Hooray For Speech Therapy

That title is one of my favorite punchlines from a joke by comedian Emo Phillips. Meva can't stand him and hates that I quote him (and do a fair imitation of him too) from time to time. I think he's funny, Meva thinks he's the comedic equivalent of rubbing a cheese grater on your face. Anyways, one of his jokes goes something like this:

"My Brother says 'Hello'---- So Hooray for Speech Therapy!!

Anyways, it always made me laugh despite being a bit off color.

So why do I mention it? Well Friday was a busy day for us as we had 4 child services therapists come out and evaluate the kids for speech development and give Perrin his weekly Physical Therapy workout. Our main concern for initiating this was that we felt the boys weren't talking as well as they should be. They communicate and understand talking just fine, maybe even ahead of were another baby their age should be, but they really don't talk. They have a repertoire of maybe 3 words each, which isn't where they should be.

So, despite the fact that I slept in late (thanks goes out to the triplets for letting daddy sleep and not getting up themselves) and totally forgot all about this happening until I woke up in a panic. Long story short, I get up and start to put the house together (meaning shoveling the walk and putting away some stray dishes) and the specialists were already there. Luckily I had traded the monstrous triplets from earlier in the week for a nice, calm, and well-behaved set for today (I think I have to give them back on Monday again) and they cooperated very well so that their evaluations could be done. As it turns out, the boys need to have someone come out once a week for speech therapy. The speech therapist saud she doesn't think they are that far off, and they really just need a push to get them yapping up a storm. As much as I'll miss the "almost quiet" for the mad chattering that will result afterwards, it will be nice to hear them talk to each other and to us. So once again:

Hooray For Speech Therapy!!!

The pictures you see are of the kids on our ride last week to see Grandpa Lou and Grandma Vera. Grandpa Lou broke his leg and isn't doing as well as we'd like, so the kids came down to try and lift some spirits and see everyone. The ride down was uneventful with the kids spending much of it in nap time, all bundled up in their winter hats. Well, that's not really true. Ryan couldn't wear any of the hats for kids his age because he's a monster and has the head of a giant kodiak bear. The hat you see him wearing, in a very fitting manner I might point out, is one of mine!! The kid is not even two years old and he's already wearing my clothes. I will have to be nice to him very soon because he will be a giant.

Anyways, it was a nice visit to the nursing home where Grandpa Lou is recuperating and the kids got a fair share of looks and gawks from both the staff and the other residents. I think Grandma enjoyed seeing them the most though as she's had an awful stressed time with everything of late. Uncle Louie showed up and he was his usual fun punching bag for the kids, so they enjoyed that.

Then it was time to go home. We left late (almost 7PM) and it takes 2+ hours to get home. I think the temperature was only in the single digits that night, with a strong winter wind and shortly after we started home, the heater started acting up and was basically useless. To top it off, the kids were hungry and Meva and I lost out minds and gave Perrin a second bottle of milk to drink in the moving van.

Yeah, he puked all over everything. So we pulled into a McDonalds and Meva took him in to clean him up and change clothes while I listened to the other to kids cry because even they knew Perrin shouldn't get two bottles in a car!! A short while later we get our newly cleaned baby back in his smelly chair and finish the drive home with Sarah screaming most of the way because she was tired and wet (peed her pants good), cold, and restrained in her chair. But we got them home and in bed at just around 10:30 that night, which all things considered wasn't too bad.

Despite the cold, the puking, and the crying, we had a good time. Below are three more pictures from the visit and the trip home. Remember to click on a photo to see a larger version.

Perrin trying to see what Grandpa keeps in his closet. He did some walking there.

This is Sarah beating up Uncle Louie!!

On the trip home my hat slide down over Ryan's eyes and he couldn't see and couldn't fix it on his own. He was MAD--- until he fell asleep.

And this is Sarah just getting home. She's soooo tired and ready for bed!

This weekend it's a visit from Grandma Muriel and Grandpa Fred, which is always fun and always filled with MORE TOYS!! ( I think Grandma Murial has been going to garage sales for the past 25 years in anticipation of grandkids!!!). With any luck, we're going to go out in the snow for some sledding and have more snow photos for everyone real soon.