29 months!

May 5 marked Sophie’s 29th “month day”


A few unofficial stats…

1) Size 5 diaper

2) Wearing 2T and 3T clothes. 2T on bottom, 3T on top because she likes to make sure her belly is covered:)

3) her hair continues to lighten. She got it cut a few weeks ago and the hairdresser mentioned that her "new" hair is very very blonde. Her curl will be gone with the next hair cut:(

4) Grey-blue eyes.

5) Definitely has phases of food likes and dislikes. Likes are "usually" cheese, chicken nuggets, goldfish, bananas, grapes, yogurt.

6) STILL sleeping in our bed. I have GOT to work on this.

7) Said her first 5 word phrase a few weeks ago. Otherwise, communicates very well with her 3 word phrases. She’s suddenly been very quick to repeat things Dan and I say. This is both a fun and no-so-fun thing:-/

She’s started saying “big” words like elephant.

8) She has phases of self-potty training. This week alone she’s gone twice on her potty, without mentioning anything to us. We are letting her take the lead on this---just don’t have much time in our schedule to work on it. I’m sure it helps that she’s the only one at daycare who is NOT potty trained.

9) 2 year molars have been coming in. She's been drooling as much, if not more, than the babies.

10) She is SO shy in front of the camera. I can rarely get a smile.

11) She has officially been put in "time out", when she actually understood what was going on. She's not a fan. She likes to hit, and then laugh.

12) She says “a, b, c, d, and then the rest of the alphabet is just one super long syllable The Easter Bunny brought her a $1 set of cards that has a different letter on each one. She calls these her “ABC Cards” and LOVES them

13) She is starting to count, as well as hold up the right number of fingers when counting.

14) I don’t even know what term to use, but she’s started matching colors. If she’s playing with a red block and has on a red shirt, she’ll say “same.”

15) Her favorite color is purple.

16) She adores sidewalk chalk.

17) She’s recently taken a strong interest in playing mommy to her dolls. She’ll wrap them in a blanket and rock them.

18) If the babies cry and she’s not in the mood to hear it she’ll say “NO, A-B” or “NO, Ton-r.”

19) She likes to “pick the nuckies” from her toes. This makes me cringe, not because I think it’s gross (it’s really funny!), but because I hope I’m not witnessing the onset of OCD! It has gotten better over the past few weeks, I just don’t mention anything when I see her doing it.

20) This is her "I know I'm in trouble look." Head down, chin pulled into her chest;)

Sophie trying to put her toes in her mouth, because her brother and sister like to do the same:)

A classic Sophie face (and legs complete with blue highlighter). This was taken about a month ago. While we're at it, classic Connor with his belly hanging out and hand in his mouth:)

Ignore me, but this is another classic Sophie face that I am NEVER able to capture. She loved our self-portrait session:)

Revolving door??

We need a revolving door at Child.ren's Hospital. Yesterday was Connor's monthly follow-up with ENT to check on the status of his hemangioma. He's been getting 1 ml 3x daily of Propanalol. I honestly don't check the lump anymore. I figure there are only so many things in my life I can control, and his hemangioma is not one of them. I'm turning it all over to the dr and the medicine, hoping for the best. The night before the appointment, I did check it, meaning I felt it. It felt bigger, more dispersed, further into his cheek. I've never been a good judge of the firmness of the lump, so I didn't notice a difference there. ENT agreed that it seemed bigger, and in her opinion, more firm. It's growing, despite the meds. He had very little weight gain in this last month, just a few ounces, but because the current dose doesn't seem to be working, she upped the Propanalol dose to 1.3 ml TID. She seemed concerned. I'm concerned. We'll revisit this in early June. He's also been pulling at his ears. She didn't see signs of infection, but did notice fluid that was present at the last appt, so she agreed that he needs an antibiotic for that. Great, another med to give;) I think I mentioned many days ago that both babies have been pretty gassy, and we've completely revamped their diet. That change has helped Connor a lot. Avery is still fighting something, couldn't be sure what, but simply tooting and pooping was not easing her pain. For the past several days I've noticed that I can smell her urine. Not just when I change her dipe, but I can even smell it when I walk into a room that she's in. On the way back from the ENT with COnnor, I decided to schedule an appt for her. Better safe than sorry. All I had to say to the nurse was "I can smell her pee" and she wanted to see us the same day. Dan and I played musical cars/musical babies and we end up at the dr 45 minutes later. She sees no indication of a UTI, but she DOES see a pretty major ear infection, which completely came out of left field. I had NO idea! Antiobiotic #2 ordered;) Because I did report the urine smell issue, they wanted to check her urine. They cathed her (oh, what fun), and I saw the pee. It was crystal clear, I was relieved. THey checked it for blood. Negative. Another check off the list. We left the appt thinking that the ear infection is causing the crankiness, but in the back of my mind I was still uncertain about the smelly pee. I get a call from the dr this morning. Not the nurse, not the secretary, but the dr. She's never called before. They grew the culture overnight, and Avery does indeed have a UTI. The dr was shocked. The meds she's taking for the ear infection should also take care of the UTI, but the dr wants us to have a renal ultrasound done. If all is normal, we'll just chalk this up to a random infection. If something is abnormal, they'll do a VSUG, which is a dye test of that region to see if there is blockage.

Got fiber?

I swear, if it's not one thing it's another. We're all healthy (knocking on wood), but for the past several days BOTH babies have been incredibly fussy, especially over night. They are clearly having some tummy issues. Their abdomen gets very tight and they just KICK their legs. Mr. Man is so strong I can hear the mattress bouncing when I'm in another room. They scream, and then they (if we're lucky) toot or burp and things seem to be better. I talked with our nurse yesterday who has instructed us to seriously up the fiber in their diet, going as far as keeping a food log. So now, they're both getting 2 oz prune juice 2x daily, cereal mixed back in with their solid foods, and a serious change of the solid foods they've been eating. We're cutting out apples and bananas, and going full steam ahead with pears, prunes, peaches, peas, etc. Avery seemed to be considerably better last night, but poor Connor was really hurting:( I need some serious sleep. Here's hoping the weekend will bring us all a bit of rest (and toots!) And in VERY exciting news...Sophie slept in her bed at least 5 hours last night. It was enough to get me on the bandwagon to keep up with this new accomplishment.

The never ending cootie factory

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been really sick. For the first time that I can remember, aside from pregnancy related sick time, this is the first real time I've been too sick to make it to work. I saw my dr on Wed, who gave me some meds just in case I had an infection. I kept getting sicker and sicker. By Thursday I could barely talk. My nose was a bit stuffy, but mostly it was in my throat.

Fast forward to now, and I'm STILL sick, although it's more in my nose than throat now. My worst fear was realized however, as now Sophie, Dan and Connor are all sick. I hope that Avery can stay in her little bubble, because a fussy Avery is NOT a joy to deal with. Sophie's nose has been dripping like a faucet, and now she's coughing. She also complained last night about her back hurting, and then did the same again this morning. Her sitter said she didn't fall yesterday, so now the dr wants to see her to rule out any kidney issues. So much for going two weeks without seeing Dr. R. They may as well just give me my own parking spot.

And whining, oh the WHINING that is coming from Dan. You'd think he'd cut his foot off or something, but yet he doesn't want to go see the dr. This morning I told him if he won't see the doc, that I have no desire to hear him complain.

Anyhoo, in an effort to get back into the habit of posting here, now everyone knows about the cooties that we just can't shake in our house.

Nana. Bye-bye?

It amazes me how much Sophie still talks about her Nana. With a few exceptions, it's usually out of the blue, which always blows my mind, although it shouldn't because I often think of her at odd times too. There must have been something about yesterday...

We were both really sick this weekend, since I brought home some sort of nasty virus and unforunately gave it to Sophie. I was hanging out with her and babies in our family room, with babies in their jumparoos, and Sophie playing on the floor. I was sitting in the chair where Bonnie would have been sitting, had she been there.

Sophie brought her book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" to me, pointed to a certain page and said "nana." This caught me off guard, but then made me laugh. My mother in law HATED this book lol, and could not understand how Sophie wanted to hear it over and over. Of course, she complied with each request;) I looked at Sophie and said yes, that her Nana used to read this book to her alot, to which Sophie said "Nana, home?" I said "no baby, Nana's not at home." She then said "Nana, house?" "No baby, Nana's not at her house." An odd look came over her, as if she was trying to understand what this meant. Then, she said "Nana, my house?" "No baby, Nana can't come to your house." This clearly confused her, and she finally said "Nana. Bye-bye?" I was hesitant to say yes to this, because I didn't know how much her very literal mind can understand right now. But I said "Yes, Nana is bye-bye" and then after a few seconds finally got out "we won't see Nana anymore." Then I fought the tears. That's the first time I've been able to say that to her. She clearly didn't understand, or maybe she did. I'm not sure.

Later last night, Sophie and Avery were in bed and I was rocking Connor in the same chair I mentioned above. I felt her there, maybe because it was Sunday night and I was watching her favorite news shows. I don't know. But, I felt her there. Then Dan, out of the blue, looked at me and said "mom would have been sitting in that chair doing the exact same thing."

That was three of the five of us, and the 3 that can actually verbalize our thoughts, that mentioned her yesterday. What's up with that? Dan's birthday was on Friday, his first without his mom. Maybe this is part of it?

germs and cooties...gone

I've been busy dealing with a house full of sickies. I do believe that all the nasties have officially left the building though. To recap the last 3 weeks.

Thanks to wheezing and retractions, I took Avery to the ER twice in the same weekend. On a Friday night she was diagnosed with RSV. I took her back on Saturday night because the Albuteral was just not working. THey gave her a nebulizer treatment that did the trick. I learned from the ER doc that RSV is code for crabby ass baby. She was simply inconsolable. The dr informed me that RSV basically eats away the lining of the nose and throat. So it hurts. Babies scream. Parents cry. It was really bad.

Our 2nd trip, Saturday night, I could SO tell the nurse and the dr were assessing ME for how close I was to the brink of insanity. We were in a room for TWO hours, with Avery screaming the ENTIRE time, before a nurse came in. When she finally did I had tears streaming down my face, from frustration. Dan was at home with Sophie and Connor so I had no one to help. The nurse asked what I needed. Did I need a soda, no. To go to the bathroom, no. To take my baby. YES, please take my baby. Thankfully, she did. Where she took her, I don't know. I just know that she was gone, and the screaming stopped (at least as far as I could hear). I sat down and cried, and cried some more. SHe was gone for at least 30 minutes and it felt fantastic just to be alone. I am NEVER alone. Occasionally I would wonder where they went, but then I just put blind trust in the nurse that she was trying to help me and would not steal my baby.

The dr finally walked in with Avery. She was a mom of triplets, and it felt good to know that she GOT it. She understood my frustration. She did assess me. I'm sure she had no idea that I knew what she was doing. Asked me lots of questions about how much help I had. Luckily, she felt I was in OK shape to take my daughter home. SHe requested that I feed her every 3 hours, instead of 4, and keep her full of Tylenol until the virus was gone. She told me to do the same with Connor, who most definately also had RSV, although was never diagnosed.

That's only the 2nd time I've come close to the brink of totally losing my shit. Of just collapsing into a puddle right there on the floor, not even wanting someone to help pick me up. The first time was a few weeks after my mother in law died, when I was essentially single-parenting because Dan was just not capable. It's not fun.

The twins gave RSV to Sophie, which manifested itself in a REALLY nasty cold. These lovely cold symptoms caused asthma symptoms, so all three babies were getting puffed full of albuterol on a very regular basis.

In the mean time, both babies have had ear infections, and Avery apparently inherited the lovely issue of excema.

Connors "lump" was officially diagnosed as a hemangioma. In infants, this usually pops up outside of the skin so is treated by a dermatologist. Not Connor. His is internal, and will be treated with meds, by an ENT.

I took him back to the ENT 7 days after starting the propanalol. She was amazed by his progress, and thought that the lump had shrunk by at least 1/3 in just a week. Hmmm...I should have guessed something was up. I went to refill his script a few days later, only to be told that insurance wouldn't cover the meds for several more day? I questioned why this was, when it meant we wouldn't have enough to get him through until the refill date.

Turns out, the stupid idiot pharm tech instructed us to give him the meds in ML, when actually the ENT had written it for MG. So, I was giving him almost three times more medication than he needed. The kicker is that the main side effect of this med is lowered heart rate. So yes, Wal.greens could have killed my son. THe pharmacist told me to go home and take his pulse. Thanks to his ever growing fat folds, I couldn't get a pulse at his neck or wrist, so I sent Dan back to Walgreens, with Connor in tow. I figured it was the least they could do. She finally got a pulse of 77 at his femoral artery. Lowish, but OK.

We quit giving him the meds until we could talk to the dr office. The nurse confirmed that while scary, and completely unneccesary, as long as he seems to be ok, it wasnt it a huge worry. The dose I was giving him was an amount the dr would have worked him up to anyway. She started the meds out very low, on purpose.

So, that's what I've been dealing with, instead of keeping this blog up to date. I always have an excuse, but they're usually pretty darn good;)

I downloaded over 700 pics from my new camera this AM. hope to have some new ones on here soon!!!

I'm doing this damnit...the twins...

It really is incredible how quickly time gets away from me. I'm seriously going to have to block out time on my calendar to keep updating, if I really want to keep this going. Which I do.

The twins are 6 months old today. Officially about 35 minutes ago. Avery was already on her way to the NICU, Connor was being monitored in the OR, and they were sewing me up.

Let's get to it...
Avery (baby A)...aka Birdie (I nicknamed her this in the NICU, because that's what she reminded me of), teradactyl, Chia (hello hair:)), sweet potato.

She's a diva. She thrives on attention. She has the classic "middle child" mentality already.

She had a dr appt yesterday, thanks to a rash that had developed. Luckily, it's "only" excema. She weighed in at 14.5 pounds, which REALLY suprises me, as Connor was weighing 15.5 last week and she feels SO much lighter than him.

She's very "delicate," tiny, almost fragile. I thought this might just be my thinking when I compared her to Connor, but even compared to Sophie at this age, she's a teeny little thing. To me, she clearly looks like a girl. She rolled over before Connor, and has been putting weight on her legs for WEEKS now. Of the three, she's been the healthiest, which is odd to me, because in utero, I always worried about her the most. I don't know why. Aside from this recent skin issue, she's been super healthy. She's currently in 3-6 month clothes.

Many say she looks like me. I don't see it, but I do understand how it's possible, as I think she looks like my dad, my grandma and great-grandma (all on the same side). And thinking about my grandma and great-grandma, they were mayyyybeeeee 5'2, on a good day...so maybe she'll take after them in height as well. When comparing my baby pic to her, we do *sort of* look alike, lol;)

Thanks to her super sensitive tummy, she's been on Nutri.magen for months. She got breastmilk until about 10 weeks, at which time, out of desperation I switched her to this speciality (read: expensive) formula. It worked wonders. She truly became a different child. Nothing short of me limiting my diet to bread/water was going to make her tummy happy. I had reservations about switching to formula, but I was at the end of my rope (and those who know me know I have ALOT of rope, lol). As the can of formula predicted, it took 14 days to see a difference, but my God, it was like night and day. So, I don't regret for one minute the decision to switch her to formula.

Connor...aka Mr. Man (again, I gave this to him in the NICU and it has stuck), Buddy Boo

He is just a big honking BOY. I had no idea there would be such a difference in boy/girl. He's much thicker than Avery, and weighs at least a pound more. When I stretch out my hand, thumb to middle finger, it is almost impossible for me to get my hand across his chest. He's wearing 6 month clothes.

He looks like a male version of Sophie when she was a baby, which is to say he looks like Dan. I do think he also looks like my maternal grandfather. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but it's there.

He would just lie there like a bump on a log, as Avery learned to roll over. Now though, it's her that just lies there on her back, while Connor IMMEDIATELY rolls over to his tummy, if you lie him down on his back. It's like laying on his back just simply isn't an option.

He also has his two bottom teeth which popped up about two weeks ago.

He is the classic "baby." Nothing phases him. He's a happy guy, always smiling, chilling out.

He is still drinking breastmilk, but the past month or so I've had to supplement with formula. I don't know if it's my stress level or what, but my supply is going down. I don't like it, but I don't have time to dwell on it.

He, unfortunately, has had some health issues. We noticed a pea sized lump that appeared in his neck about 3 months ago. It grew. Pedi's original thought was swollen lymph node, as it appeared about the same time as a cold he was having. She sent us to the ER for an ultrasound and the ER docs agreed, and told us we should see a reduction in size as the cold disappeared. It actually got bigger, at which time pedi referred us to an ENT. Her original dx was lymphatic malformation. She ordered an MRI, at which time the radiologists diagnosed it as a hemangioma, which was really no better or worse than what ENT thought, just different. ENT gave me the dx over the phone and srongly suggested medication to reduce the area. In my subsequent research, it seems that medication is not often used to treat this, so my assumption is that the ENT does not like the location of the lump, and the ability it has to either keep growing into the ear or the throat.

We see the ENT tomorrow for her confirmation of the radiologists dx, and to talk specifics about treatment. I have lots of questions:)

Both babies smile and giggle. They are grasping toys, switching hands, making eye contact...meeting most, if not all, developmental milestones. Avery was holding her own bottle last night, and it wasn't just a fluke. It was both hands, holding (and doing a damn good job) her bottle.

Here are a few pics. SOrry to my Face.book friends...nothing new that you haven't seen yet.


One of my all-time faves, from back in November. SOphie kissing Avery...


A comparison of my baby pic to Avery. I'm in the middle!


Avery just grabbed Connor's hand as I was taking a few shots. LOVE! You can *sort of* see the swollen area of his neck here.


Mr. Man:)


My little birdie's gorgeous eyelashes. Parden the sweet potatos:)