Monday, April 11, 2011

Return of the sickness

Hi everyone, sorry that we haven't updated that frequently this week; I've been sick with a stupid bronchitus infection, the boys have been not feeling the best, and Alex has been exhausted and stresssed with her night shift Panera bread job. Whew... so exhausting. Also in other notes, I find it completely ironic that I have a better chance right now finding a position with a school district in administration doing similar work that I used to do than as a teacher. So. Crazy. Ugh.

Anyway, back to the babies. They've been feeling under the weather this last week, and really only have started to feel better in the last couple of days. Sickness seems to come with the terretory of school though, so I suppose this will not end for 16 or so years.

Eli and Jude are also developing so well these days. They're big talkers, giving full sentences regularly, and they're calling everyone by their names these days and can even remember things that have happened in the not so distant past with them. It's really exciting to see them growing into little young children.

Oh, one thing I'm really tired of is Toy Story. The boys have only wanted to watch "Buzz and Woody!" for the last couple of days, I think I'm going to gouge out my eyes over the Toy Story overload. Definitely used to be one of my favorite animated movies, but not any longer.

Other advancements with the boys: they've discovered how to open doors, extremely successfully. We tried to get door knob locks for their room so they'd go to sleep at bedtime of 7:30 instead of playing with the door until 9pm, but they dismantled the best we could find in about 30 seconds. I finally had enough on Sunday and reversed the door knobs during their naptime. This means that the door inside their room cannot be opened without the key when it's locked, a key which we store in the top of the room door (somewhere they have no idea where it is). It's worked wonderfully so far; the boys hate being locked in there, but that's the only way they will actually sleep. The past few nights they've gone to sleep at a normal time, and my sanity has been restored to fullness again. Oh, one concern we had about it would be little ones taking off their diapers and spreading a poopy mess all over their room, but that fear has been minimized by the fact the boys seem to be smarter than to do that these days.

Okay, well now what you've probably been waiting for, the new little video of the boys. I took it on my ipad, which isn't the best camera, but really haven't had a whole lot of time or places to take videos being sick! This one is of the boys playing with their aunties in the pool, which was surprisingly warm enough to dive into this week. I got in shortly after this video was taken, and I'd rate its temperature around 74~75F, which is equivalent to some of the lakes I used to swim in at Pennsylvania, but it was passable none the less and the boys really, really loved the opportunity to swim! Eli bonked his face on a bar getting out of the pool, so he has a bit of a fat lip from the cut, but otherwise, everyone did fine!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Marching for Healthy Babies

Some of you may remember that we participated in fund raising for the March of Dimes March For Babies last year.  We fully intended to participate in the walk too, but my back problems were making walking long distances extremely hard and we ended up skipping the actual event.  This year, depending on how tired I am, we will most likely attend and show off what handsome, healthy NICU graduates we have!  Thinking about how much they've grown and changed since those first weeks of life never fails to bring me to tears.  At the time, it was so hard to imagine the future when we'd have active, healthy little boys.  Today, it's hard to believe they were ever so small.

I'd like to share with you (a slightly edited version of) the post I wrote about this time last year about why I support the March of Dimes.  I hope that you'll also take a moment and give whatever spare change you have around your house - and I know that might not be much, given the current economy - to this very worthy cause.

I thought I'd take a moment and talk about the March of Dimes. I'm participating in the March for Babies in [35] days for so many reasons. The March of Dimes itself is a fantastic charitable organization with the goal of funding research for healthy pregnancies and providing support to families of premature infants and infants born with serious illnesses and birth defects. Their mission is to have every baby born healthy and give doctors and nurses the resources they need to care for the ones that are not! I think this is a lofty goal, but one that I can stand behind with my whole heart.

Many of you know that Eli and Jude are preemies. We were incredibly lucky to make it to 34 weeks gestation - just six weeks shy of their due date - when so many twins are born at 32, 28, and even a stunning 24 weeks. My perinatologist even awarded me a "bronze medal" when I made it to 32! March of Dimes has funded and pioneered research that helped me reach those milestones and also the research that helped Eli and Jude come home from the NICU four weeks earlier than the neonatologist originally predicted. I honestly believe that the work March of Dimes has done to educate doctors of the importance of kangaroo care had a huge impact on their NICU stay.

I also walk for my friends and family who have lost their babies before getting the chance to meet them. Recently I've met a shocking number of women who have lost babies late in their pregnancy or shortly after birth and it breaks my heart. These women - and their significant others - are everywhere and wear silent scars. I cannot imagine the pain they feel and can only hope that continued research will prevent other women from suffering such a loss.

The March for Babies is coming up fast and I'm working hard to raise money for this amazing cause. Seriously, who wouldn't support a group that strives for healthy babies? I'm not one who likes to ask for money but... DONATE PLEASE! I still have a long way to reach my goal but every dollar makes a difference. If you want to donate but don't want to give directly to me, please donate to my team - The Austin Moms of Multiples. You can click on the sidebar here on our blog, or visit my personal fund raising page here.

I too hope that one day, all babies will be born healthy. Please help me help the March of Dimes in their work to make that goal a reality.