2028ndgrads

A Magical Day

2012-01-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful trip to Disney World. Absolutely fabulous. But it started and ended pretty bumpy.
The night before we were due to leave, I suggested to Mike that we get our boarding passes for our flight. Mike sat as his computer for a while and when I looked over, he was rubbing his eyes, a bit despondently. I asked if something was wrong. "Yes. This shows that our flight was booked, but never purchased." A bit of scrambling and checking credit card statements and low and behold, yes, Mike had not actually purchased tickets for the flight the next day. Luckily there were still tickets available for flights from Chicago to Orlando on 1/1/2012. The ones at reasonable times were $200 more than the flight at 6:35a. So we decided sleep was less important than $1000 and changed our plans to get up at 2am and start our vacation.
All is well that ends well. We made the flight, got to Orlando and enjoyed some warm weather, the pool and a family nap.
The next 3 1/2 days we spent at Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. Gram and Pop joined us and we had adjoining rooms at the Comtemporary Resort with views of Magic Kingdom. Each night the girls bundled up in their coats and blankets and watched the fireworks. We got to watch Cinderella's castle change colors. Lily's favorite color was the pinkish-purplish.
On Tuesday we had breakfast at Cinderella's castle. We got pictures with and autographs from Snow White, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and Cinderella. Kelsey gave Cinderella a red, heart-shaped marble she found in her pocket. Lily told Belle that she is her favorite princess because she reads lots and lots of books.
All three girls enjoyed the Carousel. Lily and Addison both liked the tea cups, but Kelsey thought they were too scary. Winnie the Pooh was found to be too dark and scary. Mike's favorite is probably It's a Small World which we all agreed was MUCH better than we remembered. Addison and Lily rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Although she looked rather petrified the whole ride and was relieved when the ride was over, Addison declared that it was almost "too much fun for me" and asked to ride it again. Lily went on Splash Mountain with me. Although she laughed quite a bit when my glasses were covered with water droplets, Lily stated she would never, ever ride that again after surviving the 50 foot drop.
A fun game we played was guess the color of the monorail. Whenever we were waiting for a monorail, we'd each pick a color (orange, pink, red, blue...). Whoever guess right got a "WooHoo!" from the rest of us.
My favorite was the Animal Kingdom safari. Addison's too. While at Animal Kingdom, we did a character meal at Tusker House Restaurant. We were able to meet Goofy, Mickey, Donald and Daisy Duck. The meal was buffet style and I think probably all of our favorite meals for the time at Disney. Gram stood in line so the girls could meet Pluto. Pluto was very excited about Addison's light up shoes much to Addison's delight.
On Thursday we started the day with standing in a short line to meet Tinker Bell. Kelsey was able to let her know that she is her favorite fairy. We were happy to have Kelsey meet Tinker Bell as this was the one thing she hoped she'd get to do at Disney World.
After 4 hours at Magic Kingdom, we started our journey home. Addison had not been feeling well all day and didn't eat lunch. As we were waiting in a LONG line at security at the Orlando airport, Addison vomited. Fortunately a family next to us was prepared for a vomiting child and had a bag to offer us. So we didn't have too much of a mess. And we are also thankful for airsick bags on the airplane and that we could take to use for the drive from Chicago back home. After surviving the flight, waiting a LONG time for our bags to arrive, and negotiating all of our bags, stroller and children on the to shuttle bus, we made it to our car, only to discover that the battery was dead. Ugh. Luckily a security car was nearby and the driver called for help. Surprisingly this resulted in only about a 15 minute delay.
From there we had smooth sailing and arrived home late at night, but all three girls slept on the drive home and went immediately to sleep once we got them in their beds.
So a rough start and end, but an awesome trip. The girls are ready to schedule the next one already.
One sweet story from our trip home. Lily started crying as we were leaving our parking spot at the Midway airport. I asked her what was wrong. She explained that she was sad because the pixie dust that was sprinkled in her hair at Castle Couture didn't work because her wish didn't come true. I asked what she wished for. At first she started to say she wished something about Mommy and Daddy, then she changed her mind and said it was that she wished that Jack (our 9 year old cocker spaniel) wouldn't be blind anymore. What can you say to that?

Kelsey turns three

2011-04-19T07:28:00.000-07:00

Kelsey successfully turned three years old on April 14, 2011. However her favorite thing to pretend these days is that she is five.

We had a nice week long visit with Gram and Pop that included Lily and Addison's first soccer practice and first soccer game. Thus far, Lily is playing soccer; Addison is not. Addison was willing to dribble the soccer ball a little at practice, but refused to even dress for the game. Lily played in the game and kicked the ball several times in the 8 minutes of playing time she saw. But her shining moment was when she "ran and SHOT past everybody else" including the ball and ran so fast she went right off the field.

All three girls continue to progress with reading. We bought Level 1 and Kindergarten sight words BOB books. Everyone can read Level 1 Book 1 although Kelsey still needs assistance. And they all are working on reading more. Lily came in to our bedroom this morning and announced that she read one of our library books all by herself, but thusfar she has refused to read it to anyone else, so accuracy is still in question.

A fun conversation between Gram and Kelsey occurred the other day.
Kelsey: "I have a friend named Claire and she has her own car."
Gram: "Oh, what color is Claire's car?"
Kelsey: "Red."
Gram: "Fire engine red?"
Kelsey: "No, car red."

For Kelsey's birthday we had a fun party with baby sitters, families and friends. The tiara and scepter cupcake cake was a big hit.

Hoosiers

2010-10-18T19:06:00.000-07:00

Hello! Anyone still out there? Sorry if you are out there and have been checking for updates. Since discovering Facebook, I post little updates and info there. Feel free to look me up!

As we might have expected, the summer was a bit rough. We ended up changing our plans so we could get out of my parents' hair a little earlier. So on June 30/July 1, I drove with the girls and my neice Regan from Forsyth up to Granger. The 12 hour trip took 19 1/2 hours. Many stops were made for going to the potty. But we made it in one piece and were able to sleep in our own house. Our stuff was delivered on July 2. The girls enjoy discussing the old house and the new house. Like Carter lived next door at the old house and Aubrey lives next door at the new house. The girls LOVE Aubrey who is 11 years old and initially thought it was great to have three little girls living next door. I think she's over it now.

We are really enjoying our new house and our new situation. Since Notre Dame started, Mike has been really busy. He is teaching three sections (120 students) and is trying to be very accessible to his students. He has regular office hours in in his office and also has unofficial office hours at South Dining Hall during lunch on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. He's told the students where to find him and he's had several join him to ask questions. It sounds like now he has a couple of regulars who he loves to regale with his stories of the glory days (if you can call 2 years with Jerry Faust glory days).

We didn't realize when we bought the new house that it is less than 1/2 mile from the elementary school. So we have soccer fields and three playgrounds within easy walking distance. We have many wonderful neighbors, but the girls haven't made any great friends in the neighborhood yet. We've had a couple of play dates with a family with two daughters. They do not live in our neighborhood, but their house is a little over half a mile away, so we can walk there.

Addison and Lily have been attending The Bridges school 1 - 3:30p Monday, Wednesday and Friday since the beginning of September. And they LOVE it. They have made a few friends through school and we keep saying we are going to invite Kate over for a playdate, but we've had stomach flu and a cruddy cough going through our house, so it hasn't worked out yet. Kelsey and I take Addison and Lily to school and Mike picks them up. Kelsey also LOVES The Bridges. Most days it takes me a good 20 minutes to get her to leave the classroom with the guinea pig and leave the fun stepping stones that are outside. Finally the school administrators suggested that I bring Kelsey for Friday afternoons with the Parent's Day Out group from 12:30 - 3:30. The group is intended for 3-5 year olds, but they made an exception for Kelsey because the group isn't that big. Kelsey has been to PDO three times. The first time she was a bit reluctant, but the second day, when she saw her teacher, she went running to her and gave her a big hug.

I noticed in my last post that Kelsey was in the I want to do it "all to myself" stage. Thankfully she is over that and will allow Mike and I and her older sisters to do stuff for her. Kelsey continues to amaze us with how sharp she is. She remembers words to songs better than Mike and me. She loves playing with our iPhones and managed to reset Mike's ringer the other day. She also loves dramatic play. She will sit by herself with the princesses and palaces and conduct quite a drama with lots of talking back and forth between the princesses. She is able to spell her own name and ALWAYS recognizes the word "zoo." She is constantly practicing holding up the correct number of fingers. She can hold up 1, 2, 3, and 4 fingers properly. If there was one complaint about Kelsey...she's trying to stop napping. Fridays, naps are now out. And this weekend she went without a nap Friday, Saturday and Sunday, despite our best efforts on Sunday.

Addison read her first book the other day...The Bobbsey Twins, Freddie and Flossie and Snap. I've been encouraging both Lily and Addison to read the titles of books and then words within books. The other night, Addison read the title. Then continued on to read each page. She started off VERY quietly reading, then by the end had enough confidence to say the sentences loudly. The next night both Addison and Lily read the two Bobbsey Twins books that we have together.

Lily also read her first book the other day. It was Friday at school. Since Kelsey's class starts 30 minutes before Addison and Lily's, the three of us go to the school "library" after dropping Kelsey off. Lily picked a book to read "That's not My Snowman" and before I knew it, she read the whole book.

Addison and Lily both are getting good at reading signs while we are out and recognizing words all over the place. As Mike says "This makes Mommy very happy." We are also working on math concepts like measuring, sets, sorting, etc.

Addison has gotten out of the habit of wearing dress up clothes constantly. Until, that is, she got her Halloween costume, Silvermist (one of Tinkerbell's friends). She is quite tall and is wearing a size 6. She is almost three inches taller than Lily. Addison seems to be into winning these days. She wants to know who's picture is prettiest, who has the most marbles, who got there first, etc.

Addison is taking swimming lessons and has improved greatly in her swimming ability. Her lessons are at Notre Dame at the pool in the Rockne.

Lily loves being silly. She came out of my room the other day wearing one of my bras over her clothes. She can be quite friendly and is more likely than Addison to talk to other grown ups and children.

As for me, I am doing a bit more work these days. Some subcontracting on website projects for my friend Fritz Miller, contract work for ScreamFree, and website development for my dear husband (accounting102.com). Neither Mike or I have been exercising as much as we would like, but we do get out and run one or two times a week on average. Last night I spent a while working on taking down wallpaper. We have several rooms that need redecorating and I haven't even finished taking down the wallpaper in the first one yet.

That's it for me. Ta-Ta for now.

News, news, news

2010-05-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

So while posting on facebook tonight, I realized I hadn't posted here in a long time. And when I checked the posts it appears I haven't even mentioned we are moving. To South Bend. Well, technically to Granger, IN which is a 15 minute drive to campus...where Mike will be teaching starting late August this summer.

And we've sold our house in Athens. Well, we have a contract and a closing date of June 15. And we've bought a house in Granger. Well, we have a closing date of June 1 or 3 for that house. But the schedule for our move is a bit crazy. Ends up the folks who currently own our new house needed to stay in the house until June 26. So, we will be without a home from June 15 to the 26. And Mike will be teaching the first summer session at Ohio University which goes until July 23.

So our schedule goes a little like this:
Movers arrive June 9 and pack up our stuff. They drive away with our belongings June 10 or 11. June 12 we drive to Asheville, NC to spend the night and a little time with our ND friends the Olingers. June 13 we drive to Duluth GA to spend a couple days with our friends the Kaplans. June 16 we drive to Forsyth GA to spend 3 weeks with Gram and Pop. June 19 Mike flies back to Ohio to teach. He returns to Forsyth the following weekend to celebrate Addison's and Lily's birthday. On July 1 I fly to Ohio and drive with Mike to Granger where we will have our belongings delivered on July 2. We spend the weekend without the girls settling into our new house. July 5 I return to Forsyth. July 9 Mike flies to Atlanta and we begin driving to our new home in Indiana. July 10 we arrive in Indiana for good. July 16 or 17 or there abouts Brenda (aka Grandma) comes to help out in Granger for a week or so.

There are actually even more moving parts than these, but this helps show the grizzly life we will be leading for the next few months.

Interesting stuff about the girls. Addison and Lily have their last week of preschool next week. We have definitely seen a few changes in them thanks to this experience. During the last story of the day Lily chooses to sit with her friend Mailey rather than her daddy. At our parent/teacher conference a few weeks back, Addison's teacher said they were starting to worry about Addison's socialization because it seemed like she was pulling back and not engaging as much as she had been. But their worries subsided when she struck up a friendship with a little boy in class. Maybe the Snow White thing is just a ruse and Addison will end up being a tom boy after all.

Today Lily drew her first real picture. She drew a tree. She drew stairs on both sides of the tree so Cinderella (aka Lily) and Snow White (aka Addison) could climb up at the same time. Kelsey will have to wait her turn. Lily is quite good these days at coloring inside the lines. Addison is still working on it and while she is working on it all of her pictures still look like scribbled pictures.

Puzzles are a favorite activity for all of the girls. Addison, when asked to do something, frequently replies with "Just a minute, I'm doing this puzzle." And literally you can count on it being just a minute or so because she is getting to be so fast at the puzzles we have. Kelsey can also do puzzles "all to herself" Sometimes she needs a little verbal assistance, but she is quite good at figuring out where pieces go and how to put them in.

I like playing the game of "I spell a word and you tell me what it is" The other day we were doing the guess the animal game (i.e. an animal that has black and white stripes and looks a little like a horse). Then I switched to what animal is spelled C-A-T. Addison and Lily both got that one quickly. Then I did D-O-G. While Addison and Lily paused for moment Kelsey spoke right up with "Dog."

Kelsey has officially hit the terrible twos. Primarily she wants to do things "all to herself," but she forgets to communicate this to Mike and myself. And when that happens she throws a tantrum. And when she does communicate what she wants she changes her mind. After going wee wee, I asked if she wanted help getting up her pants. "Yes" then when I started to pull them up, she started WAILING "I want to do it all to myself!" Then 10 seconds later through her crying she says "I need help", so I go to help her again. "NO! I WANT TO DO IT ALL TO MYSELF!" WAILING louder (if that is possible). Even Addison chimed in then and said "Why do you keep changing your mind?" Me: "Thank you, Addison. So I'm not the only one who thinks she keeps changing her mind."

Addison is a daredevil these days. She loves jumping off of things like chairs, couches and beds. She is quite tricky in figuring out exactly what she knows. The other day I wrote the sentence "My pony is blue." because she has a pony that is blue. She wouldn't read the sentence to me, but she said "It's a puppy." because she was pretending it was one of Pongo and Perdita's puppies. So I'm pretty sure she at least knew the jist of the sentence. And another day I was quizzing Lily by writing color words (red, yellow, green, black). Lily was busy sounding out B-L-A-C-K and Addison walks behind me and under her breath says "black." I just hope she doesn't hide how much she knows when she gets to real school.

Lily loves to narrate her life. Lily: "'Can I have something to eat?' asked Cinderella as she walked into the kitchen." Lily: "'I jumped down" said Cinderella bravely." Me: "Lily, are you done with your dinner?" Lily: "'No' Cinderella replied."

We are sad to be leaving our wonderful neighbors and friends in Athens. When Mike got the job at Notre Dame, he received two cards of congratulations from friends here. He commented that he had never received a congratulatory card for a job before. Kelsey and I will especially miss Carter and his mom Jenny. They live just two doors down from us and I can say with confidence that Carter is Kelsey's best friend and Jenny has been mine. I only hope that the number of swing sets that are visible from our new house are an indication of the number of children our girls will be able to befriend in Indiana.

Addison and Lily are already signed up for preschool in the Fall. They will be going to school 3 days a week in the afternoons. It should be interesting because they still take naps most afternoons. I hope it works out well.

I imagine that is plenty of news and updates for now.

Easter picture

2010-04-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

A few videos from the day. The theme of the morning was "Put the eggs in your basket."

Little Black Coonhound

2010-02-28T06:53:00.000-08:00

So we really miss Peoopee. Kelsey definitely hasn't grasped that "Good-bye to Peoopee" meant forever. She still asks where he is and talks about him like he's going to come around the corner at any time.
One thing we haven't missed about Peoopee was constantly worrying about having food sitting on the table and counters. Peoopee could just stick his nose up over the edge of the table and snag all sorts of sandwiches, turkey, cheese, etc most times without leaving any evidence of having done so.
The other day after putting Kelsey down for a nap, I was downstairs with Addison and Lily. Addison came from the kitchen and asked intently "Mommy, why is Jack on the table?" I peered in the kitchen and low and behold there was our little black coonhound standing on the kitchen table. It appeared that he then didn't know what to do (I mean after he ate every morsel of food available there). And, yes, today, Jack was once again up on the table.

A Good Dog Who Does Bad Things

2010-02-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

This is how we taught the girls to refer to Peoopee our 9 year old redbone coonhound. Peoopee barked at neighbors, ate diapers, ate multiple wallets and watch bands belonging to Mike, ate poop, looked for any opportunity to snag food from the table or counters, ate leather shoes, and probably lots more bad things. Even with all these things we didn't call him a bad dog. After all he also endured lots of "love" from little girls, gave stuffed animals rides on his back, enjoyed his time on the couch, provided a source of comfort to his Mom and Dad when we needed a soft dog to sit or lay with, joined Jack in clearing the floor from the many food items dropped by little girls, greeted everyone with a tail wag (and an occasional jumping on by a 100 pound dog), and generally gave us a consistent presense of calm, joy and love. And because of all of these things, Peoopee was a good dog who did bad things.
Unfortunately I now speak in the past tense. Today we decided to euthanize our sweet coonhound. Unlike his mother and brother and Jack, Peoopee was pretty healthy. He never had surgery for a knee problem, stomach problem, or eye problem. He, like his mother and brother and sister, did require thyroid medicine. He also developed lots of fatty tumors. Some reaching golf ball, even orange size. But one tumor on his left side grew and grew and grew. When it was the size of a softball, we thought "Wow" that is really big. When it got to be the size of a cantalope, we thought "Yikes". But in the past months as it grew to the size of a watermelon, Peoopee had obvious discomfort. We started giving him daily pain meds back in November. Then we supplemented those pain meds with some narcotics back in January. As with all dogs with chronic illness, Peoopee had good days and bad days. But lately the good days were the ones when he came up the stairs before dinner time. The good times were when he would wag his tail. Just 2 weeks ago he and Jack enjoyed a long walk with me. But today on his last day, he enjoyed a walk, but it consisted of taking a few steps, then catching his breath. Taking a few more, then catching his breath. One thing that makes me the saddest is I can't remember the last time my coonhound (who always barked and barked and barked)...well, I can't remember the last time he barked.
Despite feeling so bad and being so tired and out of breathe all the time, yesterday Peoopee summoned the energy to snag a PB&J off the counter. So all was not lost. But although it was a difficult decision, our decision to send Peoopee on to the next life was the right one. I'm so thankful that he can now bark and bark and bark and will never be short of breathe again.
Call it coincidence, call it fate, call it weird or strange. This morning I got a call from Gram. Through her tears she let me know that Shelby, Peoopee's littermate, died early this morning. In some way it is comforting to know that
Peoopee, Shelby, Nuttin, Mars, Deohgee and Denuen are all running, barking, chasing racoons and other small animals all together somewhere.

Sledding

2010-01-06T14:08:00.000-08:00

Too funny

2010-01-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

A conversation today was just too funny not to document.

An ongoing battle in our house is to transition Lily, Addison and, now, Kelsey from the "I want..." to "May I please have...?" or "Mommy/Daddy, will you please get me...?". For the past few months rather than correcting the "I want..." with "Do you mean 'Can I please have...?'" Mike has been replaying with "I want to be taller" or "I want Notre Dame to beat " or "I want Notre Dame to have a better team next year." This usually gets a laugh from the offending child or a response of "No, Daddy."

Well today Addision said she wanted something. Mike replied "I want to be taller." Kelsey interjected "You can't."

Happy Holidays

2009-12-28T18:12:00.000-08:00

Ah, the holidays. A time to celebrate our faith, our sense of giving and our family. What a perfect time to begin potty training. And Kelsey has not disappointed. Her first day sans diapers and running around the house just bare bottomed resulted in no accidents, and poop and pee in potties and toilets. Hoorah! Today, day two, not as good. I was sitting with Addison, reading a book, when a somewhat red-faced Kelsey came up to us and said "poop." "In the toilet!" I exclaimed. Unfortunately, Kelsey was making a statement, not a request. As I picked her up, two stinky chunks dropped to the floor. She did manage to get a third piece in the toilet along with wee-wee. Yes, it could have been worse. Later, I was reading to all three girls with Kelsey on my lap, when I suddenly felt the dreaded warm, wet sensation on my crossed legs. Ugh! I rushed Kelsey to the bathroom where she put more wee-wee in the toilet. Yes, it could have been worse. After these two incidents Kelsey did much better and went to the potty on her own to pee two more times today.

Life the past two months has been a bit of a whirlwind. We visited the Meyers in Maryland for Thanksgiving. We met Mike's grandnephew and ate lots of good food. Mike and I also ran in a 5 mile turkey trot. We finished in just over 43 minutes which was significantly better than we expected.

Addison and Lily had their Christmas production at school December 15. The next day we drove to Geogia to spend a week with the Sheppards. Kathleen and her family and Billy and his family joined us for a couple of days. The older cousins provided great entertainment for our three children. We experienced riding the Pink Pig with Coleman. And spent an afternoon and evening with the Kaplans. We also were able to spend a quick visit with the Best Burgers in Town in Charlotte, NC.

We arrived back in Athens late Christmas Eve eve. Fortunately much of our Christmas preparations we completed before we left for Georgia, so we didn't have to stay up all night Christmas Eve. Christmas morning was quite fun. Addison and Lily definitely have the hang of opening presents. Addison received her beautiful Belle ball dress which she wore all day long. Lily received her new blocks (legos)...and more new blocks and more new blocks. In fact there were enough new blocks that Addison and Kelsey were also allowed to build things with them. After all of the presents were opened, Addison and Lily actually enjoyed playing with them. After the Belle dress and blocks, the favorite toys for all of the girls are the new play castles and princes and princesses and horses and carriages. Kelsey received new toys as well, just like Santa promised.

Once again we realize that we are very blessed and fortunate to have our family, friends and health. Hopefully after a few more days of potty training I will still feel blessed.

Fast forward

2009-11-06T18:17:00.000-08:00

So here we are. Kelsey is now 18 1/2 months old. She is quick as a whip and amazes us with the new things she says and does every day. She definitely wants to do everything her big sisters do...including jumping off the arm of the couch like Addison. She repeats a lot of what Addison and Lily say...so much so that we've had to focus on having Addison and Lily correct some bad habits so that Kelsey won't learn things incorrectly. So now we are working on all three girls saying "mine" rather than "my's".
Addison and Lily are quickly approaching the 3 1/2 year mark. They started preschool two days a week back in September. For the first few weeks we had a bit of separation anxiety, but they now happily go off to start playing when we drop them off. Just yesterday I went for my first parent/teacher conference. Mike, unfortunately, was out of town for work. Addison LOVES dress up clothes. And she loves the dress up clothes at school. Apparently a bit too much. I was informed that she would put on her favorite dress and then that it was nearly impossible for the teachers to get her to go and do anything else. Ultimately her favorite dress had to be hidden away. I guess the teacher's best description of Addison is shy. In fact one teacher said she is sure that she has never heard Addison say anything. But all of her development and activity is normal. Yea! The only concern I heard for Lily was that the teachers have a difficult time hearing her when she talks. Yikes! If they could only hear her shrill new sound at home. It is deafening! And Lily is also "normal".
One fastastic thing these days is that Addison and Lily can dress themselves. A few negatives...Lily was wearing multiple layers and long sleeves back when it was still in the 80s everyday. These days she usually only wears 2 layers. She has gone through phases of wanting to wear everything backwards, everything inside out, two different colored shoes, shoes on the wrong feet, two different colored socks. She still seems a bit disappointed if her outfit matches too well. Addison, on the other hand, believes that the fewer clothes the better. Her favorite thing to wear is a bathing suit top and underwear. It was a change to go from no-sleeves, to short sleeves and finally to long sleeves. These days Addison will easily put on all of her long sleeves and leggings to go to school or wherever we happen to be going that day. But the second she gets in the door, she gets in her bathing suit or a dress without sleeves. Addison also loves changing clothes. She might go through 4 outfits in a day.
On Tuesdays Kelsey attends Kindermusik during Addison and Lily's school. She loves dancing, singing, clapping and running around in class. She is SO different from Addison and Lily in this respect. Addison and Lily didn't really participate in Kindermusik until they were 2 1/2 or so. Kelsey is the youngest child in her class, but she fits right in with the others. On Thursdays Kelsey goes to the Community Center with me for Wee Wigglers. This is a time for young children to play with a bunch of stuff. There are big foam blocks to climb on, a jumper, trikes, a balance beam, hula hoops, balls, balls and more balls. Kelsey's friends who also attend Wee Wigglers are more athletic than she is. Carter is the OU Volleyball coach's son. Luke is the asst basketball coach's son. And Ellie has three older sisters who are all athletes and have given her a boost in her desire to play soccer. Ellie's mom had to remind her to kick the ball gently to Kelsey. Otherwise she'd knock Kelsey over with the ball. Watching the other kids kick and bounce the balls around at Wee Wigglers has motivated me to not only work on kicking, throwing and hitting with Kelsey, but also her older sisters.
This past weekend the whole crew flew out to San Antonio, TX for ND/Washington St game. We stayed with the Tubbesings. Mike and I attended the game. Thankfully we won easily. We all went to Sea World. I'm pretty sure I enjoyed Sea World more than anyone else.
Back in August Mike and I attended Dave and Ann's wedding in Minneapolis. Mike served as Dave's best man. My mom and dad spent the weekend with the girls. It was a wonderful time.
Flying to and from San Antonio was quite taxing. For the girls and for Mike and me. On our last flight from Atlanta to Columbus, the plane was scheduled to leave at 9:30p. It ended up leaving at 10:25p. Needless to say, we had some tired girls. I was sitting with Lily who was getting rather frustrated because the cabin lights kept going on and off during our time sitting at the gate and taxiing out to the runway. She wanted me to stop turning them off. I explained that it wasn't me turning them on and off, it was the pilot. After a pause, Lily said "The pilot is really good at turning the lights on and off." Mike was sitting directly in front of us with Addison and we both had a good laugh at that.
Following are some pictures from the past few monthdays. The last one I took today. All three girls got to finger paint with Cool Whip that I colored with food coloring.

Keeping up

2009-06-02T19:49:00.000-07:00

Hi all.

Just another "what's going on post".

We had an exciting event yesterday. Addison and Lily put together a 35 piece puzzle on their own. It is an ABC puzzle with animals. Up until yesterday they have always "helped" Mommy or Daddy put the puzzle together, but yesterday they were working on it and I turned around and it was done!

Also interesting, but not so exciting...today Lily called down to me from upstairs and said "Teresa, will you help me?" I did a double take and asked her if she called me Teresa. The answer was Yes. To which I said "Well, my name is Teresa, but what is it that you call me?" I was referred to as Mommy for the rest of the day (thank goodness).

Kelsey continues to develop at breakneck speeds. Today she said "Read that book." Up until today it has been "Read that." She says "Up. Please." when she wants to be picked up. Although sometimes she still says "Hold it, mommy (or daddy)." when she wants to be held. A really cool thing is that Addison and Lily realize that Kelsey can communicate. Yesterday Kelsey said "Hold it." and Addison was the one who replied "What do you want to hold, Kelsey?" Lily's response to the same request was "No, that's Lily's".

Kelsey now sings along with Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. She counted to three the other day. Then today in the car on the way to Kindermusik she counted to five. Addison and Lily were watching their Notre Dame movie. The voice over said "One." And Kelsey, very clearly, continued with "two, three, four, five."

Lily has a sleep sack or wearable blanket that has become her security blanket. It has been referred to as "sleep sack", then "sleepy sack" and now has become known simply as "E". It is such a big part of our family life that Kelsey knows its name is "E". But apparently Kelsey hasn't clearly identified "E". She sees it as a piece of fabric that one normally finds lying on the floor somewhere. The other day she found an article of clothing on the floor (unfortunately an all too common occurence at our house), and picked it up, called it "E", "E", "E" and proceded to carry it to Lily.

Last week we had our first real trip to the emergency room. Lily fell down our stairs and complained that she hurt her neck. The crying and complaining continued for an hour or so, then she had a couple hours of napping and continued to say her neck hurt. Our neighbor is a PA at the ER, so Mike asked him whether or not we should get her checked out. His advice was better safe than sorry when it comes to injuries that may involve the head. So I got to spend quite a bit of time with a scared, hurting almost 3 year old at the hospital and work with the xray techs to try and get the xrays needed. The few that were successful showed no real injury. Lily had a good dose of Motrin when we got home and when asked if she wanted more medicine the next morning she declared her neck was "perfect."

Addison and Lily turn 3 years old at the end of this month. We are so excited that Jessi is coming back for their birthday and for a 2 1/2 week visit. Who knew that Athens would be so exciting that she would want to come back for vacation?! We are planning a Madeline themed party for kids and adults.

While Jessi is here, I'll be having surgery up in Columbus at OSU. I'm having the right lobe of my thyroid removed due to a large nodule. The indications thus far are that it is a benign growth, but because it is large, the recommendation is to have it removed. The surgery is scheduled for July 10. I'll stay overnight and my doctor says I should be feeling pretty good by Monday.

This summer Mike will be teaching the first summer session. In early August Mike will be going to New York for an Accounting conference. Then we plan to spend a while in Ocean City, MD with Grandma and Grandpa. And we'll finish the summer with a trip to Minneapolis for the wedding of our dear friends Ann and Dave. Mike is honored to be Dave's best man (as Dave was Mike's best man at our wedding). Gram and Pop are coming to Athens to stay with the girls while Mike and I go and enjoy the wedding.

Speaking of Pop, last week I took Kelsey to have her 12 month vaccinations. While we were waiting we saw an older gentleman in the hallway. Kelsey looked at him and said "Pop." I explained he wasn't her "Pop."

Turning one

2009-05-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

Hi there.

So Kelsey did finally start walking. Her first solo steps were taken April 7, 2009 at Kindermusik class. She was so focused on musical instruments that other children were playing that she accidentally took two steps. Then when we got home, she took about 6 steps and fell right on the sippy cup she was carrying. So it took a few more days before she walked on her own again. She turned 13 months old today and is walking proficiently and can stand up without pulling up on something.

We celebrated her birthday Easter weekend when Gram, Pop and Grandmama were visiting. We have a video of her cake experience that we will surely post some day. April 26 Kelsey was baptised. Gram and Pop returned for that weekend. Grandma and Grandpa were also present. And Mike's Aunt Maeve and Uncle Bob served as Kelsey's godparents. We have pictures from the baptism that we will surely post some day as well.

So what is the latest with the girls. Lily can write her name. You have to be there watching her do it to really recognize all of the letters, but she is writing them. Addison's drawing abilities now include putting eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, ears and feet on her smiley faces. Lily can spell both her name and Addison's name and is getting quite proficient at matching pictures to their corresponding words. Both Addison and Lily have taken to telling very involved stories. Generally it is very difficult to follow what the story is about. Rather than story we should probably call them a stream of consciousness. Addison's stories today usually involved Beast (from Beauty and the Beast), horses, bees and Madeline. The other day Lily was reciting a story (to no on in particular). She continued talking and walking around our main floor for about 5 minutes. Then she went upstairs, talking the whole way, and we could hear her over the monitor upstairs still talking. One of Addison and Lily's favorite things to do these days is wear their "eee-hee-hee" hats. These are hooded towels that they put on their heads and run around the house saying "eee-hee-hee". They also love watching Beauty and the Beast. Addison and Lily start their mornings by entering our living room and finding a basket of toys and dumping it out. Then they find a bag of Mr PotatoHead parts and dump it out. In a matter of 30 seconds they can totally trash the room.

Kelsey amazes us every day. She is a sponge for information and language. She says phrases like "hold it" and "open it". About 3 weeks ago she started Peoopee's full name...it is one of her favorite things to say. About 2 weeks ago she started participating in Old McDonald. If you sing most of the song, she'll sing E-I-E-I-O in the correct places. In the last week she has started singing the ABCs. She will sing ABD all by herself, but if you sing most of the letters, she'll participate with D, E, F, G, O, P, T, U, V and she's starting to the get the "me" at the very end. Last week she also started pointing to herself and saying "me". We have a box that has the letters A-B-C on it. If you point to the letters she'll say A and B. She still doesn't have C yet. Kelsey started helping with counting this week. If you say "one" she'll say "two" and then you say "three". You can ask her how many feet she has and she'll say "two". She likes to say "Hi" and she follows it up with something that sounds like "How are you?" To which we of course respond, "I'm good. How are you?" She responds, but that response is still unintelligible.

The other day, Mike was helping Kelsey eat her dinner. Here's how the conversation went:
Kelsey: "hold it"
Mike: "hold what?"
Kelsey: "hold it"
Mike: "hold what?" (looking around)
Kelsey: "HOLD IT"
Mike: "what?!"
Kelsey: "HOLD THAT!"
Mike never figured out what she wanted to hold, but good for Kelsey trying to explain it better.

Every night Kelsey gives Mike, Lily and Addison nite nite kisses. The last 2 days Kelsey has been saying nite nite and she will walk over to each of the three and give their kisses and say nite nite.

My guess is that Kelsey's vocabulary is up to about 60 words if you count all of the words she says and signs.

Well, there's our update. Happy Spring everyone.

It happened today

2009-03-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

So the title of this post is a bit deceiving. I intended to post to the blog last week when these things really did happen. And now I can't even remember what all of these "things" were.

But one was very exciting. For Christmas Addison and Lily received some word match up cards (100 to be exact). Each card is a two piece puzzle. On one piece is a picture and on the other is the corresponding word. Addison and Lily LOVE these cards. Mostly they like to take all of them apart and carry them around in these clear plastic boxes in which Mr Potato Head and friends. So for many days now our nightly clean up involves putting together 100 2 piece puzzles and then putting all of the Mr Potato Head and friends parts back into the appropriate box. Amazingly enough we have only lost one piece of the 100 cards thus far.

About 9 days ago, Addison came over with two card pieces. And she stated "This is kite." Surprisingly she had the picture of the kite and the word kite piece and she was putting them together. I wasn't sure if they happened to already be together or if she really had figured the word out, so I didn't get too excited. But then about 7 days ago, Addison came over to me and our babysitter Katie and she was saying "This is K-K-K (K sound). This is K-K-K." While she was doing this Katie and I both saw the word was "clock." We stayed silent and Addison finally said "This is clock." And she already had the picture of the clock. So I'm prety sure she had figured it out. And interestingly she has memorized what the word "jacket" looks like. If you ask her to spell it, she doesn't seem to know how, but if you hold up the card with the word "jacket" she immediately knows what it is.

Lily these days is repeating back everything we've ever said to her. This afternoon during lunch she told her sister, "Addison sit down. Addison...one...two...three." And after Peoopee got into a batch of brownies the other day, both Addison and Lily know a) brownies are made with chocolate and b) that chocolate is bad for dogs.

Kelsey is expanding her verbal vocabulary daily. And we continue to work on sign language with her.

Here are some videos from the past two months.

Here's Kelsey when she was on the verge of crawling.

Here's a funny one. Kelsey laughing and then Lily has a great line at the end.

Here's one with Kelsey using the walker. We find the end funny.

This one is just Addison and Lily being downright cute.

This one just has Kelsey talking and a little signing.

Some videos

2009-03-05T19:59:00.000-08:00

Addison and Lily's last day of tumbling class back in November.

Christmas morning

Kelsey playing peek a boo back in January. As you can see she didn't have the whole cover the eyes thing down yet.

Addison and Lily enjoying some snow this year. Cute snow gear courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa.

Addison and Lily reading books together. A common sight these days around our house.

Kelsey doing fun stuff back in January.

What's new?

2009-03-03T19:56:00.000-08:00

Hmm. What has changed in the last month...

Let's see, right around the middle of February Kelsey started crawling. Thank goodness. According to some book I read, babies start crawling between 8 and 10 months. Kelsey got it in just under the wire of that 10 month mark. Now a 2 weeks later she is crawling everywhere. And going from crawling to sitting. And pulling up on the furniture, mommy and daddy, the dogs, toys, etc. At 10 1/2 months she is saying the following words...dog, bottle, banana, brush, duck, Jack, Peoopee, cheese, snail, doll, Daddy. And there are probably a few others.

We are also working on baby signs and sign language with Kelsey. So far she is communicating "DOG" by saying "Daa" followed by panting. And she signs and says "All done" in relation to eating. Unfortunately she is so excited that we understand that she is saying "All done" that she starts signing it as soon as she sits down for a meal. Signing is something we did with Addison and Lily. But when they started doing lots of talking the signing fell by the wayside. But now we are back to using it with them so they can help with teaching Kelsey. They are really into it and keep asking how to sign different words. This is keeping us on our toes and on websites that teach us how to sign these words.

Most nights these days Kelsey sleeps through the night. (Hooray). And she has 5 teeth and is working on cutting 2 more in the near future. About a month ago we stopped feeding Kelsey baby food because she really seemed to hate it. She is just eating regular old soft foods these days. Also, about 2 weeks ago, I stopped nursing Kelsey. I've still been pumping breastmilk for her, but as of now about 80% of her milk is formula.

Developments with Addison and Lily. They are learning to spell different words. We have a toy call the Word Whammer from Leap Frog. It allows you to put in 3 letters and then it will tell you what word you have spelled. So far Addison can put the word CAT in with no problem. Last time we checked, Lily gets the correct letters but usually spells it TAC. We are also having some success with words like DOG and FOX.

Addison and Lily continue to be very nuturing. These days their affection is directed towards their water bottles which they refer to as "Wado". Occasionally their milk sippy cups also get special treatment. And please call them "Milko".

We have several videos to post. Perhaps sometime in the near future I'll make that happen.

Teresa

Jessi, are you still here?

2009-01-24T12:06:00.000-08:00

Hi all. Just thought I'd post a few pictures from January.

These are a couple from Jessi's last morning with us. Addison and Lily agreed to be in the picture only if their new Christmas clocks could also be in the picture. Their clocks are toy clocks that talk and are designed to help them learn how to tell time. The clocks have taken on a life of their own. Addison and Lily are quite nurturing towards them. Their clocks sleep with them (along with just about every stuffed animal and doll they own). Clocks are frequently dressed up in the new dress up clothes that Santa brought. In this picture the clocks are wearing Mike's Hawaiian shirts one of which is known as "black dress". Clocks are also cheered as Addison and Lily help them go wee-wee in the potty. And Clocks are brought toys to play with as Kelsey who is sitting right next to the clock is ignored and is lucky to keep any toys she is playing with.

These pictures are of Addison and Lily's new favorite "costumes". They consist of fleece jackets. Lily added a fleece aviator hat to her costume to complete the look. These pictures could only be taken if Molly, Maggie and pink bear would also agree to be in the picture.

Thanks to modern technology and the internet, we've had a couple of web video conversations with Jessi. During one such "visit" from Jessi, Addison and Lily decided they wanted to sit next to Jessi. While this is endearing and quite cute, I think Jessi got a little bored of looking at the fireplace in our living room. Lily was also quite happy to be able to give Jessi a hug.

Kelsey's new fun thing to do is play Peek a Boo or "Where's Kelsey?" She sits in her high chair, clasps her hands together and lifts her hands to her forehead. Then you have to say "Where's Kelsey?" "Where's Kelsey?" She sheepishly grins and looks at you. Then she'll suddenly take her hands down and joins in "There she is!" with a sort of loud "AHH-AHH-AHH".

Wife of the Year, Dad of the Year and one Funny Kid

2009-01-17T11:40:00.000-08:00

First Wife of the Year 2008.

In our living room we have a Tivo box with remote, DVD player with remote, TV with remote and a cable box with a remote. Our set up is such that two wires from the Tivo box drive the cable box like a remote. Those wires are frequently knocked out of position by the lady who comes and cleans our house. So we are frequently re-aligning the wires. Well, one evening Mike started to go about the task of realigning the wires. As he was moving them, he was using the Tivo remote to see if the Tivo box would change the cable box channels. He was getting quite confused, because the channels on the cable box were not changing as he would expect. After a bit of frustration, Mike realized that his loving wife was behind him on the couch with the cable box remote making the cable box change channels too.

About 2 1/2 weeks before Christmas, Mike seemed a bit flustered after spending a bit of time on his computer. I asked him what was up and he said that he wasn't sure one of the gifts he had purchased for me would be arriving in time for Christmas. A few days later, he basically said it was still up in the air. Then, shortly thereafter he said he thought it would get here, but he would have to pick it up in Columbus. Hmmm. All this and he also expressed concern that I might not even like it anyway. Mike was heading to Phoenix, AZ and was flying out of Dayton. He got notification that the present was in Columbus, so he was going to pick it up on his way to Dayton. Well, from Phoenix Mike called and said he had tried to get it, but when he went to pick it up it was actually lost and "they" were trying to track it down. The next day we received a call at the house. I answered. The lady on the phone asked for Mike, and when I said he wasn't available, she said "There is a package here that he needs to come and get through customs." "Customs?" I said. "Yes, it is some sort of gilded mirror." she said. (Please note I did not ask what it was). So now I have some idea of my present...but why Mike had to get a mirror from some other country I was dumbfounded by. That night I spoke with Mike and let him know that the package was again in Columbus awaiting pickup. Mike said "Did you ask what it was?" I replied "No, I didn't ask, but she said it sounded kind of like a puzzle." Needless to say, my little prank did cause Mike additional angst. But in the end, he was able to get the mirror and on Christmas day I was surprised to see a beautiful mirror that we saw in Capetown, South Africa. Excellent present, Mike, and well worth the additional gray hairs.

Now, for Father of the Year.

Truly Mike is a wonderful father. His three girls love him dearly. But here's the story. On Christmas Eve we attended a children's service at our Methodist Church. Gram, Pop and Grandmama drove separately and arrived at the church well ahead of us. The day was cool and we were running a bit late, so we devised a plan that Mike would drop Jessi, Addison, Lily and me off in front of the church. Then he would park the car and bring Kelsey in. Well, Jessi and I had just gotten Addison and Lily's coats off and we were settling in when Mike came in to the church to join us. I took one look at him and said "Where's the baby?" A look of horror came across his face and he dashed out of the church. Yep, he left Kelsey in the car. Fortunately, the car wasn't far from the church, it wasn't too cold outside and Mike found Kelsey was pleasantly enjoying her solitude.

And our Funny Kid

Generally Addison and Lily do not have sweets. At Halloween they each enjoyed just one lollipop each. On birthdays, they've gotten a small bit of cake. And even during Christmas when they got a bag full of cookies at our Kindermusik cookie exchange, they didn't have too many cookies. But they did have a few days of cookies after lunch. Then the week after Christmas, Jessi and Mike were giving the girls lunch. Kelsey and I showed up in the kitchen towards the end of their meal and to my surprise they both had a cookie. I asked (knowing the answer was Daddy) "Who gave you the cookies?" When there was no answer, I repeated "Who gave you the cookies to eat after your lunch?" Very quietly Addison answered "Santa"

New Year...New You

2009-01-02T08:23:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh. I can't believe that it has been 2 months since we've posted anything. And the last post was pictures from October! The New Year brings a resolution from Mike and Teresa to get healthier through regular exercise, healthier eating and weight loss. But seems it should also include posting to this blog. It is such a wonderful way to document our children's lives with milestones and stories we do not want to forget.

Well, first let me write down a few things about Kelsey. She is now 8 1/2 months old. Two days ago she weighed 19lbs 12oz. She continues to be a wonderful baby. She is very content and could sit all day long with a few toys around her and her sisters running around entertaining her. With her laid back attitude, she's been resistant to moving about too much. We posted a while ago that she was rolling over. But really that was that she could roll over. Not that she would choose to do so on a regular basis. So far her 8th month has been a big one though. At 8 months 2 days her first bottom tooth showed up. It was the bottom left and looked REALLY crooked. At 8 months 7 days we were able to get Kelsey rolling again. It required putting something that she wanted just out of her reach. Oh and it couldn't just be a fun toy. Usually something she shouldn't have was the most effective way to get her to want it (i.e. a small object she could choke on, a sharp knife, Jack's slimey ball). At 8 months 9 days her bottom right tooth pushed through. Fortunately as both bottom teeth continue coming in, it appears her bottom left will straighten out.

Some of you may remember Lily's first word...NICE...in response to a burp...as in...NNN-IIII-CCC-EEE! Well, Kelsey's first word? Burp. At first I was sure that it was just impressive that she was getting the b and p sounds together. But after a few days of consistently hearing "bup" followed shortly there after or preceded by a burp, I'm pretty sure this is her first word. She also says DaDa, and Adda (Addison), and Ja (Jack), and PahPahPah (Peoopee). She also likes to pretend she is a dog by panting. We are using sign language to try and promote that with her.

Perhaps our only complaint about Kelsey is night time sleeping. She usually will wake up one time between 8p and 7a to nurse. On a few special nights she will sleep until 5 or 6 in the morning. On some not so special nights she will wake up at midnight and decide it is fun to be awake. Mommy does not think it is fun to be awake then. Especially if after Kelsey going back to sleep at 2a she decides to wake again at 6:30a.

Kelsey is taking two naps a day. Usually around 9:30 and again around 2:30. She is quite easy to put down for naps. Read a book, tell her it is time for sleep, lay her down in her crib, turn on her jungle mobile, and leave the room. She may talk for a bit, but she puts herself to sleep. Night time is a different story. If I leave the room before she is asleep or mostly asleep, she screams bloody murder. Fortunately most nights she goes to sleep pretty quickly, but this is one issue I'd like to get sorted out soon.

Kelsey has been eating baby food since she was 5 1/2 months old. She likes to eat a variety of foods and will even gladly eat green beans. Around the time of the appearance of her first tooth we started giving her food that she can pick up on her own. She is quite good at picking up milk soaked cheerios one at a time. She's even getting pretty good at picking up banana pieces even though they are a bit slippery.

Kelsey is kind of pulling up to standing, but so far only uses mommy for pulling up. But she will stand at her Leap Frog Learning table for quite a while and even moves around it a tiny bit. She has developed a love for walking holding on to someone's hands, but she still walks a bit like Frankenstein.

I'd say Kelsey is a long way from crawling. When on her stomach she will turn herself around, but she doesn't roll over on her back and she is not getting up on all 4s. She does kind of scoot herself backwards, but she hasn't figured out propelling herself forward using her legs. Truth be told she doesn't get as much practice at this as she should...did I mention she is very content sitting?

Well, Kelsey is waking from her morning nap now. Jack woke her by barking and over the monitor I could hear "Ja. Ja. Ja."

More later. I have several funny stories to tell and Christmas info to relay. And updates on what Addison and Lily are up to.

Teresa

Pictures from October

2008-11-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

You can click on any of the following pictures to get a bigger version of it.

September videos

2008-10-06T19:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a clip of an attempt to get Lily and/or Addison to sing the Notre Dame fight song. Apparently it brings out a lot of affection between sisters.

We had a nice little jumper for the girls. It was one that just inflated and sat in the corner of the basement play area. I'm sure we've posted videos of that. Well, unfortunately it sprung a leak. So Mike purchased a new bouncer. This one is like those giant bouncers that have a fan constantly blowing air into them. It is a nice size and inflates really quickly. The only problem was the fan was REALLY LOUD. So we've now got it hidden away behind a wall which helps. Here's a quick video.

Folks who live down the street from us have two horses. A regular event for Addison and Lily over this summer was a walk down to see the horses. One is rarely out in its paddock. The other almost always is. That horse is named Cassie. Addison and Lily love to feed Cassie grass and sometimes carrots. When they are not visiting Cassie they still sometimes pretend to feed her. They will pick grass, walk to the far side of our driveway, and call out "Cassie, come here please." Here's a video when they were feeding Cassie for real.

Here's the video I mentioned in my last post. Kelsey with her first try of cereal. Now, at one week shy of 6 months she is getting oat and rice cereal once a day around lunchtime. She eats 2 heaping tablespoons pretty easily. Next week she has her 6 month appointment and I expect the doctor will say she is ready for more solid food and more variety.

The following video is just some random footage from Sept 28, an afternoon with the girls and the dogs. The end has some good footage of Kelsey sitting up on her own and Lily wearing her potty seat.

A few months ago we had some new neighbors move in 2 doors down from us. Ryan is the new Ohio University Women's Volleyball coach. Jen is the volunteer coach. She is a former All American from Florida and she's played professionally in Greece and St. Louis. Carter is their 7 1/2 month old son. Jen and I have had a few opportunities to get out for walks with Kelsey and Carter. Today we had a short walk, then hung out for a while at their house for a little while. You should see the crazy contrast between these two babies. Carter is ALL OVER THE PLACE. He's semi-crawling and pulling up on everything. Kelsey is sitting. Sitting. And sitting some more. The big excitement was when Carter got a hold of a bit of Kelsey's hair and managed to knock her over from her pretty sitting position. Needless to say this didn't make Kelsey very happy. So she cried. Then Carter cried because she cried. All in all it was a fun time. But this afternoon I was explaining to Kelsey she needed to get on the ball and start getting more active. Her new trick these days is if you try to roll her over from her back to her tummy. Not only doesn't she cooperate, but she throws her arm out to prevent you from rolling her over. And for some reason she doesn't want to put her arms under her chest when she is on her tummy. Most of the time she just looks like an airplane with her arms back and out to the side, but lifted off of the floor. And her head and legs up off the floor. So the only thing on the ground is her tummy. Maybe she is taking the term tummy time a little too literally.

Life is funny

2008-09-20T19:28:00.001-07:00

Hi all. Teresa here.

We just survived a week of the common cold. Addison showed the first signs, but she never got a really runny nose. Lily and Kelsey took care of getting the really runny/stuffy noses. Jessi and I both got scratchy throats, but avoided the runny nose. Lily did pretty well with the cold and is getting better at blowing her nose. Kelsey tolerated a lot of nasal aspirator activity, but required a number of naps and nighttime sleeping being held. Fortunately both girls seem to have the worst behind them.

Kelsey rolled from her back to her tummy a few nights ago. But she is in no hurry to become over active. She has yet to roll in any direction in front of anyone but me. I'm sure it will happen one day.

Today we gave Kelsey her first solid food. It was a bit of very milky rice cereal. She tolerated the spoon just fine and seemed to get at least some of the food to the back of her mouth and swallowed. We'll continue to take it slow with her...offer her a little bit once a day. It won't be long though before we get the blender going to make her more real food. Oh, we did record a video of Kelsey's first solid food experience. And we'll post it here...someday.

Much to their parents' joy, Addison and Lily have taken to singing the Notre Dame Victory March...or as Addison says "Odor Dame". Apparently she caught a whiff of ethanol at the reunion. We tried to get a video of this, but mostly we have just bits of Addison singing "cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame. Wake up the echoes cheering her name. Happy Birthday to you. ..."

The other morning I was spending a peaceful early morning with Kelsey. We were sitting in the living room. Jack was sleeping on the chair. Then Peoopee joined us and laid down on the floor. Peoopee evidently had an itch because he rolled on his back and wriggled to scratch it. Then he lay still for a minute. Rolled on his back and scratched. Lay still. Rolled on his back and scratched and suddenly there was a little "Ha ha ha". Kelsey apparently found Peoopee's antics kind of funny.

Kelsey is Rollin'

2008-09-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

I am reminded of a little nursery rhyme:

There once was a little girl
With a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,
She was very very good;
When she was bad,
She was horrid.

So, with Kelsey, over the past few days we have had great strides. Twice she slept through the night for about 9 hours. Then there was last night, where she woke up every few hours and did not want to go back to sleep (gas, we think).

Then, just when we are considering shipping her off to the gypsies, she goes ahead and rolls over from front to back. We hope to get her to do this on command so that we can video it and post it. As for now, Teresa is happy and proud and very very tired.

Everything else with Lily and Addison is great. We hope to get some pictures posted soon. As for now, I have to poke Kelsey to try and get her to perform for me.

Georgia visit

2008-08-15T19:37:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

The video below is from our trip to Atlanta for Teresa's parents 50th wedding anniversary. We left on a Thursday afternoon after Mike finished teaching. Our first stop was in Knoxville, TN, where we stayed in a hotel, all six of us: Teresa, Mike, Jessi, Addison, Lily and Kelsey. I am glad to report very few problems with the first leg of the trip. On Friday morning we left for Brasstown Resort in the mountains of Northern Georgia. The highlight of the trip was the last 30 minutes of which Addison kept repeating "get out" over and over and over and over...yarg!

The Anniversary was great, the girls wore dresses made by Gram and were the hit of the party, from my perspective. The drive from North Georgia to Atlanta was Sunday's event. I chose to go through the mountains and was able to get everyone car sick, some more than others. The highlight must have been pulling over after Lily threw up. Go Dad!

We stayed in Atlanta, at Teresa's brother's house. This allowed the girls to spend lots of time with their 3-year old cousin, Coleman. On Monday, we went to the Atlanta Zoo with their cousin Coleman. It was a great time and all the girls loved it. Atlanta Zoo has a petting zoo, like the Columbus Zoo, and the girls enjoyed petting the goats, sheep and pigs.

On Tuesday, we went to Stone Mountain. The video of some of our events is below. The events include a trip to the top of Stone Mountain, a duck boat ride (the girls got to drive the boat), and lunch with Gram and Pop.

On Wednesday, we went to the Atlanta Children's Museum. It was absolutely incredible. I know Teresa took some pictures, but the pictures do not give justice to the absolute unbridled joy that the girls experienced for several hours. They were running around, wide-eyed, laughing, learning, and playing. What a great day.

On Thursday at 10am , we got back in the car, packed up and headed for home. Teresa had planned the trip to allow for some stops along the way to keep from 12 hours of "get out." Our first stop was about 1 hour north of Atlanta at a Chick-fil-a that had a playground. The second stop was at our dear Notre Dame friends who live in Charlotte, NC: Jim and Amy Berger. They have two children and a house full of toys. The girls played and ran around Jim and Amy's house for an hour or so. Jim and Amy fed our family. And we finally got back in the car for the final 6 hours. The last three, the girls finally fell asleep.

And so, our last trip of the summer comes to an end. If you are keeping score, of the eight days, we were in the car driving somewhere seven of those days. Yeah, I am tired.

2nd birthday, OC, and more?

2008-08-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

Addison and Lily Happy Birthday

Kelsey at 2 and a half months

Beach Bums

Kelsey's Skills at 3 and a half months

Daddy makes Kelsey laugh

Where have you been?

2008-07-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

Hello all.

How quickly 4 1/2 weeks can fly by.

Addison and Lily successfully turned 2. We had a nice little party with much of the Snow family, Gerry and Brenda, and our neighbors Julie and Rachel. The biggest hit were the 2 birthday cakes. Baked by Teresa and fabulously decorated by Jessi. Elmo and Cookie Monster were the themes. Addison and Lily received many wonderful gifts, but their day was made when they discovered pink balloons first thing in the morning.

Kelsey continues to grow and develop. She weighs over 14 lbs now. She also is a bit more willing to spend time on her tummy and holds her head up 90 degrees. This morning it looked like she might figure out how to flip herself over in a short while. Kelsey also gives us a few chuckles here and there. And she loves to talk...especially right after she has finished nursing and when she is tired and has been in the bouncy seat too long.

Shortly after A & L's birthday Jessi took off for a 2 week vacation. She and her boyfriend Sascha met in NY and flew to Orlando. They spent a lot of time at the parks and the outlet malls (our economy thanks you).

On July 10 Mike and I drove with the three girls to Potomac, MD where we shared in the 50th anniversary celebration of Gerry and Brenda's wedding. Gerry and Brenda were married on Aug 9, 1958, the same day as Ella and Ed, but celebrated on July 12 so the whole clan could be gathered together.

On July 14 Mike, Teresa and the three girls picked Jessi up at National airport at 11pm. We were all heading to Ocean City, MD to spend a few days at Gerry and Brenda's home there. About 10 minutes away from the airport, I heard a terrible sound coming from Lily. Yep, she vomited. A lot. And unfortunately we need to get her change of clothes from a suitcase packed at the bottom of a lot of other stuff in the Suburban. So we had to unpack all of our stuff onto the side of the road. Jessi was holding Lily, I was holding Kelsey, Mike was cleaning up Lily's car seat and Addison was content watching a DVD still in her car seat. We were quite a site with our stuff strewn on the side of the road and holding babies.

In Ocean City we had fun feeding ducks, spending time at the beach and swimming in the pool. Addison really enjoyed playing in the waves. Lily enjoyed sitting under the umbrella eating. Kelsey screamed bloody murder when I dipped her feet in the cold Atlantic. Hopefully she and Lily will enjoy the beach as much as Addison next year.

And now we are back at home. Our dear friends Jon and Tasha and their children Breanna and Brendan made the long trek from Atlanta to Athens. The children are all getting along well and the adults are getting in some relaxation.

I'll post some pictures and videos soon.

Brilliant children

2008-06-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Kelsey turns 10 weeks old today. Addison and Lily will turn 2 on Saturday. Wow.

Here are some notes on what our brilliant children are doing.

Kelsey: she has had 2 nights of really lengthy sleep. One night she went 8 hours and another she went 10 hours. But alas, most nights she sleeps 6 hours straight followed by another 4 hours straight. Her schedule during the day has not gotten straightened out. We'll have a couple of days that seem like she is establishing a pattern (short nap, long nap, short nap) then we'll have a day like today...wake up, eat, stay awake for 1 hour, sleep for 45 minutes, wake up, eat, stay awake for 1 hour, sleep 45 minutes, and repeat all day long. Kelsey generally goes right to sleep for her naps, but for the past week has a hard time going to sleep at night. Well, she'll go to sleep while Mike or I are holding her, and seems asleep when we put her into her bed, but 5-20 minutes later she is back awake again.

Kelsey is starting to tolerate tummy time more. And she is getting pretty good at lifting her head about 45 degrees. She can hold her head up pretty well when she is sitting, but she's not quite ready for the bumbo chair. She's starting to find the fish and bubbles on the bouncy seat interesting and is quite good at kicking the fish to keep the music going. She LOVES being on her exercise mat and looking at the black and white stripes and polka dots.

Kelsey has been giving us big smiles for a couple of weeks now. And in the past few days we have caught her giving us a chuckle or two.

Lily continues to love singing. She's been singing the ABCs for over a month now. She also sings twinkle twinkle little star and several other favorites. Lily is starting to understand that language is a powerful thing. Just a few weeks ago if Addison would try to "trade" a toy with her and Lily didn't want to trade, Lily would just start crying. We've explained to her that she should just say "No thank you, Addison." Some of that crying has stopped, but Lily still seems to get her feelings hurt quite easily. About a month ago, Mike made a loud elephant sound. It scared Lily quite a bit and she still talks about Daddy's scary elephant sound. Mike, Jessi and I are sure that Lily's pronounciation is improving. We are hearing more intelligible D, L and S sounds.

Addison is quite the avid reader these days. And apparently all books begin "One day..." Addison is beginning to read the letters in words correctly from left to right (Lily tends to go right to left), but all words still tend to be spell Addison. Yesterday Addison introduced us to a new species of animal...the kangaloupe. Apparently a cantaloupe is really a cross between a kangaroo and an antelope. Addison is discovering a love of singing as well. But she tends to combine all songs into one. It is something like ABCD...Baby Baluga...Hello, Hello.

Addison and Lily have started really playing together. They play ring around the rosies. When they sing, it goes something like this "Ring nnnnround rosies. Ashes. Ashes. Wiff wiff down." When they finish singing they see who can push or pull the other down first. They also have created their own game. We still are not sure what it is called...something like Sackorilla. Basically each grabs a hold of the end of Lily's sleep sack and they pull one another around. Unfortunately they tend to pull each other into other objects. Lily has collided with our bed and Addison the chest at the foot of our bed.

Addison and Lily have a daily trip to see the horsies. Two different people have horses down at the end of our street, so A & L get a stroller ride to see them. They will also see an occasional deer. It is always interesting to ask what color the deer was. Red seems to be the popular choice. Lily always seems sad when she has to say that the "deer ran away".

Since Kelsey has joined our family, Addison and Lily have become quite maternal. For at least a month they have both occasionally gently rocked and/or bounced their babies. Just today they both started breastfeeding their ND tigers. They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery...

I'm also proud to say that both Lily and Addison can correctly answer the question "How old are you?" Lily will very quickly say "two". Addison is a bit slower to respond and her answer goes something like this: "How old are you, Addison?" (pause) "TWOOO-OOO". "Very good Addison" (brief pause) "THREEEE-EEE" "FOOOOURRR"

Here are a couple videos of Kelsey and Lily to show how brilliant our children are:

Kelsey "Talking"

Lily Spelling

Reunion and stuff

2008-06-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

We survived our family trip to Notre Dame. Our 6 hour drive took 7 1/2 hours on the way to Notre Dame and 9 on the way home. Such is the unpredictable nature of travelling with 2 year olds.

We had a great time and enjoyed seeing friends once again. Some thoughts from the weekend... The rooms in Walsh Hall are pretty shabby. Were the rooms in BP and Zahm this bad when we lived there? Surely not! But we were quite thankful that we were given 3 adjoining rooms with our own bathroom including a bathtub.
Most of our friends and us are not where we thought we'd be at the ripe old age of 42. Teresa would never have expected to be married to Coma or having a new baby at this age!

Sleeping 6 straight hours

2008-05-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

Kelsey has managed to sleep 6 hours in a row the past 2 nights. Can we call it a trend? One can only hope.

Other news from Athens, Lily has graduated from Speech Therapy. She's been going to speech therapy for the past 6 months. During that time she has gone from saying no words to having a vocabulary well over 300 words and many 2-5 word phrases and sentences. The big challenge now is improving her pronounciation. Unfortunately the therapists she's been seeing don't believe they can help with that until she is old enough to comprehend the physical way sounds are produced (around 4 years of age). This Tuesday we return to Children's Hospital in Columbus to meet with the Cleft Team. One of the team members is a speech therapist and we plan to ask many questions about what we can do to help Lily with her pronounciation and what we should expect. About 30% of children with cleft palates require additional surgery to make it easier for them to produce certain sounds. We're hopeful Lily speech will be OK without additional surgery, but we plan to get an opinion from the therapist at the Cleft Clinic.

Addison and Lily have discovered a love for the playground. As a result their Daddy has turned our house into a playground. We now have a seesaw in the living room, a slide in the basement, and two swings hanging from our deck. Needless to say, Addison and Lily have taken to asking to go to the basement to "SLIDE!" or "SWING!" beginning very early in the morning. Mike does his best to keep them upstairs until at least 8:15a, but the slide has been used as early as 8am (much to Jessi's dismay).

This Thursday we are packing up the entire family and heading to South Bend for Mike and Teresa's 20th college reunion. We'll have an 8 hour drive (or at least we hope it is only 8 hours!) and we are staying in a dorm that has been designated as the Family dorm. Let's hope our neighbors are OK with Kelsey's middle of the night wake up call. And that the dorm is quiet enough for Addison and Lily to get their afternoon naps.

Kelsey's Room

Lily giving Kelsey a kiss

Lily being Cool in Daddy's sunglasses

Addison Being Cool in her own Sunglasses with Lily looking on

Kelsey pondering

Lily Swinging at the Park (note the ND Sesame Street t-shirt)

Addison Swinging at the Park (Same cool Notre Dame t-shirt)

Addison and Lily at the slide

Kelsey in Addison's lap with Lily looking on (outfits courtesy of Ted and Kate Smith)

Silly Goose Aunt Kathleen and Kelsey

Lily and Blue Dog outside on the deck

Silly Goose Aunt Kathleen and Addison

Silly Goose Aunt Kathleen and Lily

Kelsey after a hard day

A day in the life...

2008-05-08T20:37:00.000-07:00

Some days are harder than others. Case in point, today. Let us start with Kelsey last night. Starting around 1:30am, she simply refused to stay asleep. She awoke every 30 minutes crying, loud crying, until around 6am. So Mommy and a lesser degree Daddy were a bit tired today. But, alas, our twin angels awoke around 7am with Addison calling out "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, etc." until I got her and her sister.

Usually in the mornings, I get the girls to myself for some good Daddy time. First there is the distribution of bananas, one to Lily and one to Addison. One must not "open" the banana before the owner is ready. Usually there is a chorus of "hold it, hold it, ..." (meaning they simply wish to hold the banana) until finally I get the green light "open it, open it, ..." (meaning, peel it). One must be very careful, because Addison is prone to say "open it" when she means "hold it" and, if you open it when she still wanted to hold it, her entire morning is shot and she remains in a bad mood until after her nap. You only make this mistake a couple of times before you realize you need to ask for clarification before opening the banana.

After banana time, comes milk time which has also morphed into cereal time. Usually the girls choose their seat, rarely wanting the same seat. And they are usually eating their breakfast when Jessi comes up to save me. Such was the case this morning. Other than it raining, all was going well with Lily and Addison.

Since it was Thursday, Lily has speech therapy on Thursday mornings, so I packed her up (actually, Jessi did all of the work) and put her in the car. Jessi took Addison downstairs to play. We got an assignment at speech therapy to count the words Lily uses since the supervisor at the speech therapy clinic was quite impressed with the number of words Lily has been using. So after putting the girls to bed for naptime (I had Kelsey, Teresa had Addison, and Jessi had Lily), I tallied up the words that I knew Lily was able to say, though some of them she does not exactly get the correct pronunciation (we had a list of words from the therapist as a starting point). I am proud to say that Lily has over 300 words.

The afternoon came and went without much of a problem. I got to feed Kelsey, did some work, and helped get dinner going. Even post-dinner seemed to be going well. The girls were laughing, chasing Jack, running around upstairs. Teresa was tending to Kelsey as I got the girls' bath together.

I must say that today was one of the few days where I actually needed to be someplace after the girls went to bed. The School of Accountancy at Ohio University had their annual awards banquet this evening. So, I had been mentally prepared to rush out the door as soon as the girls were asleep. But, alas, the girls had a different agenda. To help expedite my departure, Teresa put me in charge of Kelsey who only needed to be put to bed. So I did that, got her asleep, and changed into my suit for the banquet. As soon as I had my tie on, Kelsey woke up...crap. I could hear down the hall Teresa dealing with her own set of issues. Both Addison and Lily wanted to sit on the potty before going to bed. So she had them out of their beds and in the bathroom. In the meantime, I got Kelsey asleep again. So I went to check on Teresa, and Addison had, in fact, gone weewee in the potty for the first time. She was very proud, as were her parents. Not to be outdone, Lily refused to go to sleep and threw a fit when put into bed, yelling "Mommy, Mommy, weewee, poopoo..." In the meantime, Kelsey has awoken again, so I went to handle her and Teresa went in with Lily and Addison. Kelsey refused to sleep this time, so Teresa and I switched. I sat on the floor with Lily on the potty and Addison sleepy in my arms waiting for Lily to give up, as she often does. But alas after a long time of singing songs, I looked under her and saw a big poop! She was very proud. I was very late.

Lily seemed to want to bask in her glory because she did not want to go to sleep and cried until she was tired of hearing me sing the same song over and over and over again. So now it is 8:30 and the banquet was over. Teresa was back tending to Kelsey and finally around 9:00 we ate dinner. I went back to do some work (write a test). Now it is midnight, the test is half written, and Kelsey is back crying. Teresa had just gone to bed at 11:30.

If you are keeping score:
Good things that happened today: Lots! Including two for two on the potty.
Bad things that happened today: Enough to appreciate the good things.

2 weeks and counting

2008-04-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

Kelsey turned 2 weeks old yesterday. Funny how 2 weeks can seem like 2 years.

So here is some of the news about Kelsey, Addison and Lily from the past few weeks. Kelsey and I were discharged from the hospital on Wednesday April 16. Kelsey had a bit of jaundice so I was instructed to nurse her every 2 hours. She had blood tests every 2 days for the next 6 days. She never had a bad case of jaundice and by the 6th day, the tests showed the problem was going away.

Our first night at home was a tough one for mommy and daddy. Kelsey was awake and eating from about 1a to 5a. The next few days while we were fighting the jaundice, she really was not into being awakened every 2 hours to eat. We did our best though.

On Friday April 18, Pop came to Athens for the weekend. He and Gram stayed until the following Tuesday. Gram, of course, spent most of her time helping with Addison and Lily and sewing. Before she left Athens, Gram took measurements of Lily and Addison for future outfits. A & L now see the measuring tape and say "Gram".

Kelsey's room is quite cute. I'll post pictures once a few finishing touches are done.

Addison and Lily quickly warmed up to Kelsey. Lily was immediately OK with touching her and pointing to her "eyes". Addison took a day to actually touch her, but now loves giving her kisses all over her face. Lily's kisses are still given at a 6 inch distance.

Although Kelsey lost more than 10% of her birth weight before we left the hospital, yesterday on her 2 week birthday she weighed 9lbs 3oz. She's back to her birth weight and then some.

At this point we're working on keeping Kelsey on a 3 hour schedule eating schedule. But at night I don't wake her up. So far she's waking up 2 times at night to eat. I'm hopeful that it won't be long before she extends her night time sleeping.

Our first couple of nights at home, Mike got up with Kelsey and I for the night time feedings. But we quickly realized that we were needlessly interupting both of our sleep. So now, I get up and deal with Kelsey during the night and Mike gets up at 6:45a with Addison and Lily. Some mornings Kelsey and I join them for a bit of family time.

Our most hectic time of the day is bath/bedtime for Addison and Lily. Out of about 10 days, only 2 days has Kelsey allowed both Mike and I full time for bath and bedtime. Hopefully over the next week Kelsey will fall into a more regular schedule and we'll be able to plan A & L bath and bedtime better.

Exciting news from this morning. Lily went wee wee on the potty. Apparently she's now decided it is uncomfortable to have wee wee in her diaper. She walked around this morning like her diaper was full and very uncomfortable. Maybe this is a start to potty success!

Addison and Lily are both starting to read books to themselves. They will flip through the book and talk about what is going on in the book. Lily did this last night with Once Upon a Potty and Addison did it with Dr Zeuss' ABC book.

Many thanks to our friends Sue and Dave and Jon and Tasha who recommended the Leap Frog Letter Factory video. A & L have been watching it in the car when we go anywhere for about 2 months. They know all of the letters and love reading letters on signs, books, etc. It is especially exciting when a sign has a big letter on it. A realtor down the street has a sign up with a big "G" and it has been a source of excitement for a while now. Addison loves reading the letters in the Elmo Balls book where he dunks a basketball. The word is SWOOSH and she can read each letter in order. A & L also like playing the game of naming words that start with certain letters. Like J is for Jessi and Jack. T is for turtle. B is for baby and ball. And most importantly "Whose name starts with M?" --- MOMMY!

Rest in Peace Denuen

2008-04-21T18:30:00.001-07:00

The circle of life. It is with great sadness that on Sunday April 20, Denuen passed away. She was as happy as ever during the day, chasing Jack up and down the stairs and at the front of the line for her 3:00 treat. All in all, pretty amazing for a 13 year old dog. But around 4:00 Teresa's mom noticed that Denuen was having a seizure of some sorts. She then could not stand and was panting very hard, refusing water. I carried her downstairs and she walked to her favorite spot on a dog bed in the living room. It was there, in her favorite spot, that she died. I will post a much happier update on Kelsey, Addison and Lily tomorrow, but for now, Denuen deserves her spotlight. She was faithful, caring, protective and loving. Before I knew Denuen, she and Teresa shared a common bond and trust. She had one litter of seven puppies, one of which lives with us (Peoopee) and two who live with Teresa's parents (Shelby and Nuttin'). In all the chaos that is our life right now, the house seems a bit empty without her.

More pictures

2008-04-21T18:11:00.000-07:00

Kelsey Anne's arrival

2008-04-17T18:46:00.001-07:00

Easter photos

2008-04-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

Hi all. Teresa here. We're 6 1/2 days from welcoming Kelsey into our family.

Here are some photos from Easter.

Pictures of Kelsey

2008-03-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hi folks!

We went to the doctor on Tuesday for an untrasound. We realize how lucky we were with Lily and Addison, becasue we were able to have an untrasound about every two weeks. It has been 15 weeks since we last saw Kelsey. Of course, she makes herself known every day by kicking and otherwise bouncing off the walls inside of Teresa. Funny for me, not so much for Teresa. Below are the newest pictures of Kelsey.

Also, we went on our first Easter egg hunt with Lily and Addison last weekend. There are a couple of things in life you cannot delay. One of those is an Easter egg hunt with hundreds of kids. For some reason the organizers delayed the start. Consider all these children, many very young, being told to stay outside of some tape put on the ground even though there are hundreds of colorful eggs just a few steps away. Once the signal was given, all eggs were collected in seconds. Both Lily and Addison got 5 eggs each, with assistance from Mom and Dad. At the time of the signal, there were much more interested in the Easter Bunnny and the OU Bobcat mascot who showed up.

Happy Easter to Everyone!

Mike, Teresa, Lily, Addison, Kelsey and Jessi

Reinforcements have arrived

2008-03-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

Hello dear friends,

We suck. We have been kind of busy these past few months, but, really, we should have been posting something. The girls are an unending source of entertainment lately, so it is too bad that we have no videos or pictures to prove it. The biggest news is that on January 18th, our au pair, Jessi, arrived from Berlin, Germany. While we were uncertain how things would work out, she has been a true God-send. The girls love her and she does a great job with them. It is always "Jessi, this, and Jessi that" with me and Teresa often left in the dust for Jessi. Of course, this was the plan, because once April 14th, or there about, happens, life changes for everyone. Of course, on that day, we expect Kelsey Anne to arrive (I hope she does not decide to come early!).

We have been taking Lily to speech therapy since December and it seems to be making a significant impact. She talks much more than she used to, but still nowhere near as much, or as clearly, as Addison. There is still some work to be done, but we are so encouraged by her progress in just a few months.

We tragically lost a dear friend of ours two weeks ago, Kay Snow. She has been Teresa's best friend in Athens from almost the first week we arrived. It was Kay who helped Teresa feel welcome and dragged Teresa to all sorts of activities, helping Teresa meet a large group of people, really making this small town feel like home. Kay was like this with everyone she met, everywhere she lived. She was the type of person you liked to see in the morning, because when she wished you to have a great day, she actually meant it. We miss you Kay, rest in peace.

As the big day gets closer, I promise to let you know what is going on with us. Maybe a picture or two might make an appearance.

peace!

Yes or No

2008-01-04T13:56:00.000-08:00

For the past several weeks Addison has been trying out the word "No". Several times Mike and I have said more to ourselves than her..."I don't think you know the meaning of that word." Because she would say No when she really meant yes.

Today at lunch we found out she definitely knows what No means and now can say and understand Yes.

After eating half her lunch, Addison said "More" Ok more like "Moe", but we understood.

I said "More, what?"

She replied with "Moe" and the sign for "Please".

I said "Yes I understand you want more and thank you for saying please, but more, what? Zucchini?"

"No"

"More cherries?"

"YESH!"

And more cherries she received.

Christmas and New Year Best Wishes

2007-12-27T11:28:00.000-08:00

Hey All!

I hope you have had a merry and peaceful Christmas. We are currently in Potomac, Maryland (suburbs of Washington, DC) at Mike's parent's house. We will be here until Saturday evening, December 29th. The girls have been a bit overwhelmed with presents and relatives. Both Mike's sisters (Bridget and Siobhain) and Mike's Brother (Matt) are in with their families. This is the first time in about a decade all four of the Meyer siblings have been together under the same roof they grew up in. We will be posting Christmas pictures, and hopefully, some Christmas video next week. But, in lieu of pictures, we wanted to wish everyone who visits this blog the happiest holiday season. We know that 2008 will bring us more laughter and joy.

peace,
Teresa and Mike

Communication through signs

2007-11-15T17:59:00.000-08:00

We've been working for a while on using sign language to help Lily and Addison build a vocabulary for communication. They both are doing quite well. Following is a video of them making some of the signs they know. No criticism please...we are not adhering to American Sign Language. We are just using what works for us. Here's a description of the signs in the video:

Dog - panting like a dog
Frog - sticking your tongue in and out like a frog (in the video I say Pig, but Lily knew I was looking for frog somehow!)
Cereal - hold your index finger out and motion it up and down across your face
More - touch all of your fingers together a couple of times
Please - rub one hand up and down your chest
Monkey - arms up under your underarms like a monkey would do
Daddy - put your hand to your temple with your thumb touching your temple (like you are trying to make one moose antler)
Eat - put your hand to your mouth like you are putting something in it
Book - palms together, then open like a book
All done or finished - hands together then down and out like you are dropping something
Cat - pinch with the index finger and thumb at your cheeks and go out like stroking a cat's whiskers
Mouse - hands up to your nose and pretend like you are rubbing your nose as a mouse might
Corn - hands at the side of you mouth like you are holding a piece of corn on the cob and twist your hands like you are eating it
Play - hands in a partial fist with pinky and thumb sticking out and shake your hands
Kiss - kiss the fingers of one hand then put them together with the fingers of the other hand (looks a lot like more)
Rabbit/bunny/jump - index and middle finger of one hand "jumping" on the palm of the other
Ball - tips of all fingers coming together like holding a ball
Giraffe - grasp hands together and lift them up over your head like following the giraffe's long neck
Bed - head on the palm of a hand and tilt your head over
Baby - arms crossed and move your arms like you are cradling a baby in your arms
Bird - index finger and middle finger touching the thumb like imitating a bird opening and closing its beak
Milk - not demonstrated in the video, but it is clasping and unclasping the hand like milking a cow.

Enjoy!

Lily's first word

2007-10-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

We’ve been waiting a long time for the day when Lily would speak her first word.

Admittedly, she’s been saying Moo or MMMM for a long time when we ask her what does a cow say. But yesterday she said her first real word.

And what was it? “Nice” That’s right. Not ball or dog or Dada. (She’s also been saying “Ma” for a long time). Nope it was “nice”. What a pleasant girl she will turn out to be, right?

Well, the background is this. Mike and I are perhaps not teaching Lily and Addison the best etiquette. They have a tendency to pass gas from the attic and the basement while eating their dinner. Generally this evokes a response from Mike or I…such as “ew”, “good one”, “sweet” or “DUUDE!”. Both Addison and Lily find this very funny. On some occasions one of the girls will have such a loud belch or fart that we say “NNNIIIIICCEEE!”. Last night Lily had a beauty of a burp and Mike and I both said “NIIIICE!” And much to our amazement, Lily repeated it.

Pictures!

2007-10-28T11:19:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone.

Here are some pictures from the last few months. They include

Our trip to the Columbus Zoo.
Our trip to Notre Dame for the ND/Georgia Tech game. Yes that is Lily, Addison and Mike with the Dancing Irish.
A day outside with the girls wearing skorts, including one with Addison making a funny face and Lily running off the driveway into the street (WHOOOOAH!)
A visit from Grandma and Aunt Bridget.
And finally a picture of the girls in their Halloween dresses courtesy of Gram beside their inflatable haunted house.

Hope all of you are well. Love, Teresa

We are actually alive!

2007-10-11T05:37:00.000-07:00

Greetings friends,

I realize that it has been several months since we last posted. Sorry about that. New Pictures will be posted shortly (I am told by the IT staff - Teresa). To get you caught up on things, well...

We went to Park City, UT for a Sheppard family reunion. My greatest concern about the trip was the 3 hour plane ride. The trip out went just fine, with minimal screaming and crying. The girls just loved watching their cousin Coleman, who is a year older. Addison had trouble adapting to the new time zone, in fact, refused to adapt to the new time zone. So a usual 6am wake up became a 4am wake up. Hooray, we are on vacation...yarg. We also think that she had trouble adapting to the altitude, new sleeping arrangements, etc. So, things could have gone better for her...and her parents...Lily, seemed to adapt much better to the change in environment. By the way, the trip back confirmed all my concerns, with two tired crying babies and two tired wanting-to-cry parents. We were a plane favorite.

Needless to say, after being thoroughly exhausted, the idea of putting the girls in the car for a 9 hour trip to Ocean City, Maryland, was less than appealing. So we cancelled that trip and tried to recover.

After a couple of weeks at home, we decided to visit the Columbus Zoo, home of Jack Hannah (the animal guy who is on Letterman and Leno). We rented a hotel room in Columbus so that we could spend two days at the zoo. We originally were going to spend one day at the zoo and another day at the aquarium, but the Columbus aquarium was just one fish tank. This zoo was great. Even though it was hot, almost all of the walkways around the exhibits were shaded. We have a great video of the girls looking at the otters, perhaps we can get that on-line soon.

We are happy to say that both girls are walking, though usually in opposite directions. Addison prefers to chase after Jack (our cocker spaniel) and Lily likes to run around our dining room table. Addison can say a host of words, especially Jack, ball, block, dog, cheese, dada, mama, and others that I cannot remember. Lily is less vocal with different fluctuations and versions of mama, though just recently she can moo like a cow and make some possessed growl with her mouth open. We are teaching them sign language and Lily is especially adept at telling us exactly what she does and does not want.

My mom and sister Bridget came to Athens to help me with the girls when Teresa went to her cousin's wedding in Atlanta, then stayed to work at Screamfree for a few days. The girls thought that Aunt Bridget was the best. They loved spending time with Grandma, but Aunt Bridget was lots of fun.

Hopefully we will get videos up so that you can see how funny and how much fun the girls are right now. Hardly a day goes by that we are not laughing at something that they are doing. It is great that they find burping funny, though I have not taught them the thumb-to-the-head thing yet. I have to consult the baby books, but I think you teach drinking games at age 2.

Has it really been a year?

2007-06-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

There are new pictures and videos posted below. If there is anyone left reading this I would be surprised. Okay, let us go back in time. It is approximately 7am June 28, 2006 and I hear "Mike WAKE UP..." With that call to action, the Adventures of Lily and Addison began. Let me be clear, I had ten more days to prepare...but Addison had enough of Lily taking up all the room, and apparently the food as well. This week Teresa and I went back and re-read the beginning of this blog and I was struck not only with the clarity of my memory of events, but of emotions as well. For the record, I panicked...running about the house seemingly aimlessly until Teresa told me to CALM DOWN and take a shower. Now my vast knowledge about birth comes from TV where once the water breaks you have approximately ten minutes, including the commercial break, until children appear, thus the panic. I now know differently, but surely someone should have told me this. I was so sure we were going the full 38 weeks that it never dawned on me that I needed to practice what to do in the event the girls came early. By the way, I still believe panic was the appropriate response.

This year has been full of silly, scary, joyful, absurd, laugh-out-loud, cry, hope, dream, pray, and proud moments. Under Teresa's guidance, the girls are growing independent, smart, funny, strong and loving...in other words, just like their mother. I taught Lily to laugh when she farts and I taught Addison to chase the dogs. We both bring different skill sets to the parenting table.

To start developing our keen sense of competitiveness in the girls, we have been having baby races (you can see some pictures below) with the walkers. Addison tends to cheat sometimes, scraping tires with Lily. We are still trying to teach Lily to finish the race as she will get a big lead and then stop and applaud herself. Addison, on the other hand, has a maniacal laugh when she takes the lead, stopping occasionally to stick rocks in her mouth.

We are off to a Sheppard family reunion in Park City, Utah...then to my parent's house at Ocean City, Maryland in the coming couple of weeks. So there should be plenty to discuss once we get back from these vacations...with an lots of expected tales, pictures and videos. Thanks to all who visit this blog, whether you post a comment or not. With one year in the hopper, the Adventures of Addison and Lily have just begun...stay tuned.

12 months, 1 year, wow!

2007-06-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

Addison climbing. Lily walking.

Happy birthday.

Cup cakes and icing get ugly

Walking!

2007-06-22T19:04:00.001-07:00

First a video of a couple of moments with the Meyer family at the beginning of June. We travelled to DC for our nephew Frank's wedding. Kind of crazy that one of Addison & Lily's cousins is old enough to be getting married.

Next some clips from scenes at our house over the last 2 months including some of Lily's first steps.

And last our first go at walker races...


At 10 months in Disney shirts from Aunt Siobhain & Uncle Greg	At Frank's wedding with Aunt Siobhain & Uncle Greg. Greg made Addison laugh so hard she cried

Girls in their dresses for Frank & Megan's wedding	Lily in her dress

Aunt Bridget and Addison	The church quiet room where we were asked to stay during the wedding

Addison with her Great Aunt Maeve

Tybee Island, GA Addison and Lily's first beach experience	With Gram and Pop

The End of Our World As We Knew It

2007-04-28T11:34:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

It has been quite a time since we last posted. Please note that there are NEW Pictures AND Videos below this post. Okay, so now I doubt anyone is left reading this, so I will be brief on what has been going on in the lives of Lily and Addison (and their parents). The first major advance was Lily and Addison learning how to crawl. Unfortunately for Addison, she learned how to crawl backwards and that was her only direction for the first week and a half of mobility. This would cause her untold anger as she wished to go towards something only to end up farther away (as a casual observer, it was very funny). You can see this backwards crawling if you look closely at the first of the new videos. She did learn to progress forward and has become much faster than her sister. As you see, Teresa and I have begun racing them, though as you will see in the videos, Jack is still faster than either of them.

After crawling, came the standing up. They have taken to standing most of the time. Poor Addison, she has not quite mastered the art of dismount. She comes crashing down or just stands there crying for fear of crashing down. Lily has been standing longer and has a very delicate dismount to the sitting position. This can be viewed on one of the videos as well. Other cool things they can do now includes clapping and waving, both evident on the videos.

We went for our 9-month visit to the pediatrician (at 9 1/2 months). All was well, but Teresa asked about Lily and Addison's sleeping patterns. Lily was a disaster to get to sleep. At times it would take up to 45 minutes to get her down, causing both parents untold stress. Addison, on the other hand, was quite good at going to sleep, but would wake up at some ungodly hour of the night (2, 3 4, pick one, it was never the same). So Dr. Regan sternly began talking to Teresa about putting them down, going back after 10 minutes, if still not asleep, going back after 20 minutes, etc. Teresa, quickly interrupted Dr. Regan, pointing at me, saying "Talk to that guy, he is the one who needs to hear this..." So, Dad the softee, got a beat-down from the pediatrician. We followed her advice and sleeping for both has been great, though the first night sucked.

Lily had her surgery to repair her cleft palate. All went perfectly. The night in the hospital with Lily was aweful and the next week was almost as bad. Eventually, she began drinking from a bottle again, and all has been clear sailing since then. When Lily came out of surgery she looked like she just lost a bar fight (swollen lips, blood coming from her nose and mouth). Every 4 hours she could have pain medication, and it was easy to figure out when the 4 hours was about up. Once we got Lily asleep, a nurse would come in and wake her. She had to be in arm restraints for three weeks, though once we got out of the hospital, Gram and Teresa came up with much better alternatives that allowed Lily to sleep easier. I could go on about how bad the hospital stay and first week really was, but there is no need. On the bright side, we got a chance to have Gram (Teresa's mom) and Grandma (Mike's mom) stay for a week each.

The girls are now into breaking stuff, including themselves. Their fascination with the dogs waterbowl is lots of fun...not really (see video). We can cancel the Father of the Year awards. I was in charge of Addison one afternoon, when I fell asleep on the floor. Addison broke free from our gate and decided to crawl down the steps, not sure how many she was able to crawl down before she began tumbling, but I was awoken to thud, thud, thud...Addison was fine, Teresa was about to sell me to the gypsies (strike that, banish me to the gypsies). A few days later Lily was about to take a similar tumble, but we caught her just before the edge. I have learned to keep the gate at the top of the stairs closed for fear of being deported.

Enough words from me (okay, this was longer than it should have been) . Enjoy the pictures and videos below.

Updated pictures

2007-04-28T11:10:00.000-07:00


Lily before surgery	Lily before surgery

Lily before surgery	Kindermusik class

Easter 2007	Easter 2007

Easter 2007	At 9mos with Grandma

With Gram	9 months old

April Video - Our new developments

2007-04-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

New Video March 2007

2007-04-27T21:11:00.001-07:00

Waiting and waiting

2007-03-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Hi all.

Mike and I are in the Surgical Family Waiting area at Children's Hospital. Lily has been in surgery for just over an hour.

We had a bit of frustration with this surgery. The other day when the Hospital called just to confirm things with us, they said Lily was scheduled for her cleft repair and for ear tubes. "No", I said, "Lily doesn't need ear tubes." Of course the admin person I was speaking with could do nothing about that. So yesterday when I talked with the nurse about Lily's history, etc preparing for today once again the ear tubes thing came up. "No", I said, "Lily doesn't need ear tubes." Again she could do nothing about that plan.

So this morning we went through the same thing with the nurse who helped us get settled and checked Lily's weight, etc. Finally our plastic surgeon came in and wanted us to sign our consent for the surgeries...the cleft repair and the ear tubes. Again, Lily doesn't need ear tubes. She hasn't had an ear infection and her ears have been clear every time they've been checked. So our plastic surgeon Dr Ruberg said he'd have the ENT Dr. Kahn talk with us before putting the tubes in. Finally as we were walking Lily back to the OR, Dr Kahn appeared. Fortunately he agreed wholeheartedly that Lily did not need the tubes and felt good enough about the decision based on her history that he didn't even feel the need to take a look at her ears. Thank you Dr Kahn!

And now, here we wait for the call to let us know that Lily is out of surgery. I'm sitting nervously, anxiously. Mike is sleeping. The waiting area has recliners and Mike is taking full advantage. He knew early on that he'd have no problem hanging out in the waiting area...there are Strawberry PopTarts in the vending machine.

At some point we'll have pictures from our adventure here. I was busily taking pictures of Lily as we got her into her hospital scrubs and as she was playing like she was in jail in the metal crib, when Mike asked if I had missed the sign that said "No cameras." Oh well.

Many thanks are owed to my mom (AKA Gram) who is back in Athens taking care of Addison, Denuen, Peoopee and Jack. So far she has survived a night with a 1a and 5a waking. Lily had no problem sleeping in the hotel room last night...she sure does take after her father!

More as things develop.

And it all happened in February

2007-03-04T11:41:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay in posting, we had many intentions of posting earlier and more often, but have we told you we have twins? As you will see in the video, we started swimming lessons this month. Okay, so we paid $60 for the ability to be at the Ohio University aquatic center with other parents of infants and have some oddly pierced 20-year old stand there doing nothing. The payment seems to ensure that we actually go twice a week. The girls seem to like it and Me and Teresa seem to always get into a splash fight, using the girls as shields.

We had the good folks at Help Me Grow (an Ohio state program) come and evaluate the girls development. We had some concerns about Addison's motor skills since she has decided to stop rolling over--we know she can because we have a video of her doing it, she just decided to no longer do it. So after about an hour assessment, both girls were given top marks. And, Addison has decided to roll over again, and again, and again, oh crap, where did she go?

Lily has most recently figured out how to get back up to a sitting position from lying down. Lily is about as close as you could get to crawling without actually crawling. She gets up on all fours, rocks back and forth, then dives forward, sometimes going backwards. She has mastered a belly crawl, though.

Both girls are jabbering, though Lily seems to like saying MaMaMaMaMaMa...and Addison DaDaBlahAahJwahMdadahuihag. So, Addison tends to go on and on with the jabbering, though I take great pride when I hear a Da in the midst of the extended jabber session and pretend she is saying something to me.

The first tooth has pierced the gum line for Lily, though Addison's gums and general demeanor suggest that teeth are well on their way. Lily's cleft correction surgery is March 21. As we get closer to that date both Teresa and I are becoming more and more apprehensive. We have not exactly had the best experiences at Children's Hospital, but maybe they can get their act together by March 21.

Below is a video and pictures from February 2007. We hope to have more sooner, but we will do what we can.


Addison on her side. Lily up.	Addison

Addison	Lily (left) Addison (right)

Lily	Lily

The video may take a little while to download...sorry.

Clips of January 2007

2007-01-26T19:19:00.000-08:00

Hi all!

We are back with video of the girls at random events from this past January.

The girls experienced their first snow. We forced them out into the cold and stuck them in a snow bank while we took pictures. It was windy with snow falling while we were doing this and Lily provided some indication that she really would have preferred to be in by the fire. Addison could not have cared less about the whole event.

We had an appointment at the Cranio-Facial Clinic at Children's Hospital in Columbus as a final evaluation before Lily's surgery slated for March 21. That was six hours of our lives we will never get back. The ENT doctor was surprised that Lily had no ear infections, the speech therapist said blah blah blah, the orthodontist is kind of creepy and the surgeon who will perform Lily's surgery was way too cheery for someone who made us wait three hours to see him. On a positive note, both Addison and Lily passed the time having a ball crinckling the paper on the examination table. Both girls were in amazing spirits given the fact that they missed two naps. The ride home was silent.

Enjoy the video.

A Brand New Year

2007-01-17T19:08:00.000-08:00

Hi all.

It has been quite a while since we've posted up here. Sorry about that. I actually wrote up a post last week, but somehow managed to not save it.

We spent a quiet Christmas and New Year at home. Mike has just about recovered from the devastating loss of our beloved Irish to the LSU Tigers.

Mike returned to his regular schedule of teaching the first week of January. Taking care of Addison and Lily while he is gone for 8+ hours is a bit more hectic now that the girls are eating solid food. This means getting cereal, veggie/fruit and bottles ready for both girls usually when they are STARVING.

For a while Addison would only eat her solids well if you allowed her to guide the spoon. Fortunately she is very good at hitting the mark. Unfortunately she likes to go so fast you don't have time to scrape up what comes sliding out of her mouth before she is ready to shovel more in. Generally she ends up with a pool of food around her neck. Yuck. But lately she's allowing her minions to feed her. Lily has always been willing to let her minions feed her.

Exciting times around here. Lily is on the verge of crawling. Mike's installed one gate at the bottom of the stairs going upstairs. Now we just have 2 more to get installed!

Addison continues to be rather content either on her belly or her back. She has rolled belly to back a few times in the last week, so we're hopeful she's starting to get motivated for locomotion.

Lily continues to be a wonderful sleeper. She sleeps 10-11 hours straight every night. I don't want to jinx things, but last night Addison slept 10 hours straight and we are praying this is the beginning of the end of night feedings.

We've started giving Addison 2 small bottles of food everyday. At first we tried to make it formula, but she'd have none of that. We've now gotten her to take 1/2 breastmilk and 1/2 formula, but her mother is concerned that it isn't sitting well on her stomach as she seems to spit up afterwards.

Both Addison and Lily continue to grow nicely. As of Tuesday this week Lily weighed 16lbs 3oz and Addison weighed 15lbs 12oz.

Next Tuesday we will make a family trip to Columbus. We are going to Children's Hospital to meet with the doctors and staff at the CranioFacial Clinic to have them check Lily's status and discuss her surgery. Currently her surgery to repair her cleft is scheduled for March 21.

This past weekend we travelled to Washington DC to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa Meyer. The girls also met their cousin Frank and his fiance Megan, the Pattersons, their great aunt and great uncle Maeve and Bob, and our good friends from Notre Dame Michelle Pfeifer and Michele Spring. It was a busy weekend and to top it off we had car trouble. Some speedy repair work from Gerry's guy (and master mechanic), Tom, and we were only delayed by 6 hours returning home. Denuen who continues to recover from her knee surgery joined us. After some initial territorial squabbling, Denuen got along well with Grandma and Grandpa's dogs, Murphy and Tara. For some reason, I was a total slacker with regards to photos and videos. We've got very few from the weekend.

Here's some pictures to keep everyone up to date on the girls:

Lily under the tree	Addison under the tree
Mike, Lily, Murphy, Tara, Grandma, Grandpa and Addison	Grandma, Lily, Grandpa and Addison
Lily and Addison peeking over their highchair trays

Christmas, Sweet Potatoes, and It Takes 2

2006-12-30T20:02:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. We had a very quiet Christmas at home. Addison and Lily had plenty of gifts to open courtesy of Aunt Kathleen, Uncle Jay, Regan, Marshall, Uncle Eddie, Aunt Karin, Leah and Joanna. Not too surprising they really weren't into the whole unwrapping presents thing. But the wads of wrapping paper did peek some interest.

We plan to have a quiet New Year's as well. Mike and I plan to toast the New Year from bed hopefully with 2 peacefully sleeping babies. And, of course, we'll be cheering the Irish come January 2nd.

Here's a couple of videos. One from Christmas Day. One with Lily's experience with sweet potatoes and some fun Mike had with the twins.

Video of scenes from our Georgia trip

2006-12-24T10:21:00.000-08:00

You're going to do WHAT?!

2006-12-22T19:01:00.000-08:00

Basically this is the reaction Mike received when he relayed our Christmas holiday plans to his colleagues. You see, as a professor in a University on the quarter system, Mike's fall quarter ends before Thanksgiving and he returns to teaching after the New Year. That provides him ample opportunity to do research and provides us with the flexibility to travel. Of course the holidays are the time to be with family and we feel compelled to be with ours. So our plan was to drive to Forsyth, GA to spend time with my parents. Unfortunately from Athens it is a 10 hour drive. Whew! With 2 babies that is quite a feat but not impossible. But wait...we'll also be taking our 3 dogs. Yep we loaded up the whole clan and headed south. The 10 hour drive took more like 12 hours, but we managed to only have about 1 1/2 hours of screaming babies in that whole 24 hour period. Not a bad percentage, but it is still 1 1/2 hours of screaming babies.

And wait...there is still more. Once we returned from Georgia we planned to drive to Washington, DC to spend the Christmas weekend with Mike's folks. Once again with 2 babies and 3 dogs. Unfortunately those plans fell through so the 7 of us will be spending a quiet Christmas at home.

Here are some pictures from our time in Georgia:

Solid food and other tidbits

2006-12-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

Denuen update and fun with Jack

2006-12-02T16:55:00.000-08:00

We spent the day yesterday in Columbus. It just so happened that our friend Susan Taylor needed a ride to the airport so she joined us. We did a little shopping dropped Susan off and picked Denuen up. Denuen's surgery went well. The doctors found that the mass did not look like what they expected and they thought rather than a cancerous tumor it may be scar tissue from a ruptured anal gland. Never thought I'd be hoping one of my dogs would have a ruptured anal gland...we'll get a call middle of next week to let us know the results of the biopsy. Meanwhile Denuen is on antibiotics and pain meds and resting comfortably on the couch.

This evening Mike, Lily and Addison had a "moment" playing with Jack:

Update on Denuen

2006-11-29T07:48:00.000-08:00

On Monday Mike took Denuen to OSU Veterinary School Hospital. The doctors there diagnosed Denuen's anal gland problem as a tumor (anal sac adenocarcinoma). It is apparently a fairly common type of cancer that older female dogs are prone to. Unfortunately this type of tumor is also highly malignant. To determine a course of action, the doctors did a chest x-ray and an ultrasound of Denuen's internal organs. Fortunately they did not see any indication that the cancer had spread to those organs. This type of tumor also produces a chemical that causes the dog's body to have more Calcium in their system. They checked her current calcium level and while it is a bit elevated it is not extremely so.

Because of these findings the doctors suggested we proceed with surgery to remove the tumor. They assured us that the surgery is not likely to cause fecal incontinence (the last thing anyone would want!). The surgery was scheduled for yesterday afternoon, but late in the day we received a call that they had lots of emergencies yesterday and Denuen's surgery has been postponed until Thursday. I believe they must do evaluations on Mondays and Wednesdays and surgeries on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The doctors at OSU also confirmed that Denuen has a torn ligament in her left rear leg which will need surgery. However the tumor is the more pressing issue. After the surgery on her tumor, the tumor will be biopsied so we'll have more information on the extent of the spread, where she is likely to have the cancer pop up in the future, and what kind of monitoring of her we'll need to do. Based on their findings in the x-rays and ultrasound the doctor indicated we are likely to see the cancer pop up in her lymph nodes but fortunately this type of cancer doesn't tend to cause a lot of damage in the lymph nodes or spread from there. Basically he said Denuen is very likely to have several more years of quality life. At 11 years old several more years of quality life is a gift.

Back by popular demand

2006-11-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I mentioned to my mom that I had recorded Addison and Lily in the exersaucer to show the differences in their energy levels. This morning I received an email from my sister asking when it was going to be available on the blog. Have we started a new craze across the country? Well, it is fun and fairly easy to get these videos out here, so here's our next installment. Make sure you have the sound turned up on your computer for the commentary. Oh and I figured out how to put transitions in our clips...

Starting the Christmas season

2006-11-24T19:38:00.000-08:00

It is the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas is suddenly upon us. Many of our neighbors already have decorations up to light the night. We plan to put up decorations tomorrow and we'll be getting a tree soon. A big part of the holidays is sending cards to loved ones and we are thrilled to have 2 beautiful subjects to picture in our cards this year. We spent a bit of time doing a photo session in our living room. We felt we had several good shots. Here are some that we did not choose to use for our card:

I posted a few days ago that Lily was rolling over...back to tummy. At that time Addison was showing no interest in doing the same. Well, that is still the case. However Addison has now learned to roll from her tummy to her back. I guess it is safe to say that Lily prefers laying on her tummy and Addison prefers her back! Here's a video catching the two of them in action.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2006-11-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

Hello all.

We have exciting news to share. Lily is rolling over from her back to her tummy. She has been doing this for about a week now. She's been doing belly scrunches...lifting her legs and moving around quite a bit in her crib for a while now and turning to sleep on her side. Finally she made it all the way over. Addison can do the belly scrunches and moves around a bit in the crib, but she seems pretty content to just stay on her back.

Addison had a big trip this past weekend. I went to Atlanta for planning meetings with ScreamFree and Addison went with. This meant driving to Columbus to fly to Atlanta and all of the packing, stuff lugging and security screenings that go with travelling with an infant. I must say the TSA folks in the Columbus airport were WONDERFUL. And there were also TSA folks in Atlanta...enough said. We also had more public nursing of an infant and even breast pumping than I would have ever thought I'd be comfortable with, but you do what you have to do. We left Lily and Mike with about 1/2 of her need in frozen breastmilk and returned with enough to restock the freezer. Mike will have to relay his experience as a true single parent. Suffice to say the stories told to me involved low grade fevers and ear piercing screams. But he did keep his promise to me and upon my return I found my daughter still alive.

Both of the girls are over 13 pounds now. Hard to believe they will be 5 months old next week.

Next week Mike is taking our 11 year old coonhound, Denuen, up to Columbus to the Ohio State University Veterinary School to have surgery on her anal glands...they've gotten severely impacted and have to be removed. She also has probably torn a ligament in her left rear knee and we anticipate that surgical repair to happen then too. Fortunately we feel a bit more comfortable with handling 2 infants so throwing in a convalescencing dog into the mix won't be too much of a stretch.

We bought a digital camcorder as our Christmas gift to ourselves. Here's our first attempt:

It's the Great Pumpkins, Charlie Brown

2006-11-05T21:46:00.000-08:00

Our first Halloween. Of course, Lily and Addison wore the prescribed pumpkin outfits courtesy of Dave and Dorothy Markert. It was a rainy night in Athens, OH that night, but we had plenty of trick or treaters. To avoid having the door bell ring incessantly and the dogs scaring the trick or treaters, we opened our garage and sat there and handed out candy. Addison and Lily seemed pretty oblivious, but Mike and I were proud to be able to show off our little girls. We had plenty of oh-ing and ah-ing over the twins and their cute outfits.

Last week Addison and Lily had their 4 month check up and shots. All was well at the doctor's and they did well with their shots. This time, Mike stayed out in the waiting area while I took each of the girls back for their shots. He's much more sensitive to having them get those mean old shots that make them cry. They both did better with this round of shots. They were fussier that day, but did not run a fever.

Developmentally...Addison is weighing a little over 12 lbs. Lily is weighing about 12 1/2 lbs. But when you pick them up, you'd swear there is a 2 lb difference! Both girls are holding their heads up well when on their tummy, but Lily is much more comfortable in that position and gladly will hold her head really high for several minutes. They are not rolling over yet, but we hope to see that feat in the next few weeks. Lily loves putting her fingers in her mouth and almost prefers them to her pacifier. Addison is just getting to the point of realizing the joy of slimy fingers. While both girls are smiling and laughing, Lily has a special gift of squealing with laughter. Addison has become quite the talker...and loud. Quite often she wakes up and talks loudly into the monitor for several minutes before realizing...hey, I'm hungry. Both girls are wearing 3-6 month clothes. They've finally outgrown all of their 0-3 month outfits.

Godzilla v. Ultraman

2006-10-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

16 weeks have come and gone. It is now quite OK for Mike to go off to work for 8 hours. Heck I've even gone off and left Mike for a couple of hours. Just over a week ago we left Addison and Lily with my mom and our ever helpful neighbor Kay. And, yes, we went and played golf. Granted the weather wasn't great...windy and cold...but it was golf.

This week we started having babysitters come to the house 2 times a week. They are OU college students who are majoring in Early Childhood Education. Both Katie and Brianna are wonderful with the girls. So far Mike has definitely been able to get lots of work done while they are here. I'm still getting the hang of letting go, but did have some time to focus on work. Tomorrow night we are planning to go to a party in the neighborhood for a bit while Katie watches the girls. We'll see how that plan pans out.

This week Lily passed the 12lb mark...as of Monday she weighed 12lb 2oz. Addison weighed 11lb 9 1/2oz. Both girls are growing beautifully.

October 8 Lily and Addison were baptized at Athens First United Methodist Church. Lily's god parents are my sister Kathleen Wallace and Mike's brother Matt Meyer. Addison's god parents are our dear friends from Notre Dame, Sara Harty and Steve Wenc. We were blessed to have my parents (Gram and Pop) and Mike's parents (Grandma and Grandpa), Mike's sister Bridget, and my grandmother present at the ceremony. That weekend Lily and Addison also went to their first college football game and saw OU beat Western Michigan.

Lily has been building up her muscles quite nicely. She's been holding her head 90 degrees on her tummy for a couple weeks. Addison is just catching up to her in that department. Both girls enjoy standing. Lily has found the joy of laughter. Every time she laughs, Mike and I just burst out ourselves...then eventually we end up making her cry cause she doesn't understand why we are laughing so hard. Addison continues to smile and coo and I believe she's realized she needs to turn up the volume to keep up with her sister. Addison also enjoys singing (fortunately she does not appear to be taking after her Pop in her singing skills).

Tonight we had a fun family night. The four of us sat on the floor playing. Eventually, Mike and I were sitting facing each other and we had the girls in our laps facing one another as well. We had a great time having them play pat-a-cake together, making them hug one another, and generally seeing them interact. We laughed and laughed when we held up the girls while they stood and we slowly "walked" them towards one another. Lily was Godzilla and Addison was Ultraman. Mike and I provided the audio portion of our entertainment. It is these types of moments that make it more fun to have two.

Three Months...seems like we have been doing this longer

2006-09-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are. Three months. The girls are smiling and being reasonably interactive. They seem very close to actually recognizing eachother. And they are sleeping through the night. What more could a dad ask for? That is right, I am finally making a post.

Here are some of my insights and highlights of the first three months. First, there are some things that I think are funny every time that others who live in our house might not feel are so great. For example, it is funny every time when I get Addison to latch onto my nose. I don't care who you are, but it is funny when you hear a big fart over the baby monitor. It is also funny when a baby poops and/or pees on someone else. No so funny when it is you in the cross-hairs, but very funny when it is someone else.

Who made up the term "fussy?" Before I knew, my impression of fussy was squirmy. No, not even close. Fussy means "irrational screaming at full volume for extended periods of time and there is NOTHING you can do about it." Seems like this knowledge should have been in one of those damn books I read or one of our friends with kids could have given us (me) the heads up. It makes much more sense now when people would find out that we were having twins and would say with a smirk "good luck, you will need it." It also explains why they would not let me leave Children's Hospital with Lily until I had seen the "Don't Shake the Baby" video.

The girls and the dogs seem to be getting along quite well. The dogs will, on occassion give the girls a quick lick on the face, then move on to their primary task of sleeping. Jack desparately would like the girls to play with him. He keeps bringing his toys to the girls expecting some sort of response. In Teresa's last post there is a picture of Jack waiting for Lily to play with him.

If anyone had any doubts, Teresa is an amazing mother. There is a vast difference between what she has been able to teach them and what I have done. It reminds me of when she came down to New Orleans when we were dating. I had to go to Houston for my nephews' high school graduation and she was dog-sitting Jack. Before I left, Jack had no skills other than he liked to play with toys. When I got back after two days of Teresa training, Jack could sit on command, do calculus and clean the pool. So it is not surprising that Teresa has been able to get both girls smiling, sleeping through the night, and playing on their own. My skill is putting them in the bouncy seat and force feeding Lily. I am sure one day when I get home from work there will be integrated polynomials written in crayon on the floor.

Lastly, during the first half of the Michigan State game, after another pathetic throw by Brady Quinn to an open spot of dirt, I yelled, and scared Lily. Thus, I was banned from watching the game and feeding Lily at the same time (thank goodness for TIVO). In any event, as much trouble as I got in, it was no where near as much trouble as this ND dad got from his wife (Link to the story).

Tomorrow has come and gone

2006-09-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

Teresa here again. Funny thing about saying you'll get to something tomorrow...Lily can always through a wrench in your plans. Mike, the loving father, was tending to his daughter from mid-evening to late evening last night and was unable to find the time and energy to post here on the blog. Unlike me, he wants to make sure his posts are a) coherent and b) funny. And tonight is no better. Mike is currently (11:45pm) upstairs putting Lily to sleep. I can tell over the baby monitor that he has been successful...not a peep out of Lily in a while...all I can hear is Mike snoring!

One very positive result of Lily's fussines last night...she slept for 9 hours.

So here are some pictures.


4 generations of Wright women	Our happy family

Lily expresses her opinion of Georgia Tech	Lily's feelings towards Notre Dame

Jean, Lottie and Addison	Jon with the 2 cutest girls in the world

The girls meet their Great-Uncle Mike	Difficult to tell in this picture, but Jack has placed his ball next to Lily in the bouncy seat. "Time to play, Lily!"

Pop and Gram	Aunt Kim and Uncle Bee-ul

Trippin'

2006-09-11T21:10:00.000-07:00

It has been such a long time since we've/I've had a chance to post. Life with twins, I guess.

So over the last 2 1/2 weeks...

Addison and Lily had their 2 month immunizations and 2 month well-child check at the pediatrician. Despite all of the dire warnings of problems that can arise with the DTaP shots, the girls did well (Mom and Dad had to endure having their children stuck though). Both had low grade fevers and were rather fatigued for a day. We were told we do have well-children. Lily weighed 9lbs 5oz and Addison 9lbs 2oz.

We, the 4 of us, drove to Atlanta for Teresa to attend planning meetings at ScreamFree. We drove to Charlotte, NC and stayed the night at a hotel. Kind of scary, but the girls did great with minimal crying in the car and at the hotel. While in Atlanta we were fortunate to see and meet the entire ScreamFree family. We also saw Aunt Teresa, Keller and Erin. Shirley and John Riggins stopped in to meet the girls. Jon and Tasha Kaplan put us up at their place and Gram came up to Atlanta to help Mike with child care during the days when I was working.

Over Labor Day weekend we spent time in Forsyth so Pop and Grandmama were able to see and meet the girls. Uncle Billy and Aunt Kim drove down to Forsyth to meet their newest nieces and to bring another much appreciated load of hand-me-downs. Unfortunately Coleman was visiting her other grandparents, so the 3 newest grandchildren will have to wait for another time to meet. We also saw Uncle Mike Sheppard and Susan Rice who stopped in on their way to the ND/Georgia Tech game. Speaking of which, Gram was kind enough to let Mike use her precious ticket for that game so Mike was able to see ND in the season opener...and fortunately win.

Our friends Sue and Dave Welch and Jean and Chris Landmesser made the trek over to the Kaplans on Sunday. So Addison and Lily were able to meet them and their respective children. (Congrats by the way to Jean and Chris who are expecting their 2nd child next March).

We once again stayed the night in Charlotte on the way back home. We were fortunate enough to hook up with Jim and Amy Burger so we stopped by their lovely home and met Ellie and Daniel. Mike was very happy to have some of Ellie's birthday cake.

All in all the trip was wonderful. As you can tell we were able to see lots friends and family. Addison and Lily received lots of hugs and gifts. And Mike and I were able to eat several meals without attempting to also hold a child. The most difficult thing about the trip...packing the car. It required 2 1/2 hours to pack the car for a 5 day trip. And the Suburban was truly packed. Somewhere around 2 hours of packing up, I (holding Addison) turned to Mike (holding Lily) and said "This is really hard." Finally we wised up and put the girls in our front carriers so we could continue packing hands free. And despite 2 1/2 hours of packing and filling the car to the brim, we still had to stop at Babys R Us to get things we forgot!

Back in Athens, Mike started back to work. This means that I am alone with the girls for 7+ hours on Mondays and Wednesdays. So far I've survived 2 such days. Luckily the girls have been very cooperative and the time goes quickly. The worst part is trying to nurse Addison while bottle feeding Lily who requires frequent burping. I'm sure we all look quite comical at times.

We've all survived 10 plus weeks of babyhood. Lily and Addison are starting to sleep longer periods at night, but we are still operating at an extreme sleep deficit. An example of this...the other night I fell asleep while pumping. Bear in mind it was 5am. But there I sat with my double pump machine and while holding the collection bottles, I fell asleep. And not just nodded off...I was out for a good 30 minutes. Luckily I did myself no bodily harm. And I collected lots of milk.

We've been working with Lily on falling asleep on her own. Addison is really good at this...need I tell you who has been putting which baby down to sleep? For the most part we can put Lily down in her crib and she'll eventually fall asleep. Usually she has to talk and whine a bit. This afternoon, I was going through the exercise of put her down, leave, go back in a few minutes to tell her it was time to close her eyes, etc. One time after listening to her talk and whine a bit over the monitor for a few minutes, I went back up to try and settle her back down. I walked into the room and peeked over the crib. Lily saw me and gave me a HUGE grin. At that moment she could have asked me for anything and it would be hers. What a beautiful moment. But alas she still didn't go off to sleep.

This morning we weighed Addison and Lily and they weighed 10lbs and 10lbs 5oz respectively at 10 weeks 5 days of age. They both are smiling and laughing. Holding their heads up some. Trying to launch themselves off our laps by pushing off with their legs. Babbering at times. Talking to the fish and whale on their bouncy seats and swing. They've graduated to size 1 diapers and have outgrown many outfits.

Mike promises tomorrow he'll post a funny message and pictures. Something I'm sure you don't want to miss.

Learning the secret handshake

2006-08-21T15:16:00.000-07:00

When we first moved to Athens, we were amazed at what a friendly place Athens and our neighborhood is. Our neighbors brought us gifts and had us over for parties within the first week of being here. And everyone introduced themselves and made us feel welcome.

Then we met this one neighbor. Nice enough. We exchanged introductions, then his next question "Do you have children?" We replied, "No." And that was the end of the conversation. We felt a smidge put off, but heck it was just one person and even he was nice enough, just let us know we weren't going to be close.

The last 9 days or so we've been taking the girls out for a walk between their 6pm and 9pm feeding. We walk anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2 hours around the neighborhood with the girls in front carriers. The girls love it and it is good exercise for Mike and me. Since we are out and about more we've been seeing lots of neighbors. We realize newborns are irresistable. You get 2 at once an your are suddenly a complete novelty that everyone must witness. Suddenly folks who we've seen occasionally make a special point to stop and chat us up. And the guy who wouldn't give us, the childless ones, the time of day 1 1/2 years ago. "OH, IT'S THE TWINS!" was his and his wife's exclamations.

So Mike and I realize now, we are officially in the parents club and membership has its priveleges.

On a growth note....Lily 8lb12oz, Addison 8lb11oz

A week on our own

2006-08-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

All is well here in Athens. The girls had their Monday morning weigh in. Lily weighs 8 lbs 5 1/2 oz. Addison weighs 8 lbs 2 1/2 oz.

We've been walking with the girls each day for the past 5 days. The weather in Athens has been quite good...highs in the 80s with relatively low humidity. We've been walking them around 7:30p or 8:00p. We had been fighting the girls at that time to take their last nap of the day...they'd cry forever and we'd stress. Finally we wised up and decided to walk them at that time instead of stress. We were quite happy when Lily reached the 8lb mark and could be carried in the Baby Bjorn. Generally the girls are very happy for their 1 to 1 1/2 hour walk. Lily was not so happy towards the end of the walk last night when she'd had a giant poop. Oh, well we can only ask for so much.


Regan and Addison	Kathleen and Lily

Addison floating during her bath	Kathleen and Addison hanging out on the deck

Kathleen and the girls	Kathleen and Regan and the girls

Addison donning her new hat	Hanging out in the pack n play

No idea what Addison is thinking here

Going it alone

2006-08-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

So Sunday we bid farewell to the luxury of having extra hands around the house. Kathleen and Regan returned to Dallas after a much appreciated week of help with Lily and Addison.

After dropping Kathleen and Regan at the Columbus airport, the 4 of us went to Babies R Us and bought out the store. Who knew we'd need 3 Diaper Genies? It was a pleasant experience (i.e. no crying although Mike thought about breaking down when he saw the register total!). The 1 1/2 hour drive back to Athens was uneventful. Both girls had bottles on the way and were quite content.

And when we arrived home...Mike and I were on our own. It was a scary thought, but we felt we were up to it. Plenty of other people have survived raising twins. But still scary. We settled in with a little PGA golf on the TV. The girls ate and went to sleep. Then we had a small electrical storm and, as we have come to expect, the electricity went out. Fortunately we had a small battery generator doodad that we could use for the breast pump. And although our electricity goes out frequently, it usually is restored fairly quickly. But really...our first night on our own...do we really need to be without lights?

After about an hour of sitting staring at each other, I realized our neighbor across the street had power. Unusual. Shortly thereafter we went out for a walk with the girls and ran into another near-by neighbor. They also had power. Very suspicious. Mike thought...hmm...the empty lot next to our house was just mowed...maybe the guy mowing ran over the box where our power supply comes in. We looked about at the other houses around us and all had electricity. Closer inspection showed that sure enough the box had been hit and the wires were severed. Unfortunately we were quite sure a single house is less likely to get immediate restoration of electrical service. So wouldn't you know it...not only were we without power on our first night of being alone...but our house was the only one. Comical really.

It ends up that the power company finally arrived on the scene around 10:15 and the power was restored around 10:45. Lily and Addison appear not to have been scarred for life by the experience. And Mike and I are recovering.

5 weeks and counting

2006-08-04T08:40:00.000-07:00

We've survived 5 weeks. Fortunately we've had great help in adapting to the new life with 2 babies...Gram for the first 3 1/2 weeks, Grandma for 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 and now Aunt Kathleen and Cousin Reagan for 4 1/2 - 5 1/2. And what happens at 5 1/2? "Game on!" as they say.

Just as a note on growth...On Monday Addison weighed 6lbs 15 1/2oz. Lily weighed 7lbs 8oz.

Since we've been having the babies sleep on their backs...prevent SIDS...and I've always heard about "tummy time" and how important that is, I decided to research when one should start their baby on tummy time. So I found a document posted by the American Pediatricians and it said "From the first day you return from the hospital you should start your baby with tummy time 2 or 3 times a day." Oops. They are scarred for life yet again. Needless to say, we had tummy time during the babies' next wakeful period.

Here are some recent photos.


Grandma and the girls	Addison strikes a cute pose while sleeping on Aunt Kathleen


	Lily - "This is my idea of activity time"


Looks like the dogs (this is Peoopee) are OK with the babies now	Peoopee keeping a watchful eye over the girls during tummy time


Tummy time

Some pictures from our fourth week

2006-07-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

Grandpa paid us a quick visit. Here he is holding Lily.

We tried to get a picture for birth announcements. Here Addison and Lily are sharing the swing.

Denuen checking things out.

Addison the music conniseur

2006-07-28T10:55:00.000-07:00

Mike and I thought it would be great to get out of the house. Even if it was just to drive to CVS pick up a prescription and drive to Lowe's for a quick purchase. Out of pure inspiration (and kindness to Mike's mom Brenda) we decided not to leave the girls with Brenda and take them both with us.

The trip started beautifully. Lily started screaming the second we placed her in her car seat. Not to be out-done, Addison piped in as well. Determined, we put them in the car and drove off...screaming billowing from the Xterra. Without consulting one another, Mike and I started singing...loudly...Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (yes, Mike has learned the words). Lily was enchanted and stopped screaming. Addison lowered her volumn. A rendition of A-B-C (yes, Mike does know most of the words) and all crying had stopped.

In CVS Addison started crying again. Back in the car and Twinkle, Twinkle and A-B-C were not enough. Mike started the ND fight song (of course he knows the words), I joined in, Addison stopped crying.

We made our purchase at Lowe's, back in the car...Addison crying again. Hmmm. Twinkle, Twinkle, A-B-C, ND fight song....not enough. OK. The only song that came to mind was When you Wish Upon a Star. I don't know the words. Mike certainly doesn't know them. But we mumbled through a bit and once again Addison was appeased.

So apparently each time in the car Addison expects a new song. Suggestions and lyrics are welcome!

Return to the scene of the crime

2006-07-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

So Tuesday we packed up the family and headed up to Columbus to the Children's Hospital Craniofacial Clinic. On Tuesdays they have a clinic for cleft lips/palates. During the clinic patients are seen by the cleft "team". We met with the surgons, a geneticist, a dentist, a speech therapist, an ENT specialist, and a nutritional practical nurse. The diagnosis was as good as it could be in that there was no indication of any other problem other than the soft palate issue. We tentatively plan to get Lily her surgery in March and the team believes that there should be no further problems once the repair is made. She will be as good as new!

The girls did great for their day in the Big City, until we got about ten miles from home and we had a good ole' fashion meltdown. I don't blame them, I was tired and wanted to get home too. All crying stopped once we got home and out of the car seats.

Children's Hospital where the NICU is located. In the upper right hand side of the picture you can see the helipad that was right outside of the room where Lily and Mike were placed the first two nights of their stay. Quite soothing for a 1 day old.

The Memorial Tournament NICU where Lily was held for 5 days. Perhaps she IS destined to be a golfer.

Angie, the nice nurse who enjoyed showing off Lily as the "healthy" baby in the unit. She was also instrumental in getting Lily out of baby jail.

Nice nurse or not, Lily expresses her feelings about the return to baby jail for a visit.
Jack caught a whale who cannot swim (see life vest). No Johah, just a squeaker that was extracted in about a day. The whale did not make it.

Great and Growing

2006-07-17T16:53:00.000-07:00

Quick visit to the pediatrician today. Lily has gained 6 oz in the last week and is now up to 6lb 10oz. Addison gained 5 oz in the last week and now weighs 5lb 14oz. We've been released of visits to the pediatrician for 5 more weeks when we go back for the girls 2 months visit.

Tomorrow our whole family is taking a trip to Columbus. Not for a visit to the zoo or aquarium or Babies R Us or anything fun like that. Nope, we are going back to Children's Hospital (site of former attrocities against Lily). We are going for a Cleft Palate clinic. Apparently we meet with the team of specialists who will further evaluate Lily and her future needs. The team includes the plastic surgeon, geneticist, orthodontist, ears/nose/throat specialist, speech pathologist and maybe much, much more! Hopefully we'll all be more educated by this time tomorrow.

We're walking!

2006-07-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

Amazed at how far our girls have come in just 2 weeks? Well, it is exciting that we're walking but alas it was not Addison and Lily. Rather Mike, Teresa and Gram took Lily and Addison in their stroller for a walk.

Our friend Jennifer Bagwell paid a visit to Addison and Lily. Well, officially she came over to discuss work with Mike, but the girls know she really came to see them. She cautiously held Addison until just before meltdown time.

Addison and Lily have 2 very different personalities thus far. Lily due to her stint at Children's Hospital is quite the sleeper. She does not get bothered by Addison crying. Addison on the other hand also sleeps well, but will stir if Lily is crying...we also think she gets rather defensive of her food supply if she hears Lily in the room, but that is a whole other story. We are convinced that Addison will be quite the comedian. She spends lots of time entertaining us with her smirks, smiles, laughs and grimaces. Lily is more stoic, but her personality is starting to come out. This afternoon, her Notre Dame clad dad was holding her and we were able to catch her smiling. Perhaps it was the close proximity to the ND logo?

Lily - "My parents are geeks!"

2006-07-12T15:57:00.000-07:00

Happy 2 week birthday!

As I mentioned in the last post, we've been keeping up with Lily's intake in Excel. Today Mike created a chart so we could visually see how we are doing. Click on it to get a better view. The top light blue line represents the top amount of recommended consumption, the dark blue is the low end of recommended consumption, pink is Lily's actual total consumption, and the orange is her breast milk consumption. So our goal is to keep the pink line between the two blue lines and get closer to the light blue line. By the way the numbers are not complete for today (July12).

Today we paid a visit to Dr Broecker to get Teresa checked up on. We saw Terry the nurse who visited every week to give Teresa a shot during the last 18 weeks of pregnancy. And Karen the ultrasound tech who saw us LOTS and LOTS during the pregnancy. They both came into the room while we were waiting for Dr Broecker. By the time we had Dr Broecker, an intern, a med student, Terry, Karen, Mike, Teresa, Lily and Addison in the room it was quite a party! Here's a picture of Mike and the girls in the waiting room.

Lily sleeping on Mike after an early evening meal.

Addison sleeping in her Moses basket in her favorite position

The Weighting Game

2006-07-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

A very popular topic in our household these days is weight. I like to talk about how delivering twins is the best diet ever! Losing 20 pounds in 5 days...who'd a thunk? Now breastfeeding is also holding up as a great diet plan as well. We all like to talk about Addison and Lily and how much weight they are gaining.

So today we found out. Addison and Lily are 12 days old. The doctors like to see babies regain to their birth weight by the time they are 2 weeks old. We saw the pediatrician today and found out that Addison currently weighs 5 lbs 9 oz...5 oz more than her birth weight. Lily weighs 6 lbs 4 oz...4 oz less than her birth weight. So we still have a few days to go for Lily to gain back to her birth weight. Also an interesting stat is that Addison has gained 11 oz in the past week...Lily has gained 6 oz. From what we've read babies should gain 4-7 oz per week during this period, so Lily is doing just fine.

It still amazes us that Addison who survived on minimal volume of colostrum for days and has only been breastfed (except for a small amount of formula to prevent dehydration when she was 4 days old) lost less weight and how she has regained quicker than Lily who was whisked off to the special Children's Hospital where she was fed formula on a regular schedule and monitored closely for intake. I think this speaks volumes to the advantage of keeping infants with their mothers!

We continue to monitor Lily's intake and "output" very closely. Mike, Gram and I measure her feedings in milliliters and document poops and pees. We were doing the same for Addison until today when we decided any baby who gains so much in one week probably is doing just fine. Mike and I set up an Excel spreadsheet with Lily's feedings so we could get daily totals and compare them to the recommended amounts. (Uncle Jon Kaplan would be so proud!) This afternoon we discussed what kind of charts we should be generating. A little over the top?

One conclusion from the results of the girls' weigh in today was that Lily needs to continue to get breast milk and preferable more of it. The pediatrician agreed as did Pop. Easy for them to say!

So tomorrow we'll get more pictures out here. You can check out Addison and Lily's picture at the O'Bleness Hospital website: http://www.obleness.org/obaby/baby.asp?cid=2192&lid=m

Moo

2006-07-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

Just guess the topic of this post...yep...breastfeeding. Gentlemen, if you are squeamish on this topic, best to just skip it. Ladies, you are welcome to skip it as well. I believe it is fairly G rated...

I've put the text into a comment so it is easy to skip down to the other posts with pictures.

Post partum does not equal coherent

2006-07-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

Hello all. And happy 1 week birthday to Lily and Addison. Having a blog is an interesting thing. All day long things happen that I think...that would be really funny to talk about on the blog. And here it is...the end of another day...time to post some pictures for all to see...and those witty, funny, coherent stories are somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind. And all that is in the forefront is incoherent babble.

Regarding comments from Grandmama that we needed bigger pictures so she could really see the girls...below in the pictures segment of this post there are a couple of individual pictures of the girls while sleeping. If you click on them, you'll get a larger view of the picture. Still not going to be big (as I'm not sure blogspot would like us to use up their entire server space), but bigger. By the way, all pictures can be clicked on....I just didn't make all of the large versions as large as these two.

Here are some pertinent facts. Today we took the girls back to have their bilirubin levels checked to see if their blue light Wallabys are doing the trick. The report this afternoon was good...Lily's level has gone from 17.9 Monday to 13.8 today. Addison's has gone from 15.9 Monday to 13.9 today. Decreasing is good. We are hopeful that the pediatrician will call tomorrow to tell us we can say good-bye to the Wallabys.

When Gram and I first brought Addison back from the hospital, I attempted to introduce Addison (all 4lbs 13oz of her at that time) to Peoopee, Denuen and Jack...our 2 coonhounds and our cocker spaniel. Jack and Denuen got excited and did lots of licking and sniffing. Peoopee got a little too excited. You see Addison is about the size of the small animals Peoopee likes to hunt down. And when he gets in hunting mode he gets this wild look in his eyes. I saw that look as he was sniffing and sniffing at her and her car seat. I quickly sent Peoopee downstairs and rushed upstairs with Addison. Not exactly the joyful homecoming I had expected. The visions I had of Mike and I, Addison and Lily and the 3 dogs sitting down to enjoy a Notre Dame football game on TV...or of the girls laying against one of the big dogs...or of the girls playing fetch with Jack...all quickly went out the window as I feared that Peoopee was really going to nibble off a tiny foot. Today, though, we brought the dogs into our room and there seemed to be much less excitement on all dogs parts. Jack licked the girls. Denuen barks when they cry. Peopee seems less hungry...all progress.

OK. Funny thing just happened to Mike. We are anxiously awaiting the return of poops from Lily. She's farting up a storm, but not pooping. Oh...and she's eating what we think is a lot. So Mike was changing Lily (again no poop) and I took the opportunity to say "Hey, while you're changing...how about changing Addison? She's got a poop." Mike, being the good daddy and husband and the one of the two of us who took a nap today, agreed. He started changing her and said, "No poop, just pee." He'd just gotten the words out when he quickly replaced the diaper and said "Now there is poop." And the look on his face...not a happy one.

And finally, the magic of Notre Dame. Mike has taken to singing the fight song and Notre Dame, Our Mother to the girls. He does this becuase he does not know any other songs. Really, how does someone not know the words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. This afternoon he tells me that Lily had the hiccupps and to cure them he sang her the fight song. A bit sceptical, later this evening Lily had the hiccupps again, and I sang her the fight song, and sure enough, the end of the hiccupps. Just a few minutes ago, Addison had the hiccups, and like a miracle, Mike sang the fight song and the hiccupps went away. The alma mater seems to work well in getting them to sleep.

Pop Makes his first of many visits to see his new grandchildren.

Lily sleeps at one week old.

Addison Sleeps at one week old.

Mike teaches Lily the Art of Napping

Lily Sleeps as Addison Plots...Developing

Free at Last, Free at Last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

2006-07-02T19:54:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, June 28th, approximately 3:00pm Lily arrived at the Columbus Children's Hospital. I arrived about an hour later. Before the transportation of our precious baby girl, Dr. Wallace showed me a small hole in Lily's soft palate. Her concern was that she might have eating problems. And she wanted us to see a specialist about getting this minor problem fixed. I was in a daze. I saw lots of my wife's innerds, two wonderful babies pulled into this world and suddenly, the next thing I know, I am about to see my family split in two. I followed Lily to Columbus, arriving about 4:30. Lily was in the C4 NICU, a second tier of NICU, where non critical children who need significant oversight are placed.

I would love to tell you what happened on each day I was there, but honestly, I lived in three hour increments. Lily was feeding every three hours on a bottle, and by God, her dad was going to do it. She did not have any problem feeding, what seemed to me to be the primary reason we were sent to Children's. I sat, slept, and stared at Lily and the monitor above her head, showing her heart rate, blood oxygen, and resperation rate...

The primary doctor on call (Dr. Gist) finally saw Lily and indicated some quantity of food that Lily would need before they would consider allowing her to leave. Being a doctor of accounting, in my expert opinion, she was being asked to eat a lot more. I know at some point I told Dr. Gist that Teresa and I did not like him...not in a funny way, but in a I really don't like you kind of way.

Yes, Lily was doing time in baby jail. Don't get me wrong, many of the staff had one primary concern, my baby girl. There were many small acts of remarkable kindness to Lily and me by nurses (especially Angie), nurse practitioners (especially Jason). From getting Lily clothes treating her with the utmost respect, to moving me to a private room with a couch I could sleep on and towels, a toothbrush and soap so I could take a shower. But this was no country club, this was "make you bleed in the foot" baby jail.

I met with the surgons in a special cleft clinic at Children's where I found out that they would not do anything to fix Lily's problem until she was 9-12 months. No parole for Lily though. She came down with jaundice, like here sister, so there was another reason to keep her in baby jail.

I was getting a range of sentence for Lily from a few days to a week or so. Thanks, but we were on the verge of planning a daring escape. Then, like a presidential pardon, Saturday during rounds, hope arrived. Lily was eating more than twice what she had been. To be honest, I think the staff was getting sick of me. For them I was some guy living where they work, like that kid who spent his spring break living in a Walmart.

And just like that, we were paroled. I will get some pictures developed of our jail bird giving the bird to her captors.

Babies have arrived!

2006-07-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry to anyone who sees this and was expecting an email from us with the announcement. After reading on you'll understand our delay...

Wednesday June 28, 2006 Mike awoke to his wife saying (as she rushed to the bathroom) "Honey! My water just broke." Mike flew out of the bed and scurried about for a while. After a few quick showers and a call to the doctor's office we headed off to O'Bleness Hospital in Athens. At 36weeks 5days we were safe to deliver locally. Dr Clark arrived on the scene to direct a well coordinated C-section that resulted in the arrival of our beautiful daughters. Addison Shea arrived first due to her location in her mom's belly at 10:52am weighing 5lbs 4oz and stretching to 19 1/4 inches. Lily Irene was more content with her former locale and gave Dr Clark a challenge in figuring out how to pull her to this world when she kept presenting him with arms and legs in varying order. Lily weighed 6lbs 8oz. Apparently Addison who's water actually broke was ready to join us and see if she could fair better in the nutrition department with her sister around in this world.

Shortly after delivery and while I was still quite on the table having God only knows what done to me on the other side of that BLESSED drape...Dr Clark returned to tell us the measurements of the girls and that Lily had a problem. Dr Wallace the pediatrician discovered Lily has a cleft palate that effects her soft palate. The rest of the story is a little fuzzy for me...drugs and shock have a way of doing that for you. But basically Dr Wallace confirmed the diagnosis and informed us that the best way to handle this situation with a newborn was to send her to a special children's hospital in Columbus, OH where they could check her out, she could see a plastic surgeon about the surgery necessary to fix the defect, and they could make sure she wasn't going to have problems feeding...the primary concern with cleft palates. Easy decision for us and since Addison did not have a need to be rushed off, we decided that Mike would go with Lily. Fortunately before Lily was wisked away, some very sage and non-drugged people came up with the bright idea to 1) allow me to hold Lily 2) allow me to pump colostrum for Lily to have before she left and 3) allow me to feed Lily from a bottle before she left which she did very well...by the way.

Mike and Lily have been gone for 3 days now. It seems like an eternity. Phone calls cannot do justice for the experiences we both are missing in our daughters lives.

Mike patiently parents in a hospital in a distant city while back in Athens Addison has been patiently learning and teaching me about breastfeeding. After the initial day of her being awake and latching on early to her then sleeping 12 hours and despite desperate attempts by me she wouldn't wake enough to feed. In the wee hours of Thursday she did manage to nurse for a while thanks to the capable help of the nurse Stephanie. Thursday morning Dr Clark agreed to let me leave O'Bleness a day early and a day after my section if I wanted to go up to Columbus to be with Mike and Lily. Dr Wallace also agreed to release Addison. After brief consideration, I decided to stay in Athens at O'Bleness because, honestly, should a person who's just had their midsection sliced be travelling with a 1 day old? But Friday I was ready to take off from the hospital early in the morning and catch a ride with our neighbor Kay to Columbus. But Dr Wallace and Addison had other plans. As I'm dressing to leave the hospital a nurse informs me that the pediatrician has noticed Addison is slightly jaundiced and is waiting for Dr Wallace to arrive to assess her. Now dressed, I walked down to the nursery and watch as Dr Wallace exams another baby then Addison. She sees me...but not my foot tapping impatiently I don't believe... and comes out to tell me that she is concerned and needs to figure out how they treat Addison at the hospital and have me nurse every 2 hours despite the fact that I've been discharged from the hospital. When she arrives at my room to let me know what is going to happen it is good news. I can take Addison home with a bili-blanket. This is a special pad that emits blue light that breaks down bilirubin so it can be excreted. But I still need to nurse every 2 hours and come back in the morning for follow up blood work to check to see that her levels do not continue to climb. Several nurses and Dr Wallace also say exposing Addison to sunlight will also help her condition.

Every 2 hours I'm thinking. Geez, I have a difficult time getting her to nurse every 4 hours. Luckily a little time under the biliblanket and in the sunny window in our bedroom and Addison was a much perkier baby. In fact, she woke me up every hour over night to feed. We got a call from Dr Reagan, also in Dr Wallace's practice, today to say her level this morning was 12 where as it was 11 yesterday morning. This is fantastic news. We are staying far away from dangerous levels. Addison continues to feed well and often. We were rather concerned today that she hadn't had significant "output"...peeing and pooping...so perhaps the input isn't great...but then this evening we discovered a very soaked diaper. Seems that Addison and I are on the road to success.

Up in Columbus...well maybe Mike will have the opportunity to convey his experience in Columbus. From my perspective it has sucked. The concern was that Lily wouldn't feed well, but every report I've heard says she is eating great. However she's lost more weight percent than Addison the baby with an inexperienced breastfeeding mom. Each day we hope will bring Mike and Lily home...so far the kind souls at Children's Hospital have been reluctant to say Lily will survive small town living once released from their capable hands, so they keep her and her dad far, far away from the women who love them.

Here are some pictures:

Lily at delivery

Addison and Dad Day 1

Lily and Mom Day 1 shortly after bloodletting...aka, c-section

Addison and Gram

Addison preparing to leave the hospital

Addison Day 3

Deaf and Dumb

2006-06-27T14:57:00.000-07:00

What's the title refer to? Mike.

First...deaf. Last Thursday Mike and I went to the doctor's office. As one would expect, there were several other ladies with bellies in the waiting room. I looked around the room and leaned over to Mike and asked "Do I really look bigger than all of these other women?" Without hesitation he replied emphatically "OH, DEFINITELY." He kindly added that I was still as beautiful as the day he married me. Um...OK.

So later when we were back in the room waiting for the doctor, Mike said casually "Well, I don't know, that one woman in the black outfit looked OK." Me: "Huh?" Mike: "She was dressed OK." Confused look from me. Mike: "Well, you still look better than her." Me: "I didn't ask if I looked BETTER than the other women...I asked if I looked BIGGER."

Second...dumb. The other day I was noticing in amazement at how my belly seems stretched to the limits. Can it really get bigger? And since it is so big and stretched I started to comment to Mike and Mom "My belly is SO tight!" But I only got out "My belly is SO..." and Mike chimed in "GIGANTIC!" I told him I was going to say tight, but thanks for making me feel like I may be effecting the tides!

Good news...the contractions seem to have subsided. We had an NST today. All was well with the Addison and Lily. They passed with flying colors. Despite being a small town, Athens had its second set of twins delivered in 2 weeks today. We're really grateful our doctors are getting the extra experience right before our deliveries.

Send in the calvary!

2006-06-24T13:28:00.000-07:00

Good news. Peoopee seems to be doing better. We've started letting him walk slowly up and down the stairs on occasion. He's not having any trouble getting up and down from a laying down position. So maybe we've gotten lucky and he did just have a sprain or muscle thing.

Bad news. The last two mornings I've woken with painful contractions. Luckily the painful ones only last for the first 5-10 minutes. Then I have non-painful ones for another hour or so. This really freaked me out yesterday morning because they lasted for over an hour and were coming every 5 minutes. But drinking lots of water and laying on my left side helped make them go away. It was sad to have the painful ones again this morning though.

As a result my mom, Ella, is coming to stay with us a week earlier than planned. We are very fortunate that mom has the flexibility to come up in case we have to rush off to the hospital. My biggest concern has been the girls coming this weekend and the doctors sending us up to Columbus to deliver. Having mom here would make that OK as she could make sure the dogs are OK and Mike would be able to freely be there for the birth of his daughters. But for now the girls seem content to stay put.

We'll probably still end up making it to July 10 for the scheduled C-section and mom, Mike and I will be sitting around for the next 2 1/2 weeks staring at one another.

But in either case it sure is nice to be able to call in reinforcements!

Taking care of our 4 legged babies

2006-06-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

We believe we have low maintenance pets. Denuen, Peoopee and Jack are fairly easy. We feed them at the same time every day. They have a dog door so they can come and go out in their yard. Other than barking at the UPS man, people out walking their dogs and the garbage truck, they usually sleep during the day.

But now we are 19 days from the scheduled delivery of twin 2 legged babies. Time for the dogs to become high maintenance, right? Right. Earlier this week Peoopee had some sort of stomach bug. He didn't want his 3pm treat and was reluctant to eat his dinner at 5pm. But the next day, he was fine. That night, Denuen wouldn't eat her dinner. She actually to 36 hours to get over the bug. We were sure she was gonna have tumor that would require surgery. Nope. All better.

Then this morning, Peoopee was in obvious discomfort and wouldn't stand up on his own. His back right leg was obviously bothering him. Mike was able to get him up and downstairs and outside for a bathroom break. Mike quickly remembered a similar situation with Denuen from 3 years ago. She tore the cruciate ligament in her back right knee. She had surgery to repair it...broke the sutures...and had the same surgery with heavier sutures. The more we thought about it, the more we were sure this was going to be Peoopee's problem. We were even trying to figure out how quickly the doctors at OSU Vet School might be able to do the surgery and if Lily and Addison would cooperate and wait until he was recouperating before making their appearance into the world.

We took Peoopee to our veterinarian here in Athens. He examined Peoopee extensively and also suspected the ligament but is sure it is not completely torn. So we have Peoopee on Rimadyl and restricted activity for a week to see if he improves. But if the ligament is going to tear, there is nothing we can do about it. Good news is our veterinarian performs the repair surgery on a regular basis, so we don't have to take Peoopee up to Columbus in the event the surgery is needed. But we are all crossing our fingers that it is just some sort of sprain...

On the baby front, we had another NST yesterday. Lily was a bundle of activity and passed with flying colors. Addison, taking her cue from her father, was sleeping. After about 20 minutes, we decided poking and prodding was necessary to get her to wake up. Seemed to work...and both girls got the OK from the doctor on duty.

11 pounds of babies!

2006-06-16T18:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at 34weeks 6 days pregnant Addison's estimated weight is 5 lbs 6 oz and Lily's is 5 lbs 7 oz. Addison has turned a little bit so we finally got a 3D picture of her face.

Lily was also available for a photo.

For the sake of keeping everyone up with the ever expanding belly...

Last week we/Mike were able to move more stuff down to the basement. And Mike put in the doors. Mike has been using his new, quiet office for a while now.

Wednesday night was a challenging night of sleep for me. In the morning, I told Mike I was sure that the babies were not going to wait 3 1/2 more weeks to come into this world. At the ultrasound on Thursday, the tech looked for signs of changes that would indicate impending labor. One thing that happens is your cervix shortens. Ever since we've been checking this mine has always been 3.8cm. Thursday it was 2.7cm. I felt vindicated in my feeling that the babies would come any time now...until the tech said "Yea, this will keep you from delivering for a good 2-3 weeks." But at least it was shortening...these babies will DEFINITELY come out at some point. Dr Clark also checked my cervix and said it was closed and firm. No dialation. No effacing. "We'll get you there." was his comment. I believe this meant "to July 10 for that C-section". Yep 3 1/2 more weeks.

Today we had another NST (we now have to have 2 per week). Right before leaving for the hospital, I had 2 Double Stuff Oreos. Besides being the best cookie ever invented, apparently DS Oreos are the magic trick for NSTs. Both of the girls stayed on their monitors the whole time and passed with flying colors. Amazing what a little refined sugar will do!

4 more weeks!

2006-06-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

With just 3 weeks 6 days to go until the scheduled c-section, the fact that we are going to have 2 babies is finally settling in.

Today we went to the hospital for another NST. Just like last week, Addison showed up just fine. Lily, however, was non-cooperative. Or should we say her position was non-cooperative. First the nurse spent a while trying to get the doppler monitor situated to catch her, then Mike spent a while just holding the darn thing to try and get her heartbeat on the monitor long enough to show that she was doing what she was supposed to. Finally Dr Broecker who was over at the hospital delivering a baby came in to check on things. She tried getting Lily on the monitor to no avail and finally said, "let me just do a biophysical profile." Basically this means an ultrasound where we look for a good view of the heart, watch Lily for movements and watch to see if Lily is taking practice breaths. But we had to wait until the other baby was delivered. Luckily that was imminent.

In the mean time, Mike and I were in a labor room and had access to a TV, so we turned on the Brazil v. Croatia soccer match. Dr Broecker returned not too long afterward and did the scan. It took a while to discern exactly where Lily was...she's apparently kind of curled up under my ribs along the right side which explains why it was so difficult to monitor her heartrate. We watched as she moved around and saw her chest move with practice breaths. Dr Broecker also checked her amniotic fluid and proclaimed her to be perfect. We expected nothing less.

After an hour in a labor room, we were fairly happy to get out of there. We'd hate to give these 2 girls any ideas about coming too soon.

Another week goes by

2006-06-10T11:48:00.000-07:00

This week passed uneventfully (yet again). We now have weekly NSTs. These pictures are from this week's NST. Teresa the patient, Dr. Meyer checking the charts.

Addison had no problem passing the NST. Basically we look for their heart rate to go up, then return to a baseline. Addison apparently was very excitable. Lily...not so much. We kept encouraging Addison to give her sister a kick, but to no avail. In the end, all was well with both girls. We also went to the doctor's office for a check-in. Once again, all is good.

This weekend we are hosting the Splains for the OU graduation. The dogs are very happy to more people here to love on them.

T minus ... and counting

2006-06-02T04:42:00.000-07:00

We had an appointment with the doctor yesterday. Blood pressure good. Urine sample good. Weight good (hmm...my knees are not so sure). We listened to the heartbeats. Scheduled a non-stress test for next Wednesday. For an NST I go to Labor & Delivery at the hospital and they monitor me for contractions and the babies heart rates over a period of time. They want to make sure the babies' heart rates fluctuate with movement. Should go up when the babies move around and return to a baseline after a short period of time after they stop moving.

And we talked with Dr. Clark about the delivery. We are scheduled for first thing in the morning July 10. We'd (or maybe I'd) prefer to deliver the week before...like say the 7th when the babies will be right at 38 weeks gestation, but Dr. Clark will be on vacation ( I think he said Wyoming ) until the 9th. So we plan on being his first order of business on his return. I sure hope he's staying at a Holiday Inn Express on his trip!

Shower, nursery, basement, ultrasound

2006-05-27T14:36:00.000-07:00

Well, in the last week a lot has happened. First Mom and Grandmama came up to Athens from Forsyth, GA to attend the baby shower hosted by our friends and neighbors, Kay Snow and Gretchen Stock. The shower was fun and Addison and Lily got lots of loot. Below are a few pictures from the day.

We made quite a bit of progress on the nursery. Mike and I put together the cribs and the changing hutch.

The work on the basement continues to progress. Mike put down tile in the bathroom and we had the toilet and vanity installed. Mike also put down tile at the entry to the backyard door and the dog door. Mike finished painting all the walls. And we had the carpet installed. Finally we're at the point of being able to move stuff down there from the rest of the house. Now we (OK Mike) have to get doors stained and installed and all of the trim work done. The Splains are coming to stay with us over OU graduation weekend so there are a few key doors that really need to get installed...I am pretty sure both of John and Amy's sons are too big to sleep in the cribs!

And last but not least we had a doctor's appointment on Thursday with an ultrasound. We got a little shock when the u/s tech measured Lily's head...and it was measuring 2 weeks ahead...we're currently 32 weeks. It was so big the tech remeasured because she couldn't believe the reading. Second reading...just 1 1/2 weeks ahead. Lily's femur also measured a bit ahead so maybe she won't appear to have an abnormally large noggin. Addison's measurements were all right around 32 weeks. The summary of their weights are 4lbs 3oz for Lily and 4lbs 1oz for Addison. Wonderful that they continue to grow and grow at the same rate. Also all indications are that I'll go to full term for twins. The doctor said we could deliver as late as 38weeks 4 days. We'll see.

During the ultrasound, we discovered that both girls have flipped direction. Addison is now head down and Lily is head up. Because of her position we couldn't get a 3D shot of Addison (below is the back of her head). We did get a 3D shot of Lily's face.

Let the Belly-Aching Begin!

2006-05-16T08:59:00.000-07:00

The other day my dad commented that I was doing better than other pregnant women he'd had experience with. I explained that I probably didn't complain over the phone. Or maybe I haven't complained about this pregnancy much (Mike?). But now the time has come...

After many recent nights of fitful sleep due to heartburn, I finally slept well last night. Basically this means I didn't have to prop myself up, but, of course, I was still up several times to relieve my pitifully small bladder. Then this morning I had my regular bowl of cereal and wouldn't you know...my stomach started hurting. Call it indigestion; call it the joys of pregnancy; call it a belly ache. Whatever it is, I don't like. Nope, I don't like it one bit.

How can a girl such as myself who's always enjoyed a healthy appetite not complain when it gives her a belly ache simply to eat? And what crazy twist of nature made it possible that I could eat tiny meals for weeks and still gain 1 1/2 lbs per week? It is crazy stuff.

On a positive note, Lily and Addison seem to be doing swimmingly (and it does seem like they are swimming sometimes). Mike got to feel Addison and her bout of hiccups last night. Funny for us.

Teresa

Parenting or Babying books?

2006-05-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

Today I attended a weekly conference call with my co-workers and friends at ScreamFree Living. For those of you who are unfamiliar with ScreamFree, it was started by Hal Runkel who wrote the book ScreamFree Parenting. Hal's basic principles involve parenting by calming yourself down. Focusing on yourself in order to become a better parent. My friends with kids all swear by the effectiveness and the value of Hal's teachings, coaching and writings. So I've been sold. Now granted, I often tell my co-workers that I still don't have the endless bottle of ScreamFree Kool-Aid available to me that they apparently have at the office...the one that makes them elated...ecstatic...high...whenever Hal receives positive feedback, but I have sent the parenting book to friends and family who are new parents. I've recommended it to other pregnant women who are looking for parenting books. But the truth came out today that, No, I have not read the book from cover to cover. Actually, I couldn't remember getting past the first chapter. So today I'm reading it.

So far I'm through about 4 chapters. Is this really what I need right now...help with parenting, or is it advice on babying?

Like many first time moms, I'm just looking to make it past the first week, then the first month, then the first three months. Once we make it to that point, I think I'll feel more like a parent. I've read or referenced many pregnancy books. At this point I'm reading or have read a couple of baby books. This is how the truth came out about my lapse in reading the most important parenting book that has ever been written (found my local supply of ScreamFree Kool-Aid). I told my co-workers who were discussing a South Park episode where Nanny-911 was called in and failed; SuperNanny was called in and failed; then the dog whisperer was called in and succeeded. Dave then commented that there was a book called the Baby Whisperer. "Yes, I've read that." I eagerly commented. "Not only that, but Mike and I are getting copies for my mom, for Mike's mom, and for my sister all of whom will be here to help us survive the first month of parenthood." (silence) Oh. I guess that was the wrong thing to say when I then had to admit that I still hadn't read my free copy of ScreamFree Parenting.

My friend and co-worker Jon assured me that ScreamFree Parenting is absolutely going to help me as a new mother. I guess I haven't gotten to the chapter yet where Hal describes how he was successful at breastfeeding. Or the chapter on how to provide a one week old with choices so Addison and Lily will grow up to be self-determining adults. Or the chapter on what are the signs that Addison or Lily need to go to the emergency room.

I guess I'm saying, I don't feel so bad about not having read the ScreamFree Parenting book. Truth be told, I think the Baby Whisperer book appeals to me so much because it also is based on the belief that you have to focus on yourself to be a good parent. It proposes a routine for the baby that involves, eating, activity, sleep then you time. The You time is missing in other babying books I've read. During this You time, you are supposed to make yourself the best person you can be, so in turn you'll be the best parent you can be. This is also something Hal supports. I know that, even though I haven't read all the chapters of the parenting book with which I am so involved.

So which should it be for pregnant women? Babying books or Parenting books? Or both?

Another Dr visit

2006-05-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Today was another visit to the doctor's office. Weight gain...more than adequate. Blood pressure...OK, but higher than normal. Everything else...just fine. The doctor measured my belly as 31 weeks. Just a week ahead of where I actually am. Many women with twins measure a month ahead. The doctor said he thought I wasn't measuring further along because the babies are carrying wide...not right up the middle. We go back to the doctor's office in 2 weeks for the next ultrasound (those appointments are the only ones that are exciting).

Things continue to progress with our basement. We've got the carpet ordered and will be installed in the next 2 weeks. We also purchased the tile for the bathroom and the outdoor entry. Mike's already rented the wet saw and plans to get all of the straight cuts for the bathroom done tonight. The bathroom and Mike's office are both painted.

I did quite a bit of walking and moving around today (Lowe's, Walmart and the doctor's visit) and Lily and Addison definitely seem to get lulled to sleep. Fortunately, they didn't become Mexican jumping beans the minute I laid down for a rest this afternoon. Obviously, they are going to be perfect Angel babies...

Our co-sleeper for the babies arrived yesterday. I was SOOO relieved to have some place that I knew the babies could sleep if they arrived early. I'm starting to get nervous about not having cribs and the like set up. Mike's nervous about paying for college. Ah, to each his own.

The Excitement Builds!

2006-05-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

As you can see from this picture of Jack, Mike and I are not the only ones on pins and needles in anticipation of the arrival of Lily and Addison.

There isn't much exciting to report from Athens. Mike has finished painting the bathroom in the basement so we hope to get the toilet and vanity in place so we can put the tile in. And finish the painting in the rest of the basement and get the carpet laid before March 19 when Ella (Teresa's mom) and Marjorie (Teresa's grandmother) will be arriving. The basement has to get to this point so we can move Mike's office furniture to the basement, move the furniture that is in the babies' room to the other bedroom upstairs, then finally set up the furniture in the babies' room. Ella is making valances and bedskirts for the cribs, so we're hoping the weekend she is here we'll be able to setup the nursery.

Addison and Lily seem to continue to be content in their mom's belly. However, Addison has definitely decided she does not like "the bottom bunk". We've decided Addison is the baby on my left side and Lily is on the right side. So, as pregnant women are supposed to do, I try to sleep on my left side which means Addison is on the bottom. Last night and this morning she definitely wasn't happy about that arrangement and squirmed and squirmed. Finally I laid more towards my back with a pillow wedged in my back so I could still be on my left side, but hopefully Addison didn't have so much of her sister's weight bearing down on her. Addison settled down, but it wasn't long before her mom felt like squirming!

Introduction

2006-05-04T09:24:00.000-07:00

Greetings from the Meyers!

Welcome to our blog that we created to document our journey towards parenthood. We'll be posting here regularly to update whoever is interested.

As a little background, we're expecting twin girls officially on July 21, 2006. However, we expect these girls to come early and we're hoping they stay in their mommy's belly until the first week of July when they will be 37-38 weeks of gestation.

Our girls already have their names...Lily Irene Meyer and Addison Shea Meyer.

In the weeks to come we'll share photos of Teresa's growing belly, pictures from Teresa's baby shower, pictures of the nursery as it comes together and, of course, pictures of the babies. We might even include pictures from the basement of our house which we are finishing before the babies arrive. Following are some to get us started:


Lily at 24 weeks	Addison at 24 weeks


Teresa's belly at 22 weeks	Teresa's belly at 29 weeks

The girls chatting in utero at 18 weeks


The big room in the basement...with doors awaiting staining and installation	Mike painting bathroom in the basement