Nine months old

Can you handle the cuteness?

Our boys are eating solid foods, sleeping through the night (for real!), taking decent naps (sometimes), and are making motions toward crawling. They laugh, shriek, babble, and are getting closer to saying mommy and daddy each day (at least we can hope). Every day they wear us out, but they also make us laugh until we cry. There is giggly goofy Gus who has discovered he can shake his head no and rock back and forth to the music and has become a cheerio eating machine. There is also zany Zevon who could can pull himself up to standing (and probably to a chin up) and can launch himself out of his jumper. A few days ago, a guy saw us on a walk and he told me, "Looks like double trouble!" Once they get their act together, get their legs coordinated and voices in sync, we will really be in double trouble. But for now, they are sweet happy boys who are content to bang blocks together and scoot on floor.

At their 9 month check up, the doctor had not much to say. They are healthy growing boys. Zevon is 24 lbs 9 oz (95%) and his length is 29 in (75%). His head is huge (19 1/4", 95+%) and it is still a little bit of a concern. A while back he had an ultrasound to check out his giant head and it came back normal, so we are guessing he just has a big head. Guthrie is a perfectly average 9 month old and in the 50% for all measurements: 20 lbs 4 oz, 28 1/2" long, and 18" head. Yep, they are not identical.

My two little cubs

All bundled up and ready to go!

Last Wednesday we experienced some weird weather. It was nice enough and sunny, so I wanted to get the boys out for some much needed outdoors time. But, there was a little chill in the air, so I thought their cute winter hats were not a bad idea.

The boys kept on trying to take off their brother's hat. Perhaps they thought they looked ridiculous (ridiculously cute, that is!).

Later, when we had returned home, there was thunder, lightening, and much later, snow! I usually think of weather around here as pretty mild. April snow and thunder are not mild events.

Zevon and his toothy smile

You can see from the above photo that Zevon has 2 lower teeth. Thankfully, he has kept them mostly to himself. Guthrie has 2 teeth as well, but he has tried them out on just about everything (toys, brother's hand, nurse's gloved fingers in the hospital, my fingers, bottle nipples). Thankfully, they have not turned into little vampires during nursing sessions, so breastfeeding continues. Zevon has become quite the flirt. When he is feeling sweet, he'll smile and tilt his head to the side and sigh or squeal. It melts your heart!

Guthrie giving a grin to his sister off camera.

Guthrie's latest trick is eating with his fingers. He went on a bit of a solid food strike after coming home from the hospital and would only nurse (much to my dismay). But, when provided cheerios or the like, he would carefully pick them up and pop them in his mouth and eat them! This is the only time that Guthrie has mastered an eating skill before Zevon. Zevon looks at the smooshed pea in front of him, looks at me, looks at the pea, and seems to expect the pea to jump in his mouth so he can eat it. He does have the pincer grasp, but would much rather scoot the food off the table. Gus has finally gone back to solids and now would like to hold the spoon himself. That is one trick I'll let him master a bit later. I get a little tired damp mopping the floor every night...don't want to start mopping the walls as well!

Let's not do this again

We have been experiencing the usual late winter/early spring crud. The joy of having 3 kids is that you get to experience it three times over. A fever runs into a cold, combines with teething for the boys, and melts into another respiratory illness. It has been made extra special by me getting whatever the children are experiencing (minus the teething, of course). But this last round of illness hit us exceptionally hard. The boys were extra snotty and crabby last week and no one was sleeping well. But, while Zevon started to get better, Guthrie got worse. By Thursday night his cough turned to wheezing and he didn't sleep unless held by Will or I. We got him a doctor's appointment that morning.

The doctors (yes, plural, because they kept on calling in another collegue for a second opinion) were concerned that he was working so hard to breathe. But his oxygen saturation was still 100%, so they told us to keep an eye on him and bring him in again later that afternoon for another listen. He was no better, and perhaps a little worse. We were sent to the ER at Children's in Seattle. One of the worst drives I've ever made was stuck on I-5 at 4pm on Thursday with a sick kid in the back. The worst part was that he was silent the whole way, meaning I never knew if he was breathing or not. Ick. We got to the ER and they treated him with a few rounds of nebulizer treatments and tested him for a variety of viruses. Because the treatments helped only marginally, and because his saturation levels were going down, he was admitted to the hospital late Friday night.

Our poor little Gus Gus still finding a smile despite a tough couple days

By the next day, we learned that he had RSV and the treatments for asthma could stop. Instead, he was put on oxygen and suction as needed. We simply needed to watch and wait and hope he got better. RSV is a common virus and it hits different kids different ways. Usually it causes problems for kids that were preemies or those that have lung or immune issues. Guthrie has none of those, so he is one of the lucky few healthy kids that still need hospitalization. Zevon, who probably had it as well, was one of the usual cases who get a bad cold and cough and then get better.

I had milk stored in the freezer at home, so it made sense for me to stay with Guthrie. Will became a single dad of 2 kids at home and I camped out at the hospital. Both of us wished we could be in 2 places at once the whole hospital stay. There were some scary moments that I hope I never have to experience again. Parenting has been a lesson of learning when to be patient and let things happen (waiting for a virus to run its course, for example) and knowing when to take action (hauling a kid into the ER). The really tough parts are when you have to make a decision of which route is the correct one.

Thankfully, Guthrie improved enough he could go home on Monday. We are very happy to have our goofy little guy back. It was interesting to spend time with the twins separated. Will found that Zevon sleeps a lot better and eats more without his brother around making a ruckus. I learned that Guthrie is super active and delightful when he gets a lot of one-on-one attention. The nurses kept on commenting on how chubby and big and 'robust' Guthrie was and all I could say was, "you should see his brother!" I found it was hard to talk about Guthrie without mentioning that he was a twin. In fact, one night I woke up in the middle of the hospital room looking for Zevon. Sleep deprivation has led to sleep walking, I guess.

All better and ready to play with his brother and sister

We aren't completely out of the woods with Gus, yet. He still has a lot of noise in his lungs and continues to wheeze. The hospital stay has messed with his sleep cycle and eating habits, and 3 days later we continue to fight with those habits. It seems like everything gets in the way of sleep training these boys! At least they keep us on our toes.