A funny story….

I hope this makes sense…..

The other day Ben spilt some water on the floor. When this happens, he likes to get a tea-towel and clean it up. We keep our tea-towels hung over the handle of the oven.

Ben went to the oven and grabbed the tea-towel and tried to pull it off. Unfortunately he grabbed too much, and pulled the front and the back, meaning it would not come at all.

Tracie said to Ben “pull it from the bottom” (as it wasn’t hanging evenly, and pulling it from the bottom would mean could get it off easier).

Benjamin misinterpreted what was said, and turned around so his bottom was touching the tea-towel. He then put his hand near his bottom, grabbed the tea-towel (now behind him) and pulled. It worked and the tea-towel came free.

Tracie and Sal melted in hysterical laughter at his technique of pulling from the “bottom”……….  so funny, very clever, and very cute!!

Ethan’s Vocabulary

Since speech pathology the other day Ethan has learnt a few new words.

He has said the following words a few times: bubble, pop, Dorothy (the dinosaur from the wiggles) nigh-nigh (good night) and apple.

He can also now sign: milk and water

Speech Pathology Again

Last Friday we took Ben to the speech pathologist for his eating. This was the same speech path we took Ethan to the day before….

Ben has always had trouble chewing his food. He’s been to the speech pathologist once before when he was about 9months old. Recently, he has developed a few techniques to eat his food. He either seems to shove all his food in his mouth, then end up with a large mouthful of food that takes him ages to swallow, or he’ll use the next mouthful of food to push the food in his mouth down his throat. She has told us to really control how much food Ben gets at a time, and to use a mirror so he can see him self eating. We tell him to make sure his mouth is empty before taking the next bite. So far, this technique is quite good, but he does seem to play with his mirror too much!

We’ll give it a few weeks and see how he goes.

Speech Development at 22.5 months

Speech development with Ben and Ethan is very different… Ben is a little chatterbox who says too many words to count. Ethan is our strong and silent type who says about 20 words.

ETHAN

This morning we took Ethan to a speech pathology consult to get her opinion on his speech development. She took a history, and listened to our stories of his speech and language skills. She said she is very happy with his hearing, comprehension and ability to follow commands. She believes that he is just slow to develop in speech, but will get there eventually….. just a little late. Just for our own records, here’s a list of Ethan’s words:

Words he uses appropriately - Mummy, Mumma, Mum, Ben, Benny, Nana, Grandma, go, no, uh-oh, ta, hi, bye

Words he mimics – bubba, daddy, tree, car, cheese, oh-man, backpack, zazy (our cat)

A few weeks ago, we decided we’d try to teach the boys (particularly Ethan) some simple sign language to help communication. The speech pathologist was very impressed (and so are we) that Ethan has picked up signing very quickly.

He can now sign: - eat, drink, more, help, cat, bird and book.

She gave us lots of information on speech and language development, how to help Ethan learn to speak. She also gave us some information about sign language and examples of some more key word signing. Research shows baby/toddler signing helps speech development. We look forward to teaching Ethan more signs over the next few weeks. (videos of signing to come)

BENJAMIN

Benjamin’s speech is moving along in leaps and bounds. He repeats almost everything we say. He is ADDICTED to reading books. He has a few favourites each day, and us poor mummies get really sick of the same book over and over. We read so many books a day, and we really do like the fact that he is so interested in books, and we encourage it daily. His favourites at the moment are books that have pictures of objects with their names. He repeats the words after we say them.

Ben is now speaking in 2-3 word phrases. A few days ago early in the morning, when he’d just woken up he said to me “Mummy, where’s Mumma?” I answered “at work”. About 2 hours later I asked Ben “Where’s Mumma?” and he answered “work”.

Today as we walked through the car park at the shopping centre we passed 3 cars. As we walked past Ben said “green car, blue car, white car”, pointed at each car as he went past it. Tracie and I were totally amazed. He got all 3 colours right!! We had no idea he knew his colours that well. We regularly try to teach the boys about colours with their blocks and other toys, but we have never really had much success with it – until now.

Also, this evening I was outside doing some garden work with Tracie and the boys. Tracie started to take the boys inside for some dinner and Ben stopped, looked at me and said “Mummy, are you coming?”

It’s incredible to watch his speech and language skills developing so fast. He learns several new words a day.

One of Ben’s latest phrases is “Ahhh, a morphie”. (meaning he’s seen the object he’s talking about) I have tried and tried to work out what a morphie (or maybe it’s amorphie) is, but so far I haven’t worked it out. He’s said it about 5-6 times in the last 3-4 days. I look forward to knowing what he’s talking about!!

A few new videos…

Here’s a few new videos we took today

The first one is Mummy (Sal) and the boys playing with a spinning top. The boys LOVE the spinning top, and enjoy taping, touching and kicking it so it spins out across the floor. They are laughing hysterically in this clip.

 

The next clip is Ben walking up and down the stairs. Yesterday he worked out how to walk the stairs without holding on to the banister. He’s still getting the hang of it, but is now doing most of the stairs without holding on. He’s so proud of him self, and says “again, again, again”.

Below are a few videos of Mummy (Sal) reading books to the boys. Ben and Ethan LOVE books, and we read several every day. They have about 10 favourites, that we know very well. The first clip is a book called Wiggles Opposites.

and a book about counting…

and a book about The Wiggles going to the zoo….

and finally reading a book with pictures of objects and their names. This (and other one similar) has been Ben’s favourite book for months. He got it for his first birthday and has loved it ever since. In this video Ben says lots of words of all the pictures he sees…

Cooking

One of our favourite activities is cooking. Mummy (Sal) and the boys usually make some pancakes or muffins about once a week. We like to make our own, as the boys are still allergic to egg, and can not have commercially made muffins, cakes, pancakes and some cookies.

The boys are very helpful at cooking, and love to add cups of flour, milk and help stir. Every time we add a new ingredient Ben likes to ask for a “taste”, and then often “more please”…

They LOVE to lick the beaters, spoon and bowl when we are done. Cooking is a very messy affair, that usually results in flour and batter everywhere, including the floor, and both boys almost needing a bath and change of clothes to clean up!

Ben licking the beater of banana muffins

Ben, Ethan and Aunty Linda all helping with the cooking.

Ethan and Aunty Linda

No More Elecare

Elecare is the hypoallergenic formula that Ben has been drinking since he was 4-5 months old due to his allergies. It was a miracle formula in the early days and made a HUGE difference to his eczema.

See this post about his skin at 4 months old

Then part way through this post at 5 months old, we had started Elecare and had almost instant success with his eczema

At about 12 months old, we introduced whole milk, which he tolerate well, and since then we’ve been weaning the bottles. Now our boys still have one bottle a day, right before bed. They are still having bottles, partly because it’s part of our routine, partly because they like it, and partly because the dietician still wants them to have some nutrient rich formula in their diet to help them fatten up a little.

A few days ago we ran out of Elecare.

We knew this would happen as we need a prescription from the Doctor to get Elecare and the doctor says he’s ok to be on regular formula now, so we just used up the Elecare until we ran out. Both boys are now drinking Ethan’s formula….

 

As you can see, Ben drank all his formula and has not complained once about the change to his formula. We are very pleased he’s drinking the new formula without a problem

By the way, Yes, our boys do drink out of different bottles. Ben always has the Tommee Tippee bottle, and Ethan has the Avent bottle. They took to these bottles as babies, and we just kept giving them different ones when they were younger as it made it easier when they were drinking different formula to remember whose was whose

Few random shots

I’ve had these few photos for a month or so, and as I usually do posts with a specific theme, they haven’t been posted yet……. So here they are.

Ethan – wearing his girls Dora the Explorer PJ’s. Ethan loves Dora, and we find it very frustrating that he can’t get any boys Dora clothes, so we bought some girly PJ’s for him, and he loves them!

Also see Ben in the background. He’s wearing Dorothy the Dinosaur (from The Wiggles) PJ’s, though his are a rare find and are actually made for boys.Ben building a block tower. Both boys love their mega blocks, though usually prefer to destroy towers other people make, but they are pretty good at making it themselves too. I took this picture for Grandma, as Ben chose the colours for this tower him self, and I thought she’s like it! (blue and yellow are colours of her favourite sporting team) 

Coffee time! – The boys LOVE their morning “coffee” It’s basically half a cup of lukewarm hot chocolate with frothed milk and chocolate powder on top. Ben calls it coffee, as we froth the milk with our cappuccino machine. Ben also likes the smell of coffee, and if we put him on the bench, he will crawl over the the cappuccino machine and lift the lid of the bean storage hopper and smell the coffee beans and say “mmmmm, coffee”!

Ben drinking his “coffee”Ethan drinking his “coffee”

Painting

Ben and Ethan have discovered painting…… and they love it!!!! We’ve only done it a handful of times, as it’s a messy affair, but they have such fun.

Ben and Ethan

Ben and Ethan

Ethan and Ben

Ethan, showing off his messy legs

Ben – finger painting turned into feet painting! (see our car in the background….. obviously this was before the accident)

A quick movie of the boys painting

Cleaning off after painting. Ben is squirting the water from the tap onto Ethan, and both boys think it’s very very funny!

Video of cleaning up (water play)

Update

It's been a while since an update. Sorry about that. For those who know us, or are on facebook, you'll know it's been a hectic fortnight! (to say the least)

So here's a few updates.......

Ethan's hip - We took Ethan back to the hospital last Monday morning. The doctors looked at his walking (still limping) and blood test results (all normal) and decided that he had 'irritable hip'. They tell us it's a viral infection of the hip joint and it should resolve all by it's self. A week or so later his walking had greatly improved.

Yesterday (and the afternoon before) Ethan had a bad day. He woke with a temp of 38.8 and feeling miserable. Everything was wrong.... ALL day. He whinged and cried on and off the entire time. His limp returned for the day and he went off his food. We were worried about his hip, but today, after a good sleep (7pm-9:30am!!!!!!) he's all better :) He's been happy all day, running around and eating normally.

Unfortunately today, Ben's been sick. He woke with a temp of 39.8 (103.6F) and it's been high all day. It only went down to 37.7 (99.8F), but was back over 38.3 (101F) within half an hour. As I'm typing this at 3:30pm he's woken early from his nap crying. His temp is 39.4 (102.9) again. Poor baby. We've been giving him nurofen (motrin) and panadol (tylenol) all day, but it's hardly making a difference. On the plus side, he's still eating and drinking normally and still seems very happy. We hope he gets over this as fast as Ethan and it's just one of those 24hour viruses...

In other news, last Saturday we took the boys on a lovely picnic. We went to a great park by the water with Tracie’s mother (Grandma). We had a great time at the park..

Ethan

Ben going down the slide. Mumma (Tracie) watching.

Ethan, negotiating the bridge.

Ethan on the bridge, talking to Grandma

Ethan, steering the boat.

Ethan

Ben

Ben, peering under the wharf

Ben and Grandma

Ethan, riding the boat.After playing at the park for a while, Mummy (Sal), Grandma, Ethan and Ben went for a walk to find some ducks……

Ethan, Grandma and Ben feeding the ducks

Ben and Grandma -  Ben’s saying “raaaaa” at the ducks. See his hands out like claws!!!

Ben and Ethan

Ethan – chasing the ducks

We had a great time at the picnic……

On the way home we had a car accident. A car pulled out in front of oncoming traffic and two car's a head of us stopped suddenly, as did we. Unfortunately we all crashed trying to avoid the other car - which fled the scene..... Our car was pretty smashed up at the front and we hit hard enough to make the airbags deploy. Us 3 adults (Sal, Tracie and Grandma) got some bruises and felt a little sore for a few days. Both boys were completely fine. Ben had a tiny little scratch from the seatbelt on his neck, but otherwise they didn't even get a bruise. We were pleased with their car seats, and how safe they were in the accident. We took the boys to the hospital as we wanted to get them checked, just in case they had any injuries that weren't obvious to us. They were monitored for 4 hours and sent home without any problems.

Our car was towed from the scene and assessed by our insurance company. They decided it was too damaged to repair and paid out our claim. So then began the task of shopping for another car. We had planned to sell our car in the next year or two and buy a 7 seater, so we decided it was best to buy a 7 seater now. We had several options to choose from, and did LOTS of research on the internet before buying. We really liked the inside of the Holden Captiva, as it was spacious without feeling like you're driving a tank or bus, however we heard several reports that there had been many problems and recalls with that car and people telling us that the car will cause us trouble in the long run. We also liked the Toyota Kluger, though not quite as spacious inside, it is a much better built car with a better reputation. So after many pro/con lists, we bought a silver 2004 Toyota Kluger. We will pick it up on Friday :)

After our car accident, our insurance company also covered the cost of new car seats for the boys. They now have seats that will last them until they are 7 and no longer need a car seat (as per the Australian laws). These new seats are bigger and they look small in them! So cute. I will try and upload some pics of the new car and car seats once we get it. In the meantime, we've been driving an almost new Toyota Corolla rental car. It's VERY nice. I'd love to own one in 20 years when we no longer need a big car!

Here’s a few pics of our smashed up car…..

Big Red Car

Ben and Ethan in their new inflatable Wiggles Big Red Car

 

Ben in the car

 

Boys in the car. See the white zinc cream all over the car and table??!?! They got the jar of sudocream (zinc cream) and “painted” the car while we were in the other room!