Somehow we managed to get through the first year with all of our faculties intact. (Though the momma continues to be late with all things posting)
Loen: Weighs 15 pounds 9 1/2 ounces and is 26 1/2 inches long. For her adjusted age of 8 months she is in the 30th percentile. She continues to amaze us with her learning curve. She is sitting, crawling, cruising. There have been times where she thinks she can hold on to things with only one hand, usually with with disastrous consequences. She likes to talk and blow razberrys all the time. She does the “ma ma ma” noise but I know she isn’t talking about me yet. She is a very independent little girl. You can put her in the playpen and she will entertain herself for the longest time. Just sitting there playing with toys, trying to eat books. It is so cute and a huge help when you’re trying to clean the house. Now if we can just get Derby to do the same.
Derby: Weighs 15 pounds 4 1/2 ounces and is 25 1/2 inches long. For his adjusted age he is just under the growth chart but our pediatrician isn’t concerned because he said his fat little thighs are a good sign he is eating well. In the few weeks he has had therapy we can really see a change. Tadd was upset we didn’t get him in sooner but he is there now. He goes 4 times a week, twice to see the Physical Therapist and twice to see the Occupational Therapist. The supervisor of the program said the first time she saw Derby he resisted movement with both arms but now he is moving and starting to bear weight on his left when they put him in the crawl position. He wont stay there for long but he is trying. He gets so frustrated and annoyed when they put in him in a move that is unfamiliar. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry along with him as he sounds so pathetic! Ok, I end up laughing becuase I know the moment they hand him back to me he gets a big smile, like he faked them out. That is until I took him to PT on his birthday. I thought about canceling and letting him have a break but it is only 30 minutes and the benefits outweighed a birthday free pass. Well he bitched and moaned the entire time. Loen thought it was great to play with new toys and no one was bugging her. You could tell Derby was giving her dirty looks and the OT kept making him roll and work on his left leg. She finally handed him over and I gave him a big hug. Derby decided to show me what he thought of working on his birthday by biting my shoulder..HARD. I was afraid I was going to have to slap his head to get him to release me. He was like a dog with a bone. It is days later and I still have a red mark! We decided to get Derby the cranial remolding helmet. After speaking with numerous doctors, orthopedists, therapist etc. we decided it would be the right decision. While his head might have turned out normal without a helmet we only had a small window of time to actively correct the issue in case it did not. It doesn’t bother him and we wont have to worry about kids teasing him about a flat head when he is older. After he was fitted with the helmet I said he looked like an X-Wing fighter pilot from Star Wars. My brother Souther painted his helmet to look just like he was an extra in Star Wars. He was very meticulous in the details even spray painting ‘blast marks’ so it looked like he had been in battle. Derby looks super cool.
Derby makes all kinds of noises but has really honed in on the “Da da da” sound, of course he isn’t calling for Tadd yet. That would be nice in the middle of the night to hear ‘Da da” and Tadd would have to get up vs me! He has started to roll from his back to his belly, but he will often roll right back onto his back. It is like he realizes he is doing “tummy time” and wants none of that.
Food: They both know the sign for milk now. Loen get super excited when you do it, you just have to be sure you have the bottle near by or she will get upset. I am now working on the signs for ‘Mom’ ‘Dad” and ‘all done’. At first Loen didn’t care much for solid food but now she is suddenly very excited about it. The bad thing is she makes a major mess. I am tempted to feed her outside naked so I can just hose her off afterwards. Before I get hate mail, notice that I said tempted, I’m not really going to do that. Loen got the go ahead to try dairy based products like yogurt and cheese. She seems to really like YoBaby yogurt. Tadd asked if he could give her a little piece of cheese. I said sure and was in the process of telling him to give her a little piece of the organic mozzarella string cheese in the refrigerator when he says he already gave her a piece of SMOKED GOUDA! I told him to take it out her mouth. Hell, why not give her blue cheese or Stilton while we are at it. So far she seems okay and no reaction from the Daddy feeding her random bits of adult food. Derby is working with OT regarding eating. He knows what to do with the food once it is in his mouth it is just getting it in there. They feel it is a sensory issue and will be teaching us some tricks to help him. They are still hovering at the 5 ounces of breast milk every 3 hours. I think they are getting ready for a growth spurt so I waiting to see if they will start to drink more. At their one year well check I asked the doctor about starting them on cows milk but he wanted to wait till their adjusted age of 1 year (02/09) before making the switch. So I guess I will be pumping for a few more months here.
Teeth: They each have 6 teeth. We noticed that Derby’s teeth are looking yellow. The pediatrician also noticed that and said that preemies have a tendency for dental problems if they had:antibiotics, traumatic events, antibiotics in utero, high bilirubin or prolonged intubation. Guess what? We had ALL of those and I’m sure a few more of whatever will cause dental problems in the future. So we will be seeing a pediatric dentist in a couple of weeks.
Derby pondering the state of the economy.We removed the strap from his glasses so they fit in the helmet better. The down side is he removes his glasses more often and tries to chew on them.
I thought the twins first birthday party went really well. As many may know the first party is really for the adults, the kids will never remember what went on. It was just a big BBQ with friends. I decided to hold off on a birthday cake until they could appreciate it (and eat it). I made their invites and at the time I thought “how hard can it be?”. Yeah 1 or 2 is no big deal, 50 invites later I am cursing under my breath wondering why I thought stitching THEN adding a rivet to each invite would be a snap. Next year EVITE!
Big Iain, Loen, Little Iain, Souther & Derby
On the invite we asked that in lieu of gifts we would collect donations to purchase a new glider chair for the Santa Barbara NICU. Well, people decided the twins had to have something to open in addition to the generous donations to the NICU. Have I ever mentioned how spoiled they are??
We couldn’t resist the HUGE Nemo pinata. We had enough kids between the ages of 1-7 to enjoy that action. Though it took a couple of Faux-bros to break that guppy open! I love the fact that we put little toys and mini playdoh in the pinata along with candy. My nephew Iain runs with his bucket to collect the goodies then notices he got a toy vs candy, he chucked it over his shoulder. I guess he knew what he wanted.
Tadd, Loen and Tamie. Loen enjoying the pinata action
Loen and Katie. Loen was trying to hold the photographers at bay
Derby telling Martha about his day
This is why Grandpa Jim is not allowed to watch the kids by himself. I hope there wasn’t any beer in that cup!
My mom made the twins linen jackets and Iain silk screened these wonderful images on them. The twins have cooler clothes than I do.We should grow into these soon.
Loen trying to rip Elmo out of the box
Souther made a painting for the twins. If you look at the close up Derby looks a little like Plankton from Spongebob
Tadd’s mom put a lot of time and effort into making these dolls that are the same size the twins were when they were born. Not to mention they are anatomically correct. It still blows my mind to think of them that small.
Derby was cracking Jeff up
The day after the party we went to the park with my family. My dad is playing the part of the ‘Wandering Minstrel’
Little Iain was helping push Derby. I asked Iain what his full name was to which he replied “Big cousin Iain”.
Loen passed out in my dads arms. She barely napped the whole time we had family around. She was afraid she would miss something exciting!
Just hanging with the dad after everyone went home
We never made it to the pumpkin patch, but our neighbors went crazy with the pumpkin carving and decorated the court we live in. It looked really cool and we didn’t have to do any work. There will always be next year.
It is amazingly difficult to get them to pose AND smile at the same time
Wasn’t there a Jaws sequel where they killed him with a sea mine? Perhaps Derby is reenacting that scene
Derby’s costume was a shark but with the addition of the helmet it became “Great White that swallowed X-Wing Fighter”
Face plant
Loen was being a good sport in the beginning
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to dress her like a pixie
So we finally got the test results back and he doesn’t have RSV. Still sounds like a sad little wheezy boy but otherwise is a happy baby. He cracks me up doing the breathing treatments because he will try and chew on the mask and then he has started making this new Frankenstein noise of “raaaaarrrrwwwwwww, raaaaaarrww”. You can hear it muffled through the mask.
Loen has been a trouper through all of this. When I took Derby in for a recheck Friday morning she was in the stroller for most of the time. Fauxma offered to watch her but I hated to impose on her again, especially after yesterday when she stayed and helped with the babies for HOURS. She says she loves it but I don’t want to wear out our favorite helper. Loen has just been my little wild girl. Talking, crawling, cruising on everything. We are just hoping she doesn’t get what Derby has!
Jim held Derby during his breathing treatment and he fell asleep midway
We were all pretty lethargic this morning. Tadd is still recovering from the October 15th tax deadline. He was working 18-20 hour days towards the end.
Last week Loen had a cough. It sounded yucky but she seemed to be in good spirits. No fever or runny nose, still eating well. I called the pediatric advice nurse just to be sure I was doing everything right. I would hate to ignore it and it turns out the kid has pneumonia. Given our history they had us come in to be checked out. Turns out it was just a virus and Loen’s lungs sounded clear. I got the usual song and dance of ‘keep them hydrated, use a humidifier …….”. So when Derby started coughing on Monday I figured he got what Loen had. How could he not when she goes over and and licks his hand which he then puts in his mouth. Other than keeping them isolated from each other I have to accept the fact they are going to share germs. I thought Derby was getting better but last night his cough sounded a little worse, then he did that horrible thing of coughing so much he couldn’t catch his breath then puked. You know how I love puke. I got my stethoscope out to listen to his lungs. I thought they sounded clear but it was hard to listen when he was trying to chew on the tubing. I did notice he was wheezing so I thought I would call the advice nurse in the morning. Once again they had me come in to be sure they weren’t missing anything since micro-preemies can have so many issues with their lungs. The nurse practitioner (our pediatrician was on vacation) said she heard the wheezing but also some light crackles in his left lung (usually indicative of fluid). So they gave him a breathing treatment and would check him again. Afterwards he still sounded wheezy so they did a chest x-ray and labs to check for RSV. Now I am feeling really bad that I didn’t bring him in sooner and I mentioned that to the NP. She said it was okay and it was a testament to our parenting with how good he looks and this was the first time he has been ill since leaving the NICU. That made me feel a little better.
Derby getting a breathing treatment
So the rundown is we have yet to get the results of the chest x-ray or RSV test. Derby has to use a nebulizer 3 times a day to help with wheezing while he is sick and start oral steroids. My poor little man. I was afraid we would have to cancel their birthday party but she thought he would be fine by next weekend.
You are probably wondering what the title of this post means. To get a good chest x-ray they put Derby in a infant positioner, Pigg-O-Stat, that made me think of those clear pneumatic tubes you see at drive-up banks. I didn’t get a picture of him in it since I was trying to hold his arms so they could get the images. It was so sad to see his arms up and his little head sticking out of the hole! This is the promo shot for the device. Derby is smaller than this kid so his head was just resting at the bottom of the hole.
UPDATE: Ok now I feel REALLY BAD. After looking at the xray the radiologist said it is “early left sided pneumonia”. At least this is happening now and not on his birthday which would be really pathetic!
I have been trying to give the twins solid food every day or two. It isn’t a substantial amount but I am hoping it will get them used to eating solids. Loen feels solid food is the perfect medium for creative expression (ie: huge mess). I will apologize for the photo quality now as I took them all via cell phone.
Trying peas last week
Trying sweet potatoes a couple of days ago. It was a bad idea to put their high chairs right next to each other because Loen reached over and slimed Derby.
That huge mess was caused by an OUNCE of sweet potatoes
I pureed organic green beans last night, Loen seemed to enjoy them. Derby….. well watch the video below to see what he thought of them.
My mind kept wandering back to one year ago today. That was when I went into preterm labor and Loen decided it would be a good time to rupture her amniotic sac. I kept thinking of how I was in shock, lying on the gurney in the operating room and hearing the sound of water hitting the floor. I remember thinking it sounded like someone had dropped a water balloon and it exploded. Then the hush of the room, Dr. Soffici wheeling back and saying “There is nothing more we can do now”. I was alone and Tadd was waiting for me in the hospital room. I couldn’t believe what was happening and I couldn’t move my eyes off of the white ceiling tile above me. I couldn’t cry, I felt like I could barely breathe. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not even Tadd. Later Dr. Soffici gave us our options of terminating the pregnancy or bed rest to try and make it till the babies were viable. I wanted to fast forward a few months or a year just so I could know things would turn out okay.
This is what I did today. I enjoyed the fact that Loen and Derby had a marvelous time playing at the park. Our beautiful, laughing, smiling healthy babies. I guess we just knew things would work out somehow.
On Sunday we went to the NICU reunion at the Santa Barbara Zoo. We were really looking forward to seeing the doctors and nurses again. Before we went to the zoo we stopped by the NICU to say hi to the nurses who had to work that day. We have said before how wonderful and caring the staff is, but there are a few nurses that we had more than others. So we became closer to them and I swear Derby has a crush on some of the nurses! We really need to make an effort to see them more often.
Derby heard Li’s voice and broke into smiles, they have a special connection. When Loen came home we were pleased to hear that some of the nurses would “fight” over who got to hold Derby (Li was one of them)!
Loen smiling at Allison and Tomiko. Allison was Loen’s first nurse.
Martha (a respiratory therapist in the NICU) and Derby. She calls him her boyfriend. Martha has lots of boyfriends inside and out of the NICU!
Katie and Loen. We had Katie more than any other nurse and she definitely holds a special place in our hearts.
Katie and Derby
Dr. Donelly and Derby
Martha and Katie put up the welcome banner at the front of the zoo. Don’t you think the duct tape gives it a little something extra? It would have been funnier if they used medical tape to put it up (I have wrapped presents with medical tape when I ran out of regular)
Tadd, Derby, Vivianne and Katie. The girls look like an ad for teeth whitening.
Katie, Loen and Gail. Gail was Derby’s nurse the day they were born. Guess where Derby was….asleep.
I will say when I dressed the kids that morning it was cooler weather. We get to the zoo and it was warm. I felt bad they were in sweat pants and long sleeve shirts while other kids wore shorts…bad mama.
So this is WAYYYYYY past their actual 11 month birthday but I just haven’t forced myself to get back into posting. If I try and post when the babes are awake A: I feel guilty I am not spending that time playing and working with them and B: Loen crawls all over me and drools on the keys. Ok are you going to buy those excuses?? Anyways on to the…..UPDATES
Loen: At their 11 month check up she weighed 14 pounds 13.5 ounces and was 26 inches long. When I wrote before she was a slobbering mess I had no idea of what was to come. How that child doesn’t dehydrate is beyond me. We soak through numerous bibs and shirts daily. Not to mention all the toys and burp cloths that are dripping wet thanks to Lo. It must be all that teething. She has her bottom two and is cutting her fangs. No words yet but there is lots of baby blabbering going on in our house especially when they are supposed to be down for their nap. Loen went from attempting to crawl to mastering the crawl and pulling up on furniture within a week. I wasn’t quite ready for that learning curve. She also has no concept of danger. I was letting her crawl on the bed and had my hand wrapped around her ankle. I wanted to see what she would do when she came to the edge. She stopped, looked over then attempted to crawl off the edge. Thank goodness I was holding her. She has all these tiny little bruises on her noggin because she is constantly trying to pull up on things then falling. Perhaps I should buy her the thudgaurd. Tadd noticed if she falls trying to get to a toy she will cry but if she falls trying to get to: cell phone, power cords, computer (any forbidden item), she will look at you, act like nothing is wrong and continue her quest for dangerous items. Another favorite item on the forbidden list is my insulin pump. It is like she remembers it is attached to me and will look for it. I have felt tugging behind me only to find Loen pulling on the catheter line. It doesn’t hurt to have the tubing pulled out (it is insert via needle into fat) but it is a pain to have reinsert it.
Derby: Weighs in at 14 pounds 9 ounces and is 25 inches long. They have to be over 15 pounds now. Derby has 2 bottom teeth and is just cutting a fang (perhaps they should ask for their 2 front teeth for Christmas). We still only do the front to back roll. Derby now sees a Occupational Therapist (OT) and a Physical Therapist (PT) to help him work on movement. At first he thought it was fun smiling and laughing but then they started working on his muscles and having him move in unfamiliar ways. Somebody was pretty ticked off, it was sad and funny all at the same time. He is getting increasingly frustrated with not being able to move. He will try and throw himself backwards to move but alas this is one of those frowned upon moves. He has the strength he just doesn’t want to move the proper way. It will be interesting to see where we are in a month after weekly sessions with the therapists. Another down side of spending a lot of time on your back is a flat head. Derby is able to move enough to get himself into a comfortable position so placing rolls behind him so he will sleep on his side no longer works. He does this little butt scoot so he is on his back and he puts his hands behind his head. We took the twins to a orthopedic office for a laser evaluation of their head shape. They said Loen has a classic preemie shaped head but nothing to worry about. Derby’s measurements were just within the range where they would recommend a helmet. His pediatrician and the neonatologist said not to worry about it but Tadd feels if we can do anything to make their life a little better we should do it. We are still discussing what we want to do but I keep thinking how sad Derby would look with glasses and a helmet.
Mr. Flat Head
Derbs is my little chunker
Food: I spoke with the pediatrician regarding Derby clamping his mouth shut when I tried to feed him, he said to give them a couple of weeks without any solid food then try again. I bought some jars of organic baby food since a friend told me her son preferred the texture over homemade. We had a few successful bites of peas and pears (lunch is brought to you by the letter P). The Occupational Therapist was asking me questions regarding Derby’s eating style to which I answered ‘no’, then I was thinking Loen does a lot of those things. So I mentioned how Loen eats and how we have had little luck with solids. Oral issues are very common with preemies, she said if I bring Loen in with me the next time she would go over some ideas with me. So that sounds promising, I doubt we will be ready to eat cake at our first birthday but it is a start. But at the moment we are still breastfed babies (via bottle with added formula for calories). How’s the breast milk you ask (and yes I have had the Ben & Jerry’s PETA story emailed to me a few times). Well we are finally tapping into the frozen. Not that I don’t produce enough fresh but I decided to just pump 3 times a day. It has been almost a year and I am starting to loath the breast pump. Not to mention the frozen is only good for up to a year in a deep freeze. Depending on how much milk I get out when I pump I add between .5 to 1.5 ounces of frozen to the fresh milk to make 5 ounces. Derby, my little milk connoisseur, refuses to drink all frozen. I feel like I am sneaking it in. In the beginning he would stick his tongue out because he could just taste the faintest hint of frozen milk in his bottle but he is getting used to it, he still prefers all fresh. Too bad, so sad little man we need room for frozen pizza in the freezer!
Use it before it expires!
After Derby got his glasses I kept thinking he looked like a cartoon character but I couldn’t think of the name. Once again the letter P kept coming to mind but I was drawing a blank as to the character. I thought “Pemberton” (not a cartoon) then someone mentioned Pointdexter, nope that wasn’t it. Then as I started to write this blog it came to me, Peabody! I was close as Mr. Peabody was the dog and the boy was Sherman. Or maybe he looks like Chicken Little or the little kid from “Jerry McQuire”. Anybody out there have any ideas?
I will say he looks pretty adorable with the glasses on.
Rare tandem smiling pics
Ok be honest does this patch make my head look fat?
Loen looks like she is up to something
Grandpa Jim has been a great help with the twins. I manage to get a lot of laundry done when he is around
Checking out the inside of the toy basket
Is she kissing him or trying to lick him? Hard to tell
I was worried about the flight to Michigan with the twins. This would be their first time flying and we would be at the very beginning of cold and flu season. One of the twins doctors gave us a great tip of wiping down the seat area with antibacterial wipes. So we brought a a big stack of wipes and wiped off the arm rests, tray table and sides every time we got on a new plane (the first leg of our trip had one stop over, going home we had TWO stopovers). You should have seen some of the looks our fellow passengers were giving us, but hey germs can live up to 48 hours on a hard surface so why chance it? We did well on the way to Michigan because I opted to fly the red eye. I figured they could just sleep in our arms, which they did. Tadd and I got very little sleep ourselves. Tadd purchased Baby B’Airs for the twins so they could be strapped to us during the flight in case of turbulence. They worked well I guess, but when Derby was having a meltdown I couldn’t get him unstrapped to me fast enough so I could put him over my shoulder. That was a pain.
Let us do the fast rundown. Landed in Traverse City, Michigan and lo and behold who should be waiting for us? Mima T and Papa Don, I should have expected that. From here on out the twins were going to be ruthlessly spoiled. I told Jim (Tadd’s dad who also flew with us) that he probably wouldn’t be able to hold the twins while in Michigan. They were hot commodities those two. We got to the hotel, pointed out some big lake to the twins and then settled into getting the twins down for a nap so we could get some shut eye ourselves. It was pretty lax for the rest of the day. Saturday we went out to lunch and walked around for awhile . We went to this great kids store Bugs and Butterflys . We got a few new things that I have fallen in love with, I will also say the prices were better than in Santa Barbara. I got a new red sling from Sprout Pouch (since my other one that I got from our friend Michelle was too small now that the kids are bigger) a teething necklace that both of the twins are really into but you have to be ready for a boat load of drool down your chest and some new blankets that are the perfect weight for Santa Barbara. We got to meet our cousin Parker at last, but what is that? No pictures? Yea that sounds like us. (I’m sure someone has pictures but not us). After all that it was time to go back to the hotel for naps (of course) and to get ready for Dave and Lisa’s wedding.
In downtown Traverse City. Loen tried a high chair for the first time. Derbs was asleep in the sling.
It should be said that we have made it a habit of forgetting the camera as of late. Or should I say thought we forgot the camera. I was annoyed I wouldn’t be able to take any pictures only to find the camera the next day in the stroller under some diapers where I had stashed it for easy access. So the following wedding shots are courtesy of Grandpa Jim’s camera. Also at the wedding Tadd and I forgot the following: pacifiers, slings, extra diapers and wipes. Thank goodness we were staying at the hotel next door to the reception hall.
Self portrait of Grandpa Jim
Here we are the happy family (though I was cold because I forgot to bring a sweater. The kids are warm though). This was before the start of the wedding. Before Loen decided to loudly talk through all of it and I had to sneak down the center aisle to stand in the back.
Ahh, a picture of Loen showing how she can effectively make the most noise
The piper and Dave. Every wedding should have a piper. I tried to get the piper at our wedding to play “If You Want My Body” ala ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer‘. He said it couldn’t be done but I saw it in a movie dammit!
Lisa and Tadd’s cousin Dave
Ring bearer Reece and flower girl Hanna
Tadd’s Uncle Dave & Aunt Mary
Hey Derby, wake up before you miss all the fun. I’m not napping so why should you?!
I swear the kid had pants on for the majority of the wedding.
Tadd had a great time with his cousins Reece and Hanna. Here he is teaching them YMCA. Reece wants Tadd to move next door. Tadd is like the crazy Uncle that does all the dangerous circus tricks why others gasp in horror, but the kids love it
I love how Reece is having a great time.
(From L-R: Don, Tamie, Loen, Reece, Hanna, Derby, Jim & Tadd)
Reece and Hanna got some of the disposable cameras and were taking candid shots with Tadd’s encouragement. I would love to see how those pictures turn out!
Next day: Road trip!
We got to Michigan right before the big color change
At a winery by some lake..
Art shot of the grapes
Loen LOVED this swing ( and Derbs was asleep. Imagine that)
Loen and I at the LAKE FRONT. Tadd states Michigan has the most coast line of any state in the continental United States and great beaches. I say for it to be a beach it has to include an ocean not a lake. Ah our birth states clash (can you tell where we were born? Little hint I was born in: aliforniacay)
This was a special moment during our trip, the 45th parallel.
So that is about it. We flew home and had to change planes 3 TIMES. From Chicago to Denver the woman sitting next to Derby & I puked. I will say she was kind enough to turn her head from us and puke all over her husband. I felt bad for them and gave them a clean burp cloth and a stack of antibacterial wipes to try and get the majority of upchuck off of themselves. I had to turn my head from the sight of puke dripping off the phone in the middle headrest before I got sick myself. Then of course there was the incident where I almost gouged out my daughters eye on the way home. Point is were home and still recuperating. After I post this I might get around to emptying out our luggage…..
She also has no concept of danger. I was letting her crawl on the bed and had my hand wrapped around her ankle. I wanted to see what she would do when she came to the edge. She stopped, looked over then attempted to crawl off the edge. Thank goodness I was holding her. She has all these tiny little bruises on her noggin because she is constantly trying to pull up on things then falling. Perhaps I should buy her the 
