Speech Update

Remember way back at the beginning of January when the boys were referred for a speech assessment? Vanh had his today, almost eight months after being identified with a possible speech delay. Again, I wasn't going to post about this because I thought it should be private, but it turns out there is nothing to be private about as there is no longer any possible suggestion of a delay. Language-wise the boys are exactly where they should be for their age, compared to other children who are not twins, not tongue-tied(both boys have ankyloglossia), and who heard their mother tongue from the gestation of their ears. So they are most definitely "caught up". Would they have done so without the extra support we were able to give them? Impossible to tell now - but I'm glad we didn't have the chance to find out!

Here are more photos from August, for Oma, Nana, & Mari ...








... and M&A, thanks again for the cool fish and crocodile shorts.

PS Can you tell who is who?

Baby talk

Here are some of their cute pronunciations, for posterity:

ta-mo-phone (telephone)
eye-key (ice cream)
feep-fop (flip flop)
moe-see-co (motorcycle)
monty-tuck (monster truck)
mook (milk)
fok (frog)
tee-coo (thank-you)
appo-cotter (helicopter)
...

25 months old

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. As I head back to work these are the qualities we wish for you; the ones we try to show you every day.

More monkeys

Vanh has become quite the little climber!








Not to be outdone, Max tried his first big boy swing...




... and his first monkey bars.

Testing... testing... back to work seems to work

I was very excited this week to be able to get back into my classroom and begin organizing for September. For three days I left the house at 8:00 and didn't see the boys again until after their nap, around 3:30. As I will be teaching until 3:45 this is not the exact schedule we will follow, but it was a good start.

It's really hard to tell if the boys even noticed the change. They are quite used to being looked after by Daddy - even from the beginning he was the one who got up in the night, and we have all been home together (with two other children) for months now. For the last few weeks I have been making myself scarcer, and at this point it seems to me there's less whining when Mommy's NOT around (which I think is normal).

As for me, I was happy to be at work, I love (almost) everything about my job and getting ready is half the fun. And if I get up at six and manage to get home by four, I can still get in enough cuddle time AND get my schoolwork done after they go to bed. All this thanks to aforementioned super-daddy who is somehow able to look after the house as well, so all I have to focus on is the kids and my job, aka my other kids.

I still feed sad about leaving them. I worry that I will regret this. It took me a day to write the previous post because I couldn't think of anything I would do differently, and it's a really good feeling to look back and have no regrets, I don't want to change that. It just makes no sense at this point to be giving my time and energy to raising someone else's kids when I have my own to deal with. It's not like I need to spend time with adults to affirm myself or anything. It can't really be for the money, because with careful planning we could make enough doing full time daycare. It's just for two years - in two years they will be eligible for school.

But it's only been three days. And I noticed that when I know I will only have a few hours, I make sure they are quality hours. And Max is a little more cuddly - but that could just be his second 2nd year molar coming in. And, as if they knew I was worrying about what I would miss, my beautiful boys saved a lot of park firsts for me, for today:

Max's first time rockin' out on this... What is this?

Max's first time posing for the camera

Max's first time climbing up a slide

Vanh's first ladder climb







Climb high beautiful boys!

Advice for adopting (twins) from Vietnam

If I could do it again...
I would bring this double jogging stroller with me.

I wouldn't pack so much baby clothes and toys; you can buy everything there, for less than second-hand here.

I would bring two extra family members with us, more if possible.

I would take more photos. Ha ha just kidding. I'm not even sure that's possible.

I would be more prepared for the extreme jet lag that 5% of us experience, and less worried about the plane rides, which are blissfully brief in retrospect.

If I could do it again...
I would.

But I would miss my husband.

Advice:
Treasure every moment. Celebrate everything right from the first hint of maybe a referral. If something goes wrong you will survive, but if everything works out (most likely) you will never have that time back.

Don't be afraid of your doubts. You don't have to be perfect. It's the range of our emotions which makes us human, not the ability to always be positive about everything. If things get hard, act "as if" - as if you know what you're doing, as if you're happy, as if your family is healthy and bonded. Eventually you will get there.

Expect the unexpected. I can't stress this one enough. I've read hundreds of adoption stories and they all have one thing in common - at various stages along the process something completely unexpected happened (up to and including after several years home). Our own story is full of surprises, including the most joyous of all - twins.

August weekend

Our field trips were a little less complicated this weekend. I realized last Friday, when I prepared to take the boys to the wading pool for swimming lessons, then figured they'd prefer our little plastic pool in the backyard, and they ended up running around in their diapers with the hose - and clearly having the most fun possible (sorry no photos - you wouldn't believe how much water got where in the three seconds it took me to dash in and grab sunglasses, never mind the camera) - anyway I realized that we don't need to drag the boys to crowded, over-priced keener-parent traps for photo ops, I mean exciting educational experiences . Everything is exciting to them. Although I have to admit I share their feelings for this field of rocks.





These beautiful photos are by Shana, a soon to be famous photographer from Montreal, who dropped by as we were leaving. She has asked us for a real shoot, maybe even back at those rocks - stay tuned!



And of course a park is always fun...


(Vanh is in the blue jeans/ black hat)

Vanh has one too! But on the other side. Ugh, looks painful.

One more two

Max has his first second year molar! I knew all that random screaming was for a reason.

More field trips...

Millennium Park

MeMe's birthday dinner at Swiss Chalet

Experimental Farm


BBQ at Baby Van's

Tomorrow the boys are off to something called Tubes and Jujubes with my parents. What a fun-packed five days! I think they are looking forward to a return to their regular routine on Tuesday.