Mobile Mable and Marvin

Well, other than seeing his urine bag (from the catheter) peeking out from the bottom of his pants, you wouldn’t know that Colin had surgery to watch him rolling around. We have only been giving him pain medication at night (and probably don‘t even need to do that, but just in case …), and he is moving everywhere. (It’s quite painful for us to watch, but doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.)

In the past two days, Colin seems to have really mastered the art of army crawling. He isn’t quite as fast or mobile as Veronica, but he can really get around right now. He uses a combination of rolling and crawling to get from one side of the room to the other. He also seems to be sitting better suddenly, which is encouraging.

Veronica now will follow us from room to room, and come searching for us if we’ve been out of sight for too long. Suddenly, the house is filled with the thump, thump, thumping of Veronica as she crawls everywhere. And opens every drawer and door in sight.

We definitely need to get moving on the baby proofing now.

Colin is supposed to go back tomorrow to get the catheter out and the bandages removed. (So far, the thrice-daily baths haven’t done the trick on their own.) Unfortunately, we didn’t call for the appointment early enough, and missed them on Friday. (Darn day before the holiday and early closing.) So I left a message and hope they’ll be able to squeeze us in. Otherwise, I don’t suppose one extra day will really make that much of a difference.

Then it’s just a matter of watching and waiting to make sure everything heals properly. I suspect we’ll have a couple of follow up visits during the first month to make sure there aren’t any problems, but I don’t know that for sure. I guess I’ll know better tomorrow.

In surgery now [updated]

The anesthesiologist just wheeled Colin away for his surgery. It’s a long surgery — his surgeon is expecting four hours — so they need to intubate Colin for the anesthesia. And while I certainly don’t want my little guy's anesthesia to wear off before they’re done the surgery, it does make me nervous having him intubated again. After being on the ventilator for so long, I have the (irrational) fear that he’s going to have trouble getting off again.

So now I sit and wait, and wait, and wait. And hope that God is guiding the surgeon’s hands, and all will go well.

++++

After one blood transfusion and four plus hours in the operating room, Colin’s surgeon emerged to tell me that the surgery ended up being more complicated than they anticipated (and they were anticipating a complicated surgery), but in the end all the pieces came together just right. Now, we just have to hope everything heals well.

Because he had the transfusion, and because they had to do more extensive work than anticipated, Colin is having to stay in the hospital overnight. Unfortunately, that means another night of basically no sleep for John in the surgical observation unit — three walls and a curtain does not a quiet room make.

The anesthesiologist was happy with Colin’s recovery and didn’t need to observe him any longer for breathing issues. But the surgeon told me that he will check on Colin in the morning, and may decide he needs to stay longer. (If so, I hope they’ll be able to get him a real room so he and John can rest.) I am hoping, however, to have my baby back home tomorrow. 

He's in the army now

Not one to be left behind, Colin has decided to join the crawling revolution in our house. But of course, being Colin, he has to take his own approach: He has discovered the army crawl.

How Colin crawls right now, minus the gun, of course.

I first noticed him doing it earlier this week: he gets on his stomach and pulls himself along using his forearms. It looks kind of funny, but it works. 

And he’s getting better at it every day, thanks to a lot of practice. John said he was crawling a lot today. Which is good, because that will help build his upper body strength — something he needs if he’s ever going to sit on his own.

Keeping the rivalry alive, Veronica is getting serious about crawling on all fours. She has several times in the past two days actually gotten on her hands and knees and moved herself forward. (Of course, it’s not nearly as fast as bouncing across the floor or going backward, but there’s no challenge left in that.)

So far, prayers answered

All those months ago, as we struggled with the decision about when to deliver the twins, our overriding hope was that Veronica would not suffer because of any decisions we made to benefit Colin. 

Today, Veronica had another appointment at the NICU follow-up clinic at the hospital. Here they follow the babies to make sure they are getting the services they need for any delays they might have (our occupational therapist currently sees babies at the clinic) and to keep an eye on any preemie-specific health issues they may have.

I had no real concerns going in to the appointment, other than to call to the doctor’s attention that our occupational therapist had noticed that Veronica’s left leg seems to be turning out more than it should at the hip. (He checked, and she doesn’t seem to have any range of motion problems, so right now it’s nothing to worry about. We’ll just keep an eye on it.)

Even so, I was happy to hear that Veronica is on target or ahead on everything — both size and development — for her actual age. So in just over 10 months, she has overcome the disadvantages of being born so early, and is developing just like any other baby born at the beginning of July.

Deb, our occupational therapist, said she is doing things an 11 month old baby should be doing with fine motor skills, and is at 10 months in her gross motor skills. She is an average height for a 10 month old (and at about the 25th percentile for weight), and is growing just fine. 

In short, she is now normal. 

(Of course, something could always arise later as a problem, but we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t.)

And she's off

I came home to the news that Veronica actually crawled a couple of times today. She has been scooting backward for a while now, but hasn’t really done much actual “crawling” in the more traditional sense yet. Until today. 

I’m looking forward to seeing her crawl myself. Maybe tomorrow she’ll “perform” for me.

On to happier news …

Okay, so yesterday’s post was a bit of a downer — I was pretty wiped out. And it is getting a little old, this lack of sleep thing. But last night went a little better, for Veronica at least. (John and Colin aren’t up yet, so I don’t know how their night went.) 

Veronica still spent the bulk of the night in bed with me and woke up every couple of hours, but I was able to get her to settle herself down to sleep in her crib twice with just a little back rub. (I probably could have gotten her to do it more often, but I was too tired to try. It’s just easier to bring her into bed. Bad habit … I know. But sometimes the downhill route is the only one you have energy to take. I’ll climb that mountain later.)

Veronica has picked up a new trick — she is now clapping. And she can actually make noise when she claps. It’s funny to watch her practice (pretty much all the time) because she still gets so excited when she does it. 

She is also trying hard to move toward feeding herself. She does very well with bigger finger foods, but she still can’t manage the spoon without help and certainly would not be able to scoop up food with it. But we’re trying to be creative in finding ways for her to do it alone. Putting food on a cracker or rice cake is one way that seems to provide a good (albeit messy) solution.

Veronica eating a piece of broccoli.

Colin, too, is finally doing better with eating solids — although he is several months behind Roni in eating. Whenever I try to give him finger foods, he just looks at me as if I have grown another head. But he has finally moved beyond the “just a few spoonfulls” stage with his purees, and is doing well with the thicker foods. 

Of course, it’s still harder for him because he isn’t sitting on his own yet. And being nonstop sick makes eating more challenging too. It’s hard to focus on new skills when you’re having a hard time breathing. So for Colin, I think catching up to Roni in eating habits is going to be a long road. I also fear that we’ll have another setback with his surgery next week. It’s unfortunate, because he could use the extra calories. But what can we do? He’ll get there eventually.

Colin enjoying his favorite Chicken and Sweet Potato Dinner.

She who does not sleep

Veronica seems to be bent on giving up napping, which unfortunately has earned her the nickname (from me at least) of “she who does not sleep.” This is compounded by the fact that she’s so overtired that at night, she has a hard time staying asleep. And she is getting another tooth.

So I’ll get a good stretch from her during the early part of the night (while I’m still awake), but after 11:30 or so, she has been waking up every hour and a half or so. And nothing makes her happy. Except nursing.

Colin, meanwhile, has become “he who won’t go back to sleep” at night. We’ve managed to get him to sleep without swaddling most of the time, which is good. But, unfortunately, he is sick again, so he isn’t sleeping well at night because he is having a hard time breathing. And when he wakes up, nothing makes him happy. Except nursing.

Last night was the worst night in a long time. Veronica was up at 11:00 or so, and again at 1:00. And when I tried to lay her back in her crib after nursing her at 1:00, she started to get really worked up. So I decided to bring her into bed with me. (I think she gets cold, even though she’s wearing a heavy blanket sleeper, which is why she likes to cuddle.) 

Throughout all of this I could hear Colin crying in the other room. After I got Veronica back to sleep, I decided I would go and see if John wanted to switch babies — he could be Veronica’s warm body, and I could nurse Colin and get him settled down. 

Well, that worked for a little while, but I had just started to fall asleep when John came back in to tell me that Veronica was getting worked up in the other room and he couldn’t settle her down. So we switched back.

The upshot of the night was that I basically spent from 7:00 until 3:00 nursing babies with 20 minute naps from time to time. Then I was able to sleep from 3:30 or so until my alarm went off at 5:15, when Veronica also decided it was time to get up too. At least she was cheerful — I can’t say the same for myself. 

I am really, really hoping for a better night tonight.

More new tricks

Colin has now gotten his first tooth as well (one day after Veronica’s appeared). In this, at least, they are acting like twins. He has a second that seems very close to erupting as well. I’m not so sure Veronica does as well. 

Ever since Colin discovered his feet (finally) several weeks ago, he has taken up a new hobby: sock eating.

Colin eating his sock and playing with his favorite activity center.

He loves pulling his sock off, and then it quite often goes into his mouth. He sometimes will be busy concentrating on something else, sock dangling from his mouth like a cigarette, while he works. It’s pretty funny. 

(He also likes to suck his thumb through his shirt, so I think there must be some sort of a texture thing going on with him.)

Veronica has picked up several new tricks in the last two or three days as well. She learned how to get into a sitting position on her own (which has destroyed several naps) last week. Not content to rest on her laurels, she figured out how to pull herself up to standing this week (in the crib). This has yet to ruin any naps, but I feel certain it will at some point. 

She also is figuring out how to crawl. She has crawled in therapy (with help) a couple of times and understands the concept. Over the weekend, she started to really put it together on her own. On Sunday, Ethan saw her crawl a “step” to pick up a toy, and today she was crawling backward all over the living room. (I suspect this too will continue to wreck naps an night sleeping.)

As you may have gathered from all of the parenthetic comments about sleep, Veronica isn’t. Well, to be fair, that isn’t exactly accurate. She is sleeping, just not as much or during the times that we would like.

This is what Veronica looks like after a day during with only a couple of half hour naps:

Too tired to sit up, too stubborn to sleep. So this is how we play.

Maybe tonight …

And now she stands

John just called me at work to let me know that while he was giving Colin his nebulizer treatment (yes, he’s still sick, poor little guy), Veronica figured out how to pull herself to standing up in the crib. She apparently thought it was fun, because she did it several times in a row (until she got too close to the side and didn’t have enough room for leverage). 


Of course, I had taken the camera downstairs to download the pictures from yesterday (no, I never got around to it), so John wasn’t able to capture the moment on film. Oh well, there’s always next time.

Houston, I think we have a tooth here

Okay, I really said, “Hey, Veronica’s got a tooth here,” but I’m allowing myself a little creative license in my headlines right now. 

Yes, that’s right. After months of drooling, chewing and gnawing her way through everything in site, Veronica’s first tooth finally broke through this morning. You can’t see much of it yet, but the sharp little edges have broken through the gum, and you sure can feel them. 

I don’t expect this will make much of a difference in her eating — she’s already a champ with the solids. (The only thing she really doesn’t like is strawberries so far, and we’ve tried a fairly wide variety of things with her.)

So now we’re hoping Colin is able to break his first tooth out too, so he can get some relief from the teething (which seems to have bothered him more than Veronica to begin with).