37 weeks and 5 days

Dawnell says that I can't claim that we are 38 weeks in yet, but we will be on Wednesday. Baby A and Baby B continue to progress nicely. We're pleased that both babies are pointing head down, at least as of this afternoon.

For those of you who have been asking, here are some pictures of Dawnell, also as of today.




And, for those of you who come for dude pictures, here is one of Ciaran and one of Ciaran and Beckett together. Hopefully it isn't too obvious that Ciaran continued smiling because we shoved fruit snacks into his cheeks.

36 weeks

Today I had another super fancy ultrasound. The babies have finally decided to have a little bit of discordance in their growth. However, it's only a 6% difference so no one is terribly worried about it. Baby A has an estimated weight of 5lb 9oz which is in the 32 percentile for a singleton baby. Baby B has an estimated weight of 5lb 14oz (gaining a full, exact, 2 pounds in 4 weeks) and is in the 48 percentile for singleton babies. This is very good for twins, in fact we're almost average for a singleton. Additionally at this appointment I brought along Beckett and Ciaran to take a look at the babies. Grandma came along too so that there was not quite as much chaos. Beckett was such a good boy. He really paid attention and kept asking which baby was which and what body part we were looking at. The perinatologist was happy to see Ciaran again and was amazed at his growth and progress. He kept saying, "I can't believe that's the same little guy."

With so much baby going on some people have asked what I am looking like these days. Here are some pictures from around 30 weeks pregnant. Sadly, I am so much bigger now. A friend of ours is starting a photography business http://ryanreidphotography.com/ and took some lovely pictures of our family. That's where Beckett's awesome Zoolander picture came from.

Beckett lovin' on his babies.

And my personal favorite.

Beckett Turns 4!

Beckett turned 4 on Easter this year. Not wanting to fight the Easter Bunny for party guests, we ended up having the birthday party the week before Easter.

This year's theme was The Cat in the Hat! Dawnell made this incredible cake for the birthday boy. It tasted just as delicious as it looked.

Here you get a pretty good view of all of Beckett's friends wearing their "hats" at the party. It looks like Ciaran and Beckett are the only two without hats on. I'm raising a family full of contrarians.

Don't worry though, we made them both wear appropriate attire for the event. Here they are in their Cat shirts.
Oh, and Beckett the cool dude had a real "Cat in the Hat" hat. Here he is modeling the hat.
And here's one more of the 4 year old dude all dressed up.

We played pin the fish in the fishbowl, ate cake, and read from Dr. Seuss. I think all the kids had lots of fun.

Watch Out Derek Zoolander

Blue Steele is no longer the power look. Watch out for "Vogue".

I guess this, and 40 other crazy pictures, is what happens when you let your child watch one episode of America's Next Top Model with you.

Ciaran Videos

Here are some videos of Ciaran. He's such a cute talker lately. I decided I had to record some of his sayings even if I had to artificially induce him to say them.

But first, here is Ciaran dancing and "jumping".

Here are some of Ciaran's favorite words.

And a few more.

Beckett tells us about his babies

Beckett likes to go to the midwives with me. They let him hold the doppler and help listen for the babies heartbeats. So one day after my last appointment he started playing baby. He's telling me right now that his babies were just born and they are twins and both boys. And they can jump. "Jumping babies in the house. Jumping babies in the house today!" is the chant he is currently singing. I hope he's not too disappointed when our babies don't immediately jump after birth.

I also just learned that Beckett bought his twins from the baby store. "All of them are so cute but you have to be soft to them and not hurt them."

V is for Vertex

This is currently my favorite picture in the world. Why?, you ask. It looks rather similar to a sort of boring picture of circles you posted a few weeks ago. Well, this time it shows two HEAD DOWN babies. They've wiggled around and are no longer in bunk beds. I thought I felt some big movements going on. Now they're next to each other so I can expand width wise instead of them trying to reach my chin. At any rate with Baby A head down that means I'm on track for the VBAC. I am thrilled. I'm 29 weeks so there is less chance that they are going to flip into breech as there is just going to be less and less room from here on out.

Their estimated weights are 2 lb 12 oz and 2 lb 13 oz. So they're still about the same size which is great. All heads, bellies, arms and legs are still the sizes they should be. The babies are in about the 40th percentile and that is based on singleton measurements. This is around the time when they start falling off the singleton growth curve so our doctor is very pleased with their size and growth and says they're doing great for twins, and really for any baby. In fact our perinatologist mentioned to me that this pregnancy must be a lot less stressful for me than the last one even though it's twins. He said, "I know twins are 'high risk', but they're not really high risk high risk like you had last time." I know that well and I am amazed that at 29 weeks 2 babies are the size of my 32.5 week baby. They're doing so well he doesn't need to see me again for 3 weeks. Alright! Grow babies, grow!

The babies are already learning to take turns. This week Baby A wanted to be the star of the photo shoot and Baby B only got one shot.

3-D shot of Baby A's face.

Baby A profile.
Baby B's hand. He was shy and didn't want to take pictures this week.

**Update** I just returned from my latest prenatal visit and my glucose levels were perfect at my diabetes test. Yes! Another complication dodged. I am a little bit anemic. However, this is the point when babies are reaching peak blood volume so I am within the acceptable dip they expect to see at this point. I am already taking iron, but I'll up it to two pills a day and see if that can't bump me up a little more.

A Warm Day

It finally felt like spring might actually be on its way. After days of rain and some random bitterly cold temperatures we had a day when it was a pleasure to be outside.

We played golf. We kicked the soccer ball around. We found the garden tools in the garden where they'd gotten buried by snow during winter and then dug. We even found little green shoots heralding the spring that is to come.

One of the best things though was the walk we had around our neighborhood. As Beckett walked ahead of us, I held one of Ciaran's hands, and we all walked down the sidewalk together. Suddenly it hit me that this was the first family walk we'd ever had where everyone was walking. Ciaran had progressed enough that he could walk along the uneven sidewalk with me and had the stamina to do it not only that walk, but later as we followed Beckett riding his bike around. It was a wonderful moment. I was so happy that my little low tone guy who was so uninterested in being upright was loving being up on his own two feet.

And here is our Beckett bike riding dude.

Good News and Bad News

Poor Ciaran has a double ear infection. Oddly this is the first ear infection either of my children have ever had. It's pretty miserable. Ciaran was a mess, so grumpy and out of sorts. My weaned child nursed for a half hour before his nap yesterday, that's how awful he felt. But after two doses of amoxicillin he's his happy self again. We'll take it easy this weekend, but hooray for antibiotics!!

On to the good news. We got into the Mamaroneck Avenue Pre-K Program!! Lest you think I am the mother named Moon in the Nursery University documentary, I am not. This program is free! Hooray! We got a call yesterday saying it turns out they did have enough space for all the kids and we don't have to enter the lottery. We'll be getting information about what session/times he'll be attending in the next week or two. We've had friends attend this program, our landlord's children did, and Ciaran's PT's kids have gone there. They have all had wonderful things to say about it. So not only is free good, but he'll actually learn stuff too. It is a relief with two extra little friends coming along that we won't have the expense of Pre-K and I won't have to deal with trying to do a Joy School type situation when I am crazy with fatigue.

Dancing and Knock Knock Jokes

We had fun with the video camera today. Beckett is enamored of knock knock jokes and Ciaran is getting into them too. He kind of gets the formula of what you say, if not the actual content. But don't ask him knock knock, he has not mastered, "Who's there?"

Ciaran attempts a knock knock joke while simultaneously attempting to dive into the camera and watch himself telling the joke.

Beckett enthusiastically tells a joke. I'll spare you the video where he tells a joke with half masticated bagel in his mouth that falls out which he proceeds to pick up and eat.

And here are the boys dancing. Unfortunately I missed Ciaran's shakey leg dance at the height of its glory but he rocks it a little bit.