Quite the Pair

We had a great weekend just hanging out with family.  Both sets of grandparents and their cousin, Katie, came over and played!  They are getting so big, it's hard to believe.  And they finally seem to be noticing each other!  We are having longer and more frequent alert periods that are overlapping with each other, so they've been able to play together quite a bit...

Playing nicely together on Friday...

Already yelling at his sister on Saturday...

And beating up her brother on Sunday...

But too cute to get in trouble:)

I think we are going to have our hands full... They are quite the pair!
(Check out the Picasa Album for more pics!)

Feed Me!

So I definitely lost the mother of the year award.... I think I was starving my daughter!

Paige has always been our easy one with a super laid back personality.  She rarely cried and always waited patiently for Andrew to have his turn first.  This was the case until Saturday.  At that point, she started crying all the time.  She needed to be held and was waking up every hour in the middle of the night.  She wasn't sleeping soundly. I couldn't figure out what the sudden switch in her personality was until I really started thinking about it yesterday.  She was starving!  We were trying to space their eating and cut them back to less feeds with everyone's concern with  how fast they are gaining.  We were so focused on adjusting Andrew's calories and rice cereal, we all forgot about Paige.  The doctors thought I should leave their volumes alone, so I did...yet I don't think they realized we had gone from 8 bottles a day to around 6 and we had weaned their formula density!  The poor girl was hungry...ALL the time!  As soon as I realized this, I offered her a much larger bottle.  She downed the entire thing in 5 minutes and then proceeded to sleep soundly for five hours.  I'm sure she was thinking: "You finally figured it out, mom! It took you long enough!"  Ever since then, I have given her more volume and she is back to herself.  Wow, do I feel like a bad mom! But we've all recovered and we have our sweet angel back:)

Our happy girl working so hard to talk!

We are starting to like tummy time!

Andrew likes his frog outfit!

Checking himself out in the mirror

Hope all our local friends are surviving the snow!  It took Daddy almost 5 hours to get home from work last night!  Its probably the first time I've been happy about being housebound with the kids:)

Overnight Success!

We are exhausted and heading to bed but I wanted to let you know that we have survived our first two nights apart!  They successfully slept in their nursery the last two nights and even gave us one long stretch of four hours each night!  This may not seem like a lot, but it means that we get a solid three hours of sleep and that is huge!

Here are a couple pictures of our big, three month old babies!

Sitting with his Daddy

And finding him very funny!

Not participating in naptime:)

Until everyone else decided to be awake...

Back Home

We made it back from North Carolina yesterday without a peep from either of them in the backseat!  6 hours on the road, with an hour stop for a bottle and lunch and we were home safe and sound before dark.  They were wonderful.

Today, we were off to the pediatrician for a weight check and their RSV shots.  Despite us backing off calories and spacing their feeds, Andrew STILL gained WAY too much!  He is up to 9.5 pounds!  Paige only gained two ounces (like she was supposed to) and weighs in at 8.9 pounds.  Part of the problem is that we are adding rice cereal to his bottles to try to help keep the formula down so that we can stop some of his reflux meds.  This is clearly adding more calories than we anticipated!  Dr. Arnold talked to him very seriously about his triple chins and "man boobs!!!" (we won't tell him this when he's older:))  My poor guy is going to have to be even more hungry.  We are going to back off more on the calories, try to space even further, and even add extra water to each bottle.  Free water will help with his horrible constipation, but it will also hopefully help him to feel more full without the crazy calories.  That's the problem -- he's still hungry even with what he's getting now!  They said growth restricted babies ate all the time....I guess they weren't kidding!!

So we will return in two weeks with just Andrew for a weight check.  Not to make sure he is gaining weight....but to make sure he still isn't gaining TOO much!  I never thought we'd have this problem a month ago!  But as Dr. Arnold said, the preemie formulas are still very new and its hard to balance between enough protein to catch up and for development, and not too much fat to make super chubby babies.

Paige, on the other hand, is slimming down a bit and looks wonderful.  They are both starting to smile more and more each day, but Paige is truly grinning from ear to ear and is starting to be really interactive.  Its SO fun!  She also had her first real tears today!  It was after her shot and the poor girl was so mad, but it was adorable:)

Tomorrow, we will celebrate their three month birthday!  In honor of this, we think we might try to put them in their cribs tonight for the first time.  Daddy has been ready for them to leave our room for weeks. I have not:)  So we are taking baby steps and they are napping this afternoon upstairs to ease me into this idea....

Andrew in his big boy bed!

And Paige in her's!

And here we're hanging out together!

We'll let you know how our first night apart goes tomorrow...wish us luck!

Our Mini-Vacation

So we survived our first road trip and made it down to Wilmington last Friday.  The babies were wonderful in the car!  We fed them right before our departure and they made it 3.5 hours until we had to stop.  We wanted a restaurant that would have a clean changing station and that would serve us while we fed them.  We ended up at Cracker Barrel -- really nice changing area in case you were curious:)  Even in the men's room!  I was surprised the men's room had a changing station. I mean, it should, but I didn't think it would. I changed both of them and of course, they both ended up needing to be changed again before we left.  Jack did the second round and let's just say he was very unlucky:)

We've had a nice couple days at my parent's beach house and have gotten out quite a bit with the babies.  With the nice weather, we've been able to walk around and even ate out with them a couple times.  It has been so good for us all to get some fresh air!  They've also gotten to meet some important people in our lives.  My cousins came down to see them and one of my best friends from college came all the way up from Charleston to meet us.  We also spent the day today with a family friend.  We've been "in hiding" so long that it feels so weird to be in public and around people.  We still are avoiding crowded places and I leave the hoods down on the stroller so strangers don't get in their faces or try to touch them, but the warm weather has enabled us to be a little more social.  And I will admit that it's fun to finally show them off a little bit:)

Jack left on Monday since he had work this week and my mom is taking over the night shifts with me.  I will say that we ALL truly miss Daddy.  He is great with the babies and such a HUGE help to me.  I am definitely feeling more of the weight with him not around and we'll be anxious to see him when we get home on Thursday.  The babies have been wonderful though.  They really are easy babies and I can't complain too much.  Andrew is definitely more needy and we joke that if Paige were an only child, life would be a piece of cake! But he really isn't bad.  We cut his calories and are trying to space their feeds a little bit since the NICU clinic thinks they are getting a little too fat (they can't win, right?!?).  Poor guy is hungry though.  And he is waking up every two and a half hours on the dot.  We are hoping that we will eventually get used to it and will make it four hours at night.  That would make such a big difference!

Here are a few pictures to show you how big they are getting.  Can you believe they will be three months on Saturday?!?

Andrew hanging out in the swing at Nana and Papa's house!

Andrew's smirk:)

Paige with her blue hearts

Visiting with Aunt Ashley!

Green Lights to GO!

We are ready to go on our first family road trip tomorrow! We have seen all of our doctors in the last week and each of them gave us the green light to go.  Everyone is so impressed with how well they are doing, it is almost too good to be true...

Yesterday, they went back to the eye clinic and repeated those dreaded exams.  We ALL survived:)  And the exam showed completely normal development and no risk for retinopathy of prematurity (one of those big items on our risk checklist).  We do not have to go back to see them for one year, which is wonderful. And when we do go, the exam will be nowhere near as invasive.  They will need annual exams until around the age of 8 though, as preemies are at greater risk for developing vision problems.  No big deal.

Today, we headed to Georgetown to followup with the NICU clinic and download Paige's monitor.  Our wishes came TRUE and we officially disconnected her for good at 1pm today!  She did not have one real event in the last month - so proud of our girl!  They both got weighed today, as well, and we learned that Andrew now weighs MORE than his sister!!!  He is amazing.  She weighs 8 pounds 11.6 ounces and Andrew weighs 8 pounds 12.4 ounces.  We are all a little nervous about the fast pace they are gaining though, so we are backing off on both of their calories - we don't want super fat babies!  They also want Andrew off one of his reflux meds that has a nasty list of side effects.  While his reflux is still miserable for him, I am not crazy about the drug either.  We are going to try adding rice cereal to weigh down the milk and slowly back off on the unwanted drug.  If his symptoms get worse, I'll call them and there are a couple other options we can try.  Eventually, he will outgrow the reflux, but this could take a while...

They both were super alert during their appointment, too, which impressed the clinic team.  We did a quick developmental screen and they seem to be slightly ahead of their adjusted age (3.5 weeks).  We all hope that they will slowly advance faster than their age to catch up completely by a year or two.  They will go to the developmental specialist in mid-February though, and she will do a thorough exam and outline goals. 

I know I'm behind in pictures -- we will post some new ones while we're down at the beach.  Wish us luck on our first road trip - we are hoping for sleeping babies, little traffic, good weather, a clean McDonalds or two for diaper changes, and a decently rested mom and dad for a safe drive and memory to bring the crazy amount of things we need!

The Hard Parts of Twins...

1.  Feeding - They feed around the same time, because otherwise, we'd just be feeding all the time.  So they both get hungry and cry to eat around the same time.  When you're alone with them at feeding time you stand and look at them both and have to pick one to eat first.  This decision is very hard.  Because you know the other one is going to sit and cry for 20 minutes while they wait for their turn.  Sometimes you start and change a diaper and then realize that maybe that one will go back to sleep and switch babies.  It is a very hard decision and these feeds can be very stressful!  In our house, Andrew usually goes first though.  Mostly because he's loud, more demanding, and eats a whole lot faster:)

2. Splitting breastmilk - I don't produce enough for both.  And they each are on different calories, so the recipes to fortify the milk are different.  For instance, Andrew gets 1/2 teaspoon of formula added to every 30 milliliters breastmilk and Paige gets 1/2 teaspoon to every 55 milliliters.  I sit there when its time to make bottles and have to bring back my middle school math.  I try to divide my breastmilk so that the recipes work with multiples of 30 and 55, yet is divided evenly. Because, well, it has to be fair!  And if it doesn't divide evenly, I have to pick who is going to get more...

3. Baby stuff - Where does it all go? When you need two of everything, space becomes a huge issue.  Our house has been completely taken over with baby stuff.  We have three beds for each of them, a swing, two bouncy seats, activity mats, pack-n-play, changing stations, toys, etc.  We are running out of room with two of everything and they are only 2 months old!  And for those of you that know about my OCD, you can imagine how difficult this is for me:)

4. Laundry - They produce SO much laundry!  We are finding we have to do a large load every other day...that's if we are lucky enough to make it that long!  And these kids are spoiled and have lots of clothes!  But with Andrew's reflux and the normal baby stuff, we are changing bibs, burp cloths, sheets, outfits, towels, etc. multiple times a day....times two!  And did I mention how annoying it is to fold baby clothes!

5. Leaving the house - Getting them both into their car seats without crying and then transporting them one by one to the car is a 15 minutes process. This is after you've already prepped the diaper bag, checked diapers, and preheated the car for 15 minutes.  Then once you get there, you have to open the crazy double stroller, get each assembled one by one (and not forget which order to load them - if you load back first, it will flip over!), and lock fifty million straps.  Then, we are ready to go, so long as one of them hasn't woken up and lost their patience by then!  So far, we've only done this process for doctors appointments.  But I can tell you right now, that when they are able to go places, the destination will have to be worth it.  No Target or grocery store runs are worth this process!

6. Diapers - We go through roughly 20 diapers a day.  That means a large case of diapers every four days.  This means about 8 or 9 cases a month.  I feel like all we do is buy, change and dispose of diapers!  We won't even mention the Enfacare powder cans (formula) that we go through....and this is with my breastfeeding, too!

These are just a few of the many things Jack and I have found difficult with having two at home over the last month.  Can you believe it?!?  As of this weekend, we have all been home together for one whole month!

Sorry for the Silence. We're Back!

So I know that I am WAY behind on my blog posts.  My energy for anything but taking care of them has been limited...and there really hasn't been too much to report.  They both continue to do so well at home and we couldn't be happier with their progress!

Paige now has alert periods with almost every feed and is just beginning to smile!  It isn't consistent yet and you really do have to work for it, but its SO adorable and makes everything so worth it.  She thoroughly enjoys our activity mat and is just starting to really look at her toys.  She continues to be our easy baby and really is a joy to be around.

Andrew continues to be our curious, wide-eyed, fiesty one!  He is awake all the time and is so curious about EVERYTHING!  He hasn't smiled yet (well, besides with occasional gas), but we are working hard to encourage it hopefully one day soon!  He really responds to music - whether its you singing to him or to his Pearl Jam nursery rhymes (yes, this exists!) that Daddy plays for him all the time.  He is just so much fun to be around.

We have had some sleepless nights more recently - mostly due to Andrew's reflux.  The poor guy will grunt and groan constantly and then scream out in pain.  It is so awful to watch and you just want to sit and cry with him when it gets bad.  We did increase his reflux meds though and are trying a couple new things with his breastmilk and formula.  One thing that exacerbates the problem is gas and constipation, which they both continue to have problems with.  They each earned suppositories this week, which resulted in explosive stools.  And yes, I literally mean explosive.  Holy poop!  I never realized poop could be projectile, but it can and it was on our walls and even in my hair.  Lovely.  And probably too much information for many of you:)  Daddy now ducks with diaper changes and tries to strategically plan which diapers are his and which are mine!

We had a pediatrician appointment today with weight checks and catching up with our pediatrician -- she was just in Australia for almost 4 weeks for her daughter's wedding.  She couldn't believe how big they were and seemed pretty happy with their progress.  Paige weighed 8 pounds, 5 ounces! And Andrew weighed 8 pounds, 1.6 ounces!! Can you believe how much he's catching up?!?! It's amazing.  He does continue to be a lot shorter than her though and still has the "preemie look," as all the doctors call it.  I'm wondering when they will all think he looks like a newborn...

As I'm sure you can imagine, I am going a little stir crazy with being stuck home all the time with limited visitors.  I realized the other day that I hadn't been out of the house in almost 2 weeks!  I am desperate for a break from our house, so we decided that we'd check with the pediatrician about the possibility of heading to my parent's house in North Carolina for a week.  I mean, what's the difference between being home bound there or here, right?  Well, Dr. Arnold thought it was a great idea!  She thought the new environment would do us all good.  And the best part is that it's warm enough there that we can go for walks and get some fresh air.  We will leave after all of our doctor's appointments next week and stay for about a week.  And Jack will get to join us for about half the time, which is great!

Next week we have our opthamologist follow-up on Wednesday, which I am dreading.  And our NICU f/u clinic appointment on Thursday.  I have a long list of questions for them and am very hopeful that we just may get rid of Paige's monitor.  It has barely alarmed at all and I'm not sure if she's even had one real event since our last visit.  If she's not ready, that's fine, but it sure would be nice to travel to the beach without it...

I promise I will be better about blogging in the coming weeks and I will certainly be posting lots of pictures of our first family vacation!  Stay tuned...