Saturday, April 27, 2013

Crackers and Other Random Stories

Sebastian finally said his first really distinct word.  I'm pretty sure he's said "hi" and "ma," and he moos like a cow and occasionally "woofs" as well.  Today, though, he said, "ca-ca" and sometimes "cra-ca."  And NO, he was not saying "caca" the word for poop!!!  He was talking about a cracker!!!  Both he and Adrian have been saying it all day long when I give them goldfish to eat.  I thought all along that Sebastian's first word would be food-related, and I was right!!!  Despite the lack of a lot of other words, I have noticed great improvement in both boys' babbling in the past few weeks since getting tubes.  They make a much larger range of sounds, and they seem more interested in trying to repeat sounds.  I think I've also been extremely hard on them in the sense that I haven't given them credit for words and sounds they have already been making for a while. I think we're on the right track.




This week we've pulled two ticks of the boys' heads.  First one on Adrian and then one on Sebastian.  They must be picking them up at daycare?? It's the only place they spent time outside in any grass.  But it's hard to believe because it's only a small patch of grass and mostly playground!  But the backyard here has been too soggy for them to run around (it's only now dry), and when we go out every day, we are in the street with them in the wagon and push car.  Luckily, both times we got the tick when it was still small and not inflated with blood.  But geesh!!  It's so gross.  I HATE the thought of ticks so much.  It makes my skin crawl!  All day I've felt like I have bugs crawling on me because of it.

This past week the boys turned 17 months!!!!!!!  I can't even believe it!  May and 18th months seemed so far away when they turned 1 year.  And here we are.

Sebastian has been having mini tantrums at daycare--throwing things and getting angry at the teachers.  I was worried, but they assured me it's completely normal and they were actually laughing hysterically about it when they told me.  They said the room has been crowded lately and the kids are all getting on each other's nerves.  She said that it was only one day, too, that he was throwing baby dolls around the room.  The next day she just told him not to do it, gave him a look, and walked away.  He stopped.  I do the same when he acts up at home.  It generally works if you ignore him.  I'm not really amused by his behavior, but I guess to some extent it's normal as they explore boundaries.

Today we had our first playdate at the house with other twins.  A woman who works at Meditech with Carlos had twin boys just 4 days before we did, also at the Brigham.  We've kept in touch via Facebook.  They came today to play in the playroom, and it went really well.  I was afraid the boys might be jealous with their space or their toys, but it was great!  They ran all over the basement, played nice with each other, and had a great time!!  And it was nice to find out that her twins are almost exactly like mine in their behavior with each other and our stories are so similar.  Our boys are even on the same schedule for the most part.  It was reassuring.  And...can you believe that neither of us took photos of the 4 boys??!?!!  What were we thinking!?  They were a really adorable bunch!

Finally, tonight we used our new grill (our old one was damaged beyond repair by the move) and Carlos tried out the new little patio with pavers that he made for the grill.  He is so proud of his handiwork!

In progress






And, just for fun, I found these pictures on Carlos's Facebook page of the house during the first of our many snow storms this winter.  It makes me feel good to look at them now that the weather is finally turning nice; the remind me of how much I love spring!




Monday, April 22, 2013

Twins with the Runs, Ain't Much Fun...

What a long freaking week.  First of all the Marathaon bombings and all that drama, tragedy, and excitement.  Then the boys got sick last Wednesday with diarrhea and it's been on and off since then--almost a week!!  It was light enough at first that I kept thinking they were over it.  Thursday I took the day off to stay with them, Friday we sent them to daycare but my mom and I switched cars just in case the daycare called to go get them.  That way my mom could get them.  I got all the way to school and then received a phone call, email, and text message from Milton that they had canceled school for the day (due to one of the bombers being on the loose).  So I turned around and went home.  I left the boys at daycare so I could get some stuff done.  I ended up doing very little and mostly watching TV all day as the drama unfolded in Watertown, pretty near our old condo.  At around 2:30 I got a call from the daycare that both boys had diarrhea again.  They told me it was definitely going around the daycare but that it seemed to be just a 24-hour bug.  In fact, none of the kids had fevers or any other symptoms--just diarrhea.  I was optimistic that the boys would be fine by the end of the weekend.

Well, it continued all weekend--to varying degrees, and was a huge mess on Sunday evening.  We ended up changing a very soupy, messy diaper in the back of the van in the Target parking lot...luckily I had extra clothes because it was all over everything.  We got home and he had 3 more episodes and Sebastian had one or two as well.  I was so frustrated!!!!  It was getting worse, not better!

So....of course I'm super busy all day at work now with meetings with juniors.  It's embarrassing when you're meeting all day with students who don't know you that well yet and you cancel on them.  I don't want to get a reputation for the college counselor who is never there.  Plus we have 8 45-minute periods and a 45-minute Activities period (so basically 9 periods a day).  That's a lot of meetings to cancel and a lot of kids to potentially piss off.  Oh well.  I do my best.

Today my mom came and took care of the boys in the morning and Carlos took half a day sick time.  They were pretty good by evening tonight, so we're going to try daycare again in the morning.  If they are sick, Carlos will leave work and get them.  If they are still sick on Wednesday, I will take the day.  And I'll take the day again Friday if necessary.  Thursday will be a problem...Carlos only has 4.5 sick days left and accrues them at a very slow pace, so this is not at all convenient that they have been sick so many days in a row.  We have got to get a break with the sickness!!!  I thought we were due for better days when the boys got the tubes.  The good thing about ear infections was that at least you could give them the antibiotic and send them off to daycare!

Anyway, I'm hoping life will return to normal--whatever that is because I'm really not sure anymore--soon!!  I have a stiff neck from the stress and I'm exhausted because I woke up at 3am yesterday thinking about how we'd get through the week if they continue with the diarrhea.

Here are some funny pictures of Adrian...they cheer me up!  (Sebastian was not in the mood for posing...)
This is what Adrian does when you say, "Kiss, kiss!"


This is how Adrian thinks his helmet should be worn.

His second attempt wasn't much more successful!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Out on the Porch


There are lots of fun things on our screened-in porch!!!  Tables to pound on, chairs to bounce in, screens to push on...











 There's also a new swing!!!!!  Adrian loves it and can't get enough...Sebastian hates it.  More for Adrian!



Here's a video of Adrian on the swing:

On a side note, the boys had their first trip to Peaceful Meadows (or Piece of Metal, as Carlos liked to call it) today for ice cream.  Sebastian seemed a bit put off by the cold, but Adrian LOVED it.  He couldn't get enough.  We had coconut chocolate almond.  We visited the cows, too.  At first Adrian started to cry because the cows were so big (or maybe because they smelled so bad?).  But when we left he mooooooed back at them!!!

We also discovered today that Adrian loves coffee...we went to breakfast and he kept dipping his spoon into Carlos's coffee and then licking it?!  What a weird kid!




The Old Casa in Mexico

I was scrolling through old photos and found these of our house in Mexico.  We sold the house the year before the boys were born--thank GOD--because it was a drain on our finances and a nightmare to maintain.  We had it rented to three different people/families since we left Mexico.  The first was a super nice American family--missionaries, essentially--who always were responsible and nice.  Then we rented to a lady who was crazy...we think she was someone's mistress.  She paid the rent on time for a while, but eventually stopped.  When she left, she took nearly EVERYTHING with her, including the light bulbs.  She also left a dead dog behind in the yard...it was tied to the gate.  It probably starved or was dehydrated to death.  She left it there and threw lime on it so it wouldn't smell as it decomposed.  Sick, sick woman.  The third tenant was a guy.  He also stopped paying the rent after a while, and it turns out he stopped paying because he was in jail for stealing a car?!?  We were very close to evicting him--everything was set to start the process--when he finally left.  The neighborhood surrounding the house went from nice to a dump after we moved out.  There were tons of empty houses.  What a shame.  It was a miracle that we found someone to buy it.  It was a nice house, though.

We were in the middle of painting it when these photos were taken.

View from living room/entry.  That's the kitchen.  Yes, they sell you a house in Mexico with no kitchen and no closets...

Laundry room and pantry

upstairs guest bathroom



side yard with the fountain that Carlos's dad gave us


master bedroom 
backyard--the size of a postage stamp

2nd and 3rd bedrooms

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

These boys LOVE to go for a walk in our new neighborhood.  They love their wagon and push car so much that every time we walk by them going into the house through the garage the boys point and gesture to them and sometimes cry if we can't take a walk.

Yesterday was humid--look at that hair!  I'm so jealous!  Right now, Sebastian is blonder than Adrian, which is weird given how much darker he was than Adrian when the boys were first born!


I adore this picture....one to print out and frame??!

Sebastian is so attached to his two sock monkeys.  (One is actually Adrian's, but since he doesn't really seem to like them, Sebastian has taken them both over as his.)  At least one monkey goes everywhere with him.

Yesterday, Adrian had the cutest t-shirt on.  Our friend Isabel gave it to us.  It's Linus's body...Adrian looked so cute in the shirt, but he wouldn't pose so I could capture it.  This is the best I could do.




Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Good News, and the Bad News

Well, the good news is that after a 2+ hour evaluation, the boys DID NOT qualify for Early Intervention services anymore.  It turned out that my instincts were 100% right--they are on the slow side of things, but given the tubes, bilingual, and twins factor, they weren't worried about their progress.  They gave me some things to look out for in terms of speech before 18 months and told me to call if I have any doubts or worries in the near future.  

The gist of things was that Adrian is slower in receptive language and better in expressive, and Sebastian is the complete opposite: better in the receptive and slower in expressive.  They actually said the more worrisome combination is Adrian's...but I truly believe that his receptive language has been affected quite a bit by his hearing loss before the tubes were put in.

That brings me to another point; the boys went back to the ENT doctor today for a follow up.  They had hearing tests again and then the doctor checked their ears to make sure the tubes were open and the ears were in good shape.  They both did significantly better on the hearing test this time.  And, everything looked good in their ears.  So that was a relief!

The bad news is that the boys were sick with diarrhea AGAIN today....Adrian woke up and had 4 rapid poops that stank so foul I could barely stand to change him.  Poor guy.  He was completely off all day....Sebastian was exhausted, but otherwise ok until about 4PM when he had the same foul smelling poop.  Needless to say, I had work today and had to cancel everything: a class and 4 appointments.  Major bummer.  If they are still sick tomorrow Carlos will have to take the day off.

Seriously, it never ends.  Hopefully we'll get a good stretch of health from here on out now that their ears are fixed and the weather is getting better.  I can't keep this up!!!

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Early Intervention Re-Evaluation

As preemie twins, the boys qualified for Early Intervention (EI) when they first came home from the hospital.  The company/group in charge in Watertown was Thom Child and Family Services: Charles River.  They sent a team out immediately after the boys were at home, and fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the boys were offered services because they were evaluated on their actual, not adjusted age. So, for example, at an actual age of 3 months, the boys were actually JUST 1 month adjusted because they were born 2 months early.  It's confusing, but anyway, we loved their service provider Anita.  Anita came very week--reliably--and got to know both boys because she worked with them both.  She was a valuable source of advice regarding their adjustment to daycare and my return to work after maternity leave.  After I wasn't home anymore, she visited the boys at First Step, their daycare in Watertown.  I could even watch on the daycare cameras to see what they were doing on a particular day.

When we moved to Bridgewater with my mother, we had to switch EI providers.  Now we have BAMSI, and I'm not nearly as impressed with their services.  The boys each have their own provider, and the consistency hasn't been great due to sick days on their part and on our part.  They go to the daycare and used to not believe what the teachers there would tell them about things that they did or were capable of doing.  But at the end of the day, I guess they need to see things themselves to be able to believe them.

When the boys switched to the toddler room, we asked to switch times.  The providers were visiting at 1:30, and that's right in the middle of their nap in the toddler room.  In order to switch times, we had to switch providers.  So both boys are now on their third EI person.  Not ideal.

It turns out that the boys were up for their yearly re-eval (to see if they qualify for another year of services) in January and we all missed it!  Honestly with the move and ear infections, it was the last thing on my mind.  And BAMSI completely forgot about it!  So now it's time for them to be reevaluated and see if they still need services.  This comes with mixed feelings once again.  On the one hand, I don't want them to qualify because that would mean that they are doing find and are completely caught up to a full-term baby.  On the other hand, I sort of want them to qualify.  There used to be a yearly fee for EI, but it has been waived, so the services would cost me nothing.  And I am a bit worried about their relative lack of speech, so having someone monitor and facilitate their progress wouldn't be a bad thing.

A whole team of experts will come to the house tomorrow.  We'll see what they have to say.

On an unrelated note, I got a call from the daycare today at around 9:45.  The boys both had diarrhea--of the very explosive kind.  Sebastian had gone 4 times and Adrian 3 by the time they called.  Needless to say, we had to go get them.  Of course, Carlos and I were both really busy today.  Because I'm taking part of Wednesday and Thursday off to handle the EI re-eval and also take them to the ENT doctor for a follow up after their tubes, Carlos had to leave work, pick them up, and stay with them the rest of the day.  I don't think his boss was too happy, but there is not much we can do--we have to share the responsibilities evenly since we both work.  Neither boy had a fever--we think it was just something they ate.  Adrian seemed better by evening, but Sebastian we are still not sure about.  Always something!!!!!!

Monday, April 15, 2013

April 15, 2013

Well, the day started off well.  I had today off, and the boys went to daycare so that I could get some stuff done around the house.

I cleaned, did laundry, took care of financial business and emails, raked and picked up sticks in the backyard, put down fertilizer, and then swept the screened-in porch and put out the patio furniture.  I went off to Market Basket and to get the boys.  I was at Kindercare when I noticed I had a missed call and voicemail from my in-laws in Mexico.  The message said that they were worried about us after what happened in Boston...?  I went to the AP app on my phone...and there was the news about the explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line.

It's all absolutely sickening.  I'm just learning now that one of the two dead was an 8-year-old boy.  It brings butterflies to my stomach and chills down my spine.  Sick sick sick.

To counter this feeling of disgust, anger, and disbelief (and to not make another post) here are some pictures of the boys.  Just like after Newtown, can't help but want to hold them tighter tonight.


Flamingo leg


Papi tied Monkey up in knots and Sebastian got pissed.



My Surprise Birthday Party!

I had one of the best birthdays, if not THE best birthday, ever this year.  It was on a Monday, so we didn't do much to celebrate, and that was fine by me.  I don't like birthdays that much and am never offended if no one makes a big deal out of it.  Furthermore, my mom came over a few days before my birthday and stayed with the boys after they were in bed so that Carlos and I could get Mexican food.  That in itself was a great birthday present!  On the day of, she also came over with mac and cheese, pork roast, cupcakes, and a Home Depot gift card.  My dad came over before my birthday with a beautiful Talbot's jacket and shirt.  So I felt more than enough birthday love.

The weekend after my birthday rolled around and I had already forgotten about my birthday.  But Carlos had invited my family over to celebrate my birthday.  I was expecting my mom and dad, my Auntie Mimi, and my Nana.  Carlos cooked fajitas all Saturday morning, and my parents came over a little before everyone else was supposed to arrive to help me with the boys.  When I saw how much food Carlos was cooking, I wondered if something was up, but he was insistent that he had only invited family.  He ALWAYS cooks too much food and he also made up some excuse about having to cook for a pot luck at Meditech on Monday too, so I didn't think more of it.

At noon, our good friends Nick and Lorna showed up.  They are not technically blood/family, but they are just as good as family.  There are LOTS of Paones and significant others, so I figured that's why Carlos had cooked so much food.  That was a nice surprise!

But then the doorbell rang again and it was my friend Kelly from Harvard with her husband Brendon.  Pretty soon the doorbell rang again, and again, and again, and there was Charlie and Mike, more Paones, people from Carlos's work (Mary Luz, Lina, Prima, Primo, Oriana, Estelle, Susan), and even Judy one of our NICU nurses!!!!  There was so much food: chicken fajitas, salad, mac and cheese, salsa and chips, rice, black beans, plenty of good beer, and a GORGEOUS cake that had guava paste in it.  My favorite!



My mom and dad took care of the boys so that Carlos and I could enjoy the company, and we gave house tours and tried to chat with everyone.  The only bad thing about groups that big is that you don't get to talk to everyone as much as you'd like.

All-in-all, it was an amazing day for me.  I felt so blessed to be surrounded by friends and family.


Here are Lexi and the boys manning the door, waiting for guests to arrive!



Saturday, April 6, 2013

Happy Days Are Here Again!

Last night, after the boys were in bed, my mom came over to the house again and babysat the boys while we went to El Mariachi, a Mexican restaurant just down the road from us in Easton.  It was so nice to get out--even briefly--and have a beer and some really decent Mexican food.  We were home by 7:30 (I think) and in bed by 8:30 we were so tired from the day's events!!!!!!

This morning we met my mom at Brianna's for breakfast.  The boys enjoyed their pumpernickel toast and scrambled eggs with cheese but were fussier than usual--maybe because I didn't bring their sippy cups or any toys because Carlos was rushing me out of the house.  After, we went to Lowe's so the boys could drive their racecar shopping cart and we could get some white paint to start painting the ceilings in the house.  We also needed a new smoke detector.  I love spending money on ceiling paint and smoke detectors...

Then we went to Target to try to find bike helmets for the boys.  We recently found a really high quality bike trailer for the boys on Craigslist (my first Craigslist purchase ever) and can't wait to use it.  Carlos couldn't resist buying each boy a big ball for the backyard.  The rest of the time in Target was diffcult as they basically couldn't hold on to the balls but refused to put them down.


Adrian didn't want to stay seated--he kept turning around to see his ball!


We found bike helmets--success!

Clap clap clap!  Adios amigos!

Carlos went to an Isis Parenting Toddler CPR/First Aid class today in Arlington.  We'd paid for it months ago and it got rescheduled because of the blizzard.  I stayed with the boys and figured he'd pass on any worthwhile info and I'd do my own reading.  I had a great day with the boys.  They were cheery all day again for me, and had a blast playing with their toys.  They were much less fussy in general than they have been lately--even before bed, when they are usually not at their best.  The icing on the cake was that at dinner time, BOTH boys ate off their spoons.  There was still a mess, but Sebastian did a lot less eating off his hand and actually showed me he knows what to do with a utensil in his hand other than throw it or bang it on the tray!  Here's a video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM39KF1PV3Q&feature=youtu.be


And some photos of my new, happy, content, smiley boys!