New Normal

We finally feel like we know what we are doing at home.  That is, as long as the kids wake up for their care times, act like they did the days before and don't have fevers.  The early part of the week was challenging.  I think they somehow knew that Aunt Becca was flying in from LA for the weekend and that mommy wanted to get laundry done before the weekend so she can maximize her family time!

Both kids were fussy and had low grade fevers on and off.  They never showed other symptoms of being sick so our best guess is that they are teething.  I think I can see a couple teeth in Scarlett's gums but not in Grayson's.  Of course, he has been the whiniest!  It seems that if he is awake and not eating he needs to be held or else he is angry!  

In the past 2 weeks we were evaluated and accepted into Help Me Grow.  During the evaluation, they compared them to the milestones of a 5 month old baby (their actual age) instead of their corrected age of 2 months (had they been born on their due date of 2/9/15).  The goal of Help Me Grow is to have them reach all their milestones by the age of 2.  If they can't catch up by then, they can provide services through the age of 3, but if they still have delays at that point then we are probably dealing with actual disabilities.

In their evaluation, Grayson passed his "engagement" test by returning eye contact and tracking the evaluator!!!!  Between the two kids, his brain issues cause more concern to most of the doctors, so we were stoked!  Unfortunately, that was the only area where either kid was age appropriate.  For Grayson, our biggest concern at the moment is that his hands are almost always clenched in fists.  They want him to be open palmed, and especially to make sure his thumb would be on the outside of his balled up fingers.  We are doing massages with him that will help his brain recognize the other parts of his body.  These are called "brain mapping and joint compressions."  Its all pretty new to me, but fortunately Trish had exposure to many of these exercises from Oakstone.

We also started Physical Therapy through Children's.  Scarlett's biggest issue is torticollis.  She prefers her head positioned so that she is looking right.  We have tried to correct it since we were in the NICU by giving her incentives to look left.  She can do it, but most of the time she returns to a resting position of looking right.  With her, we are doing "side bending", stretches so that her right ear will touch her right shoulder and a second stretch, "rotation/head turning," where we make her look left.  I don't think they are too uncomfortable for her, but hearing her screaming when we are doing it would break anyone's heart.  I really hope this issue is corrected soon so I don't have to manhandle my baby girl anymore!

Outside of that, nothing else is new.  My life is typically go to work, come home, eat dinner, feed and change the kids a couple times, hold the babies (this order is typically different every day), and go to bed.  Last weekend, Trish was able to leave the house a couple times.  Friday night she went to the Columbus Mother of Twins consignment sale with a girlfriend from college.  She met up with a couple other moms for burgers afterwards.  On Saturday she ran errands and was gone for a couple hours.  By Saturday night, my appreciation for her had grown by 500%.   I know that I am not cut out to be a SAHD (Stay At Home Dad).  Keeping babies alive is hard work!!!  We are very much looking forward to the end of this month when flu season ends so we can take up some of the offers for help!!!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention.  We are hoping to make our first public appearance next Wednesday!  We are walking in the March for Babies on 4/26 and City BBQ is gracious enough to let us fund raise.  Next Wednesday, if you take this flier, they will donate 25% of your order to our team.  Come out and support our team!