Kicking the O2 Addiction

Many of you guessed correctly! Courtney you win the RED Porsche, not black! We went to the doctor on Thursday afternoon and were told we could put Lindy's supplemental oxygen on "stand-by." What a glorious day! They told us we might need to still put it on her during naps and at night. We did end up putting it on her Thursday night but she did not need it last night!! She went all day yesterday and last night without it. I really think she enjoys not having it in her nose! It also makes it easier to keep her hearing aides on which is really good. We are still trying to adjust. I caught Drew trying to get some slack on the oxygen tubing yesterday - even though there isn't any oxygen tubing! It is hard to break our habits.

We have had a pretty busy week. Lindy had occupational therapy on Monday. We are to work on the same stuff. Cheeks, sitting, and pushing up during tummy time. Tuesday Lindy had new ear molds made. She is outgrowing the present ones we have. After her appointment Lindy got to run errands with me for the first time. She made her first trip to Wal-Mart. A big day for her! I kept her in the car seat in the cart with the shade thing pulled pretty far down and hand sanitized a million times. She did well. Will also got to go on a new adventure this week. He got to ride with Daddy to the strawberry field and get us some freshly picked strawberries. Too bad he can't eat them, they are so good!

Wednesday we had the teacher from the deaf and hard of hearing program come. She asked us a lot of questions about Lindy but didn't actually work with her. We decided to start with the auditory verbal mode of communication, where we want her to talk and listen. Depending on her vision and vocal cord paralysis, we'll add other strategies if needed. If because of her vocal cord paralysis she can't talk, then we'd eventually have to give her some way to talk to us. Some of this we will just have to wait and see. Right now our goal for her is that she becomes aware of sound.

Then Thursday we had the appointment with the NICU follow-up doctors for both babies. According to their scales, Will weighed 17 pounds 6 ounces and was 26 inches long. Lindy was 14 pounds 14 ounces and was 24 1/4 inches long. They were very impressed with Will and commented that he didn't even seem like a preemie. He is in the normal range developmentally for his adjusted age (6.5 months).

Lindy is obviously delayed but we knew this. She has some hypotonia, low tone, in her trunk. Which we also knew and is why we are working with the occupational therapist. They actually said she might be gaining a little too much weight! She is gaining weight faster than she is growing long. This means she has a lot of meat on her short bones! She had been staying nicely in the 10% (on the preemie chart) and this time she jumped up to the 25% in weight! Who thought I'd end up with chunky babies? They said we could stop adding the Neosure to her bottles and that we could take away her late night bottle.

So Thursday night we fed her at 7pm, put her to bed and she didn't wake up all night! We fed her at 7am the next morning. It's been a good week! Last night she woke up for one of her early morning parties but fell back asleep without us having to do anything. We are hoping by taking away the late night bottle that we can get more cereal in her. We'll see!

Enjoy this week's pictures. They all have Lindy in her cannula though.

Will was rolling around and took the blanket with him. One of Lindy's favorite toys. A light up wand.


If you know Drew at all then you probably know that he wears a t-shirt and tan shorts every day. It's his uniform. The babies had on their tan shorts this week. They formed the tan short club. They even made a secret handshake. Our first overnight trip to Charlotte went pretty well. A few minor glitches on the way to and from, like Lindy throwing up and Will freaking out when we got there, but otherwise it went well. We celebrated Mother's Day a week late. Here is Mimo with her granddaughters, Lindy and Molly.

Aunt Anna and Will.
We stopped by Drew's Dad's house for supper. Here is GrandBob and Suzette.

Sweet pictures at GrandBob's house.

I love this little outfit. She looked "Cute as a bug" with her ruffly skirt!A little brother-sister playtime at home. Will wouldn't leave her stuff (cannula, glasses, and hearing aides) alone that day.

The babies were sporting their Northwest Missouri State University pride this day. It's the college in Maryville MO where most of my family went, my grandparents live directly across the street from, and where my grandfather taught for 42 years.
The weather was so nice this week we had to sit outside for a little while. This shirt sums up Will the best. We call him a 'Silly Monkey' all the time.
The fresh air put Lindy to sleep!
Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. The babies want to wish their cousin Hayley a happy 5th birthday. They wish they could be at her flip-flop birthday party today!