Time Flies....

So the twins are now 19 months old!

They are so much fun at this age and are becoming little 'people.' It amazes me every day how much they learn and grow. They are such little sponges right now. They typically are each other's best friends, however that's not to say that they get along 100% of the time! Typically it's been Kai pushing Katherine, or giving her a whack on the head, or stealing her toy....but lately little miss "Kat Kat," as they both call her, has been fighting back. She's much more determined to keep her own toys and not let her brother bully her around. And of course, anything Kai can do, Katherine can do too!

They have both generally been really good sleepers at night for the past few months. We have even been able to lay them down completely awake and they'll fall asleep on their own 95% of the time. And if they wake in the middle of the night, we rarely have to go in their room. They've been sleeping from 7pm-ish to 7am-ish. Sooo nice and sooo appreciated! They still nap twice a day, and they usually only take cat-naps, anywhere from 30 min to an hour. I'm thinking they'll transition to one nap a day soon...and hopefully it will be for a longer duration of time, also. Mama needs time to get some things done around the house!!

Kai is around 23 pounds. At his 18 month checkup he was in the 10th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for height! (true age scale!) Katherine was 20 pounds, 4 ounces yesterday with her diaper, clothes, and shoes on. At 18 months she was in the 5th percentile for height and weight, true age scale. I think that's pretty darn good!

We just got home from our first trip to Wisconsin! The plane rides were interesting, to say the least. They actually did quite well - better than I expected. They rode on our laps for 3 of the 4 flights, and one of the shorter flights they had empty seats which allowed us to bring their carseats on. It was all about distraction, new toys, new books, more distraction, snacks, walking the aisle, and more distraction. Not too many melt-downs. And we were very thankful the people around us were so understanding. Traveling with two toddlers is not an easy feat!

While we were in Wisconsin we went to two waterparks (they are both water kiddo's, that's for sure!), went to Rich's cousin's wedding, spent a few nights at Rich's parent's house, spent a few nights at my parent's trailer, spent a couple nights in hotel rooms....the most difficult part of the trip was packing and repacking every day or every couple days. The twins went on their first boat rides, jet ski's, a tractor, four wheelers, ate a popsicle for the first time, got their first mosquito bites....all in all they had a blast. They met an overwhelmingly amount of people, and Kai was attached to his daddy like you'd not believe! In a way, it made it easier on me...Rich had one and I had one. We finally met my niece Grace who is 10 months old and such a cutie. Unfortunately the twins are now super attached to their binkies, as they really wanted them as a comfort measure. So I gave in while we were in Wisconsin for 10 days. Now it's been torture trying to get the binkies to 'live in their cribs' again.

When we arrived back in San Diego, both of them were acting a little 'off.' Kai refused to sleep in his crib, his classic ear infection sign...but part of me wondered if he just wasn't used to his crib after being away for so long. After a couple sleepless nights, I took them to the pediatrician (alone, by the way, which is really not an easy task these days as they're afraid of the doctor now!). Sure enough, Kai has another ear infection. Katherine's ears looked okay, but her throat was red and swollen, she's had diarrhea, a low-grade fever, a rash, and hasn't been feeling well. Just a virus...which will inevitably turn into an ear infection...

So we're not quite back to normalcy yet. I have a crabby little boy who clings to his daddy at any chance he gets and I have a little girl who wants nothing more than to suck on her binkie all day long. Unfortunately her top teeth are coming in a little crooked, so I'm really trying to stay strong and keep that binkie in the crib for 'night night' only. She has been doing such a great job of telling me when she has to go 'poo poo' though - and both of them have gone on their potty a few times already! They are fascinated by the potty, which is both good and bad...but certainly makes me keep a clean bathroom!!

While I had a few moments of peacefulness with Katherine dozing on my chest on the airplane ride home from Wisconsin, I gazed out the window and thought about Kai running around my parent's yard following his older cousins everywhere. He looked like such a big kid, hanging out and admiring all the older boys. At one point they were climbing around the fence and Kai's shirt got stuck on it. Pretty funny to see him hanging there, almost helpless, until his older cousin stepped in and got him off. Never a peep from him. Just a look of 'thanks, man.'

Gosh, they have come such a long way! Such a big boy he's becoming...and such a big girl my princess is becoming....and as I gazed out the airplane window I got a little tear in my eye thinking about how fast time flies.

Where has time gone?

My goodness, it's been awhile! I am long overdue for an update!

The twins are 16 months old! They are beginning to walk...and they are everywhere! They seldomly crawl now, as I think they've realized it hurts their knees. So stinkin' cute to watch them both on their feet at the same time!

Katherine is my mellow girl now. She is very patient and she is able to entertain herself quietly with toys or books. She likes to share everything she has, including sharing with her brother. She loves her baby dolls, and her nana has recently spoiled her with a baby buggy, which she adores. She loves to rock her babies and give them kisses. She is a very smart girl and loves to imitate and make signs. Both babies are learning sign language, and she really seems to pick up on it quickly. She still adores her brother like crazy, and I think her favorite word is "Kai." She is a bit of a taddle-tale and likes to point at him when he's doing something naughty and say "Kai, Kai." They are both on the true-age scale now and Katherine is in the 5th percentile and Kai is in the 10th percentile for 15 month olds! Hooray babies!

Kai is my little boy who is now giving me a run for my money! He is ALL boy! He is very rambunctious and full of energy. My parents have nick-named him "Bam Bam" which is very, very fitting. He has a short fuse and an even shorter attention span! He keeps me super busy and needs a lot of entertainment from mama. When he is teething, he is in a terrible mood, and unfortunately they both seem to be teething a lot these days. I still wish they could go to sleep and wake up with a full mouth of teeth. His favorite thing to do is steal toys from his sister...and he also loves to climb stairs and has absolutely NO fear! His gaze is still so enchanting and he has the cutest smile with a huge gap between his front teeth. Even though he keeps me on my toes, I don't know what I'd do without my little boy! He adores his daddy and always wants to be outside with him - anything to get dirty! He is hystarical in the sand and I think both babies will definitely be beach babies this summer!!

My parents were just visiting with my neice Madeline for 10 days. My dad built us another deck around our new hot-tub, and it extends off/goes around our toy room. The kids already love it out there!! We bought them little life jackets to go in the hot tub with us (at just a warm temperature)...they've been in once and had a blast! The twins really miss their nana, and they crawl around the room and say "Na Na, Na Na, Na Na" and look for her. It breaks my heart! Madeline was such a great little helper and it made me realize how much easier my life would be with a 10 year old around the house! My sister has certainly done something right with raising that girl because she was absolutely an angel while she was here. I need some parenting tips from Kathy!!

We are looking forward to our visit to Wisconsin this June. I'm not looking forward to traveling on the airplane with the twins...that will be interesting, to say the least. But I can't wait for our extended families to finally meet them! I think they get cuter and cuter as each day passes!

Grown up babies!

With their signs from their incubators! Kai 2 pounds, 7 ounces. Katherine 1 pound, 15 ounces


Kai and Katherine are one year old!!

My parents and my grandmother came to visit over their birthdays. They were amazed at how much they've grown! It was great to have their help, as the babies are now very mobile and into everything! They like to go in opposite directions, just to make it fun for mama to chase after them. :) We had a big birthday party at Kate Sessions Park and it was so much fun. Thank you so much to everyone for coming and for all of the wonderful gifts!

Kai's surgery went well and he did great with the anesthesia. His recovery, however, was absolutely terrible. It was the hardest 2 weeks since bringing the babies home from the NICU, for sure. He was bandaged and had a stent in place for a week, which caused severe bladder spasms that you could do nothing about. He was miserable and in pain all the time. After a week, the bandage and stent were removed and I thought things would get easier, but they only got harder. He had a severe reaction to the bandage and was red, swollen, and blistered everywhere. Each time he pee'd he would scream bloody murder for days and days. One night we spent 5 hours in the ER at Children's (with both babies) because everything had turned purple...it was miserable there but we are thankful we went because they diagnosed him with a yeast infection and gave us some nystatin cream for the pussy blisters...and a day later he was already feeling better.

They are still teething like crazy, especially Kai. He has 4 that are poked through on the bottom and one coming in on top. And let me tell you, he is not very happy about it! (And neither are mom and dad). He isn't sleeping well at all these days and has been waking up screaming around 5 or 5:30am. Coming from my boy who used to sleep til 7:30 or 8:00, it's pretty rough for him to be up that early. The first couple hours of our days are spent with him crying or whining, then it gets a little better after his first nap...which is happening earlier and earlier. :)

Oh, this too shall pass, right? I wish they could go to sleep and wake up the next morning with a full mouth of teeth. It's funny how different two babies can be - most of the time you'd never even know Katherine is teething. Thank goodness for that!

They are crawling like champions and can roam the whole house. Fast little buggers! They pull up on anything and everything, but their favorite is the coffee table. We finally put a gate around the TV in their toy room since Katherine is obsessed with the DVD buttons. They aren't too fond of the gate. In physical therapy, they are now working on 'cruising' along furniture. Ummm...I'm not sure I'm ready for that!!!

Each day they are even more grown up, and it's all happening so fast!

Milestones...

Time is flying by so quickly now, and soon the babies will be one year old!! Oh my gosh! It's so incredible to me how much they've grown and everything they have overcome in this past year.

Five weeks after the first ear infections, they had another round of ear infections. This time they were even sicker, and it lasted much longer. More sleepless nights for us. Now they are both teething. Katherine has her two front bottom teeth almost completely in, and Kai's bottom two teeth are just poking through now. Needless to say, Katherine has proven, once again, to be our little 'toughie.' Kai has been much more grumpy about getting his teeth...typical boy, right? Gosh, does he ever remind me of Rich! he he :)

We went to the Wild Animal Park and a pumpkin patch a couple weekends ago and the babies did great. It was an adventurous day! Katherine liked the hay more than the pumpkins, and Kai didn't really like the crowds of people. It takes him a little longer to warm up to other people. But we all had fun and got some good pictures.

Next Wednesday Kai will be having his surgery. He will be under general anesthesia for 2 hours and I am so incredibly anxious and scared. He didn't do well with anesthesia with his first surgery...and the memories of him being on a ventilator for 24 hours and then under a hooded tent and not being able to even touch him for another 24 hours is still very fresh on my mind. My heart absolutely aches just thinking about it. I'm sure his recovery process will be interesting as well, since he's my 'sensitive' boy. I have a feeling I'll have a little boy attached to me for a few days. Good thing Katherine is pretty independent.

But I know he'll do fine and soon this will be another milestone that we have accomplished....

Double Babies, Double Ear Infections...

Katherine and Kai both have double ear infections. Two nights ago Rich and I had about 1/2 hour to an hour of sleep all night. Kai would not let me put him down, literally, and I had to lie with him on my chest most of the night through. Thankfully we had a much better night last night, as I've only been awake since 4am today. It's amazing how you can still function on such little sleep...am I functioning?

It's so sad to watch your little babies while they are sick. And it's super hard when they both want to be cuddled at the same time, but you've only got room for one at a time! I had to call in sick to work yesterday, and Rich did the same, so I was so thankful there were another set of arms here to cuddle!

Katherine is obsessed with putting her toes in her mouth lately. She also does something that melts my heart every night - she gets a little silly when she is really tired before bed. She started doing it while my mom was here visiting for the month. She will drink a little bit, then you look down at her and she'll give you the biggest smile ever, and sometimes a little giggle. She'll do it every time you look at her. So cute.

Kai is going to follow in daddy's footsteps and be an engineer I think. It's amazing how much he studies his toys. He will grab a rattle and look at it in every direction possible. He is certainly going to be on the move soon. Today he was lying on his blanket on his tummy with some toys, and I left to wash bottle for a couple minutes. When I came back he was on the wood floor smacking it with his hands. He loves to do that.

At the pediatrician today, Kai was 18 pounds, 3 ounces and Katherine was 14 pounds, 13 ounces. Gosh, they are getting so big! Kai is doing fantastic on his new Alimentum Formula. Who knows if he'll be lactose or soy intolerant. Oh I sure hope not! The pediatrician chatted a bit about trying to give up the binkies in a few weeks when they are over their ear infections. Oh boy - what are we going to do in the middle of the night when one wakes up and cries....it's too hard to do the 'cry it out' method when you've got another baby in the room who will certainly wake up! There should be a different set of guidelines how to get twins who share a room to both sleep through the night! Trust me, I've done my research and found nothin'!

For now, we just have to get through the ear infections. I feel very lucky that this is the first time they've gotten ear infections. Poor little things!

Don't wish time away...

For those of you fellow blog-followers, my apologies for not writing an update sooner! Where does the time go? Oh, I know....most of it goes into feeding my fussy eater Kai!

We have had battles with Kai's eating for months now. He was diagnosed with reflux, as many preemie babies have some sort of reflux. Although he doesn't fit the classic symtoms, he's been on zantac and prevacid for quite some time, and for months we thickened his formula as well. We've seen a GI specialist who wasn't all that concerned because he hasn't lost weight, and she increased his prevacid to the maximum dose. So much, in fact, that our pediatrician was surprised as he has never had a baby on that much prevacid. Not to mention, it doesn't even work...

He doesn't spit up a lot, and you can lie him flat on his back after feedings and he'll be just fine. He just absolutely hates it when you put the bottle in his mouth and make him eat. If it was up to him, he wouldn't eat a thing all day. Instead, we pretty much do circus acts to get him to drink 5 oz four times a day. Yes, that's all he eats in 24 hours, with a tablespoon of solids here and there. We stand the majority of the time (my upper body is stronger than it's been since I was a gymnast!), it usually takes an hour per feeding, and we have to walk around the house or outside, let him listen to cars driving by, and if we're desperate to sit down for a break we turn the vacuum cleaner on. (Thx Julie for the discovery!)

He's been seen by an occupational therapist in case it is an actual oral-feeding problem, which it of course isn't. For the past week we have changed his formula from the all-important Neosure to a hypo-allergenic formula called Alimentum. At just $28 for a small can, it is completely dairy free and soy free. Apparently 30% of kids with a dairy sensitivity also have a sensitivity to soy, so the GI specialist recommended cutting out everything. *Maybe* it's helping a little bit. He still requires the standing and bouncing and walking around and singing and severe distraction, but at least he isn't screaming bloody murder. We don't thicken it anymore, as the cereal has soy in it, but he does pretty well at keeping it down. An occasional projectile vomit here and there, but nothing unmanagable. So, I thought he might be hungrier and start eating more than 5 ounces at a time since it's not thickened anymore...but nope! 5 is just fine in his book. Well, 3 is ideal in his book, but mama doesn't let that happen. If we don't see a huge change in another week of the Alimentum formula, he might need an endoscopy and a biopsy of his esophogus. We're hoping to avoid this, but we need to do what's best for him. Oh, Mr. Kai. I hope you grow out of this soon! I know, someday he will come home from school and eat my entire refrigerator, and I will say 'remember when...'

As you could only imagine, life has been busier than ever because of our little eating challenges. Thankfully Katherine is quite the little eater now (drinking 5 ounces 5 times a day with solids at dinner time). When we finish with her bottle, we begin the feeding extravaganza with Kai, and poor little Katherine waits an hour for some attention. Thankfully she's really into her toys and playing with her feet. (She's figured out how to suck on her toes now, mmm). Usually she is patient, but there are many days when I am feeding Kai, singing to and bouncing him, standing on one foot with a toy between the toes in my other foot, shaking the toy in front of Katherine's face who is lying on the floor looking up at us. Oh, to be a fly on my walls, huh?

Both babies are rolling over now. Kai is rolling very often and will play with toys while on his tummy for quite awhile. We are now working on the beginning stages of crawling during physical therapy sessions. (Ugh!! Am I ready for that?) Katherine doesn't mind being on her tummy anymore, but only on her own time. She will roll over only when she really wants to. Nobody is gonna make her do something she doesn't want to, that's for sure. Kai sleeps through the night most of the time, but now that he's rolling over, he'll get onto his tummy in his sleep and then wake up because he's not used to it yet. So we just flip him over and back asleep he goes. I think he forgets how to get back onto his back while he's so sleepy. I'm sure he'll get used to sleeping on his tummy if he lands that way eventually. You never know where you'll find him in the crib when he wakes up. He's hysterical. Katherine wakes up about once or twice a night now, only for her binkie. We were climbing up and down the stairs up to 10 times a night a few weeks ago, so we're quite pleased right now. Every now and then she will even sleep all the way through the night! Those are some joyous mornings!

Grandma and Grandpa Eichhorn came to visit the babies last weekend. They were here over Christmas while the babies were still in the NICU, Katherine just over 3 pounds and Kai just under 4 pounds. Needless to say, they were very surprised to see how big they are now! Katherine weighs around 14 1/2 pounds and Kai weighs around 18 pounds! My chunky monkey! The babies were also baptised on Sun, July 19th at St. Brigid Catholic Church. Katherine was adorable in her princess dress and Kai was very handsome in his little white suit. Both babies did extremely well throughout the entire baptism ceremony. Thank you so much to Heidi Dobbs and Carrie & Joe Schaefer for being the twins' godparents! Afterwards we hosted a little BBQ on our new deck that dad built when he was here. We are putting it to very good use this summer.

A few weeks ago we went to Josh and Heather's house for our first trip away. They babies did great in the car and slept well in the basinette portion of the pack-n-play. They loved swimming and we can't wait to take them again. We've also gone swimming at the YMCA while Julie and Michaela were visiting/helping to babysit the twins. They are definitely water babies and love taking baths. They are obsessed with their little bath toys. They are almost sitting by themselves, so they'll have lots more fun in the tub soon.

We found a new nanny named Sabrina who is wonderful with the babies. She is very patient through all of Kai's eating dilemas and we are so thankful to have found her. She is also a teacher who recently moved to San Diego with her husband, but the job market for teachers in San Diego is pretty tough right now so she is nannying for us until she finds a job. I'm selfishly hoping that won't be for awhile!

The past couple months have proven to be quite stressful and super busy. As a mom, I'm just so worried that we're missing something with Kai, and I just want him to be okay and actually enjoy eating like a baby should do. I hate to see him so upset, but I am determined to not allow him to lose weight and I must keep going no matter how much my arms ache and how much my back hurts! I know this is just a phase. Nothing is as stressful as our 3 month NICU stay, but these past couple months have ranked right up there. As much as I can't wait for him to outgrow this phase, I don't want to wish any time away...

Childcare stresses

I am so sad to write that we have lost our wonderful nanny, Kalli. Her boyfriend was in a tragic pool accident after they both attended a friend's wedding last weekend in Wisconsin. He fractured vertabrae in his neck and bruised his spinal cord, and his recovery process will be a long journey. She does not know when/if she will ever return to San Diego. Please keep them both in your prayers for a full recovery.

So our adventure in finding a new nanny has begun. What an incredibly stressful time right now. Not only am I concerned about Kalli and her boyfriend, but I am obviously very concerned for my own family as well. It was difficult finding our first nanny - she has got to be the perfect fit, and Kalli was absolutely that. We are now pressured to find someone in a hurry, as I cannot continue to call in sick to work. Thankfully Emily, one of their NICU nurses, will be watching the babies for a few hours tomorrow while I'm working. However, next week we have no back-up plan. Who has a back-up plan for terrible tragedies like this?

We will certainly miss Kalli, and I know the babies will also. I can only pray that we find someone as wonderful as she is. Who ever thought child-care would be so stressful?