Caleb's First ER Trip

This past Monday, Caleb woke up with a fever from a cold. The day before, David had taken Josiah to the doctor to check up on his cold (which had lasted a week) and it turns out he was fine. However, the doctor gave the advice that when children have a fever (even up to 106 degrees) that it is wise to wait it out for the first three days and not give Tylenol or Motrin, so that the fever can kill the virus off quicker. Taking that advice, I did notice Caleb's temp increased steadily throughout the day though didn't seem to "spike," (as that would be an indication for febrile seizures) once taken under the arm 101.5 (add a degree) and then later 103.5. I was very tempted to give him Motrin as he was very lethargic and whatnot, but he was so sleepy and so I just let him sleep instead. Soon after he fell asleep on the chair, I heard him start to cry and so I ran over to see what had happened. He was having a febrile seizure, and so I quickly called for David (who was working from home that day) and he came out to care for him while I searched for the phone to dial 911.

When the firemen came, they checked his vitals and his temp was 104.7 in the ear!! His heartrate was of course elevated and he seemed to still be asleep afterward as he wasn't responding well to us or the fireman. Once he cooled down a bit (they took off his pants and got a cold cloth for his head) he sort of woke up and then started to cry again when he saw the fireman. He said at that point that we should give him a dose of Motrin, so I got that out for him. The paramedic soon arrived with the ambulance and took down all the information, and then advised us to have him go to the ER since it was his first seizure. Also, he was still very out of it and they said it would be best to transport him in the ambulance in case he had another seizure...I wasn't arguing with that. He looked horrible at this point! I called our babysitter's mom and got them to come over to watch the other two kiddos and rode in the ambulance to the hospital and then when the babysitters arrived, David also came to the hospital in the car.

It turns out that David got to Tacoma General before we did, as the ambulance driver took a very circuitous route to the hospital. Apparently, the paramedic in the back informed me that he was used to driving around Sumner and wasn't as familiar with the Milton/Fife area. I could have thought of two shorter routes than the one he took! Oh well, thankfully by that point, Caleb had calmed down and was falling asleep in the ambulance. He kept looking with his eyes only to the right, which the paramedic said is sometimes a side effect of the seizure. Eventually, his eyes returned to normal and he would look both ways again.

The doctor in the ER informed us that his seizure was of course related to his high temperature and that in the future we should treat any temperature of his with a regime of Tylenol and alternating Motrin every 3-4 hours to prevent future problems with febrile seizures. We stayed in the ER room until Caleb could show he could take some fluids (a popsicle--he loved it) without throwing up. He was very shaky and wanted to sit with me or Daddy at all times. We did lay him down on the bed though for a bit and laid my coat underneath him to keep a Mommy smell around him. A couple times in what seemed like a deep sleep, he would jerk out of sleep and tried to roll over and nearly fell off the bed! I had to sit by the bed in order to catch him just in case.

When he first come home from the hospital, Daniel greeted him and gave him a hug and kiss and Caleb gave a sweet shy smile back. He wanted to walk, but wasn't too steady on his feet yet. I asked him if he was hungry and he tried to run to his highchair (like usual) and he tripped and fell and did a face plant on the rug. This was NOT popular. His legs were not cooperating very well!

We were told that after a seizure that usually a child will sleep a long time as the seizure really takes it out of them! However, we found the opposite to be true that he wanted to be awake and was extremely restless and kept waking up screaming the entire night. I began to wonder if he was scared to sleep, since he had the seizure during his nap. I'm not sure if he would have a memory of that necessarily, but maybe? It wasn't until the next day after repeated attempts at getting him to take a nap, did he finally sleep for a straight hour (3:30-4:30pm) and after that he was a little happier and more like himself, although still very shaky. That night, he slept VERY soundly (much to our relief) and the following day was back to his normal self. We knew that if he started to break out into random dance that he would prove his normal Caleb-ness was back, and he did a little jig for David in the morning.

Febrile seizures are common in young children with high temps, and also there is a higher risk if someone in the family has had them. I had them also around the same age as Caleb, so there you go. Needless to say, we learned a lesson and will be very careful about fevers from now on for sure!

Thanks for all who prayed for our precious little one. We are very thankful that he is back to normal and not hospitalized or permanently injured or whatever!

Christmas Fun 2009 Part 2

The day after Christmas we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to exchange gifts and have dinner together. At one point, I caught the folks with the twins in the computer room looking at this Fischer Price ABC's game on the internet. Daniel just loves this game and kept pointing at all the letters and repeating what the computer said. The game works in that the child can press any letter on the keyboard and it pops up with a picture of an animal, saying both the letter name and then playing the animal sound as well. Caleb enjoyed it also and was mimicking the animal noises and sometimes the letters also.

Daddy is opening the adult-proof packaging here for some of the toys the boys opened at the grandparent's house. The twins got a Fischer Price car wash set and a firehouse ramp dealy as well.

Mommy is playing "Hungry Hungry Hippos" with the three boys. Daddy is helping too (Daniel is sitting on his lap).

Josiah is posing here by G-ma and G-pa's tree. When I ask him to smile for the camera, he tends to give this really goofy grin. Not his natural smile at all, but still shows a very sweet Josiah! Josiah got a Tag Junior reader pen, which I will use with him to start getting him interested in reading more. The pen interacts with the books that they come with and teaches all sorts of beginning reading types of concepts. I am hoping that this will be a great tool as I will start to homeschool him soon, probably officially starting some things this coming fall. For now we have two of the books that go with the pen and eventually we will collect more of them I am sure. He also got a neat construction crane that he enjoyed to playing with as well.

Caleb enjoyed checking out many of the ornaments on G-ma and G-pa's tree. She has lots of musical instrument ornaments and he took this trumpet off and tried to play it. Someday we will tell him that you play the trumpet with your mouth and that you blow the other end of it. For now, he is just too cute!

Caleb also tried his hand at playing G-ma's guitar. This is one that is missing some strings and isn't really playable, but he enjoyed strumming it nonetheless.

Daniel also obsconded with a musical instrument ornament, but his instrument of choice was the french horn. He does have the right end in his mouth, but his buzzing technique leaves something to be desired at this age. Again....too cute!

Daniel also wouldn't be outdone and wanted to play a little guitar. Caleb is in the background looking cute as usual.

Mommy is helping Daniel look at his new Tag Jr. reader. This is a really neat toy that is very interactive with the books that you buy for them. You just press this device onto any picture on the page and it tells you what it is and also reads a story for them when they press it onto the words of the story. I have the feeling this will gets lots of use from our Daniel boy who loves to play with technology! Even with the other types of toys around, he sat with me for a while and played with this one right away.

We had a nice time at the folks house and Grandpa made a nice spaghetti dinner for us with salad, french bread, and some ice cream for dessert. I forgot the twins bibs, so they ate their food shirtless, which at first was not very popular until Daddy distracted them by tickling some baby flesh! All three boys fell asleep in the car on the way home and we were able to transfer them to their rooms without too much fuss.

Christmas Fun 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas morning with the kiddos this year! In the weeks prior, we had begun quizzing Josiah as to the real meaning of Christmas and he was able to tell us several times today "why" we were celebrating, which was a nice touch to the day for sure! Later in the day, they were all sitting at the table playing with their toys and we got some really fun shots of them having a lot of fun together.

Also later in the day, it was very quiet out in the living room and David and I suspected the worst, but came in to discover them sitting here as pictured quietly watching one of the new Veggie Tales movies that Grandma & Grandpa Carpenter sent. Josiah was also sharing his new Leapster 2 with Daniel who was THRILLED to be given the chance to check it out. Josiah in general was very good with the twins and played with them sharing the toys all throughout the day pretty well. We had a couple of run-ins with the "no sharing" bug, but he quickly got the clue that not sharing was not allowed!

Here Josiah is opening his Bumblebee transformer toy, which the adults of the family found to be impossible to transform, though it is supposed to be easy enough for a 5-year-old to operate. Ummm...not so much! It was very difficult to make it change form, so I have the feeling this will remain a robot most of the time.

Caleb is looking at one of his new "Cars" board books that we got for the twins. He is giving his precious Caleb look as well. Caleb's response to the day was not super different from his normal mode of operation. At one point though, I caught him on video dancing wildly to some Christmas music, which was fun to watch!

Daniel is checking out his new carrot racecar that we got for him. This year we didn't get too many presents for the boys, as they are satisfied with just a few things. They seemed to enjoy the toys they did receive however! Daniel's reaction to the day was one of lots of curiousity and bouts of clingy-ness to Mommy. I think he was tired as neither Caleb or Daniel had as long a nap as they usually do, so I am sure that contributed to his clingy mood. He enjoyed playing with the new toys though and some old stand-bys as well.

The most popular gift for the twins were these stocking stuffers that I picked up for them. They are those multiple "pin" toys where you can put your hand underneath and the pins push up to make the shape of your hand or whatever you put in the pins. They were fascinated with seeing how this worked and came back to them again and again throughout the day.

Daddy is helping Josiah build his Star Wars spaceship. Josiah had been asking for a Star Wars Lego set for some time now and this was his first set to try out. Josiah was a big helper for Daddy finding pieces that they needed to build it.

Josiah's most favorite toy that he continued to play with all day was his new Leapster 2 game system. We call it his "own computer" and that was very popular with him! Daddy is showing Josiah how to play here and Daniel is looking on longingly at the "puter," as he would love to have one too I am sure!

This is a fun shot of Daniel laughing at the cars rolling on the table and Caleb looking on unamused. The boys enjoyed playing with their new matchbox cars on the table rolling them back and forth to Mommy and Daddy.

After all the gifts were opened (done by 6:15am), I set out to making us a nice breakfast complete with scrambled eggs with cheese, blueberry pancakes, and maple sausage. Josiah ate all of his blueberry pancakes, Daniel's favorite was the "me" (meat) and Caleb scarfed down everything put in front of him. And as another special meal, David cooked us a fabulous dinner including ham, mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole. Daniel proceeded to rub the mashed potatoes in his hair, which was the second episode of this hair tonic treatment today (earlier he put yogurt in his hair). I was told that as a child when I didn't like something I would dump it on my head (my un-fave was pudding), so what goes around comes around I suppose! Josiah tried all the food, but liked the mashed potatoes the best. Daniel did love the "me" though again (in this case the ham) and again Caleb chowed down on all of it, but as the classic mimicker he had to rub a little of the mashed potatoes in his hair before I stopped him from doing it further.

Overall, it was a fun-filled day and we enjoyed playing with the kiddos and seeing their joy as well. Josiah still has a bit of a cold and we may take him in to the doctor tomorrow as I suspect he has a sinus infection, but we will see how he is feeling tomorrow. We have lots of fun Christmas memories to look back on and are very thankful for God's greatest gift to us, the birth of His Son! Happy Birthday Jesus!

Making Christmas Cookies

This Christmas instead of making a gingerbread house, I decided to make some Christmas cookies with the boys. We started the task when the twins were asleep, but one by one they woke up and wanted to come in and help us. Thankfully, it was a Saturday and David was able to assist with taking cookies out of the oven and fielding little boy disputes, while I was able to continue rolling and cutting cookie shapes.

This was another cute shot, but Daniel wasn't looking at the camera on this one. The twins kept fighting over who would stand on the front part of the chair. At one point, I had another chair on the left of me, but it was just too crowded and I had to move that one away.

Josiah was the official "sprinkles" guy, and one time when I gave him a cookie to sprinkle he said very proudly, "Here come the sprinkles!!" He was wearing the apron that I made for him at MOPS one time. It says his name on the top and the orange shape is a pumpkin, and the words are "My Little Pumpkinhead," which was his nickname for a long time. I was going to take a picture of him and print it on fabric and sew it onto the pumpkin, but yeah....never got around to that! Overall, it was a fun time making the cookies as a family and we were able to take our spoils to church the following day to share with our Sunday School class.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

This year we put the tree up in the presence of all the kiddos and considering their normal activity level and curiosity, they did very well! The twins were very interested in the tree and Caleb was saying, "Ooooo," quite frequently as you see pictured here.

When Daddy got down underneath to screw in the tree more securely, Daniel positioned himself down there as well on his belly and tried to "help" as well. Caleb soon followed suit and there were two boys in training down below the tree.

For Josiah this was all old hat, but he was still very excited to see the tree again and gave me a really cheesey, excited smile here to prove it.

Birthday Fun!!

There were quite a number of birthday activities this year. It started on Friday night when Grandma took our family out to Red Robin for dinner. I was given a free dessert there and a balloon to wear on my wrist, and of course the waiters serenading me with the "sound off " birthday song...you know, "I don't know, but I've been told. Heather here is getting old....sound off, 1-2, sound off 3-4....etc." Then on my actual b-day (today), David and I had a nice date and my parents watched the kiddos for the afternoon. We went to Claimjumpers for lunch and then did some shopping for me at Southcenter Mall and I got some very needed items. Thank you honey for the nice time and being so patient while I shopped for some things!

When we came home, we had a little celebration with my Mom and Dad, and gave the twins cupcakes to celebrate their 2nd birthday also (which is on Monday). Here is a cute shot of Caleb with his cupcake. He didn't mind making a great mess of his cupcake! It was originally a snowman with three little layers of frosting and at first the top two layers fell off when he turned it over and he was very concerned and said, "Uh OH!!" and tried to put it back together. Eventually, he just gave in and started eating it all wherever it happened to be.

Here is Daniel eating his cupcake. He is the more careful eater of the two and towards the end when his hands were getting all mucked up with frosting, he was clearly asking us to wash his hands off. He tried wiping them against each other, but that only served to get more frosting on either hand.

This is a precious photo of when we were singing them the b-day song and were trying to get them to blow out the candles. Daniel has this, "I know this is for me and I am embarrassed," look and Caleb is reaching out to grab his candle.

Caleb has such a sweet expression here with his new doodle pro toy. They both absolutely LOVED this toy! I had a feeling they would as we have a smaller one that they usually fight over. Now they each have their own to play with!

Daniel is enjoying his doodle pro also. He is the one that used to hog the other one that we have all the time. He loves to bring it up to me and have me write words or letters. I can tell he is a word-smith and really craves to learn more words! At times, he does recognize a word I will write such as his name, my name, etc. and he also identifies a lot of letters I write. He is my first kiddo who seems to like to draw too! We will see how long that lasts!

The twins are playing with their doodle pros here and Daniel has the sweetest look on his face! This is a really nice shot of his gorgeous blue eyes! As per usual when the camera is out, Caleb is turning the other way. It is much harder to get a shot of him I have found!

Grandpa is holding the new toys for the boys here and they are showing him what they can do! The kiddos also got a "Mack the Truck" fort dealy that they can go in and out of and they enjoyed playing with that too. Thanks again Mom and Dad for coming today and watching the kids, so that I could have a semi-kid free day on my b-day. It was great fun to go out with my hubby!

Not to be left out, Josiah also got one present to open. He had been asking for the "Mater Fire Truck" toy he had seen one time with Grandma and she got it for him. He was excited and enjoyed playing with it the rest of the night! Overall, it was a long and busy day, but filled with fun and memories! There are more pictures of the kiddos on facebook for those of you who have an account.

Grandma is posing here with the boys at Red Robin the day before my b-day. They enjoyed their cheese pizza and a little bit of ice cream afterward. Thanks again Mom for dinner, it was a nice treat!

New Hair Do & Josiah-isms

Rarely do a post just a photo of me here on the blog. However, I got a new "do" here recently and decided to share. My friend from church (Christy) highlighted and cut my hair this last Saturday. It was an early b-day gift from my mom. I really like what she did, it looks really nice and I have less bulk now to deal with in the back! Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving holiday! We went to my parent's house for the feasting and thanking and had a nice time. I stayed the night there with the boys and David drove back that night 'cause he had to work that night a bit and the next day. It was interesting to say the least to try and stay the night there. We had two pack n' plays for the boys, but they were none too happy to be out of their routine and didn't want to go down at the normal time of 7pm. After Caleb's screaming bloody murder fit for about 20 minutes, mom suggested we take them for a ride in the car. They proceeded to blabber to each other in the car and make raspberries the entire drive and finally we asked them, "Are you hungry?" and indeed they were! I thought they had eaten more that day, but apparently not. We stopped at a Shell station and got them a snack that they scarfed down on the way home. Then after drinking some milk in the high chairs, I put Daniel down at 8:30pm, then got Josiah down around 9pm and then retrieved Caleb from my Dad who was very subdued by that point and he was down and out by 9:30pm! Needless to say, the next day when we came home, they went down much earlier than the norm and slept for 11 hours....a new record! My mom's comment to me as we were leaving was, "You're amazing....I don't know how you do it." My response to her was that at our home we have it childproofed a bit more, and that our routines are established here and though it is still not "easy" it is easier than trying to work with them elsewhere. Just as a fun side note, while at the parent's house, the various blips in the child-proofing defenses were as follows: salt and pepper poured out onto the dining room table and in the living room when Caleb smuggled it in there, Daniel pulled a mug of coffee pulled to the kitchen floor (thankfully luke warm), Daniel also knocked a pop right out of my hands all over my clothes and some got on the couch, the computers were turned on and off numerous times, the lamp in the family room was knocked over frequently (though not broken thankfully), & the dishwasher was often started by Daniel and then promptly turned off by one of us. Fun times! The parent's were glad to have us over though and I am sure were breathing a sigh of relief that they are the grandparents and got some peace after we left as well.


The countdown to Christmas begins! And as usual, I will likely do our gift shopping the day before Christmas! We don't have that much to purchase, just some gifts for the kids, so that is pretty easy to find at the last minute. And any new toy to Josiah is the coolest thing ever, and the twins don't know any different, so it will be a fun year I am sure. Josiah has only asked for Lego sets....oh and most every "boy toy" commercial he has seen on Nickelodeon or Disney Channel when he sees them. It is funny. And for the girl toys, he either says, "We should get that for Hailey" (a friend's daughter) or now he will say, "When the baby girl gets older, we can get her that!"

While on a Josiah note, his new thing of late is to say, "I don't want a baby sister anymore. I want a KID!" I tell him that all babies grow up into kids. He still emphatically states that he doesn't want a baby sister and then says he wants another brother. I usually say something like, "We don't get to decide if the baby is a sister or a brother, only God decides that." He then in a mad voice says, "Then I am going to leave this family. I am going to go live with Grandma and Grandpa." When he said this to Daddy, Daddy just laughed and said, "That's silly, you can't leave this family....God gave you to us!" He also added that Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't be able to keep up with him. Josiah said, "Grandpa can run!" Daddy said, "No actually Grandpa can't run." (He has had some problems with his foot of late.) Josiah said, "Oh yeah." Good old 4-year-old logic...we can usually talk him out of things! Other times though, he does want a baby sister and he regularly hugs and kisses my belly and talks to the little girlie. Sometimes he will sit still to feel her kick too when she is really going at it and he has felt her a few times. The twins also say, "Hello baby" to my belly and kiss it, but I think they are just mimicking their big brother. They don't really get the concept that a baby is living in my belly!

Another cute conversation I had with Josiah today went something like this:

Josiah: When the baby girl grows up, I can marry her!

Mommy: No, you can't marry your sister, you have to marry somebody outside our family!

Josiah: Well, I have to marry SOMEONE!

Mommy: (chuckling to self) Sweetie, there are lots of girls out there to marry! Daddy and I will pray that you will meet the right girl for you when it is time to marry someone!

Earlier in the day today, Daddy shared some Smarties candies with Josiah and it was a fun treat. Later, Josiah did something good and I remarked, "You're so smart Josiah!" He replied, "That's because I ate Smarties!!" And that explains it I guess!!

Mommy & Her Three Boys!!

My husband took an opportunity this morning to capture this precious moment. We like to cuddle up in the morning and read "tories" as Daniel calls "stories" and amazingly, everyone is looking at the camera and has a cute look on their faces. The only downside is Mommy still has morning hair. Oh well, you win some and you lose some!

Super Glue Scare & Our Resident Hero

Our little Caleb-ee just as predicted was our very first 911 call here recently. I left the boys at my friend's house while I went to the doctor to get a check-up for baby girl and a half an hour later when I came back, I was walking up to her door with the firemen and paramedics!! I just KNEW it was one of my kids! I was a little worried at first until I was able to assess the situation and see that he was OK. I thought because she hadn't called me yet that it was such an emergency that she was still occupied helping the injured child. As it turns out, she was just still on the phone with poison control. Caleb found a drawer that had some small, sealed tubes of Super Glue and while my friend was in the bathroom for less than a minute, he took one out and started munching on it. She was afraid it would go down his throat and make it so he couldn't breathe or something and so called 911 immediately in case he needed transport to the hospital. They sent the team over and also connected her with poison control to remedy the situation the best she could from her end. They told her to make him drink some milk as that helps neutralize the properties of the glue and so she poured some into his mouth. Also she was told not to peal it off the skin as it could take some skin with it if not careful. It was coming out in big chunks though and even though it got stuck to the roof of his mouth and the back of his teeth, in a few days it all came off! They told me to have him eat crunchy peanut butter and things with fat in it to help get it to come off naturally. Thankfully also, the tube was so small that it didn't have enough toxins to hurt him in any other way if ingested. It just mainly presented a choking hazard if big pieces of the dried glue were swallowed and we got the majority of it out right away. Earlier when I was visiting with my friend before my appointment, I saw Caleb discover the Super Glue in the drawer, but I saw that they were sealed tubes and didn't move them because I thought I could distract him well enough from them and that he wouldn't be able to get into them anyway. I should have known better with my curious ones! Oh well, live and learn!

As a side note, the check-up for baby girl went great. Her heartbeat was steady at 140 and I was measuring properly and all that, so all is well!

At MOPS, they were giving away some free costumes, and I thought Josiah would enjoy dressing up as Buzz Lightyear for playtime. He was very excited when he saw the costume! He said, "I'm cute in this!" He also giggled at himself in the mirror and when showing Daddy he giggled a lot too. Whenever he wears it now we address him as Buzz Lightyear and it isn't until he removes the hood that we "recognize" that it is really Josiah! :) I hope to pick up a few more costumes for him to play in at some point! Oh and at one point we got him to say, "To 'finity and beyond!"

Gorgeous Sunset!!!!

The other day I was teaching and happened to glance outside and was just taken aback by how beautiful the sunset was! I asked David to go get a few pictures! So pretty!

This is a close-up and if you look very close you can see a chinook helicopter in the middle of the picture also.

Late 18-Month Well Child Visit & More "Sleeping" Capers

I have still been struggling a bit to get the boys to sleep for their naptimes and one day, they just took to falling asleep on the couch together. They didn't sleep as long as I would have liked this day, but such is life. The newest naptime arrangement is to put Caleb in the pack n' play in the living room, which he absolutely loves and Daniel sleeps in his room in the toddler bed. What is kind of funny is that David's mom told me that when he was little, he absolutely INSISTED to be in the center of the action all the time too (like Caleb) and she also had to set up a playpen in the kitchen area where she was for him. Like father like son I guess! The other day, I fought and fought with Caleb to sleep in his room and poor Daniel was looking at me like, "Get this kid outta here so I can sleep!" After a while, I got the idea to try him in the pack n' play and low and behold that was the ticket! He stopped fussing RIGHT away and nuzzled his head in the corner of the pack n' play and was asleep almost immediately. The interesting part also was that he slept MUCH longer (about 2 hours) and he slept through a piano and a flute lesson being conducted right next to him. Works for me! I'll take it! Daniel is pretty easy to get to sleep. If he falls asleep in his high chair or the car, I can just transfer him easily to his bed and he continues to sleep for a good long time also.

Daniel does really well in his toddler bed and at night both the boys settle into their room pretty nicely. The new "fun" thing to do however sometimes when they aren't super tired, is to turn on the light and wreak havoc in the room. The funny part is there isn't much to destroy, but they find and destroy it anyway. We have two dressers of clothes in there and even with 2 heavy bins of books on top of one of the dressers, they still manage to turn it around and pull out all the clothes from time to time. Another little trick they discovered this morning was to pull off the childproof lock on the door and come barging into my room at 5:15am. UGH!! It was bad enough that I heard them turn off the monitor at 4:30am...they reach into the crib that I have left in there (and created a roof for, see previous post) and pull on the cord they can get and get the surge protector near them and then pull the monitor cord and turn it off and/or switch the channel number. David jokingly now calls them "Pinky & the Brain" and says that like those two, they are a very ingenious combination of intellect and risk-taking/crazy behavior.

At the well child visit today, Daniel weighed in at 28 pounds 14.5 ounces (60th percentile) and was 36 1/2 inches long (above 100th percentile), and head circumference was 20 inches (also at the 100th percentile). (Note: Daddy has a big head too and I am convinced that equals lots 'o brains in there!) Both boys had to get 4 vaccines today, so that was not super popular, but I believe necessary to protect their health. One funny thing that happened though during this was that Josiah misheard the nurses who were talking about "hibs" (the haemophilus influenzae type B hib vaccine) and chimed in, "The babies already have BIBS." Too funny! I guess it shows he is listening though, right? Daniel took a great leap in his height this time!! He went from being under the 50th percentile to over 100%! Crazy! Though they did say that perhaps they got the measurement wrong last time. We haven't been in for a long time though, so I guess it is possible to see such a leap over a long period of time.

Here is sweet Caleb who for some reason always ends up on the floor at night when he is in his room with the blankets over his head. I go in there before I go to bed and check on him and move him back to his bed for the night and make sure both boys are covered up in their comfy beds. I am not sure his infatuation for sleeping on the floor exactly, but it has been a pattern for a few nights in a row that he does this, so I am sure he has his reasons!

Caleb is our smaller one of the two (always has been too). He weighed in today at 24 pounds 13 ounces (20th percentile), was 34 1/2 inches long (60th percentile), and head circumference was 19 1/2 inches (75th percentile). His head is not as big as Daniel's, but it is close!! When the doctor looked at Caleb today she said that his throat was pretty red, so we had him tested for strep just in case, but he didn't have that thankfully! Not sure what the deal is with the red throat, so we will just need to watch him for the next couple of days to be sure. He doesn't act sick at all, so I am hoping it is nothing!

The boys did pretty well at the doctor, but due to a last minute change in my child care plans, I had to bring Josiah with me, which was a little stressful. He of course was the most noisy and difficult when I was trying to talk to the doctor, which was frustrating. He calmed down eventually though and we got through the whole visit, shots and all. They had 2 nurses to help with the shots and such, so that was good too. Overall, the doctor was pleased with their progress and she didn't see anything to be concerned about (other than Caleb's red throat as I mentioned before). I told her about the amount of words they have and she thought it was just fine for their age right now. Speaking of which, here are some of the new words they say now: "ungry" for hungry, "eee" for eat, "ree" for read, "tory" for story, "nana" for banana, "lie" for light, "claw" for clock (like big brother Josiah used to), "siah" for Josiah, "naniel or daniel' for daniel (but neither will say Caleb yet), and they say "A, B, D, T, P" consistently for letters and "1, 2, 3" as well. I am sure there are a few more words that I am not thinking of that are new, but those are the ones that come to mind at the moment. They are doing really well with all the animal sounds now and they have the following down: cow (moo), sheep (baa), owl (hoo), cat (meow), dog (oof, oof), rooster (oo, oo, oo, oo, Oooo), pig (funny throat sound for this one), & horse (neigh, neigh) are the ones I can remember offhand.

Sick Week and Twins in Toddler Beds

Due to the fact that I had to cancel lessons this whole week because our family was sick, we thought it would be a good time to try and move the twins from cribs to toddler beds, since we had that extra time to work with them. The getting them to nap part has been a REAL challenge, but we have won the battle...albeit a long, hard one each day in that they have slept a little for their naps. I have had to be REALLY creative at babyproofing their room as well and many of my plans have backfired. I run a fan in their room at night as well as a radiant heater and also have a monitor plugged in, and so I had to find a way to have these all running and not provide a hazard for them. My solution was to put the fan in the non-converted crib and plug the heater (this sits in the corner behind all the heavy stuff) and monitor into the surge protector that also stays in the crib. I thought I was pretty clever here, but they figured out how to move the crib and unplug the surge protector, so I had to move on to plan B. I then put the heavy dresser in front of the crib to block them from moving it and though that distracted them from the plug, they then discovered they could move the dresser around and pull all their clothes out....ugh! So then I put two bins of heavy books on one side, so they couldn't push the dresser out anymore. This created a stairstep for them to climb onto the dresser and then into the old crib with all the cords and stuff. Sheesh! These kiddos are making me work! So then I got even more crafty and took the crib side from the converted crib that we pulled off and tied it to the top of the non-converted crib with lots of rope. This created a make-shift roof to block them from getting in the crib. This worked, however, this morning we found both of them in quite an interesting state. Apparently, this roof served as a baby trap as they had climbed up the stair steps again and decided to venture out onto the crib side roof and both of them got their legs stuck in the crib slats. Ahhhhh!!! So David's solution for tomorrow was to put another bin on the stack to make it so they couldn't climb the bins any longer. We will see if this works. The good news is that at night, we don't have near the problems and they do sleep in their beds at night as pictured above (Daniel) and below (Caleb).

Daddy has been here this week (as he had to stay home due to his company's policy since the family was sick), so he has been helping transition the boys to taking their naps in their "new to them" toddler beds. After a few times of showing them where they need to be and correcting their behaviors away from climbing and running around the room, they eventually settle down and sleep (though it sometimes takes an hour and half). Caleb usually only sleeps for an hour or so, and Daniel sleeps longer if Caleb doesn't wake him up at some point.

As for our sickie week, it was quite a doozie. On Monday, Caleb had a fever and wasn't eating well and based on not having my babysitters available (as their mom didn't want them here for a few days) I had to cancel all week not really knowing what the week would hold. As it turned out though, it was for the best as we really needed the time to get better as a family. On Tuesday, Caleb seemed much better and Daniel and Josiah were fine too until the afternoon when they started throwing up. After many loads of laundry and lots of comfort given, they were done being sick, though were very weakened. On Wednesday, everyone was rather grumpy, but didn't have any visible symptoms. On Thursday, I thought we were well and then...at night I started throwing up....yuck. On Friday, David took an official sick day (rather than working from home like he does quite often) and took over my duties as I was wiped out this morning from being up all night with a sick tummy. I have been taking it easy today and I think I am OK. Hopefully, David won't get this bug as it is no fun! The picture above was the first day that Caleb was sick and Josiah was laying with him there giving him some comfort. So sweet!

Pairs at the Patch

Today we took our annual trip to the "Pairs at the Patch" event for the Tacoma Parents of Multiples group that we belong to. We went to the Peninsula Gardens again in Gig Harbor, due to the fact that it is in a greenhouse and is relatively warmer for the folks with little babies and such. Many of the children came dressed up in costumes, which was fun to see. They had this pirate ship there (like last year) for the kids to play in as well.

And also as before, they had a little hay maze to go through and here you see Daddy chasing Josiah in the maze. Daddy kept threatening to "beat him" to the end of the maze and Josiah CLEARLY did not want to be beaten!

The twins enjoyed the maze too, but right before this shot was taken Caleb stopped to turn around and Daniel kept walking and they had a head bonk. You can see that Daniel is unphased by the bonking, but that Caleb is expressing his usual drama over the incident.

I was able to capture this sweet little Caleb boy with fistfuls of hay as he was preparing to enter the maze again. He also had fun trying to sweep the hay into piles on the floor of the little play area. He ended up with a little hay in his back pocket, which made him look like a little farmer.

Daniel is looking up at the giant purple spider that was positioned above the hay bales. Both he and Caleb pointed this out to us right away when we arrived.

They had a little coloring station too, and both the twins stayed to color for a surprisingly long amount of time. Caleb started to eat the crayons though and that was the end of that. They also had fun going around to the hay bales and knocking the pumpkins off onto the floor. Apparently, the pumpkins were supposed to be on the floor according to the twins. We picked up many a pumpkin throughout the event for sure.

Josiah went on a hayride again this year as well and enjoyed taking a tour of the pumpkin patch with some of the other children from the group. I had fun visiting with a lot of the other twin mommies as well and took many more pictures as I am the newsletter editor for the group and need lots of pictures for that purpose. We had a good turn out and it was an enjoyable event for sure!