They're....

Well, we had our ultrasound this morning. Everything is looking fine. Baby A is smashed into my pelvis which makes it quite uncomfortable most of the time. Baby B is stretched out and enjoying pushing it's sibling into a small space. She thinks she's queen of the castle...that's right they are girls. Actually, baby A wouldn't let us have a look, but all signs still show identical and it's been 4 sonographers now so if baby B is a girl (and she was NOT shy about showing us) than baby A must be too.

O boy, the hair, the clothes, the hormones...I'm not sure we, no I, am ready for this!

Dr. Barbara

Yesterday Jackson finally had his 15 month check up. I say finally because he's now 16 months old and in the past month we missed 2 of his appointments - we just plain forgot!

He has finally hit the 20 lb threshold...but just barely. I think he was 20.5 lbs!!! He is 10th percentile for weight, 20th for head circumference and 50th for height.

Abygail loves pretending that she is the pediatrician...Dr. Barbara as we like to call her. She came with us so she could get her flu shot too. While there she enjoyed watching all the things Dr. Barbara was doing. At one point Jackson started getting fussy and she said, "Dr. Barbara, I think Jackson is ready to go home now." We laughed and Dr. B. said she would hurry so that Jackson could go home. (She really says the funniest things, I need to start blogging them down so that I'll always have a good laugh).

Jackson has become quite the little talker. He loves learning new words, the parts of his body and animals. Here is a sampling of what he knows:

Animals: cow, frog, cat, dog, elephant, giraffe, fish, turtle, duck, bear, monkey, gorilla, and my personal favorite - monster :)

Body parts: nose, eyes, ears, mouth, head, knees, feet, belly, and my personal favorite - tongue

Words: nose (nooo), eye (I), ear (eaw), head (hea), belly(belbe), juice (ju), milk (mil), soda (doda), cracker (cackew), bear (beaw), Bill (as in Little Bill the show - it's his favorite), daddy, mommy, baby, no, poopy, pizza (peda), apple (appa), paint (pain), ball (baaa) and my personal favorite - dirty (deeeeerdieeeeee)

He understands so much too. I would say he understands about 80% of what we say (or more). He likes to help clean up, as well as make a mess with the movies. He loves to finger paint too. His favorite foods are: anything breakfast (pancakes, frenchtoast, eggs), black olives, rasins, apples - really any fruit, carrots, peanut butter (as long as it's just on a spoon), and milk. He's still comfortably wearing some of his 6-9 month clothes and starting to wear 12 month clothes. Pants usually fall right off his waist but his 6-9 month pants are getting too short.

He's a wonderful sleeper and I'm so grateful for that. I hope he can teach his baby siblings to sleep just as well (and his big sister too). He has a blanket that he adores and we can NEVER put him to bed with out it, it usually comes everywhere with us - but it keeps him so happy.

I almost forgot to say...he has 3 front teeth on bottom now and 4 front teeth on top and he's getting in one of his molars.

He is such a sweet and happy little boy. We love watching him grow and learn.

Nap-tastrophy

Another milestone this week...we've started a new nap routine, or rather, I have. It started on Wednesday so we've only tried it out for 3 days so far but, I have my fingers crossed and am hoping and praying that this will work, otherwise Jason is going to have to ship me off to the loony bin.

Here's the old routine: Jackson slept in his pack-n-play which is the only thing set up in the nursery, while I put him down (which only takes 2 seconds because he's the best sleeper in the world) I let Abygail watch one episode of Little Bear. Then it's time for her to lay down on the couch and either take a nap or quietly read books and play with other quiet toys. This has not really been working because I have to stay in there the whole time and do the same as her (read or nap). In the past month I think she's only taken a dozen naps which only gives me a dozen days of sanity. Something had to be done and done now before the twins come.

So here's the new routine and the solution: Jackson now takes a nap in his crib with is in our room, in his room there is a small fan that we run for quiet noise...in our room there is an AC which I just put on fan only and run it for quiet noise. I then put Abygail (at almost the same time) in the nursery in the pack-n-play or on the floor with pillow and blanket (whichever she wants because she can climb out of the pack-n-play anyway) and leave the room (after the snuggles and nap kisses of course).

Day 1: She cried for 45 mins, then started saying ow, ow, ow, so I feared that she had stuck her finger in the socket and electrocuted herself (there seriously is nothing else up there and they love unplugging the fan). I checked on her to find her perfectly ok except for a poopy diaper. I changed her and told her it was still nap time, put her back upstairs and left. She cried for 20 mins and then fell asleep. What did I accomplish during this time - SOOOO MUCH!!! I got the living room cleaned and vacuumed, ate my lunch in peace and rested. It was a very good sanity day.

Day 2: She cried for an hour and a half, kept Jackson awake almost the whole time and then woke him up shortly after he finally fell asleep (I forgot to turn the 'fan' on for him this day - won't forget again!). Finally after an hour and a half I was DONE listening to both of them screaming and figured it was good enough.

Day 3: Same routine, she cried for about an hour and then feel asleep. Jackson woke up shortly after and I brought him downstairs waiting for Abygail to wake up. By 4:30 I went up to wake her up only to be confronted with the WORST, NASTIEST MESS I'VE EVER SEEN OR SMELLED IN MY LIFE!!! Apparently she had gone poop again, only this time she had taken her clothes off, her diaper off and I don't know...maybe danced in it!!! She was covered in poop and so was the floor and her discarded clothes. (I didn't get a picture - I don't think one wants to see or remember that). It dry too, dried on her hands, feet, legs, floor, clothes YUCK YUCK YUCK!!! I had left her in the room just to sleep on the floor and when I opened the door she was in the pack-n-play...I think she wanted to escape the poop and find a clean/poop free place to sleep. When I cleaned it up I just threw her in the shower (that stuff was so caked and dried on I couldn't get it off any other way) and I wound up throwing the clothes away - they were stained anyway and who want's to wear poop stains even if they don't smell on the outside of your clothes!!!

No matter, I will deal with poop, I will listen to screaming and crying, I will handle the police when my neighbor finally calls them because I'm sure they can hear my child screaming and think she is being abused. I will survive this until she sleeps, there's no turning back - it will work, it must work, I will it to work!!! And in the end we will all be the happier for it and I will lavish in my 'alone' time, and enjoy the few months left before we start training two new little ones about sleeping.

A New Doctor

Drum roll.........

We officially have a new doctor - and we really like her. We do not like that it's in a clinic with lots of sick little kiddies but, beggars can't be choosers. We also don't like that we have to go to a different location for sonograms, but it'll be ok.

We did find out that at 24 weeks we will have a sonogram EVERY WEEK. We didn't realize how high risk carrying twins can be. We don't have the highest risk since they are in different sacs but out of 3 possible risks for identical twins we are in the #2 category.

Our BIG ultrasound/sonogram is scheduled early in the morning next Tuesday - I sure hope we can wake up on time!!! Maybe by the time Laura (my sister in California) is awake we'll have some news posted.

For Your Enjoyment

I know I've posted a lot today (this makes post #5 - so if you missed any...scroll on down). I wanted to share that I had to go take a pregnancy test today before the new doctor (possible new doctor - i still haven't decided) will even schedule an appointment.

This is what I look like as of today - 17 weeks along - a little more than 4 months along.

You won't believe what happened! The test turned out positive!!! I can't believe it - I'm pregnant! As if they couldn just look at me, or my sono pictures, or my records from previous doctor!!! How annoying!!!!!

Family Time: Part IV

Jackson Picks Some Apples

Family Time: Part III

Abygail Picks An Apple

We could only get her to pick one apple, she was too worried about her raspberries :)

Family Time: Part I

Saturday we took some much needed family time. We took a trip to Brown's Berry Farm (on a tip from some friends :). Any-who, we got there around 4:30 and they close at 6, so we didn't get to play in the playground area or go for a hay ride or even build our own scarecrows but we did get some fun berry and apple picking time. It was a perfect day, the weather was just great and a few trees were showing their colors. Fall is certainly in the air :)

Abygail was very intent on the job at hand. She loved picking raspberries - I don't think she ate as many as the rest of us, in fact...I never saw her eat even one, while she was picking! Jackson on the other hand was a pick and eat-er! We didn't wind up with as many as we thought we would, they seemed pretty over picked and we were running out of time. The blackberries, well, they were non-existent, guess we should go earlier next time.

Jackson really enjoyed picking apples, but Abygail just wanted to sit in the stroller and look at her basket of raspberries, and munch on them - she was very proud of her handy work.

After all the picking we had ice cream (well, I had a salad and everyone else had ice cream). I wish we had pictures of the fun mess that was made. Turns out that Abygail doesn't like eating the cone. She likes having a spoon and eating her ice cream out of the cone with the spoon - then giving the cone to Daddy to eat. Jackson - well, he likes it all!!!

On our way home we stopped at a state park that was just on the banks of Lake Ontario. It was beautiful! The kids enjoyed seeing the lake and then swinging on the swings. We tried to take a walk in the woods but the sun was going down and Abygail DID NOT like being in the woods when it was starting to get dark...guess we know a little more about her night problems now.

The kids fell asleep before we even got home and they stayed asleep too!!!

This is definitely something we will do again, it was such a good family experience.

Family Time: Part II

Heart Broken

I found this gorgeous piece of art here. I think it's beautiful and all the other work this artist does is fabulous too. I love the colors, the flow and the textures that I'm sure are there because of how she creates her art. Actually she creates it in a different way than I've ever heard/read about before. The title of this piece is Mariposa, which in Spanish means butterfly. Isn't that true, a pregnant woman is like a butterfly, changing and growing? Also the life she carries within...cocooned waiting for 'it's' turn to spread their wings. This piece really touched my heart when I saw it. Actually, it makes me cry when I look at it, that's how much it speaks to me at this moment in my life.

OK, enough of the sappy stuff and the soul bearing.

So ... we will not be finding out the gender of our twins this Monday as expected. I'm heart broken over it. Turns out that with good things, bad things happen too. This semester Jason's adviser took him off of the TA (teacher's assistant) payroll and put him on the GA (graduate assistant or research assistant) payroll. While this is GREAT move for him, in that he now can focus on his research and get done a little faster...it came with a down side. Our insurance changed...and my beloved, wonderful, amazing doctor does not accept the new insurance and is not willing to change that.

So, once again, I'm forced to switch doctors in the middle of a pregnancy - at least this time it's not at 7 months and on a horrible note! Seriously though, I've been heart broken and depressed about this since finding out. To top it off, now we don't have the sonogram on Monday to look forward to either. Our (previous) doctor is sending us a list of doctors she would recommend - hopefully we'll get that today - after which we'll be able to make new appointments and find out what the schedule will be for 'finding out'.

Send some good karma my way!

This is another one of my favorite artists on Esty.

The "Procedure"

Jason had day surgery this morning or as he likes to say...his 'PROCEDURE'. He is doing really well and seems to be recovering great. He's laid up on the couch and we've told the kids:

"Daddy is hurt [or Daddy has an owie (sp?), depending on who is saying it] and we can't climb on him for a little while but we can pat his hand, sing him songs and tell him stories."

They have been doing a great job of giving him his 'space'. He'll be on light duty for a week or two. So no physical activities such as riding his bike or swimming, he's going to miss that, or wrestling with the kids.

This afternoon as I was making lunch for the whole clan I thought..."whose going to do my dishes, whose going to do my laundry, whose going to feed the kids in the morning???" Jason's been taking care of all those things and more since I've been feeling so icky. Thankfully I'm starting to have more energy and I'm sure we'll get through this. I'm even starting to feel a little better in the mornings (although these past 2 weeks I've thrown up more than the entire time combined). O, to be close to family...maybe someday we'll get that chance.

Just to throw in a picture, here is one of Jackson, Abygail and our friend Grace playing in the water fountain at the zoo a week ago. We looked at a few animals but really, it was a hot day and we just sat at the fountain for a long while, chatting and enjoying the shade while the kids got wet, Wet, WET!! I didn't bring them a change of clothes so I stripped them down to their diapers when we got in the car. I only got 2 pictures before the camera* batteries died. Jason won't let me post the other recent pictures with Jackson wearing one of Abygail's hot pink shirts and a necklace - he picked the outfit out all by himself and it looks like he's wearing a dress...he's so cute and proud of himself, but you'll just have to take my word for it.

*Did I tell you the camera is working again? Abygail fixed it, she just had it one day and it was working, I think we'll keep her!

Little Monsters

Last week we went in for another sonogram of the Lil' Monsters. Hope you enjoy!

Twin A - you can see that their bodies are fully developed by 12 weeks...now they are just growing and developing on the inside.


Twin B


Both A and B - the line in the middle is the membrane that shows they are in two separate sacks


Both A and B - top of heads and one hand each.

Although I referred to them as Lil' Monsters, I still think they are cute! 4 more weeks and we'll know ... boys or girls??!!