Poor Little Aiden

Aiden started with a little cough on Thursday. It didnt sound like a dry cold like cough to me, it was different. Then Friday he kept it up. I noticed it would get worse when I turned on the air conditioner in the house or the car. So, I kept my eye on him and Friday evening I was going to call over to the doctors office because it seemed to be getting worse, but decided not too. I was a little concerned because when he was still in the hospital we were told that he had chronic lung disease from being on the ventillator for so long. Anyways, this morning he started to cough long and hard coughs, he couldnt really keep his breath it seemed. It was really hard to watch him. His face would get so red and his eyes would water. So I called over to the Doctors office and they said to bring him right in. He didn't have any signs of any sickness', just the bad cough. As I was sitting there waiting for the doctor, I noticed he was weasing pretty hard. The doctor came in and asked lots of questions. He thought maybe it was reflux. I told him that I was pretty sure it wasn't because Andrew has it so bad and Aiden didn't have any of the things Andrew has been going through. He ended up putting him on a nebulizer right there in the office and giving him a dose of Albuterol. I was holding him and he was screaming and he was fighting me so hard. This went on for five whole minutes. After the dose of medicine, his weasing was gone, and he only coughed a couple times in the next 5 hours. The doctor reassured me that this was probably a sign of things to come... So yeah. Poor little Aiden. He probably has asthma or something else.. time will tell I guess.

Tonight he did really good when I put the little mask on him. He only cried a little bit, and I had to give him two different medicines (about 10 minutes worth). He is taking the Albutrol and Pulmicort.

Trish's Furry Friends

We have a really foresty backyard.. so I have lots of fury friends that come over to visit the back portch. Here is a picture of a racoon! He came to get some bread that I threw out for the squirles. I also have a fox, opposum, squirles, birds, 2 dogs and a cat!

Happy Tuesday!

Today I took the boys for their 6 month check up and shots. The doctor says they are healthy and look good. :) They each got three shots in the legs. They didnt much care for that. The doctor ordered a prescription for them to pick up Aiden's apnea monitor! ..this means we are on our own! Scary! In all actuality, it never has gone off so i am not worried about it. I have worried alot about SIDS. But he says they should be past that, and it being summer, there are not as many flu's, colds, etc going around. Adam is enjoying his new job. He works WAY to much though. Last week he worked 62 hours monday - friday. That is a new change for me as well, because I am use to him being home alot more than that. Crazy.

Simple Blessings

So...its been a busy week, some of you might not know that I have given up the Tile business. Mostly because its gotten so expensive to travel around to do jobs, plus I don't think my knees will hold out much longer. So i have been "JOB" hunting the last 3 weeks or so. Trying to go back into the field I left a few years ago has been tougher than i thought. After 3 weeks of endless applications and interviews i was offered a job with a water bottling plant. I think i will fit in well there. Its a small operation with plans to expand so i think i could grow with them. I will be a working at night as a Maintenance Mechanic. Trish has been very patience during my job hunting.
Aiden and Andrew continue to grow and I notice small changes in them everyday. They are discovering their hands now its funny to watch them hold their hand and sometimes gnaw on them. Today has been an absolutely beautiful day with plenty of sun and a cool breeze in the mid 70's. Ian and I decided to try our luck fishing again at the river. After our disappointment last time i was not to sure about wasting time again at that same part of the river. But low and behold Ian's 3 rd cast into the eddy current and he landing a nice little rainbow trout perfect eating size he was beaming with pride having landed the trout all on his own. I taught him how to gut the fish, when we arrived home we wrap his fish in tin foil with some garlic clove, butter, salt and pepper. I was surprised he ate the whole thing while going on and on how the guy in man v/s wild would be jealous . So as i sit here on the back porch typing this i am thankful for the simple blessings we recieved this week.

Last Friday week we took Andrew to the speech therapist. Part of the process was for her to watch him take the bottle. He would not take the bottle at all even though he was hungry. He had only been eating about 10 oz a day (they should be eating about 24 give or take). He was arching his back and crying and it was just really hard to watch him be in so much pain. She said he had acid reflux pretty bad. I called the pediatrician and he called in a prescription for Prevacid. Once we got home, I put him back on the preemie formula. He sucked the bottle right down. So after 5 days of being on the acid reflux medicine, we had the swallow test. Have you ever taken your car to the shop to get fixed and once you are there talking to the mechanic, the car will not show the problem, and the mechanic thinks you are just crazy and you kinda feel stupid? Well, that is exactly how we felt yesterday when we took Andrew to have his swallow test. I hadn't given Andrew a bottle since 3 am and the test was scheduled for 8:45. I should have fed him at 6 or 7. But when we got there his stomach was completely empty and he was starving. So of course he sucked the bottle with the barrium right down. As they watched with the xray it went right down into his stomach with no problems, no reflux. They kind of said to us in not so many words that babies just spit up sometimes.. After 10 minutes they took him back in to see if it was digesting ok... of course he was. As they were looking at that I was sitting out in the lobby feeding Aiden and the nurse was telling me that young parents now a days are just over feeding our babies. Clearly that wasnt the case here.. but I didnt feel like telling the whole story. Adam and I walked out of that office feeling like one of those parents that over react, and run their children to the dr. for anything. We are just happy that Andrew is able to drink his bottles and that his medicine is working really well.

Aiden and Andrews Big Step

Aiden and Andrew both roll over for the first time. We were able to capture Aiden but missed Andrews. They are growing up so fast!!!

To All The Mothers:

Andrew Update

The nice people from Child Development Services came over yesterday to check on the progress of the boys. The nutritionist brought with her an occupational therapist ( I think that is her title). They weighed the boys and measured them. Aiden has finally passed up Andrew. He weighs 11 lb. 14 oz. (a two week gain of 12 oz.) and Andrew weighs in at 11 lbs. 11 oz. (a two week gain of 2 oz.). So finally now that they can see that Andrew is not progressing in his weight, they agree he has a problem. He has pretty much lost the ability to suck on his bottle for a long period of time, seems it is a swallowing issue. The new formula we put him on has helped tremendously with his other issues, like spitting up and going to the bathroom, but he just appears skinny. So, he definiitly needs more calories. So, we have set up appointments now with the hospitals "Rehab Swallowing Therapy" and we are going to be having a speech therapist come out to work with us on how/what we are feeding him and such. Poor little boy. Other than his swallowing issue he is just so sweet and happy. He always smiles at us and sometimes he even babbles. The boys look forward to 7 am every morning and wake up right on time for daddy to come in and get them. . . only problem with that is dad doesnt come get them till after he drops jade off at school.. I sure wish they would sleep till 8. LOL

Happy Saturday!

I can't believe it is already May! Wow! This year is sure flying by quicky. In just 5 weeks school will be out for the summer. I remember as a kid the school years seemed to drag on and on, but now as a mother they sure go by quickly. :o) I can tell that Jade is just ready to be done with this 2nd Grade thing. I think sometimes I push her too hard then other times I let her slack to much.. where is the happy medium? I definitly need to work on that!
At the end of each 9 weeks they do a reward party for the kids who make there reading goal. Which is, you take a book home, read it, go back to school and take an open book test on it... Well that is easy enough I figured. Well this week they had the reward party and Jade didnt get invited. So I sent a note to her teacher asking for a print out to see where she was on her points. The teacher sent me a little print out that showed Jade had 11 of 20 points... an F! Whoa, what happened? I know what happened, I stopped reminding her to read her books nightly and I stopped asking her every day when she got home how her test went. This was a great reminder to me that I didnt just have the babies to worry about.. I have lil Jade too! Goodness.. how did I forget?

The little boys are both doing pretty good. Aiden has started to smile alot more lately. I use to worry that maybe he couldnt smile. They warned us that with the brain hemmorage some of his brain was damaged, and I thought maybe that it was the part that held smiles. Aiden has probably passed Andrew in weight finally... we will find out on Monday. We have a nutritionist coming over to check on Andrew. He has had quite a hard time the past few months keeping his milk down, and he is always constipated. I keep telling the doctor that he needed to be on the same formula that jade was on, nutramidgen.. It is for lactose intollerant babies. He keeps telling me no, he needs to be on preemie formula as it has more calories. I dont think the calories matter if he isnt able to keep it down more than 5 minutes... then again I am not a dr. Anyways, I went and got him some of the nutramidgen last night.. He has been doing really good on it today. I really am hoping this solves all of his little problems, or we are going to have to take him back up to the hospital to a specialist and have tests, x-rays and whatever else done again. I really dont want him to have to go through that again though. Keep your fingers crossed! :)