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!

Contest

The first person to guess what's different in this picture gets world-wide fame and a brand new red Porsche. he he.

Check it out.

Monkeys and Disco Parties

Happy Mother's Day to Me! Pictures from my first ever Mother's Day. We had a nice trip to church where I won a hanging basket for having the youngest kids there! After church we had lunch at IHOP. Don't laugh at my choice of restaurants. I wanted French toast on my day! It was a wonderful day. Our anniversary was nice too, although it kind of got swept to the side.

Sweet church outfits! I LOVE Lindy's dress and sweater. Thanks Pam!

The rest of our week has been good. Governor Morehead (for vision) came on Monday and she brought new toys. She brought some pretty cool light up ones this time which both babies love.

Tuesday we had a lady from a program called Beginnings come to the house. It's a program for parents of kids that are deaf or hard of hearing. They explain a lot about hearing loss to you and they introduce the ways that Lindy can learn. Drew and I will have to be choosing a way for her to learn this week. Big decision. We can either use an auditory verbal approach where we want her to listen and talk, or use only sign language, or use a combination of the two. There are always things to take into consideration, such as her vision loss and how bad her hearing really is. Always something fun around our house.

Wednesday Drew spoke at a neonatal conference for nurses in Hickory. A lady we met and talked with a lot in the NICU at Baptist asked him to give a father's perspective of the NICU experience. He said everything went well. He got to see a lot of people from Baptist, a nurse from Forsyth where the babies were born, and even an attending doctor from Duke that took care of Lindy.

We are being brave and adventurous again this weekend. Tomorrow night we are headed out for our first overnight trip. We are finally getting down to Charlotte to visit Drew's parents. I started a list last weekend of everything to take. It's a bit ridiculous for one night! Wish us luck on our overnight adventures!

A few pictures from the week. Silly Willy waiting to take a bath!

Silly Monkey loving his feet!

I love how Lindy has her eyes cut to the green cup in this picture. Good times during bath night. Have I ever mentioned how much we hate bath night? WE HATE IT!!!!
Awhile back I said Lindy liked to have parties in her crib and no one believed me. Here is proof!!
With no flash you can see Lindy enjoying her disco ball. One of the cool things the Governor Morehead lady brought.

10,000 Visitors and A Big Weekend

Our blog has had over 10,000 visitors to it. That's pretty crazy! Who wouldn't want to see the cutest babies ever each week? Get ready for a ton of pictures. I had so many cute ones from this week that I had a hard time choosing. So I just posted a lot of them! This is going to be a long post.

We have had a good week. It was pretty quiet. Monday we had occupational therapy at the house. She watched Lindy eat cereal and was impressed with how well she did. The problem with Lindy and cereal is that she just isn't hungry enough for it. I don't give her much at all but a lot of times she won't finish her next bottle. We're kind of stuck right now. The OT wants us to keep stretching her cheeks and work on her upper body strength. She doesn't push up much on her belly. We also had the NC Early Intervention Program for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing come out this week to sign us up. It’s another free program (like Governor Morehead for vision) that works with kids with hearing impairments. We just did paperwork and talked briefly about what they do. They will come back in a couple weeks to actually start working with her.

Practicing sitting up

I think Lindy might have gained those two pounds last month in her chin!

A cute outfit.

Will has just been chilling out this week. Still rolling away. He's getting a little better at rolling belly to back. He has tried oatmeal and prunes this week and ate both just fine. I didn't think the prunes were very good though. I think they might be responsible for the blowout all over his clothes this morning. We hadn't had one of those in awhile!

This is one of my new favorite pictures of him. He is starting to sit up pretty well. Too bad it usually compresses his stomach and makes him spit-up.

The camera used flash and over-exposed him. Oh well, it's still cute.

I felt Will was getting a little bored with his play time lately so I busted out the exersaucer. Technically they are not really recommended for preemies. I have asked why and they said that preemies have a tendency to walk on their tippy toes because of all the heel sticks they received in the NICU. The way they hang in the exersaucer can reinforce this. We have only let him hang out in it for short periods of time but he seems to love it. We need to rig it up so he can stand with his feet flatter in it. We tried Lindy but she was a little short for it still. These were our sweet church clothes last week (from Aunt Amy). Yes, we went to church again. Two weeks in a row! The babies went to the nursery and did fine. We think this picture is hilarious. Look at the way she is checking him out! Too funny!
Lindy can be such a snuggle bug sometimes!

Yesterday was a great day for us. We were feeling a bit adventurous. I had seen an advertisement for the Mayfest in Pilot Mountain. We decided to check out this little street festival. It was just like any other street festival, mostly junk, but it was fun to get outside and walk around with the babies. I didn’t realize we would attract so much attention. The double stroller is a little big I guess. We had a few issues afterwards with warming up bottles but we got everyone fed and happy. We took off from there and headed to Pilot Mountain State Park. We were able to drive up and look around a little bit. They had some very short trails that gave you awesome views. We couldn’t stay too long because we were just carrying the babies and they were getting heavy!! We left there and headed to King for our first ever trip to a restaurant with our babies! I told you we were feeling adventurous! It went really well. Lindy was asleep most of the time and Will was really good. I had brought all of his cereal and veggies, spoons and bowls and I fed him while waiting for our food. Then he sat pretty patiently while we ate. We even ordered dessert they were so good. All in all, we had a great day out and about with the babies.

Will in the double beast stroller at Mayfest.

Sweet Lindy having fun in the back with Mommy! She was being so cute!

Pictures from Pilot Mountain State Park.

What an amazing view.

Pilot Knob. Isn't it strange looking?

In honor of it being my first Mother’s Day I have included myself in some pictures. It’s my little ode to myself. Happy Mother’s Day to me! I’ve been through an awful lot to become a mother but it’s been worth it. I have two beautiful babies at home with me. I wish I had three beautiful babies at home with me. I'm so thankful for the two I do have, but it's hard not to miss the one you don't have.

My precious baby boy.

And my precious baby girl.

Would you believe that my first ever Mother’s Day is also my 6 year wedding anniversary? It’s been an amazing 6 years! Drew and I always have so much fun together. We have had a unique relationship in the fact that we spend a lot of time together. With Drew’s office at home for the last 5 years and me usually just working part-time, we see each other a lot. And yet we still like to hang out together! Happy Anniversary Drew!

Awww, so sweet!!!!!!

Thank You Amy and Hayley!

I want to thank my sister, niece, and their friends for walking in the March for Babies last weekend in honor of Lindy and Will and in memory of Adam. My sister's friends Lisa, Shelly, and Melissa rounded out the Kansas City Million Dollar Babies team. I knew they were walking but had no idea my sister had made t-shirts for herself and Hayley. I love the shirts and pictures and had to share them with everyone.

KC Million Dollar Babies team. Amy (my sister on far left who is about 7 months pregnant with another little girl and looks great!), Hayley, Lisa, Melissa, and Shelly.

I love my niece like she is my own and I love that she walked for her cousins. I can't wait for her to meet them this summer. I wish more than anything that she could have met Adam.


Amy got an email saying if you sent pictures in of the babies you were walking for they would put them on posters. These were the signs that were along the route.

(Yes, Allan is spelled wrong. Should be a-n, not e-n)

Hayley looks tired!

Hayley has been so sweet about the babies. She has drawn pictures and sent many presents throughout the last 9 months. My whole family has webcams so we can chat and see one another. Hayley talks to them and sings them songs. She asks for her Will and her Lindy. Once she sang to Will and told us to bring out the next one! She better watch out because Uncle Drew is going to give her some serious pink bellies this summer.

My sister has also been very sweet. Amy and Lee flew out the week everything happened. They were able to come to the small memorial service we had for Adam. Lee flew back home and Amy stayed for awhile longer. She was awesome during that week. She drove me back and forth between hospitals to see the babies. She was taking care of things at home for us. One of the sweetest things she did was to go buy all kinds of pretty fleece to use as the blankets in the babies' isolettes. We didn't know we would have babies that early and didn't have any kind of blankets for them. We used those blankets the entire NICU stay. I know I never properly thanked her for everything she did. She'll never know how much support she was to me during that time. I really hated to see her go.

So THANK YOU Amy and Hayley for walking for our babies. We are very excited to meet the newest addition to our family, who will be making her appearance in late June/early July. WE LOVE YOU!!!!

9 Month Old Babies

Can you believe it? The nuggets celebrated their 9 month birthdays this week. What a 9 months. Sometimes it is hard to believe we made it through and are still kicking!

We had a good week. Lindy got new ear molds on Tuesday and they are much better. The whistling has been drastically cut down. They only whistle when they start to fall out. Our latest problem is keeping the actual hearing aid behind her ear. They tend to flop. It is really annoying!

We had our 9 month check-up at the pediatrician on Thursday. The babies are good and getting big! Will weighed 16 pounds 6 ounces and was 24 3/4 inches long. We had guessed him at about 16.5lbs so we were very close. He had to get his finger pricked to check his iron. His levels were good so we are able to stop giving the yucky vitamin. Although neither seemed to mind. We will continue him on his Prevacid as we feel it has helped his wheezing. Will is now a one trick pony. He has learned to roll over and now he can't stop. Apparently he cannot lay on his back anymore. He must roll over. He's addicted. Which was really cute and cool for awhile but has become a pain in the butt! He usually gets stuck on his belly and cries till we flip him over. But then he rolls right back over again! He is starting to not like being strapped into the bouncy seat either. Rolling also wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that he spits up a lot. So he rolls over, compresses his belly and we get to clean spit up off the blankets! I know all babies do this, it's just no one ever told me how annoying it is!

Lindy was our surprise this week. We guessed she would weigh 13.5 pounds but she actually weighed 14 pounds and 2 ounces! Whoa big girl!! She has always been about 3 pounds lighter than Will but apparently she is trying to close the gap. I've been pretty stressed about her eating the last month but maybe I need to relax. She gained two pounds, so she is definitely growing! She is a bit of a shrimp though, like her Mom. She was only 23 inches long. She had to have her heel pricked, twice. She had her iron checked (which was good) but she also had to have the newborn screening tests redone. She has had it done twice in the NICU but when they did the first repeat it was too close to a blood transfusion. So they repeated it again this week. She did good at first because Drew was distracting her with kisses but she eventually got a little tired of it. She was a champ though! Lindy has just been chilling lately. Keeping us busy all day long with the cannula, hearing aides and glasses. She hates it all on her little head. We changed her schedule a little bit and she has been taking super naps. I wonder how long it will last!

Finally Will had a follow-up with the audiologist on Friday. He did great. Everything seems good so far. We spend a lot of time in the audiology department lately!

Have a great weekend. Enjoy pictures of my 9 month olds!

I thought this was a funny picture. His hands were just flailing away in every picture that day! We were trying to take a picture for cousin Lauree to tell her how much we love the outfit!

A sweet picture of Lindy and the bonnet that Nana also made. We managed to NOT get pictures of her (or Will in his) last weekend for the Baptism.
Oh yeah, we want to thank my sister for walking in her local March for Babies this weekend. She created a Million Dollar Babies team in Kansas City, Missouri and she and a couple of friends are walking in honor of Lindy and Will and in memory of Adam. Thanks Amy!