11 Months!

How is this possible?  It's funny how in some ways the last year has dragged and in others it seems like we blinked and it was over! Looking back at earlier pictures, its amazing to think how far we've come.  We are planning a first birthday party now!  I cannot believe one year is almost here...

Paige has developed the BEST personality.  She is the happiest baby I've ever seen - not that I'm biased or anything;) She smiles all the time, has a fake laugh that she constantly does, makes funny faces, and is always babbling.  She is really starting to make some progress with her motor development, too.  Paige has started to crawl! Military style, yes.  But she is getting where she wants to go.  She has also figured out how to get from her belly or all fours to sitting.  She's much less frustrated then she was before when her brother left her in his dust!

Funny face:)

Happy girl!

Our old Andrew seems to be back!!! He has had such a hard time for the past six weeks - reflux, cold, teething, and his leg issue.  I think we have most things under control.  The cold has cleared, reflux is a little better managed (although I took him off one med I thought was doing more harm than good), and BOTH top front teeth have come through!  His leg seems fine now, too. So odd. But over the last week or so we have a happy, smiling, laughing boy.  I cannot tell you how good it is to have him back.  And he is EVERYWHERE!  He keeps us all running.  He is pulling to stand, taking steps holding on to things and is crawling faster than we can keep up with.  When he knows he's not supposed to do something and is in trouble, he starts crawling as fast as he can away from you hysterically laughing.  Its hard not to laugh back:)

Our cutie:)

SO big!

Our happy guy:)

Only 29 days until their birthday! Can you tell we're a little excited?!?:)

Happy birthday, Papa!

Celebrating with Papa

Not too sure about our party hats...

A mix between crying and laughing:)

Happy birthday, Papa! We love you!

Andrew

So we've had a rather stressful week with Andrew.  On Tuesday, Jack stayed home with the kids (Nana was at the beach), and noticed that Andrew seemed to be favoring his right leg.  When I got home from work that night, I manipulated the leg pretty aggressively and could not reproduce any discomfort.  We chalked it up to a cramp and moved on. On Wednesday, my mom had the kids again and she mentioned to me that Andrew's right leg seemed to be hurting (independent of Jack's observation).  I again got home and could not get him to show any sign that it hurt.  When he was crying and retracting his leg on Thursday, I called his physical therapist and she came right over to see him (have I mentioned that she is fabulous?!?).  She thoroughly examined him and could not find anything wrong.  Clearly, the pain was intermittent and he was still having no problem crawling, standing, or moving around.  We decided to just keep an eye on things.

Friday morning, Andrew woke up hysterical, wouldn't straighten his leg and didn't want anyone to touch it.  Jack took him in the pediatrician and she sent him over to Children's to get some xrays.  She felt the pain seemed to be either with his calf or ankle.  We also ordered belly films, as we were wondering if he was retracting his leg to protect his abdomen.  I spoke with Dr. Arnold on the phone for a bit and we discussed the fact that Andrew has not been himself in about a month.  He has not been able to sleep for more than 2 or 3 hours at a time (cries out with eyes closed and seems uncomfortable), has been incredibly cranky and rarely has happy periods, and his eating has dropped quite a bit.  The kid will rarely eat anything off a spoon and eats about 1/3 of other solids we give him.  We have been attributed most of his issues to reflux. Then his recent cold.  But are we missing something bigger?

Xrays on Friday were negative.  We've been watching all weekend to see if we could find patterns and figure out what was going on.  We have figured out that it is right ankle that is bothering him. Sometimes its bad and sometimes its not. We can't figure out what the triggers are.  His personality has returned for brief periods this weekend, but his happy moments are definitely limited.  After playing for a few minutes, he climbs into your lap and starts to cry.  There's got to be something going on, but what is it? 

It is incredibly frustrating to see him so unhappy and in pain.  We are just hopeful that we either figure it out or it goes away as quickly as it appeared.  The pediatrician mentioned the possibly of a bone scan this week. We aren't sure that we are there yet (as its a much bigger test), but we'll call her office tomorrow and talk about what our next step will be. 

On a happier note, here are a couple cute pics from today - you can see our happy guy in these:)

Sunday with Daddy!

Waiting for the game to start

Quite the duo:)

Hail to the Redskins!

Hooray for Paige!

After my last post, I feel like I need some fun pics and good news!  We had a nice long weekend - something we all needed!  And even got some smiles out of grouchy Andrew:)

Attempting to feed myself...

But still much better with finger foods:)

Paige's first yogurt experience - YUM!

Loving our new walker but getting into trouble already!

Showing a little of old Andrew but the start of my cold:(

And wearing Paige out:)

It was great to see our happy guy a little bit this weekend, although Poor Andrew seems to have caught a cold and is pretty miserable again.  Now its just hard to tell what is what.  He is not sleeping AT ALL but its hard to blame him because he is having a hard time breathing with all his congestion.  At first, Paige seemed to be in the clear but now she has quite the runny nose. I guess we can't complain too much though - we went 10 months without ANY illness.  Not too shabby.

We have been working really hard on Paige's leg strengthening exercises though...

AND CHECK OUT OUR GIRL!

Paige is actually standing unsupported for up to a minute.  This is huge for her!  Daddy did daycare today since Nana was at the beach at he sent me this picture at work.  I almost cried I was so happy for her!  She has been so frustrated that she can't play with this toy like Andrew.  I guess jealousy is good motivation:)  So proud of her!

Hoping for colds to go away, happy babies to return, continued leg strengthening, and most importantly -  a couple good nights of sleep!

How Quickly We Forget

Since our vacation, we have been having a really hard time getting Andrew to sleep again.  We had made such great progress and seem to have lost it all.  It is very frustrating. And we have been blaming it on our trip and getting him out of his routine.  Well, its been 3.5 weeks and it still hasn't improved.  Thinking it was behavioral, we have pushed him to cry longer and stay in his bed awake.  Nothing was working.

Sunday, we had takeout for dinner and let the kids have some chicken tenders and fries (which they loved!).  Andrew especially chowed down and was super happy during dinner.  We put him to bed, as normal, and starting 30 minutes after he went down he began screaming.  His cry was very strained and hoarse, he was congested and cough and arching nonstop.  This continued through most of the night.  As we thought about this the next day, we realized that he had greasy food for dinner and that his symptoms are likely all reflux related.  We doubled his Prevacid (reflux med) before vacation and had kind of assumed that it had taken care of the problem.  Now that we're thinking back, we started introducing many more solids around the time of vacation and we think his nighttime screaming has been pain and discomfort over the last three weeks!  Its all reflux! Boy, do we feel like bad parents!

Monday morning I called their Georgetown Neonatal clinic NP and talked to her.  She called in another med to try and we have removed LOTS from his diet that we have previously introduced.  Lots of fruits that he loves but that may be acidic are out.  We are removing all dairy (no more yogurt, which we just started and he loves!). And obviously nothing greasy or spicy at all.  As he continued to scream all day Monday and was incredibly hoarse (also likely related to acid coming back up in his esophagus), Nana also took him to the pediatrician just to make sure we weren't missing anything else.  He was exhausted at their office and barely interacted. For those of you that know Andrew, know that this is totally out of character!  But the poor guy hasn't slept more than 3 hours at a time in about 3 weeks and is wiped out.  He desperately wants to sleep but just can't stay down for any length of time.  It is heart breaking to see...

So we are giving this new med and our diet changes a week to see if there is an improvement (none so far...). If we don't see an improvement, we will look at other medication options.  With them both doing so well otherwise, we tend to forget about their preemie issues.  We find ourselves having to remind each other that they're still only 8 months adjusted and still have some things to work through. 

We were again reminded of this very thing today during Paige's physical therapy session.  Paige will not bear weight on her legs at all.  When her feet are flat on the floor, her knees buckle and she has no muscle strength to support standing at all.  She is also not pushing up much with her arms and is far from being mobile.  She is starting to get frustrated with this, as her brother crawls away from her and pulls up on things.  We have been getting a bit discouraged with her lack of progress and her PT today basically told us that it could be several months for her to master these things.  With our busy schedules, we haven't put as much time into her exercises as we probably should have, and we have vowed to devote a lot more time to working with Paige after work.  Let's cross our fingers for some progress before she gets too frustrated watching her brother get so far ahead!

We're in Trouble!

As of yesterday, our two little monsters are 10 months old!  And yes, we truly have our hands full with two monsters....but for very different reasons!  Andrew is so active and ALL over the place. He crawls to get wherever he wants and he gets there SO fast! He is going to be into everything and needs to be watched every second! He is also officially standing and even taking a few steps holding onto things!

Check me out!

I'm trouble but I sure am cute!

Paige is going to be a handful in a completely different way.  She is quite the drama queen and is already figuring out how to wrap everyone around her little fingers:)  Paige is talking nonstop and really seems to be thinking she is telling us things. She will then get annoyed when she doesn't get the proper response back!  She also has developed a "fake cry" and even "fake cough" when she wants attention.  When she starts with her fake cry, she can squeeze out tears in 2 seconds and make it look really real.  Then she will peak with one eye barely open to see if you're looking at her.  If you are, she will scream louder and continue the show.  If you hide and she can't see you when she sneaks her one eye open, she will give up, find a toy and go about business as usual.  Paige has also figured out that you're supposed to say "cheese" for the camera!

Cheese!

We make this face nonstop as soon as we see the camera!

And we think its hysterical!

It really is amazing to watch them grow up side by side and see their personalities develop.  They truly have "boy" and "girl" personalities and are so very different.  One thing I worried about when I found out I was having twins was loving them both equally.  I worried about having enough love to give two babies at once. They make it so easy.  They each have such amazingly different qualities to fall in love with and make them such different individuals!  And they are more and more FUN each day!

It's so hard to believe that 10 months have passed since they entered our lives.  And look how much they have accomplished!  We are even starting to climb out of our cribs!  So what was on the agenda last weekend - crib conversion!  We lowered cribs, removed bumpers (should have been done a while ago...), and took mobiles down.  Their room now looks so boring and empty.  I think its a harder adjustment for me then them:)

Andrew's boring bed:)

And Paige's

Now cross your fingers that they get used to the new environment and stop rolling around so much to hit their heads!  We need a good night's sleep!

Fun in the Sun!

Last week was our first real family vacation.  This included flights to and from Florida - which were not easy! The amount of coordination involved with traveling with two lap children is amazing. First, we had to figure out what was allowed through security (powder formula, bottled water, pureed food, etc). Next, were a couple calls to US Air to determine what could be carried on vs. gate checked.  Turned out that we could only gate check one item per baby, so this meant a choice between two car seats or the stroller.  We opted for the stroller, as this was more important, and rented the car seats with our rental car.  Next, we had heard through the grapevine that you can not have two lap children in one row.  Of course this was after we booked seats sitting together. When I called US Air to investigate this rumor and change our seats, I was assured that this was not the case.  Well, it was.  And we only learned of this when we boarded the plane. What did this mean?  That people were asked to volunteer to switch seats with one of us.  Who would voluntarily switch to sit next to a 9 month old baby?  I'm sure you can imagine that we were not very popular.  Plus, the guy that volunteered was several rows up and in a window seat, so Jack and I were far away from each other and unable to share diaper bag contents.  Luckily, Andrew slept from take-off to landing (Yay him!) and needed nothing.  Paige on the other hand requiring pacing in the aisle for about an hour on the way down.  She was perfectly seated awake for two hours on the way back.  All in all, they were great on the flights. We are very grateful for that!

Waiting to go through security

Playing in the terminal!

Car seat rental worked out okay (after trying 6 car seats until we found ones that latched properly!) and we rented highchairs for the condo for the week.  Pack-n-plays were sent down with bags of toys, diapers, formula, etc. with the grandparents who were thankfully driving!  All of the organization and planning that was needed was a lot of work but worth some of the memorable moments down there....

First day at the beach. We'd rather eat our sunglasses and squint then wear them appropriately!

We liked the beach much better this time with our baby pool!

Plus, cookies make everything better, too:)

Andrew even put his feet in the ocean!

We LOVED our first pool experience!

Paige screamed with excitement the whole time

And Andrew splashed and laughed!

We had fancy dinners out to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa's 30th wedding anniversary!

And cuddled during stormy afternoons in the condo

We ate a lot and tried new things (like frozen yogurt!)

And drank out of big boy and girl cups!

Paige even discovered her voice and never stopped talking and screaming the rest of the trip....this is her new "excited face!"

We did plan a day trip to Orlando mid-week to visit my college friend and sorority sister, Pamela, and her husband and newest edition, Jane! They just so happen to work for Disney and offered us park tickets for the day.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and it was a pretty constant downpour the entire day:(  We even tried to venture out when the rain lightened up a little bit and got stuck in the monorail station and never made it into Magic Kingdom...let's just say our day wasn't so magical.  But it made for lots of funny memories and stories for Jack and me.  And when the kids ask to go to Disney one day, we can say that we already took them there:)

Our day at Magic Kingdom that never came to be...

But we had a fun dinner with Jane!

The best part of vacation was that we got to spend 10 whole days with the kids.  Being back at work with busy schedules and limited weekday time really makes us appreciate being together as a family.  I mean, how can you not want to be around these two all the time?!?:)

Our very happy girl!

And adorable guy:) This face is perfect for this shirt!

More vacation pics in the 9-12 Month Album