We've met all of the new therapists

So, last week the boys started with their new physical therapist. She's awesome and I really think we're going to get some results soon. At the end of last week, we met the new occupational therapist. She mostly just did paperwork but she seems to have set some very attainable goals for the boys. She comes back out tomorrow to really start working on their fine motor skills. She has worked with other preemies and is currently working with a 3 year old who was born at 23 weeks.

Today their speech therapist started. She comes highly recommended by a friend of mine and I was very excited to have her work with the babies. She specializes in feeding issues and loves working with babies. Today wasn't too long of a session, she fed them both some stage 2 baby food to get an idea of where they were with their feeding/eating. I have a container of gerber puffs that I bought a few weeks ago and I only tried them once. I broke the tips off of the pieces and Riley gagged on them. I never even tried Addison because he's not as good of an eater. I've tried to give them small pieces of cheerios and they just push the pieces out with their tongues.

So, the therapist asked if she could try some puffs and cheerios. She put a piece of puff in Riley mouth and he CHEWED it!! He ended up eating whole puffs. And, to just make it that much better, he picked up a puff from the therapists hand, and with just a small amount of assistance, he fed himself!

Addison went on to eat puffs also. He was a bit lazier though. The first few, he let dissolve in his mouth and then after 3 or 4, he started to chew them. He did better with the whole puffs, rather than the pieces. He didn't really care for cheerios and they kept making him gag.

The therapist said that she's really happy with what they're doing since they're still considered "early feeders" since they've only been consistently eating for a few months.

She gave me the ok to start trying soft foods. Canned peaches or other soft fruit, small pieces of pancakes, etc. She doesn't want me to try dry foods yet but she's confident that they're able to eat soft foods. Next week we're going to try to start using a sippy cup and within the next few weeks, I think we're going to try scrambled eggs.

For now, we're replacing one evening bottle with a second jar of food. It went well tonight and hopefully it will continue to be easy to take away bottles.

So, we feel like lots of good stuff will come from the aggressive, 3 times per week therapy.

I wanted to share a cute picture. Ian and I took the kids to the Renaissance Faire last weekend. The big kids had a blast and the babies were so intrigued by their surroundings that they didn't sleep the whole time we were there. I took this picture while we were waiting for an archery demo to start. It's really hard to get both babies in a picture when they're in the stroller so you're only able to see Addison.