All Things Angela

IEP Recap (except not)

2012-01-24T20:30:00.003-05:00

Oh wait, did I say the first real IEP meeting? Well apparently not. This was the Eligibility meeting. Meaning that this was the meeting where we went over all the evaluations and determined whether Nicky would be eligible for ESE services and classroom accommodations.

Basically I went into this hoping that everyone would be on the same page as far as Nicky's abilities and potential, but I was also ready to fight for his rights and needs too. As it turned out, we were all very much on the same page I think.

It was agreed that Nicky is a very amiable, friendly, lovable child who presents as extremely bright and exceedingly distractable. He notices everything, things others can easily tune out (like a cricket that was in the classroom, a set of wind-chimes in the school psychologist's office, etc.) All the areas in which he was tested showed his difficulties in staying on task, focus, attention and impulsivity. Even though he tested very well, and usually either average or high-average in areas, he still had to be redirected and refocused often.

The one area in which he had a noticeable weakness was writing. As a committee, we waffled quite a bit on whether to qualify him under having a learning disability in writing. The cutoff for it was 83 and he scored an 85. But in the end I pointed out that I thought he is not dyslexic, and rather than having dysgraphia I think it's likely that at this time his struggle with writing and drawing has more to do with his difficulty in focus and attention.

So he qualified under the label of ADHD. I pointed out that he hasn't been officially diagnosed with this yet, as we haven't taken him to a psychologist and done all that testing, but the school psychologist said with the evaluations the teachers and I filled out and the observations and evaluations she did, she was comfortable making that diagnosis. I'm happy about. This means he qualifies for ESE services and unlike the Developmental Delay label he received in Florida, ADHD will not drop off at a particular age, so he can receive services as long as they are needed.

I was concerned because I feel he shows much stronger evidence for ADD, without the hyperactivity component (compared to many of my former students where the hyperactivity was so prevalent). But in both the teachers' and my assessments while the evidence of inattentiveness was higher there was still significant evidence of impulsivity and uncontrolled activity which would qualify as the hyperactivity component. And she pointed out that now they really just have the ADHD label and then just qualify it as being with inattentiveness or hyperactivity or whatever. So I'm fine with that label.

This of course does not require or in any way mean we're looking at medicating him in any way at this point. Right now I'm concerned with getting him the classroom accommodations he needs to help him enjoy school and learn at his grade level. When he's older, and can have more of a say in how he's feeling and whether he wants medical intervention, then we might consider going that route. But right now, for him, there isn't enough of a behavior/learning issue to medicate him.

So, now we'll have ANOTHER meeting, the REAL ACTUAL IEP meeting in a few weeks. OMGWTFMEETINGBBQ!1!

And in the meantime we'll be working on Nicky's sight words (of which he only recognizes 3 and he apparently should recognize 10+ at this point) and his writing/drawing. We have some ideas. I have gotten a copy of the dolce sight words today that I'll be turning into flash cards for him. And we have that roll of adhesive paper that turns a flat surface (wall in the kitchen is the plan) into a whiteboard for using dry erase markers. That should help make it more interesting for him. And then we are also thinking about those pads that have a pen/mouse that use a drawing surface that works with the computer. I can't remember what they're called, and they probably cost a ton, but we're thinking of things like that. Aunt Liz had a good idea to see if his Nintendo DS has a game that uses the stylus like that. I'll have to look into it.

And the girls are doing fine. The end.

(Well it was starting to feel like a novel and the girls hadn't gotten much playtime in this post yet.)

Prepping for the first real IEP meeting

2012-01-23T23:39:00.003-05:00

Nicky's IEP meeting is tomorrow. We received the results of his evaluations today in a packet he brought home. I haven't had a chance to sit and read it yet. Maybe it will be my bedtime reading tonight.

I'm taking in my datasheets showing how we're using his daily behavior charts at home, and showing how they're giving us a way to measure his progress. We've had them for two weeks now. The first week he was 55.5% on task. Last week he was 75% on task. Quite an improvement. He received another 6/9 stars today too. Troubling was that today's sheet included his first problem in "walking with hands and feet to self" because he hit a kid in the head with his lunchbox. Lucky for that kid it was a soft-sided bag, but still we jumped on him about that. It was one of the two kids he's been having trouble with for months now though so I don't know what the story is there. I'll bring it up in the meeting as well. But that is really the first outward aggression he's shown (that has been reported to me).

Tom read through the evaluation already and said something about his teacher thinking he had Asperger's, but I'll reserve judgment until I see that. I'm sure they can't make a diagnosis in there, so it shouldn't say anything like that. Although there is a scale that looks for markers for Autism/Asperger's I believe.

I'm sure I'll have more to say AFTER the meeting. Right now I just want to make sure I have my ducks in a row and am ready to stand up for Nicky and his needs.

Blog-Silence Broken

2012-01-21T21:35:00.006-05:00

Back to the blog!

This past week of silence brought to you by:

The Letter G

For Grammie's visit! My mom was here all week and so I spent my evenings chatting and enjoying her company instead of hanging out on the computer. It was a really nice visit. She had so much fun getting to really talk and exchange ideas with Nicholas, and of course watching and interacting with the girls too. She was pretty much the first person on the scene each morning as the girls awoke since she was sleeping downstairs where the kids rooms now are. Tom and I are upstairs now. So she really got to see the girls in all their jumpy-jumpy glory in the mornings! They are definitely happy morning babies!

From the weekend with Aunt Jessie, Aunt Liz and Grammie. Lily has the bottle (yeah, I know I know)

And the number 4

The office was under construction this week, and so to avoid the potential dust and noise, I worked four days of the week from home, only going into the office Friday. It was interesting to work full time from home. I've done it before for the odd on-call thing, or to finish up a project, but this was my first real full-time working from home and it was honestly not a whole lot of fun. Although it was nice to basically roll out of bed and over to the home office, that really just meant I went way too long without a shower and washing my hair. And it was really nice to finally get dressed and get OUT of the house Friday!

The office was completely done by Friday, so I totally missed all the construction. My desk was a little dusty, and they'd even had it covered in plastic, so I was happy I wasn't there during all that (dust is my biggest allergen and can kick off my asthma). But I don't forsee me wanting to turn into a telecommuter any time soon. It was too hard to ignore the noises of the kids from downstairs (and to hope no one could hear them when I was on the phone, even though the door was closed). And it was also too hard for me to STOP working at the end of the day. The first night I went back to it and worked for an extra three hours or so in the late evening. My perfectionist personality is much better suited to working in an office where I have to LEAVE.

But now I'm back to the office during the days and back to mommying in the evening, and then blogging in the late evening (while Tom plays his latest MMORPG). So never fear, a blow-by-blow descriptions of the following will be forthcoming:
- how Nicky's behavior plan is shaping up (his IEP meeting is Tuesday!!)
- how the upstairs den/downstairs den rearrangement project is going (new project conceived after midnight last night and already well underway)
- what my biweekly meal planning is starting to look like

I'm sure you'll be riveted. It's pretty compelling stuff I'm sure.

And today's photos of choice?

Nicky at our lunch date:

And the girls enjoying leftover spaghetti (I did not teach them this!)

Lily on the left

Date Night!

2012-01-15T11:55:00.002-05:00

We've had a great visit with my sisters Liz and Jessie. Liz is getting married in April, so we all went with my mom to help her pick out a wedding dress. It only took about 3 hours and I think maybe even less than 10 dresses to find the one perfect for her. Of course I'd share the photo, but then we run the risk of her fiance seeing it. Can't have that!

Last night, Tom and I went out on a lovely date. WE ate at a Mexican Restaurant we'd never tried, or heard of for that matter. And it was great! It was a little place called El gran Rodeo, and we'll definitely be going back. I even took photos of the lunch menu to have our lunch group see if they'd like to add this place to their rotation.

After dinner, we thought about going to a movie, but there isn't really anything we wanted to see. So we'd talked about me needing a coat for my upcoming business trip to Chicago at the end of the month (and I am going to need a coat!) and decided to check out Lane Bryant. I called them and they had a grey peacoat in my size, so we went to check it out. It was pretty, but obviously more of a fashion coat, not really a "keep you warm in a Chicago January" kind of coat.

The girl there recommended a few other options, and one was this K&G place right next door. I'd never heard of it, but turns out it is a lot like a TJ Maxx or a Ross, where they have a lot of discounted clothes and other stuff. There really wasn't anything my size in the women's jackets (although they had a lot!) so we decided to check the men's side. And I found the perfect jacket! It's wool and warm, and has a built in fleece liner and hood, lots of pockets, and the liner zips closed then the wool overcoat buttons. And it fits! That was imperative. I think I'll be warm enough in that. AND it was ony 40$ on clearance. SCORE! Oh, and it's grey with a black liner and will match my typical business travel wardrobe and boots. Sweet. We also picked up lined gloves for both Tom and I. All that for just about 60$. My dad had sent us $ for Christmas, so Thanks for the coat and gloves Dad!

By this time it was 9pm and we wanted to stay out a bit longer (we don't often have a babysitter to watch the kids, much less THREE of them!) so we headed over to Barnes and Nobles. I've had a 25$ gift card for there for a few years from a birthday at some point. We also wanted to look for things for the kids from my dad. Tom got a really nice puzzle of the painting The Last Supper. It's been a long time since Tom and I worked on something so unplugged. That should be fun.

For Nicky we picked up a memory game that is all photos of puppies (he LOVES puppies) and a phonics Brain Quest thing where he can use a dry erase marker to fill in the missing letters of words. I think this will be a lot more fun for him than writing full words all the time, and will focus in on beginning, ending and vowel sounds better too. We have to keep things fun by alternating his writing homework with "games" like this and I think this is going to be fun. Thanks Dad for Nicky's games!

That still leaves 20$ for the girls to get a little something from Dad, so we'll do a little shopping today, probably for some cute, warm clothes.

So all in all, a lovely date and we only had to shell out our money for dinner! Sweet!

Liz and Jessie will be leaving today, but Grammie is staying till next weekend when we fly her back to Florida. Poor Grammie is freezing up here because, being from Florida, she doesn't really have VA winter clothes. But we'll keep her covered up in babies to help her keep warm. They're good for that.

New furniture now!

2012-01-12T23:37:00.002-05:00

So new car yesterday, new kitchen table today! We finally have a real, round table that fits in the kitchen. Waiting for two more chairs, which Tom will pick up tomorrow, but we have a table and chairs in the kitchen and then also have chairs up in the computer room too. This is good because I think Tom was getting tired of carrying dining room chairs up and down the stairs when needed.

I'll have to get a photo of the new dining area up soon.

Next is a new desk for the computer room! Coming probably this weekend. And then we'll actually be able to use the folding table that was originally for Nicky's desk, for him to either do homework or have his computer on it. Not sure yet how we'll make it work. We have to rearrange things in the computer room to account for the large dining table, Nicky's folding table (maybe), the large computer desk that is coming, and the treadmill. It will all fit, but I think Tom would appreciate me having a plan so that he doesn't have to move the furniture around later.

Where is all this new furniture coming from? Our office is renovating! And unlike working at the state university, here they can actually sell, toss or give away surplus furniture. Sweet! I'm really enjoying this whole working-for-a-private-company thing. :)

Cars, Smiley Faces and Jumpy Jumpy. It's been a busy day.

2012-01-11T20:47:00.003-05:00

We have a new car! I only have the photos Tom sent me last night from the dealership while it was being cleaned, but I'll have more soon I'm sure. It's a 2009 Ford Flex. I've only sat in it for a moment when Tom brought the kids to work so I could see it, but it seems very nice, and roomy! We actually have Nicky and one carseat in the wayback and then the other carseat in the middle row. Not sure if it will stay that way yet, but it makes it easier for Nicky to get to his seat in the wayback since the middle row has to lean forward to slide. We'll see how that all works out after we've had some practice with it.

Nicky had a rough day at school today. Only 3/9 smiley faces. But we went over the behavior sheet and his chart. I'd mentioned it to him this morning before I left for work, and as soon as I told him about earning a nickel for each smiley face or sticker, he said "I think I want a dime." LOL. I'm raising quite the little negotiator. But I'm sticking with a nickel for now. I told him we'd talk about a raise when he started earning lots of smiley faces/stickers.

And now, for your viewing pleasure: "Jumpy Jumpy" as performed by Gabi and Lily

That was this morning. Tom sent me that video at work. So cute! Lily is on the right here. That's how they spend their mornings while waiting for someone to come get them up. They'll play like that for quite a while actually.

Hey, that email thing works!

2012-01-10T22:36:00.002-05:00

So I wrote that email to Nicky's teacher last night, and lo! Today I find in Nicky's folder:

A green dot day
A daily behavior sheet
A weekly progress report for last week

Yay!

The behavior sheet might change later I would guess, but right now it breaks the day into 9 time periods. Today he received smiley faces and/or stickers in 5/9 of them. I am charting that as being 55% on task today. Now we're talking my language! I'm the one who charted approximately 19,000 TTC cycles and charted all my food/carb/medicines/blood sugar/asthma readings for all of the two pregnancies. I know data crunching.

So I've put together a weekly sticker chart we'll record on every day at home. I'm only putting stickers on our chart where he earned smiley faces/stickers in class. Then we'll tally them up each day and week and he will earn a nickel for each one. (So a max of $2.25 a week.) It was time to consider an allowance anyway. And later we can look at adding in daily chores to our home chart. But right now I'll finally be able to track his progress towards the 90% on task goal we have for him this year.

I'm very excited.

So I'll share my charts with you. Cause I'm just that geeky. I'm sure they'll morph as needed, but this is my current draft.

I feel hopeful that Nicky is going to be able to make good progress and we'll see it and be able to recognize it with him.

I love this boy.

You know those annoying parents who email their kid's teacher?

2012-01-09T21:06:00.002-05:00

So I finally sent Nicky's teacher an email to get out these frustrations. I think it came across as professional, courteous, assertive and knowledgeable. I worked hard to make it that way, even though I stopped to take deep breaths and somehow did not spontaneously burst into flames even once.

Figured I'd make today's post about this since I spent so much time on it and I've already shared most of my frustrations about the situation here anyway. Ms. P is his teacher, Ms. K is the ESE teacher who co-teaches part of the day in the classroom, Ms. B is listed as the ESE Paraprofessional for K-1, and Ms. F is the school psychologist.

Enjoy:

Ms. P,

I'm hoping the school copier is back in working order so that you'll soon be able to send home daily behavior sheets for Nicholas. Honestly it's to the point where the red dots are nearly meaningless when it comes to giving him feedback. We all know being on task is extremely challenging for him and so him really earning a green dot for the day is nearly impossible. I give him a lecture about whatever the notes on his calendar sheet says, but it's not nearly as meaningful as specific feedback could be with a daily sheet. It also encourages us to only focus on his negative behaviors and thus he is getting no positive reinforcement from us at all for the times when he's doing the right thing. Hopefully he is getting that at school sometimes, but even so, a daily sheet will help us all provide more of an opportunity for positive reinforcement, which is the strongest behavior modification tool we have.

If it will help expedite the process, I would be happy to either print out and send sheets in his folder for you to use, or if you can give me a sketch or description/list of what activities should be included on a sheet, I can design one and print it for you. I know you're busy with all the other things on your plate, especially with the end of the grading period, so I'm happy to do what I can to help.

Speaking of the grading period, I would appreciate it if you will share this email with Ms. K and Ms. F and Ms. B if she is also working with Nicholas. I answered the three psychological batteries that came home last week and hope that we are nearing the completion of his re-evaluation so that we can convene a true IEP meeting with all interested parties soon. If Ms. K or Ms. F have an estimate of when that might happen, I'd appreciate it. I also read over his IEP progress report today and while I'm glad to have it, I would like to see if we have more measurable results to report at this time. (Perhaps the results from the latest PALS evaluation are not in yet, so I'm jumping the gun there.) I think for the academic goals, the PALS results would be helpful, or something similar, and for the behavioral goals I think the behavior sheets could be designed in such a way that we can actually use them to help evaluate his percentage of time on task.

Sorry this is so long, but I appreciate your reading this.
Thank you

No minivan yet, but found photos are nearly as good!

2012-01-08T21:19:00.005-05:00

No new car today, but there are a few now they're looking at. The Dodge Journey, the Ford Flex and the Honda Odyssey (but it's hard to find those in the price range, year and mileage we want right now).

In the meantime, I was looking on a flash drive I had in my purse and found a bunch of photos JM took while here right before Halloween of the girls in their little witch hats. So cute! I added a bunch to October for you. Enjoy!

We made good progress on Nicky's room today. His room, moving our stuff and the computer stuff upstairs, and taking down the tree are the goals for the week to finish before my mom's arrival Friday. I'm really looking forward to their visit! Liz has seen the house, but Mom and Jessie haven't been here yet, and it's been about 6 months since they saw the kids! They're going to have so much fun with them!

Time to be a two car family again?

2012-01-08T14:36:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not, but we're looking to finally get the minivan we've been needing. While it would be easier if we traded in the volvo, we really need a second vehicle so that I don't leave Tom stranded all day while I'm at work.

I've figured out the financial aspects and it will work. But I still don't relish the idea of taking on additional costs.

But we're looking into it. And even have a particular minivan in mind. We'll see what happens.

It sure would be nice to be able to fit all the kids in one vehicle and not feel like we're getting in and out of a clown car. It's been a while since we had two vehicles. A little over two years or so I guess. It's probably time.

In the meantime, last night I finally caught up on the backlog of photos and videos from my phone! That means that there is now a December folder to peruse and even a January folder has been started. At some point I'll move the movies from September, October, December over to the Movies folder too. But not yet. Enjoy!

Blogging: The next best thing to weight loss... or something like that

2012-01-06T23:52:00.003-05:00

Friday! You're here! Welcome back.

Tom's gone to play Dungeons and Dragons with his buddies leaving me with the kids to feed and get to bed. And I'm happy to say that I had them all in bed, teeth brushed, story read (and NO bottles) by 8:30.

Feeling awfully proud of myself.

Now I've spent a good 3 hours reading up on blogs that I've gotten so far behind on. Somehow over the last year twitter and facebook took over reading and writing blog posts. And I have to agree with blogger Jodifur that I miss reading and commenting on good old fashioned blogs. I'm trying to get back into the habit of at least sitting down at my computer to give myself a chance to blog each evening. (I hadn't been on my computer regularly since moving.) I think this sounds like a reasonable New Year's Resolution, so I'm going with becoming more involved in blogging on both sides of the blog. Hm, I might be too tired to be glib. My eyes are a little bleary after 12+ hours of screen time today.
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Besides, the other resolution would just be the old "lose weight" thing and that's just so DONE. I mean, not like I've actually DONE it, but that I've DONE the resolution part. Just not the follow thru. Well except that one time on Weight Watchers before the twins when I lost 40lbs and then celebrated by getting pregnant with twins and gaining it all back.

Yeah. Done.

So my mom and sisters are coming to visit next weekend. Super exciting stuff. The bed is still not fixed. Darn it. But I have high hopes for this weekend. And I have my grocery list and dinner menus planned out for the next week.

My life. It's riveting I know.

Seeing Red (Dots that is)

2012-01-05T21:28:00.003-05:00

Today was another "red dot" day for Nicky. His teacher sends home a colored dot each day on a calendar sheet in his folder and we have to initial it each day. Green for a good day, Yellow for some difficulty, and Red for a bad day. He's had a red dot every day since going back to school Tuesday.

For a while we tried to tie rewards and punishments to the dots. But after a while it just seemed to be pretty pointless. I've lectured him about specific issues when they bother to include a note describing a particular behavior. But without some more specific feedback from the teacher it's hard to really tell what he's doing well and where he's struggling.

None of his behaviors are aggressive or outright defiant. They're just the same issues we have at home, which are even more annoying at school I'm sure. He's off-task, easily distracted and can't focus worth a damn. We did resolve the bullying issue I think. No complaints on that front, although I should ask him pointedly about it soon.

But right now I'm waiting for the teacher to create a daily behavior sheet that will help us pinpoint specific times of the day or activities where he has the most trouble so that we can be more specific in our feedback to him. So far they say they have a laminated one they use with a dry erase marker each day, but that the copier is broken so they don't have ones to send home. THIS IS NOT HELPING ME. That's been the answer since I spoke with the teacher in early December. Hopefully the copier will be fixed soon. Otherwise I'll ask her to email me a copy of the form and I'll make her some copies and send them to school for them to use. I mean, REALLY?

Sorry. A bit frustrated.

I just spent a good hour of my evening filling out evaluations for Nicky's school evaluations they're re-doing. These are the ones we met about back in October. Apparently he hasn't been enough of a behavior problem for them to be finished yet. Hopefully soon though. I think it will help if we have another meeting and really discuss what will help him. Here it is the middle of the year, I think it's past time we set some goals and make a plan for him.

More movies up!

2012-01-04T21:41:00.002-05:00

September and October are all updated now. Phew. Now just have to get December under control and we'll be caught up.

Question of the day: Guess what happens when you try to move a queen size poster bed on your own?

Answer: it breaks. Damnit.

Now we'll just see if Tom can fix what I did or if we're out of luck and putting the boxspring and mattress on the floor. On the good side, well we wanted to buy a cherry kingsize bed anyway. Guess that will be a higher priority for tax return $.

Holiday Brain Dump

2012-01-03T21:09:00.003-05:00

We've made it thru the holidays! Whew!

Highlights are that the kids had a great Christmas. Nicky received three new Nintendo games and a fort building set from Santa. The girls received a tent of their own, puppy backpacks (that are also harnesses for Mom and Dad's sake) and ladybug nightlights.

That was just from Santa. They received a bunch of other wonderful things from our extended family out there. Thank you everyone! I have the best of intentions to send thank you cards, but realistically I'm just darn thrilled I managed to get the christmas cards out this year, BEFORE Christmas day AND with photos in them! WooHOO! One step at a time.

I figure if we keep this up we'll end up back on folks' card list. We missed out on a lot of cards this year because we moved without telling everyone where we went. So be sure to update your address books with the new address when you get those cards!

This was hopefully our last lean Christmas now that I have a much better paying job. Thank goodness for gift cards! Nearly everything we bought was paid for with gift cards I'd been hoarding over the last year or two. Even though it was lean, it was still wonderful and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Nicky and I played Santa for Tom. We got him a DVD he'd wanted and an awesome drill bit that sharpens pencils. Because honestly, why use a pencil sharpener when you can use your drill??

Tom played Santa for me and brought me a lovely sparkly that caught my eye while we were out having a shopping date on Christmas Eve Eve at Kohl's. Hey, Santa got a deal! It was only $20 marked down from $80!

For Christmas dinner we were in a bit of a pickle for funds as we discovered on Christmas Eve Eve that we had no $ and 7 people to feed for a week. But we managed to pull together what food we had in the house and a list of cheap and yummy meals and spent 50$ on the Walmart card to feed everyone. We had Turkey Tetrazzini for Christmas dinner made with leftover turkey we'd frozen from Thanksgiving (thank you 30lb turkey!). We had a big pot of awesome spaghetti with homemade meat sauce, hot dogs, tuna casserole, black beans and rice and frittata rounded out the meal plan for the week. No one went hungry and we all had lots to eat.

Nana and Kris had a great visit with us and really enjoyed the kids. It worked out well to have them staying downstairs and having the girls upstairs with Tom and I. Nicky was going to stay upstairs, but he ended up spending most nights with Nana. It actually got us rethinking the room arrangement while they were here. And we decided to move Nicky downstairs to the room Tom and I had been sharing and have the second floor set up as a master suite with the two rooms and bath up there.

We moved around furniture Monday after Nana and Kris left Sunday. Not quite all settled in yet, but the girls are back in their room along with the twin bed, Nicky is actually going to have to sleep either in the twin with the girls (his preference) or in the queen bed in his new downstairs room for a while because Tom and I spent one night back in the queen bed and then decided we'd rather be squeezed into the double bed with the comfy mattress than on the queen with back aches! So we're keeping the double bed hostage upstairs until we have the $ for a new bed.

This will actually work out well as we have more company coming in less than two weeks. Aunt Liz, Aunt Jessie and Grammie are coming to visit! Liz and Jessie will only be here for about two nights, but Grammie will stay for a week and then we'll fly her home. This visit is courtesy of Aunt Liz's move to North Carolina later this week. My mom is driving with Liz and her fiance Michael up to NC, then Jessie's coming over to NC and the three of them will drive mom up here. This is great because it's been so long since Jessie and my mom have seen the kids, and we're so far away right now it seemed like it might be even longer before they could visit. So with the new bedroom arrangement we'll have a room for Grammie to stay in and Nicky can sleep in with the girls.

So how's that for a post? Sorry for the brain dump, but until I get my blogging act back together I figure this is better than nothing! Next mission, try to upload the Sept and Oct videos and photos from my phone! Then maybe even December!

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-14T21:00:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

For your present, I'm putting up a blog post. Yes, the first one since October. So much for blogging more!

It's been an insane few months though. We're mostly settled into the new house, except that Tom and I have decided to rearrange the bedrooms. It'll have to wait till after our company has gone though, so we'll do that sometime in January most likely.

We have Nana and Aunt Kris (one of the girls' Godmothers) staying over for the holidays which is so nice. That also let Tom and I attend the holiday party for my new job, which included an overnight hotel stay. It was so wonderful to get away for a little while. That was the first time we'd ever both been away from the girls overnight. They did just fine too.

November was the month of sick. We'd been going through a progression of various colds, and all three kids had ear infections along with the girls needing breathing treatments. But the big stuff came the weekend before Thanksgiving. Nicky came down with a 24 hour stomach bug. Of course we didn't know it would be only 24 hours at the time, and he rapidly dehydrated from throwing up so much (and the other end too of course) so he ended up in the ER with an IV. Poor boy. Then Lily and I got it Monday, and Tom got it Tuesday. It really was a 24 hour thing though, and no one had it as badly as Nicky had, so that was good at least.

Thanksgiving was a bit subdued, and I can recommend the stomach flu to anyone wanting to avoid overindulging. I didn't get to have as much of anything as I would have normally. That's probably a good thing.

We had my Dad (Grandpa Buz), Grandma Gwen, Aunt Janice and Uncle Frank all over for Thanksgiving. Probably not the best of hosts, but they really enjoyed the kids, and that's the most important thing! Nicky got to go out to Yorktown and the Norfolk museum where he got to visit the Battleship Wisconsin. We all went through the Botanical Gardens holiday light show too. That was the most sight seeing we'd done since arriving!

December 5th we had a nice visit from Aunt Liz and her new fiance (although they made it official after they left) Michael. It was wonderful to see her and meet Michael, and we wish them much happiness! They're supposed to be moving up somewhere in either GA, NC or VA, so we'll see where they land. As long as it's closer than FL!

Then on Dec 9th we welcomed Nana and Aunt Kris for the holidays. They'll be here till after New Year's Day, so we have a nice long visit from them. We actually moved the rooms around so that Kris and Donna can have the downstairs and the kids and To and I are all upstairs. It is what gave us the idea of moving Nicky downstairs permanently (at least till all the kids are able to be upstairs. Nicky will like it, Tom and I will have more room upstairs, kind of turning it into a Master Suite, and I think it will be much easier to get Nicky to bed downstairs. Oh, and clean his room. It's a mess up there, and I just don't have the time or energy to think about it. Having it down here will make it much more likely that I stay on top of that.

So it's been busy. Most everyone is well right now though. Tom still has a cough and poor Nana actually had the stomach flu hit her yesterday (same 24 hour thing though, she's ok now.)

I'm trying to get my computer out more and step away from the iphone once in a while. But it's hard! I love my phone! It does just about everything I want except blogging, paying bills and email. It technically does email, but my home email is getting so out of hand with spam I'm seriously considering starting a new one and consigning this one to be a full time spam collector.

Enough about me. On to the fun stuff!

Both girls are walking completely. They're growing so fast and they're so cute! They talk up a storm, even though I'm sure most folks wouldn't understand them yet. But they have a much higher vocab than Nicky did at this age. They were about 24lbs at their 18 month visit in November with about a 6oz difference between them. They're still so close to identical that Tom mixed them up last night.

Nicky is learning all sorts of things at school. He's progressing well academically, but still struggling with focus and attention. He's being reassessed here in VA so we'll have a meeting, hopefully soon, to go over those results. We all suspect Gifted/ADD or Gifted/LD. Either way, school is a struggle, and yet still a joy and I'd like to keep it a joy for as long as possible!

One problem that has cropped up lately though is that he's apparently got two boys in his class who are calling him names and verbally bullying him. Not violence yet, but bothering Nicky enough to get him mad. And then the boys think it's funny to get Nicky mad. Nicky is so good about not reacting with hitting, however he's turned his anger inwards and has started hitting, scratching and choking himself according to his teachers. This is really upsetting and it came out about the bullies when I asked him what was going on. I've talked extensively with his teacher and we'll see what happens over the next week or so. She was calling their parents though, and that makes me suspect that she wasn't surprised to have complaints about these particular students.

Anyway, sorry for the brain dump, but I needed to get that off my chest. And hey, what better way than to put it out there for the entire world to see?

Also, specifically for my mom, Grammie, I have uploaded a TON of movies, all from November (still have to do Sept and Oct) from my phone to Photobucket. They're in the 2011 November folder for now. Enjoy Grammie! We love you!

Cruising along

2011-10-22T14:17:00.004-04:00

I really need to get back into the habit of posting.

Last spring I ended up with tennis elbow in my left elbow. Later in the spring/summer it started in the right elbow, but since I couldn't afford to go to an orthopedic doctor and my normal doc had already tried injections I just figured I'd live with it.

Well it finally was getting to be so bad that I decided to try going to a chiropractor that several of my coworkers have gone to. One of them even went for tennis elbow and swears it helped him heal when nothing else would.

So Thursday I went for my first chiropractor visit and got acupuncture in my elbows. I've never given much credence to chiropractors, mostly considering them not much more than fancy voodoo witch doctors, but I've been in just chronic pain and I'm willing to try about anything at this point.

It wasn't the worst thing ever, but it was uncomfortable for sure. Not because of the needles. I'm totally unfazed by needles. But the muscles in my arms did not appreciate the invasion so much. They felt like they were tying themselves into tiny knots in there. I suppose that means it was doing something, which sounds better than doing nothing. We'll see if it leads to less pain down the road though. I have two more visits next week.

I'd have taken a pic of my elbows with the needles, but I couldn't really move my hands and arms. Maybe I'll arrange something next time.

One thing that did surprise me was that they do no prep of your skin before poking you. I expected a little alcohol swabbing or something. The chiropractor said that you'd have to do more than a little swab of alcohol to really sterilize your skin, so that is really just an act put on for the patient's peace of mind. Nothing is infected, heck I don't even think they bled, so that must be ok I guess.

On the homefront, Tom had a nice case of a mild stomach bug this week. It put him out of commission Wednesday night and Thursday most of the day. He looked like hell Thursday morning, but I still had to go to work. Nicky's school doesn't even start till 9am, and his bus picks him up at 8:30. Since I need to be at work by 8:30 at the latest I was hard pressed to figure out how to get him to school.

I ended up driving him around the corner to his friends' house, meeting their mom (who is also named Angela, how funny is that?) and asking her to take Nicky with her kids to the busstop and meet him in the afternoon too. Then I told her she could just pitch him over the fence (our backyards share a fence). She was willing to do it, and it seems like it went well. I should bake her some cookies or something because that really helped us out of a tight spot. It allowed Tom to just let the babies do their thing in the living room while he pretty much keeled over on the sofa. It's so nice for Nicky to have friends to play with so close too. They seem to all get along great.

Today we're heading out to find Nicky's Halloween costume and check out some options for draperies in the living room and den. We've managed to keep the kids from obliterating the vertical blinds so far, but I'd like to replace them with drapes before our luck runs out!

Earlier today we played in the backyard. It's so great that the kids can all just play back there without worrying about fire ants! And it is nice and shaded too. We all just love it! I worked on my laptop for a bit while the kids played, and when I looked up this is what I saw:

Yeah, except for the end there it was a lot of fun. They got better at holding on, and Nicky got better at driving:

More movies up here.

We're settling in

2011-10-17T11:39:00.003-04:00

Finally started taking photos and movies of the kids again!
Sorry for the long lapse, but we've been a bit busy.

You know, moving to a whole new job in a whole new state, getting everyone all here in a whole new house, with a whole new school, etc.

It's been a busy month! But I started my new job on 9/16 (and LOVE it!) and Tom and the kids arrived here on 10/2, and Nicky started school on 10/5. We're settling in nicely now and even last night put the master bedroom together. No longer sleeping on mattresses on the floor! Woohoo!

I have a few photos up for you here.

I'll get movies up when I can.

Thanks for all your positive thoughts and prayers. This move was huge, but we're all super happy to be here, be together, and be healthy!

Wait a minute, isn't Virginia for Lovers?

2011-09-22T20:36:00.004-04:00

I did it. I'm here in Virginia and have been working at my new job for a week! All I'll say is that I absolutely LOVE my new job. It's exciting and challenging. It's where education, libraries and technology collide into a swirly rainbow of happiness.

What? Don't most people talk about their job that way?

Anyway, the sole raincloud in the sunshine that is my new town is that Tom and the kids are not here yet. Tom has been madly packing and single-parenting our brood for the last week. He has had help from both Nana and JM, but I know it's been a very hard week for him. But he is nearly there! Tuesday the truck will be picked up and loading can commence!

The plan is that they will leave Friday and arrive here on Saturday. Officially making us a Virginia family October 1st 2011.

I'm trying not to worry about their trip up too much as there isn't really anything I can do about that. But I will be spending more time this weekend helping to finish up the house we're renting. It's very nearly ready, just needs new flooring installed, the upstairs painted and a few odds and ends taken care of.

Tom and I had our 17th wedding anniversary on September 17th. The day after I started working here. It was our first time ever being apart from each other on our anniversary. Even though we've never been a couple that made all that much of the occasion it was odd to be apart.

I actually realized on the way up here that not only have I never been away from any of the kids for 2 weeks, I have also never been away from Tom that long. I think the longest before was about a week at my Mom's once. I left Gainesville on September 14th and won't see my family again until October 1st. That is a long time to me.

It took me until about the 17th to really start missing them. Till then I was so busy with getting up here, settling in (and settling Benjamin in- I brought Bobo with me), and getting started at work, that I hadn't had much time to reflect on it. But Saturday night I started wondering what they were doing, how much the girls had changed since I left, if Lily had really started walking, how Nicky was doing at school, and how Tom was faring without me. It became kind of lonely.

I know it won't be long in the grand scheme of things. Soon I'll barely even remember the time we spent apart. But right now it seems like a long time. I've gotten to Skype with Tom and the kids twice now, and as wonderful as it is to see them, it also makes me even sadder when I have to say goodbye. Both girls are walking now and the other day they even said "Kenji." Tonight they looked so big on the computer screen, and so happy to see me. It breaks my heart even more to imagine what they think about my absence.

But again. It won't be long, and I have thrown myself into my new job during the day. I have a countdown up on my board that shows how many more days till Nicky arrives. Today it was only 9 days! That will just zoom by! I also found out I can read ebooks on my iphone from my library. That really helps the evenings zoom by too. It'll be the first before I even know it!

And then, we'll have lots of photos for you. Right now I only have the one photo Tom sent me this week. It's Gabi all dressed up in a cute flower outfit. She has a pretty funny look on her face too. Looks like Nicky was pretty bored in the background on this one. I'm guessing they were watching TV.

Here's one of Benjamin on the trip up. It was a long hard trip for him, but he's settling in well now.

He did enjoy spooking the flock of Canadian Geese into the water at the Welcome Center rest stop in North Carolina our second day:

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
This is the sign I have up at work to keep me going:

So that's it. We're very nearly done with the move. And then we can all focus on Halloween!

Oh, and for you mom. Although you've probably seen most of these on facebook.

Wrapping up our time in FL

2011-09-05T22:50:00.002-04:00

So so busy! I'm wrapping up things at work as best as I can. I don't want to leave anything to fall through the cracks there. Tom's been assigned Relocation Manager of this move, so I'm trying to leave all the planning of that to him. I told him I don't mind being directed and doing work (we're trying to sort through everything and figure out what is coming and what is getting tossed or donated) but the project management aspect is going to have to fall to him. (I've been able to resist drawing up a Gantt chart so far...it's tough but I need to back off and relinquish control. I can do this.)

Nicky is all excited about the move. The girls have no idea of course, but they'll love it too I'm sure. Kenji will be easy to move, but Benjamin...it's gonna suck. No two ways about it. I've actually put out a call on facebook to see if anyone would like to add him to their family. It's just going to be so hard on him. I'm sure he'll be alright once we get there (I hope).

We have a house in mind, just have to settle the rent/deposit/fees etc and get a move in date. I'll be heading up, likely driving the car, around mid-month. Tom and everyone will likely come up a few weeks later. The house is on the market for a short sale at a whopping 30k. That is 59k LESS than we bought it for. I could just weep. Except for the fact that I am SO glad to be getting out from under the house AND be starting my new job. It's hard to care much in light of the new job! Now we'll just have to see if it actually sells.

Other stuff going on:

Nicky is really enjoying school. He is riding the bus to and from everyday. Loves it! Tom takes him to the bus stop and picks him up there too. They give him a lot of homework which is quite annoying. It's Kindergarten for pete's sake! I do a little with him before dinner each evening, but it's much more important to me that he gets to bed on time (which is going great actually) so I just let it go. I'm not knocking ourselves out to do worksheets.

Lily and Gabi are doing great. Lily is still a little artist. She loves to draw. We went to Nicky's open house at his school and Lily pulled out a chair and sat down with paper and crayons to draw the whole time. Gabi was more interested in walking around with Daddy and Nicky though.

Gabi is able to walk several steps independently now. She doesn't do it a lot yet, but she can. Lily could probably do it, but she isn't quite yet. I think a big factor is that they just don't have the floorspace in our house to require it. Why bother when you can just cruise all over the house? When we move to our new place I'm sure they'll start walking a lot.

Gabi also went poop in the big potty today! We're not really potty-training yet, but she was having a hard time going and I had her ready to go in the tub after lunch anyway, so I held her over the kids' seat on the potty and she went. Very exciting! One of the things I'm so looking forward to in our new place is having TWO bathrooms! That will make training a lot easier I think. Heck it'll make everything a lot easier!

Nicky is actually running a fever today. He took two naps all on his own, so we know he doesn't feel good. His fever broke first after the last dose of children's tylenol, and then again after I gave him one 200mg ibuprofen. I was out of the kids' stuff, so I checked the dosage and at his age that's how much he gets anyway. He has no trouble swallowing pills which just amazes me. I was like 12 when I finally figured it out. I remember medicines being such torture as a kid for so long. But he's already got the pill thing down pat! Should make dealing with allergies/asthma/etc so much easier for him.

The girls are going in for their 15 month pediatric visit tomorrow afternoon. Originally I wasn't going to go (this is my last week of work here after all) but with Nicky sick, Tom's going to need my help. So work in the morning and then they can pick me up for the afternoon appointment.

I can't believe my time at work here is almost done. It's been 7 years since I started working in the library here. That's definitely the longest I've ever been at one place. I think I have made a great difference here in my time though. I've met and worked with so many great people and on so many projects that have had a lot of impact on our institution. I'm definitely proud of my accomplishments here. But it is time to move on. No regrets at all. This is going to be awesome!

Yep. AMAZING!

2011-08-25T22:40:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow is Nicky's first Friday at the end of his first week of Kindergarten. So far it's been awesome for him! We took him to school the first day and he was in Miss Y's class. Tom picked him up after school.

The next day Nicky rode the bus! He really wanted to, and had been disappointed not to ride it home on the first day actually, so we agreed to let him ride. But we did follow the bus all the way to school anyway to see the route, gauge the age of the kids, and make sure he made it ok.

When we got to the school, Tom dropped me off so I could meet Nicky's NEW teacher. They added another K teacher and Nicky was one of the kids moved to her class. This is Ms. T. I met Nicky as he entered the K pod with the other bus kids and he was happy to see me. (Oh, and I remembered his glasses that day) However he had forgotten his school bag (which is a big ziplock bag with his name on it. Yeah, no backpacks for kindergarten for some reason) and his glasses case was in there. Luckily it was still on the bus in the afternoon when Tom met him at the bus stop.

I didn't see Nicky come home on the bus because I was in VIRGINIA! Yes, my big thing was a job interview in Virginia Beach. I flew up on two flights with a layover in North Carolina. I was actually in the plane on the runway when the earthquake struck and no one on the plane felt it because the engines were already going. We also didn't know anything about it because it was already past time for everyone to turn off their electronic devices. When we landed in VA though everyone turned on their iPhones and you heard a lot of "OMG there was an Earthquake!"

It was awfully nice of Mother Nature to provide me with ample conversation starters for my interviews though! Between the earthquake that just happened and the upcoming hurricane, well there was never an awkward silence! Not that I let those happen much anyway. If you didn't know, I'm kind of a talker. ;)

I had interviews and a lovely dinner with my potential bosses that night and more interviews Wednesday morning. And right before lunch (and my flight out) I was offered the job! I tell you I am so excited about this job. It's absolutely perfect for me. Customer service/tech support kind of thing for a company that creates and supports library software. It has it all: education/training/troubleshooting/customer service/travel/communication/technology/challenges/learning new things/collaboration... I can't even tell you how excited I am.

Tom is also over the moon about both the job and the move! He's wanted to move up north forever. And this is a great compromise because it's up there where he'll have seasons and yet not so far that I'll fear we all will die in a snowdrift. Nicky is excited too. He's already been telling everyone we're moving to Virginia Beach. (Even before the interview!)

Even though I don't have family there (although I'm kind of thinking I'm going to have MORE there in the not-to-distant future), it seems to be a close-knit office, everyone seems very nice, and I know several bloggers up there I hope I'll be able to meet. I don't think they live super close, more like DC, but still, much closer than to Florida! Maybe next year I'll get to go to BlogHer or something like that.

Anyway, there is so much to think about for the move, for finishing up my job (definitely don't plan to leave anyone in the lurch, so have to have that wrapped up nicely), and for getting ready for a new awesome job.

We have to think about the dogs. Kenji will be easy (hm, don't think I've told his story yet have I?) but Benjamin is going to be a basket-case to move. He is so scared of people and well, everything, that the drive is going to be really hard on him. We might have to dose him up with benadryl or something stronger for the trip. I thought about giving him away to someone here, but I can't imagine anyone would take him and we can just give him to the pound or something. He's a sweetheart, just a big chicken-hearted sweetheart. I just hope his heart holds out! He is kind of old for a big dog (8 years this Christmas).

Anyway, I'm exhausted after my first day back. I worked like mad today to catch up and plan for all the projects I'd like to either finish or delegate. Now I just have to get it all done and get to VA for my first day of work on September 16th! So exciting!

Gearing up for a Busy Week (that will hopefully be AMAZING in many ways)

2011-08-21T22:28:00.002-04:00

Nicky starts Kindergarten in the morning. I have all his stuff laid out, uniform, supplies, etc. Put him to bed about 8pm.

And it's now 10:30 and he's still awake!

Morning will be interesting.

We're waking at 6:30 to get him ready for school and me ready for work. We'll get the girls up at the last minute and all jump in the car. Then we will be taking Nicky to his first day of school. We'll arrive between 7:15 and 7:45. If we get there earlier it will allow him to eat breakfast. (Not that he hardly ever does, but I always hold out hope.)

We're not sure yet if we'll be able to park and all go in, or if he and I will go in while the girls and Tom wait in the car. But I will definitely take the phone to get photos! We'll also find out what class he's going to be in.

We went to Meet The Teacher Day Friday, but even then they still didn't know what class he'd be in. They're still unsure of their final count and if they'll have 3 full classes or 2 K classes and one combo K-1 class. I think it would be great for him to be a combo class. Well we'll see tomorrow.

College classes start tomorrow too, and with my job that means I'll be really busy in the library!

And then we have super secret exciting stuff going on Tuesday and Wednesday. I promise to update you by Thursday about that. But just send those positive happy thoughts my way Tuesday and Wednesday if you would!

I can't believe he's already starting Kindergarten!

He really wants to ride the school bus, but the stop is two streets away on a busy road. I went to the school board's transportation office to see about having a stop added at the end of our street (the bus passes right by our street within sight of our house). They said they'd look into it. No call came over the weekend but I'll call tomorrow to see what they decided. If they move or add the stop then we might let him ride it on Tuesday. We'll probably follow the bus though that first time. And of course we'd walk him to the bus stop in the mornings and pick him up there in the afternoons. It might be neat for him to ride the bus. But I just can't see making him (and Tom with the girls) walk a couple of blocks across traffic (and I think they'll have to cross that road too in the afternoons from the side with no sidewalks, and no crosswalks).

But we'll all mostly hope that I have fabulous news by Thursday okay? Cause that would be the very best outcome EVER!

No Child Left Behind. Oh sure. Right.

2011-08-17T22:14:00.004-04:00

We found out today that the school board decided in their infinite wisdom that rather than let us send Nicky to our first choice, which is a good 13 miles away, they would be sending him to the other option, 30 miles away.

Um, No.

So instead of going to a school where they have a 77% passing rate for 3rd graders, we're going to have to keep him at his zoned school where they have a 38% passing rate for 3rd graders.

Hooray for school choice. No Child Left Behind! (Well unless you count mine of course right? Oh, and all the other kids left at his zoned school. And apparently the majority of the 10,000 students who were zoned for schools that didn't make AYP for two years running. But whose counting right?)

Just a LITTLE bit frustrated about that. I suppose in the grand scheme of things we can make up for any lack in his education at this level. But we have high hopes to get him into another school as soon as possible. Maybe a school VERY far away actually. Things cooking on the horizon folks! Should know more in the next few weeks. Just keep your fingers crossed ok?

So anyway. We'll be meeting Nicky's teacher Friday and find out all the stuff he'll need for the first day of school. I'm glad we didn't assume he'd go to the other school and get uniforms and supplies for there as the lists are different. Looks like we'll have some shopping to do this weekend though! It's bound to be a madhouse since it's the weekend before public schools and UF fall classes start!

Now, next post I'll finally get around to talking about the newest member of the family:

Ready for school? Not really.

2011-08-11T22:46:00.002-04:00

Nicky is starting Kindergarten on Monday, August 22nd. We're all very excited. But yet completely unprepared. Completely. Well, he has a lunchbox. But as we plan to let him eat at school that doesn't really count as preparation does it.

We had registered him at our zoned school back in like May or April. Even though we weren't thrilled about the school's track record. (REALLY not thrilled) But then last week we recieved a letter telling us that because our school failed to meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) for the last two years, we were being given the choice of two other schools that did make AYP. Both schools are all the way across town (well one is actually all the way across the county!) but they would provide transportation (IF we decide to even use the bus) and the school would be so much better. So we circled our first choice and Tom dropped off the paperwork the very next day.

Then I called to talk with the school board person in charge of making the decisions about these applications to find out how/when we'll know what school Nicky will be attending on the 22nd. I was worried because the paperwork isn't even due till August 16th! Turns out that the school board for our county mailed out over 10,000 of these letters. They'll start processing the paperwork turned in on the 16th. And they anticipate having it done by the 17th so that they can call parents with the results on the 17th.

I was surprised they think it will take only one day of processing. But they said that only 40-50 families choose to have their child change schools. Most just opt for the additional tutoring they offer. So on the one hand, that sucks that there were 10k kids needing to be told their school is not performing up to standards. But on the other hand, if not many opt to change schools, maybe we have a good chance of getting our first choice. Which would be good, since if they did opt to send him to the other choice, I don't know if we'd do it. It's REALLY far away. And by far away I mean nearly 30 MILES one way. Our first choice is 13 miles one way, which is still pretty damn far.

Our zoned school is only 2 miles away. It took me like 7 minutes to get there last time I went. But here's the thing. We have the FCAT test here. In 3rd grade, if a student does not pass the reading portion(get a 3 or higher) they are automatically retained. That's right, they FAIL third grade because they didn't pass a single part of the test. Last year, only 38% of their 3rd graders passed the reading section. That means 62% of the third grade FAILED. This is NOT good! I mean, yes I think I can make up for some of what Nicky might miss at school at home, but seriously, I would rather send him to a school with a better track record than that.

So we're hoping he gets into the school we want. For comparison, 77% of their 3rd graders passed the reading section of the FCAT. (Overall for the county, 71% of 3rd graders passed the reading section of the FCAT.)

Once we find out for sure where he is going (on Wednesday, August 17th) we'll know which school to go to on Friday, August 19th for Meet the Teacher Day. Then we'll find out what uniform and supplies he needs. It will be a busy weekend of shopping methinks!

I can't believe he's already going to Kindergarten!

The Big Swim

2011-07-19T00:24:00.003-04:00

We were busy this weekend. Took the girls and Nicky out to breakfast at The Clock. It was their first real restaurant visit. They'd been out twice before in their carseats as itty-bitties, but now they're ready to really eat and enjoy.

Later, after a nap, we all went to the big pool for the first time as a family. The girls looked so cute!

And they enjoyed splashing at the splash pad too:

It was easier to get photos at the splash pad. In the pool we had to keep our hands on everyone to be safe.

Nicky wore a life-jacket that really helped though. He had a blast.

In fact, Nicky and I made another trip to the pool Sunday. Just the two of us.

Wonder what we'll do next weekend.

We miss you Grandpa Mott

2011-07-13T17:21:00.002-04:00

This photo of Grandpa and Grandma with the girls and Aunt Carol was taken on June 25th during a great family get-together.

It's the last photo we have of Grandpa. Tom's dad, Charles, passed away Sunday, July 3rd.

He was a wonderful Grandfather to our three kids, and they miss him, especially Nicky. He was my father-in-law for nearly 17 years, having welcomed me into the family with open arms right away, and I will miss him. And most especially he was Tom's father, having adopted him at the ripe old age of about 2 years old, and Tom misses him so much.

I'd write more, but it's hard and I don't know what to say yet.

First hairs have been cut

2011-06-25T23:09:00.005-04:00

The girls hair has gotten positively shaggy!

Gabi:

Lily:

We tried putting it up with barrettes:

We tried pigtails:

Which were undoubtedly cute. Especially Lily's Who imitation.

But finally tonight I'd had enough and gave them both a trim:

And it wasn't till later when Tom asked that I realized it never even occurred to me to save some hair. Aw well. It's tough being the second kids.

Hey, new photos and movies up in photobucket!

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T13:47:00.004-04:00

Lily can climb onto and off of the sofa now, and both girls are close to walking.

Nicky just spent a week at his Nana's house learning to go underwater with the help of his new swim goggles.

Tom had a promising interview for a weekend position.

I've been trying to take the bus to and from work to save $ on gas. Take THAT oil companies.

The prompt for this post though is that today is Father's Day!

And Nicky has a special song for his dad:

Happy Father's Day to you Tom. I thank you every day for the gift of our 3 beautiful children. I couldn't have picked a better daddy for them. Thank you for taking care of all of us!

As most people reading this probably know, Tom has been a stay at home dad for all three of our kids. He was finishing up his bachelor's degree when Nicky came along, and his graduate degree when the girls came. He already had his LPN from before too. He's extremely overqualified for the crappy wages he gets being the domestic manager for the Mott Corporation, but we couldn't make any of this work without all the love, support and really hard work he does to keep us all going. I know it's a hard, thankless job most of the time, but I want to thank you so much for all you do Tom!

Nearly 18 years of painless punching

2011-06-03T23:34:00.004-04:00

Tom and I have been together now for nearly 18 years. And of course we have created a few traditions in our time. One of them that really deserves some recognition is the sacred Punch Buggy Game.

Now I know what you're thinking. You remember playing this with your siblings/cousins/friends as a kid where you'd punch each other every time you saw a Volkswagen beetle. Two punches for a Volkswagen van and the dreaded frog punch (with a protruding knuckle) for a rag-top. (I HATED rag-tops!)

Well, Tom and I weren't about to hit each other, you know with me being such a delicate flower and all. So we came up with our own version using points instead of punches.

Now over time this has matured and been honed into a fine game with lots of important rules to keep things fair. And for posterity's sake I think it's time those rules were enumerated here for all to see.

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The Punch Buggy Game

Scoring:
Regular beetle= 1 point
Rag-Top beetle= 1 point
Volkswagon Van= 2 points

Rule #1: Everyone is Always Playing. You can't opt out, quit, or otherwise claim you're not playing. Losing? Headache? Sleeping? Too bad. If you're IN the car, you're still playing.

Rule #2: The Punch Buggy Game can only be played while in the car with all doors closed.

Rule #3: The same punch buggy cannot be counted twice in the same "trip". A trip lasts only until everyone gets out of the car (whether or not this is at home doesn't matter). For example, a punch buggy can be called upon entering the parking lot, and if it is still there it CAN be called again once everyone re-enters the car and closes the doors. However, if one of the players never left the car, then it cannot be called as the "trip" did not re-start.

Rule #4: When you call a punch buggy it must be called in the following manner:

Regular beetle= "Punch Buggy COLOR" (where COLOR=color of the vehicle) (You may also differentiate between new and old model beetles. This is optional.)

Rag-Top beetle= "Punch Buggy COLOR Ragtop" or "Punch Buggy Ragtop COLOR" are both acceptable (where COLOR=color of the vehicle)

Volkwagon van= "Double Punch Buggy COLOR" (where COLOR=color of the vehicle)

Note, that the color of the punch buggy is called. This is to differentiated between multiple punch buggies when more than one is in the vicinity. Accidentally calling a punch buggy the wrong color does not necessitate losing the point, especially if you're pretty close or if it's dark outside. BUT should there be multiple ones and you call the wrong color, it could cause your point to be disputed, so be careful.

Rule #5: This is known as the Punch Buggy Heaven rule. If there are more than 3 punch buggy vehicles in one location, that location is deemed to be a "Punch Buggy Heaven" and NO punch buggy points called will count from that area.

Note this means up to and including 3 vehicles would NOT be Punch Buggy Heaven. So if you only see 3 double punch buggies, call them!

Rule #6: The punch buggy game ends at the end of the day. This is when everyone has returned home to go to bed for the night. So if you go out for a late movie, the same game is still on as you're coming home at 2am.

Rule #7: Ties mean that NO ONE gets a point, rather than both people getting the point. A tie happens when both people finish saying the entire required statement at the same time. One might have started talking first, but if they both say the entire statement and end at the same time, it is a tie.

------------------------

I think that about covers the rules of The Punch Buggy Game.

We actually have discussed every one of these rules, AND we have to agree on a proposed rule before it can be made official. (That's how I kept Tom's rule of being allowed to call "PB COLOR" instead of saying the whole required phrase.) I'm sure other rules may come along in the future as we start including the kids.

So far it's usually only Tom and I playing. Nicky is still at the age where every single car is a punch buggy, so he always "wins". At least in his own mind. Our rules are really designed with a duo in mind. I'm sure it would require more complex rules if more than two wanted to play.

At times we have tried having paper and pencil handy for keeping score, but usually we just keep track mentally (or I do on my fingers). I usually also keep Tom appraised by telling him how many points ahead I am. Usually something like "I'm ahead by negative four points!" since I often lose. But I like to be optimistic and it sounds better that way.

So that's our game. We used to play it faithfully every time we were in the car. It's only been the last few years when we had kids in the car with us that we slack off sometimes. BUT remember Rule #1. We're ALWAYS playing, even if we forget.

What kinds of games do you play and do you have such complex rules?

They got bigger

2011-06-02T23:02:00.002-04:00

Putting together some old things so we can sell them on Craigslist. The girls took quite an interest. Especially Lily.

They crawled up into the exersaucer while we had the seat still out. (And Lily had a lot to say about it.)

Lily climbed into her old swing when I put it together.

And then while I was trying to get a photo, she started pushing it too.

Quite a contrast to how they used to use them.

Gabi in the exersaucer

Playing in the exersaucer and jumperoo (which we're also selling):

(Couldn't find a photo or movie of them in that swing, but here they are in the battery-devouring first swings that we burned slap out)

Fun to look back at how much they've grown. And it'll be fun when we can sell off some of their old equipment and gain space too!

Splish Splash

2011-05-26T23:13:00.002-04:00

Nicky and the girls got into their "pool" for the first time today.

Nicky was a great big brother and looked after them.

The girls had a great time splashing around in there. Tom blew up a bigger pool for Nicky to play in. We'll keep the girls in the little one for now, which actually was Nicky's sandbox.

Lots of fun was had by all. More movies are in the photobucket folder "movies" accessible by the link in the top right corner of the blog. Enjoy!

Happy Big Brother's Day

2011-05-25T23:27:00.004-04:00

So when your twin sisters turn one, where does that leave the big brother?

Well if you're Nicky, you get up early on their birthday and go fishing with Mommy.

Nicky and I went the our second Family Fishing Day. We didn't actually catch anything this time, but due to a grant, they were giving out fishing rods and tackle boxes to kids this time. Nicky had a great time going thru all the gear in the tackle box.

It was brutally hot Saturday though. And there isn't a drop of shade at the fishing holes. But we were careful and used a lot of sunscreen, so no sunburn for us.

After fishing, we came home and cleaned up. The plan was originally for Tom to take Nicky to the Touch A Truck event at the fairgrounds, but he wasn't feeling well. So Nicky and I went back out together.

This event was a lot of fun for Nicky. They had a firetruck, SWAT van, DOT tractor trailer, Fish & Wildlife boat, garbage truck, city bus and more. Nicky could touch everything, get inside the vehicles, and ask a zillion questions of someone else for a while. I pretty much just stood around in the sun and melted.

In the end, we went home exhausted and hot to clean up and have a birthday dinner with the girls. But a fun time was definitely had by Nicky.

After all, it was a celebration of his first year as the big brother.

The Girls are ONE

2011-05-22T22:59:00.007-04:00

A year ago, on May 21st, Lilianna and Gabriella came into the world at 8:49am.

First came Lilianna Elizabeth (6lb 2oz):

Followed immediately by Gabriella Concetta (6lb 6oz):

It was a rough two weeks to start, but the girls were fighters and had a whole slew of people loving them and caring for them. They sure weren't hard to love!

And now, a whole year later, we have two big healthy girls!

So to celebrate, we had a nice pasta dinner:

And then cupcakes:

It was pretty messy:

But Bobo helped clean up:

After a bath, there were presents too. Big brother built them each their very own Build-a-Bear. They love them!

All in all a great birthday.

But wait! There's more!

Today we took the girls to Grandma & Grandpa's house for a birthday cookout of hamburgers and hotdogs and more cupcakes. Grandma took lots of photos, and we'll share them when we get them. Grandma & Grandpa also had a new book for each girl, and have ordered a double stroller! We're all so excited that we'll be able to go for walks to the park and the mall so easily soon. I foresee photos of the girls at the park soon!

Next weekend we'll do another party with Grammie and Aunt Liz's visit. And then the following weekend or so with Nana's visit. So that will be four parties! It's only fair since they have to share their birthday that they get lots of them right?

Easter revisited- with photos!

2011-05-09T00:44:00.003-04:00

Easter photos are in from Grandma. They are so cute! The girls looked so precious in their Easter dresses. Nana made them and they're gorgeous. Lily was in blue, and Gabi in pink.

Here we go:

Ok, well how about one without the fingers in the mouth?

Not bad, but can we look AT the camera?

Not what I had in mind. How about candid shots?

Ok, any where we're not cannibalizing Grandpa's oxygen tubing?

Good! Now, where is your sister?

Ah, yes. Well how about a smile Gabi?

Very nice. Ok, the obligatory Easter Egg photo:

Beautiful! Made by this artist:

And Nicky also did a great job hunting for those eggs the bunny left outside too:

Gabi may have been a little jealous:

But she got to play with Big Brother's toys in the end:

And Lily managed to get ahold of an egg too:

We did try to get a nice photo of all three. You can see how this went:

Easter Dresses, Callapitters & Journey

2011-04-29T19:25:00.005-04:00

Well we registered Nicky for Kindergarten Wednesday. They did some kind of evaluation, because they separate the kids based on the results. Not sure how I feel about that. Guess I will see how it goes (if we end up staying here).

Thursday we took the girls to their follow-up PT visit:

Gabi is now able to crawl on her hands and knees, using both legs, so that was great. But she is still only using her right leg to get up to standing. So we need to work on helping her get used to also using the other leg.

Lily CAN crawl on her hands and knees, but doesn't. So they want us to work on that by keeping our hand under her belly to remind her to keep it up. We'll also put her down in just a diaper. That's what we did with Gabi. That way they can't easily slide around, so they crawl on their knees instead. Lily is mostly crawling on her elbows and knees right now, but we'll work on that.

Then we noticed Lily might only be standing using her left leg. We need to watch her to see if she can use them both or not, and if needed we'll help her use the other too.

And finally, both girls are still rolling one of the feet in while standing. One is doing it on the right, and the other is doing it on the left. If we knew we were staying here they might wait till the next visit to see how they were progressing, but since we might move, she went ahead and measured them for shoe-inserts that should help support their foot better. That will give them more stability as they learn to stand independently and walk. We'll go back in 3 weeks.

Finding their Easter baskets (notice Gabi's crawling):

Standing in their Easter dresses:

Directly after the girls' PT appointment we had Nicky's ESE staffing. This was where we got the results from the evaluation in March.

His speech and language are fine. He did have several areas though where he was showing significant enough delays to qualify for ESE. They were all areas we anticipated, those that require focus and attention: personal responsibility, fine motor, and attention & memory skills. He also had some issues in personal/social interactions. They said the same thing as everyone else: he's very smart and creative, but he has a really hard time focusing and paying attention.

Anyway, it's enough to get him an IEP (Individualized Education Program) up until he's 6 years old (in Florida, they thought GA might actually accept Developmental Delay for more years). So we'll be meeting with the Kindergarten within the next month to set up an IEP with goals and accommodations. He would still be in the regular classroom though, and we're not planning to redshirt him for the year either. I had been considering that, but everyone agrees he would likely just get bored.

We've been sitting on the referral to a psychologist about getting him evaluated for ADD/ADHD. I wanted to see what the staffing showed first. Now I think we might pursue this and see if he really qualifies as ADD or ADHD. I don't plan to medicate him at this point regardless, but it would help ensure he gets the accommodations and support he needs beyond age 6 (because the developmental delay only covers till then).

So how do we feel about this? Well, it's never great to hear that there is an issue with your kid. But he's still the same sweetheart he was before we had the official label. I think everything he scored poorly on really have to do with his attention difficulties. Even the fine motor issues which were based on his holding scissors wrong, not being able to trace well, etc. That's because he's too busy doing his own thing in his head to notice how it's supposed to be done, or to practice. And with the social stuff too, it's hard to make friends when you can't pay attention to them or to the activity you're doing for more than a millisecond at a time.

So yeah, on the one hand not thrilled, kind of feel like a crappy parent because surely if I was a good parent he'd be excelling anyway (see, I know that's not true, but it feels that way anyway). But on the other hand, it's really good to feel validated that there IS an issue here. A measurable issue that isn't just in my head. And that issue will help us make sure he gets a teacher who will be structured, but tolerant and patient, and who will make the accommodations he needs to succeed.

Because really, my kid is super awesome.

In a nutshell

2011-04-25T18:54:00.007-04:00

Last week was a bit insane for us, and this week will be only slightly less insane.

Last week I had a doctor's appointment. Turns out that even being on the pill I'm still having cystic ovaries. So that's fun. But luckily we're done having kids, so as long as it doesn't cause too much pain, we can deal with that. It does explain the odd pains though, so that's good. Sometimes it's just better to know what it is, and that it's not all in your head.

Then we had Nicky's appointment Tuesday. This was the big one about the circumcision. We were pretty convinced that this was simply a formality and that they'd be scheduling surgery for him. But the doctor took a look and said he's fine and while they'll do it if we want it done, he's likely to outgrow it and be totally fine. What a relief! So we'll check back around age 7 or so if there is no change, but she didn't seem at all concerned. No surgery for now!

Wednesday was nearly normal for a nice mid-week break.

Thursday I flew out of state for an interview. I was nervous as the trip involved two planes and a train, but it went very smoothly and my luggage and I both arrived everywhere on time, together.

Friday was my interview. I think it went well. I certainly have no trouble talking. Put me in a room with a bunch of people who want to hear about me...well, I am a Leo after all. :) I very much enjoyed the location, institution and people I met, so I have high hopes about that. I should know more in two weeks.

Then I traveled home Friday. The trip home wasn't quite as smooth. A few delays with the planes and my leisurely layover became a mad dash through the airport, but I totally made it home on time. And I actually had time to read two books by one of my favorite authors during the trip. That was a great perk!

Saturday morning Nicky and I were up early to go fishing! This was our first time at this event and we had a great time. Nicky caught 6 fish! One little brim and 5 catfish. He nearly caught one more brim at the end, but he ended up flinging it off the hook before we could take it off, so I told him that one didn't count. They were all small, about 6 inches or so, but it was enough action over the 1-2 hours to keep us happy. And it was catch and release anyway, so no worries about having them eating-sized. I think we'll have to do this again! (just pretend there are photos here, because I was a bad blogger mommy and did not take even ONE photo)

After fishing we cleaned up at a gas station (cause fish slime + raw bait = ew!) and bought slushies. Then we had a picnic at the park and Nicky worked out whatever remaining energy he had (I had NONE by this point).

Sunday the Easter Bunny treated all the kids right, and even hid eggs for Nicky in the front yard. Nicky and I dyed about 36 eggs in the morning too. No fancy dying for us, just made homemade dye with boiling water, vinegar and food coloring. Oh, and used white crayons to draw on the eggs. That was the first time he did that. It was a lot of fun.

The girls' baskets, that's Lily in green.

Nicky's basket. That's his "Easter Style". He totally dressed himself, and put his shirt on backwards on purpose.

Now today was Nicky's last day of Pre-School. He 'graduates' on May 2nd, but he's done with classes already. No more driving him to school and working out a carpool to pick him up at my lunch time. Life should be a little easier travel-wise, but of course that also means Tom has no respite during the day either.

This week is much less hectic, but we do have to register Nicky for Kindergarten on Wednesday and then we have both the girls' PT follow-up and Nicky's staffing (the results of his evaluation) on Thursday. We're also working on getting 8 estimates from HVAC companies and insulation companies to get some work done on the house that should save us on our electric bill.

So that's what we've been up to in a nutshell. A very very busy nutshell.

Baby Blue Eyes

2011-04-16T21:35:00.005-04:00

There's Lily with her new face she's been sporting for a few days. I think she's doing it because of her teeth. Both girls are getting their bottom front teeth very soon. You can see them coming up.

Notice the nice bruise on her forehead though. She decided to take a nosedive off the recliner and hit her poor head on the bottom shelf of the side table. Poor baby. She seems totally fine about it, but what a mark! It didn't bleed or even raise up much though, mostly just a little line of a bruise. It has made it easier to tell them apart the last few days though. Not my preferred way to do that!

One more thing though. Here's a closeup photo the same day from Gabi:

And Lily:

And for comparison, here's a closeup of Nicky from when he was 11 months old (thier age):

Notice their eyes. Tom's been insisting since practically day 1 that the girls would have blue eyes. Nicky's stayed blue for a long time too, but his did eventually change. I was looking back to see about when they changed and found the photo above. It seems his were definitely starting to change about that time. Maybe the girls really will stay blue. We shall see.

Good mornings

2011-04-05T22:52:00.003-04:00

Saturday morning:

So then the girls go to their first Physical Therapy evaluation Monday.

And Tuesday morning:

So cute!

Returning to the Routine

2011-04-04T16:50:00.004-04:00

We just had the girls' PT evaluation today. Looks like Lily is doing pretty well. The only thing they want to watch on her is her rolling her feet in towards the arch when she stands. With Gabi, she rolls her feet too, but their main concern is her asymmetry with her feet. She really is only using her right foot to crawl and always leads with that foot when standing as well. She has the power in her left leg, but for some reason doesn't use it. So we have some exercises to do with her for the next two weeks and then they both go back for a re-evaluation.

Nicky headed back to school today after his spring break. He spent the whole week with Nana! I was worried we'd get a call asking to pick him up, but he did great! Then Saturday he went to Colin's birthday party at an ice skating rink and had a great time. Of course I didn't get any photos, I was lucky to get there at all. I ended up arriving an hour late (luckily Nana dropped him off there for me). I was trying to follow two sets of directions (one to Nana's house and one to the skating rink) and the GPS kept trying to send me all over hell and back. Next time I drive anywhere I'm taking an old fashioned MAP.

Other than that, I suppose things are rather quiet here. We're just trying to settle back into our routine. Tom has a job interview this week so we're very excited about that. It'll be interesting getting the girls into daycare, but we have some ideas we're working on.

Nicky's going back to his Kung Fu class in another hour. I bet he'll sleep good tonight! Hopefully so will the girls. We started putting them down awake at night and letting them cry it out. The first night took about 10 minutes. Not so bad after that. We're also trying it for naps, but right now they're still fussing in there. They are overly tired I think. PT evaluation fell right during bottle/nap time. They were angels during the whole thing though. We must have been there for well over an hour! Now they just had a bottle and need to settle down.

Next we try to wean them off bottles. Now that will be fun. I need to go back through my blog and see what we did with Nicky! I can't remember it at all.

Evaluations: done but not finished

2011-03-27T20:42:00.003-04:00

It's Nicky's spring break and he's off to Nana's house for fun in the sun! Tom drove him there today, and he'll pick him up next weekend. At least that's the plan. Last time he tried staying over at Nana's he made it about two days or so and then Tom went to get him in the middle of the night. But he's five now, so hopefully this will work out to be a fun week for them both.

The girls had their evaluation Friday. They performed for the four ladies who came over. And by the end I think everyone was in love with them. They did think that they need a physical therapy evaluation due to low tone in their torsos, and asymmetry in their fine motor and gross motor. Basically they both have better pincer grasps on their left hands and Gabi really uses her right foot and leg much more when moving around. Gabi was more in need of the PT evaluation, but since she's going, we'll have Lily evaluated too since she's also showing low tone and asymmetry.

Of course they continue to make huge strides every day, so who knows what they might be able to do by the time they're evaluated! Gabi is now pulling up reliably on the sofa, toy box, shelves, etc. And she can sit very well too. Lily can finally sit, but not quite as well as Gabi. Lily can cruise a little bit, but Gabi can't yet. Really they're both doing great, and always progressing, so we're not really concerned exactly. But they were behind enough in gross and fine motor to qualify for services.

Nicky had his 5 year checkup Friday afternoon. He had three shots and it took two nurses and myself to hold him down for them. He's a lot stronger than he used to be! I think if Tom had been there he would have been braver, but since it was Mommy he really let loose. Of course he was fine immediately after. They also did a finger stick for hemoglobin testing. He's all vaccinated and his iron is fabulous! We did get the pleasure of collecting urine for the first time too. That was fun. I had to ply him with about 3-4 glasses of water to get him to go. But we finally finished up. Oh, and a hearing test too that came out fine. We'd been concerned since his eval Monday showed there might be an issue. But he checked out ok on Friday.

But there are two referrals we're getting for him. One for a psychologist to discuss his attention and focus issues, and one to a surgeon.

Scary huh. Well don't give me ANY crap about this, but it appears he has phimosis and is going to probably require surgery (circumcision). I'm having plenty of mommy-guilt all on my own here. So saying 'I told you so' is NOT going to help anybody. We knew this was a small risk of not circumcising him at birth, but actually I think we did make the best decision we could at the time. It sucks to have to do it now, but he's five and it really doesn't seem to be loosening up at all. For anyone trying to make the circumcision decision for their baby, know this is NOT common. We might have suspected since theoretically Tom had it as an infant, but really, we weren't convinced he'd had it either since it was noted on the hospital papers from when he was born. Really, that's a bit early to make that kind of diagnosis.

So anyway, yeah probably looking at surgery this summer. He doesn't know yet, and we haven't exactly figured out how to have that conversation. The last thing I want to do is give him a complex about something being wrong with that body part.

As for the psychologist, well we suspect ADD. Not really ADHD, but just ADD. I don't anticipate medicating him at this age, but if we can get the diagnosis(if that is what we're facing) then we can get a 504 plan for him at school which will make sure he has accommodations for things like testing. Going into school I think that is important. So we'll see what the school system evaluation says on Monday, and then what the psychologist says. The initial feel from the assessment Monday was that his learning isn't really being affected by his focus/attention issues, but his expression or relating what he HAS learned really is. A section 504 plan would help him to have accommodations to mitigate that.

So that's the past week in a nutshell. Tom will have it relatively easy this week if Nicky makes it through the week at Nana's. Just two to watch! To most that would still be overwhelming, but really it'll probably feel like quite a break for Tom. I swear, I don't know how he does it! He's really the most amazing dad ever.

Nicky's current photo

2011-03-23T22:59:00.003-04:00

I finally chose Nicky's current photo for his Pre-K graduation.

From Tom's phone:

That's my boy! Champion of "callapitters", ladybugs and all things small. Including sisters.

Evaluations: update

2011-03-23T22:23:00.002-04:00

Nicky's evaluation went well Monday. Luckily Nana was able to stay and watch the girls, so it was just Tom and I with Nicky. Nicky would have had a much harder time focusing if we'd had to take the girls.

It took quite a while for the testing. They were testing him in several areas, and the lady we were working with said it was taking so long because he was doing so well. They had to keep increasing the level of difficulty until he bottomed out.

We'll get the results at the end of April and discuss whether he would qualify for services then. As it is now, we all agree he would likely get bored if we held him back from kindergarten next year, so we'll go ahead and send him on. I just hope we can get some accommodations in place or something before the year starts (or right at the beginning).

Next comes the girls' evaluation Friday morning. We'll get the results right then and there which will be great. The girls must have heard about the evaluation, because of course they can sit now. Gabi figured it out on the 13th, and Lily just figured it out on the 22nd. Gabi is still not quite pulling up yet, but she can get to a sitting position easier. Lily can pull up and stand like a champ, but to sit she has to pull up to her knees first, and then kind of twist herself down.

Lily demonstrates here:

Oh, and just because I think it's funny...
One of our favorite games to play around here:

I go for my eye exam tomorrow morning. I don't expect I'll need glasses, but I'm way overdue for a visit. I think I last went when I was about 15 or so. So it's been a few years.

Evaluation time

2011-03-19T22:25:00.007-04:00

I finally had time to clear the last 2 months of pics and videos off my camera today. Now I just need to process and upload them to photobucket!

Right now we're getting ready for Nicky's evaluation Monday afternoon. I'm really suspecting ADD with possible ADHD. I'm not sure about the hyperactivity component, but he has the attention span of a cricket and it's driving everyone, including him, nuts. I really hope we find out what we can do to help him focus.

We'll also be asking about academic redshirting. He just turned five and holding him out a year might really make a big difference in his academic success. But we're also worried he might get bored. His teachers all say he's very smart, just can't focus and pay attention.

Then Friday morning the girls are getting their evaluation. They check five development areas: gross motor, fine motor, social, language and cognitive. The only one I've been concerned about has been their gross motor. Of course right after we had the initial visit to fill in the paperwork, Gabi decided to sit up occasionally (ok, twice) and Lily can pull up to stand. But they still aren't very good at sitting, which Lily proved this week by falling backwards and wacking her head twice. And Lily still can't get into a sitting positon, except for that one time we came in her room and she was sitting. Gah, they're most likely totally fine, but we're going to do the evaluation anyway, because the appointment is set and they are hard to get. And what better thing than to have someone tell you, officially, they're totally fine?

Anyway, pictures soon I hope. Nicky's getting so big! He's already FIVE and had a great birthday that I'll have to write about soon. He's adorable in his glasses, and he's set to "graduate" from preschool on May 2nd. (I know we're thinking of redshirting him, but he'll graduate anyway...even though Tom is adamant about "graduating" preschool being silly.) I had to pick out 6 photos of him growing up for the ceremony, so I've just been going thru his old photos. So cute! I went with photos from his birthdays. Or close enough. I'll have to share...

2 months old:

1 year old:

2 years old:

3 years old:

4 years old (with Lily):

5 years old... well I'm planning to try to use one from his birthday, or at least one with his new glasses. It'll come.

Girls 9 month checkup

2011-03-08T23:25:00.004-05:00

That's Lily on the left there.

Girls had their 9 month checkup on Feb 22nd and they both weighed exactly 18 lbs. Gabi was about an inch taller (or stretchier). They are right on track for most everything, but for whatever reason they still can't sit up on their own. Just to be on the safe side we're having them evaluated on March 25th. They'll probably choose that day to show off and sit perfectly of course. But better to go ahead with the evaluation and be told they're fine than the other way round.

On that note, Lily is pulling up, and just tonight pulled all the way up to standing on sofa. Yeah, not too worried about her. Gabi can pull up according to Tom, but she isn't doing it as much so I haven't really seen her do it yet. They can both sit if you put them that way, but Gabi starts to lean forward and seems uncomfortable sometimes. And they can't get themselves in a sitting position.

Nicky is having his 5th birthday party this Saturday. Tom and I are both sick (me working on my second full week of sick now) and apparently Gatornationals are also this weekend, so we might have no one come other than family. Super. Luckily Liz and Grammie were able to book the last hotel room in town. The other folks will all be staying at our house. With one bathroom. Should be an interesting weekend!

Nicky's having a Hello Kitty/Transformer party, although he's more in the Hello Kitty part it seems. Aunt Jessie is coming and supplying the HK stuff which is going to be awesome. I'm baking a HK cake (somehow). And not sure how we'll incorporate the Transformers. Maybe a pinata? Who knows. If no kids are coming anyway maybe we'll just skip the Transformer part all together.

You know, it would be nice if I could be healthy for one of Nicky's birthdays for a change. It's pretty overwhelming to try to plan all this when we're so sick.

Anyway, that's my attempt at a post. I've got to get back into the habit!

Oh, one more thing! We've picked Nicky's glasses. I can't even remember if I posted about that yet. He went for his first eye doctor visit and turns out he needs glasses! I'm so glad we took him! He's going to be adorable in them. They should come in next week.

Breaking the ice

2011-02-19T12:33:00.002-05:00

Oh My GOD. This is just getting ridiculous.

Just need to post already.

It probably goes without saying that we've been busy lately. But I'll say it anyway. January was the Month of Sick. We really never had to go through this when Nicky was a baby, but now that he's in preschool he brings home everything and the girls are catching it all. All three of them ended up with the chest cold from hell and double ear infections. Of course that meant THREE separate doctor visits because they got them about 3 days apart. Thank goodness for free antibiotics at Publix anyway. Especially since our copays wen't up 5$. Not a big deal until you have so many of them.

The girls finally got better by February. They'd had the antibiotics for the ear infections, saline and suction for the sinus thing (that's all we could do for their poor noses), and nebulizer treatments for the rattling, wheezing coughing.

Thank goodness that somehow Tom and I avoided whatever the hell laid them so low.

In other news, I hope to have upcoming posts about these in detail, but:

Nicky started a theater class on Saturdays. It runs for 6 weeks. It's at 9am across town. Who needs sleep?

I've been trying to take Nicky around to other activities on the weekend to spend some one on one time with him. We've had a ball going to a gymnastics meet, a swim meet, the medieval fair, shopping, and of course birthday parties.

Speaking of birthday parties, Nicky's birthday will be on March 12th, hopefully at a park, and will be a "Hello Kitty Party". He's been wanting one of these for a year now, so we're going to make it happen.

I'll try to post more often. I have tons of photos and movies lined up, but need a site to host them as my photobucket account is full. I'm looking into options. Promise.

Christmas

2010-12-28T10:05:00.003-05:00

Well the girls first Christmas was adorable, and yet we were all sick thanks to Nicky bringing home a cold on the last day of school. He came down with it about Monday of Christmas week, shortly followed by me, Tom, Nana and the twins. Of course I'm pretty sure I'm always sick at Christmas, but this was nuts.

But we endeavored to persevere. The tree was trimmed:

and Santa came:

It was a little sparse compared to other years, but then again, Nicky never got something like this before:

Probably took him a good 10 minutes to even look at anything else.

The girls had fun too. Their gifts were not wrapped at all so that we could avoid spending hours doing presents. We just had them all set out on a blanket and sat down to play with them.

All in all we have been kept hopping this season:

And now I have a week off to kick this cold. And maybe send out the Christmas cards. We wanted to send photos, but we're too sick to look cheerful. The kids are cute though. So there is that.

Merry Christmas!

Baptism photos of the girls

2010-12-20T21:20:00.002-05:00

The baptism, in pictures:

We had dinner before we left. Nicky was happy with hamburgers and hotdogs:

We got the girls dressed to go:

At the church, we did some singing:

And Gabi fell asleep on me:

Then things got rough for the girls. Gabi did not appreciate the dunking (she was first):

And Lily felt really abused!

But it didn't take long to get them dressed and calmed down:

There was something about candles. Lily wasn't sure about that candle thing:

But Nicky was willing to help out:

Then we had some posing to do:

And Lily was pooped out after all the partying.

Gabi in the meantime was screaming her head off. She'd had enough. No photos of that though.

Nicky wants a Boo Boo Kitty Lexus

2010-12-05T23:01:00.012-05:00

Nicky and I made it to the university's holiday concert tonight. We sat up in the balcony since Nicky wanted to sit up high. If he'd totally had his way we'd have been in the very highest seats, but I put my foot down (and my booty) and wouldn't budge about midway up the balcony. We had great seats, right on the aisle and with no seats directly in front of us. Ha! So no seat for Nicky to kick. He actually has been really good for these performances over the last few days. I'm pretty impressed. Especially for a hyper 4 year old.

This one was long, although not as long as the ballet. It was about 90 minutes though. I promised him McDonalds afterwards if he was good. And afterwards we did visit McD's for the promised happy meal.

As far as the concert went, it was much more professional than the community college one, and the quality was better musically speaking. But the community college concert was so charming and entertaining. They had a few skits included to add a little zest that the university concert lacked. I think it was great though for Nicky too see so much variety in his first three shows.

Now next weekend is some kind of holiday fest thing in town that we're going to try to attend. Santa is supposed to be there too!

I took a movie of Nicky at the show surreptitiously. You can see him trying to hold it together and then getting all distracted by the lights on his shoes. But he pulls it together in time to clap. I think the clapping at the end of each song was his favorite part.

Oh, also today.... Nicky helped put up the Christmas lights. This is the first year we have outside lights up and they look great!

This morning I put Lily into Gabi's crib for a visit. They are so cute:

Lily actually pushed up onto her knees and elbows today! I had them outside with me while Nicky and Tom worked on the lights. They were in the playpen while I crocheted. (I'm helping out with making a crochet coral reef for my library to display next spring.)

I think that's all the news that's fit to print. But here are two more videos of Nicky. I took these on the way to school December 1st. Nicky was talking about the chickens at Grandpa Buz's house in this one.

And then we made a movie for Aunt Jessie since she hadn't been able to come to the baptism. Notice the car Nicky wants us to give him.

Oh and one more thing. Nicky finally got a trim. He was getting positively shaggy as you can see:

Nana trimmed him up before we went to the ballet Saturday. Don't have a great photo of it, but you can see it here and in the movies above of Nicky at the concert.

Party Concert Ballet Movie- been busy 'round here

2010-12-05T00:16:00.006-05:00

Just a quickie post before I run off to bed...

The girls were baptized the Monday after Thanksgiving and the dresses were gorgeous. JM took some photos and I'll post them when I get them. Tom and I were too busy to even try to take pictures ourselves. Aunt Liz and Miss Kris are their godmothers and Father John did the ceremony. He gave a really nice talk beforehand, describing the ceremony and what the various parts mean. I think that's Tom's favorite thing about Father John, that he gives the history behind the ritual.

We had quite a crew there. Liz and Jodi and my Mom were all there. My Dad, Gwen and my Aunt Janice were there. Tom's Mom, Dad and JM were there. And Kris was there along with three people I work with. I made a cake and afterwards we all had cake and soda.

The ceremony itself was very nice, but we were all surprised when Father John said he was happy to see the font was deeper than he thought so we'd be able to do the whole immersion. I think we all just looked at him with our eyes big as saucers and then we just went for it. We weren't at all prepared for the immersion though. The priest who'd given us the supplies hadn't been either, so we had basically a hand towel and two washcloths. I think Gabi went in first, and then Lily. I dried Gabi off as best I could with my shirt and the hand towel, and passed her off to Liz I think. Then I took Lily and just used my shirt and the washcloths to get her dried as best I could. Then we ran over to get them into their dresses so they wouldn't freeze. That water was cold! Well, room temperature, but still cold!

We got them all calmed down though and dressed. Finished up the ceremony and then had cake. Lily was doing fine with the crowd, which as our little extrovert isn't a surprise. But Gabi only held it together for maybe 5 minutes or so. Then she decided she'd had enough of it all. She had been dunked in water and changed into a big fluffy dress, she was hungry, she was tired, and there were just too many people around. All that added up to a complete meltdown. Tom and I spent a good portion there at the end with the girls in a dressing room trying to heat up bottles, shush babies, and change them back to the only outfits we had for them other than the dresses. (Because there was no way they'd fit in their carseats with the dresses on.)

Lily actually passed out on the floor. But Gabi was inconsolable. She screamed like someone was killing her the whole way home. When we got home we hurried to get them both inside and the second I unbuckled her to take her out she stopped crying, and the instant I had her up on the changing table she was all smiles. Spoiled girl. She just prefers being at home.

Lily in all her splendor:

All in all it was a lovely baptism and I was so happy so many folks could come. I only wish I'd had more time to visit with everyone. I had actually taken off Monday because I was sick. The girls and I all had that cold and weren't feeling very well. But that was my last sick day for a while, and I hadn't though to take Tuesday off in advance. Well, we'll just have to visit with everyone for Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, Nicky and I have been going on a few outings to get ready for the season. Thursday, he and I went to a holiday concert at the community college. It was an hour long, and they sang a bunch of songs. There was even a lady there doing the songs in sign language. This was Nicky's first attendance at a performance (other than that half of the Bob the Builder show we went to a year or so ago). And he did Great! He clapped at the end of each song, and really didn't wiggle much at all. I was very impressed. He said the show was "Awesome!" when asked and so I'd say it was an excellent experience all around.

Then Saturday Nicky and I went to the ballet. Thursday at work I scored two tickets to the city ballet's production of the Little Match Girl from a co-worker. Yep, this is the Hans Christian Andersen story about the poor little girl who freezes to death. Kind of a downer, eh? I told Nicky the story in the morning while we were getting ready for the play, and then during the ballet I pointed out the parts we'd talked about. It wasn't a professional troupe, and there were dancers of all ages there. But Nicky really seemed to enjoy it. It was long. Two whole hours! With two 15 minute intermissions in there. He was really getting wiggly by the end. But he held it together, and clapped at the right times. He never tried to run off or be too loud either. When asked, he said it was great and awesome, so I'd say he had a good time. We walked through the gift shop of the museum next door to the theater, and got some good ideas for Santa. And then headed home.

Then later Saturday night, Tom and I went and finally saw the new Harry Potter movie. Usually we see those the weekend they come out. But it's pretty hard to get away these days. Fortunately Nana and Grandpa and JM all came to our rescue and teamed up to watch the kids for us. The movie was really long! It was the 8:30 show and as we were walking out of the theater it was after 11pm! But it was really good. I'm glad I didn't re-read the books right before it though. I'm sure lots had to be changed for the movie, and I had enough distance that I didn't really notice anything. Of course NOW I'll have to re-read them though. As expected, the movie ends on a real downer, but then it is the middle of the book! I hope the final finale is worth it this summer.

Ok, it's been a long day and I'm off to sleep! There is another holiday concert tomorrow night. This time at the university. I'd really like to take Nicky, so we'll see how that goes.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah too! (Wish I'd been able to attend your Hanukkah dinner tonight Colin. I'm sure it was awesome!)

First foods and Thanksgiving

2010-11-29T00:52:00.006-05:00

Well I shared that the girls started eating solid foods (other than a little cereal here and there) right at 24 weeks. They started with the sweet potatoes, just like Nicky did.

Next came peas, and then butternut squash, then finally they had their first fruit, pears. Then green beans, bananas and they just today finished up their first meat: chicken. During Thanksgiving they had some sweet potato souffle, without the topping, and some pumpkin pie. They loved those! Gabi adores pumpkin pie especially.

Lily took to eating like a champ, never turning down any food. Gabi was ok with trying out a little of everything, but if you gave her too many peas she'd finally start crying. She didn't really adore anything till the pumpkin pie. That gave them both a little red rash around their mouths for a bit, but it went away after a little washup. I suspect that was caused by the cinnamon/allspice stuff in it. Next comes apples, which I anticipate them loving!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving feast. Tom made a ham this year instead of a turkey, and I have to say it was so much easier! Much less cooking time since mostly you're just heating it up and glazing it. I wouldn't mind doing this again, but I think we're committed to a turkey for Christmas since everyone seemed to miss the bird. Tom does make awesome turkey I admit. I'm sure JM was able to get a better pic, but this is the one I took:

Now we have the girls' baptism coming up Monday November 29th. I'm hoping to get a few good photos and movies of that event. The girls have beautiful gowns their Nana made for them. I can't wait to see them in them!

I am definitely not a pro at this event thing yet. But we'll have a nice gathering. My Dad, stepmother Gwen and my Aunt Janice have come all the way from North Georgia to attend. Liz, Jodi and my Mom are coming all the way from South Florida. Tom's Dad, JM, and Nana are coming and I have a few folks from work who might come. Our friend Kris will be there also, and Liz and Kris will be the godmothers. Since the baptism is kind of late, 7pm, we'll just have a cake and drinks afterwards. I was going to buy a publix cake, but the only real options were either a plain cake with flowers or one with a cross of some sort on it. I don't know, it just seemed a little weird. So I opted to make a cake instead. It's amazing what you can do with sprinkles and a bunt pan.

So anyway, baptism shots next time. And hopefully that will be done BEFORE Christmas.

Oh, ok, one more. This is Friday, after Thanksgiving. Nicky was entertaining Gabi.

Halloween- just a bit late

2010-11-23T16:31:00.010-05:00

Ok, so it's about to be Thanksgiving. Must be time to put up those Halloween photos then!

Um, yeah. So been a bit busy. Shocking I know.

So Halloween. The girls and Tom were fighting off the cold that Nicky and I were so kind to share with them. But Tom still worked on the jack-o-lantern with Nicky:

And Nicky and I made this:

Which means we looked like this:

Black icing...kind of gross. But fun anyway. Nicky's happy pose in front of our crafts. Probably around noon-ish, and he was still in his nightshirt. Hey, it was Sunday.

After that Nicky and I got all dressed up for Trick-or-Treat. He was a scary pirate:

And I was a wicked witch (photo by Nicky):

Terrifying I know. Nicky mostly loved my furry spider on my hat. He still asks about it.

Then we headed over to a Halloween Party where Nicky met up with his friends, the dragon and the cupcake princess. The pirate was pretty focused on getting his candy though:

And then, the mean parents made them all pose for entire SECONDS on the front lawn:

But in the end, much Trick-or-Treating took place and lots of candy was extorted from the neighbors.

The girls didn't actually get to dress up this year. We have their wings on hold till next Halloween though. They were going to be fairies. That'll be just fine for years to come I'm sure.

Six months old

2010-11-05T23:29:00.004-04:00

The girls are officially 24 weeks/6 months old today. So we stopped by the store on the way home and picked up sweet potatoes and peas for them. Today they had their first sweet potatoes, and I'd say it was a raging success! Two more days of those and we'll move on to peas. After that, well maybe pears or apples. It's a whole new world for the girls.

Of course you know there is a movie of it:

Now of course getting that movie means I downloaded the other ones off the camera too. Here's the girls admiring their big brother. They just adore him! And the feeling is mutual.

And the promised Halloween photos will be up next time. Promise!

Morning conversations and Dogs in heaven

2010-11-02T10:19:00.003-04:00

Tom just showed me some movies he took on his iphone.

This shows the girls in their crib yesterday. That was the last day they shared a crib. They can move around too much now and so we set up the other crib for Gabi last night. They both did just fine in their separate cribs last night, which was a relief. We were worried that they'd be lonely.

Those were the outfits (minus the jeans) that they were going to wear for Halloween, along with their fairy wings, but they ended up staying home with Daddy. They all three weren't feeling well. Nicky and I went to a party and went Trick or Treating and had a great time! More photos and movies of that to come.

Now, here are two movies Tom took on his phone. It was Saturday morning, so that's me before makeup, tooth-brushing or anything. But the kids are cute enough to make up for that I think. Nicky likes talking to Lily and Gabi and having me talk for the girls, so that's my baby voice asking him questions.

Here he continues, now telling them about dragons. He'd just started watching "How to Train Your Dragon" which he seems to love. He's telling them about the Night Fury dragon named Toothless. At the end, when we were listing everyone in the family, the movie cuts off just as he was saying "and Sampson," who is our dog in heaven.

Speaking of dogs in heaven. Abbey was almost taken to the vet last weekend. She is really having a lot of trouble with her back, hips and knees. Probably arthritis. She's also very nearly incontinent, at least in the bladder area, which drives me NUTS. She was starting to have trouble even standing up, and so we were going to take her Monday. But then we gave her an aspirin, found out that we couldn't afford the money to put her down, and she got a reprieve. I imagine it won't be long now though. Cold weather is really hard on her and I hate the idea of her suffering through the winter. We've already started talking with Nicky about it. Not the most fun conversation to have. But he's doing well with the idea.

Get a load of this photo

2010-10-17T23:05:00.002-04:00

I must have taken twenty photos of them, and this one is probably the very best.

Our three kids:

That's Lily on the left, Nicky with the cheezy smile, and Gabi looking coy on the right. It's mighty hard to get a photo where they're all smiling!

Anyway, just a quick update for you. It was a three day weekend for us because of homecoming. Our town shuts down when the Gators have homecoming weekend. Nicky had a sore throat Thursday morning, and by that night I had one too, but I'd promised to take him to the parade Friday. So even though we were both feeling a bit under the weather we went.

This was Nicky's first parade, and I think he enjoyed it. We'd planned to catch the bus, but we missed it twice! That'll have to wait for another weekend. So I drove to campus, and we parked and walked. It was a good 15 minute walk, and then I stood from about 11:30 till 2pm. It was a LONG parade. Another 15 minute walk back to the car and we were both about to drop. By the time we got home we were done. We both had fevers, and were exhausted.

The rest of the weekend has been pretty uncomfortable. Nicky seems to have endless energy, but even so he's a little under the weather. He's bounced back much better than me though. I'm just hoping I don't share it with Tom and the girls. Tom being sick will be hard on us all, and no one wants a sick baby! That just breaks your heart.

So we're doing a lot of hand washing around here. Oh, and we have a new acquisition! My mom bought us a dishwasher! That should help keep the germs from spreading also. Thanks Mom!

Speaking of Moms, that reminds me, the kids are all set for their Halloween costumes. Nana bought Nicky his Bumblebee costume, and the girls are going as fairies with two cute dresses they already have, and some fancy wings Nana found for them. They'll be adorable! Now we just have to figure out what we're doing for Halloween. We've done Boo at the Zoo for three of the last four years. I don't know if I have it in me to do again. We'll have to see.

One more for ya:

Oh, and maybe just one movie: This is Lily talking. I swear she says "hi."

Sorry about the wait

2010-10-13T22:19:00.002-04:00

Just a little busy around here. Seriously.

But here's a few videos for you finally!

All smiles from the girls. Gabi is on the left here.

A typical Sunday morning at the Mott's. Well, during a quiet few minutes. It was actually so remarkably quiet I had to grab the camera.

And this is what I look like within 5 minutes of walking in the door after work.

The girls were quite happy at their four month pediatric visit. Well, before the shots anyway. Gabi weighed in at 13lb 5oz and Lily weighed 12lb 2oz. We think the only reason we can usually tell them apart these days is because of their weight difference.

Photos too!
At the ped visit:

Can you tell who is who here? It took me a bit to be sure! Check out the name of the image to see.

Such happy girls:

Posing in the big chair. Lily is playing footsie I think.

Can't forget Nicky! He's just hard to catch on camera with his busy schedule. Here he was waiting for the cookies to finish baking:

That pretty much brings us through the end of September. Check out the photobucket link and the 2010 September and Movie folders to see more!

Now if I can just get the October stuff up.

Lily chatting up the camera on a Wednesday morning.

2010-09-22T11:02:00.003-04:00

Lily has decided that she is going to talk and talk and talk...

Ok, just one more video

2010-09-01T08:24:00.001-04:00

All smiles from the girls. Especially for their daddy.

Two Talkers

2010-09-01T00:02:00.006-04:00

Ok, I'm tired, it's late and I still need to feed the girls once more tonight. But I've been trying to get a few photos and movies up for you guys. And this is the only time I can do it.

So skipping the story and moving straight to the good stuff...

Lily and Gabi are over 3 months old already. They're getting really good at sitting up supported, and we try to put them in their exersaucer/jumperoo things a little everyday so they can work on those muscles. They surely prefer that to tummy time! Tummy time is actually just Screamy time around here so we're not very good about making them do it.

But here they are in their upright gizmos. Their big brother likes showing them how to use the toys:

Gabi likes the sun toy on the exersaucer:

Lily likes the Jumperoo:

The other fun development is that over about the last week they've really started smiling and talking at the flowers hanging over their crib. Tom puts them in there to converse with the flowers a bit each day and they love it! We took some movies of them Sunday.

Here's Gabi:

And Lily:

A little more of Lily. You just can't get enough of those smiles, I know:

So we're doing ok here. It's busy, and insane actually, but we're all having a good time and Nicky absolutely adores his sisters.

Sunday while I was making brunch:

Nicky feeding Gabi:

And Lily smiling at the flowers:

Update with photos. Feel free to skip to the photos.

2010-08-09T13:00:00.004-04:00

So graduation was Saturday. I totally didn't go though. I meant to attend in SecondLife, but didn't end up doing that either. Instead I played with Nicky and we cleaned his room.

But I finally got around to checking my grades Monday. For the two classes I just finished, the two classes I took while in the last weeks of a twin pregnancy, had twins and have been completely sleep deprived ... I received A's.

Yeah, I'm a little proud of that.

So my final GPA for this Master's degree is a 3.97. Not the 4.0 I got for my Master's in Special Education, but still, pretty good! Especially considering this time I worked full time, had a young child and gave birth to twins. Last time it was just Tom and I, and he worked so that I could focus on just attending school.

But I'm so happy to be DONE. So happy in fact, that I hadn't even bothered to check my grades till Monday. Every other semester I was checking for final grades every day in anticipation.

Anyway, other than me being ecstatic to have NO HOMEWORK, I've been busy. I've started working mostly from the office and only working from home after a particularly rough night.

The girls are getting good at sleeping through the night, although that just means from the last bottle till around 7ish, and they don't usually go down from the last bottle till around 2-3am. But still, progress! In fact, last night, the last bottle started at 11:30. They were finally settled in at 1am and slept till almost 8am! I think we can't ask for any better than that.

I have uploaded photos from July into photobucket. A few of my favorites are:

Nicky and Lily cuddling on his bed

Nicky in his new bunk bed

And our set up for the bouncy chairs in the other crib

I'll get around to uploading the August photos soon. JM actually came over the other day and took photos of the girls with her fancy camera. I got them this week and they are gorgeous! I couldn't resist, so I had to upload some for you now. Hope you don't mind more photos.

Lily

Gabi

Gabi and Lily with Daddy (Gabi on the left)

Gabi and Lily (Gabi on the left)

There are sooo many more! But those will have to wait. Plus it gives you guys a reason to come visit so you can see them all! She gave me a disk with nearly 200 photos on it!

Done, done and DONE!

2010-08-04T20:41:00.002-04:00

That's it folks. I turned in my last paper, attended my last class. I am finished with my second and LAST masters degree. Thank goodness! I find it incredible that I managed to finish this degree during my pregnancy with the girls, through giving birth and their first two and a half months. Phew!

So now that I won't have homework all the time, I should be able to keep up with the blog better. That means more posts and pics for YOU!

So anyway, the latest thing with the girls is getting them to sleep through the night. The girls are 10 weeks old now. At 8 weeks we were still doing more of a baby led schedule and feeding just whenever they were hungry although when we fed one we fed the other to keep them eating together.

But they were sleeping a lot during the day and NOT sleeping most of the night. 10pm-4am was hell.

So to make things easier for us we started waking them every 2-3 hours during the day to feed them. They ate less at a feeding, but ever since starting this they have been sleeping from their last bottle (around 1-2am) till after 7am! It's been awesome.

We still feed them if hungry, but we'll wake them up if they're going too long during the day. I know by 8 weeks they would sleep up to 5 hours at a time about twice a day, so a good 6 hours or more between feedings, but they were doing it during the day instead of at night.

I was just trying to write out a schedule the other day for us to follow. We're not exactly on with these times, but approximately there. We do aim for 8 bottles a day as they take about 100ml average per bottle.

7am feeding, then nap (drive mommy to work time around 8am)
10am feeding, then tummy time if they can stay awake
12pm feeding, then nap
3pm feeding, then nap (pick up mommy at work time around 5pm)
6pm feeding, then sit with us at dinner
8pm feeding, then bath
10pm feeding, then nap
12am feeding, then down for the night

What we have found really important is that from 6pm on they eat every 2 hours. It makes evenings kind of hard with our Nicky too, but it's worth it to get a night's sleep! We usually end up letting them sleep too long a few times and so their last bottle is sometimes at 1-2am, but this is the goal anyway.

I've been back at work since July 16th, when they were 8 weeks old. I'm still not getting a lot of sleep at night, I mean 2-7am is only 5 hours after all, but I'm managing. It helps that I've been working some from home and some from work so far. But soon I think I'll have to go back to working only from the office. The good thing about that: daily showers.

I'll work on getting photos ready and up soon. Maybe even tomorrow!

So close to being DONE

2010-07-29T20:08:00.003-04:00

Hang in there. I've got one more paper due and then I'm DONE with my second masters degree. Thank goodness! I can't wait to cross school off my to-do list.

More posts will surely come when I'm not trying to do work, school and family.

In the meantime, we did the girls' two month pediatric visit. They are doing great. Lily was exactly 10lbs and Gabi was 10lbs 5oz. We did the shots. Not fun, but we had two nurses come in so they could both be done at one time. Three shots each. Poor babies. They quieted down well though. I had Gabi and Tom had Lily. They both first went beet red before the screaming started.

We talked with the doctor about our idea for getting their sleeping at night working better. She agreed with the plan of waking them to feed every 2 hours during the day. She said they should get about 32oz of formula a day, so we're trying to do most of that in the day and only one feeding in the middle of the night. If we really stick to the schedule (which is freaking hard) then it kind of works.

We were able to get a glider from a friend at work last week, and the next day Nana bought the girls a travel swing, and then two days after that another friend from work brought us another swing. This last one is the exact model we already had, and it's really working well! Lily likes the glider ok sometimes, and for awake time the travel swing works, but for sleeping the two matching swings are pretty hard to beat.

Nicky is off on an adventure at Nana's house. They just left today and will be gone about a week. They're going to the museum, the aquarium, the beach, etc. He's going to have an absolute blast. So I don't feel too guilty telling you that although we miss Nicky already we're feeling like we're on vacation with only having two babies at home right now!

Need sleep

2010-07-22T19:36:00.002-04:00

Finally. Ok, stomach flu is NOT the way I recommended getting more sleep. I had it from Saturday through Monday. Tom got it Tuesday and Wednesday. Now if we can just end it there that'd be good. I do not relish the thought of having sick babies with stomach flu.

Tomorrow is the girls' 2 month pediatric appointment. This is the biggie. They get their first shots. Double the needles, double the screams, double the tears. Not really looking forward to that. But Tom and I will both be there and so can both hold a baby immediately afterward at least.

We're guessing the girls weigh at least 10 lbs each, possibly 11. They'll be exactly 9 weeks old.

Our big question for the pediatrician is how we can get these girls sleeping at night! They were up to eat last night at 10:10, 12:10, 2:10 and 4:10. And since a feeding takes at least an hour, often two hours, that was a night of NO SLEEPING. Even once I got Gabi to sleep at 5:30, Lily still wouldn't settle down. I grabbed maybe an hour of sleep after that before getting up for work. Maybe.

That's right. Work. As in, paid work. I've gone back to work full time as of last Friday. I'm still finishing up my last two grad school classes too. Yeah, glutton for punishment right here. But I'll be done in about two weeks with my master's in library science degree. And then I'll just have work and family to contend with. No problem right?

Mostly I'm looking forward to having some time to do some fun reading for a change. Not a lot of course, but all the time I have to spend on homework now will be freed up. Of course some of that might be extra sleep time if I'm lucky.

In the meantime though, the mission is to get these babies sleeping at night. We're looking for a second swing too. Hopefully a free hand-me-down swing. We don't have the room for it, so it will totally be in the way, but I DO NOT CARE! Anything to get some sleep.

Update in two words

2010-07-19T17:31:00.001-04:00

Stomach flu.

Just me. Tom, Nicky and the girls are fine. I'm almost over it now, but it was horrible.

Another quick update and a movie

2010-07-09T18:16:00.002-04:00

Things are getting better and better. We have the girls on Zantac now for their reflux. They still spit up, but it doesn't hurt them so much now. This is helping at night especially.

Nicky's doing great. He really loves the girls and likes to hug, kiss and hold them. (With supervision of course.) He had some trouble at school lately with not following directions, but we took him off sugar and tightened up on his bedtime and he's done much better this week. He also just finished his swimming lessons for the summer. He's still not quite a swimmer, but he did really well in his class. We'll put him in lessons again next summer.

I'm trying to keep my head above water with my coursework and I have to go back to work this coming Friday. Ack! Not sure how we're going to manage that. We might take Nicky out of school for a while and have him go back for VPK (Voluntary Pre-K) in August when it starts to give him a little break. That might make it easier to work out transportation since we only have one car. We'll see.

A movie for you! The girls were chilling in the pack and play between bottles while Tom gave Nicky a bath.

Lily is on the left here:

Wherein I discuss swimming and sleeping

2010-06-29T03:21:00.004-04:00

What's been going on here?

Well Nicky has started swimming lessons. We've been wanting to do this since last summer and we finally signed him up. He had his first lesson Monday and loved it! I'm hoping that this gives him some good practice following directions. He's been having trouble focusing and following directions at school. Well, really everywhere.

It's the same issue we've always had, but now that he's four he's expected to be able to focus and follow instructions better. I don't think he's being willfully disobedient, I think he really just gets uber-distracted. It might be ADD as that does seem to run in my family, but I'm reluctant to have him tested and diagnosed this young. I don't think diagnosis would be appropriate yet and a label at this age wouldn't help him anyway. We'll just watch it and see if we can work on it.

Anyway, at swimming lessons Monday he had a good example of why we follow directions...he fell into the pool when he shouldn't have been. Luckily the teacher got to him quickly. His near-drowning didn't seem to make him fear the water which is good, but hopefully it brought home how important it is to be safe near the water and to listen to the teacher.

I'll send the camera with Tom tomorrow so he can take some photos. I wish I could be there too, but taking the girls and I along would be really hard and I'm not feeling up to driving him myself.

In fact, as an example of my sleep deprived state, Monday morning about 6am I finished feeding the girls, changed them and put Gabi in the crib and Lily in the swing. Nana is visiting us, and she was awake so I went into the kitchen to grab a bite and work on my homework. At the next feeding, Gabi woke up first and so I was breastfeeding her. I sent Nana in to get Lily and start waking her up for her turn. Well guess what Nana found? Lily was soaking wet...so was the swing. Odd. Hm, her onesie is un-snapped. And oh look...no diaper!

Yep. Somehow I'd managed to take off the old diaper, wipe her off, and then totally skip that important step of putting on the new diaper. Lovely.

Well that was a hint that maybe I needed to get a little more sleep. So after Tom returned from taking Nicky to swim lessons and school I took a nap. A 5.2 hour nap! It was great. I woke up for dinner. Did my homework. Fed a baby. Put Nicky to bed. And then took another nap! A 3.3 hour nap. That's 8.5 hours of sleep. It was awesome.

So now I just fed the babies their 1:30 feeding and put them down to sleep at 3am. And I was awake enough to post.

Now we'll see if I can grab another hour or so of sleep and maybe I can make it to the postpartum luncheon tomorrow. Tom's got to take Nicky to swim lessons and school, but I'm hoping Nana can take the girls and I to the luncheon. It would be nice to get out. I haven't left the house since the 18th.

Hey, I have a few photos for you:

Cuddles abound. Nicky has Gabi and Tom has Lily:

Nicky is such a good big brother. Here he's feeding Gabi:

It's hard to tell them apart, but we can finally do it!

The trick seems to be that their ears are slightly different. Each has a little bump on the upper outside of one ear. Nicky and I have this same bump. I actually have it on both ears, but the girls have them on opposite ears. Lily's is on the right, Gabi's is on the left. It seems to be a reliable way to tell them apart right now. But really, other than that...it's a total crapshoot.

Diaper Rash

2010-06-26T09:50:00.001-04:00

The girls weren't due for another pediatric appointment till sometime in July, but they both came down with a bad diaper rash that Desitin wouldn't fix shortly after I started breastfeeding them more. Poor Lily even cried her first real tears during a diaper change about it. We called the pediatrician (of course it was a Friday) and although they gave us ideas I really wanted them seen. I was worried about it being a yeast infection and not typical diaper rash. Or maybe an allergy to the new formula we'd just started the week before. Or maybe something in my breast-milk that they were allergic too... (cue spiral into Bad-Parenting Guilt Vortex of Doom)

So we took them in, after giving them an oatmeal bath:

and letting them have some naked time on towels:

They enjoyed that. We all enjoyed that. Well, except for the poop in the tub (courtesy of Gabi) and the poop on the towels... and the pee on the towels. Seriously we went through something like 12 towels for this bath!

The pediatrician said it wasn't yeast yet, but gave us some other stuff to use. She said it wasn't anything we did or did not do, and put my mind at ease because I was afraid it was from the breastfeeding that we were doing. She said they're just having more frequent poops because of the breastfeeding, and they are acidic and burn the skin. But that they didn't look at all like a food allergy to the breast-milk or the formula.

She said when diaper rash is this bad then the wipes hurt (because they have soap and alcohol in them, even the sensitive ones we use) and Desitin hurts too. So we started wiping them with soft cloths and water (like we did in the NICU) and using Maalox on their bottoms to neutralize the acid in their poops. We just patted it on with a cloth. (Bonus- it was mint flavored Maalox, so they had minty smelling bottoms for a while.) Then we just put on some Aquaphor . She showed us how to just squirt it on and said not to worry about spreading it around. The diaper and body heat would do it for us. That was good to hear, because that stuff is greasy! She gave us some Aquaphor samples to last us a few changes till Tom could go get some.

And you know what? That diaper rash that we had been fighting for two days started improving within hours. I'd say within 24 hours it was so much better, and within 48 it was totally gone. I still am Maalox-ing and Aquaphor-ing them after poops or if there's any hint of redness, but they're much happier babies. Oh, and I got a great idea from another mom on facebook to use the regular sensitive wipes we have, but to rinse them. This worked great since we were running out of those cloth wipes from the NICU pretty fast.

So diaper rash was conquered, breastfeeding is underway, oh, and my Dad suggested using those chucks pads on top of a towel while giving them naked time. Great idea! And we even have a whole bag of these things from when we were potty training Nicky.

Oh, and one more thing. So this was Friday, June 18th. The girls came home on June 1st. We went ahead while at the pediatrician and weighed the girls. They were in diapers and a little dress, so it's a rough weight, but still their clothes weren't that heavy.

Gabi weighed exactly 8lbs. Lily weighed only 2 ounces less. Awesome!

Happy Bottoms = Happy Babies

The Breastfeeding Plan

2010-06-26T08:50:00.009-04:00

So about 10 days ago I promised to tell you what the Lactation Consultant (LC) said.

And then I fell into a dark pit and disappeared for a while.

Ok, well actually I just was too tired and too busy to even think about blogging. I had a paper due (which I have another due now) and the babies were/are going through some kind of growth spurt that has me up all night feeding them constantly. And during the day I was awake to work on my paper and feed babies too, so was going with really no sleep other than the small catnaps I'd fall into every once in a while.

But yesterday a call came out over twitter to help answer a question for an expectant mom of twins about breastfeeding. I couldn't just let that go un-heeded since I'm still in the middle of that same issue, so I started answering and realized I had a whole post written.

So here you go.

Let me set the stage for you. I have a four year old who I really wanted to nurse, but had so much trouble with latching and supply that I ended up giving up after 3 weeks of pumping.

So with my second pregnancy I was determined to make breastfeeding work. I was thinking about this way back when we started trying for baby #2 in 2006 even. I was going to make sure to attend LLL meetings BEFORE giving birth. I knew I needed to establish a support network of people who I could ask for help before the babies came. Especially once we found out they were twins. I think this is REALLY important. I didn't even have to join to attend meetings at my local LLL group. They have an email group so I was able to ask questions even while still in the hospital.

I also worked a lot with the LC while the girls were in the NICU. That's a reality I was prepared for this time, while I hadn't expected it with Nicky. Luckily the twins were big, over 6lbs each at 36 weeks gestation, but still they were in the NICU for 12 days. While we were there I pumped like a fiend, and this time I was also able to board in the hospital with the girls to practice nursing. With Nicky I was sent home on day 4. I was able to nurse the twins with help from the LC (and with a nipple shield) but it was still really hard with twins. Not a lot of sleeping going on for me. Mostly they were getting formula as my supply wasn't enough for both of them yet.

Once home I pumped some with my new fancy Medela Pump In Style that I insisted we buy immediately, but between feeding the babies, taking care of Nicky, and trying to sleep and recover from the c-section, pumping was just too much. Getting either baby to latch on took lots of pillows and props and definitely two hands. Tandem nursing was just out of the question for us at this time.

My supply was dwindling away. At the high point I could get one ounce from each side. But now I was only pumping one ounce total from both sides. I could see this going the same way it had with Nicky where I basically just dwindled to nothing in 3 weeks.

So I came up with a plan.

Basically I'm not afraid to give my babies formula. I know for a fact it's good enough. They'd be perfectly healthy on it. To deal with the financial issue of formula feeding twins, I even went ahead and got on WIC which pays for the formula.

However, I DO want them to get the antibodies and good stuff in breast-milk as much as possible. With Nicky in preschool and me working at the university we're exposed to all sorts of germs and the babies need that extra protection. And I also very much want to experience breastfeeding myself. You know me, I'm all about experiencing the most out of pregnancy, birth and mothering because I thought for so long that I'd never have the chance.

But the girls were so small and my boobs so huge (and they would smother if I didn't use two hands due to my anatomy, contrary to all the things you read on breastfeeding) that I just couldn't tandem nurse to save any time right now. My supply also wasn't high enough to exclusively bf even if I did it one at a time, and so often they were both hungry at the same time. Bottle feeding two at a time was hard enough!

So my plan was to keep my supply existent, forget about trying to increase supply with pumping fiendishly. Just keep it in existence until the girls are old enough to have more head and hand control and they can better latch themselves and look out for their own breathing. Then we can try more tandem nursing and I can let them nurse on demand and see if it can increase my supply to meet their wants then. They'll have a stronger suck then too and hopefully be more efficient. If they still have to have formula too, well I'm ok with that. Nursing can be the fun bonding thing and bottles can be the main food source. No problem. We'll let the babies drive that bus.

I ran my plan by the LC during one of the postpartum luncheons they have on Tuesdays. She agreed that it was a great plan. She actually praised me for doing as much as I had already with the twins and said to throw any negative feelings I had out the window. That was so nice to hear! She suggested that I put a time limit on the girls because as it was they would nurse forever if I let them, and then still take a whole bottle, but that would wear them out and use up too many calories for them. So at each feeding, when possible, I latch at least one baby on for only 10 minutes. Both (one at a time) if they'll let me or if I have help to have someone else bottle feed one while I bf the other for 10 minutes. This should keep my supply existent and keep the babies practicing at latching.

So we've been doing this for almost two weeks now. The babies are so much better at latching. I haven't pumped at all and DO NOT feel guilty about it (other than having a really expensive pump we bought that I'm not using). Occasionally if one baby is awake while the other is sleeping I will let them nurse longer, but for the most part it's only 10 minutes. It's not every feeding, especially not at night when I'm trying to snatch every available second to sleep myself (and only getting about 3 non-consecutive hours if that). But it's at least 4x a day I'd say. I think my supply might be increasing too. I might even pump one day soon, just to see if I'm getting any more that way (I was only getting a total of one ounce for both breasts before).

But right now this is working for us. The girls are definitely getting some breast-milk and the pediatrician and the LC both think this plan is very good. They both said that every little bit they get is great. So basically, they're formula fed babies that are supplemented with breast-milk. I think of it as their "medicine" or their "vitamins".

Oh yes, I did run this by the pediatrician too. That visit will be the next post!

This morning's feeding

2010-06-17T10:04:00.004-04:00

This morning the girls fussing woke up Nicky. He came in to see what was going on and wanted to hold a baby. So I finished changing Lily and set him up to feed her while I changed Gabi.

He loves his little sisters so much!

He fed Lily about half her bottle before he got tired and wanted to go watch Diego. Then I took over. It wasn't long before they were both done and knocked out. Tom captured the moment.

I tried putting on my mask and catching a few extra zzz's, but couldn't relax enough to sleep. Aw well.

So, so tired

2010-06-17T03:23:00.003-04:00

Babies are fine. Nicky is fine. Tom and I are fine I suppose, but man, we are so tired.

We've been trying to trade off with him taking days and me taking nights, but while I've been able to stay awake all night fine (trying to do classwork and stuff between feedings) I sometimes don't get to actually sleep much during the day. Sometimes because we have to go somewhere (like the pediatrician, the WIC office and the lactation consultant-more on that in a minute) and sometimes because I still need to be "on" when Tom is taking Nicky to and from school or out to the store. If the babies happen to stay asleep while he's gone, then I can too, but they seem to like to wake up when he's out picking Nicky up and at the store specifically.

And I'm sure it's not easy on Tom either. With me sleeping during the day, that means especially on weekends he's dealing with all three kids at once where I usually only have the twins at night. He does get to sleep from about midnight to 9am usually, but sometimes he'll hear the crying if they are both up at once and hungry, and then he'll come help me.

Don't get me wrong though. I swear we have the least-cryingest babies ever. Very similar to Nicky. Oh they'll fuss, but they're very easy to console. Just pick them up and snuggle them. Give them a binky, a bottle, a change or a cuddle and they'll settle right down. We feel extremely fortunate about this! I think you'd have to drive us all to the funny farm if one or both were colicky.

But we are trying to not get into the habit of having them sleep ON us too much. They usually do a bit though as they fall asleep so much while we're feeding them, but we do try to swaddle them and put them in their crib or pack-n-play for sleep time between feedings. I know at night they'd sleep longer stretches if I just held them, but trying to break them both of that habit later doesn't sound like much fun, and holding one was easier and I think safer than trying to sleep holding two. Maybe if we had a king size bed we could just cosleep, but we definitely can't in our queen bed and they're kind of hard to sleep near. We have an Armsreach co-sleeper in our room at the foot of the bed, but they're NOISY sleepers! We sit there waking up at each grunt, mumble and squeak they make, anticipating them waking and fussing every moment. Not really conducive to a sound sleep.

Oh, and I keep forgetting. I actually am taking two last grad classes this summer to finish up my degree. They're online classes, so I thought I could manage it as long as I get maternity leave from work especially. Well, they meet Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, and I've been having a hard time remembering and attending them! I thought we'd gotten enough into a routine that surely this week I could make it to both classes. Well, I DID make it to Wednesday's, even though that meant I had only 2 hours of sleep during the day. (Tom let me sleep after though from about 9-1am thank goodness!) See, I stayed up to work on homework for that class and so didn't sleep before it. Lovely.

But Tuesday's class? Totally slept right through it. While sleep is awesome, it was so annoying to have missed it again! I just feel like an idiot emailing my instructor again to say I missed class. But I suppose I need to suck it up and just do it. The good thing is I can watch the taped version of the class, but it's not the same as attending. I watched the last 3 weeks that I'd missed, and actually found myself trying to participate at least once. That really doesn't work when you're watching a taped version after the fact though.

Gah, This makes three times during writing this post that Gabi has fussed. She's in her crib with Lily, but fussing and wants her binky. What she really wants is to be held though, so I better get on it. She might also be getting hungry as her last feeding started at 1:10am, but then she did fall asleep and only ate the last part of her bottle at like 3! One feeding just runs into the next at night it seems like.

Well, this time doesn't last forever right?

Oh, and note to self...talk about the lactation consultant luncheon I went to on Tuesday. Next post, Promise.

Title Shmitle- At least it's a post. Hey, I can't remember everything

2010-06-12T00:14:00.010-04:00

We're getting better at this I think. Well, maybe.

It was a rough week though. Last weekend, Saturday, we had to put Sampson down. He was 11 years old and while we'd removed the cancer from his chest, the non-cancerous growth on his leg started growing, and then last week we found a huge new mass on his side. Saturday though was the day we really started seeing him in pain, and Tom took him to the vet. The vet confirmed that his spleen was enlarged. While it is sad to let him go, by far the hardest part was telling Nicky.

Saturday night, Nicky woke up and vomited twice. We thought perhaps it was due to coughing as his asthma had been acting up a bit. But when he projectile vomited all over the backseat as Tom was taking him to the movies on Sunday, well we knew it was something else. Poor thing! His outing to the movie How to Train Your Dragon had to be put off, and he was horribly sick all night Sunday night. Tom stayed in his room with him and I took care of the twins. Monday he was on just fluids, and feeling much better. Tuesday he was back to school and 100%. Hopefully he and Tom can try the movie trip again tomorrow with better results.

We've settled into a workable routine this past week or so. It's not ideal, and not sustainable once one of us returns to work, but for now we're surviving. Basically from Midnight to about 9am I'm on deck with the twins. It works better now to have them sleep in the nursery at this time and I typically feed them in there now during the night. We had them sleeping in our room in a cosleeper for a while and I fed them there, but really neither Tom nor I slept very well with them in there as we wake at every little grunt and squeak. And with two, there is a lot of squeaking going on!

During the night I try to get a shower in at least every other night between feedings some time, and then try to nap between a feeding or two for an hour or two. I usually am not very successful in the napping though. By about 9am I'm ready to keel over and so Tom gets up and takes over. I try to sleep for a good 8 hours then and wake up in time for dinner. Once I'm up, we share the feedings up till about midnight-ish when Tom goes to bed for his 8 hours. So, not the best solution, but it's working for now.

We've had my mom and now Tom's mom here since bringing the girls home, so that gives us some help with the daytime feedings especially. When it's one person feeding it takes a good hour or more, but with two it can be done in 30-45 minutes usually. So that helps. Also, Donna is taking Nicky to and from school this week, and that helps a lot too. We'll see how well this works once it's just us.

Twice this week were particularly rough though. Wednesday we had the girls' first pediatric appointment at 11am, so that meant I didn't really get my full sleep in there. And then we had an 8:30am appointment Friday morning which meant my daytime sleep was off again. But right now we don't really leave the house too often, so this shouldn't happen too much.

Their pediatrician was thrilled with the girls by the way. They've been home since June 1st and in 8 days Lily gained 13oz and Gabi gained 12oz! That puts Lily at 6lb 15oz and Gabi up to 7lb 3oz. We knew they were gaining, and they are up to about 3oz a feeding now, but we were thrilled to see the results on the scale.

The pediatrician was also fine with the toenail painting idea. She said to go ahead and use remover to take it off Lily, and then pick two colors and just do their big toes. So we'll do that soon. She wasn't worried about using any particular kind of polish, so I might just check my stash to see what I have. Or if I do get out of the house maybe I'll pick up a bottle for each of them. We'll see.

Speaking of stores, we found out that the girls were fine to start on regular formula too. We'd been having them on the Neosure stuff, which has extra calories, since the NICU. But with their good gains they can be on the regular stuff now. That works out nicely because our Friday appointment was to get the kids and I on WIC. On the way home we used one of the coupons for formula and that worked out great! It was actually quite easy to do for the formula, although it looks a little more complicated for Nicky and I, so we'll conquer that later. That puts the girls on regular Goodstart formula, although we're still using the liquid, not the powder because of the risk of E. Sakazakii.

At the grocery store the girls were quite the hit. We received many congratulations and complements on them. And everyone kept their distance which was nice. The pediatrician had warned us to keep them as isolated as possible till after their 2 month vaccinations, so it was good to take them during such and off-peak time to the store. Not many people shopping at 11am on a Friday in the summer here. Go figure.

I think that about catches us up to date. I do have a few new photos for you too of course. Ok, I'm going to try to do these chronologically:

All ready to go home from the NICU. (Gabi is in the orange carrier.)

At the OB office on discharge day. This is the guy who got us all through this! (Lily is on the left.)

Nicky has been a wonderful big brother! Here he is with Gabi and I.

Once we got them home there were a lot of snuggles going on. (Lily is on the left here.)

What Momma does when they're both hungry at once (Lily has the green bottle):

Lily's first at-home bath:

Gabi's first at-home bath:

Oh and one more thing. I was able to weigh myself finally today with all the swelling finally gone. Last time I weighed was right before having the babies, and then on June 1st after having them. Both weights were the same! What I lost in babies, I gained in water. But now the water is finally gone, and I lost 35.5 lbs of water! Only 23.5lb to go to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight (which recall I'd just lost 40lbs). Not really stressing about following any diet right now, because honestly it's all I can do to remember to eat something most of the time. When I get the babies down after a feeding and my choices are sleep or eat, well, sleep wins most of the time. But once we're all established and have the income coming back in I'll get back on WW and lose it all and more!

If you're wondering

2010-06-03T21:51:00.005-04:00

If you're wondering why I haven't answered your call/voicemail/email...

This is why:

Yeah, that's at about 3 in the afternoon or so yesterday. In the same shirt I'd been wearing two days. I think I did manage a shower and a change of clothes after that though.

So if you're waiting on a return call or email, well hang in there. I'm trying to do the same.

Just a quickie update

2010-06-03T01:36:00.002-04:00

I owe you photos I know, but I wanted to let you know we're home. The girls gained really well the night I had them in the room. Lily is up to her birth weight of 6lb 2oz and Gabi is one oz up from her birth weight at 6lb 7oz. They were discharged Tuesday around 12:30 and then we headed up for my follow up OB visit. I think I have a great picture of my OB with the girls, but it's still on the camera. Will get to that when I can.

Oh, and the NICU nurse painted Lily's toenails a pale pink. I wasn't very happy about that I admit. It will make it easier to keep track of who is who, BUT I really wanted to check on that with the pediatrician first. Their little nails are so porous and there are all sorts of chemicals in there. But what can I do now? I certainly don't want to take nail polish remover to them!

So back to the real world I come. Well, sort of. I'm still on maternity leave of course, so don't have to worry about work. But back to my house, my family, my bills (ugh), and grad school.

I've missed two weeks of classes now, but I'm starting to feel like we're getting our legs under us at this point and I should be able to get back in the swing of things for next week.

Of course, my mom has been here though, and she'll be leaving this weekend sometime. We'll see how we handle running this ship on our own for sure then! She's done a great job keeping us fed and running the routine household chores as well as helping watch Nicky and help with the girls too. I'm so grateful for her help!

Well, it's already 1:40am and the next feeding will be between 2:30 and 3:30, so I better try to grab an hour or so while I can. I plan to do this feeding so that Tom can function at getting Nicky to school and stuff tomorrow.

The girls are already 2 weeks old! Time flies.

A Room With a View

2010-05-31T23:35:00.005-04:00

So today I skipped the 8am feeding and let the NICU nurses do it. This let me just pump and sleep till noon. After a good 24 hours of only sleeping an hour or so at a time, that was really nice.

At noon though, when the nurse called, she offered to bring them to me! The girls were off their monitors and can now room in with me. So since then they've been here for me to care for on my own. Good thing I got that extra bit of sleep this morning.

So all the sudden, the view from my room has vastly improved:

It's almost midnight and we're doing pretty good. Of course my mom came over here for a while this afternoon and helped with the 3-4pm feeding. And then later Tom came to help with the 10-11pm feeding.

After the last feeding, Tom and I tested each other on whether the twins are identical or not. We always expected they would be fraternal as I was on clomid and that increases your chances of dropping two eggs at once. But each day as they both gain weight, they look more and more identical! So we put them both in matching outfits, put matching hats on them to cover their bows (which is how we've been telling them apart, pink bow for Gabi and yellow bow for Lily). Then we swaddled them in matching blankets and arranged them on the bed while the other one wasn't looking.

Tom failed.

I failed.

Seriously, we had a 50/50 chance of getting it right and we both couldn't get it right! I think we just might have identical twins.

Could you tell them apart?

So now we're thinking of ways to make sure we keep track of who is who. I've had several people mention painting their toenails, or just a dot on each big toe. I'll ask their doctor about that on Friday as I'm not comfortable with that quite yet. Their nails are so porous right now, and there are chemicals in there that might not be safe. So we'll see about that.

Right now all I have are the bows, which I think are genius actually. They've worn the same ones since day 3 or so, and they haven't come off yet. They aren't tied in their hair, instead they're adhered on there with KY Jelly. And of course will wash right off in water. Cool huh. And very cute of course. Along with the bows, we'll be mostly dressing them in different colors too. Right now it's pinks for Gabi and yellows for Lily., We might add in green for Gabi and purple for Lily too.

I'm open for other suggestions though!

But as long as we do well tonight and they show a good weight gain by the next feeding, they'll be coming home tomorrow. Tom and I got them both to take 65 & 60 milliliters each at this last feeding, so around 2am I'll be sending them to the nurse for weighing. We'll see!

I also see the OB for a follow up tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to showing the girls off up there. And then taking them home!

My THREE kids

2010-05-31T01:36:00.003-04:00

Me and my three kids.

Whoa.

That photo was taken Friday May 28th. I'm still not sure it has really sunk in that I actually have THREE children now. I expect it will hit me once the girls and I finally go home. For the last 10 days it's been kind of like being in another world here at the hospital and NICU.

So yes. We're still here. Although rumor has it we might get to go home Monday or Tuesday. We have the carseats here where the nurses will put them in and monitor them to make sure they can tolerate the positioning of a carseat for the ride home. They received their Hep B vaccines tonight. They haven't had a brady since last Monday, so really we're just waiting for them to both show consistent weight gains. Gabi has, but Lily has at least one more gain to go as I understand it. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

But I think we're ready.

Once out of the bili lights, the girls have been able to share a bassinet. That's Gabi on the left. Looks like she likes it:

Nicky holding Gabi:

Nicky holding Lily:

Wednesday morning update

2010-05-26T08:58:00.006-04:00

Gabi in one of her awake moments:

Lily, finally free of the cannula!

Lily was taken off the cannula, and later the IV, on Tuesday morning. She's so much more comfortable now!

Tuesday night their levels were finally high enough to put them under the bili lights. I think they'll be so much more alert and interested in feeding once their bilirubin levels have been lowered. We'll find out sometime today how long they need to be under the lights, but it's usually at least 24 hours according to the nurse.

And finally, Tuesday I was so tired, and every time I'd hold one baby she'd fall asleep on me and then the other would cry. Then I'd put the sleeping one down and pick up the other baby. She'd fall asleep and then the other would cry. This was my solution:

That's Gabi on the left and Lily on the right.

I only have a moment with wifi this morning in the cafe at the hospital, so I couldn't do much, but I HAD to share this with you:

Finally they're together again. They've been in separate bassinets pretty much since being out of my tummy. I think they're going to love sharing a bed soon!

Ok, so not all in chronological order, and not my most coherent post, but that was Tuesday!

Sunday update, a day late

2010-05-24T23:25:00.005-04:00

So so tired.

Both babies are doing well. We did find out today that every time they have a brady, which is what they call a heart deceleration of below 80 beats per minute (brady is short for bradycardia), they earn another 5 days in the special care nursery. They both had episodes today, so they'll be in until at least Saturday.

Gabi is off the IV and the nasal cannula today. Lily is still on both, but she's being weaned off the cannula gradually and if she can eat 25ml of breastmilk or formula on a consistent basis we can wean her off the IV too. That would be welcome indeed! They're both still being closely monitored for their breathing and heartbeats though, so still dealing with a lot of wires. They are both out of the warmers though, and we can dress them in outfits from home. They're wearing newborn sizes now and they're roomy, but the preemie stuff is already too small for them. They're nice and big!

Nicky really liked going to see them in the nursery and went several times. The NICU nurses were quite taken with him and made him a big brother bracelet (like mommy and daddy had).

Nicky actually went on his first big adventure yesterday though. Sunday he went home with Nana to stay with her for a few days. I cried my eyeballs out of course, but he was so excited to go. He's been asking to do that for months now, so we finally relented. He packed his new rolling suitcase and backpack with his daddy and was all ready to go! They made it to Nana's just fine, and have been having a good time. But he was getting pretty bored today, so Nana arranged to have him spend tomorrow with Gayle and Colin! He's going to have an absolute ball there! He loves playing with Colin so much, and he gets to spend the night with him too. He'll be coming home Thursday I believe, and I'm looking forward to hearing all about his big adventure when he gets home.

As for me, well I'm still in quite a bit of pain. This hurts so much worse than it did with Nicky. I guess it's because it's a second pregnancy and it was twins, so there's a lot more shrinking, moving around, and rearranging going on in there. But knowing why it hurts more just really doesn't help much.

What does help is going to see the babies. So I do that as much as possible. We're tryign to breastfeed at each feeding and then give them expressed milk or formula to top them off. They're not reliably breastfeeding yet, and usually will latch on suckle about three times and fall straight to sleep. Poor babies are so happy to be held I think that they relax and just sleep. I'm totally happy to just cuddle them though, so no complaints from me! I wasn't able to hold them till Sunday, so they're lucky I ever put them down at this point.

But I do have to put them down sometimes because I'm just beat. Occasionally I'll miss a feeding or two to get some sleep, not as often as Tom and my mom would like though. I just enjoy being with them too much. But I know I do need rest, so I'm trying to get that too. Right now I'm trying going to sleep through their 12am feeding and then I'll do the 3am feeding and let the nurses do the 6am feeding since that's right before the shift change and the feedings are a lot faster without me. I missed the 9pm feeding though too, so I'd better get back to pumping. Maybe I'll load up some images here for you while I do that.

Photos from Sunday:
Nicky, the big brother!

Lily and Nana:

Lily and Daddy

Lily and Momma:

Nicky looks worried about Lily's fussing:

Gabi and Daddy:

Gabi and Aunt Liz:

Gabi and Momma:

Nicky and Gabi:

Photos from Monday coming soon!

Baby updates

2010-05-22T21:37:00.002-04:00

Lily and Gabi are doing well. They're still on the cpap, but they're starting to wean them off gradually. This means, they were at a pressure of 6, but have been moved down to a pressure of 5. If they continue to do well at that pressure they'll either move them down to a 4 or possibly skip that and go straight to the nasal cannula. Once they're on the cannula I can hold them and start trying to breastfeed. I can't wait!

I'm off to pump for them again and then off to visit. They're in the special nursery which is actually quite far from my point of view, but I'm planning to have Tom wheel me there so that I can use up my energy standing by the bassinets talking to them.

I tell you, once we're finally allowed to pick them up, I doubt we'll ever set them down. Just like Nicky. He was held 24/7 for quite a while!

As for me, well I'm still hurting badly. Stupid contractions. I'm no longer on the pitocin, and I've actually been disconnected from everything today (catheter, IV, leg cuffs) but the contractions continue and they HURT! This time is much more painful than it was with Nicky, so I'm guessing it's because it was twins and everything was just stretched out of place more this time. I am moving better though, and that's important! I have to be able to get over there to see my babies!

Nicky is doing great. He's very quiet in the NICU and likes to go visit the girls. This afternoon he went there and the nurses (who he has completely won over) gave him his own "big brother" bracelet to wear. Since Mom and Dad had bracelets it only seemed fair. We'll see how the adjustment goes once they're home, but for now he's doing great!

They're HERE!

2010-05-21T20:51:00.005-04:00

Lilianna Elizabeth and Gabriella Concetta were born this morning, on May 21st (the first day of Gemini by the way) at 8:49am. Literally, they were born within the same minute! Lily was pulled out first by a few seconds, followed very quickly by Gabi.

They were great sizes too! Lily is 6lbs 2oz and 19.25 inches. Gabi is 6lbs 6oz and 19.75 inches. Remarkably similar sizes aren't they!

More details to follow when I can put together a coherent sentence, but for now... the promised pictures:

The last belly picture! Taken yesterday late. We'll count it as 36 weeks:

The bellies of this twin pregnancy. Quite impressive I must say!

Mama with Nicky about an hour after the surgery. My firstborn.

I finally was able to get up and make the trip, via wheelchair, to the special care nursery at about 5pm, and Tom snapped a few photos of me. I was in a lot of pain, but wanted to make the trip before I got more pain medicine so I'd be more alert.

Mama with Lily, my second-born.

Mama with Gabi, my third-born.

More photos of Lily:

And more of Gabi:

They're just having a little fluid in their lungs and so are on the cpap and prophylactic antibiotics until they can tell if it's simply amniotic fluid or something more sinister like RSV or pneumonia. I personally think they have the same issue Nicky had at first with some fluid in there. I was mentally ready to have them in the special care nursery for about a week, so I'm not doing too badly this time. I am pumping, trying to get some going for them. No luck yet, but I'll keep trying!

I'm in a lot of pain, but they were so worth it! I can't wait to hold them. It's hard to not be able to hold them now, but hopefully they won't be on the cpap very long.

We have a new date!

2010-05-20T13:26:00.002-04:00

The ultrasound went great today. No measurements of course, but both babies were big, breathing and moving around. They're both head down and feet up, not that this matters much for a c-section, but it explains why I can't breathe worth a crap right now! The placenta even looks good still. They are starting to really run out of room though now, and so that's why we're not feeling a lot of movement this week.

At the OB appointment my OB came in and said "when do you want to do this?" I laughed and told him my bags were in the car. Which, they were. I was going to be prepared for anything! Well we discussed it and he is thrilled we've made it to this point and wants to go ahead and get them out now while things are good. There is the risk that they might need some breathing support possibly, but really it's only one week early, so they might be just fine too.

So our new date is...TOMORROW!

Yep, we go in at 6am tomorrow and the c-section is at 8am. We're all set to go! I'm not getting any morphine this time as it makes my nose itch horribly. And so I'm getting Toradol and On-Q instead. I am GBS+ so I'll also be getting antibiotics via IV along with saline and some glucose.

I can't eat or drink after midnight tonight and I am taking my last insulin shot (theoretically) tonight too.

I think that's all the orders I have. The OB wasn't sure if there is wi-fi in the hospital rooms or not, so we'll see. I will have my laptop though, so if possible I'll update soon after I recover from surgery.

Oh, and I'll be sure to snag one last belly pic too!

This is so exciting!

Still pregnant!

2010-05-18T08:57:00.005-04:00

Well, before my appointment yesterday we made sure that I had my bags packed for the hospital. I was hoping it would be like good juju against going in to have them without my OB there. We found out he was out of town yesterday so I didn't want to have to have them until he returned and could do the c-section you know.

It worked.

Everything's still closed up. The babies hadn't really moved all morning though, and so the OB sent us down to Labor and Delivery for a non-stress test. Basically they just set up the monitors and try to get a good 20 minutes of each baby's heartbeat to make sure they're ok. Of course they started bopping around like crazy once the monitors were strapped on. They have a heck of a time trying to locate the heartbeats and stay on them though. The appointment was at 1:10. We left after 4pm sometime. I was so exhausted when I got home!

This is what 35 weeks and 3 days looks like when you're about to have an NST and aren't sure if this will be "it" or not.

Yeah, I made Tom take that, just in case they rushed us into a c/s right from the NST. I wasn't taking any chances!

My bag packing is so much simpler than last time with Nicky. With Nicky I was expecting to go natural and un-medicated (well, pain meds anyway) and so I had a long list of everything I could think of as diversions and labor aids. Extra pillows, birth ball, music, computer, knitting, etc. Of course I barely used any of them. Except the music, but I could have saved a lot of room by just having Vivaldi's CD instead of the giant book of CDs I brought. All I wanted to listen to were violins at Nicky's birth.

But this time I know I'm going in for a c-section. So I don't expect them to let me labor much, if at all. Also, this time Tom won't room in with me, he'll have to go home to be with Nicky, so he can certainly bring me anything I need. And I have a better idea of what they provide at the hospital too.

So this is my list for my hospital bags and it all fit in two bags plus my purse:
CPAP bag:
CPAP machine, mask, hose and power supply
nasal gel, chapstick, medicines, toothpaste
notebook, advance directive, deck of cards (well it fit, so I left them in there)

Laptop bag:
Laptop, mouse, power supply
camera, cord, extra batteries
cell phone charger

Purse:
List of people to call when in labor
Calendar planner
Cell phone

That's it. Of course I have my makeup and other things in my purse, but other than wanting to add in a comb and deodorant in there somewhere I think that's all I'm taking.

I do have a going home outfit for me all ready in my closet for Tom to grab when he comes to bring me home, and I or Tom will pick out going home outfits for the girls once we know their sizes. But other than that I think I'm set. I don't worry about a toothbrush, pajamas, undies or socks/slippers because the hospital provides those Although maybe I'll have Tom pick up one of those small shampoo, conditioner, body wash, deodorant kits they have for a few dollars though. Just to use right before coming home. They do provide soap and stuff, but it's not the good stuff.

So anyway, we're heading to the OB, my OB, this Thursday. I'll be a day shy of 36 weeks and we're supposed to be revisiting the induction date then. We'll see what he says.

Just a quickie

2010-05-17T10:11:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to post a quick update. The babies are still in there, but I've had contractions all weekend, sometimes up to 8-10 minutes apart for over an hour. But I've held off going to the L&D because I knew they'd go ahead and pull them. Which sounds weird, since I'm so ready to do this right? But I really would prefer to have my regular OB do the surgery, so I wanted to wait till the week started.

I put in a call to the OB's office first thing this morning and just was called back. Of course my OB isn't there today! But the OB I've seen a few times during this pregnancy was, and she wants me to come in to be checked. We don't want these babies to just pop out on their own, so we go in today at 1:10pm.

I'm trying to make sure all my work is caught up as much as possible before then, so I'll get back to it! Just had to put an update on here!

They're getting so close!

34 weeks

2010-05-08T11:52:00.006-04:00

As of yesterday, we're 8.5 months or 34 weeks pregnant! Can you believe we've gotten this far with twins? Thursday we had our BPP ultrasound and OB appointment. I was expecting to get new measurements, but the tech said we get them every THIRD visit, so not till next week. OY! That was a disappointment. I was hoping to hear how big they were since 2 weeks ago they were getting close to 5 lbs each. By next week they might be closer to 6! They were measuring 2 weeks ahead last time, so if that holds true then they'd be now about the size of 36 weekers. Sheesh!

But the babies both look good and they even still have room to move in there. In fact they both moved (Wednesday night I think) to be side by side with their heads up and feet down. Both breech. And both facing backwards so that we couldn't get any photos of them. Baby A is kind of behind Baby B a bit too. Good thing I'm having a c-section, otherwise I'd be all kinds of worried since neither of them seem interested in being head down in there lately!

The OB was happy with how everything is going. I've spent this week working from home with my feet up, and it really shows! I actually lost 3 pounds since last week, and I'm pretty sure that was all below my knees. I am still quite anemic though. Numbers were lower again this week at a 9.7 hematocrit. That's after the iron transfusion in March, B12 shots, which I'm still doing weekly, and oral iron supplements. Guess I'm just going to have to wait till after the babies and then I can have some blood for myself for a change!

So mostly I've been tired, it's been harder to breath since Thursday morning (due to their new positions I think), and moving is getting really uncomfortable. Can you see why?

I'm getting a bit nervous about when these girls might decide to show up though. I had a deal with them to just let me get through my presentation Friday (which I did!) and then they are free to pick whatever time they want. They should be plenty big enough to do really well on the outside. I would hope they'd wait till we get our summer financial aid, that would just make it easier financially, but whatever happens happens.

I have made arrangements for my mother to come up soon though. I definitely need her to be here for the birth as our plan is similar to last time: once the babies arrive, Tom is to stay with the babies and send my mother in to me in the recovery room. It helped to know she was there last time. So she's actually coming up here this Tuesday. That should give her a little time to help us get the finishing touches done for getting the house organized too.

Speaking of getting organized, I think I said before that I've been making lists. Well we finally got our master bedroom closet organized! It was a nightmare in there. But it's all set now, and my bags and bags of knitting and crocheting projects are now all organized in shoe boxes in the top of my closet. I went ahead and THREW AWAY some yarn. (which now I feel guilty about, so will probably pull out and add to the give-away pile instead) It was acrylic and I just hate the feel of it. I know darn well I'll never knit with it. I'm really partial to the cotton yarn and so I think I'll make sure to stick with only buying yarn I LOVE the color AND the feel of from now on.

Classes for summer start this week coming up too. Maybe I'll work at getting a little ahead in those in anticipation of the birth coming up. Or maybe I'll just keep reading through the twilight series again. It took me a few days, but I finally gave in and re-read Twilight. Now I'm working on New Moon again. I think we loaned out out copy of Eclipse though, so I might wait on that. Plus I'd hate to reread it right before seeing the movie anyway. It always ruins the movie if you remember too much about how it's "supposed" to go. I wonder if we'll be able to get a sitter and the energy to go out to see it in the theaters this summer. That would be nice!

About that OB appointment last week

2010-05-04T22:49:00.004-04:00

So last week Thursday, Nicky was sick and we had no one to watch him. So we decided the only real option was to leave him home with Tom and I drove myself to my appointments. We were a little nervous about this. I've only driven twice since January, and the last time was to take Nicky to that birthday party in February. But I managed to fit behind the wheel, barely, and did a pretty good job of it.

The hardest part was walking from the parking garage to the doctor's office lobby. There was no way I could wheel myself, and definitely no way I could lift the wheelchair in and out of the trunk even if I could. So I had to walk. There is never any handicapped parking available there. Well, except when we go to L&D in the middle of the night. So I parked as close to the elevator as I could on the 2nd floor of the parking garage.

I made it to the lobby and sat for a rest a bit. Then headed up to the ultrasound for our weekly BPP. The tech was very complimentary and said I looked better and better every time she saw me. So maybe that walk did manage to put some color in my cheeks.

No measurements that day, but both babies did all their tricks and scored 8/8 points on their tests. The first thing she saw was that Baby B (Gabi) has a LOT of hair! You could see it floating all around her head. Nicky had a lot of hair for a baby, so looks like Gabi will follow in his footsteps.

Now, Gabi was still transverse (side to side) with her head to my right. She was facing straight forward, so we managed to get some frontal facial pictures of her. Check them out!

Can you see her?

How about now?

What a face! And this is just a regular ultrasound, not a 3D!

We are so excited about these images. It's so neat to see her little face!

Baby A (Lily) was no longer head down though. She has moved to be transverse also, but with her head to my left. She was facing straight down though, so no good images of her this time.

You'd think they'd be head to foot, but there was one angle with the wand where she could show their heads right next to each other, so I figure they might be in more of an X position in there somehow. It's good that I'm having a planned c-section because I don't have to stress at all about what position they are in!

After the ultrasound, it was time for my OB visit. I headed down the hall for that and everything went well. My iron levels are STILL low. Not much improvement at all yet. So much for the magical B12 injections huh. Not sure what we'll do about this. At least they weren't lower though.

My weight is up now a total of 63 pounds. Yeesh. I'm trying not to worry about it. I know I'm eating well. I have to because of the gestational diabetes. So I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and it'll all come off once I have the babies and return to Weight Watchers. Two healthy babies will be worth every extra pound I have to lose.

My OB was very happy with my glucose levels by the way. I'm doing really well on the 28 units of insulin.

Also, I should soon have a new CPAP machine! My OB wrote the script for an APAP, which is a CPAP machine that can be set to Auto where it will increase as needed if I have apnea events. Instead of being set to a single pressure it can be set to a range of pressures and auto adjust to your needs. I can't wait! I'm supposed to pick it up next Monday. It was actually supposed to be today, but I swear my DME people don't know their ear from their elbow.

After the OB, I walked back down to the lobby, rested and then back to the car. Then I drove to the diabetic counselor. She was very happy with my numbers too. Although she did say my after dinner numbers could be better. It appears that bread just really increases the heck out of my blood sugars, so I should try to avoid that at dinner.

After the diabetic counselor I headed out to the lobby to rest and called Tom. He'd been trying to call me while I was in the office with her. Turns out that his mom, Nicky's Nana, had just gotten a call about the biopsy she'd just had the day before. It was positive for breast cancer. The good news is that it's small, and they've caught it very early. It's not an aggressive form, in fact they advised her to go ahead with her 2 week trip to visit her daughter (Aunt Maryellen) even. But even so, it IS cancer, and she's understandably very shaken. She can use everyone's prayers.

I managed to drive myself home and was very proud of myself for having done the whole afternoon of appointments on my own.

However once was plenty and I'd like to make sure my chauffeur is around for the duration now. He did have to go up to Tallahassee the next day for an overnight stay though. I let him because he was graduating with his masters degree! Yahoo! He's done with school! Well, until he gets into Law School that is. He's thinking that will be his next move. He's hoping to get a job in an academic library with a law school so that he can go for free, which would be all sorts of awesome. Free is good.

While he was gone, my sister and her partner (Aunt Liz and Aunt Jodi) came to babysit me. It was a great visit! Jodi did a ton of work around the house, including the floors, the laundry, the lawn AND washing all four dogs (we have Nana's dog, Peanut, staying with us for a few weeks). It was awesome! She said it was for Tom's graduation gift, but it was gift for me too! Liz kept me company, watched Nicky a lot and did dishes too. It was great, I didn't have to do a thing!

They had to go home Sunday, but now my mom will be coming up on about the 15th. I'm getting antsy about the babies coming and I want to make sure she's here when they do! Our plan is the same as with Nicky's birth. Tom is to stay with the babies after they're born and send my mom to stay with me in the recovery room. So I need her here when everything starts happening. Only one contraction today actually, so I don't think it's imminent, but I'm getting very "nesty" lately and since I can't DO anything physically I'm planning and making lists and stuff like crazy. I just want everything in position ready to go... like now!

Cause you never can tell what babies are going to do. Especially when there are TWO of them!

Too pregnant to remember to put a title.

2010-05-02T23:35:00.004-04:00

Getting ready to go to sleep, but wanted to put up some photos first.

Back a LONG time ago, right about the start of April, Nicky got a surprise in the mail from Aunt Maryellen and Uncle Scot. Check it out:

He loves these blocks! Thank you guys so much! In fact, Nicky wanted to thank you too:

We managed to finally get Nicky in for a haircut last week. He'sdbeen telling us he needed one for quite a while. Check out Nicky's before and after shots.

On the same day I came home to find a present for the babies! My office had pooled together and gotten us the stroller we wanted. Tom put it together and we tested it out:

This past week, Nicky was sick Thursday. He ran a fever and was coughing a lot. We kept him home and actually Tom stayed home with him while I drove myself to my 3 doctor appointments in the afternoon. More on those later. When I got home I found Nicky had taken over my laptop.

He's so cute.

Tomorrow I start working from home and I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to do this! I feel very fortunate to have a job where this is an option. It is going to be so great to be able to focus on work instead of spending all my energy just getting there!

Recalls out the wazoo...again!

2010-05-01T06:00:00.004-04:00

Tom just sent me this link about a new recall of children's medicines. It's a very inclusive list! We have two of these I have been giving Nicky: one daily! and one this last week when he ran a fever. If you have kids, please read the article and the statement from the company.

While reading up on this I also found there have been recent (this week) recalls of more cribs. Hope none of you are affected by this one! Thank goodness we didn't go for any of these.

And one more on Graco highchairs: (this one was last month) We haven't bought highchairs yet, but these aren't the ones we registered for. Phew!

What a pain. Like we don't have enough to worry about??!!

Could we just please PAY FREAKING ATTENTION to the products we're making people? Especially when they're for kids?!

Oh and for anyone who hasn't gotten the memo... lead paint is still bad. Please don't use it. If I have to buy freaking lead testing kits to test all the twins' toys I'll just have to start giving them sticks and rocks to play with or something.

What one month will do

2010-04-24T22:01:00.003-04:00

My sister Liz is coming up with her partner Jodi this Thursday. I can't wait to see them. They're going to help me (read: babysit me) while Tom is off graduating at FSU with his Masters in Library Information Science. (Because I'm not going anywhere at this point!)

It just occured to me that the last time Liz saw me I looked like this:

And now I look like this:

Yeah, that's the same outfit. Think she'll notice a difference?

Big girls in there, BIG girl out here!

2010-04-23T23:52:00.004-04:00

We had our weekly biophysical profile (BPP) yesterday and an OB appointment. I was 31 weeks and 6 days along, and yet both girls were measuring at 33 weeks 6 days. Nearly two weeks ahead! Figuring in their head circumferences, abdominal circumferences and femur lengths, which were different for each of them, they are estimated to weigh 4lbs 11oz and 4lbs 12oz! So very close! And so very BIG!

Baby B (who we usually refer to as Gabriella) was transverse (side to side) with her spine up and head to my right. She posed for two nice profile shots.

Baby A (who we usually refer to as Lilianna) was not nearly as cooperative. For the last 3 or more weeks she's been head down, face towards my back and feet up by my left ribs. She wasn't going to pose for us, so we have this shot of...well...the back of her head I guess.

Both did all their tricks and scored the full 8/8 on the BPP. Then we headed over to the OB. He increased the insulin to 28 units, but still only once a day. We'll see how that works. My numbers are much better than before, but still could go down more. He also would like me to keep my feet up. They're so swollen! So I'm trying to get approval to work from home starting in May. The request has to get signed by several people though, so hopefully it gets approved, and approved in time! May is just a week away.

Oh, and speaking of May, we scheduled the c-section! If they don't come earlier then the girls will be born on May 28th. I've changed the widget on this page to reflect that date. That's only 5 weeks away!

Think we'll make it that far? Well here are the last two belly pics.

30 weeks:

32 weeks:

And the new comparison pictures:

Can I get any bigger??

Much ado about nothing... well mostly nothing... ok, well maybe some stuff here and there

2010-04-20T22:20:00.000-04:00

Tom's going to go bonkers if I don't update my blog. Sorry about the time lapse since the last post, but between work and the end of the semester crunch I've been constantly on the computer, but not for fun stuff. I'm looking forward to the semester break though. Having some down time will be most welcome.

So what to say? Well, I found an old post I'd started a while back and never finished, so we'll talk about the nursery!

The Golden Butterfly
This is the inspirational piece for the twins' nursery. It's an adorable print by Mary Baxter St. Clair. I don't think we'll actually buy this piece necessarily, but I really like the look and feel of it.

Other inspirational images are these adorable prints by Cicely Mary Barker:

The Canterbury Bell Fairy

The Almond Blossom Fairy

The Wild Cherry Blossom Fairy

The Rose Fairy

The Pear Blossom Fairy

There are so many of these, and they're all so cute! I'm planning to pick out 6 or so and buy the prints for the nursery. I'm also planning to beg JM to frame them for me. Shh, don't tell her, I haven't actually asked yet!

The fabrics for the room are navy and white with a traditional navy toile and a navy with tiny white polka dots as the two fabrics we have. I think I did a long post about the grand plans we had for window treatments and cribskirts, but while we'd special ordered other fabrics (in February), those never were actually 'ordered' by the store. We found that out, oh about 2 months after placing the special order, so I just asked for my money back. Instead I added navy and white sheets and cribskirts to the baby registries. Either we'll get them or we won't, but navy and/or white should be pretty easy to pick up anywhere. Donna is still working on two fabulous valances and a tuffet in the toile and polka dot fabrics though. And she has a cribskirt pattern so we'll use any leftover polka dot fabric for those too.

Speaking of registering, I finally did register at both Amazon.com and Walmart.com. (Those links should take you right to the baby registries.) I just don't have the energy or stamina to do registering in person anywhere, so I had to do it all online.

Basically the registries are just to give folks an idea of the kinds of things we need. The only items I'd really researched and feel particular about are the larger ticket items like the stroller, swing, bouncer and highchairs. Oh, and I suppose we're pretty particularly set on the bottles. We really liked the Playtex original nursers with Nicky, so we're planning to use those. Of course I do hope to breastfeed, but with me going back to work we'll still need bottles anyway no matter how that works out. The important part is that they're the "original" nursers, not the "premium" ones. I read in reviews that the premium ones tend to melt in the bottle warmer. Not good!

I didn't bother adding toys and books to the registries, but those are always welcome and fun to pick out, so hopefully folks will find things on their own. We did go through Nicky's old toys and kept a few, so we have some things for them, just nothing really new yet.

Well other than that, I'm doing great, the babies are doing great, and things are cranking along nicely. I have still been anemic, in fact 3 weeks AFTER the iron infusion my numbers were actually LOWER than they'd been before the infusion. What is that about? So they went ahead and put me on B12 shots. Those are in addition to the daily insulin shots I'm on for the gestational diabetes. So lots of "poker shots" going on around here. Tom does the shots for me, and Nicky holds my hand. He's so cute and he worries about his momma. He tells me I'm so brave. What a sweetheart!

I'm off to lie down and rest. Been having Braxton Hicks contractions all day today, but the OB on call isn't too worried about it, so I'll just lie down and drink water for a while. I'm so excited about the baby shower they're throwing for me at work tomorrow! So babies, you better stay put tonight! Don't make me go to L&D and miss my shower!

Another visit to Labor and Delivery

2010-04-07T19:14:00.002-04:00

Last night I woke up at about 3:13am. I was having a dream that I was showing my sister Liz how you could lie on your side and rub a spot on your leg that would give you hard menstrual cramps. And the cramps were so bad they woke me up...because I was actually having them. Contractions!

I waited a moment and had another at 3:16, and another at 3:19. I got up and went to the bathroom to check things out. Nothing scary there. I brushed my teeth and drank some water. Nothing else happened. I sat on the edge of my bed and wrote a list of things I would need to take to the hospital if we went. (I have yet to actually pack a hospital bag of course.) But still nothing was happening. So I laid back down on my left side, like I'd been before, and tried to relax and stop worrying. At 3:51 I had another contraction. That was enough for me. I got Tom to hand me the phone and called the OB on call. She said to come right in.

It was so early in the morning, and I wasn't willing to wait anyway, so we took Nicky with us. It still took us a good 30 minutes to leave the house, but I was busy getting things ready so didn't notice if I had more contractions or not. We were in the car by 4:20 or so, along with a very sleepy Nicky, my laptop, my cpap machine, the camera, my purse, our phones, and a lunch bag of peanut butter crackers, about 7 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a juice box for Nicky, water for me and a soda for Tom. I had no idea how long we'd be there, and wanted to make sure we had food, especially for Nicky, but also for us.

On the drive I rested and tried to tell if I was having any more contractions. Because no matter what, I was going to feel really stupid if I'd gotten everyone up for nothing. But I know it would have been my advice to anyone else who'd had at least 4 contractions like that to go to the doctor, so I was trying to take my own advice. Finally, right as we were turning into the hospital parking lot I had another one. They were really strong and unmistakable for anything else. Phew!

We managed to get a handicapped spot (guess getting there before 5am has some perks) and we headed up to L&D. I still hadn't pre-registered at the hospital, but they didn't lecture me this time about it. They got me all hooked up to the monitors and were able to get Baby B's heartbeat right away. But Baby A was very elusive. After just a little while the OB came in and she looked at the readings and said I was definitely contracting. Whew! At least I wasn't in for nothing! She did a pelvic exam and said she would guess 50% effaced which isn't unexpected at 30 weeks. (I'll be 30 weeks Friday.) She also did a Fetal Fibronectin test to help determine if I was possibly in pre-term labor.

With the gestational diabetes the best first step was to try Procardia to see if that would calm things down and stop the contractions. I needed to take 3 pills, 20 minutes apart at first and then we'd see if my regular OB was in and could decide if I should continue with the Procardia every 6 hours or not. They didn't want to have to do the injections as that would require a 2 day stay at the hospital on an insulin drip because of the effect those can have on glucose levels.

They actually put me in a room and Tom took Nicky home where he was going to be able to rest as his Grandma was on her way over. Once I was in the room they started the Procardia, just about 6am at this point. I couldn't sleep because I didn't have my cpap with me. We'd left that and the laptop in the car figuring we'd have them if I was admitted, but not just to carry up for nothing. Boy I was wishing I had my cpap though! I was so tired!

After the first pill I was still having contractions. After the second pill, I was having a headache and dizziness, and the contractions were definitely milder. After the third pill I had no more contractions. My headache subsided some too. I was able to see my own OB around 8:30 or so. He wanted to get me in to see the diabetes education people before I went home and start on insulin today, so they kept me till he could arrange that. I called Tom to come back (he'd been catching a little sleep in the meantime) and he arrived after a bit. We both tried to doze a little. No more contractions were happening so that was good.

Finally at about 10am I was released to go up to my OB's office. They couldn't get the diabetes people on the phone, so they gave me a briefing on how to do the insulin, which I'm so glad I have Tom to do the injections! I'm to do 20 units at night after I do my glucose test after dinner. It's a slow acting insulin, so shouldn't make me crash. After a few days I'll email my glucose levels to my OB and we'll adjust as necessary.

He's also going to call the hematologist to see what's going on with my anemia. Sounds like I'll be seeing them again sooner.

I'm also to start doing biophysical profile ultrasounds every week and seeing the OB every week too. We even set up all the appointments between now and the due date.

Tomorrow I go to rerun the titers for Fifth's Disease. My first results showed that I'm not immune, but also no evidence of recent exposure. It's been 2 weeks, so time to run them again just to make sure of the results.

When we left the OB we went straight to pre-register at the hospital. It took a while and we were both exhausted, but better to have that DONE! Now at least we won't have to worry about that anymore.

We finally made it home right about 12pm. Luckily Grandma had taken Nicky to school, so we were able to pretty much have lunch and fall into bed. I just woke up when Tom brought Nicky home from school at 5:30. I could have slept much later, but figured better to get up and sleep well (I hope!) tonight.

No real noises about bed-rest which was both surprising and welcome! I need a little more time at least to make sure I have everything prepared for my leave at work. That's definitely going to be a priority though! This was quite a wake-up call.

I also have a presentation, quiz and group project all due tomorrow. I will be so glad when this semester is DONE!

Results- It's all not so good

2010-04-05T18:20:00.000-04:00

So all good news on Wednesday. But we didn't have the bloodwork results from last week yet.

I called Thursday to ask if they'd gotten the results yet. On Wednesday the nurse had thought they should be ready and so she was going to call the lab and see if they were. Sure enough she called me back with what she had.

First, I failed the Glucose Tolerance Test. I'm not actually surprised as that morning I'd asked Tom to take my fasting blood glucose and it was 185. Granted I had gotten up at 5am to eat something, but it had been 3 hours since then and it should not have been that high.

Second, they did check my iron on that blood draw and my iron levels were just about where she'd tested them during the appointment (hematocrit of 28) so I AM still horribly anemic, which is just freaking disturbing!

Third, she didn't know how to interpret the titers for Fifth's Disease, but she did say the IGG was negative. That's the one that tells you if you have immunity. So I am not immune to Fifth's. She didn't say what the IGM was though, and that's the one that tells you if you've had a recent exposure/infection. So either I do have it or I don't. Not the best news to hang my hat on.

My OB is out of the office till next Wednesday, but the nurse messaged him with the lab results. I figure we'll see what he says to do next.

My guesses are:

On the Gestational Diabetes, I think doing the 3 hour test is useless. We tested my sugar again this morning and it was 170 after not having eaten since midnight. Still way high. And I've been on 1000mg of metformin this whole pregnancy. We might first try increasing my dosage of the met and see what that does, or we might move straight to insulin. I'm not sure.

On the anemia I took the initiative Friday to call the hematologist's office. I'd never gotten the results of the B12 levels so I thought maybe those were low and while I have the iron I maybe still can't make blood cells yet. Turns out they apparently haven't gotten the results yet from the lab. We'd assumed the results were fine since they hadn't called. Apparently that was a mistake. Should have called them before. Anyway, it was only the receptionist I spoke to, and she could see where they'd sent it to the lab, but not the results. She said it might just be that she's not able to see them, so she left a message for the nurse. I called back today, but the only news was that the info was forwarded to the lab manager. Hopefully I'll hear more tomorrow.

So maybe I'll have to do the B12 shots, or maybe more iron, or maybe it's something entirely different. I just don't know.

The weird thing was I thought I was feeling better. I figured the anemia was surely starting to resolve. Now it appears that's not the only thing wrong with me though.

I'm trying not to dwell on it and have a pity party, but it was so disappointing to get all this not-so-good news on the heels of such a great OB appointment. Wednesday still seems a long way away. And part of me thinks that this news is going to be the thing that makes my OB say that enough is enough and I need to stop working. That's going to be a really hard thing to do. But I'm really throwing myself into getting things settled and getting replacements set up for my duties at work, just in case.

Easter Eggs

2010-04-03T12:47:00.003-04:00

Today is the day before Easter and so Nicky and I spent the morning dying Easter eggs. We'd gotten this neat new kind of egg-dying kit that could make speckled eggs. Basically it was straight food coloring in packets. There's a little tray so you can have one color in each compartment, and then you use these little sponges, the size of fingertip, to pounce the color onto the eggs. Nicky much preferred to smear the color all over the eggs though. Much more gratifying.

The eggs are beautiful!

I couldn't get a photo of our hands right afterward because they were covered in dye. Nicky's were practically black with it. We washed our hands a few times, and then I put Nicky in a bubble bath to soak while I looked up on the internet how to get food dye off skin.

After much soap and water we were down to this:

I couldn't picture getting him to sit still with lemon juice, vinegar or bleach solution on his fingers, and those sounded pretty harsh too. So I went with the idea of washing our hands with shaving cream. Ideally it sounded like you should let the shaving cream sit for 5 minutes though. So I had Nicky paint with shaving cream on the walls of the tub.

After the shaving cream treatment I'm not sure it made much difference. Maybe because it was shaving cream for sensitive skin or something.

Guess we'll have colorful fingertips for a while. Aw well, it's for a good cause.

Doctor's appointments- It's all good

2010-04-02T18:54:00.003-04:00

So Wednesday was our day of appointments.

First Nicky's 4 year old checkup. He's 42.5 inches high and 41 pounds. (He's already wearing the 5T jeans that Gayle and Colin brought for him at his party!) I swear he shot up a good 2 inches in the last few weeks since his birthday. Everything checked out great, and he's been declared a healthy boy! She was very pleased. Only suggestion is to have him follow up with his allergist before the babies come.

Then we went to the ultrasound. Nana was with us, but she took Nicky down to feed the ducks and have some lunch since the ultrasound rooms are tiny. We were able to see both babies. Baby A was kind of diagonal with her head right down near the exit and her feet up on my left side. Baby B was side to side (transverse) with her head to my left and her feet to my right.

She was able to get all the measurements on Baby B, but only the abdominal circumference and femur length on Baby A. But even without the head circumferance on Baby A they are both measuring right about 30 weeks. Since I was only 28 weeks 5 days, that's pretty good! They are both measuring at over 3 pounds each already. Both still have room to move and plenty of fluid too. All good news there!

Then we headed down the hall to the OB appointment. While we were waiting, Nana and Nicky came back from lunch. Nicky had gotten to feed the ducks and even saw a bunch of baby ducks. Very exciting stuff! He flirted with a little girl in the waiting room, playing peek-a-boo and telling her all about transformers (which is his latest thing).

When it was our turn we went back and the three of them waited in the doctor's office for me to do my thing. I've gained 60 lbs. (Well technically 59, but close enough.) I considered being upset, but it's really just a number right now. It's all for the babies and I know I can lose it all over again on weight-watchers when this is all done and my healthy girls are here. My blood pressure was a little high for me, but still fine. But when I had her check my iron (which was 10.2 if you recall before the iron infusion, exactly 2 weeks before) it was 9.7! Even lower! The nurse said that couldn't possibly be accurate, and later the doctor agreed that there must be an issue with either the machine or it's just not as accurate as a bloodtest would show.

Then we went and talked with the doctor. He's happy with the babies' growth, and with how I'm holding up. No more noises about bedrest, so that was good. I reported what the pulmonologist said about the asthma not being bad and it being a combo of the anemia, babies and asthma. I ran the inhaled steroid medication and dosage by him and he was fine with that. And he said I can go back on Prilosec OTC. (Which I have starting that day and it's helping so much!) So all good news there too! Nana asked how far along we could expect me to get before the babies have to come out, and he said with their growth, he would say 36-37 would be great. 38 if I can get there, but he sees no reason I can't get to 36-37 weeks at least. Excellent!

So Wednesday we rode a high and enjoyed a day's worth of good medical news.

I'll leave you on that happy note for today.

Day of Doctor's Appointments

2010-03-31T06:22:00.003-04:00

I saw the pulmonologist on Monday. He wasn't convinced that my breathing issues were all asthma related. He thinks it's probably the combination of asthma, anemia and the twins pushing up on my lungs that are causing breathing to be difficult. He did give me an inhaled steroid to try out though. There are apparently two safe to prescribe during pregnancy, so he gave me two samples of one of those to try. He said it takes about a week to see a difference, so we'll see how it goes.

Today I have an OB appointment. We are also getting one of the "good" ultrasounds where a tech does the measurements and stuff. That comes first at 11am. Then we meet with the OB at noon.

It occurred to us yesterday that hey, Nicky IS four, so he needs his annual exam. Luckily I was able to call and get him in today too! His appointment is at 9:45am. It's in the same building as my appointments, and doing it today means that we won't have to take another day off work. Which is very good!

I was already planning to take the entire day off since we would have had to leave work after only an hour or so and then we'd probably have only 2 hours or so after the appointments. Plus I anticipate being exhausted after all the running (wheeling in my case though) around.

So a day full of appointments. I did give Nicky the heads up that he was going to the doctor in the morning and that they would look in his eyes, ears, nose and mouth and measure him and that he might get a "poker shot" (what Nicky calls injections). He didn't seem too phased at first, but right before bed he said he didn't want a shot. I told him I didn't know if he'd get one, but that if he was lucky enough to get one I'd make sure he got a good treat. He wanted to know what it would be, so I told him I'd take him to the dollar store and let him pick any one thing he wanted. He was pretty excited about that. We're also going to try to remember to take some bread for the ducks at the pond they have there. If I can hide them that would be another good after-shot treat.

I'll update later on the OB appointment. Hopefully we'll get pictures this time. It's been a while since we had images to upload of the babies. Oh, and I don't know yet if we'll have the results of the glucose tolerance test or titers I had done last week. It's been less than a week, so I'm kind of doubting it, but we'll see.

Getting things ready

2010-03-28T05:31:00.003-04:00

Tom said I need to show another comparison between me now at 28 weeks compared to me pregnant with Nicky at the end. So here it is:

Probably hard to see with the size difference of the photos, but I'm definitely much much bigger than I ever was with Nicky!

I also am actually getting really uncomfortable now. Breathing is hard, moving is hard, getting up and down, and OMG, rolling over is HARD! And yet when I see I have less than 10 weeks to go, assuming they wait that long, I am freaking out that it's too soon!

We do finally have the living room back in order though. Tom did a lot of work on it today and it looks great. Books are even put away, except for the two boxes of children's books that I just couldn't part with. I think I kept way more of the kids books than I did of my own books. But they're all good ones! I swear! Not sure where we'll put those boxes for now though.

Next is getting the babies' room sorted through. There are boxes of Nicky's old toys to go through, and theoretically there should be boxes of "important" papers in there for me to go through too. And photos. Who knows what else.

Oh, and the cribs we ordered are in, as well as the mattress! Tom wants to go pick them up tomorrow too. It will feel so much better to have their room DONE and organized. Maybe by Easter? That's just next weekend. This bunny better get to hopping!

Oh yeah, I have a blog and I'm 28 weeks pregnant with twins

2010-03-26T20:40:00.009-04:00

Wow, 11 days since the last post and there's just so much to tell you!

First, I did have the iron infusion on 3/16. It took all day, which was kind of boring, but not too bad. It wasn't too painful, but my arm was kind of sore for a day or so. We arrived at 8:30am and Tom picked me up at 4pm. I was there longer than anyone that day. There was one woman there for chemo, and one other pg woman there for iron in the morning, but she was getting them weekly so was done after a few hours. Everyone else was there for blood. It was really neat to see that actually. As a blood donor I usually just imagine people needing it after surgeries or major trauma like car accidents or shootings. But it was wonderful to see that the blood donated makes such a difference to people in other ways. The people who came in typically were very weak and pale, but by the time they were done they were much more perky and had color in their cheeks. It was very heartwarming to see.

The nurse did say that some people feel better the next day after an iron transfusion, but that it really takes 2 weeks for the body to make a mature blood cell. I wasn't one of the lucky ones that felt better on the first day though. I think I might finally be feeling better actually now, a week later. Still really tired, but not quite as ready to drop. My lips are starting to have a little color too, so I must be getting better. I go for my next OB appointment next Wednesday, so we'll see if they test my iron there.

So that was Wednesday 3/16. By the time we got home I think my Mom and my sisters Liz and Jessica were nearly at our house. Donna was already there, she arrived on Tuesday, and so we had a full house for Nicky's actual birthday. Nicky had gotten to have cupcakes at school to share with his class, which he enjoyed immensely. Later, Tom's Dad and JM came over for dinner and we all had spaghetti and meatballs, Nicky's favorite. Tom had also picked up a cake which was the perfect size. No leftovers! You'd think I'd have a photo or two...but no. Sorry. He had a few presents to open up, because you have to have presents on the actual birthday right?

Thursday I had an OB appointment and my sister Liz was able to come with us. We were able to see the babies on the ultrasound and they both looked good. One was side to side with her head on my right. the other we think was head down, perpendicular to the other, maybe behind her. So confusing! The OB was very happy with everything except my asthma. It's really been acting up a lot since that lung, sinus, ear infection thing in February. I've been using my inhaler and nebulizer pretty much daily, sometimes multiple times. The OB started making noises about maybe bedrest/stop working at 32 weeks, which I am NOT ready for! So I went home and then called to make a pulmonology appointment the very next day. I have an appointment with the head guy, who I will also ask about sleep apnea to see if I can get an APAP machine (that will adjust my pressure as I sleep to whatever pressure I need) on Monday, 3/29.

Friday I was actually able to work a full day for a change. I swear it'll be a miracle if I have ANY leave left by the time the babies come! And Tom spent most of the afternoon running around getting everything done on my list for the Saturday party. I had lots of lists going on since I couldn't really do anything but plan.

Saturday we had beautiful weather, thank goodness! My Dad and Gwen arrived at about 10ish, Tom and Jessie went with Nicky to pick up the balloons, cake, sandwich platters and coleslaw/potato salad. My friend Gayle, her son Colin and her parents Elaine and Jerry arrived around 11am. They brought us a really nice glider (which is the most comfy seat in the house for me right now), and we were so glad they could make the trip up to see us. We hadn't seen them since last Halloween. We all loaded up my Dad's truck and Liz's car with the party supplies: drinks, chips, cooler, presents, party favors, and picnic accoutrements. Then we all took off for the park!

I remembered at the last minute that there aren't any bathrooms at this park. Oops. But there was a gas station nearby if someone had time to run to their car and drive to the corner. Luckily no one had to go.

Right as we got to the park, our friend from work came with her mom and son who is just a year and a day younger than Nicky. So we had three boys there, ages 3, 4 and 6(almost 7!) and they played together really well. They ran around like maniacs, dosed up on chips, juice boxes, and cake, and had a general great time. We actually ended up taking the presents home to open them there (where there was at least one bathroom) as our friend from work had to get her son home for a nap anyway. It took Nicky a good long time to get thru his gifts. He's still at the point where he'd rather run around with the toy in his hand than see what's in the next gift.

Nicky and Colin had a ball playing together though. It was so fun to see them play together even though they're nearly 3 years apart. All in all, I think it's safe to say that Nicky had a great party.

My Dad, Gwen, Jessica, Donna and Gayle and her family all left after the party, leaving us with a relatively empty house.

Sunday I pretty much tried to recuperate. But Tom and Liz went to town rearranging furniture, organizing the house and generally doing a ton of work! Oh, and I forgot, I think it was Friday when I came home that I found out Liz and Jessica had bought and installed a counter top on top of that cabinet that has been sitting in my kitchen for... over a year I think. I was so excited to see that! It still has to be properly attached, but just having it there makes such a huge difference in the kitchen. We have the microwave on it, and the coffee maker, and it's so nice not to have to troop through the dining room to heat something up.

All in all, Liz and my Mom stayed over through Wednesday. They really had us set up well. But then after they left, Tom had to empty the POD. The POD people actually came today to pick it up, so we had to unload it. Unfortunately that loaded the house with about four zillion books and stuff, but thanks to the work Tom and Liz did beforehand, it won't take long to go through it, get rid of what we can and then put away the rest. We've already committed to getting rid of a ton of books. That's a huge thing for us!

I guess the last thing is that Nicky seems to have gotten Fifth's Disease at some point. It's a pretty innocuous virus actually. By the time they get the slapped cheek look they're no longer contagious even. He had no signs of being sick, and actually today his cheeks are getting back to normal. I looked it up though, wondering if it was a problem for pregnant women. And yep, it can be. Hopefully I already had it as a kid though. If not it has a chance of infecting me, and a chance of infecting the babies. If they get it then there's a chance it can cause complications you DO NOT want to Google. Tom found that out the hard way. I called my OB on Wednesday after we figured out that's why Nicky's cheeks were red Tuesday. I confirmed Wednesday morning with his teacher that they have seen several kids with red cheeks. They had no idea what it was, but I'm sure it was Fifth's. So I called the OB, and they wanted me to have some titers drawn at the lab. I had to have my Glucose Tolerance Test done on Thursday morning anyway, so I did it all then. Hopefully we'll know the results of both by our OB appointment next Wednesday.

I think that about brings everyone up to date! Now if I can just get on here to do updates more than every 11 days you won't have to muddle through (or skip) such a long post! I will have to update you after our OB appointment Wednesday, and actually maybe after the pulmonologist appointment on Monday even.

Oh, and just as a reward for sticking thru till the end of this post, or for scrolling down to the bottom at least, here's the new belly pic. 28 weeks today!
And the usual disclaimer that this was after working a full day and being pretty darn tired.

and in comparison:

Anemia update

2010-03-15T20:56:00.004-04:00

I went to the hematologist today. I really liked the staff and doctor there! My hemoglobin was 10.3; they were able to do the blood draw and CBC all right there immediately which was pretty amazing to me.

The result is: I'm going in Wednesday morning for an iron infusion. They said I should actually feel a lot better immediately. Apparently I'm about 3 pints low on blood, but once I have the iron I'll be able to make that up. I won't even have to take the hemocyte (iron supplement) anymore.

They're also checking my B12 count, but that result won't be ready till tomorrow or Wednesday. If I need that they'll order daily shots for a week and then weekly shots for a few weeks. Tom will be able to give those to me at home, so that'll be nice. Well, not "nice" but better than having to take time off work to go to the doctor.

So Wednesday, Nicky's birthday, I'm having the infusion done. Since I'm pregnant they do it at the hospital as an outpatient procedure. (And I have no copay! Yay!) They said it takes between 6-8 hours to do though, so that's a long time! We went to pre-register today at the hospital and I totally forgot to ask if they have wifi so that I can take my laptop and do homework. I can still take it and do some, but it helps when writing advanced web applications to actually HAVE web access. I suppose I can also take my books and read. I am behind in that too.

They don't really have room for anyone but me though, so Tom will drop me off and then pick me up later. We'll take Nicky to school first though, with his birthday cupcakes! He's so excited about his birthday this year. I think this is the first year he's really gotten the concept and is looking forward to it. It's so cute.

Nana will be arriving Tuesday and then my Mom, Jessie and Liz will arrive Wednesday. We'll have Tom's Dad and JM over as well for Wednesday dinner and some kind of desert with candles too. But the big party is Saturday! Tomorrow we're taking Nicky to the party store so he can help pick out his theme for the party. We were going to do Madagascar, but the cake for that was $50 and was a 1/2 sheet cake! Way too big and way too expensive. And then today we stopped by the party store after the hospital without Nicky and found that they had nothing for Madagascar anyway. So hopefully he'll see something else he likes there tomorrow.

Ok, I've put off working on my homework long enough. Wondering what I'm doing in my Advanced Web Applications class? Check it out here. Assignments 1-3 are there on the left. I'm working on the fourth assignment now. It's all flash programming and it's really hard! But I'm doing pretty well I think. It just takes a lot of time and brain power. Not things I have a lot of lately.

Another long update

2010-03-13T13:44:00.004-05:00

The cribs have been ordered! We're getting two cherry cribs for the nursery. They probably won't be in them immediately, but we want to be ready, and having the cribs will help me arrange the room the way it will work best.

We are still deciding on what we want to do for the bed in the nursery though. We have several options to consider. The one I'm liking best right now is a twin mattress set with just a metal frame. Then making a toile covered headboard for it. I think that would be easy enough that I could even do it. And then we'd have a toile headboard and the toile tuffet Donna's making. I think that would look really nice. Surely I can find a twin mattress set cheap. I mean, this is a college town!

The room itself is DONE though! That is such a weight off our shoulders. The walls look gorgeous in the cream rose color Tom picked. He even picked up a crystal heart fan pull in a light pink color that just looks beautiful. He finished caulking around the baseboards last night, and even moved the light-switch so that I can put a nice decoupaged cover over it. It was originally too close to the door frame which was awkward, but he fixed it! Such the handy man, my husband. (Oh and just to brag a little more, he did plumbing yesterday on the tub and fixed the leak that has been there forever.)

Yesterday we were able to pick up a wheelchair for me. It's not for use all the time, but just to and from work and in stores where I can't sit down or use a store scooter thingy (which I have yet to break down and do, but will have to soon I'm sure). I have the hematologist appointment coming up Monday and am so looking forward to feeling better! I hope they can do some sort of magic and give me back some energy soon. In the meantime my mom is coming next week to help out. That will be nice! We need to empty the POD before the 24th in order to avoid paying for another month, so she will be able to help me sort through that stuff. So much I'm sure can be tossed or donated. (Don't worry Dad, we're not getting rid of the table in there!)

The babies are doing fine in there. I was able to actually see a kick today which was neat. They must be getting big and strong! Tom can feel them every night now, and it won't be long before Nicky really feels them instead of just saying that he can.

Speaking of Nicky, the other day he asked me to open my mouth. I remembered always wanting to see my moms teeth and stuff as a kid, so I opened up for him. He said "Mom, your tongue is in the way." So I tried to move it, but it was still in the way. I asked him if he wanted to see my teeth or my throat. He said "I want to see the babies." What a cutie! I just had to laugh. He's done it a few more times since then, but we agree that my tongue is just in the way too much to see them.

I can't believe he's already turning four. Next week is his birthday. We're hoping to have a little dinner and cake on the day, and then we're having his real party on Saturday at a park. So far we'll have two other kids there, and a lot of grown-ups, but we're still waiting to hear from a few more people. Even with just one other kid Nicky will have fun, so I know he'll have a great time! I'm still planning to keep it really low key though. Just don't have the energy to do it up big this year. Plus this is our first party with anyone other than just family. And we've never had kids at the parties before either. Had to get our feet wet someday though. Oh, and he'll take cupcakes in on his birthday to his school too. It's on St. Patrick's day, so they just might be green ones. We'll see.

Next OB appointment is this Friday. I'll be 27 weeks so it will be time for a new belly picture too. I'll probably have to talk with the OB about my asthma. It's been really acting up since that bout of sickness in February. I will probably end up going to the pulmonologist about it, but I'm hoping that a lot of it is breathlessness from the anemia and whatever the hematologist does might help out. We'll see.

Oh, one more thing. Last Tuesday I spent a few hours in Labor & Delivery. On the way to the car after work I had a lot of pain on one side and possible contractions. I was absolutely spent by the time I got to the car. And it's really not that far! Maybe a 3-4 minute walk? Usually pain goes away once I sit for a minute, but it was still bothering me by the time we picked up Nicky. Though not as bad.

After getting Nicky we went to the drugstore. I was only in there for about 4 minutes when it hit again and I had to have Nicky stay with Tom to finish checking out while I went to the car to rest. They were probably in there for a good 5 minutes or more and I was still hurting when they came out. I was also all hot and clammy feeling. Just not feeling quite right. So I called the OB on call. They said they like to err on the side of having twin moms come in to get checked, but I could wait to see if it happened again. If I had any other tightening or pain at all though I should come in.

When I got home I went straight to bed to lie down and drink water. I stayed for quite a while, but as soon as I got up it started again. So we called JM and she rushed over to watch Nicky while we went to the hospital. They monitored me (lying down, so not sure how helpful that was) for a good hour or so, but no contractions. They did an ultrasound to check the babies and both had good heartbeats. So maybe they were really having a growth spurt that day and stretching things out.

They did recommend I get a maternity belt though to help support the weight of my belly. It's just so huge! And only going to get bigger. So we're looking into that. That's also when I decided not to wait till my next appointment to ask for a wheelchair too. It's just too important for me to have a ready place to sit when I need to.

So that was the first trip to the L&D. Hopefully we won't have to do that too much. We want these babies to stay put and grow till June!

25 weeks

2010-03-07T15:05:00.003-05:00

We've made it to 25 weeks! The babies are doing great, although I'm just about completely devoid of energy. I'm hoping if we can get the anemia under control I'll start feeling better.

The OB sent me for blood-work Friday to see if I needed a transfusion. I'm out of breath, even sitting still, and my lips are back to being just about the same color as my skin. My hemoglobin came back at 10.2 which is definitely anemic (normal for women is 12-15). But it wasn't so low they wanted to do a transfusion before the weekend. Instead they're referring me to a hematologist to see what they suggest and to get me established with one just in case we need their help during delivery. I should be getting a call from them early this week.

JM came over yesterday and took Nicky and I out to the park and to the fabric store to pick up the fabric for the valance. The cribskirt and shade fabrics aren't in yet, but will be soon I hope. I was able to show JM the toile and other fabrics though and she agrees they're going to look great. She also loves the paint in the babies' room. I agree, I think the pink actually looks great in that room. Especially in the light of day! I can't wait for my mom and Donna to see it.

Which they will soon! Nicky's birthday is coming up quick! It's in the middle of the week this year, so we're doing things a little differently.

This year Jessie will come up on Sunday and stay with us. Then around Tuesday or so my mom and Liz will come up to stay. They'll be able to see Jessie and be there for Nicky's actual birthday. We'll send Nicky to school Wednesday with cupcakes and then we'll have a birthday dinner and cake that evening with Jessie, Liz and Grammie, and maybe JM and Charles if they can come over. Liz and my mom will leave by Friday morning and then Donna will come up to stay. She'll be here for Nicky's big birthday party on Saturday.

Saturday my Dad and Gwen will come down too. And we'll have Nicky's big party at the park. I'm inviting some people with kids around Nicky's age from my work and Gayle and Colin from Tampa. Hopefully some of them can come and we'll have a low key birthday party at the park with a picnic and cake. This will be Nicky's first party with kids, and I just don't have the energy to do it up too big. But they're kids, and I'm sure they'll have a ball.

The Nursery: Renovation Day....somethingsomething

2010-03-05T18:43:00.010-05:00

Time for a nursery renovation report. Ok, so I've totally lost track of the days, but lots has been done! In fact, the walls were painted today and all that's left is painting the trim, installing the flooring and adding the baseboards. After that it's up to the decorating team!

Here are the latest pictures:

Ta Da!

Ok, so it's pink.

I know I said we wouldn't be doing pink, but this is a really nice pink! And it will go great with the navy blue toile and valance.

In fact, the fabric store called last night and said the fabric is here. I'm not sure if it's all the fabric or just some of it, but soon it'll be in my hot little hands and ready for Nana to work her sewing magic!

Which hey, that reminds me, I haven't actually blogged about the fabric and stuff yet have I? Well Nana and I went fabric store shopping last weekend. See Tom and Greg were ready to prime and paint, but I had to pick the paint color. Rather than just pick a color and then try to match everything to that, I wanted to pick the fabrics for the cribskirts and drapes first. So we had to get to the fabric store.

It took forever, about four hours, to find what I wanted. Fabrics and colors are NOT my strong suit. So it was pretty hard. But I picked a valance pattern and then fabrics. The first fabric I actually really liked was a navy toile fabric. I thought of course that wouldn't work in a nursery, but then decided it totally could if we just borrowed the color and used the toile on the daybed and the tuffet that Donna's making. So I used the toile color as the inspiration and then we picked navy blue with tiny white dots for the valance, a blue and white stripe for a roller shade, and then we'll buy eyelet sheers for the windows too.

The toile fabric sample:

The drawing of the valance, sheers (with holdbacks) and rolling shade (Donna's drawing):

For the cribskirts I picked a beautiful white on white embroidered fabric. It's almost like an eyelet, but without the holes. We'll use the breathable bumpers like we did with Nicky's crib. I'll get them in white, and then Donna is going to embellish them on the outside with a navy and white dot ribbon along the top. Donna's making a tuffet and a bedspread for the daybed out of the toile. Maybe a few pillow shams too. And I'm buying a white eyelet twin bedskirt for the daybed. So fabric-wise we're doing navy and white. Not very exciting. Fairly neutral actually.

Then I chose the prints I want for the room. There are six of them, two sets of three that I thought look good together. They are from this great fairy series from about the 1930's by Cicely Mary Barker. She has a website here and the prints I chose are:
Almond Blossom Fairy
Pear Blossom Fairy
Sweet Pea Fairies
Rose Fairy
Phlox Fairy
Heliotrope Fairy

The first three have light backgrounds and the second three have darker backgrounds. Not sure where I'll put them yet, maybe in frames on the walls, maybe on a shelf, maybe both. We'll see. I'm planning to get them about a 5x8 size or slightly smaller and then frame them in a 5x8 frame with matting.

So then we have the fabric selected, the prints selected and it was time to find paint. I just did not have the energy to go to Lowe's myself, so Donna picked up paint chips for me, then I searched online using the Olympic paint website that allows you to try out different paint combos on an image. That was really helpful, alhtough the colors on the computer screen are never quite like they are in real life. So I picked some other colors for Tom to grab chips for. He brought them and a few extras home and I used Nicky's navy jacket to help me pick out a color for the walls and a white for the trim and ceiling.

It was really close. I liked both the Cream Rose and the Butter yellow colors. But when Tom and I took the chips into the room to see them in that lighting, the Cream Rose was definitely much much better. So Tom bought it the next day and voila! It's painted! It looks really great too.

This project is coming together!

Patty-cake

2010-03-02T10:56:00.004-05:00

I had my OB appointment yesterday, on Tom's birthday actually, so you know it was going to be a good appointment!

Everything is looking really good in there. I was worried about cervix length as a lot of the women due with twins in May/June have been put on bed rest due to their cervix shortening to 3 centimeters or so, or less in some cases. I'm terrified of bed rest as I'm still the sole breadwinner till Tom finishes school in May, so I was glad he was going to measure me.

Well he said, and I quote: I'm "closed up tighter than Fort Knox!" I have a good 5.5-6 centimeters of cervix with no signs of effacement at all. Average he said is 4.5-5 cm so I'm doing great! He and Tom joked that if women were like guys they'd all be checking out my cervix in the locker room and they'd be so jealous. You have to love an OB who can make jokes like that!

After the measurement we got to have another peek at the girls. Saw both heartbeats and some kicky legs. And then:

Here are the girls, chatting away in there. They were face to face, heads right up under my ribs, basically standing up in there.

And here they are, still heads together, and now you can see their hands reaching for each other. An in-utero game of patty-cake perhaps?

Cute right?

The only bit of not so great news was that my iron levels are actually lower than before I started the iron pills. Darn it! If they drop any more we'll be discussing an iron transfusion. Not much fun. I have some new ideas on getting more iron. Someone suggested having iron along with vitamin C to help it absorb better. So I'll get some OJ (without calcium, since calcium inhibits absorption) and take the iron with that. And them maybe have some spinach salads with mandarin oranges. Oh, and more steak! Lots more steak!

I could get used to eating like that I think.

My Mechanics

2010-02-23T21:10:00.003-05:00

Tom's been working on the motorcycle that Kris left to him after Max's passing. Nicky was helping him out. This was last week while I was sick and they were both doing a lot better than me at the time. Nicky hadn't yet come down with his fever and Tom was getting over his.