No Photos

This time I’m blaming the delay in posting on the Blog on our camera. It was having problems so we had to send it in. Luckily it was still under warranty. We just got it back but while it was gone we didn’t take many pictures. It’s hard to post without pictures.

Both Brandon and Katelyn are making developmental progress. We always know what should be the next in their step. We are always working to help them to get better at this next step. The problem is that we also know what to watch out for. This can make us a little paranoid. The instant we see them doing anything that might be a warning sign of possible trouble, we panic a little. However, they always seem to move on and get pas it quickly. We get visits from many specialists who are trained to look for problems. Of course they often mention things that could turn into problems and we should watch out for. It can be really emotionally draining to hear about these potential problems.

Katelyn is starting to work on her crawling. She is really good at rolling around. She can’t quite crawl yet but you can see that she is getting close. She is also getting better at everything else. Katelyn has quite a temper. We have known this from the beginning. Even the nurses in the hospital noticed her temper. She is delightful when she is happy, which it most of the time. She can sit in her swing and play contently with her toys for long periods of time. When she smiles she can brighten the room. She can be amazingly charming. However, when she is mad she can also really let you know how she feels. If you set her down for a second, when she wants to be held, she acts as if she was just placed on a bed of nails. She lets out a scream as soon as she hits the ground. She also has a specific grunt/scream sound that she uses when nothing is really wrong but she wants attention.

Brandon is also making good progress. He is starting to roll over. Brandon can certainly do his share of crying but in general it takes him longer to get really angry. He also loves to be kissed on the cheek and he loves to “talk”. He will often stare at me and exchange grunts and smiles for long periods of time. He too can be really charming but it feels a little more calm and interactive. Katelyn, on the other hand, is more about energy and excitement. When she smiles, her arms flail because she can’t contain all of that happiness in her little body. Brandon’s happiness is calmer but every bit as charming. Even the heath care people commented about how social he is.
Our big challenge at the moment is that neither of them are growing much. In fact, sometimes they will lose weight for a couple of days. We are doing everything we can. We are adding extra calories to Brandon’s bottles and feeding Katelyn fortified solids but they are still really small. I don’t know what more we can do but it is a little worrisome. They are already so small. I just hope they both go through a growth spurt soon. One explanation that the doctors have mentioned is that even thought they are still a new-born weight they are old enough that they may experience more growth spurts and plateaus.

The other day Amy sat in church behind a family with a baby. She watched the baby play for an hour and as she got up to leave she asked how old she was. The baby was born on the same day as Katelyn and Brandon. Of course she was much bigger and a lot further along. Even though we know that we should focus on our adjusted age it is hard not to compare and feel a little weird when you are looking at other babies the same age. We know 5-week-old babies that are bigger than Brandon and Katelyn even thought they are approaching 8 months old.

The big news we got last is that Brandon has his last hernia surgery scheduled for April 11. This surgery is much simpler than his previous surgeries but, because of how hard it was for him to recover in the past, this makes us pretty nervous. Every time someone who doesn’t know Brandon’s history gets a look at his scarred tummy it seems to surprise them that a baby so small could have gone through so much. If everything goes well, he should only be in the hospital for 23 hours. The good news is that, if he recovers quickly we will soon be out of RSV season and we will be able to bring them places. Amy and the babies will be able to come out of seclusion.