Sunday, March 31, 2013

Time Outdoors!

 Yesterday we went to my mom's house to get the last of our stuff out of her shed.  The boys had a great time playing in her yard!


Sebastian with Papi
 They particularly loved her pig statue....Adrian couldn't get enough of it.  He sat there and pet it for about 10 minutes!
Sebastian saying hi to the piggy

Adrian with the piggy







For the past few days, we've also gotten out into the new neighborhood a bit more.  All of a sudden, all the neighbors are out, too, and we've met a lot of people in the past few days.  So far, so good--everyone has been very nice and neighborly.  There were even two little girls who set up a lemonade stand on our corner yesterday.  Of course, we went and bought some!

Sebastian likes to take Lexi for a walk.  He gets mad if you take the leash out of his hand.



Adrian in the wagon
SO FREAKING GLAD NOT TO BE IN OUR CONDO ANYMORE!!  The space in the house and the neighborhood are perfect!!!!

Training a Toddler to Eat

We continue to take the boys to breakfast almost every weekend.  Even though we are on a tight budget with the new house, we feel it's important family time.  But perhaps even more importantly, we feel the need to "train" the boys to eat in public from an early age.  I can't imagine taking them out when they are older if we haven't eased them into the experience by eating out regularly from an early age.  We usually go to Brianna's in Bridgewater, and we basically open the place.  We are there around 6:45/7:00AM!  But it's nice to beat the crowds and be out before the place is so crowded that we have to worry about annoying other people with two toddlers.  Dawn our regular waitress is so good to us, and she has a granddaughter that was born within weeks of the boys, so she understands!

We generally order pretty much as soon as we sit down!  We go back and forth between ordering the boys French toast and scrambled eggs with cheese and pumpernickel toast.  Mostly, we order eggs and toast because that's their favorite.  Sometimes they don't eat the eggs, but they ALWAYS eat their "black bread," as Carlos calls it. 


Adrian


Sebastian 

 At home, the boys are such pigs when they eat.  Just take a look at the utensil experimenting...


Sebastian eating yogurt with honey



Gross.  But at daycare, they do better.  I dropped them off last Friday after their pre-op hearing test.  It was snack time when my mom and I arrived at the daycare.  They went barging right into the room and parked themselves at the little table.  All the rest of the kids were already sitting eating apple sauce with a spoon.  And there they were, eating with a spoon and not with their hands.  Adrian especially was doing well with it.  I  guess it's because they follow the lead of the other kids at daycare, but it's like magic.  I certainly can't get them to eat with a spoon very well at home.  Mostly they pick up the applesauce and yogurt with their fingers, smoosh it everywhere, and then suck on the spoon.  I guess someday they will learn to use a fork and spoon?  Not sure when or how, but I guess it will happen sooner or later!  It just seems hard to envision right now after cleaning up their messes.

Happy Easter, 2013

Happy Easter, everyone!  We spent the day at my Auntie Mimi's house.  The weather was beautiful (finally!), the food was delicious, and it was great to see my family.  The boys were about as good as can be expected, but of course, they were a pain in the neck and very restless.  They have boundless energy right now and want to explore and touch everything.  It's not much fun to take them anywhere these days!  And I don't think they will outgrow it very soon, either.  Sort of depressing!  That said, they had a load of fun playing with all the toys that my Auntie Carol and cousin Christian brought them.  Christian had great toys when he was a kid--the boys now have a big school bus, some fun hats (we all know they go crazy for hats!), new books, a build a bear hockey bunny, a police car and fire truck, and a bunch of other things, too.  Awesome!!  Carlos couldn't stop playing with the police car when we got home.  He was having more fun with it than the boys, to tell the truth...

My mom bought the boys these little suits.  I love them!!
Adrian, Papi, and Sebastian 





This is his model pose.  We've been practicing.


Wish this wasn't blurry...
And a comparison of this year and last year...


Thursday, March 28, 2013

Things I Don't Want to Forget About the Boys' Birth (Don't worry! It's not graphic!!)

1.  After I gave birth, I was SO PARCHED I ate cups full of ice cubes because I couldn't drink water.  I normally HATE eating ice.  I never do it.  But I was so thirsty it was the best "water" I ever had.

2. I had never felt so damn tired and heavy in my life as I did after giving birth to the boys.  I don't know if it was the anesthesia or the effort or both, but man was I pooped and I felt like I weighed 400 pounds on that operating table!

3.  The look of panic (!) on my OB/GYN's face when I delivered Adrian and we all realized I'd need a C-section was priceless.  I knew what she was going to say, and I actually said something to her like, "I know I need a C-section.  It's ok--just get this baby out!"  She looked relieved and jumped to it.

4.  There was a frightening moment before they did the C-section on Sebastian where his heart rate dropped and one of the nurses said, "We need to get his baby out NOW."

5. Marcy called Adrian "fiesty"the first time she ever met us, and I said to her, "Now that's a euphemism!"  And she deemed Sebastian's curl "the Satan swirl" that first week, too.  She was right on!

6.  We almost were convinced to transfer the boys to Newton-Wellesley once they moved out of the level 3 NICU.  But we loved Marcy and Judy so much after just one week, we refused to move them.  I'm so glad we didn't!

7.  I think I still can recite the entire BWH menu by heart.

8.  They let me back into my room CWN 856 even after giving birth, when I should have been sent up to a labor recovery floor (the 8th floor seems to be more for people on bed-rest...).  The nurses were so kind to lobby to keep me there since I'd already been there 6 weeks.  I'll be forever grateful to them.  Melinda was the nurse on duty the night I came back to my room and she was the one who helped me learn to pump (super important for those preemies).

9.  The constant beeping and stimulation in the NICU is imprinted in my brain like a song.  As scary as all the beeping and noises were at first (the machines beep when the lines that monitor breathing and heart rate drop off the babies' bodies), they became almost comforting after a while.  One my last few days visiting the NICU to see Adrian, I was actually purposeful about taking in my surroundings and trying to remember the sights and sounds of the place.

10. I will forever associate ABP's Harvest Pumpkin Soup with my bed rest.  It was such a great treat to get food NOT from the hospital after a while!

11. The chaplain used to come visit me on a regular basis!  I am not religious, but this chaplain was young-ish and very nice.  We just hit it off.  She'd come by to check up on me and to chat for a long time each week.  She brought me cookies one day and halloween candy another.  I forgot to get her contact info...  :(

12.  Carlos didn't believe I was in labor when I was finally actually in labor!  We'd had so many false alarms and he had a dream that I was going to have the boys on 11/27.  He was so convinced his dream was prophetic that when a friend called me to come visit right in the middle of when I was in labor, Carlos told her to come!!  I had to yell at him that I was IN LABOR RIGHT THEN and that, while she could still come, I didn't think it would be the best use of her time!

13. The day after the boys were born my family came to meet them in the NICU.  It was like 60-something degrees at the end of November and we were out on the roof deck of the NICU.  I hadn't been outside in 6 weeks, and it was like heaven!

14. My Auntie Mimi bought me a philosophy gift set while I was on bed rest.  It was the Amazing Grace scent.  It will always be my favorite perfume/lotion smell because I will forever associate it with the boys' arrival and my stay at the BWH.

15.  Despite the stress and the scariness of the time, those 6 weeks at BWH and the 2 months we visited the NICU after were some of the best days of my life. So hard to explain why, and I doubt I'd say the same if things had turned out differently.  But they were absolutely magical days...and despite being an obsessive worrier and neurotic, anxious person nearly all the time, I was completely calm when it mattered the most.  I don't know where the strength came from, but looking back, it was like an out-of-body experience.

16.  My brother cooked us a lasagna.  The next day, Carlos had appendicitis.  And my brother cooked Thanksgiving dinner and brought it to me...and I went into labor on Black Friday.  Watch out for his cooking!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

March Madness

Nope--I don't follow NCAA basketball, but this has been a crazy month at home.  Lots to do, more ear infections....good thing I have been on vacation to handle it all.  Monday I took the boys back to the pediatrician--yes, they had ANOTHER ear infection (or the same one never cleared up entirely).  So more antibiotics (Cefdinir, which does NOT agree with their little bellies), and more restlessness and fussiness.  Poor things.  To top it all off, I'm now pretty concerned about their speech delay.  Adrian says mama all the time, but nothing else.  Sebastian says nothing.  Both babble a ton and can follow instructions, but they aren't very expressive in terms of actual words.  Luckily, the tubes will be in soon and they have their yearly re-eval for Early Intervention a few weeks after the tubes.  I am thinking they will qualify for services again this year because of the speech delay.  In some ways, I certainly hope they don't qualify, and they were on target at 9 months when they had a mini-eval when we switched providers after the move.  Then they had all these ear infections and slowed down...so I am hoping and praying that any delay is due to hearing loss from the ear infections and that they will catch up quickly once they have the tubes.  In any event, if they DO qualify, at least I know someone will really be monitoring their progress to make sure they don't fall even more behind with their speech.  I feel so bad for those little guys, and I wish I had pushed the pediatrician sooner.  I don't think he would have even mentioned tubes if I hadn't finally pushed for it.  I want to go back to Pediatric Associates of Wellesley if the tubes work and we aren't making weekly visits to the doctor.  They were just a larger practice and much more responsive because of the resources.  It was just far to drive to Weston/Wellesley once we moved.

Other than the tubes and ear infections, I've been busy cleaning and organizing around the house.  First off, we finally went to my Nana's to get all the rest of our stuff.  After renting a U-Haul (again), this time from a place that reminded me of the movie Deliverance (yikes), we finally have ALL of our crap in one place again.  And it made me realize more than ever we have too much crap.  I mean, if you can live without it for 6 months, you probably don't need it....I'm going to get rid of a lot of stuff.  And I already got rid of carloads of crap before we moved.  Yard sale soon!!!!

This is the guest bedroom now.  Still need to paint and hang stuff on the walls.




I finally unpacked a lot of boxes that had knick-knacks, stuff for the espresso and booze bars, carnival glass, etc.  I put stuff in the hutch.  Not sure I like the hutch and all the Mexican stuff anymore, especially in the living room.  But for now, that's where it's going.


I bought a cool 1960s buffet for behind the couch that will also hold stemware, booze, and other things to make sure that no guest is without a beverage in hand.  I will post pictures of it as soon as we move it into the living room.  I'm basically in love with this piece that I found at the Salvation Army.  It really only needs a good wipe-down.


In the basement, I still have to get rid of the exersaucers, but I got rid of all the storage containers and finished straightening and unpacking stuff.


And now, pictures of my boys.  I finally got around to finishing the frames with monthly pictures of the boys.  I wish I had been more systematic about taking pictures of them so that they would look more consistent in the frame.  But I wasn't and so I did the best I could.

Adrian

Sebastian

The boys do a ton of art at daycare.  I love it because I'm so not creative.  I wouldn't know where to start with art projects.  I guess I'd read up on it?!!  Anyway, how cute are they?!?!
Sebastian


Poor Adrian looks dazed and confused.  
 The boys are mesmerized by the vacuum...



When the boys first went into the toddler room, the teachers gave us this poster (front and back)


That's grilled cheese (albeit a burnt one) they are eating, not a brownie!

I don't even remember why he was crying.  What a face!


Sebastian like to climb in the container with all the balls 

My mom's had some major scores at the dump lately!  :)  The boys LOVE their wagon and car, and we have a swing to hang up now, too.
Mom, I hope you weren't short a few dollars after our walk....




Turns out, the boys LOVED Grandpa's corned beef!  They kept eating Papi's potatoes!

Adrian pre-second haircut

Adrian after haircut

Sebastian.  Their hair was actually really flat here because they had hats on their heads at daycare (they were playing outdoors).  This morning, they had their curls back again--just shorter now!