2 Months Old!!!!!!!!!!!!

And as exciting as that is to Mom and Dad, WE (Sydney and Olivia) were not so excited. You see we got our shots. And it SUCKED.

For Mommy and Us. We all cried.

What Mommy learned....you DEFINATELY need a second person to be there when they have or have had their shots so that 2 people can rock babies. Not normally a problem but Daddy was in Columbia for work and with Mr. Clay for his follow up appointment at MU (ouch expensive but GREAT news). So, Mommy SHOULD have called Nana Sharon and asked her to come rock babies, but she didn't think about it. :( Bad Mommy. She knows better for our 4 month shots.

Seriously, Shots were the worst. Sydney fusses pretty regularly, so I was prepared for her reaction, but I was NOT prepared at all for the noise/cry of sheer pain/terror that came out of Olivia. It broke my heart. Both actually calmed down pretty fast, thank god for the 24 hours of Tylenol that they get after that. However, I learned from our night nurse that SYdney cried for 2 hours straight from 9-11. Poor baby. I should have stayed even longer last night. BUT I was sucked into how quiet and calm they were 2 hours after their shots, so I headed home.

In other news...Cassius went for his follow up appointment after his radiation treatments this July. THey showed Matt the before and after CAT scans of his macroadenoma and he said it was amazing to see how very small the tumor is now to what it was. It's now a 1/4 of the size it was before and WE can tell a difference. He wrestles with Sugar like you have never seen them. It's cool, loud, but cool! Sadly he has a cyst on the back of his neck he'll need removed because they said it could burst and that it would be NASTY if it did so. HOw much that will cost, god only knows, but we'll have to decide when to have it done once we hear the results of my letter to Hazelwood. The better the news the sooner it will be removed.

I did get a report that the girls are doing MUCH better or did much better last night with their bottles, so hopefully things are looking up. :)

WEll...here are the pics of the girls from their 2 month birthday!

Olivia..

Doing the "I HATE MY BENDY BUMPER SCOOT" in her crib before her shots, she has not a clue of what is to come.
Before her shots.....

Sacked out in Mommy's arms after her shots.....

After her bottle...after her shots, she ate NOTHING...for once a good thing they have tubes to be fed with as they used all their energy to SCREAM at their shots and nothing was left to use to eat..wish I had that talent!

Sydney...

Sydney before her shots....

After her shots....

Sacked out in her Mommy's arms after her shots...



The calm before the storm apparently.....

Enjoy...sorry for the tardiness of the blog, we have been having internet issues for the past couple days...I'm off to see Kenny Chesney tonight in the rain I am sure, so Matt will be writing!

Hope all is well!

J

The Daunting Task Ahead....

is learning to EAT. Apparently they really are NOT our kids, because both Matt and I do not seem to suffer from this phenomena.

UGH. Our poor girls. This is their last hurdle and they are SO very far from overcoming it that it's overwhelming and depressing to me at the same time. Even more depressing is that they tend to eat MUCH better for Daddy from the bottle than they do from Mommy or even the nurses. What sucks the most about that is that Daddy ONLY gives them a bottle ONCE a day. :( Poor girls.

I have to apologize for the lack of the blog, it just didn't happen. Between the storm and stuff around the house (that is STILL a disaster), I just simply didn't get to it. Matt was slaving in the girl's nursery (pictures to come this weekend because it will FINALLY be done), and thus I didn't feel right after he worked all day to ask him to write the blog too. So, I dropped the ball.

After my vent on Sunday night, I had long long talk with our NP Chris about my feelings over the weekend and what had happened with the nurse who told me she didn't have time to work with the girls. She took my feelings to the charge nurse and things are supposed to be getting better. The girls now have new types of bottles (a precursor to the Dr. Brown's bottles) called Mini-Haverman's by Medela (a speciality bottle that cannot be purchased outside of the medical field), notes in their charts that the nurses are to work with them for the ENTIRE 1/2 hour while they are with the bottle, and feed upon readiness cues. In addition, it was pointed out to me that the girls, especially Miss Olivia are not completely healed from their case of the thrush. Apparently they have a REALLY bad case of it. :( They said it's like burning your tongue and the sides of your mouth it hurts that bad and makes babies not want to eat. Stinky.

After Day 1 of the 'new schedule' things are okay. Neither girl did GREAT on the bottle, but Sydney continued to be a champion and Olivia (who has the more severe case of thrush) continued to not eat much.

The rest of week and into the weekend is promising to be pretty busy. Tomorrow is a crazy busy day for Matt, as he is going to MU to do mock interviews on campus and back to the Veterinary Hospital for Mr. Clay to get his check up from his radation treatments that he had back in July. Hopefully all goes well. Sadly the girls will not really get to see Daddy as a result of this. Hopefully he'll get in some seriious time on Thursday while I am at the Kenny Chesney concert with my friend Michelle. It promises to be a good time and not as hot as hades as it was last year. It makes for the best September 11th I've had since the year 2000. Friday is 'Aunt Nancy's' birthday, which I will celebrate with her on Saturday at our favorite breakfast place in Clayton, while Matt and the guys watch the MU game at our house.

I plan to continue to work with the girls all weekend long on feeding, as per normal. They SWEAR to me at the NICU that one day babies just get a visit from the 'nipple fairy' and the learn to eat. God I hope that happens soon. Until then we are not working on breastfeeding as much as we had been. Right now I just want to get them home, we can work on breastfeeding when they get home. Know what I mean?

Today I mailed my letter to Hazelwood appealing for time from the sick leave bank that I joined in my 3rd year of teaching by giving up 2 sick days. Hopefully they are able to give me some days so that I can stay home with the girls a little while longer, as our Dr's at Children's would like me too. With co-pays and medical bills things are getting TIGHT so I couldn't do unpaid leave days for as long as we wanted too. And since I've joined the sick bank and this is what it is for, I needed to apply. So, we shall see what happens. If they approve what I have proposed, I will be out of work until December 8th and will work for 2 full weeks before we are off for 2 weeks for Winter Break. Scary, Christmas is that soon.


I noticed that Matt saw fit to post another one of his Just My Opinion posts today...this one was rather hilarious and not as political as the other. Cute Sweetie, you continue to make me laugh, which is one of the many reasons I love you.

Well, today was boring, so, I'm off.

Here are some pictures of the girls from yesterday and today! You may notice as I have, that the closer they get in weight the more they look alike, which is scary because there are some pictures where I have a hard time telling them apart! Oh well...here goes, see for yourself!


Sydney....



Olivia...



Hope all is Well,
J

Just My Opinion, Vol. 2

Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies...

It often puzzles me when I hear about dumb criminals or people getting caught in embarrasing situations and the excuses they come up with. It doesn't surprise me that the criminal element often gets caught doing dumb things. I mean, that's probably why they are criminals to begin with; they are too stupid or lazy to make a legitamate living. Things like bank robbers writing hold-up notes on their own deposit slips or burglers dropping their wallets at crime scenes make me chuckle and shake my head. However, its the more legitimate segment of the population that really leaves me in awe when they get caught lying or doing something they shouldn't.

Recently, two Georgia (the state, not the embattled former Soviet republic) residents recently caused a stir when they claimed to have found the body of Bigfoot! Well, maybe not The Bigfoot. I don't think there's like just one, I think the popular opinion in the Bigfoot ethusiast population is that Bigfoot is a species... By the way, should Bigfoot be capitalized? I'm thinking not... ANYWAY... These two guys, one a police officer and the other a corrections officer, released photos, videos, and scheduled news conferences to reveal the "body" of bigfoot. They even went so far as to "preserve" the body by freezing it in a solid block of ice in a chest-type freezer... Not surprisingly, the skeptics and the media came out in force to see their discovery.

Well, through a highly technical process known as "letting the ice thaw", the body was revealed to be simply this halloween costume.

As laughable as this is, it really makes me question the planning behind this "discovery". Did these guys actually think that no one would think to thaw out the body? Did they think that the rubbery costume and hollow mask would be mistaken for the body of this mystical creature? Just a tiniest of research revealed this whole thing to be a really poorly orchestrated hoax put on by two formerly respected members of their community...

So, why would people present lies as facts, when it's so easy in this time of instant journalism and the many, many media outlets to do just a tad bit of research to disprove them? And don't be fooled, this practice isn't limited to doofuses and bigfoot hunters. Politicians have fallen in this trap as well...

Most famously, self-proclaimed "not gay" senator Larry Craig from Idaho was arrested in a Minneapolis airport men's room while attempting to solicit an undercover officer for some hanky-panky. Larry claimed he was simply "picking up a piece of paper" from the floor and that his foot might have touched the neighbor's foot in the stall next to him because he's a "fairly wide guy."

Even though Craig claimed to be completely innocent, he plead guilty to disorderly conduct in hopes that the issue would go away "quickly and expeditiously". Unfortunately for Larry, these things don't go away quitely when they involve elected officials. Shortly afterward, 8 seperate men claimed to have had 'encounters' with Craig. Larry continues to fight his guilty plea and has been recently admonished by the Senate for using campaign contributions to pay for his legal fees...

While the facts in the Larry Craig example may be a "he said / he said" fight, other examples of frivolous lies have popped up in the presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton was exposed embellishing her trip to Bosnia as First Lady when she claimed to "...remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base." Unfortunately for Hillary, there were quite a few people there to see what happened. And some of them actually had, *shocker*, CAMERAS!

Not to mention, Hillary's story was debunked by, of all people, stand-up comedian and fan-of-god-awful-shirts, Sinbad, who was also on the trip to entertain the troops for the USO. That's him in the blue coat behind Hillary and Chelsea. And below sporting what appears to be Rorschach test shapes in pretty colors...

Finally, in recent days, some of the best story-lines of the new Republican VP candidate have come into question. Upon her introduction to all of America (outside of Alaska), John McCain touted Palin's fight to kill the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere." Again, simple digging has discovered that she actually supported the bridge saying at the time, "The money that's been appropriated for the project, it should remain available for a link, an access process as we continue to evaluate the scope and just how best to just get this done. This link is a commitment to help Ketchikan expand its access, to help this community prosper. I think we're going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project."

McCain also touted Palin's devotion to cutting government waste when he announced last Friday, "You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay -- and made a profit!" Again, simple research by anyone has discovered that the plane was not sold on ebay. It was listed several times with no takers... and finally sold to an enterpreneur for $2.1 million. Great! Except it was originally purchased for $2.7 million... McCain must be using that "fuzzy math" Bush discussed in 2000 to determine that's a profit.

To me, it's not the dishonestly that's baffling in these examples... It's two other things:

1) It's the lie that's told that really doesn't need to be told... To lie for the sake of lying.

2) It's the profound stupidity of the liar not realizing how easily the lie will be shown to be just that: a lie.

So are people naturally dishonest? Nah. Little kids learn to lie at an early age to try and avoid punishment. Most learn their lessons and grow out of this habit. Some don't.

Maybe it comes down to something my mother-in-law has said many times: little boys who lie grow up to be weathermen.

I guess you can add to that politicians and Bigfoot hunters...

We Like, We Love...

We want some more of it. So apparently the girls STILL love Children's hospital. They love it so much that we are STILL not sure when they are officially coming home. 3 weeks ago we were told they'd be home by the 12th, now it's not looking like that's the date or that there is even a date in sight (again). I'm frustrated to say the least. I can't wait for this $#!% to be over. I feel as if my entire maternity leave has been wasted and it's frustrating. I feel like EVERYONE else is getting to or going to get to spend time with my babies BUT me. I didn't get to see them until 4 days AFTER they were born (everyone else had already been to see them), now they live at Children's and I can only see them during certain hours, and next thing I know I'll be back at work and my mom and Matt's mom will be taking care of them for a couple weeks, at which time I won't be able to see them. This sucks.

Both girls have gained weight, Sydney is finally over 5 pounds and Olivia is over 6. Great weights for 'newborns' which they will OFFICIALLY be next week when they reach their official due date next Thursday. Olivia continues to struggle with her gaseous issues and her reflux, both of which I will be addressing with her new DR tomorrow. I feel as if the gas issue is part of the reason that she's not so willing to take her bottles and the reflux could also be part of this. So, we'll see. Sydney continues to on average take at least 1/2 of her bottle each time. However, both of the girls have started taking at least one full bottle a day since Friday night, which is a good sign. :) And Olivia continues to do GREAT on Room Air, so keep it up girlie no oxygen tank coming home with you (whenever that is).

I have requested that they try different bottles with the girls starting tomorrow, and I will be bringing in our Dr. Brown's bottles and Playtex Drop-ins bottles to try with them as well. I'm just searching for answers here that I really think Children's should have been doing 2 weeks ago. So, I'm taking matters into my own hands and doing this myself and telling my DR tomorrow or the NP how upset I am about this. I don't care that they have thrush, I'm mad about that, I feel that it should have been caught sooner. I KNOW OLivia's had it for quite some time, WHY didn't a nurse catch it. Seriously, it shouldn't have had to be caught by our NP, and that was only a CHANCE thing. So, more of OUR stuff to go to the NICU to be junked up I am sure, but if it gets them out of there, yay. I am also requesting tomorrow that they start Olivia on some meds for reflux. Maybe that will help her feel better and eat her bottles. Come on kids...it's time, it's beyond time. Seriously, what kind of bribes will you guys take to come home, I'm so at that point.

Here's the best part of our weekend...

Olivia...

Sydney...

Have a great day.

Signed, the seriously frustrated Mom who just wants her babies to come home, now damnit (yes I know I sound like a 2 year old and I don't care).

Lessons Learned Today

Today, Matt & Jeni learned a lot!

First off, this morning Jeni spoke to the nurse practitioner and learned some things about our girls. Apparently, Olivia and Sydney have thrush. Thrush is a common issue with babies and causes white sores on the inside of the mouth. This could be one of the reasons why the girls have not nursed or eaten from the bottle as well lately. They will receive meds for this and it should go away soon. Olivia will also possibly have her cannulas taken off to see how she tolerates room air. This will be huge for us as we do not want her needing oxygen at home!

Our next lesson of the day was our CPR lesson. Jeni and I attended an overview on how to perform CPR on an infant or toddler. We did this at the hospital in the NICU. For both Jeni and I it was more of a refresher as we have both been certified in CPR at one time in the past. My certification has been expired for 14 years, but I still remember most of it...

Papa Gale and Grandma Vicki came up and visited the girls today. It had been nearly 2 weeks since their last visit and they could clearly see how much the girls had grown and changed. During their visit, Gale & Vicki shared that they had run into Nana Sharon and Papa Rick at Cracker Barrel and had a impromptu "grandparents breakfast." We learned that during this get together Nana Sharon shared her plans on showing what a proud grandparent she is... During her upcoming class reunion, she plans on inviting all of the attendees to come see pictures of her grandbabies over the PA system... Isn't that cute? We love you Sharon.

After feeding the girls, we braved the endless rain and headed home. I got a haircut and then made it home in time for nice fall-like dinner of tomato soup and grilled cheese. The rest of the evening was spent watching college football, the season opener of the NFL, and the final evening of the Republican National Convention.

That leads to the last few lessons I've learned after watching the last 3 nights of the RNC and last week's DNC...
1. The Republicans have the cooler mascot. I mean, can you really get excited about a donkey? As ridiculous as those elephant hat are, I'd kinda like one. And you could never really wear a jackass hat. Well, I guess you could... it would have a Kansas Jayhawks logo on it... :)
2. Dance music should never, ever be played at either convention. The God-awful dancing shown tonight was just embarrasing. The RNC definitely needs to improve its diversity, if only to improve its music selection and rhythm...
3. A great way to loosen up any party would be to have a drinking game associated with a John McCain speech. Simply have everyone take a drink every time McCain says "My Friends" and you'd need to line up cabs to drive your guests home... I counted 11 "My Friends" in tonight's speech alone... and that was a scripted speech! You should hear him in his town hall formats...
4. The RNC had a better backdrop to its final night of speeches than the DNC. The White House columns were o.k., but any man would kill to have that 8 story flat panel LCD screen to watch football or play Madden on!
5. Watching the delegates react to speeches at these conventions reminds me of a combination of a cheesy Branson music show and a WWE wrestling event. There are lots of corny lines and jokes and pandering to the audience for laughs and boos. The speeches are designed to clearly identify the heroes and villians that the crowds again are supposed to cheer and boo... The problem is that for most people watching at home, the spectacle isn't entertaining enough to watch longer than 5 minutes without dismissing the ridiculousness and flipping the channel.

Sydney....cuddling with Mommy while she was eating.

Olivia....she cuddled with Daddy while she was eating, but Mommy slacked and didn't take any pics of that. :(

Well, that's all for today!

TGTIF! (Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday)!

M

A Return to Regular Programming....

Alas, my darling, political-minded hubby has had his say about the politics of the U.S. these days or his take on the 'State of the Union'. Sorry that many of you had to be exposed to his ramblings. I listen to them daily. It's sad to say that often he is right, but often he also makes me crazy with his ramblings as well. It's a double edged sword.

I apologize for the lack of a blog yesterday, we're just getting the readership used to the fact that once the girls come home there will be many a day where the blog won't be updated, because it will be the SOS (same old stuff)...I can't take credit for that...Crazy Granny Nana Sharon came up with it, but she used a different word than stuff. :)

Let's see...lots of news...tonight Matt and I ventured out (after a romantic dinner of lasagna, garlic bread, and caesar salad) to see Baby Caroline and her tired parents who are affectionately known to our girls as Aunt Amy and Uncle Keith. She is so gosh darned cute. You should see her cute baby fat rolls (and you COULD if I'd remembered our camera...I know, my bad). Amy and Keith did a great job!!!!!!! It was cool to hold her, but weird because she is SOOO much larger than each of my girls. I can't wait until they are as big as her! I think I need to bust out the arm weights and work on my arm muscles before they get that big! :0)

News on the girls....I was sad to hear yesterday in a conversation with our nurse practitioner that Sydney will more than likely be coming home before Olivia. Sydney has in the past 3-4 days been a champ with the bottle and today was a champ at nursing..you go girl. Olivia USED to be a champ, but has in the last 3-4 days slowed down her love of the bottle and breast. Thankfully, however we think we have an answer as to why Olivia slowed down with eating and have her and Sydney on some meds to fix that! :) Remember, the last of the goals the girls are working on to come home is being able to eat on their own. So, since Sydney is doing better with that she's on track to come home earlier than Olivia. But you never know, Olivia COULD catch up to her!

I had ANOTHER conversation with our Nurse Practitioner Chris about health restrictions when the girls come home (I've had plenty of these conversations with our other NP Michelle about this as well). We'd had a conversation with another one of the NP's Holly this weekend, and so I was sharing that with NP Chris what we had talked about. Needless today, she was NOT HAPPY about what NP Holly had told us. She basically said that with Olivia's lung disease (reason why she's still on oxygen and very common in preemies), that we'll have to be SUPER SUPER careful about exposure to others. She wasn't a fan of us taking her anywhere she doesn't need to go and taking her in a crowd. So, I asked her what a crowd was and she said more than 6 people and as little exposure as possible to kids who attend school as they have fun little kid germs that could be super dangerous to her in particular. The concern is as great for Sydney, but she was pointing out that we'll have to keep an extra special eye out on Olivia for awhile because of her lung disease.

Another one of our talking points that we discussed was their concern about the girl's calcium and phosphorus levels. Both of these vitamins are vitamins that babies get in the 3rd trimester from their mom's bones. WELL, since we didn't have a 3rd trimester, they were worried that the girls would need some additional vitamins. Until now, the girls have been getting regular vitamins added to their breast milk. WELL, apparently that's not enough. SO, what we are starting (as of today) is mixing some Neosure (a special formula) to one bottle of their breast milk a day to assist them in gaining these vitamins. Apparently Breast Milk doesn't have enough of these 2 particular vitamins in it to help them gain what they need. SOOOOOOOOO since they are starting this new thing, Olivia is going to have to wait another 2-3 days before they try her off of her oxygen. PLEASE say a prayer or two for her that she does well off of it, as I would really prefer to not have to bring her home on Oxygen.

Today I also attended the Mother's Milk Lunch, which is a support group for mom's in the NICU who breastfeed. Today's focus was what you need to do to be discharged from the NICU. It was neat, there's whole list of things that Matt and I need to have done (at the hospital) before the girls can come home. SOOOOOOOOOOO tomorrow we'll be attending ONE of those requirements....Infant CPR class. YAY. Thank you Matt's boss Marion who is allowing him to attend this 1pm class. She rocks, seriously, and I mean that (esp. since I know she doesn't read our blog)...WE could not have asked for a better replacement for Brian Duffy as Matt's boss. SHe is so supportive and very family oriented and it means a lot.

WE continue to get the girl's nursery in order and the house as well! Tomorrow night promises to be busy as we need to get some more things put together and hopefully some more things hung in the nursery. ONce it's organized, I promise we'll put some pictures of it up on the blog. The girl's name letters are done (well, all but Olivia's A) and they look awesome! I'm so proud of myself, I didn't know I was so talented! :O)

Olivia

Sydney

Olivia...

Sydney...

Olivia!

Sydney!

Well, I'm off to nap...

Hope all is well!

J

Putting the "Labor" in Labor Day

Happy Labor Day to everyone!

We'd like to recognize the arrival of "Aunt" Amy & "Uncle" Keith's little girl, Caroline, this morning just before 11 a.m. today. Seems Caroline decided she was big enough at 8lbs 15oz. and was ready to enter the world. Amy started having some pre-labor indicators last evening and headed to the hospital around 2:30 a.m... I received a text early this morning that Amy and Keith were at the hospital and just waiting to see what happened next. Then around noon I received a phone call from Keith telling me the good news! Both mom and baby are doing well! We are very excited for Caroline's arrival and look forward to many play dates with her and our girls!

Here's a quick recap of our weekend:

Saturday was a big day for me as it started with my Fantasy Football draft. After that the guys played some poker following the draft. After poker, I went down to see Sydney & Olivia briefly. I stopped in long enough to feed them both before heading home. I made it home in time to get comfy on the couch just before kickoff of the Mizzou/Illini game. (See the previous post for related pictures).

Sunday: Jeni and I spent most of our day at the hospital. It was bath day for both of the girls. As you saw in an earlier post, Olivia has had a bath given by mom. However, this was Sydney's first time in the tub. As you'll see, she wasn't exactly a fan. Following the hospital, we went out to our friends' Laurie & Dan's house in St. Charles. Laurie & Dan have the cutest 3 year old (soon to be 4 in December) triplets ever! Alyssa, Peyton, & Taylor entertained us all evening long with lots of giggles, squealing, & wrestling. It's amazing how quickly they've grown! We hadn't seen them since around March and they've gotten so big and talk so much now! And, they are all very excited hearing about our girls and can't wait to meet them!

Monday/Labor Day: Jeni went down mid-morning to spend time with Sydney & Olivia. I hung out at home and caught a ride down with Nana Sharon & Papa Rick. Sharon & Rick got in some quality time with the girls and some good pictures. They both needed to get some good pictures to take with them to Sharon's class reunion and to Rick's family gathering in Lebanon (the city in Missouri, not the middle-east country).






After feeding time and diaper changes, Jeni and I went home. I did some yard work while Jeni ran some errands. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing on the couches with the dogs. After a stern lecture of "how much stuff we have to get done around here", I put together the girls' Baby Einstein Exersaucer. I've also been informed, I've got many shelves, pictures, and curtains to be hung before the girls come home.

Speaking of which, the Nurse Practitioner says that targeting the next 2 weeks for the girls coming home is pretty reasonable, which we were excited to hear! So, mark your calendars, because it seems like the Sept. 12 day may be pretty accurate.

That's all for now!

M

M-I-Z....

Z-O-U!

Great victory by my own Missouri Tigers last night against the rival Fighting Illini. The Illini hung in there and gave the Tigers a fight all the way 'til the end, but the Tigers got the win.

I'm looking forward to another exciting and historic season of Tiger football.

And so are my girls!

Check the little tiger fans below!

Olivia is amazed by the Mizzou offense!

Sydney reacts to Chase Daniel throwing an awful interception...

Mizzou had everyone biting their nails late in the game, including Olivia!

Sydney is thrilled with the Tigers' victory and shows the "Mizzou is #1" sign.