When asked if my children were saying any verbs or pronouns I blanked and told the doctors no. This was not true. The boys are both saying pronouns like mine and my and verbs like go, ride, fly, color, bounce, jump, hop, stay, run, and probably a few I can’t think of. This had vast negative consequences for them as the doctors trusted my word and gave them demerits on their NICU follow-up test.
The boys did great on the parts the doctors didn’t need any parental input for. They are all caught up on gross motor skills, right at their true age for fine motor skills, starting to pull ahead on understanding language, but on expressing language they are behind even their adjusted age.
When talking with their speech therapists today she agreed that my blunder cost them significantly on the test. If I could have remembered that both the boys have started to say, “My daddy,” that would have given them both a pronoun and a two word phrase. Instead I lost that piece of information when asked for it.
This is what being a parent of twins that were born three months early is like. It is constant follow-ups and evaluations to see if your children are catching up or following further behind, and with their language development being slow it feels like there is something we aren’t doing.
Really if what the speech therapist said is true and that starting to say two word phrases with some pronouns thrown in makes them 24 months that isn’t bad. That is their adjusted age and we have until May to get them caught up. I should probably start looking at what that means. In May they will be 34 months old by their actual age. I need to know what those skills are so we can train them.
That might not be wise though. Sometimes I think the best thing is just to keep on going. To keep doing what we’re doing and let them catch up at their own pace. Being a NICU parent is being constantly aware of all these milestones and when your child should be hitting them. With my daughter we have none of this. No one cares about her milestones or any of that. We have no follow-up appointment for her. She was born, three days later they sent her home, and we haven’t heard from the hospital doctors since.
The boys are a completely different scenario. It is constant follow-up and phone calls and check-ins. They want to make certain they catch-up and are ready for whatever dangers the world can throw a toddler’s way. The only problem is they are stuck with me as a parent and I can’t remember if they say any stupid verbs or pronouns when put on the spot.
David Huzzard Writes 