How you doin' ?

How are we doing? Sorry so long for the updates but we have been busy. So busy in fact that I have neglected the blog. Just not enough hours in the day and when I finally have a minute, I just enjoy the peace and quiet. I will post new pics soon. The computer I'm at doesn't have access to the pics - that's another project - to try to sync a XP with a Windows 7 computer - I'm not in the mood to tackle that one anytime soon.

So here's what has been going on:

The boys started school on Aug 23rd with the PPCD program. They go 5 days a week for 3 hours and they love it. Riley wakes up every morning and usually the first words out of his mouth are "Go to School". Seriously??? It's not even 7am and I haven't even made my coffee yet and he is ready to get dressed and go to school and they don't go until 12:15. Makes for a very, very, very long morning. Carter took a little longer to enjoy going to school. He went through the withdrawals of not having mommy at his side 24/7. For a couple of weeks, I had to take him to his classroom and leaving him there crying but learned after about 5 minutes he was happy as a lark. Go figure.

The downside to school is the germs. When you have micropreemies, you become a germaphobe. Someone coughs, sneezes etc. you freak out. It became habit, trying to protect them from any germs due to their lungs. A cold to them could set them back developmentally for weeks. So when school started I knew I could no longer protect them from the germs. Riley loves to hug and kiss everyone and Carter, seeking the oral input since he doesn't eat, puts every toy or whatever to his mouth and proceeds to lick it. All this was good and fine in the confines of our home but public school???? YUK! This leads me to the downside. Since Aug 23rd, Carter has had strep which lead to an ear infection, another ear infection, strep again which lead to another ear infection. Count that as 5 antibiotics since Aug 23rd and it hasn't even been 3 months. Really not looking forward to old man winter. Riley has done fairly well. He does get put on antibiotics each time Carter gets strep and has had one sinus infection. I'm knocking on wood right now because he is not very happy when he is sick. Carter I can handle, Riley another matter entirely.

During all this time, when Carter had his first round of strep, the tip of the gbutton decides to break and we had to keep a feeding tube attached to him since part of it hung the relief valve open. Not fun since we had to endure that for 3 days since it happened while he was still contagious. Dreading the worst, the button has to be changed out at the dr. office since it is one solid piece for his protection and to keep his brother from pulling it out. Turns out, Carter didn't even cry when they took it out. I was shocked! His eyes got a little big when they put the new one in since a little force had to be used but that was it. just a little whimper and he was good to go. No granulation tissue no nothing and it had been great ever since. Now if he would just stop playing with it and tugging at it, things would be great.

Now for the big news. If you have been keeping up with this, you know that Carter was only saying momma when he started school. After about 6 weeks, he started talking! yep - Talking! He can recognize almost every color, numbers 1-10, the alphabet (and sing it) and almost all the flash cards we have in the house. He repeats, asks for a couple of things and is beginning to play with toys appropriately. The biggest thing is that now he knows when i walk into a room. Before going to school, he did not care if I was in the room or not. Well, he probably did, but his house is his safe zone. He now makes eye contact when I come into the room and calls me by name. All this just makes me giddy. He has made so much progress in such a small amount of time, it is amazing. I'm sure he has been soaking up all this info and decided okay yep I can do that too. With Carter, it has to be on his terms and his terms only. If you try to make him do something, forget it. Not gonna do it. Not gonna happen. (Like wear his glasses)!

Riley is doing well in school also. He is starting to talk in sentences and say more and more things. He likes to sing (as well as Carter) and destroy whatever he can in as little time as possible. He learned how to eat cereal with milk the other day which was awesome. He can ask for things he wants (repeatedly) and tell you most things. He greets Kevin at the door when he comes home "How you doin' ", says "delicious" when he eats something good, "your welcome" when we say thank you and "goodness" when someone sneezes. He has a very funny personality that comes out more each day.

They are both parallel playing more and enjoying the other kids in school. This is the most exposure they have had to kids their age and they seem to be adjusting well. I have more to update but I wanted to make sure my family and friends knew what has been going on. I will post some new pics soon.