Daycare Drama and a New Routine...

UPDATED W/ NEW PICTURES! SEE BELOW!

So following our holidays, Jeni and I hoped things would start to normalize a bit. As discussed, I took a few days off here and there to spend some time at home with Jeni and the girls around Christmas and New Years. My job is REALLY slow this time of year since all of the campuses are basically closed with students and faculty at home for the holidays... thus, not a lot I can accomplish but planning ahead...

So Jeni and I both went back to a full work week on Monday 1/5. Nana Sharon and Papa Rick came up and did their usual Monday duties with the girls. On Tuesday, St. Louis got a quick blast of ice; just enough to cancel school for Jeni. Then, Grandma Pat had some more vacation time she wanted to take, so she volunteered to watch the girls for the rest of that week. On Wednesday, the girls went back to the pediatrician for another shot...

With Jeni's return to work, we've shifted the girls' schedule up a bit. They've been on only 4 bottles a day for a while, but our new schedule is that Jeni gets up at 4:45am to feed Sydney. I then get up around 6:00am and feed Olivia. This schedule finishes up the day around 8:00pm with their bath and last bottle of the day... It took the girls a few days to get used to this... I got up several nights in a row with first Sydney and then Olivia at around 3:00AM... An ounce of milk and a replaced pacifier followed by a few minutes in the rocking chair and they would drift back off to sleep...

Since the girls were scheduled to start at their daycare on the following Monday, we arranged for them to first go in on Friday for a half-day "dry run". We've heard nightmares about how tough some kids have it adjusting to daycare, so we thought we should try a half day before going full speed ahead. It was fairly uneventful... The girls really weren't too freaked out or overly tired... Probably because it was just a 1/2 day. Grandma Pat picked them up at noon after I dropped them off that morning.

On Saturday I met the guys up at Buffalo Wild Wings for some drinks, sports, and some good male bonding time. For the past 7 years or so, it has been a tradition for several of my friends and I to meet up on Thursday nights for "Guys' Night Out". We've migrated from several bars and the attendees have changed many times with additions and subtractions, but the core 3 or 4 of us has been consistent. However, over the past 2 years, our regularity of outings has dwindled, mainly relating to our growing families. This year has been especially tough for us to get together, so we attempted to do a Saturday outing instead...

On Sunday, Jeni and I spent the day being lazy (as is our usual Sunday agenda). My big plan for the day was to go to Best Buy and spend some of my Christmas money and gift cards. So mid-day I was at Best Buy making my purchase when I got a frantic phone call from Jeni. Apparently she had just gotten off the phone with our daycare provider, Ms. Georgine, where our girls were scheduled to start full time on Tuesday. Ms. Georgine called and told Jeni that unfortunately she wouldn't be able to take our girls that week. Her original plan was for her mother to be there with her to help with our girls since she has several other kids in the daycare. However, her mother has to have some emergency surgery that will take her out of commission for a couple of months... She was very upset and apologetic. She said that she could honestly probably still take the girls, but couldn't give them the attention they deserved.

As you can guess, Jeni too, was quite upset. We were scrambling... Our plans that had seemed so perfect for so many months were now changing...

So, I finished my purchase and made my way home. We reached out to our friends Keith and Amy and got the information on the Nanny service that they had used. Jeni filled out the online forms and we looked forward to the next day to hope we could get some much needed relief to our worries...

Monday arrived and Nana Sharon and Papa Rick watched the girls again. Jeni and I went to work and I communicated with the Nanny service to fill out the paperwork they needed to give them the info to find the type of nanny we would need. By the end of the day, they sent me 4 bios of candidates for us to pick from. On Tuesday, we received another bio. So we had 5 very qualified choices. I worked from home on Tuesday and stayed with the girls. I contacted our top choice from the Nannies and scheduled her to come and meet us that evening. Later in the day, we heard from Ms. Georgine that should could take our girls for the rest of the week, which was quite a relief...

Our Nanny choice, Nikki, came over that evening to meet us and the girls. Immediately we really connected with her. She was very excited to meet the girls and eager to hold them. We could tell she really likes kids, especially babies. We got to know each other with the basic information and then showed her around the house. Jeni and I knew that we had found a great option for our Nanny. We told Nikki that we'd love for her to come back starting next week and that we'd even like for her to come over on Saturday to do a "test-run" and give us a chance to go through everything else like bottles, the girls' schedule, the dogs' routine, etc. When she left that night, I could tell Jeni was very relieved... The Daycare Drama was over. Nikki is going to be a great fit for us through April when the girls can go back to Ms. Georgine's.

So, the Sydney and Olivia have been going to the daycare for 3 days this week and are still not used to it... They come home every day very tired and VERY crabby... Even though Ms. Georgine says that they slept, you can't tell it... Jeni said there were some BIG tears even yesterday when they got home. I guess it's just really stressful changing up their schedule like that... Makes me sad... :(

In other news, I had to take my car into the dealer to get the headlight replaced. It's the driver side headlight... I just had it in a few months ago to get the passenger side replaced... This is the type of repair that I used to do myself... However, when I attempted to do this on my own, getting access to the headlight without a special tool is virtually impossible. In fact, the owner's manual tells you not to even try... Lovely. I also got my oil changed at the same time.

My car now has 92,000 miles on it... I know with the way cars are now they last way past 100,000 miles, but I think this is the most miles I've ever put on a car myself... It shouldn't make me nervous... but it does.

In other news about me, I finally purchased a new gaming system. I've been playing my Playstation 2 since I bought it way back in 2001 after it had been on the market a little while. Well, as the years have gone by and new systems have been released, fewer and fewer games are being made for the PS2... So I finally broke down and bought an XBOX 360. I bought the bare bones $199 version. Why not the PS3? Well, I don't need the Blu-Ray DVD ability since my TV doesn't support it. Also, after finding out that Sony didn't build the new PS3 with the ability to play old PS2 games, I'm protesting with my wallet and boycotting the PS3. So far I only have 2 games (NCAA football & a futuristic shooter game called 'Gears of War') but it's fun stuff! I recommend it highly. And I need to find some people to play against online...

Well, that's about it for now...

Playing with our Laugh n Learn Puppy

The Girls and Mom

Sydney and her bunny

Olivia and the bunny

The Girls and Cassius

In one of their new outfits from Christmas

Sydney - Our little Diva

Olivia - Hamming it up for the camera

Olivia and her friend, Caroline

Sydney enjoying some oatmeal

Olivia - not enjoying much of anything at the moment

The girls hanging out in another new outfit... and bunny hats...

The girls and their dad... can you tell who's tired?

M

Our Year in Review

So now that we have started 2009, I thought it might be appropriate to do one of those "Year End Review" pieces that you see on Entertainment Tonight and SportsCenter. You know, those ones where they show you the highlights and memorable moments from the year that is about to end? Well, as usual these days, we are a bit late on doing everything... So while it's still relevant, lets review our family's 2008.

Back on New Year's Day 2008, we rang in the new year with our friends at our place. We invited Keith & Amy, Kent & Sally and Scott & Josie over and had a nice little get-together with them. I took my usual week's worth of vacation between Christmas and New Year's and spent it with Jeni at home together. Then, only a few days into the new year, we got the news we had been waiting and hoping so much for, for more than a year. Jeni got a positive pregnancy test! We could barely restrain our excitement, but we kept it a secret.

About 2 weeks later, I went on my last recruiting trip with Macy's. All of the Macy's recruiters met at our San Francisco division for 2 days of meetings. Jeni flew out on Thursday evening and met me. And, Jeni's parents, Jim and Carol met us in San Fran for some great family time.

We even made a trip up to the Napa Valley to sample some wine. Unluckily for Jeni she couldn't enjoy it as much as she liked... We had to be very sly about hiding the fact that Jeni wasn't drinking from the other folks who went with us (friends and co-workers from Macy's). I spent most of the day sampling both my share and Jeni's share (on the sly) of wine.

A few days after we returned home, we had our first trip into her doctor's office for a confirmation and check-up. That's when things got interesting...


As we got into the room with the ultrasound tech, Jeni lay down on the table and I held her hand, praying that things were going o.k. It was only 6 weeks into the pregnancy and she and I were obviously the only ones who knew anything to that point because so many things can go wrong. The ultrasound tech started with the exam...


That's when we saw this...

So, I remember hearing the tech say something like "Well, look at that." Jeni quickly blurted out "IS THAT 2?" And I said, "HUH?" Jeni said something else like "Oh my God, that's two of them." I don't remember much more of the conversations... You could say I was in a bit of shock.
We did get to see the flicker of two tiny heartbeats... Very cool stuff.

Obviously we were thoroughly thrilled that everything else looked great, but still in total shock... We were having twins. We probably said that to ourselves about 100 times that day... Sometimes laughing afterwards... Sometimes chuckling in disbelief... We were having TWINS.

As we attempted to prepare ourselves mentally that our life was definitely going to change a lot in 2008, we didn't realize exactly how much for more than the reason that we were about to become parents. Things got really interesting in February.

It was the first week of February and I went into work as usual on what seemed to be a normal Tuesday. However, things changed quickly when my boss told me that everyone (and I mean the entire company) had been called into a meeting on the 21st floor. We knew then that something big was about to be announced. Rumors started to fly instantly that Terry Lundgren, the President of Macy's Inc. was in our building... Holy cow. It was really big. The predominant opinion was that our division was about to get a lot bigger with a lot more responsibility... Everyone assumed that because of its struggles, Macy's North (formerly Marshall Fields) was going to be absorbed by us. Exciting for us! However, that wasn't the news...

As our CEO began to speak you could tell something bad was about to happen. He then announced that effective by Fall of that year, all business functions currently happening in our offices at Macy's Midwest would be assumed by Macy's South in Atlanta. It was so weird how the sounds in that room were a combination of gasps, sobs, and the air being sucked out all at the same time. Everyone was in disbelief. They dismissed us and we all retreated back to our offices...

Now was the thing I dreaded most. I had to call Jeni and tell her the news. It was about to break in the media in an hour so I had to call her before anyone else did. While no one died or anything of that nature, the phonecall felt that bad. We had just had the happiest news of our lives together, and now everything is thrown for a loop as I may soon be unemployed! Quite a punch in the stomach... Obviously Jeni and everyone in my family had tons of questions about what would happen next... Unfortunately no one really knew, but everyone assumed the worst that we would all be looking for new jobs.

Jeni's pregnancy progressed a few weeks and we decided it was time to tell the grandparents. We decided that a simple phone call wouldn't do, so we decided to send a greeting to everyone from the womb. Here's the photo that we emailed out announcing that Jeni was expecting.

Needless to say everyone was very excited. My mother responded over the phone with a series of screams and "Oh my God!". Another fun memorable moment.

March flew by with little excitement. We spent a full day of Jeni's Spring Break registering at Babies R Us for the tons of stuff we would need.


April arrived and the days were numbered at Macy's as my last day was to be May 2. To celebrate our "graduation" to new careers, the HR Team at Macy's decided to have a 'Prom'. Basically just another excuse for us to get together, have a good time, and dress nice... Here's our 'Prom' picture. As you can see, Jeni was 'showing' quite a bit already.







May arrived and I was officially unemployed for about 2 weeks. My last day was May 2nd but I was fortunate enough to find that Save-A-Lot was looking for a College Relations person at the same time. I arranged that my first day there would be May 19. Two weeks to relax, sleep in, and get a few chores around the house done... Little did I know...


On Friday, May 16 Jeni called me early on her way to work to say she "didn't feel right". She wasn't sure, but she thought she was having some contractions. Very early for that, I thought, but we need to be careful. She even called my cousin, Gretchen, who has 2 children of her own, to clarify exactly what contractions feel like... Just to be safe, she called her doctor who told her to go to the hospital to get checked. So began what was probably the scariest few days of our lives...

I got to the hospital and to Jeni's room where she was waiting in a hospital bed. The doctor came in a did an evaluation on her and then began the physical examination. Immediately I could tell by the doctor's face and the tone in her voice that something was not right. We were told that Jeni was indeed in preterm labor and she would be getting some drugs to stop the contactions. However, that was not all. The contractions had already started pushing things along and some of the babies' membranes were exposed. This was not only serious, it was threatening to the babies, especially since they were only 21 weeks along. Very few newborns are viable and can survive before 25 weeks...


Around the same time, our older boxer Cassius had started acting differently. He had had numerous health issues from his Cushings Disease to his torn ACL. However, between February and May Cassius seemed to age 6 years. He was sluggish and didn't want to eat. He was vomiting alot and on that Friday refused to even get up off his bed to go outside. With the amount of time I knew I'd be spending at the hospital, I couldn't chance something being seriously wrong with him. So, I loaded him in the car and took him to the vet. He was extremely dehydrated and malnurished from refusing to eat. He stayed the weekend so they could run tests and get him feeling better. Here's a picture of Cassius in mid-April when he started to go downhill...






Later that Saturday, our savior performed a miracle. Now, I'm not being religious or overly dramatic. However, I do refer to Jeni's new doctor, Dr. Michael Paul, as our savior. And he truly did perform a miracle. Jeni had to have what is known as a rescue cerclage. As we were informed later, many doctors would not have performed the procedure on Jeni as it was very risky and had a likelihood of failure. Failure would have most probably meant the loss of our girls. However, Dr. Paul performed the cerclage successfully. Jeni spent the rest of the weekend and most of the rest of May in the hospital. I spent the next few weeks making daily trips back and forth from home to the hospital and off to work... Oh yeah I did start my new job the Monday after Jeni's procedure...


Jeni was released to come home just in time for her first shower. It was thrown by my mom, and Gretchen. Here are some photos...

After his evaluation at the vet, we were told that Cassius would need to be seen by a specialist at Mizzou to diagnose exactly what was wrong with him. He continued to not to want to eat and was dropping weight rapidly. He had gone from weighing around 70 pounds in January down to under 50 pounds by mid-June. Since he's not really an old dog, at only 8 years old, we decided to do whatever we had to, to get him fixed up.

I took Cassius to the Vet school at Mizzou where they performed an CT scan on him. They discovered that Cassius had what is called a macroadenoma. Basically this is a tumor on the pituitary glad. A large tumor in fact. This tumor had grown and was now causing a lot of internal pressure on his brain and causing him lots of discomfort and thus he didn't want to eat. So immediately we had them begin treating him with radiation treatments. The only problem was that these treatments had to be done daily and could only be done at Mizzou. So every Sunday afternoon I drove Cassius up to Mizzou. Then on Friday afternoon, I went back to Mizzou and picked him up so that he could spend the weekend with us at home. At first he was quite pathetic as he was very tired and weak... But that quickly changed. He did however have to have a feeding tube inserted in his neck as he was still not eating on his own.


Here is Cassius with his feeding tube bandaged up.


On July 3, Cassius got to come home for good after completing his radiation treatments. He acted like a new dog! He was eating, playing, and running around the back yard again with Sugar. We even got the sprinkler out for him on a hot day.









July arrived and Jeni had been having some issues. We had been back and forth to the hospital several times because of small contractions starting and stopping. She was on the anti-contraction meds since she was released from the hospital back in May, but from time to time we'd have to make a trip just to be safe. Things were looking good by week 2 of July though.


We went in for a doctor visit and she was examined by one of Dr. Paul's partners. He proudly stated that he thought that she should be fine until week 36 and that they may have to consider taking her off the medications and removing the cerclage at that time... Someone must have forgotten to knock on some wood...


2 days later, Jeni's water broke.


So Jeni had hit 29 weeks and 6 days when her water broke on the morning of July 9. I was getting ready to leave for work and she started to sit up in bed and then told me to hold on. "Something's wrong, I think. I think my water just broke." Well, we furiously packed up our bags and headed up the highway to the hospital. The doctor came in and examined her and confirmed that her water had indeed broken. So they started her on some meds and waited. We waited and the doctors informed us that she could go a couple of weeks without going into labor and things would be fine. So I left the hospital that night as Jeni fell asleep.


Later that evening, Jeni went into full labor...


She called me very early the next morning in tears, scared and begging me to come to the hospital right away. Naturally she was very frightened. She could tell things had changed and it was still very early for our girls. She had made it to 30 week, but that's still very early and they weren't projected to weigh more than 3 pounds...


The doctors came in a few hours later and announced that she would have a c-section as soon as they could get her in. They didn't want to take any chances with waiting. Oh boy...


Well, at 10:49 Olivia Kay was born and at 10:51 Sydney Ann arrived. And the rest, you could say is history...


For the sake of our regular readers, I won't go into detail of the rest of our year because most of it is documented here in earlier posts. However, I thought it would be interesting to post the progression of our girls in the last year...


Enjoy.

Just Born

Sydney

Olivia

3 Days Old

Sydney

Olivia

2 Weeks Old

Sydney

Olivia

One Month Old

Sydney

Olivia

6 Weeks Old

Sydney

Olivia

2 Months Old

Sydney

Olivia

MORE TO COME!

M

Merry Christmas Break....

or Winter Break if you want to be PC!

Sadly, time flies when you are having fun, and my 2 weeks off with the girls over the holidays are slowly drawing to a close. :(

Winter Break started off with a bang, as on Saturday night Matt and I had a date night where we went out to dinner with some friends and to a Christmas concert put on by our friend Bob Becherer and his friend Merry Keller (LOVE the spelling of her name by the way)! It was awesome to have a date night and I of course adored the Christmas music as well!

We had a fabulous First Christmas together as a family, and the girls were as always super cute! Everyone in our family has been super generous with the girls! We received tons of new toys to play with and a lot of clothes. SOme highlights include a super cool afghan in a circus theme that Grandma Pat has been working on FOREVER, complete with circus animals and a clown, muscial frogs, a cool stacking animals toy, a muscial table for when we are bigger, a farm mat, crawling balls, Laugh N Learn Puppies (that we adore, but when they start talking at 3 am they freak Mom out), and a talking story book. Of course there are tons more toys.

We've also had some firsts over the past week....

1). The girls have started Rice Cereal. Olivia does pretty well at it, but Sydney isn't quite sure what to do with it. I think it's stopping them up (as rice cereal has a tendency to do), SOOO tonight I ran to Target to get them some baby oatmeal to try tomorrow.

2). WHile both girls have been babbling for awhile now, Olivia has started screeching and it is HILARIOUS, I swear she does it just to hear the sound of her own voice. I can tell she's going to be a talker, which both Matt and I are, so it's going to be hard to figure out who she takes after with that!

3). Olivia has started rolling over from stomach to back on a pretty regular basis! Sydney will do it with some prompting, but not very frequently.

4). The newest addition to our home is a FABULOUS video camera that we've been using a ton since we received it for Christmas from my Dad and Stepmom...we love it and soon, our blog will be able to feature videos of the girls, which you all will love, I am sure!

5). We've had our assessments by the Missouri First Steps Program, and will be having our family meeting with them On January 6th at 4:15 to discuss their findings. I suspect that they will find (as they have already hinted at), that the girls are doing very well and will not need services. BOO.

6). WE've had a change in bottle schedule and have moved to 4 bottles a day and are pretty regularly sleeping through the night with very little crying (we had a slight digression when Mommy went back to work, so I suspect that next week will be rough). It also appears that we MAY be going through a growth spurt and are starting to eat more.

7). Olivia weighs 10lbs, 10.5 oz and Sydney weighs 10lbs, 9.5 oz! So that is awesome!

8). We've figured out that Sydney is about 3 weeks behind Olivia in development, so we're waiting patiently for her to catch up with her sister!

9). We spend a lot more time playing with the girls...we've busted out one of their extrasaucers, their new farm playmat, and several of their Christmas toys..they love them...its a lot of fun and I Really enjoy our 2 play times a day! :)

As Break draws towards a close, I have started panicing, getting ready for them to go to Georgine's house in a week and a half (our day care lady...2 houses away...who is awesome), I fear that they are going to become hysterical there and freak her out...as they can be very demanding, and I've also started to get the house back in order. I have to find places for all these baby toys, wash all their new clothes, do our laundry, and then of course put away all our fabulous Christmas decorations. NOrmally, I'd wait and do them the second weekend in January, but with the babies, I want to have things done and put away faster than I normally do so that I can spend time with them in the evenings and on the weekends while I am working!

We hope everyone is well...we miss all of our family and friends...as promised, since we've been BIG slackers, here are a TON of fabulous pictures from Christmas Break...so far! :)

Hanging under the Christmas Tree!

Christmas Eve.....

Sydney....

Olivia...

Christmas Morning.....

Olivia...

Sydney....

The cutest picture EVER!!!!!!!!!!!! (I know I've said this before, but seriously it is)...Christmas Day!

Rice Cereal....

Sydney...

Olivia...

Playtime....dress up...our fabulous coats from Aunt Gretchen and Uncle Jason!

Olivia....




Sydney....

Hope all is well and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

Love,

M, J, S, & O! And Cassius and Sugar!