BBQ!

Today was a day of firsts: (1) we went to Sonny's bar-b-q for the first time this holiday, (2) we went out to eat with both boys at the same time, and (3) Matt and James made their first-ever trip to Sonny's. Grandpa and grandma were with us so that we outnumbered the babies. Matthew got a little fussy halfway though the meal so grandma held him. James slept most of the time.
[James is in the first 2 pictures, Matthew is pictured with Melanie.]

Paci Tales

The babies' motor skills are getting better every day. A few days ago, the babies were under their play gyms, and James was lying on his side happily sucking away on his pacifier. Matthew looked over at him, and with one smooth motion, grabbed the handle of the paci and pulled it right out of James's mouth. James was quite surprised and not all amused! (Don't worry, we gave James his paci right back.)

Then today, James was playing on his activity mat, and he grabbed a nearby paci and put it in his mouth. He didn't get it in quite right, and it didn't stay there long, but hey, it's progress!

My mom tells me I was just like James as a baby. I loved my pacifier, but when I got a cold, I couldn't breathe with it in my mouth. "That was a long few days," she said. (And yes, our little guys still have some congestion!)

[Top picture: Yes, Mike's shirt is inside out and backwards; he'd just gotten finished bathing Matthew. Mattie is in yellow and Jamesie is in blue. Bottom picture: Matthew with Grandpa.]

Day After Boxing Day

[The pictures are from previous days; everyone but us is now safely back at their own homes. We wish they all could have stayed longer!]

The cool thing from today is that when Mike was playing with James, Mike made an "A-yo" noise, and James repeated it back! He did it several times in a row -- pretty neat, especially since he was imitating Mike's intonation, and that particular combination and rhythm isn't a usual part of James's babbling. (I tried to get a video of it, but they'd been doing it for a little while by the time I grabbed the camera, so although James was still talking back on the video, it wasn't quite the same imitation.) Ever the scientist, Mike also just made the mouth motions without making the sound, and James didn't make the sound that time either.

I spoke too soon in my previous post about the relative lack of cold symptoms -- both of the boys were congested last night, and in fact little Jamesie slept in the swing because he seemed more comfortable being inclined a little. Matthew took forever to get to sleep. Poor little guys! They are still sniffly today.

Good thing Cousin Daniel is so adorable -- we'll forgive him for being a germ vector. :) In fairness, as his mother pointed out, the germs could also have come from somewhere else!

Daniel no longer refers to the babies as "dog"; instead, he waves at them. It's very cute.

Christmas Elves

I've heard people say that when you have children, you have more elaborate holidays. Apparently those people have children who are somewhat older than ours! This year, we didn't send any Christmas cards (sorry, y'all), didn't get the outside lights up here in Florida, only got the tree decorated thanks to Auntie Erin, and didn't even walk around to see the neighborhood luminaries! Nonetheless, it was a wonderful Christmas. We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner with family friends, and enjoyed having the family together for Christmas morning and the boys' first Christmas. (We are so happy and grateful for the gift of these babies -- we wouldn't have needed anything else!)

What else have we been up to this holiday? Well, the babies managed to catch their first cold -- perhaps inevitable with their toddler cousin walking around with a runny nose and cough. (Toddlers are not known for their excellent hand-washing skills, nor for covering their mouths when they cough.) Matthew had a fever one night (only 99.9 on the ear thermometer, but we're not sure if we believed it) and wasn't sleeping well, which led to a call to the after-hours nurse and a 3 AM run to the pharmacy for children's Tylenol. And the next night James had a runny nose and was very congested, so Mike did a 5 AM run to the pharmacy for a nose syringe. We were kicking ourselves because we have both of those at home, and we're already traveling with a Tupperware container full of medical supplies and a bag of prescription drugs, so it would have been so easy to throw those in (and the diaper cream, too)! Next time we'll know. :) James still has some congestion, but Mattie isn't really showing any symptoms beyond the occasional sniffle. I am so relieved we didn't have to go to the ER for Christmas!

On the more fun side, my parents made an appointment for Mike and I to go get massages while we were here -- ahhh, so wonderful! We also took advantage of the time away to do a bit of Christmas shopping. :)

The Wii has been fun for the whole family, except for the dogs. Unfamiliar as they are with virtual bowling, they are not used to people suddenly lunging forward and swinging their arms down for no apparent reason. At least two of the pups were accidentally bonked on the head in the midst of gameplay!

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas.

[Top picture is James, bottom is Matthew.]

Our happy family on Christmas morning. The boys (James on the left, Matt on the right) are wearing outfits provided by grandma Barr.

BELOW: Some tired babies on Christmas afternoon.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Enjoying the Chaos

The gang's all here -- Uncle Isaac and Aunt Erin arrived today, just in time for dinner. And we assembled the tree (by which I mean Nora and Erin assembled the tree; I helped with the bottom branches and then Matthew woke up and needed holding). Cousin Daniel discovered the joys of chocolate. Some of us got to go to the kiddie secondhand stores, and others of us got to go to the guitar store. So, altogether the holiday is off to a good start. Hope yours is, too!

Seating Arrangement

The second half of the trip to Florida went more smoothly than the first, because I sat in back with the little guys. (Stanley got the front seat.) Much easier to do pacifier duty that way! The babies were pretty good; they slept some, played with their toys some, and drank their bottles in their carseats (although we had to stop to burp them). The weather was miserable, grey and rainy, but we made fairly good time anyhow. (And at least we didn't have to drive in snow!)

We are happy to be at Grandma and Grandpa's house! Matthew fell asleep with Grandma and slept in her arms for a couple of hours -- just like when he first came home from the hospital. And baby James seemed quite interested in his cousin Daniel.

Learning Experience

The short story is that we intended to be in Charleston tonight visiting Uncle Isaac and Aunt Erin, but we were thwarted by a late start and road construction. It took us a bit longer than we expected to pack the van, but we still would have been okay except for the horrible stretch of South Carolina road just past the border. There was an electronic sign that said something about "expect one hour delay", but I wasn't sure as we went by whether the construction was on the main road or the exit. You would think that if it were the main road, they'd have more than one warning sign. But you would be wrong. Oh man. It took us an hour and a half to go the ten miles to the next exit, and the babies were screaming for about 50 minutes of that. This was exactly as much fun as it sounds. (I can't complain about car seats for safety, but oh, life would have been a lot better for those 50 minutes if I'd been able to pick them up. That little Matthew can throw one heck of a fit -- red face, top of his lungs -- and it turns out he has a lot of endurance as well.)

We still would have had a couple of hours to go to get to Charleston, so Auntie Erin found us a pet-friendly hotel just past the construction. As much fun as it would have been to see them tonight, it was definitely the right decision. We were so happy to get off the road that this generic hotel room seemed like heaven!

(Note to the Scott House gang: there is even a Waffle House just across the way! I doubt we'll brave it with the little ones, though.)

The babies had eventually fallen asleep, and once we got inside the hotel, they were in perfectly good spirits again (in Matthew's case, after he'd eaten). So, they did not appear to be scarred by the experience!

The kiddos did make their first stop at South of the Border, but it was too cold for any baby-neon or baby-Pedro photo opportunities.

We also learned some valuable lessons about what to pack where (note: more burp cloths in easily accessible locations.)

Over the River and Through the Woods

We're taking our traveling circus on the road (wish us luck!), so don't be concerned if a couple of days go by without updates. Hope your holiday season is off to a good start!

Woo-hoo!

We're now the proud owners of a minivan (the red one you see behind us). I bet we'll be making full use of all the cargo space!


PS: If you are local and in the market for a Toyota, we'd be happy to recommend our Internet salesman from Fred Anderson -- he was really helpful, and the whole buying process from them was very smooth and easy. Never thought I'd be able to say that about a car purchase!

Some recent video clips

The 1st video from a few days ago at the doctor's office. James was quite happy and more vocal than usual.

The clip at the bottom is from yesterday.

No Appointment Needed

The GI doc called today with James's bloodwork results, and (drumroll, please) his bilirubin is now in the normal range! (It's at .2.) His other liver numbers are also looking good. They're not quite down to normal, but they're close, and much improved over what they had been. So, the doctor doesn't think he needs to see James again, and didn't order any further blood tests, either. Hooray!!

The session with the auditory-verbal therapist went well today, too. Part of the therapy is teaching associations of certain sounds with certain common objects (toys, mostly), like trains and farm animals. She started out today with an airplane and a car, and James clearly reacted to the sounds she was making with those. They were both higher-pitched sounds, and she was just getting to the toy snake which is a lower sound, when James got fussy -- so we don't know if he would have heard that or not. The tricky part about this "Learning to Listen" aspect of the therapy for us is that some of the sounds are not the sounds we'd automatically make with these objects (so, the sound for the car is "brrrrr beep beep!", which makes sense, but isn't what I would have spontaneously done with a toy car). But the sounds are designed to cover a range of different frequencies, etc., so it will be helpful in both making sure he's exposed to all kinds of sounds and (later) in helping determine how well he's hearing each of those types of sounds.

I think Matthew will enjoy this therapy, too -- he seemed quite fascinated by the new toys and the sound effects!

As the therapist was getting ready to leave, Matthew and James were lying on their activity mats, and they were having a little conversation with each other! So cute!!

Seven Months

The boys are seven months old today! Hard to believe that it's been that long. We are so thrilled to have them -- they are more and more fun every day. (In honor of the occasion, James had another great day with his bottles -- over 500 ml today.)

Stanley was the one who got a special celebration today, though. His dogwalker from when we lived in Philly was in town visiting friends, and she came by to see Stanley. He was so thrilled to finally have someone who was actually here to see the dog! And we had a wonderful time catching up with her and hearing the news from the 'hood.

When James was in the hospital, I was occasionally reminded of her, because James and Stanley had something in common -- a social life outside of Mike and me. We knew a lot of people in our old neighborhood, but more than once we'd be out walking and someone who we'd never seen before would come up to us and greet Stanley by name. And similarly, when James was in the NICU, he was seen by some residents, specialists, etc. who we'd never met. It's not bad, but it was a little strange to have our dog and our baby have these independent lives!

We had to go over to the hospital today for some bloodwork for James, and to pick up one of his prescriptions. Our insurance is not great, but given the amount that we've cost them this past year, I have mostly just been grateful for it. But today they really annoyed me. The prescription we were getting refilled is Prilosec -- a very common reflux medicine that's over the counter unless you're a baby and need to have it specially compounded into liquid form. First, the insurance put a hold on the medicine because (heaven forbid!) I was trying to refill it three days before our thirty day supply was going to run out. But then, after the pharmacist called them, it turned out that they'd placed another hold on the medicine because they needed a medical authorization -- basically, for the doctor to call them and explain why this medicine was medically necessary. Seriously? For Prilosec? The fact that my kid is being seen by a pediatric GI specialist isn't good enough for them? Do they think we're dragging him to the hospital and paying these specialist copays for fun? Do they think giving unnecessary medication to our newborn would be our idea of a good time? And do they think this specialist is prescribing medicine just for his own amusement? Does the fact that the kid has a feeding tube not perhaps indicate to them that he might have some GI-related medical needs?

So to be clear about this, BCBS is willing to waste the time of a highly-trained pharmacist, willing to waste the time of a doctor who has had years of medical training and decades of experience, and who is chief of his division, not to mention my time, to justify a medication that is both commonly prescribed and available over the counter in another form. And do you want to know what their share of the cost of that medication would be? Fifteen dollars. That's it. Their piddly little bureaucrats are willing to take a doctor and a pharmacist away from patient care for who knows how long to justify fifteen lousy bucks. I cannot believe this is a cost-effective strategy for anyone. It's ridiculous.

Exercise

Matthew was working hard lifting his head.  At this moment he was getting tired and frustrated.  James, meanwhile, is having fun.  Below is a picture from a few days ago.