I think I left off with Emma and Rebecca coming home from daycare almost 2 weeks ago now with pink eye. So they stayed home that Thursday and were both on antibiotics, and both also had ear infections. Nice. So, all 3 were on antibiotics, and each on a different antibiotic.
Julie on her last sick day for bronchiolitis. If you can ride a pony, you can go back to daycare.
Pink eye sick day for Emma
Pink eye sick day for Becca
And here's a weird thing - - they LOVE antibiotics. They fight for them when we pull them out. And we get lots of "it's not fair" cries from Emma, whose medicine is only once a day. We start bringing the syringes in, and they all race over for the medicine. It's crazy. Emma starts smacking her lips as soon as she sees it. And Julie will suck it right out of the syringe, so that you don't even have to press on it.
Julie didn't get pink eye when Emma and Becca did, I think because she was already on antibiotics (she started them earlier last week). And Greg and I escaped ... until Wednesday of last week. I woke up and realized that my eyes weren't opening. Nice. Strangely enough, that night was the first time I slept through the night in I don't know how long. (And by sleeping through the night, I mean from about 1-6. Even on the rare occasion that the girls sleep, I am still waking up around 3, 4, 5 every night. Becca seems to be sleeping through that 10p-midnight hurdle now, but wakes up around 5 or 6.) Greg's eyes are occasionally pink, he's got a sore throat, and his ear is hurting.
So Julie escaped pink eye, right? Nope. Picking her up from daycare on Friday afternoon, I saw the telltale goop. Sigh. We. cannot. win. We had drops from when the doctor suspected Becca might have it at their 1 year checkup. And that is the only way we were able to celebrate our first week this year without a trip to the pediatrician.
We got snow! Finally! It started snowing last Friday afternoon (a week and a half ago), around 3pm. We got somewhere between 2 and 3 inches, I'd say. We took the girls out on Saturday morning for a few minutes. I was almost too lazy to, but I'm glad that I let Greg talk me in to it. The girls seemed to have fun! We had to improvise sleds, because we don't have any. :) But a couple of tuperware bins found in the garage seemed to do the trick. Until the girls decided that they wanted OUT. Lots of pictures, considering we were only out for about 15 minutes.
Emma is in the green coat and blue hat. Julie's got the blue coat and striped hat. Becca's in the blue coat with the pink hat.
Emma escaped and did a face plant. She wasn't too upset. A little surprised. Confused.
Emma tries to make a break for it...
Daddy dusts her off
Emma is walking! She started taking 2 or 3 steps at a time over the weekend, and is now up to 4 or 5. It sounds like that means she needs new shoes again... She is very proud of herself. :) I'm still trying to get a video. The funny thing now is that she still can't get up without pulling up on something, so when she's walking and she falls, she gets up on her knees and just starts walking on her knees. She's going through another developmental explosion - she has started some basic "matching." She fits the "green beans" into the right slot on the shopping cart, and she also will have this one large mesh-type ball that we have, and then go get the smaller matching one.
Emma is also cutting some molars. And very not happy about it. She's got one in already on the bottom, and another one coming in. Julie also has one coming in on the bottom, but doesn't seem as upset about it at the moment. (Although, she seems to get upset for no reason, so...) All 3 of them were up at 5:30 last Sunday morning. And then had no interest in their usual noon nap. It was 3:00 before we finally had to force them, by separating them into 3 rooms and letting them yell. And Emma only slept for about 40 minutes before waking up very very mad. She was still screaming after I was holding her and sitting with her for a while. At first, I thought it was her ear hurting, but after a while (no mother of the year award here), I finally figured out it was the teeth. I broke out the baby Oragel for the first time, but I think she just swallowed it. The only thing that stopped her screaming? When the cats came in the living room to check out what the commotion was all about.
Becca's not walking yet, but we think she'll be next. She walks pretty well with the walking toys, and has started standing on her own for a few seconds here and there. We're trying to convince her to walk, but she's very strong willed and does everything on her terms and her timeline.
Greg took the cats to the vet last Monday for their checkup. The cats have always been small, and they're now right around 8 pounds. I remember when the cats used to weigh more than the babies. But now... a baby weighs as much as 3 cats! Cats are doing fine. Dusty is warming up to the girls a bit, and the girls love it when they get to pet Dusty. Lefty has no interest.
Speaking of the cats, Lefty has *always* whined for treats. She knows where we keep them, and whenever we go over to the pantry, she starts jumping up and down. Well, the girls got this toy for Christmas. Basically, there are 5 animals with a "front" and a "back." You can either match an animal's front and back up, or you can mismatch them. And it sings this song: "You put a pig in front, you put a duck behind, put them together, and what do you find? A pig duck? oink oink quack quack. Hahaha, that's silly." So Greg and I have started singing that song about Lefty, and we call her pig cat.
I've broken down and started Weight Watchers again. I've just got to stop coming up with excuses. I haven't been doing great so far in terms of any significant weight loss - I have a really hard time writing everything down. But I am trying to make some changes, and think some more about what I am eating. We're going back to the gym again at night, and I'm trying to get a little bit of walking in when I can.
Getting to the gym has been a little bit easier now that WE ARE DONE WITH FORMULA. Yup, officially as of Friday. The girls are fine with whole milk, except for some spit up from Julie. The girls are eating solids a bit better these days, and we definitely have a few favorite foods: chicken nuggets, blueberry pancakes, and mac-n-cheese top the list these days. I am surprised that they prefer chicken nuggets to fruit, but they gobble down those nuggets.
They have been eating fewer books these days, and are more interested in flipping through them.
Becca gets very excited to see people that she knows, and she starts bouncing up and down and waving both arms. It is certainly a welcome sight when we pick her up from daycare in the afternoon.
I like to call this one "Becca uses tools." The bottles are out of her reach. They're empty, I wasn't taunting her. But oh. she. wanted. them. One of their favorite games, after chewing on remotes and changing the channel, involves slapping the remotes on the table and sliding them around. Well, Becca discovered that the remote was long enough to reach the bottles. And could tip them over. And then they were within easy reach. Someone help us...
The girls are finally starting to get the hang of opening gifts. It's so cute - - they tear the paper, and then look at us and hold up the paper they just ripped off for us. We have to grab each piece before it ends up in someone's mouth. But they are just so proud of themselves when they rip a piece off. They often aren't as interested in what's inside, as long as they get to keep ripping off the paper and giving it to us.
Here, they're opening some Valentine's gifts. Emma hands paper to daddy.
Julie goes in for a taste.
Daddy tries to wrestle Becca's gift away from Emma. Just trying to help, I'm sure.
Becca always starts with an inspection of any tags.
They all have started to give us things, especially Emma. They tend to want whatever they give us right back, but it's pretty cute. This doesn't mean that they share toys, though. There's still lots of "I want that now" and "I don't care that you had that first," but hopefully we'll get there. They also seem to tease each other with toys. They'll show each other toys and wave them in each other's faces, and then we get tears either when their toy gets stolen, or when toys don't get shared.
The girls have also all perfected the "pick me up" pose - arms up, sad look on their face. A little whimper when they need it.
Julie and Becca used to have their cribs next to each other at daycare. But they had to separate them last week. They'd put the girls down for naps, and they would just feed off each other. Silly gigglebots. We have that problem at home, too, if they're not exhausted.
Emma and Becca have been working on playing catch with us. We've got a big ball that we roll back and forth, and they are finally getting the hang of rolling it back. Apparently this is a social skill, according to their early interventionist.
Greg got a much needed and well deserved day off this past weekend, and went skiing. And it was like 70 degrees here! I took the girls for a nice long walk on Sunday afternoon, hoping the fresh air would help them sleep through the night. Not so much. Emma did take the nap she wouldn't take earlier, though.
Some pictures from our Ladies Only day.
Mom gets attacked.
Julie. cannot. believe. it. (She's been doing this a lot lately... I have no idea where she picked it up. She slaps her head like she's just exasperated. We've been trying to get her to say "uh oh," but we're still just at "uh.")
Becca
Emma
Out for our walk. It was such a gorgeous day! (Julie, Becca, Emma)
Julie. Yes, that is a tear in her eye. She started screaming for no apparent reason when we were 5 minutes from home.
Becca
Emma
Becca. Look at that hair!
One of my new favorite photos. We went without shoes, because it took me so long to get the stroller set up. (I had to move all of the straps up because it had been so long since we used it. And they are a huge pain.) Plus, it was warm, and they already had on long sleeve shirts and pants. I thought they really needed a breeze on their toes. For some reason, when we got back home, Becca crossed her ankles. It makes her look kind of grown up! But those tiny feet... so precious.
Becca and Julie both got bit at daycare this week! No broken skin or bruises or anything. They won't tell us who did it... it's confidential. I hope my kids aren't biters... Honestly, that's one reason I'm glad we got Becca's hearing tested. From what I've read, a lot of times kids will bite out of the inability to express their frustration. If we can give the girls words, hopefully they won't bite... and get us kicked out of daycare.
We took Rebecca for another hearing screening on Monday. The fluid has pretty much cleared, and they said that they didn't see anything that should cause any delays in her speech development. There might be a little bit of loss in one ear, but it's very hard to test a baby, so the plan is to test her again in April. As long as there are no major inconsistencies at that point, we'll test again in a year and then just say that her hearing is selective. :) We also went back to the pediatrician today for flu booster shots, an ear recheck on Emma, and some blood work for Becca. Emma's ears still aren't terrible, but aren't great, either. Of course, she just finished another round of antibiotics last night. So we check again in a month. Becca had some blood work repeated, and is anemic, so we're starting her on some iron supplements. I know I said it last time, but this is absolutely the last time we can take the 3 of them to one appointment. It makes me want to drink ... heavily. Becca dripped blood on my pants, then wouldn't keep her band aid on, so there was blood dripping from her finger. I rummaged through drawers to find another band aid and went through all of them while she kept pulling them off. It gets really hot in those rooms, which doesn't help the situation. Emma was super clingy, Becca was lunging for whoever wasn't holding her, and Julie insisted on sitting on the edge of the table and eating every bit of paper in sight. Julie finally came around to the lollipops this time. She couldn't be bought off last time, but on top of everything, I've got three kids covered in lollipop slobber. COVERED. in lollipop slobber. Becca was insisting on being held when the doctor was trying to look at Emma's ears, and it takes 2 people to hold Emma down, especially when they have to clean out wax first.
Like I said, I should be drinking. If I had more time, maybe.
