ECI Report--Significant Weight Gain

Yesterday I met with the woman from ECI, Veronica, and a nutritionist. Back before Christmas when we visited Dr. An (the gastro-enterologist) Henry was down to 17 pounds 1 ounce. Yesterday he weighed 18 pounds 10 ounces, an increase of over a pound and a half. At Joe and Katie's instigation I have switched Henry off of formula and onto whole milk. He seems to like it just as well. With the nutritionist's advice I will be adding the vitamin drops that I took to Vietnam. She said it wouldn't hurt and the extra iron would probably be helpful. She also gave me good ideas for menus, and said just to keep offering food to him.

Henry did really well on his first day in the toddler section. They coaxed him into drinking from a cup. They say he eats well and he was running around outside yesterday. He only started walking last Thursday but they said he was walking better than children who have been walking much longer. I knew he was able to walk--he just needed to confidence to know he could do it.

Henry Promoted to Toddler

When I picked up Henry at the children's center yesterday the director talked to me about moving him from the infant section to the toddler section. I had been holding off on this because he wasn't walking and was still using the bottle. The age to move is normally 18 months, so I had been using the technicality of Henry's innacurate birth certificate which reports him three months younger than his actual age.

But he has progressed so much in the past couple of weeks, and I think he will go even further by being with older children who are walking and talking. So today when I dropped him off I left him with the toddlers, sitting at a small table in a small chair rather than strapped to a high chair. Hopefully there will be many more milestones to report now.

Train Station and Birthday Party

We drove into Dallas to take my mother to the train station. She is staying for a few weeks in San Antonio. Henry seemed to think he was going somewhere, he seemed very nervous about getting onto the train and into the travel compartment.
Driving in downtown Dallas is c0nfusing, but I guess I would grow accustomed to it if I lived there. As Henry grows older I will no doubt be going into Dallas more and more.

After the train station trip we went to a birthday party--my friends Buddy and Jennifer's youngest son Chandler turned 4. This was Henry's first party to attend.
He was the youngest child there, and by far the smallest. He clung to me most of the time, but he did seem to enjoy being held by Buddy and Jennifer's mothers.
He was too young too participate in the pinata bashing, but he did get some held to gather up candy that fell to the ground.
During the pinata activity Henry found more excitement in looking at his reflection in the shiny bumper of this car.
After the party goers left we stayed and Henry played with Buddy and Jennifer's three children. They are very kind to him and take care to go slow with him. He really enjoyed riding this little jeep with Presley--with me following alongside to make sure he didn't fall out.

Visit to Grandmother's House

Henry and I went over to my Grandmother's house yesterday. The cat Sugar was hurt and the vet is over there. It turned out one of the feral cats must have bitten her on the leg. She is ten years old and not as feisty as she used to be. She stays in the house most of the time and doesn't seem to get along well with other cats. I guess I will have to let her out less often so she won't be getting into scuffles.
Henry and Sugar share the house but they don't interact much. Henry likes to watch her, and he squeals at her but keeps his distance.
My friend Ki-ae from Korea sent Henry a music table. I hope that with his long fingers Henry develops a musical talent.
The ECI people told me Henry needs to sit at a table that is his size. This table and chairs belonged to my mother when she was a little girl--we had it refinished a few years ago. It is the perfect size for him to sit at and develop his skills.

Henry Walks!

Last night after I got home I went over to my mother's. While we were sitting around talking and watching Henry, he started walking toward us without holding on or crawling.
Today I brought him with me to the library. I decided to put him back in the campus children's center--he went back on Tuesday. But today they were closed for in-service. There is lots more open room at the library than at home, and Henry really got to practice his walking.
Another librarian, David, helped Henry walk around. Henry has been very shy around David (and every other man other than me) but today he warmed up to him.
As a celebration today Henry further entered into the devolution of America by eating at McDonald's. He had a chicken nugget happy meal with milk. He ate two of the nuggets but he really preferred the fries. When we got back to the library he drank the milk. In the photo he is examining the prize--a Transformer.

Collecting DNA

We have begun the process of documenting Henry and Ben's relationship. Nancy Segal who specializes in twin studies at UC Fullerton (http://psych.fullerton.edu/nsegal/) sent me the DNA collection kit.
We filled out the forms carefully and photographed the process to show that we are taking DNA from each boy.
The swab had to be swirled around both cheeks and under the tongue four times.
Between each swirling we deposited the DNA to each of four circles on the pad.
It was left to dry for 30 minutes, closed up and then sealed in a special envelope. Now it is sent off to a lab in Utah and we wait seven business days for the results.

Hopefully once we have the documented proof (so far it's just word of mouth) that the boys are twins we can press forward for accurate data about their origin.

North East Texas E-News

The local paper (which is an online publication) did a story on us while Joe and Katie were here. The article can be found here:

http://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publish/article_42677.shtml