6 months adjusted

The babies are 9 months old already! I just can't believe in just 3 months from now we'll be celebrating their 1 year birthday. Time is really going by fast. Since they're 9 months old chronologically that means they're actually supposed to be 6 months old. They have been learning so much lately, they just amaze us everyday! Here's some things that they are each doing:



Katelyn: Katy is getting very big, I'm guessing she's close to 14 lbs now. She's is VERY active, and is army crawling, rolling everywhere she wants to go, and is almost sitting up without any support. She still can sit very well with the boppy pillow for support. She's becoming very vocal, and is making lots of new sounds. We always joke that she's extra loud to over compensate for her sissy's lack of voice. She's eating about 25 oz of formual per day. She still wakes up at least once per night for food, and a few others for her binky. Her personality is really starting to take shape, and we can tell that she's definitely going to be the "drama queen". She loves attention, and loves to be held. Her favorite things to do include rolling all over the place, playing with anything she can see her reflection in, playing games like pat-a-cake, or jumping while I hold her. And her most favorite thing is her hands. She loves to look at them, and does so often. She also likes to look at our hands too, and will play with our fingers. She is also in love with her sissy, and is very aware, and interested in her. There are times that she'll get crabby and we can't figure out what's bothering her, but if we lay her next to Mady she'll calm right down. It's very cool to watch her interact with Madelyn. She may only be 1 minute older, but she really does act like the older sister. Katelyn is a very determined baby, and when she sets her sights on something she wants she figures out how to do it. We are very proud of Miss Katelyn and are thrilled to see her make such HUGE amounts progress. She's such a blessing.

Madelyn: Little Miss Mady is just such a sweetie! She is over-all the more mellow of the 2 babies, and has a very laid back, go with the flow kind of personality. Her favorite things to do include; stressing Mommy & Daddy out, watching her brothers play, watching the t.v. and her newest favorite thing is sitting like a big girl in her Bumbo Baby seat. She's still learning to roll consistently, and can do it pretty well now. She is still only rolling from her back to tummy, and only to her right side...but she's gotten close to going from belly to back a few times. We can really tell how hard she tries to acheive new things, and are sure that when her therapies start, she'll begin to make more progress. She is also getting much better at transferring small objects like her binky from hand to hand, and is also getting very good at putting things in her mouth. She loves to kick, and is starting to payback Katy for all those kicks in the head. Last week Mady weighed in at 12 lbs 12 oz. She is currently eating about 15-18 oz of formula per day. She's very stubborn when it comes to eating, and will sometimes go 12 or more hours at a time without eating! STINKER!! Feedings really have to be on her terms now, and she will only eat if she's REALLY hungry. No more waking her to eat right after Katelyn at night, she is now marching to the beat of her own drum. She'll go from refusing to eat one minute to absolutely starving & hysterical the next. One thing that has let us know just how smart she is, is when she cries now, she blows rasberries to make noise. She's figured out how to get attention in her own way, since her cry is still very weak, though I must say it has slightly improved. She tries very hard to make noises, but mostly just sounds like a gremlin. It's so cute, and pitiful at the same time. Madelyn is very unique, and we are so blessed to have her. She is such a happy baby, and loves to smile. We are so proud of her!

So that's pretty much the jist of it, they are changing so much, and it's so fun to see them develop their own little personalities. We are all enjoying them so much!

In case you can't tell Katelyn is on the left, Madelyn on the right! :) I'll post more pictures over the weekend!

Aaron the ENTERTAINER

This kid just makes me smile :)

Aaron is such a great little entertainer. He LOVES to play his harmonica. He actually loves to play any instrument, and loves rock music. Ian & I think he's going to be a musician. He always expects applause at the end of a performance, he loves it when we cheer real loud & clap.
The babies always give him their undivided attention.

He's just been such a ham tonight, playing with the babies, trying to get them to laugh at him. He played Peek-A-Boo, and made silly faces. These girls are a tough crowd though, and didn't laugh, but he got plenty of big smiles from them. They just love to watch their big brother Aaron play, he intrigues them so. He's such the little entertainer!!!

Play on dude!

Katelyn's newest talent

Lookie what Katelyn can do!!! She's been getting so good at sitting with just a little support, so tonight I thought I'd try to sit her on the floor with the boppy pillow for support, and she sat so good! Just a week ago we tried and she couldn't do it all. Now look at how big she is. I'm so excited for her. Here is Madelyn in her chair cheering on her sissy! You can tell she was kicking and waving her arms all around. Go sissy Go!!!!!
Madelyn & I watched the boys play on their bikes outside while Katy slept inside. Mady doesn't like to nap much these days. She'll take little 15-30 minute naps a few times a day. She's afraid of missin all the action. :)
I know it won't be long till Katelyn is sitting with no support. She's getting very strong. She is also log rolling all over the place now. I'll lay her on the floor and go into another room, and when I come back in I found she's rolled clear across the living room. At first I thought the boys had dragged her or something. She's so mobile now! She's even trying to get her knees up under her! She does that rocking back & forth thing, like she just wants to take off. The scratch on her forhead is from the air vent on the floor, she rolled across it, and it scratched her head.

Horrible trip to Portland

Friday was the girls big appointments at OHSU in Portland. It's a bit of a drive since we do not live in the Portland area, but we are used to it from having to do it countless times while I was being seen there, and the girls were there in the NICU. It'd been a few months since we'd done it though, and I so do NOT miss it. It was an awful day! I was reminded why I HATE it there so much! I think the vibe there is just not good, mostly it's just a cold and unfriendly place. They may have some of the best specialists in the Northwest, but they could sure use some training in bedside manner & compassion.

The appointment for Madelyn's swallow study was supposed to happen first @ 1:30. Then both girls had appts @ 2:30 at CDRC follow up clinic with the speicalists for their nuero evals. So we wait & wait & wait some more and they still aren't calling us back for Mady's swallow study. I should mention that Mady had to be brought hungry, and she hadn't eaten since 9:45 am. Finally around 2:30 someone comes to tell us it'd be about 15-20 more minutes because of an emergency. I told them we were supposed be at another appt. at 2:30 which we were now late for. The receptionist told me that the other clinic was aware we were being held up, and it was fine. At this point Mady's getting pretty hungry, and I'm getting pretty pissed off. I was able to get Mady to sleep, so she wouldn't care about being hungry anymore. Finally around 3:15 one of the Physical Therapists from the CDRC clinic comes out and asks who we were. She asked how long we'd been out in the lobby waitng, and I told her since 1:30. They had NO IDEA we were out there, and radiology didn't communicate with them at all! So the whole time we're just sitting out there, we could've been having the girls evals done, and they could've just called Mady out when they were ready for her. UGHHHH!!! This place is ALWAYS like this!

Finally at 3:45 they get Madelyn in for her swallow study. She'd gone 6 hours without eating. The study showed that she is still aspirating, and so she needs to have her bottles thickened up a LOT more. It now has to be about the consistancy of between honey, and pudding, and even then she still aspirates occasionally. They also want us to start serving her bottles refrigerator cold, because she has sensory issues due to her paralyzed vocal cord. I guess it helps her feel the liquid, giving her better control when swallowing. Our poor girl! She doesn't seem to mind though, so it's all good for now. We escaped her having to have a G- tube (feeding tube) put in so we're very happy about that. They want her to start being seen by the feeding clinic there to follow her more closely, and to meet with a nutritionist to help her gain weight. Another swallow study in 6 weeks was recommended too.

So while Madelyn had her swallow study, Ian took Katelyn to get started on her nuero evaluation. It was hard to have the girls seperated, and not being able to hear what was going on with Katleyn or answer questions. Ian did fabulously though, and by the time I got in there they were all done with Katy. There were a few therapist and one Nuerological specialists to do the evals. Katelyn scored very well, and they all put her in the 5-7 month range on the Baley scale for all of her developments so far! That is wonderful news for Miss Katy. She was very sweet the whole time, and did everything they watned her to do. During the study, they have all these asessments to make. They basically observe the babies playing, and mark what they can/can't do. They want to see things that babies their adjusted age would be doing, so anywhere from 5-6 months would be on target for them. They want to see Katleyn back when she's 12 months adjusted, so around 15 months actual age, sooner if a problem arises.

Then it was Mady's turn. She had the same team of therapists, and they all agreed that her skills seem very scattered at this point. They scored her in the 2-4 month range on all of her developments this far. She scored lowest on visual responsiveness/reactiveness & speech, being around 2 months. Her motor skills are scattered between 2 & 4 months. They also noticed that Madelyn's left side is weaker, especially her leg, she tends to prefer doing everything with her right side. Her muscle tone seemed good, with minor stiffness in one of her ankles. So all in all Mady is delayed, but hopefully she'll catch up. No one seemed overly concerned at this point, and said it's too early to determine any type of long term issues Mady might have. They want to see her back in 3-4 months, or sooner if I feel there are problems. We will be looking into physical therapies through Early Intervention for her in the mean time, and having her vision tested next month to rule out any problems there.

Both girls also had their hearing tested, and they have excellent hearing! They don't need another test until they're 18 months. So that's really good news.

Our appts. got over and we were on our way back down the hill around 5:30. We of course hit rush hour traffic, which was VERY VERY BAD!!! It was actually the worst we'd seen it besides on Christmas Eve. There was no wrecks or anything, just idiot drivers. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to go 20 miles! So after all that riding of the brakes in our old mini van we lost our front brakes! They got so hot they were smoking. It took us over 3 hrs to get home, and that's with just stopping for food! It was a horrible horrible day! But we're all home safe & sound, and we don't have to go there again for a few months...hopefully!

Shots, Soreness, & Fever...OH MY

My poor babies had just awful reactions to their shots this time. They've been lathargic, and Mady had her first fever since coming home from the NICU. It's been a low grade temp reaching 101.2 & has been very hard to break. She also lost her appetite, and was only eating about 2-3 oz. @ a time. I've been giving both girls tylenol every 4 hours, and am thinking about running out to get some motrin, since the tylenol doesn't seem to be helping much. Katelyn had her first little fever too earlier today, but it broke after I gave her tylenol. They've also both been on the fussy side, and had a rough night last night. Madelyn's fever started in the evening last night, and I think that with her just not being able to get comfy was keeping her up. Both girls wanted to be held while sleeping, so Ian & I were happy to oblige. Though I must say it does wear on you after a while. They both seem to be a little bit happier right now, so hopefully the worst is over. These pictures were from last night right after they started not feeling well. This peaceful moment did not last long. Don't they look so sweet? Katy up top, Mady below.