3rd Trimester

I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted. Yikes. And I've been horrible about taking belly pictures, too. I keep forgetting until it's too late at night and then I just want to pass out. Lots of things have happened since mid-May, so I'll try to recap.

First up, I graduated from nursing school with highest honors. Yay! I got A's this semester, but because I got an A- in the fall, I didn't get my 4.0 and was not valedictorian. Oh well! But I was completely bedecked in various colored stoles during graduation, and I was elected to Phi Theta Kappa as well. Tzipora loved graduation so much that she keeps asking me to go back (even now), though she calls it "grabuations." It's hilarious.

A week after graduation, we piled everyone into the car and drove to Rochester for a cousin reunion. We had an incredible time there, and the kids are still talking about and asking about their cousins. Even though my kids were the youngest, the older kids were amazing about keeping them involved in the games and playing with them. I wish our cousins lived closer, because it would be amazing to have them together more often. These are pictures taken by my brother-in-law, of course. Though I did take some of my own, I've been too lazy to get them off my camera.


In pregnancy news, I've passed into 3rd trimester and am now seeing my midwife every other week. Yikes! I didn't even realize we had gotten that far until she reminded me at today's appointment. Baby is doing well, though she's smaller than average. Her heart issues are a thing of the past B"H, and I'm feeling pretty well. I will try to get a photo taken today so you can see how my belly has grown. I'm still doing really well on the weight gain part of things, too. My midwife is really proud of me for keeping it under control. Though with my new addiction to Starbucks Iced Chai Tea Lattes (skim milk, of course), that may change. hehe

While I'm waiting to take my nursing licensing exam (NCLEX), I'm working as a real estate salesperson. I'm actually really enjoying it, and it's great to be working with the same "boss" I've had since 2008. Though since we've known each other so long it's hardly the relationship you might expect a broker and salesperson to have - we're really more partners than anything else, and we work really well together in that respect. After 5 years we've gotten very comfortable with each other, so I'm not afraid to speak my mind, and she takes everything I say to heart. It's really great. Though I am looking forward to getting a nursing job, I know I'm going to have to wait until the baby is a few months old to do that, and I'm glad to have something to do in the mean time.

While I'm working this summer, the kids are all going to different day camps. I can't believe my twins are going to pre-school next year and that they're old enough for a real day camp. It's absolutely unreal. Tzipora has also gotten so big, and she talks almost constantly. The things that I hear my kids say could fill a joke book. Tzipora also "graduated" from Early Intervention this past week, so that was a bittersweet moment. Chana and Tzipora usually play pretty well together, and it's nice to see them interacting as sisters. Their pretend play keeps me entertained! And I'm always happy to get in on their fun. My usual roles are as patient while they are doctors or as a spa patron while someone either pretends to give me a bubble bath or combs my hair. Tzipora has this thing about hair... It calms her to play with or stroke someone's hair. Whether it's her own, grabbing a doll's hair, or running her fingers through mine, it's like a sedative. If I'm wearing a snood around the house, she will take it clean off to get at my hair so she can play with it. She's a future shaytel macher (woman who sells, styles and cuts wigs/hair), that's for sure. Though she also enjoys pretending to be my doctor and giving me a checkup, so maybe she'll do both.

I don't think I missed anything huge, and I will try to remember to post more often. It's just difficult when I'm trying to keep the kids from getting into trouble every other second. And if anyone has any tips on getting a little boy to listen and follow directions, I'm all ears.

Early Intervention Update Et Al

First of all, I want to correct whoever commented about *my* parents causing the disturbance. My mother is 100% supportive of me in this particular situation, and if my dad was still with us I'm sure he would be too. Just wanted to clear that up so no one thinks bad of my mom. She's awesome. :-)

Secondly, I still can't get through to the parties involved and I'm beginning to think now that it's actually an underlying problem with *me* - which is causing them to look for things that I'm doing wrong. For example...complaint #1 is I'm lazy and won't take care of my own kids. Lazy, eh? How have I gotten A's in every class I've taken over the last year? Has anyone else in this house gone grocery shopping without me in a year? (Excluding the hubs going a few times for a singular forgotten item, but I don't think he's done the full load in a while.) Who's been taking care of the baby? Am I allowed to have a few minutes on the computer to do something relaxing (like genealogy)? The rest of the time on the computer I'm generally doing reviews (which is better than getting paid because it's not taxable). And I don't consider going to school in order to become a nurse laziness. It just hurt my feelings so badly to have someone think I don't want to spend time with my kids. I'd love to have the time to do that! But I'm not the kind of person who can watch kids all day... Honestly, it's not what's best for them because I'd go stir crazy and there's no way they would make any progress in their development. And it surely wouldn't cover the amount of money I'll need to be saving in order for them to go to private Jewish day school when they're ready. But going to nursing school will (IY"H) be able to provide that once I graduate.

And finally, what you've been waiting for, is their Early Intervention update...which further proves that I know perfectly well what's best for my kids (ie being with Malka all day and not me). :-)

Early intervention tests the kids in several different areas: fine motor, cognition, expressive language, receptive language, social/emotional skills, feeding, toileting, dressing/hygiene, and gross motor. (Feeding, toileting, and dressing/hygiene scores are later combined to form the "self care" category.)

Here is how the twins progressed from last May to this May. Their first evaluation was 5/14/10 (13 mos old), second evaluation was 11/12/10 (19 mos old) and their final evaluation was 5/12/11 (25 mos old). At 13 months they needed to be at least 3 months delayed (so less than or equal to 10 months), at 19 mos they needed to be at least 5 months delayed (so less than or equal to 14 mos), and at 25 mos they needed to be at least 7 months delayed (so less than or equal to 18 mos).

Fine Motor Skills
Dovid - 8 mos -> 15 mos -> 23 mos
Chana - 10 mos -> 17 mos -> 22 mos

Cognition
Dovid - 10 mos -> 15 mos -> 21 mos
Chana - 12 mos -> 17 mos -> 23 mos

Expressive Language
Dovid - 7 mos -> 15 mos -> 27 mos
Chana - 12 mos -> 18 mos -> 29 mos

Receptive Language
Dovid - 10 mos -> 16 mos -> 23 mos
Chana - 10 mos -> 17 mos -> 23 mos

Social/Emotional Skills
Dovid - 8 mos -> 21 mos -> 31 mos
Chana - 10 mos -> 21 mos -> 34 mos

Feeding
Dovid - 10 mos -> 12 mos -> 19 mos
Chana - 11 mos -> 14 mos -> 19 mos

Toileting
Dovid - 11 mos -> 11 mos -> 23 mos
Chana - 11 mos -> 11 mos -> 23 mos

Dressing/Hygiene
Dovid - 11 mos -> 15 mos -> 31 mos
Chana - 12 mos -> 17 mos -> 31 mos

Average Self Care
Dovid - 11 mos -> 13 mos -> 24 mos
Chana - 11 mos -> 14 mos -> 24 mos

Gross Motor
Dovid - 13 mos -> 19 mos -> 27 mos
Chana - 13 mos -> 18 mos -> 30 mos

As you can see, the areas that needed the most work have improved so drastically that it amazes me. In many areas they are now above age level, and many times they gained 7+ months of development in 6 months time. (For a note, we did not start working on self care until after the second evaluation, which is why there was little improvement there between the first two evaluations. Also, the twins did not begin with Malka until August of 2010, so she only had them for 3 out of the first 6 months of Early Intervention.)

My son, who was so desperately far behind in expressive language last year is now at a higher level than his age! He also gained two years of social/emotional development in one year and is now well above his age in that skill. Chana has the social/emotional skills of someone nearly a year older and also developed two years in one. I attribute that social/emotional success to having the chance to be around other kids in day care. But the other skills, expressive language most obviously, came from having excellent child care from someone who obviously knows what she's doing. Thank you, Malka, for teaching my Twinners how to talk! Every time they call me Mommy or beg for "Up! Up! Up!" I think of how they were completely silent until they started with you. (No offense at all to Ziva, who was amazing, too! The twins ask for you by name now!)

Cuteness of the Day

First of all, Tzipora rolled over two more times over Shabbos, so now we know that her first time wasn't a fluke. :-) She's getting much better at tummy time, and doesn't cry as much as she used to.

Now for the super cuteness. Dovid is getting so much better at speaking and even uses full sentences. But who knew that he was bi-lingual!? He sneezed this evening and afterwards said "gesuntheit" without prompting. LOL I always say "gesuntheit" instead of bless you, so it's not like he's never heard the phrase before...I just never realized he had learned it. Yay Dovid!

The twins have their next Early Intervention assessment on Thursday, and I don't know if they're going to qualify for another six months. They've made such amazing progress in everything! I'll make sure to let you know.

Now, for the *real* news. If you've read this far, you get a nice "surprise." Now get your minds out of the pregnancy sphere...I am *not* pregnant...not even a little bit. But I am OFFICIALLY ACCEPTED INTO NURSING SCHOOL!!! Yay! :-D

Whooops!

Wow...it's been over two weeks since my last update. I'm really falling down on the job here!! In any case, no news is good news (for the most part). My pregnancy is progressing as normally as in a text book, which is fantastic. I love my midwives almost as much as I love my husband. lol And the twins are as adorable as ever.

My mom, her boyfriend, my sister, brother-in-law and their foster son all came to visit this past weekend. We had a great time hanging out and playing with all of the kids. Then this morning Chana woke up not feeling so great, but since she had a normal temperature I sent her to day care anyways. Well, she then developed a temperature so I had to pick her up early. Luckily I was able to get some Tylenol into her, and she's now happily eating matzo, talking and smiling like my normal, happy girl.

Both Chana and Dovid have been saying more words lately, and I really need to update their word list. Chana is doing so well with imitating new words...it's just incredible. They both had their 6 month Early Intervention evaluation last week, and both passed in all areas except for eating/self care/toileting. In some areas they gained more than just 6 months worth of development, which is fantastic. I'll go more in depth on the results when I get a copy of them from Early Intervention later this week.

I'll do my best to update you after my midwife appointment on Thursday and maybe get a new belly pic up too. :-) In the meantime, enjoy these pictures of the twins taken by my sister and brother-in-law this past weekend.

Keep Forgetting to Post

Yes, it's been over a week since my last post. I'm sorry but life just sort of gets away from you. In any case, things over here are interesting as always. :-)

I had a midterm exam in Human Growth and Development which was a complete nightmare / joke. First of all, the exam questions were repetitive, so you kept second guessing yourself. Second of all, many of the questions had multiple plausible answers, so if you guessed wrong, that stinks for you. Also, several questions were about material that was not covered in our book nor was it discussed in detail in class...so there was no way we could have known about it. Then, once I got my exam back all corrected, the professor had marked several questions wrong that were clearly correct.

For example, do any of you know how many days after ovulation a blastocyst implants into the uterus? Probably most of you (former) infertiles and many fertiles know that this happens 7-10 days post ovulation. It says so point blank in my Anatomy and Physiology textbook, and it's more ambiguous in my Human Growth and Development text (saying that it starts around 5 days and could go until 16 days after ovulation). The possible answers for this question on the test were a) 2-6 days; b) 8-12 days; c) 10-14 days; d) 12-16 days. Who can tell me first what is wrong with these answers? THEY OVERLAP! Plus the fact that, according to our text book, b, c and d could all technically be considered correct. According to every single RE, OB/Gyn and infertility expert out there - and my A&P text book, answer b is the "best" answer. The prof marked it wrong and insisted c was the answer...and refused to give me credit.

Here's another example. What is the baby called right after it implants into the uterus? An embryo, of course. I got marked wrong for that even though my Human Growth text book says so VERBATIM... The prof says it's something called a "cytoblast" (which I've never even heard of and isn't in my text book). He wouldn't give me credit for that one even though the text book he assigned says I'm right. (By the way, a cytoblast is the nucleus of a cell...and has nothing whatsoever to do with this question.)

On another question which seemed to me to have two plausible answers, he couldn't give me a good reason (any reason at all really) why my answer was incorrect.

These are just some of my "favorites". I'm planning to have a meeting with the dean next week and some of my classmates may come with me as well, since the vast majority of people failed the exam (I didn't) in all of his 3 classes. Seriously, when almost all of your students fail an exam I don't think it's because the students are all slacking off...

The twins are doing great. Chana has actually put together a few two/three word sentences! One was "No, mine". hehehe The other was "pick me up". She also asks specifically for her sippy cup (saying "cup cup cup cup" and going to the fridge). Also cool was the other day when after a bath I asked Shmuel if he had brushed her hair. He said no, and I turned around to see her running her fingers through her hair. She knew exactly what I was talking about!!! Dovid's language skills aren't even close, but they are getting better. I've heard that boys can take longer than girls for these things, so I'm not too worried.

Both twins can go up stairs really well now, and early intervention is beginning to teach them how to go back down. They're going to have their follow-up assessment in a few weeks, so we'll see if they still qualify. I'm almost positive that Dovid will qualify for speech, and both will probably qualify for self care (feeding, toileting).

That's all for now! I have another cervix check tomorrow, and then that's it. If that ultrasound comes back all good, then my cervix will officially be labeled "competent". Woo!! The baby moves a lot, which is so reassuring, and I'm definitely getting bigger. I'll have another belly picture taken on Thursday as I will be crossing the line over to 30 weeks!!! That means I'm about 3/4 of the way finished with this pregnancy. How insane. It's gone by super fast, and I can't believe that I'll have this baby in less than 3 months and could be as soon as 2 months from now. ACK!!! :-)

Birthday Present

I've been sooo bad about posting. Sorry about that! The twins had an evaluation with speech and audiology. The audiologist says that both of them hear perfectly. The speech person says that they're both at a 9-10 month level of cognition/understanding language, so of course they can't talk. You can't talk about things you don't understand, and you understand a lot more than you can talk about. Think of it like this, when you learn a second language it's a lot easier to understand what someone is saying than to actually speak, right? It's the same with babies. She said that we need to have Early Intervention come for an hour of therapy once a week for EACH of the twins. (So that's really two hours a week) That's the minimum...she'd love for more. She also wants to see Dovid in two weeks for a feeding evaluation because he's a skinny boy that hates eating. That should be fun. :-)

Now then, today is Auntie Beh's birthday! I'm not going to tell you how old she is today because she'd probably kill me. Anyway, in honor of Auntie Beh's birthday, I present to you a video I like to call "Dovid and the Mailbox". This was taped today! He received the mailbox from Grandma Peggy (that's my mom) as a present the last time she was in town a few weeks ago, and he *just* learned how to use it this week. This was a huge fine motor skill success. Enjoy!

Stuff

Still no idea about the allergies, but the pediatrician should be calling me tomorrow to help me with the next steps on figuring that out. In other news, Chana threw up this morning but then was fine. Sheesh...never a dull moment here! Also, we finally scheduled our appointment with early intervention (in two weeks I believe), and Dovid has a follow-up scheduled (in June) with the doctor who saw him for the umbilical hernia so many months ago. Other than that, not much is going on...

Dovid took like 2 steps the other day, but hasn't repeated it since. I think he'll get there soon enough. Chana has started to imitate us, so she'll actually wave now! Yay!! They're also getting cuter by the minute. :-)

Early Intervention

Well, there's nothing to report here except that they came to fill out paperwork and nothing more. They said someone should call me with a month to set up an evaluation. Great...just what I need is more waiting while my twins aren't doing what they should be. Here are some of my worries:

* They're not "sociable" with adults: no waving hi/bye, no imitating us, little eye contact, don't answer to us calling their names when they're engrossed in looking at something else, they don't point to things they want

* They don't understand English (or Hebrew for that matter): they don't respond to commands, they don't say any words that they mean (not even mama or dada)

* Not very good fine motor: Sure they have the pincer grasp down well because of Baby-Led Weaning, but they don't know how to play with toys the "right" way, like they can't stack blocks or push a button to make something pop up...they just bang at things or suck them

I'm just worried about them not behaving like "normal" one year olds...*sigh*