Kari, are you up? I thought that by chance you might be up late and read the blog.
I dropped my phone and it bounced off my knee. I thought nothing of it, because I have dropped it many times and it still works. Only this time I didn't hear the "clunk" of it hitting the floor. Instead, I looked over and found that it had landed in my steaming hot coffee.
Needless to say, it is not working at the moment. Also, did you know that our home phone will not take collect calls? I didn't. But it won't.
Check your email for the hotel number.
I will go and try to dry out my phone with the hair dryer.
Happy Valentine's Day.
I Love You.
M
Kari's Spanish has been improving. I know that Hilda has been working to improve her English also, but what results in their exchanges is not really English or Spanish, hence Spanglish.
We are so American.
When I spent time in Europe I noticed that all the Americans stuck out like a sore thumb. Not just from our clothing, but our language skills are abysmal compared to the rest of the worlds population. We, as Americans tend to go for the "just say it louder and slower" method of communication as opposed to trying to learn anything. "If they want to talk to us, they should learn English." right?
Well, we are trying to actually learn something, but the louder and slower actually does serve a purpose. At least the slower does, and it seems hard to speak slower without dialing up the volume. I figured that since Hilda wanted to improve her English, I would speak in complete sentences and have her do the same for me. That has not worked for us very well. There remains a huge communication gap between Hilda and me. Kari on the other hand uses the broken English. She and Hilda understand each other very well. I often have to have Kari translate for us, even though she really doesn't speak Spanish all that well yet. The only down side to this is that Kari has gotten so used to speaking in broken English that she speaks it to people who understand English. She is now often speaking to me in broken English or broken Spanish as a matter of course. That is just what comes out if she isn't thinking about it.
Kari and Hilda were at the grocery store the other day. Kari was picking out tortillas and the lady working behind the counter ask her if she would like butter flavored tortillas. Kari didn't understand what she said, so the lady said "mantequilla?" and Kari answered "Si." They both know English as a primary language and here they are speaking Spanish to each other.
Kari has always been more expressive with her body language than I am and I think that helps too. Most exchanges between Kari and Hilda are accompanied by wild gestures. I think that if you saw them with out hearing the conversation, you might think that my wife was epileptic. Obviously, I am over stating that, but her father used to joke that if you held her hands down she would be unable to speak. And it sure is fun to tease her about it.
Good news. In the last 24 hours Jordan and Madison have both consumed more than 26 oz. of formula. Given that over the last six weeks we have not been able to get them to eat more than about 10 to 15 oz. This is big news. I was very distraught when they started to lose weight and can not find the word to express my relief. I was honestly expecting another hospital stay the way things were going.
Other news on the home front: This evening I moved Reagan's crib back into the twins room so that Madison could use it. Madison and Jordan have now both moved from the bassinet to the cribs because they where starting to crawl forward and smoosh their faces in the the end of it.
Reagan is spending her first night in a big girl bed, and she was not too pleased about it. She has been sleeping in her crib in Rylee's room for a few weeks. Tonight Rylee fell asleep in front of the TV and we waited a bit for Reagan to get good and tired, we were expecting some resistance to the change. Reagan gathered up her plush toys, she has so many that she looked like she was off to do a load of laundry, and started trudging up the stairs ahead of Rylee and I. I notice that her pajamas were a few sizes too big, her feet were about where the knees were supposed to be and the footies were dragging behind her on the floor. So after I watched her struggle up three steps I scooped her up and carried both girls to the top of the stairs. I set Reagan down and she shuffled toward the bed room with a pleasant smile on her face. I stepped past her to lay Rylee, still sleeping, in the bed. When I turned around Reagan was standing just inside the door, the smile was gone, replaced by a bewildered look. She was staring at the spot where her crib used to sit. It was priceless, she looked at the empty spot where her crib was then she looked at me with a blank expression, back to the empty spot, back to me with her bottom lip stuck out. I picked her up which was fine with her, but then I put her on the bed and that was not fine. She was not happy with that at all. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get her to lay down and after about five minutes of soothing tones and petting her head, I gave up and left her in a sitting position at the head of the bed, hollering quite loudly. I am amazed that Rylee slept through it all. After I shut the door, she squawked for about a minute and then accepted her fate and went to sleep.
I win.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the morning, now that she will be free to move about when she wakes up. I half expect to find her sleeping on the floor.
I just got done feeding Madison and she is eating much better, no screaming. Both twins are eating better. They are still not 100%, but are doing much better. I again see light at the end of the tunnel. They are still not eating as much as we would like, but feeding them without the cries of pain is really nice.
Kari and I just returned home from Papa's birthday party. We had a great time and Papa was quite surprised to see us. It took a bit of planning to get Kari's Mom and Papa Wayne down from Dallas and shifting the nanny's schedules around, but we pulled it off. There was a little separation anxiety on Kari's part but she survived. That was the first time that she has been away from the twins for more than a few hours and she was a little worried.
We managed to keep our plans a secret from Papa. There were a few times that the cat was almost let loose from the bag, but Papa ended up being none the wiser until our arrival. Thanks to all involved in that operation. Mission accomplished!
I got home late on the 8th and Kari and I were up till around 2a.m. getting the twins situated and the packing done. We were up at 4a.m to make the seven o'clock flight. We did get a short nap before the festivities began at 6 p.m on the 9th. The party was a success, the food was fantastic and the company was very pleasant. Unfortunately, Chad was working and missed the party and so we felt obligated to stay up late to play with him after he got off work. We finally got to bed about 3 a.m. and we were up again at 6 a.m. to get to Tampa and fly back to Houston. June and Wayne hung around for a bit after our return, but had to head back to prepare for work tomorrow. So it was right back into baby care mode for us. It did make for a long couple of days for us, but it was worth it.
I got some pretty good pictures at the party. They can be viewed on Phanfare. Just click on the photo album link to the right, toward the top of the page. I have also uploaded some new pictures of the twins. You will have to sign up for Phanfare to view the pictures and get an email confirmations from Kari, but she assures me that it is easy to do and there is no cost involved.
I think I will go pass out now.
That is what we keep telling the twins, but they just don't listen.
We are terribly frustrated, they still won't eat. I was hoping that the new medication would have helped by now. The twins are starting to lose weight, which causes me immense concern. We are going to give them another week. If they have not improved significantly we will take them back to the doctor and likely insist on a referral to a gastric specialist. We are pretty certain that reflux is the culprit, we (Kari) have been doing a lot of research on the subject and they have all the symptoms. If they continue to lose weight they are likely looking at a gavage tube down their noses or a stay in the hospital. I sure hope that it doesn't come to that. It will also be nice to have happy babies for a change. The last month has been trying. Since the twins are always hungry and in pain when they try to eat, we spend a large amount of time pacing the house, bouncing the little malcontents until we can barely stand. Fourteen pounds doesn't sound like much weight, but after several hours of carrying it around you will be fatigued.
On the positive side, we are much happier now that we at least know what we are dealing with. Kari seems to be in the highest spirits that I have seen since we began this chapter of our lives. And while this chapter has been infinitely interesting, I am ready to move on to the next one.
Well, we have heard (from several sources) that our girls are not the most well behaved and that we are not the most strict parents in the world.
That is the trouble with having nannies that feel at home with you and your family. While it is wonderful that they have become like family, just like family, they feel free to voice their thoughts on our parenting techniques. Sometimes that is not easy to swallow criticism, even the constructive kind. Even if you know that they are right.
In their defense, they have been fairly gentle about the "suggestions" and they do have to deal with our spawn on a regular basis. We do realize that this advice is coming from people with much more experience rearing children than we have and we are open to advice to an extent.
And thus we are cracking the whip on our older girls. (The poor twins are going to miss out on the whole lax, overwhelmed parents, so I can run amok and do as I please stage.) There will be no more back talk. (Reagan's favorite word is "NO!") There will be no more whining. (At least not without consequences.) There will be no more getting up at five and wandering about the house and playing. There will be no throwing food on the floor, hitting, pushing, throwing toys, changing the diner menu, and no candy before eating good food. There will be picking up of toys. There will be breakfast at nine, lunch at one, nap at two, diner at six, pick up toys at eight, brush teeth, get jammies on, read bedtime story and be in bed by eight-thirty.
We have been slowly easing into this (because it is harder for us than for them) and we hit them hard today with the full regime. By the end of the day I didn't get past the count of two before the behavior changed. However, there were MANY timeouts today. Kari has been sticking to the pickup toys, read a story and go to bed by eight-thirty for several days and it seems to be working pretty well.
I guess that we decided on this mostly because Hilda was getting a little frustrated. That and we know that now is the time to correct the behavior before its too late. It had been easier sometimes to let them get away with less than stellar behavior just to avoid a fight. With all that has been going on, the less crying the better. Hopefully, after a short period of time this will make life easier for all of us. If they know that there are repercussions for bad behavior there should be less bad behavior, right? We will see.
The twins have been a real bear today. I got home close to noon and not long after that Kari and Hilda went to the store, leaving me with all four. They left while all of them were napping and it was fine for a little while. Then Jordan woke up and it was still ok. I got Jordan to eat about four onces, which is quite a lot these days, before she burst into tears. Then Rylee got up and it was still ok, then Rylee woke Reagan up and it was still ok, then Madison woke up and I was still doing pretty well. But after that, things started to go down hill. I put Jordan down in front of the TV and tried to feed Madison. She would have none of it. I think she has only eaten six ounces all day. There were many tears and I don't know if it was sympathy for her sibling or what, but Jordan joined in and then Reagan and then Rylee. I got the big girls calmed and Madison semi pacified then switch Madison to the floor and held Jordan. The rest of the time that the women folk were gone was spent swapping back and forth between crying babies. Whichever was crying loudest got to be held.
I hope that the new reflux medication starts working soon.
There are a few issues with that. The medication takes about a week to start working (that is about where we are now) but the inflammation that the reflux causes can take two to three weeks to heal. So we won't really know if this has done the trick for about two more weeks. Also, the medication is in pill form. Well, the twins can't really swig them down with a glass of water and we have wasted about half of our supply just trying to get them to take the medication without vomiting.
The pills are supposed to dissolve in the mouth, but really they become a thick grainy paste after several minutes. I have learned that putting the pills into solution in a nipple doesn't work. Putting the pills into solution into a syringe doesn't work. Holding the pill under their tongue sort of works, but boy does it make them mad. And if any significant portion of the pill ends up on top of their tongue they will gag until they vomit and there goes another dose of expensive medicine onto the floor.
So it is still far from tranquil at the Spencer household, but maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
And Kari deals with this pretty much all day every day, so I could imagine why she might want to run away at times.
We are glad that we went to a new doctor. We were feeling like Mckillip was not listening to our concerns. Dr. Vaughn we thought was speaking our language. She listened to our sob story and the symptoms and put the twins on a different type of reflux medication and a new, hypo-allergenic, formula. The reflux medication can take anywhere from 5 days to 2 weeks to become effective, so we are still waiting to see what that will do. However, the twins are already eating a little better on the new formula. They are still are not eating as much as we would like, but they are doing a little better.
We have reclaimed our dinning room. The twins have been relocated upstairs, into Reagan's old room and Reagan has moved in with Rylee. I was concerned that they would keep each other awake, but it seems to be working out ok.