Preemies in the Post

The Cape Cod photos will come soon, but this weekend, the Post magazine has an article written by a mother of twins who were born at 28 weeks, and it brought back all sorts of memories and is really well-told, so I want to share it: The Preemie Prism. Charlie's doing really well, but there are still lots of things to work on, and I like how this story talks about the kids requiring therapy and help for years. A lot of writings about preemies focus on the hospital experience and how scary and emotional it is, but there aren't as many that reference life post-NICU in a realistic way. The work keeps coming, and it's hard to know what kinds of things are going to be struggles for years to come, and what are just flashes.
We're working a lot on Charlie's vocabulary (or lack thereof) right now. He has a few words: mama, hot, stop (the way he says it isn't exactly right, but it's close), baby, and maybe another one or two I'm forgetting at the moment. He also neighs like a horse, says "aaaaahhh" instead of "baaaaahh" for a sheep, and "ufff ufff" for a dog. He's still far behind where a 2 1/2 year old should be in his language skills, but he continues to make progress, which is what's important to me. He is babbling all the time; right now, he's been in his crib for about 15 minutes, trying to nap, and I can hear him making lots of noises. We woke up to him babbling away both mornings this weekend, too. So cute.
We're still working on mobility issues too -he walks and runs, but his running is still pretty disorganized, for lack of a better word. His arms don't really move the way they should, and I think they throw him off balance sometimes. One of his feet still turns in really severely too, so we'll be keeping the orthotics on for a while. But he gets where he wants to go, sometimes a lot faster than we want him to, and so far he hasn't had any really disastrous falls. In fact, I think we're really lucky he hasn't, since his balance still needs some work. He has a lot of dramatic falls, but still has all his teeth and no big scars! Please let me not regret typing these words "aloud"...
All in all, he's the funniest, cutest, most entertaining little person in our lives, even if he does still have some work to do. He did really well in his pre-preschool program this summer, and the teacher said she saw lots of progress just in the 6 weeks she observed him. Hopefully real preschool (which starts in less than a month!), which he'll be in three days a week, will bring on even more advancements.