i hope everyone is doing ok!! sorry i fell off the face of the internet for awhile there! i kept coming back to post, but it’s been crazy over here and i seriously could not find a long enough time to finish a post. how is everyone?
@wildrainbow Matthew’s bday is coming up!!!!! are you planning anything to celebrate?
@hollyeva how is everything with Penelope’s allergies? is the doctor having you do anything special or differently?
@offtoneverland did Sydney do well with OT for her oral aversion? how is she doing health-wise?
it was one thing after another over here for the longest time. plus the little ones wanted so much more of my attention that any down time i used to have while nursing turned into multitasking taking care of one while playing with another. since i last posted, a few things have happened.
i took in a couple of kittens:
a feral mom cat had a litter of kittens in our backyard back in july, and while i was caring for mom waiting for them to wean before we could figure things out, she moved the kittens to a stormwater runoff drain next to our house. it turned into a huge thing in august trying to keep tabs on the family. we TNR’d mom and eventually pulled some of the kittens out of the storm drain after about a month. then the vet thought they might have ringworm, so we had to continue quarantining them in one of our bathrooms while they were treated for it. the kittens were just young enough to still be socialized, but right at the cutoff where if i didn’t work with them intensely that they could easily keep a bit of feral-ness. so, every last bit of my free time during breaks and naptime was spent handling these kittens and routine disinfecting of the bathroom to get rid of ringworm. after three weeks, they were looking all clear so i’ve since released them into parts of the house that are kitten-proofed, which makes it easier on me, but it’s still a chunk of my time. they’ve got their spay/neuter appointment in a couple weeks, and the original plan after they were fixed was to find them a new home but of course dd1 loves them so they might end up getting to stay. i have mixed feelings because our resident pets don’t get along with them, but they seem to be really good cats so far at least. one of them tolerates dd1 manhandling him far better than he should.
emilia’s ultrasound for her kidney and her follow-up appointment in august was good:
the radiologist found more fluid pooling in the good kidney that wasn’t there at the scan in january, but the nephrologist said that because it wasn’t bigger than the original one when she was a newborn that he wasn’t worried about it. the bad cystic kidney is still shrinking, and we haven’t had any utis, so he said we won’t have to do any of the invasive tests unless status quo drastically changes. the next ultrasound is in march.
dh started a new job for a company in bethesda in the beginning of september:
for the first couple weeks he was commuting by train, which meant long days for him and me, but next week he’ll start teleworking for most of the week. meanwhile, dd1 started school again and i had been getting her and the twins up, ready, and out the door on my own which was zany while we were getting used to it. on the plus side, dd1 is handling the school transition much much much better this year, so it’s not a complete train wreck in the mornings.
elise and emilia are acting like toddlers more and more lately:
they are speedily crawling, standing on their own, taking a couple steps with help. i just started putting them in 12m clothes. a week ago they each only had two teeth, but now both have the two top front teeth finally emerging. emilia is clapping on request and points sometimes. she is also way more vocal. elise is quieter. it’s not unusual that she’s doing something sneaky that she knows she’s not suppose to be doing, and that’s probably why she’s so quiet. she also loves to throw things at the moment. and eat. the two of them are so fun to watch together— they bicker over toys and pacis much of the time, but they also try to comfort each other and make each other laugh too.
i was able to take dd1 on a special overnight trip leaving dh and the twins at home not too long ago:
i was worried that dh would be up all night with the babies crying, but it was easy for him; the twins slept all night long (which is out of the ordinary). i, on the other hand, slept two hours because dd1 had her feet in my ribs the entire night. but, my point being that i was able to leave the babies for a long time to do something fun and everyone survived (yay)
for a hot second dh and i almost decided to throw a last minute huge birthday celebration for the twins, but talked ourselves out of it. we’ll still celebrate, but we’ll keep it family only. it ended up being the wise decision because somehow or another we ended up getting the three weekends before then booked up with random stuff, so there would have been even less time to get something together. now, we’re going to spend the time we do have trying to make some cool halloween costumes.
@highsteaks Hi! How are you? I sent you a PM just now, by the way.
How are your kittens doing? I hope they're healthy and doing well. Sorry to hear there was a bit more fluid in Emilia's kidney, but it's great to hear the doctor wasn't worried at all. Remind me, does she have to take antibiotics to reduce the risk of infection?
So happy to hear your DD is handling the school transition so much better this year! My daughter started kindergarten and she's been doing great. She doesn't love riding the bus, but it comes right to the bottom of our driveway and it's so convenient! Other than that, it's been going really well.
So glad you were able to leave the twins for a while to get away. Sounds like you had fun, even though you didn't get any sleep! I bet your older daughter loved getting to spend time with you one-on-one.
Sydney has been doing great, thanks for asking! Her OT appointments have been going very well and she's starting to eat a lot more. Her 4th OT appointment was yesterday and she ate several blueberries! The OT was very impressed. She's doing a lot better which is very exciting. Health-wise she's doing great. She's been growing a lot. I stopped pumping so now she gets only formula, and it seems to be working very well for her.
Hey All! The app was getting shady for awhile so I couldn't even access the community. Penny's doing great and started trying to feed herself with forks and spoons, is saying her sisters' names, and walking a few steps at a time.
The news on the allergies is that the egg one persists and we're not exposing her to eggs in any form until after she turns 2. She's so sensitive to then that she could handle a wash towel that was exposed and break out. The good news is that we were able to do a peanut challenge and are ordered to expose her to 6 grams of peanut per week to keep her from developing a full blown allergy. I suspect we'll be able to challenge her tree nut allergy within the next year but happy we're one down and two more to outgrow.
@highsteaks how are the kittens?! Congrats on the new family members!
@offtoneverland so glad Sydney is doing well with OT! How are you?
Anyone want to share their birthday celebration stories?! Since Penny's birthday is the weekend after Thanksgiving, we'll just do something low key.
highsteaks
member
Re: FALL chit chat and updates
@wildrainbow Matthew’s bday is coming up!!!!! are you planning anything to celebrate?
@hollyeva how is everything with Penelope’s allergies? is the doctor having you do anything special or differently?
@offtoneverland did Sydney do well with OT for her oral aversion? how is she doing health-wise?
i took in a couple of kittens:
emilia’s ultrasound for her kidney and her follow-up appointment in august was good:
dh started a new job for a company in bethesda in the beginning of september:
elise and emilia are acting like toddlers more and more lately:
i was able to take dd1 on a special overnight trip leaving dh and the twins at home not too long ago:
for a hot second dh and i almost decided to throw a last minute huge birthday celebration for the twins, but talked ourselves out of it. we’ll still celebrate, but we’ll keep it family only. it ended up being the wise decision because somehow or another we ended up getting the three weekends before then booked up with random stuff, so there would have been even less time to get something together. now, we’re going to spend the time we do have trying to make some cool halloween costumes.
millionth eta—i also forgot to mention that all the kids got their first cold of the year last weekend, and it’s goober central over here now.
How are your kittens doing? I hope they're healthy and doing well. Sorry to hear there was a bit more fluid in Emilia's kidney, but it's great to hear the doctor wasn't worried at all. Remind me, does she have to take antibiotics to reduce the risk of infection?
So happy to hear your DD is handling the school transition so much better this year! My daughter started kindergarten and she's been doing great. She doesn't love riding the bus, but it comes right to the bottom of our driveway and it's so convenient! Other than that, it's been going really well.
So glad you were able to leave the twins for a while to get away. Sounds like you had fun, even though you didn't get any sleep! I bet your older daughter loved getting to spend time with you one-on-one.
Sydney has been doing great, thanks for asking! Her OT appointments have been going very well and she's starting to eat a lot more. Her 4th OT appointment was yesterday and she ate several blueberries! The OT was very impressed. She's doing a lot better which is very exciting. Health-wise she's doing great. She's been growing a lot. I stopped pumping so now she gets only formula, and it seems to be working very well for her.
DD1: 8/2014
TTC #2: 6/2017
BFP 8/3/2017 | CP 8/4
BFP 10/16/2017 | CP 10/21
BFP 12/18/2017 | CP 12/28
BFP 2/15/2018 | EDD: November 2nd | It's a girl!
DD2: 10/2018
The news on the allergies is that the egg one persists and we're not exposing her to eggs in any form until after she turns 2. She's so sensitive to then that she could handle a wash towel that was exposed and break out. The good news is that we were able to do a peanut challenge and are ordered to expose her to 6 grams of peanut per week to keep her from developing a full blown allergy. I suspect we'll be able to challenge her tree nut allergy within the next year but happy we're one down and two more to outgrow.
@highsteaks how are the kittens?! Congrats on the new family members!
@offtoneverland so glad Sydney is doing well with OT! How are you?
Anyone want to share their birthday celebration stories?! Since Penny's birthday is the weekend after Thanksgiving, we'll just do something low key.