5 Months

It’s time for our monthly update! (well, a little past time, but that's a story for a different day)
5…FIVE months! What in the wold!?!

Amelia

This month will go down as Amelia’s “sick month”. We went to the girls well visit on February 2^nd, at that point she had been congested for about a week and a half. She was given an antibiotic just because she wasn’t getting any better. She went 10 days on the medicine and still was not better. We let her “just be” for four days before calling for a second opinion at a different doctor’s office. The “mother’s intuition” just wasn’t letting this one go for me. 

It was found that her nose was inflamed and very red, she had fluid on both ears that were borderline being double ear infection, and she had wheezing  throughout both lungs. This time, she was given a different antibiotic and started breathing treatments every 6 hours. We were also advised to mix her bottles with unflavored pedialyte for  a few days, STOP using the humidifier, STOP suctioning her nose, and to give her a baby spoon of vanilla yogurt twice a day. Over the course of 10 more days we were instructed to give her the new antibiotic and ween her off the breathing treatments. We went from every six hours, to every 4, to twice a day, to once a day to done. 

We stayed on top of this new care plan and you know what, she’s all better! Yes, it just takes time but I KNEW something was wrong with her other than “just congestion” that we were told, and I also knew there HAD TO BE more that could be done for her than “suction her nose and run a humidifier.” Turns out stopping those two things helped her. We’re on the fence about switching doctors’ office, but more than likely we’ll be changing.

Because of her congestion (we think), Amelia has reverted back to her old nighttime sleeping habits…and then some. February saw VERY little sleep for this mama. One stretch of four days I think we ended counting that I had a total of 8 hours sleep over the course of 4 whole days. 8 hours over 96 hours. Yikes. So she went from sleeping all night, to waking up around 3:30-4a which was a given, then several nights she’d wake up before then once OR twice AND then again at her new normal of 3:30-4. It made for some loooong days at work.

Also due to her congestion, she wasn’t eating as much which is why we mixed her bottles with pedialyte and gave her yogurt. She finally got back to taking her whole bottle again, but she’s still not been ready to move up to a bigger amount. We’ve tried, she just doesn’t want it yet. Recently she’s started taking her bigger bedtime bottle again, but it takes her a while to drink it all.

Needless to say, our little Nugget has had a rough month filled with extra snuggles and extra one-on-one time. Through it all though, she’s still been her happy (for the most part) smiley self!

We don’t feel like she’s grown much this month, but I’m sure she has. Her measurements are always the ones that surprise us. We won’t have official numbers until their 6 month well visit, but we suspect she’s nearing 12 pounds this month.

• She HATES being strapped into her car seat, but is the best little back seat rider once the car starts moving.
• She still LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Mickey & the Roadster Racers. So anything with the mouse, and we’re good.
• She is incredibly strong for her little petit self. Trying to open her hands from a fist or straightening her arms to put them in sleeves is as hard as I imagine it to be breaking into Fort Knox.
• She’s a morning person…whether it’s 2:30am, 5am or 7am, the girl is a morning person, always waking with a smile on her face. (It’s hard to be mad at that smile even at 2:30 in the morning.)
• She has LOVED the yogurt we’ve been giving her. We’ve not started her on rice cereal yet, but that day will be coming soon!
• She is still not rolling over like her sister nor is she showing any interest yet. A friend of mine who is a physical therapist and works primarily with pediatric patients said it’s totally normal for premeeies to not start rolling over until 6 – 8 months, so for now, I’m not worried.
• She doesn’t like sitting her little chair for very long anymore.
• She’s a catnapper now which makes it a little more difficult to get things done around the house or rest yourself while they nap. Girlfriend’s gotta be entertained these days.
• When you laugh at her, she laughs at you. It's the funniest thing ever. 
• I'm nearly convinced there her favorite place in the whole wide world is laying on my chest in the wee-morning hours. It's exhausting, but I know these days are fleeting and I'll never get this time back.

Mae Parker

I don’t know if it’s a “twin thing” or just that she’s getting older, but she’s not near as fussy  / needy this month as she has been thus far. Don’t get me wrong, she still LOVES having you around and being near you, but she’s just been more content lately on her own. With Amelia having been so under the weather, it’s been like MP has taken a back seat. Almost like she’s telling us, “Hey I know you’ve gotta help her right now, so I’ll just be here and be the good one for a while.” When we’ve needed her to be the chill one, she’s been the chill one. She’s been SUCH a good baby this month.

She doesn’t seem big to me until I see someone else holding her and suddenly she looks huge. I’m sure she’s every bit of 13 pounds now and I think she’s grown half a foot this month. (Ok, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration.)

We were told from their pediatrician to not start trying anything other than formula until they had better head control, which I understand, but it’s not like we’re going to go straight to table food lady! This is girl was / is HUNGRY. So two days after being told to wait on the cereal, we started her on the cereal. I have no doubt that doctors know their stuff, BUT I am NOW a firm believer that parents know their babies the best and know what’s best for them. We increased her bottle size and give her some cereal a couple times a day now and she’s a happy girl!

Not to be outdone by her sister, MP had her own little "sickness" issues this month too. One morning she woke up extremely fretful and we noticed she wasn't able to open her eyes. I tried wiping them and she screamed bloody murder. We took her to the doctor not long after they opened. She was given an antibiotic, eye ointment, swabbed for a bacteria culture, and blood drawn. Her eye was swollen, red and hurt her. Her blood work came back fine as well as the culture, the swelling started going down that same day and 24 hours later it was almost back to normal. At first we were all screaming pink eye, but the next day we changed our tune and have all but decided she must've scratched her eye overnight. She was PITIFUL!

She LOVES bedtime. With the schedule we have them on, she should have her bedtime bottle at 9pm. BUT. Some nights Mae Parker is READY for bedtime sooner than that and will clearly let us know that she’s done for the day. We’ve given her a bottle as early as 8:15pm, she downs the bottle and is out like a light until we wake her up the next morning. She’s so easy to put to bed. She takes her bottle, burps, and with just a few minutes of rocking she’s done.

• She, like her sister, only catnaps these days but when she’s tired MAN OH MAN is she tired.
• When she’s fussy, her sister is fussy. When they’re fussy together, you better have a 2 on 2 defense ready because a 2 on 1 quickly drives you to the brink of insanity.
• She has really started loving an activity mat. She will reach and grab and kick all the little dangly toys for a LONG time, and just jabber the whole time. I love to just sit and watch her play by herself…she’s just so happy!
• She has found her feet and loves to lay and grab her feet.
• She’s still rolling over from front to back like a champ.
• She loves to stand on your lap.
• She LOVES when we sing “The Wheels on the Bus”…the part where mommies on the bus go shhh shhh shhh is her favorite part.
• She is NOT a morning person. Most mornings we have to wake her up to get her ready to go. It takes quite a while before she warms up enough to start smiling at you.
• She loves the Mickey Mouse shows too and will jabber, laugh and kick her way through an episode. She just gets so excited!
• She’s close to sitting up on her own.
• She loves reading books and leans in toward them if you’re holding her in your lap reading. She’ll also turn the pages for you if you bring a page up for her to grab.
• She is so calm and peaceful (unless she thinks she’s starving or exhausted).
• She HATES to wear a wet diaper for long. The diaper package may say 8 hours of dryness….what a joke. 

We are delighted, honored and so, so blessed to watch these girls grow and develop every day. It seems like forever ago when we had our whirlwind Sunday birth story, but it also doesn't seem possible that they are already FIVE months old..which means they're almost HALF A YEAR OLD! My new favorite past time is just sitting and staring at them or staring at pictures of them while I'm at work. (Yes, I do that from time to time..it's good for a mama's heart.) It's the most amazing feeling to feel that these precious babies are mine and that they KNOW they're mine.

It's truly the most humbling of experiences to know that God's plan all along for me was to be these girls' mom. That He saw it fit to give us two babies to love and raise. These are His purposes for me. I can't be thankful enough.