Happy New Year's Eve

We're back in warm and sunny Florida. The trip back went fine. It was nice to go through security at a tiny airport rather than a big one (even if they did make the boys take off their Robeez to go through the scanner and swabbed their bottles to check for explosives!) Aunt Mary Ellen even came by to say goodbye to the little guys.

Delta had originally put the little guys in their own rows, which wasn't going to work, so the gate agent switched us around. It was a little puddle-jumper prop plane, but the last row had four seats -- so we all got to sit in the same row! It was awesome, and even more awesome was that the babies slept for all of that flight. Our Orlando flight was overbooked, but in practice that meant that they switched us so we were all together again rather than being separated by a couple of rows, and we also got to pre-board, which was really helpful. The flight attendants were also great. Mike sat between the boys and I was across the aisle. Mike made extensive use of the DVD player for Mattie, and had to turn his seat a little so he wasn't kicking the cranky lady in front of him, but it worked out. (We didn't have time to change his diaper before the flight, though, so it leaked all over his outfit and I got to change it and his outfit from my seat, since the seatbelt light was on -- I think I should get some parenting bonus points for that! Fortunately I had tolerant seatmates in my aisle.)

Just when we thought we had it made, we realized when we arrived in Gainesville that we had left one of our suitcases on the curb in Orlando. Ugh! We had visions of them blowing it up to make sure it wasn't a bomb, or putting us on the terror watch list. Fortunately none of that happened; it's just at the lost and found and we'll get it when Nora and Adrian fly in there in a few days.

By leaving when we did, we missed the famous Wing Night at Club Eden, but we also missed the blizzard with ice, wind, and snow that would have kept us there several more days. (Mike is disappointed that we didn't get stranded there!)

But I'm enjoying the 70 degree weather here -- we took the boys to the playground today and didn't even need coats! And we spent a nice New Year's Eve with family friends, though it looks like Mike and I will be the only ones up at midnight.

Happy New Year to you all!

More Winter Fun

Matthew was delighted to find a big chunk of snow on his walk -- he kept saying "ice! ice!"

And when the boys were napping, we visited Mike's cousins who were out ice fishing. They didn't catch anything while we were there, but we got to see them drill some holes and set the flags. The ice was more than a foot thick.

Ice fishing has become more of a high-tech enterprise than it used to be. They now have a little sonar gizmo to show where the fish are!

Sled Ride

It warmed up to the 20s today, so we were able to take the boys outside.  In the morning, we pulled them around the streets on the sled. Mattie seemed to enjoy it, but James, not as much.  I don't think he likes his winter coat very much. By the time we came back inside, his poor little cheeks were red and he'd somehow gotten them scratched up -- they took one tumble into the snow, so it might have been that. 

So in the afternoon, we just took Mattie out and let Jamesie stay home for indoor fun with Grandma.  This time we went sledding down the little sledding hill that Chris had made in one of the snowbanks. Mike took Mattie down a couple times, and he seemed to have fun.  Cousin Cooper wasn't into sledding this time, but enjoyed building his snow fort.

Outdoor Vacuum

Matthew liked going sledding today, but he might have liked Grandpa's shovel even more. 

Aunties and Cousins

We enjoyed a visit from Aunt Margie, Aunt Mary Ellen, and Cousin Eric yesterday afternoon.  (Georgia cooked a lunch of "leftovers" which was nicer than most of the regular meals at our house!) 

Later in the afternoon, Cousin Angie stopped by for a while.  Matthew had just gotten up from what was supposed to be his nap (but which was mostly resisting his nap).  We asked if he wanted to sit with Angie, and in contrast to his reaction to Santa, not only was he happy to do so, he had a big smile on his face most of the time!  I guess now we know that Mattie likes to sit with pretty ladies instead of guys with funny hats and long beards.  :) 

We also had a nice visit with the Dunns, neighbors across the street.  Mr. Dunn was Mike's 7th grade teacher, and Mrs. Dunn was the long-time mayor of Eden.  They have grandkids around the boys' age, so Matthew and James enjoyed the visit because of all the great toys!

Merry Christmas from Winter Wonderland

Merry Christmas! Hope you all had a cozy and wonderful holiday.


It is -4 degrees here at the present time.  :)

Santa Stops By

Santa made a special visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house! Matthew and James weren't willing to sit on his lap, but they did shake his hand and give him a high five.

Christmas Eve in Eden

Santa visited Grandma and Grandpa's house while we were at Mass. (We took Jamesie and Mattie straight to the cry room at church, which turned out to be the right decision -- they were not in a mood to sit still! There was another set of twins in there, and a lady came in with her little girl midway through the service -- and all of them were NICU grads. The other little ones had all been under two pounds at birth. The twins were 25 weekers and the other girl was a 26 weeker. We're not used to our guys being the "big ones"!)

Cousin Quinn got a toy vacuum cleaner for Christmas, but Mattie has been playing with it almost non-stop ever since. Fortunately, Quinn is a very nice cousin and doesn't mind sharing it! He also carried around her Christmas baby doll quite a bit.

Mattie and James got a ride-on tractor from Santa! (Thank you, Santa!) They both like it a lot, too, and it even came with little animals to ride along!

Cooper and Quinn each got a Pillow Pet, which they have been wanting for months. It was so neat to see how excited they were about the Pillow Pets -- they could have gotten nothing else and it still would have been a great Christmas for them. Even this morning, Cooper was still saying, "And I opened the box and there was a Pillow Pet inside!"

Quinn and Cooper also had a lot of fun helping Grandma and Grandpa open their gifts. :)

Aunt Joy and Uncle Joe came over to celebrate with us, and we all enjoyed Grandma Georgia's gumbo for dinner.

SoDak

We finally arrived at Grandma and Grandpa Barr's house at 4:30 AM or so, after several delays getting out of Minneapolis.  (People on the plane were remarkably calm about the whole thing, even when Matthew was screaming his head off.  A couple of people commented that I picked the right baby, since I was sitting with James, who happily played for a while and then fell asleep.)  Our thanks to Uncle Chris, who braved the snowy middle of the night roads to pick us up from the airport!

We'll definitely be having a white Christmas here -- Merry Christmas Eve to you all!

Go Go Go

We sprung Stanley from the doggie hospital yesterday morning. The senior vet student who'd been taking care of him said that he'd made a lot of friends there and that everyone loved him because he was so cute. :)

He was happy to see us (and we were thrilled to see him). He's walking but not well yet; he can do it on his own but there's still a pretty pronounced limp, about like it was when we first took him to the regular vet. Hopefully he'll continue to improve.

We started our trip down to Florida straight from the vet school. The boys were really good travelers -- they spent time looking at their books and took a nap, too. We only had one bad hour (out of an eleven hour trip), so that seems like a pretty good ratio. We had gotten a list beforehand of McDonald's with playlands on our route, and we stopped at one around dinnertime to let the boys run around. It worked really well; even though Playlands are designed for slightly older kids, there was one slide and some steps that the boys could handle, and it let them get some energy out.

We arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's pretty late, maybe around 11 PM. The boys had been sleeping, but of course woke up when we got there, and ended up playing with Grandma and all her wonderful toys until past midnight. (Matthew was delighted to see that Grandma and Grandpa had a vacuum, and he spent a while turning it on and off. He was especially impressed that their vacuum had a light on it!)

Stanley had to go in his crate, and he wasn't too happy about that, but he puts up with it pretty well as long as he's in the same room as the people.

As for Matthew, just when he thought it couldn't get any better, Grandma let him eat puffs right out of the container at breakfast! And James liked having lots of dogs around to throw balls for (even though I don't think any of the dogs actually chased the balls).

We left for the Orlando airport after lunch, and made it in good time for our flight. I'm using the inflight wireless to write this (woo-woo) since James is sleeping. We've already had one poop explosion (James) and two throw-ups (one Mattie and one James) and we still have our connection and the ride to the other grandparents' house to go, so hopefully we won't need to go through too many more outfits! (They're not sick, the barfing is just because they cried and got upset on a full tummy. Mattie was objecting to being strapped into his carseat on the plane, and James was objecting to having his diaper changed on the plane.) Other than that, the trip is going well. :)

How About That

Stanley showed improvement again this morning, so instead of surgery, they're willing to send him home with us! They still think that surgery would be a reasonable course of action, but now the "conservative course" of strict rest also seems more reasonable. Hooray!

So, if he's still showing improvement tomorrow morning, we are going to pick him up and drive down to Florida to catch our plane to South Dakota on Thursday. It's a little crazy, mainly because I'm not at all sure the boys will do well with being in the car that long. But we've been repeatedly told by the vets that car travel shouldn't be a problem for Stanley, as long as he doesn't jump out of the car. And he's not doing the SD leg of the trip; he'll be staying at Grandma and Grandpa Green's dog resort.

Temporizing

Stanley showed a slight improvement in his condition this morning -- when the vet stood him up, he could stand, and take one or two shaky steps. So, we've decided to delay the surgery and see what happens tomorrow. The vet still thinks the surgery is probably the best way to go. Unfortunately, since this is right in the midst of the holidays, we probably have to make a decision tomorrow since they're only doing emergency cases on Christmas weekend.

Either way, for recovery he'd have 4-6 weeks of strict rest (most likely in a crate). He's a freedom-loving dog, so that's going to be rough -- he generally hates being crated and hasn't had to do it very much.

On for Monday

The vet called this morning, and told us that Stanley's condition was the same -- so, it's good that it hadn't gotten worse. (I was sort of hoping for improvement, but we'll take what we can get.) He's scheduled for an MRI at 1 PM tomorrow, and assuming they see what they expect (a disc problem), they'll take him straight into surgery from there. The surgery itself takes about 3 hours, so we don't expect to hear anything from them until the evening.

The vet who called is a second-year resident, and he said he'd already done hundreds of these kinds of surgeries. We had no idea it was that common. He said Stanley is an excellent candidate for the surgery because he's otherwise in good health.

If Stanley shows any improvement tomorrow morning, they'll give us the option of whether to go ahead with the surgery or not. It seems like they would recommend still doing it, because if he partially heals but then injures it again, the surgery would be more difficult or maybe have somewhat lower odds of success because of the calcification that would result. But we'll cross that bridge if we come to it; given the extent of his problems, the previous vets we spoke to didn't think it was likely that he'd start recovering on his own. (Poor baby!)

We really miss having him around the house, and we are heavy-hearted about both Stanley having to go through all this and the fact that we will almost certainly miss seeing Mike's family for the holidays.

It's a bit ironic that one of Matthew's new words is "Stanley" -- he pointed to the picture of Stanley in the photobook and said something that sounded like "Shan-shan." (He was definitely trying to say Stanley, but it wasn't one of his clearer words.) I don't think the boys miss Stanley, per se; they love him, but at their age I don't know if they have enough of a sense of time to realize that he's not just in another room or something like that. (We've told them that his legs are hurt and he's at the doctor, but they probably don't understand that.) One of the (many) difficult parts of the recovery will be getting Matthew to understand that he can't hug his doggie for a while.

Mattie's other recent words include broom, bowl, spoon, and knee (although I'm not certain he's clear on the distinction between the knee and the leg). I'm also becoming more sure that the "ish" that he sometimes says before words really means "it's." I didn't think they'd be using pronouns at this age, but he's pretty consistent with it.

They have some fake fruits and vegetables that come in multiple pieces, but stick together with velcro so that you can "cut" them. Mattie was trying to pull one of them apart, and having a tough time with it. Then he said, "knife" and ran off to find his toy knife to cut it with. I was impressed! (I'm less impressed that he sometimes likes to run around with the toy knife in his mouth because he knows he's not allowed to do that! He was not pleased when the knife had to go bye-bye for a while.)

One of the skills the developmental inventories ask about is building towers with blocks. James has been doing towers of two blocks for a while, and he's now moved on to three-block towers! Until now, Mattie has shown no interest in doing anything but knocking blocks over, but yesterday he also managed a two-block tower. Go, little builders!

Mike wants me to note that the chair in the bottom picture was built by James's great-great-grandfather, Joseph Opitz.

Wish us luck for tomorrow -- we're hoping all goes well for our puppy.

Vet Hospital

We took Stanley back to the vet today, and his condition had deteriorated -- he was losing sensation in his back legs. The vet said we needed to take him to the emergency clinic at the vet school, because if the deterioration progressed further, the prognosis was very poor. (I knew it was going to be bad news by the tone in his voice -- both people and animal doctors get this same extra-calm voice when they're about to tell you something awful.)

So Mike took him there and they got him right in, but then it took several hours for them to do the diagnostic stuff that they needed to do. (They gave Stanley pain medication so that he was mostly comfortable and sleeping, though.) They do think that it is a slipped or ruptured disc, so he is scheduled for surgery on Monday to relieve the spinal compression. His condition seemed to be holding steady, but if they see signs that he's worsening, they would take him to surgery right away.

The surgery has a 90% success rate. (When I heard that, I thought, hmm, interesting, that's the same as the survival rate for a 27-week preemie, but then I double checked in the Preemie book and the survival odds for a 27-weeker are actually lower than that. So, moving on...)

He'll have to stay in the hospital for a few days to recover after the surgery, and then there's also a couple of weeks of recuperation at home with limited activity, etc. Poor little guy.

The dog hospital process is remarkably similar to people hospital -- you still have to be an advocate for your patient. (But at least we don't have to be there 24/7 like we did after James's surgery! In fact, although we're allowed to visit Stanley tomorrow, they discouraged us from doing it -- it would just get him wound up and upset when we had to leave. I think their plan is to keep him pretty much sedated all day, anyhow.) Mike and I both have the strong temptation to call and check in on him just like we did with the boys when they were in the NICU, but the vet hospital didn't seem to encourage that, either.

It's awful that he has to have surgery, but we're glad it's an option -- when we left the regular vet's office, we weren't sure whether the emergency vet would have even worse news for us.

Our First Baby

We took Stanley to the vet this morning because he was more or less losing control of his hind legs, and tucking his rear end under when he tried to walk. The vet said that he has some kind of spinal injury (they don't know exactly what, but possibly something like  slipped disc), and that in dogs this can be caused by something as simple as slipping on ice or jumping off a couch. The X-ray didn't show anything, but apparently it often doesn't for these kinds of injuries. The vet prescribed an anti-inflammatory and a muscle relaxant. Sometimes these kinds of things heal themselves with rest over several days or weeks, but other times they require surgery (and at least according to Internet, can sometimes lead to paralysis.)

It's very sad and scary to see him like this. But he's not whimpering and for the most part doesn't seem to be in obvious pain, though he can't really stand up on his own (especially on slippery surfaces like the kitchen floor or hardwoods), which I'm sure is frustrating for him, since he's used to running around all over the place and following us wherever we go.

We're going to go back to the vet tomorrow and get some "doggie Valium", since he sometimes seems to be a little agitated (again, I think because he wants to get up and move but really can't, and shouldn't) -- so a little sedation will probably help the healing process. We're also going to ask again about steriods to reduce any swelling he might be having that could be putting pressure on his spinal nerves.

Oh, and as for the rest of our day, we had to have the furnace people come out because the furnace was leaking. We took James to the pediatrician for his vaccinations and Synagis, but discovered that he has a rash all down his chest and tummy only after we got home (although our babysitter said she saw it this morning, so it's not a reaction to the shots). And Mike's on a deadline for work and I had to give the final exam for my class and turn in class grades this evening. So, we're pretty much exhausted.

We were supposed to leave for the Charleston leg of our trip tomorrow, but we're postponing to see how Stanley's doing. (He's coming with us, but if his condition gets worse, we'd rather be here than on the road.) I think it's the right decision, but I'm really disappointed to miss out the plans we'd made for our visit with Erin and Isaac.

On the bright side, one of Mattie's new words is "wreath." Very seasonal!  (Another is "pepper" for his toy green pepper.)

All Done

Jamesie seemed to be back to his normal self this evening, and happy to be able to eat again!

Mattie had his 18 month checkup at the pediatrician today. (Oh, yes, the medical party never stops around here.) He got a clean bill of health, but the best part of the appointment was that midway through the doctor's exam, Mattie turned around, hugged me around the neck, and said, "All done!" I guess he told her! Too funny. (Alas, he was not all done, but as usual he recovered quickly from the shots.)

Quick Update

James is home and everything went fine with the procedure.  We had to wait around for a long time because one of the cases before us took an hour and a half longer than they expected, so that wasn't a lot of fun, but it's all done now.  James has very small ear canals, so they had to put in extra-tiny tubes. The doc is not as confident that these will work as well as the regular ones, but he got the fluid out that was in there, so we'll see how it goes. We have some ear drops to give him for a few days, and I was a bit disappointed to learn that we can't put his hearing aids in for a few days until all the fluid clears up (they don't want anything blocking the ears). We'll just have to remember to get close to him when we're speaking. Jamesie fell asleep on the ride home and he's still napping. 

PT Pass

Last week James had another evaluation from the physical therapist, at our request. (Of course, in between when we requested the eval and when it actually happened, he started doing a lot more walking!) The PT was the same one who did his original evaluation way back when he first came home from the hospital, and she is awesome. We were excited to get to see her again.

And she said that James is doing great, and that she's not worried about anything. She was excited about all his walking, and although she gave us some suggestions for exercises to do to help him keep increasing his balance and skill, she said it looked like all the right skills were developing and that this was in the normal timeframe for his adjusted age. Yay!

We didn't mention this before, but James's progress in this area makes us especially happy because back when he was in the hospital, one of the things we were told he was at risk for was motor problems. Specifically, the doctor said, "When it comes time to crawl, he might not crawl. When it comes time to walk, he might not walk. Or he might be completely fine. We just won't know until the time comes." So although we were pretty sure early on that this wasn't going to be a worst case scenario, that whole "might never walk" possibility was still a little source of worry. But now, he's obviously walking! (Still doing a lot of crawling, too, but that's okay.) So, rock on, James!!

We didn't get the first thing in the morning time slot for his ear tube surgery tomorrow; he's scheduled for 11:30 AM instead. Mike is happy not to have to get up at the crack of dawn, but it's a bummer because James can't have any food after midnight and no liquids after 8 AM, so it probably won't be a very happy morning for him.

Hammer Time

In the first hour he was awake this morning (sadly, an hour that started with the number 5), Mattie said three new words! Hammer, neigh (for his rocking horse), and wee-wee. Go, Mattie! And it didn't end there; he also said "noodle" (he wanted some spaghetti for lunch), and he tried to say "clock" (although it came out more like "la").

He loves lights of all kinds, and he is especially excited about the Christmas lights. Mike put some up on the bushes outside the other day, and this morning Mattie was pointing to them saying, "Dada! Lights! Dada! Lights!"

Another new word for him is "hot." We have a DVD of Christmas shows, and one of the bonus features is a "virtual fireplace", which Mike really likes.  So, the fake fire is "hot", and when I told Mattie last night that he had a fire truck on his pajamas, he said, "hot! hot! hot!"  So I guess he associates fire with hot!

So far he also seems to be using his power of no only for good. I asked him this morning if he wanted any more milk, and he said, "No. Uh-uh." Good to know!

He also, amazingly, has suggested bedtime on his own, twice! Tonight we were getting ready for bed and we went downstairs to say goodnight to the Christmas tree lights. He played with his toys for a few minutes, and I said that we could go night-nights after he was done riding on his rocking horse. He got off the horse, looked at one other toy, and then grabbed his bottle and said "night night" and headed for the stairs to go up to bed! What a good boy! He's still not happy about being left in his crib by himself (after snuggles from Mommy and a goodnight song from Daddy, so he's not just being tossed in there), but the crying was less tonight than previous nights, so we'll see. (On the other hand, we tried it for naptime yesterday and that was a complete disaster; he never did nap.) But I'm very impressed that he is sometimes recognizing that it's time for bed.

Holiday Gathering

The boys helped host their first holiday gathering this evening. We had a few neighbors over for snacks and desserts. It was really nice. We did most of the bedtime routine before the party (dinner, bath, jammies), so I think the babies were a bit surprised when instead of going night-nights, people started arriving!

Matthew (who is not normally shy) wouldn't let me put him down for the first part of the evening (though he did let other people hold him briefly), but later on he had a good time playing with Charlotte. James also wanted to be held for the beginning of the party, and he gave his seal of approval to Y's spinach and artichoke dip. (Yum!)

Charlotte was not only the official sugar cookie decorator, but she also appointed herself caretaker of the boys. We would occasionally hear things like, "No, baby, no!" from down the hall, and sometimes she would sort of tackle them if she thought they were going in the wrong direction. They all seemed to be having a good time, though, so whatever works!

Mattie was also fascinated with baby E. He kept saying "baby! baby!" and very gently touched her hair. He also was quite interested when he had his bottle and she had her bottle. Just as everyone was getting ready to go home, I was holding E, and Mattie and Jamesie both came up and grabbed on to my legs, looking extremely concerned! ("Wait a second, that's MY mommy!") I gave E back to her own mommy, and had to pick up both the boys at once (not something I make a habit of, since they're getting heavy these days!)

We took advantage of this occasion to open two special bottles of wine: one from our trip to Austria with Mike's parents, and one from our trip to an island in Germany called Fraueninsel. In Austria, one of Grandma Georgia's distant cousins, Gerhard, spent a day taking us around the Burgenland. Our tour ended at a wine tavern in the hills outside Vienna, owned by one of Gerhard's friends. It was a great meal with lots of wine and stories and a visit from the winemaker. The bottle we opened tonight was from that winery. The other was made by the nuns at the Abbey on the island in the Chimesee (a lake an hour or so outside of Munich), where we stayed for a conference. It was a gorgeous island and it rained for almost all of the three days we were there! But we treasure our memories of the sunny hour or so we had. :) Anyhow, it was great to relive the memories and share them with friends.

P.S. Mattie's new words: knife (for his play knife in the kitchen set, we obviously don't allow him real ones), ride (he wanted me to give him a ride in his shopping cart), yeah (though he's probably been saying that for a while, it seems more clear now), and (I'm slightly sad to report) no.

We had the television on to the Christmas music channel, and Jamesie saw the snowman on the screen, and signed "bird." Hee hee! Not quite, kiddo, but I can see how that carrot nose would look like a beak.