Funny Josiah-isms & Other Fun Stuff

Hello to all of you out there! Sorry I haven't been as diligent with the blog entries as in weeks past. The twins are having more and more wake times now that they are older, (3 months old now) and so I am finding that my times to care for the house and Josiah are getting crunched a bit to play with the babes as well.

I have not been totally neglect in my blogging duties though as I have been taking pictures and collecting funny Josiah-isms to share. Now I finally have a moment to type them all into an entry. As you can see in the picture above, Josiah has taken on a new responsibility to feed his baby doll. My mom bought him this doll for use when we teach him how to potty train (which we haven't done just yet). You can put water in the little bottle and it will "pee" it out in this little potty chair that it comes with also. One of the steps in this book my mom gave me entitled "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day," is to teach a doll to go potty first. As a side note, she says she used this book to train my brother and I at the age of 3 and both of us learned easily and never had any accidents following the training. From time to time while I am feeding one of the twins I will say, "Josiah, why don't you feed YOUR baby?" (in order to get him occupied in doing something other than aggravating his brothers). He usually responds with "I can't...I'm busy right now," (he got that lovely phrase from me...hee hee) or once he said, "I can't....baby is sleeping right now." Once in a while though he decides that his baby needs some food and this was one of those moments!

David has been trying to take Josiah on more outings lately and one of these times they went to the school nearby and played on the playground. Josiah met a little friend there who wanted to pose for the camera with him as you can see. Apparently, this little girl was singing the alphabet and David asked Josiah to sing it too and he sang, "A, B, C, D...I don't know that word," and that was it. Not sure why he stops at D in that manner, but it is funny because he does that everytime he tries to sing the A, B, C's on his own.

As we have been working with Josiah these days, I have sometimes broken out the old , "I said NO!" phrase in regards to one behavior or another. The other day he came back at me with "I said YES!" and though I shouldn't have, I laughed out loud at that one and then tried to still enforce the point at hand.

The other day I gave Josiah a shamrock cookie and told him that it was a shamrock as I gave it to him. He looked at it and said, "Broccoli?"

David decided to mop the kitchen floor while I was gone the other day (kudos for the hubby) and asked Josiah if he wanted to help mop the floor. He said, "I don't want to go to MOPS!" MOPS is the group I attend which stands for Mother's of Preschoolers. Once David explained what a mop was, then he was into it. Of course, it took them a lot longer to clean the floor, but the result was the same! When I came home, Josiah said, "Wook...shiny!" (He still pronounces his L's as W's incidentally.)

Sometimes when the babies are crying or Josiah wants something, I might say, "Be patient, Mommy will be right there." Josiah has learned this phrase too and once when a baby was crying he said, "I'll get him...right there and then "Be patient, be patient, be patient," as he patted the babies' head.

Josiah fell down the other day (which is not an uncommon occurrence around here) and stood up and said, "I hurt my body." To me it just sounded funny!


Here is a nice shot of my Dad feeding Caleb the other day.

Here is the mighty Daniel in the new swing that Grandma got for the babies.

OK and this one is for all our English teacher/grammatically correct friends & family out there (that means you Mom, Mara, Kaytie, Youssef, Kathryn, & Jee). Do you all find it ironic that they are inviting people to a literacy festival, but spell festival like "fetsival"? David caught this one on film on his outing with Josiah.

Saying Goodbye to Jon

David's brother Jon made the decision to move back to South Carolina, and he came over this morning so that David could take him to the airport. He got to spend a little quality time with the boys before he left, since for once they were both awake and alert at the same time. He volunteered to pose for this shot down on the floor with the babes, and I think it is so cute that they are both smiling at him.

We also got some video of the little ones during this time and I will post some of the footage when we fill up the disk and finalize it on the camera.

And for those of you who can't tell yet, Daniel is in the froggie suit in the back and Caleb is Mr. Eyeballs here in the front of the picture. This is the look he gives whenever he is very intently checking things out. He is our super curious boy. Daniel is curious too, but he is more of a sleeper and eater than he is curious. Lately, we have been calling him "Mighty Daniel AKA Champion Eater." Caleb is still our "Clockwork Gnome" as he always seems to notify us right on schedule that he is hungry! Incidentally, he is over his illness now and is doing great! I noticed that right after I posted the entry that in the hours afterward he seemed to be improving. Thanks to the Lord ultimately for his speedy recovery and for all of you who prayed for him!

Poor Sick Baby

Well, unfortunately I think the virus we all had finally manifested itself in our little Caleb boy. Last night he had a fever around 101, and has been eating poorly as well. I called the nurse to see what to do and she said if he had a fever more than 3 days and/or had a wheezing cough to come in and get him checked out. For now it seems he just has a little congestion, but nothing that seems to hinder his breathing much and no cough. He threw up a good portion if not all of his last feeding and if he continues to do that at every feeding (where he isn't getting the full amount anyway) then we will take him in also as we do not want him to get dehydrated. The poor little guy has been sleeping lots and hopefully that will help him get well soon. Please keep him in your prayers.

Daniel doesn't seem to have it, though he has had more congestion than his usual (when he breathes normally he sounds like a little piggie) it seems to me. He hasn't had a fever though and is eating just fine thus far. Thankfully the Lord had mercy to stagger the illnesses here, otherwise I probably would have stayed sick much longer. I wish Caleb didn't have to get sick, but such is life. I just pray he won't end up hospitalized again, that would be a real bummer!

Fun New Pictures

The first two pictures with the polka dot blankie (thank you Mara) are of Caleb. We have been giving both the boys some tummy time now and Caleb doesn't quite lift his head yet, but he does scrunch up a lot and gets irritated about being on his belly.

Please pray for Caleb as he has been having some issues of which we are unsure of the source. We think his medications are causing some pain (gas pain likely) that wake him up periodically, so the nurse I spoke with told us to skip some doses of the meds to see if it was the culprit. We have done this and so far today he seems to be sleeping more peacefully and is taking more to eat again (he was eating less last night and we were concerned).

Here I got him to sort of smile as he was peeking at me.




Daniel is our smiler of the two for sure. Almost after every feeding he will give a few big smiles for us. Perhaps because he tends to be the bigger eater of the two it is his way of showing his satisfaction?


Here you see Mr. Daniel getting some air time holding his head up. For those of you who don't know, this is a big deal for babies this age to lift their heads, so he is doing good! This was a quick moment that he held it up and I was quick with the camera to catch it!

Josiah handed me the camera and said, "Take picture me...cheese!" He said, "Cheese," again as I took this one to get a sweet little Josiah smile!



Here is a picture of Josiah and Alonna (my friend Melissa's neice). Melissa came over with Alonna the other day and we made cookies and they both sat down at Josiah's little table and I got cute smiles from both of them!

Cute Little Heartbreakers

I finally managed to use a gift card from Old Navy that I received from my friend Darcy and among the things I purchased were these cute little outfits that if you look closely say "Heartbreaker" on them. I thought they were fitting for our adorable little boys! It is getting closer to where they are alert at the same time, but this is usually after one has been fed and the other is hungry. Can you tell who has been fed and who is waiting to be fed? Daniel says "Picture, smicture...I want my food!" Caleb is giving his condolences, "Sorry man, I am just going along with the Momma."

To calm our little crying one down to get a few more pictures, Momma retrieved the pacifer and as you can see Daniel's face is a bit less red in this shot.

It seems that our little ones have been able to stave off the illness we all had and I am thankful for that. They have been a little cranky here and there and we have had some spit up incidents from both that seem more like throw up incidents, but they have not had fevers, excessive nose runs, or refused feedings, so I think we are OK! Thanks for the prayers for them though as I am sure they have helped to keep them protected from this.

Valentine's Day Date!

This weekend we let my parents to take Josiah to their house, so that David and I could have a little respite (at least what we could with 2 month old twins at home anyway) and get away on a date as well. We had someone come over to watch the twins of course, and went out to a nice Italian restaurant that we like called Mama Stortini's (YUM) and also spent some time wandering around the Southcenter Mall as well for fun. It was most excellent to get out and do something adult-like!! We bought a jigsaw puzzle to do over the weekend (something we used to do a lot when we were engaged) and managed to get the 1,000 piece puzzle done by sometime Sunday morning.

I am not sure if I mentioned on the previous post, but after Josiah got sick with a nasty cold, both David and I got it as well. We both had high fevers and sinus gunk for a bit, but thankfully with the extra rest we got this weekend, we are both doing SO much better!

I also have a funny Heather-ism (that is what we call them around here) to share. This is where I combine various sayings that shouldn't be combined. The most famous of these is "I crashed like a light." Of course there are the sayings "I'm out like a light," or "I crashed at so and so's house." However, in my tiredness one day I combined the two and David noticed right away and corrected me, and we laughed about it long afterward. The newest story is below, but first I will give a little background for reference points to the story.

As many of you might know, I have been pumping milk to give to the twins (since they were born so young and had issues breastfeeding at first). Incidentally, I am working on getting them to breastfeed, but they aren't fully there yet, so I still am pumping around 5 times a day usually. A set of parts you use in pumping are called "horns," which have an obvious place to be attached to, and a common phrase for ladies who are stopping the pumping process say they are "hanging up the horns." I tell you this for the punch line later in case you didn't know the term.

I mentioned above that we had all been sick, and I was VERY tired the day this happened and I was so tired in fact that I probably could have fallen asleep pumping (which is hard to do!) As I was washing the pump parts afterward, I was talking to David and below is the dialogue:

Me: "Now I REALLY know what it is like to fall asleep at the horn!"

David: "What?"

Me: (very emphatically) "You know....it is a saying...Falling asleep at the horn!"

David: (laughing to himself) "No it isn't."

Me: "Yes it is....I know there is a phrase with a horn in it!"

David: (goes to his computer for Googling) "No....it is definitely NOT a saying."

Me: (laughing hysterically nearly falling down) "Now I KNOW there is a saying with the word horn in it!"

Later of course we established there are the sayings, "Falling asleep at the helm" or "Falling asleep at the wheel," and also "Going around the horn," which I think is where I got the horn idea. And before I am dubbed the ditsy blonde, I will defend myself in saying that when I am tired I get a little dyslexic, so I would prefer no silly blonde joke remarks please!

The pictures above are of Daniel looking at the rings on his carseat and Caleb "sitting up" or actually propped up in the chair for you to see his cute little self. This picture to the left is of David's work station in our room, where sometimes a crying twin is brought so he can look at Daddy while he works. Sometimes they stop crying by just being near us in their seats and David also plays music for them, which they like a lot too. One of the stories David hears often told about him as a young boy is that he too wanted to be where the action was, and sat in his Dad's office a lot while he was working. Like father like sons I guess!

Making Cookies

Today I was making cookies to take to a friend's house, and Josiah got to help me. I had made him this little apron at my MOPS (Mother's of Preschoolers) group a while back and it was the first time he got to use it. I was hoping to eventually print a picture of Josiah's face on material and glue/sew that onto to the pumpkin on the apron. If you can't read it, it says, "My Little Pumpkinhead" and his face would go in the middle of that if I ever found the time to do it.

Incidentally you can pray for this little guy, as he came down with a slight fever and some sort of sinus/coughing thing this morning. He did much better after I gave him some Children's Dimatapp, but has been very lethargic all day compared to his usual active self. He took an exceptionally long nap, which of course was good for him since he is sick. I am hoping once again that the twins will not get this. For the last couple of days though, I have made sure Josiah's hands were washed thoroughly and have tried to make sure he doesn't touch them, so we will see. I am actually able to reason with him more now. I told him not to touch the babies because he was sick and would spread germs and he said, "OK" and left them alone pretty well today! Also with his nap I said, "You need to sleep so you can get better!" and he didn't fight me as much to sleep this time, which was really nice!

I am thankful that the twins are still receiving my antibodies in their food and I am hoping that will protect them from the majority of illnesses they may be exposed to. Our policy here is that we avoid people that are sick or say they are getting sick, but don't live our lives in fear of possible germs from those people that we do choose to come in contact with. We know the Lord is in control and we just use reasonable precautions against getting sick and hope for the best. Thanks for your prayers!

Funny Wake-Up Call

For my wake-up call this morning, I heard Daniel crying. This is quite unusual because generally it is Caleb who wakes me up because he feeds first. Daniel was making enough of a raucous though that I thought I ought to check on him before getting his food ready. I came in and noticed that he had the blanket over his face because he had shimmied himself down towards the crib rails (we have them propped up at about a 30% grade). At first, I didn't notice that his feet were hanging out of the crib. After I adjusted the blanket, I left the room to go to the bathroom and he was still making noise. So I went back in and then noticed his feet hanging out and almost laughed out loud!

Needless to say, I decided that Daniel shouldn't be propped up as high as I had him before to avoid future incidents like this! Since he doesn't have reflux, for the time being he can be more level with the crib mattress now!

It appears that Daniel really does take after Mommy because when I get too hot in my bed, I too like to have my feet dangle out of the covers. I noted that he managed to get rid of one of his socks as well and I also do not like to wear socks to bed! It is so funny how babies have their own sense of humor even this early on!

Here is another picture of me and the boys!

Two Month Check-Up

Today was the babes two month check-up, and again the doctor was very pleased with their progress. We have determined that little Caleb (pictured above here) does have acid reflux and we got some medicine for him to give him some relief, which I hope will help out! He seems to be sleeping more peacefully now, but we shall see over time if the medicine is working. Caleb weighed in today at 8 pounds and 6 oz. (1 pound 10 oz. gain from Jan. 17th) and was 21.05 inches long.
Daniel is still our little chunky one and he weighed in at 9 pounds .5 oz (1 pound 12.5 oz gain from Jan. 17th) and was 21.65 inches long. Daniel is now in the 5th percentile for other children his age! Caleb doesn't fall onto the chart yet, but will soon I am sure! We got these cute little onesies from our friend Jee (she works with David) and I wanted to get a picture of them side by side in them, but it wasn't to be. Caleb got Tylenol all over his (we gave it before the visit to ease the pain of the immunizations they received) and later Daniel got his drenched in milk from a feeding. Sooo....I was glad at least that I managed to get these photos when I did!

Both babes got their shots today (5 in all-UGH) and neither one of them liked them (hey, would you?) Caleb turned beet red and stopped breathing for a second because he was so mad. Afterward, he just stared up at the ceiling with this numbing look of,"Why did they do that to me?" Then when I put him back in his carseat he let out a pitiful Caleb wail that made us all feel sorry for him. Daniel also turned beet red and did the stop breathing deal while crying as well, but all the while was vigorously sucking on his pacifier. So it went like this,"WAAH, (suck), WAAH, (suck), etc." When he cries his tongue touches the roof of his mouth, which makes his cry sort of muffled sounding. Both boys slept a lot after the visit and didn't have an adverse reactions to the shots.

I might add it is QUITE an ordeal to take the babies AND Josiah someplace! (We were dropping Mr. J off at a friend's house before the visit). I am sure you can imagine. However, I woke up at 3am today to feed the little guys and after pumping and preparing the bottles it was around 5am. Their next feeding was 6am and so I just stayed awake and then Josiah was up at 6am too, so I got him some breakfast and fed the babies again and was done by around 7:15am or so. Then I had to "prepare" everyone for leaving and somehow I still didn't have enough time to get everything ready perfectly on time, but we arrived at the doctor right on the dot at 9am. Sheesh! Quite a production indeed! And for those of you who know me, on time equals early to me, so it raises the stress level a bit to be just barely on time to things. I might add that I would have asked David for help, but this was his shift to sleep (of which he only got 4 1/2 hours anyway) and so I opted to do all the preparations myself so that he could sleep as long as possible before we went to the appointment.

Jaiden's Birthday Party & Visit from Mara

Today Josiah and I went to a birthday party for my friend Tracie's son Jaiden. (She and I were college roommates.) He turned two today and she had a neat Thomas the Train themed party for all the kids and parents who came.

They have this neat train table (pictured here) with a wooden train set and many different engines and freight cars from the show and Josiah had a grand time playing with it. So much so in fact that he became rather possessive of the engines that he was playing with and as the other little boys tried to drive their trains toward him (or take one of HIS trains) he would say, "No...mine!" Sound like a two year old? Why yes he does! A couple times I stepped in and told him to share and he got a big pouty lip and produced a few tears to show his dismay about the whole situation. Overall though, he did share alright off and on and there weren't any bloody battles between the kids, so I call that a success!

After we came home, my friend Mara called (apparently it was the day for visiting college roommates) and said she was in town and wanted to drop by on her way to visit her family. She got to feed our little Caleb and stayed for a couple of hours to visit. It was nice to see her and catch up and I think she enjoyed seeing the newest additions for the first time and also seeing how much our Josiah has grown. She has Daniel on the left and the O.U.T. Caleb on the right in the picture.

Fun Pictures

Here are some fun pictures of Josiah and the boys. The babies are getting more wake times now and so we are putting them in their carseats so that they can be out with us where the "action" is apparently! Josiah helped prepare the rings for the babies enjoyment. Incidentally, Caleb is sitting in the animal print carseat and Daniel in the blue car seat for your reference.

Visit from Uncle Brent & Aunt Katie

Today Uncle Brent and Aunt Katie came for a visit and had their turns at holding and feeding the babies. Since Caleb is the one who takes the bottle the easiest, he is the one I had both of them feed him (they were here for 2 feedings). Here pictured however is Brent holding Daniel. By the time I got the idea to get the camera, Katie had already put Caleb down for a nap and so I missed the shot. Whoops! What can I say..I am a tired Mommy! They brought Barry the beagle dog, the newest addition to their family, to visit as well. Our dog Echo was none too pleased to share her stead with the newcomer. The dogs were chasing each other around the house as well as when they were outside together, and it was rather entertaining to watch. Barry would bark at Echo when she got too annoying for him and she would show her teeth to him off and on, but no harm was done!

For those of you wondering, I am feeling much better now and Josiah is too. We are still dealing with the bad rash he has though, so you can pray that it goes away soon. He woke up today with another bad blowout and he immediately had to take a bath to clean up and then yet another blowout in the bathtub (those are always SO fun for me). As you might guess, there was a special load of baby toys for the dishwasher today to sterilize the whole mess as well as a much needed thorough cleaning of the bathroom! What fun at 6:00am in the morning, eh? In this picture, Josiah had previously found the camera and was saying, "Cheese" and holding the camera up, so I asked him if he wanted me to take a picture of him and he did, so here it is! And who are the 2005 State #1 Champs? You tell me!

And you know I can't resist adding some cute twin pictures to the post as well. Here you see how I am now propping them up a bit in their beds as I suspect they both may have silent reflux, which is a version of acid reflux that is a little different than the normal variety. They haven't been officially diagnosed at this point, but I thought I would do some of the suggestions I read about to help them in case they do have it. Daniel is the further away child and Caleb is the one with his eyes open (posing for the camera again!)

Here is little Caleb asleep with his token hand beside his face.

Here is Daniel with his token dangling hand outside the blanket.

Wild Weekend

As you may have read in the previous post, Josiah has been ill and so we have been tending to his needs. He stopped throwing up the first day (thank you Lord) but now has been having some problems with his other end, and he has developed a rash since he hasn't been telling us he keeps pooping. We thought we had quite a success the other day when he said, "I have a pooper," and though he did not, he wanted to be brought to the toilet and actually went in the toilet! When we left the bathroom, I praised him a lot and he shouted, "Hooray!" as we walked back to the living room. This was a short lived moment though as all today he hasn't been telling us he needs to go. I think it is out of his control at this point anyway and it is so painful for us to clean him up he would rather avoid the whole thing. David gave him a nice bath though as he was screaming bloody murder for the first 2/3rds of the bath and I am thankful that he did it because I was feeling out of sorts right about that time myself as well. This picture of Josiah is typical of how we all felt this weekend...very tuckered out! David went in to work everyday this week (and did his normal 8pm to 2am shift) to do some training and so has been pretty worn down. He even flew to Spokane on Friday and back again that night.

I have also been feeling ill a bit, but thankfully haven't had a full blown version of what Josiah had as of yet. I started feeling sick to my stomach last night as I was feeding Caleb at 4am, but managed to keep it together and finish feeding Daniel too followed by some restless sleep before the next feeding started at 7am. Ahhh, such is our life nowadays! The babies are doing well though thus far, no signs of illness in them thankfully. We continue to watch them though just in case. Please continue to pray protection over them! Incidentally, this picture of Josiah and I was taken after we finally calmed him down after all his crying and problems today. He actually sat and cuddled with me, which is a VERY rare thing for our active little boy. He didn't get much of a nap today, since he fell asleep in the chair (as pictured above) and ended up crashing on the couch watching Nemo around 7pm (usual bedtime of 8pm). Poor little Josiah! I hope he will have a better day tomorrow!

Prayer Request

This morning Josiah told me "I feel cold," which in our household means his tummy hurts and he may throw up soon. It was apparent he wasn't feeling well because his appetite was low (more like non-existent) as he only had a few bites of a sandwich before he ended up falling asleep next to me on the couch around 11:30am (usual naptime is 2:00pm). Incidentally, when we hear the "I feel cold" phrase we give Josiah his "speical towel" to hold on to, which of course is more for us to clean him up afterward than it is for him to throw up into. So now when his tummy hurts he says, "Need towel!" (He is still very cute even though he is sick!)

All morning and afternoon he was obviously ill, but no messes to clean up....until...as I was beginning to do my afternoon pump, sitting all cozy on the couch hooked up to the milk machine, Josiah came over to the couch complaining he felt cold again and the next thing you know the grapes that he just ate were all over the couch in a new and grossified form. Ugh! Following this lovely scene, I somehow managed to remove the breast pump parts off my body and whisk Josiah off to get him cleaned up all the while wondering how in the world to get puke smell out of the couch. I was able to clean the couch up really well by the way by washing the cushion covers in the washing machine and hand cleaning and using lysol on the non-removable parts of the couch. It was quite a job!

Then later in the afternoon, Josiah showed interest in eating a sandwich and so I thought perhaps his throwing up problems were through. Instead, we had nice little visit from Mr. Diarrhea, which resulted in a quick bath to clean up further for Mr. Josiah. UGH!! Then later before bed another "I'm cold," incident, but this time I managed to escort him to the toilet in time!

Poor little pumpkinhead! So I guess you can guess the prayer request at this point? It would be nice if David and I were bypassed by this illness, but my main prayer request is that the babies DO NOT get this! I am hoping that the immunities in my milk will protect them against it!

Thanks in advance for your prayers. I am sorry there are no pictures of late, as you can imagine picking up the camera is rather far from my mind at this point. However, I am blogging because I get stuck in front of the computer while I pump milk (in case you are wondering why I can find the time to type all this).

Another Funny Moment

Josiah came up with a doozy today that had both David and I laughing pretty hard. Thought I would write it down before I forgot. Here goes:

Daddy: (holding Caleb) "His head smells like cooked pasta."
Mommy: (smells his head) "Yeah, sort of I guess."
Josiah: "Want smell too!"
Daddy: (brings Caleb over) "OK, What does Caleb's head smell like Josiah?"
Josiah: (very matter of factly) "Poop!"

....resounding laughter follows!

Josiah: (gets a big smile and starts getting all excited that Mommy and Daddy are laughing at his joke)

Funny Josiah Moments

Yesterday I was pumping milk (as is often the case throughout the day) at my computer (I have a discrete way of doing it now) and Josiah was sitting next to me playing a toddler computer game on the Fisher Price website. Our conversation goes like this:
Josiah: What doing Momma?
Mommy: I am pumping milk.
Josiah: (taking his shirt and putting it over the arm of the chair) I'm pumping too! Pumping shirt!
Mommy: No you're not silly!
Josiah: Yes, pumping!
Josiah: Pumping too Daddy?
Daddy: (with a sideways grin) No!

Another fun thing is that he pronounces his "L's" like "W's" and so we get these kind of words out of him:
HeWo (hello)
CaWeb (Caleb)
The combined above is so cute. "HeWo CaWeb!!"
PiWrate (Pilot)--to which I say "what does a pilot say?" and he answers "Rrrr Hardies" (confusing pilots with pirates!)

I tried to work with him on getting the "L" sound by putting his tongue on his teeth, but he just sticks his tongue way out and gets a sort of "L" sound and then prounces the word in question with a "W." He does a similar thing when he sees the letter "D." He says, "D is for Papa!" and I say, "No D is for Daddy!" Then I say "Duh, duh duh Daddy" and he says, "Duh, duh, duh Papa! Oh well, he will get it eventually! For now it is a cute little thing he does.

Gaining Weight!

We went to the doctor yesterday and the report is that she is VERY pleased with their progress! I tried to get a picture of the boys both awake and looking at the camera, but that wasn't to be this time! Instead we get a nice shot of Caleb's face and Daniel showing us his typical flailing stance with eyes closed.

When we got ready to go the doctor's office, we noticed that Daniel seemed to be too big to fit in his car bed, but we crammed him in there anyway (with the buckle at its largest setting). I read the directions on the way to the doctor's office and saw that the length limit is 20 inches and weight limit is 9 pounds. I knew he wasn't 9 pounds, but it was conceivable he was 20 inches, since at the last visit he was 19 inches long. Sure enough, Daniel was 20 inches long and he weighed in at 7 pounds 4 ounces (gain of 8 ounces in 2 weeks). The doctor said that we could move him to the regular infant seat now, and so we think we will. I did call Tacoma General to see if they would test them in the regular seats again and apparently they don't do that now that they are not patients there, and the clinic we go to does not do the test either. We think we will just put them in their seats at some point and watch them to be sure they are breathing OK. Really though, they weigh what normal newborns weigh coming out of the hospital, so I am sure they will be fine.

Here is another attempt to get the boys' picture together. This one shows how Caleb is our little camera hog and Daniel who likes to hide from the camera, just like they posed (or didn't pose as the case may be) for many of their ultrasounds!! The report on Caleb by the way is that he weighs 6 pounds 12 ounces now (a 1 pound 10 ounce gain in 2 weeks) and is 19 inches long (grew 1/2 an inch).

My Dad came over today and eventually took Josiah out for dinner (meeitng Grandma at the restaurant), so David and I could have a quiet moment or two while the babies sleep. Josiah was thrilled to get out of the house too! Before he left though, he got a nice picture of me with my three boys. Yes I know...I am outnumbered! This has been mentioned to me once or twice already! It is a good thing I have always liked boys I guess, right? Hee hee!!

The Green-Eyed Monster Rears It's Ugly Head

So....no picture today as it is hard to catch a shot of the green-eyed monster in action. Yes, little Josiah has been showing some signs of jealously of late and it has taken the form of annoying Mommy in every possible way. And before you say it, I know he is doing this to get my attention because he knows he isn't the center of our world anymore....BUT can I still be annoyed that he pushes me over the edge doing it?

Here is the typical scene around here of late: I am either pumping (which takes a good 30 minutes or so stuck to the machine) or feeding one of the twins and Josiah says, "Want eat," to which I say, "What do you want?" Then he will say something like "fruit snacks" and I will say "Ok, just wait until Mommy is finished." Then a resounding, "Noooooooo," and the continual whining and asking for it again and again after that until I am ready to help him. Oh and the lovely part is when I am actually able to get the fruit snacks he says, "Don't want fruit snacks!" and throws them on the floor. Ugh I say!!

Another one of my favorites is how he takes the cooking utensils out of the cannister on the stove and runs around the house waving them around. Usually he ends up hitting Echo (our dog) with them and then he ends up in his room for hitting people/animals with utensils.

Though Josiah is learning to obey better, he is also testing his limits. When we tell him to stop doing something or not to do something he will say, "No," and so we have been working with him to stop that and say either "Yes ma'am," or "Yes sir" depending. We don't want him to get in the habit of saying "no" to our requests. It has been working little by little, but he still doesn't quite get it.

Overall though I have been praying for patience in dealing with him as it has been wearing on me to care for all three boys at once. My hardest time is early mornings (around 6am) when I am due to feed the twins and Josiah typically wakes up right around the same time. This is when I am most tired and not in the mood to deal with the green-eyed monster. If any of you are up that early, please say a prayer for my sanity!

Friends, Fences, & Food!!

We haven't had too many visitors since the twins were born, but today Josiah had a special treat in that when Karen & Sharel came over to see the babies, they brought Hannah (Josiah's buddy) with them. I got this cute shot of them smiling real big together (tough moment to catch!)

Sharel and Karen both got to feed the twins and interact with them a bit as well, which was fun for them. The whole time Josiah was trying to get Hannah to come and play with him, but she was more interested in the babies at first and was telling him to "be gentle" whenever he came around one of the babies. There is definitely a difference in how 2-year old boys respond to babies compared to 2-year old girls as demonstrated today.

As we have previously shown in other posts, Josiah loves to line up his cars in an orderly fashion. Today he enclosed himself in a nice car fence! When we took this picture, he was actually saying the word "cheese" as well.

Now for those of you who have been wondering, "How do you guys do it?" The answer is that we have had to be super organized of late and the funny thing is, the house seems more in order now than it was before! Funny how the busier you get, the more organized and efficient you become. In this photo, David lined up many of the various things we use to feed the twins. We have 3 kinds of formulas (regular, sensitive for fussy tummies, and high-calorie type), infant gas drops, multi-vitamin drops, saline nose drops, hand sanitizer (since we wash our hands so much), bulb syringes for suctioning noses and mouths when needed, bottles, breastmilk containers, & breast pumping supplies. And not pictured here is the Ivory soap, which David said he will now always associate the smell of with breastmilk, since that is what we use to clean all the supplies. It was recommended to us to use that soap in the hospital because it is mild.

Another thing we have done is to keep track of all the feedings and relevant data on the twins on a steno notepad. This is good because we can see what is going in them (in milliliters) as well as what is coming out of them (in counts of wet/poopy diapers), which is very useful when we go to the doctor to show them a record of what is happening with each boy. Caleb as many of you might know likes to hold his #2's in for a few days and then apparently waits for Daddy's shift in the night (hee hee hee) to let it all go in a giant blowout. So, this morning I looked at the record of the night's events and saw that David put one very thick, darkened hashmark under the poopy diaper section for Caleb. Then this morning he told me that it was so bad he had to change outfits! I had to laugh....sorry honey! Anyway, this record is really helpful, and especially when you are sleep deprived it is nice to have a record that you DID feed them and that it wasn't just a dream! Incidentally, the 2 shifts (David from 8pm-1 or 2am and me from 1am or 2am to the morning) are working well for us. Thank you Sarah from TPOM (Tacoma Parents of Multiples) group for suggesting this! I figured that if I didn't pump milk (which takes 30 minutes including the clean-up afterward), at the most if I was trying to do all the feedings I would get little 2 hour chunks of sleep here and there and that just would NOT work! I am thankful for my 5-6 chunk of sleep because that is at least something to get me through the rest of the night.

And just a little food for thought for those of you out there wondering....I figured that if we changed each twin's diaper before each feeding (which we almost always need to do) it amounts to around 480 diapers a month (16 diapers a day). Isn't that insane? Thankfully, as they get older the diaper changes are less frequent, but still...that is a lot of diapers!

Precious Birthday Gifts!!

Today was David's birthday and though we didn't go out and do anything special, his comment to me was that he had the best birthday in a long while because he had two special gifts to cherish now! I am thankful I have a husband who values his children in this way.

We have moved the little ones to their crib for sleepy time to see how that goes. It seems they do wake each other up a bit lying next to one another, but we figure that even in separate cribs in the same room that they would still wake each other anyway.

We have a great system going now to help us remember who is who at a glance. My friend Dawn made us these lovely blankets, hats, mittens, and booties in two different colors (green and blue). Caleb wears the blue & white hat (as in picture above) and Daniel wears the green & white hat. We have bottles that are color coordinated as well so we remember who gets what bottle that we prepare in advance before their feedings. It makes things a little easier in the wee hours of the night/morning when things are a bit groggy for both of us.

Here is a nice picture of Daddy burping Daniel on his birthday! Happy Birthday Poppa! We all love you very much!