7 Months ago today...

...the triplets were born. WOW. Time flies when you're having fun!

Here are the latest stats:
Cole: 14lb, 6 oz - 23.6" long

JD: 16lb, 8 oz - 24.4" long

Cole's catching up length wise and he's closing the gap on weight too! You should see the bellies on these little guys.

Both boys are doing great and so active now. Their personalities are amazing to see - and boy are they different! They both are little chatterboxes and enjoy playing ALL OF THE TIME! They get bored very easily and love to let us know about that. They are sleeping through the night and eating like champs - by the time bath and bed time roll around, they are pooped. They are so much fun ~ and we're just weeks away from them being mobile - then the fun really starts...We are so blessed! Happy 7 month birthday to my little miracle boys!

New Tricks!

A couple of video's for your entertainment...

Cole, the chatterbox, found his voice recently and loves to hear himself talk. Wonder where he got that?



And JD has mastered "the roll". As you can see, it still takes a bit of effort at times but he's very proud of his new trick!

Can't resist...

Here's a great shot of the boys from yesterday...basking in the warm rays of sunshine in our sunroom.

How quickly we forget...

This happens often when we go through tough times, no matter what they are. When things get back to “normal” in life, we forget what it was like when we were going through the “not so normal” period of time. But it’s human nature and as much as we try not to let that happen, it does. We forget, and we move on ~ As easy as it is to get caught up in life, I will always try my best to remember the others going through those tough times.

This “forgetting” phenomenon became evident to me again this week when I attended a NICU support group for existing NICU parents. Through my Moms of Multiples connection, I have recently been in touch with the group ISABELS GIFT. This group was founded by a former NICU parent who had a full term baby born with a severe heart defect. After spending lots of time in NICU at AAMC and then at University of Maryland, she (the Mom) felt the need to give back to those in need who are experiencing similar things to that which her family experienced. The group was born from experience; and to date has done some wonderful things for NICU families locally. In my effort to rally some of the Moms of Multiples families who have had babies in NICU, we were brought together and have a great connection. With the increased incident of multiple births (fertility treatments), it fits well for her to reach out to our group since there are so many multiples spending their early days in the hospital. Some for many, many weeks.

When I walked into the meeting on Monday night, it was completely obvious to me who the NICU parents were. First of all, they had on those hospital bracelets that you have to wear – and one couple had two bracelets. They have twins in the NICU, like we did. Boy, did the memories come flooding back to me within seconds. I felt like I was instantly in their shoes. My heart started to race and that pit returned to my stomach. They had that deer in the headlights look and the soft spoken somber voices. It was surreal.

After talking to them for a while, we all relaxed a bit – but that look never left their faces. Did we look like that? I was so glad to have met them – and can only hope that our story will help them in some way to have hope and know that their babies WILL come home someday. I haven’t been able to get them off of my mind all week. The last thing that they have time for are pestering “new friends” but I can’t help but wonder how their babies are doing. I wish I could call them. I’ve prayed so much for them every night. They have two 30 week little boys that were not due until the end of April and showed up in early March. They were born at 2½ and 3 pounds – not much bigger than JD & Cole. Their boys have many of the same issues that our boys had. I know what they are thinking and how they are feeling. As we went through day to day during our NICU stay, I don’t think I realized the stress and fear that was in my mind and heart all of the time. I know how scared they are yet how hopeful they are that each day that goes by is one day closer to bringing those babies home. I know how they have that pit in their stomach when they are away from their kids – and trying to carry on with life. One of them commented on how their families & friends keep asking them to go to dinner etc. to get out of the hospital. She said that nobody seems to understand that they don’t want to be anywhere except the hospital – all of the time. It’s a hard thing to understand unless you have been there I guess. The nurses even try to push you out saying that “they are in good hands, go out for dinner and enjoy yourselves”. She was frustrated that people kept trying to “get her out” and forget about the hospital for a while. Forget about the hospital for a while? How? I sensed her frustration and remember feeling the same way.

What a journey they are on. What they don’t know yet is how much they will be forever changed by this journey. They don’t realize how great their babies will look in 6 months and they would not even know that they were once preemies. They don’t realize how much they will appreciate the smiles and coo’s of those children once they are off of oxygen, ventilators, medicine and out of the isoletes. They don’t know how good it will feel when they can finally hug and touch them when they are out in the open – not through the holes in the isoletes. And how good kangaroo care feels, and works for the babies! They don’t realize how good that final drive home is when you have your babies coming home and you don’t have to go back to AAMC again. That is something that nobody can tell them either. They have to live through it and see these things for themselves. Although I try hard not to remember the tough days because it takes me back to places that were so very hard, I never want to forget them either. We’re better people for having been through them. It is something I would never wish on anyone in their lifetime but you have to see the good in those tough times. And there was a lot of blessing that came out of those tough weeks and months – namely, our two little miracles that give us smiles and laughter each and every day.

Yummm, carrots & squash!

This ones for you Grampy!
We miss you - safe travels in Europe. See you in 10 more days!
Big news of the week - JD ROLLED OVER TONIGHT ON HIS OWN! We're in trouble now! But what a great milestone...



Love, JD & Cole

Weekend Retreat

WOW, what a way to start the week. So refreshed and rejuvinated from a nice long weekend living in luxury with "the girls". A weekend full of my favorite things with my favorite people - you can't beat that. We had a wonderful weekend away at the beach - it went a bit like this: a few glasses of wine on Friday night while we all arrived, complete with some good catch up time, a yoga work out Sat. morning, hot tub soak, leisurely breakfast, shopping the outlets, a long overdue pedicure, more wine, getting ready to go out with the girls like the old days, awesome healthy dinner, more wine, chit chat & extreme laughter til' 1am, uninterrupted sleep, wake up for long morning walk & a relaxing drive home. It was awesome.

The only damper was that two of the girls didn't make it in since their planes were detoured and canceled due to bad weather. We were so sad to miss them - the two that made the most valiant effort to come, never made it. One was from LA - she made it out to the East Coast, detoured to Pittsburgh and got stuck there. She turned around the same day and flew back to LA. 11 hours and $700 later, she didn't even make it to see the girls. Our other friend never made it out of Nashville. Both planes got canceled so she turned around and drove home. Such a bummer. We missed you gals terribly...it was NOT the same without you. And as always, we missed our friend E. who is in Australia too. Although she never planned on making the trip, we thought about you lots. It's so hard having one of our girls so far away. We missed you E!

I'm happy to report that I returned home to three smiling happy boys - everyone at home did great! When I got home, Daddy made a quick exit with a friend for a few beers to watch the basketball tourney - well deserved. All of the boys clothes were on the right way (no backwards overalls) and everyone seemed happy as clams. I couldn't ask for any more than that. Thanks to the Mom's for checking in over the weekend - I know that was a huge help as well.

Shame on Daddy for doing so well - now I know I can do it again - I won't wait quite as long this time around! Here are a few pics from the weekend. The house was gorgeous - and only appropriate for a group of Mom's with no kids! We felt like movie stars - it reminded us particularly of the "Sleeping with the Enemy" house. Beautiful, yet not practical for family living. It almost had a spooky aire to it ~ all white EVERYTHING.

Here are the girls (minus the photographer, KP)

And some shots of the house....

SPRING FEVER!

Lots of excitement this week with the weather starting to change! We have spent lots of time out of the house FINALLY which has been wonderful. We're ready for spring, that is for sure. It sounds like the cold weather is going to roll back in this weekend for a few days but hopefully after that, spring is right around the corner. It's been awesome to have the windows open today and smell the fresh air! And how awesome is it to have some extra light later in the day with daylight savings time?

Cole and JD are really ready for spring - they dragged out their sunhats yesterday. When do we leave for Florida Mom?

We also got a new fun toy this week - what would we do without hand me downs? We love our new exersaucer. We're trying to learn what all the buttons do when we push them. JD really enjoys it - and so does Cole. But Cole's little feet don't quite reach the floor yet...we give him a little step stool underneath.

Slight change in plans this weekend. The boys are not roadtripping with Mommy unfortunately. The family that they were going to stay with at the beach has been sick this week so we're going to take a raincheck. Something tells me that they will have just as much fun here at home watching March Madness all weekend. It will be a boys weekend at home! I'm sad to leave them behind but it will be such a fun weekend that I'm sure the time will fly by quickly. As hard as it will be to depart, we'll have a very memorable weekend I'm sure! What's that saying? Absense makes the heart grow fonder...keep reminding me of that when I'm a few drinks in and missing my little guys. Please?!?!?

Change...

After the boys six month appointment last week, we were staged to make some very basic routine changes in the boys daily lives. Basic yet major. We added cereal and fruit to their diets, changed their formula, added two crib naps a day and learned some more physical therapy activities. WOW, that’s a lot for a couple of little boys in one week!

SO FAR SO GOOD! It only took about 4 days to get used to the nap routine – on day #2 I was worried that I had created two little monsters by not napping them in cribs regularly. Thank goodness they caught on well and now will at least play quietly in there if they aren’t interested in sleeping. You should see the video I took on day #2 when they wanted nothing to do with a nap in the crib. I figured I might as well catch the not so good times on film too. It has also become apparent that after the first few days of screaming naps, they now are adjusted to not waking up when the other one cries. Phew.

The food was a big hit! Peaches were not the fav, but boy, bananas are at the top of the list. It wasn’t until two days in that I realized that neither baby has had a #2 since the bananas started so apparently I’ll have to cut back on those. Or feed them prunes with their bananas. Ewwww. Who knows, they just might like em! I have however determined that the best way to feed them is naked (diaper only). It didn’t take long to figure out how much fun it is to stick fingers and arms in the mouth with the food – and then stick those appendages in every orifice on the body once they are covered in sticky stuff. It’s a total riot.

I was surprised when I changed to the regular formula from the higher calorie. I didn’t really think that it would make much of a difference to their hunger factor but boy was I wrong! We’re back to 5 bottles a day – I guess they miss the calories? As if either of them need an extra bottle? Little chunkers can’t get enough food.

One of the favorite toys in the house is the light up pooh. In fact, we have two of them so that each of the boys has one. Someone gave me that advice early on for twins. The very first therapist that came a few months ago had a light up pooh and both boys loved it. So I went on a search for them. We're practicing playing on the side since they are getting closer to rolling over. You can see that they both have good heart to hearts with Pooh, as often as they can.

The routine is new but good – and we’re still working on it. Of course, once we get it down, it will be time to change it again. We’re gearing up for our first family road trip next weekend. I can’t wait to get these little guys out of this house for a weekend!!! We’re headed to the beach to visit some friends – it’s a college girls reunion but C is going to go too and hang with the boys and one of the other husbands who lives down there. The two Dads with four kids – under 3. Us girls are renting a big house down the way so we won't be under the same roof but close enough to make me feel ok about leaving. Wish I could be a fly on the wall – or have a nanny cam installed so we can see it all. Then again, maybe I don’t want to know?

Either way, we’ll all have a great time, I know. I can’t wait to let these boys get out and start living life, the fun way! We’ve been cooped up way too long – it’s time to get out and explore! They can't wait either!

Brothers...

The boys are really noticing each other now. Yesterday we found them smiling at each other lots when we were visiting Grammy & Grampy.



We took a nice long walk - not much longer and we'll be out of this handy snap and go stroller!

First Food

Well, we tried rice cereal for the first time this weekend. What a hoot. Cole liked it but JD did not. As you can see from the photos below, we have a few "clean" photos and then some after brunch. Notice that there are not any photos of JD after eating because he threw a tantrum and did not enjoy the experience at all. We tried again today and he did a little better, but not much. He'll get used to it, especially when the sweet stuff comes around!

We love our highchairs Mom!




Cole, a happy customer!