Will and Erin are on the move! Crawling, creeping, and walking behind their walkers. We have caught Erin standing by herself (near furniture) too. Will has gone from mostly Army crawling to crawling like a big boy, as I like to call it. With this, he is now able to go from crawling to the sitting position. Thank you Grandma Melanie for teaching Will how to do this. The kids love their toys and exploring. Now that our house is on the market, we have had to clean out our living room. This means that the exersaucers have been banished to the basement. The kids don't seem to mind because they just want to move. Will loves to throw things (balls, small toys and their water bottle rattle with golf tees in it) and then crawl after them. 
Erin still LOVES her books! She crawls to the bookshelf and pulls the books off and 'reads' them. When we are reading to Erin, Will has started to crawl over to the chair and wants to join us. He is learning how to turn the pages and what's under the lift-flaps. A new trick is carrying toys in their mouths while crawling. Rattles, rubber duckies, shoes (have I mentioned that they like to chew on Erin's shoes with Velcro?) and anything that is small and light weight.They look like little dogs carrying their toys around. Speaking of dogs, Clark is still patient with the kids even though Erin LOVES to pull on his fur. Will doesn't pay much attention to Clark, but Erin is very interested in him. When Clark is laying on the couch, she will crawl over and try to 'pet' him. Sometimes Clark doesn't mind and other times he gets mad.
Both kids have their own walkers (toys to walk behind) at grandma's house. They love to use them in the house and on the driveway. We took the walkers to Escanaba and Will and Erin walked the halls of Oma's assisted living home (pictures in another blog entry).
Will has started waving and Erin quickly learned how to do the same thing. Yesterday, Erin gave me a kiss when I asked for one. :-)
The most exciting development is that Erin and Will have started to 'talk' to each other. They look at each other and babble or laugh. It seems like they are already creating their own language. We've caught the kids pushing, biting and hitting each other too. Let the fun begin. Erin likes to play with the knob on the stereo. She'll crawl over to it and start to spin the knob. She looks at us (to see if we are watching) and gives us a naughty smile. We tell her "no-no" and she laughs. (I can see a glimpse into our future!) We move her from the stereo and she crawls back over to it and repeats the above behaviors. It is really hard to not laugh at her because she is really cute!! Now Will has started doing the same thing, except he does play with something else when we redirect him.
Not much has changed with feedings. Erin continues to get 7.5 oz fed via her tube every 3-4 hours while awake. Will gets fed when we feed Erin. He is eating more baby food and drinking less fluid. He does like to eat my pancakes, Grandma Pam's cheesy potatoes and graham crackers. They both love Cheerios, graham crackers and other cereals. Erin loves to eat carbs (crackers, bread, soft pretzels, potatoes, chips, cake), but still no fluids. Erin had a Swallow Study done at the end of March. We learned that when she swallows liquids she is silently aspirating (some of it is coming back up even though she doesn't cough or sputter). When given 1/4 of yogurt it took her 3 swallows to actually swallow the yogurt. Her tongue doesn't know what to do with the food. The feeding therapist has advised us to not force any liquids including pureed baby foods. If Erin wants something, we can let her try it, but when she's finished don't force her to eat more. We always offer her some of Will's food and she loves sweet potatoes, YoBABY! Sweet potato and Apple Yogurt and carrots. Erin will start feeding therapy again in 9 weeks once I am on summer vacation.
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