than Jac and stays up later than Jac. He can last a lot longer than Jac can. He takes a nap every day though and Jac doesn't always (he hasn't taken one all week).

Eating - a lot! It feels like he has hit a growth spurt! He is eating more and getting more insistent about having the food that he wants. He doesn't take food back out his mouth as much anymore - he used to take in all kinds of food but push most of them out - he doesn't do that as much anymore - which is nice because it was really messy. He loves tomatoes (as does Jac). Tonight he had a second helping of tomato sauce (after bath D'oh!) and all he ate was tomato sauce and then some more cut up tomatoes. I though the tomato sauce was too "peppery" for them but both boys loved it!

Teething - lots! It seems like he is upset about his teeth every night. He has eight teeth now - but I can see some more coming in!

Baths - he continues to like them - especially running around naked after them!

Dancing - He loves to do a little dance where he stomps his feet really fast and spins around - so cute!

Steps - Nic went down two steps with no hands and no help yesterday. He was so proud of himself. He can sometimes get up small steps with no hands but these were pretty good size (almost full-size) steps that he did! Proud Momma!

Whining - a lot! He doesn't have enough words to tell us what he wants to we end up with a little whining. On a bad day it really pushes my buttons.

Leading - Just this week he started pointing to where he wants me to go or taking my hand and leading me there. He likes me to stay with him when he is playing, so if I leave he comes and gets me and points back to his play area or takes me there by hand so I will stay with him. Or is he wants some food he will lead me to the kitchen!

Hitting - much better. He still hits some but it is not as much of a constant battle to protect ourselves and Jac. He and Jac don't have quite as much controversy over toys and sharing as they used to.

Kisses and hugs - He is a very good hugger and kisser. He likes to hug and kiss with us and also hug his stuffed animals, especially Snoopy and Pooh Bear.

Diapers - Not a fan! Would love to run around all day without one. He could do without suits also! If he could just run around naked all day he would be very happy! Maybe we should move to Hawaii!



Jac and Nic playing in a fountain in South Pasadena.



Nic doing a headstand in the lobby



Jac and Nic at the Denver airport - 5 months ago! (September 2009) Hard to believe this was just five months ago! Nicie was still crawling (He was 11 months here - and he started walking at 12 1/2.

Happy Sixteen Months Nicie!