Monthly Archives: September 2008

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Solid Food: the People Variety

We’ve claimed to be eating “solid” food around here before.  Of course, originally, that meant watery mush.  Then it meant thicker mush, and then we graduated to thick mush.  I recently mentioned how our babies are obsessed with “people food” — these are real solids for real people.  They aren’t just babies anymore — give them the real stuff!  Cheese, yogurt, milk, pasta, hot dogs, bread, guacamole, whole peas, cheerios, bananas, oranges, watermelon… they love it all!  My mom was horrified to learn that her grandchildren do not follow her food preferences and adore peas, canned peas even!  “Mo mo mo!” they cry.

Zach and Rissa have different eating styles.  Zach is a pincer grasp man and a mouth collector.  He picks up something and pops it into his mouth and then goes back for some more, as quickly as possible.  He is likely to have 6-7 cheerios in his mouth, in various forms of sogginess and still be popping them in one after another.   Rissa is a full-fist girl and a hand collector.  She only wants to eat one thing at a time but she wants to hold as many things as possible all at once!  She fills her fists with food and then has to suck on her hand to juice the food up enough to turn it into goo that she can suck out from between her knuckles because she is NOT letting go of that food!  So they both store up food:  Zach in his chubby cheeks and Rissa in her tiny hands.  Here is some photographic evidence of eating solids these days.

Homemade mac and cheese is my childhood favorite and big hit for the babies!     Zach catches slippery oranges while Rissa prepares to make orange juice in her fist

chasing peas     we’re cutting back on bottles and now we use cow’s milk and formula!

Last Sunday, we went to our first NICU Reunion.  None of the moms were familiar to me… the ones that camped out at the NICU like I did during the babies’ stay weren’t there.  But we met lots of cool people and we were shocked at how many twins there were!  Apparently, twins often end up in the NICU because they are nearly always born earlier than single babies.  Some of the babies still looked sick and as though they were still recovering from arriving so early, but most of them looked great, just like our kids!

We had about 10 excellent nurses who worked with our babies (they do 12 hour shifts, so 2 nurses a day with many repeats).  We hoped to see our favorites there and we did!  Matt says that Kim and Kris are the nurses who raised our kids right.  They didn’t just care for our babies, they loved them.  They loved them and they taught us all sorts of useful things about caring for tiny ones and they really put time and effort and compassion into their jobs.  They were the 2 nurses we spent the most time with during our 12 days in the NICU, and both of them were at the reunion!  Whee!  They were thrilled to see two happy, healthy 1 year old NICU alums.

Kim, Zach, Kris, and Rissa

The reunion was a luncheon at Curtis Orchard.  They were serving hot dogs and sandwiches.  Matt was adamant that even though I despise hot dogs, our kids should be allowed to eat them if they want to.  He worries that I will deprive our children of their childhood right to eat disgusting, processed “meat.”  So I gave in and we let them taste his hot dog.  I’m ashamed to say that they loved that hot dog and it looks like I will be the only Olson who does not eat hot dogs.  I suppose that’s fine… they need to feel like normal kids.  I’ll keep my complex about what hot dogs are made out of to myself. 🙂

Rissa tasting her first hot dog      Zach tasting his first hot dog

This new real solids phase is pretty exciting, but it’s alot of work on my part!  I feel like I’m constantly making meals.  I enjoy watching them try things and they REALLY liked my delicious pumpkin soup, so it makes it worth it to spend my time filling their little bellies.  Yay for solids.  Boo for increased dirty laundry and stains on everything!

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Freedom for Hoochie

Ever since we switched to forward-facing carseats, getting the babies out the door has presented some new challenges.  I used to be able to strap them into their carseats inside the house to keep them from wandering all over, spend a minute or 2 getting my diaper bag and purse together, then carry their carseats out to the porch together, then one at a time to the van.  They were heavy, but it was simple and straightforward.

Now that the carseats permanently reside in the van but the babies can’t walk out on their own yet, the process is a bit more confusing!  What do I do with one baby while I carry the other one out to the van?  I used to rely on the exersaucers, but now it’s our new playroom to the rescue!  I can keep them safely in the playroom while I get our library books or diaper bag or grocery list together, then one stays safely behind in the playroom while I carry one out, then I get the other baby.  It’s SO great to have an entire room that is safe for my babies.  I can’t emphasize that enough!  The constant vigilance inside me gets a break every time they are in there, and it’s good for all of us!

When we come home, it works the same way.  I leave one baby in the van and bring the other to the playroom, then I go get the other one.  Zach sits behind my driver’s seat in the van, so he often comes in on the first trip.  We keep Hoochie in his kennel when we aren’t home and his kennel is located in the playroom.  Last week, I brought in Zach-a-bean and put him in the playroom with caged Hooch and went back to the van for Rissa.  When I came back in with Riss-Riss, Hooch was out and running around the playroom.  How, you may ask?

Zach can work Hooch’s cage lock!

Oh yes, Zach found the latch for Hooch’s cage.  The next day, I brought him in from running errands and put him in the playroom again, and when Rissa and I came back, Hooch was free again.  I put Hooch back in his cage and stood there watching in disbelief while Zach crawled over, swung the cage’s latch up and down and then magically, he tried moving it to the side and the door opened!  After his third time releasing Hooch, he knew to just immediately slide it over on the first try.  Hilariously, he doesn’t always let the door swing open since he is sitting right in front of it — he slams it back in Hooch’s face to keep from getting run over and sometimes relatches it!

On my next day with an errand, I tried bringing Rissa in first to give her a chance to work Hooch’s cage by herself.  When I came in with Zach, she was standing at Hooch’s cage crying because she wanted him out and hadn’t been able to do it.  So the babies worked on it together.  Hooch stands “pointing” with his nose at the latch and whimpers at them… “come on guys, just slide it to the left… almost… I’d help you if I could… just a little farther… now move so I can get the door open…”

the babies check out Hooch in his cage

Since then, I’ve been switching off who comes in first and I assume if it’s Zach, Hooch will be out and running around.  Yesterday, I brought in Rissa first, and when I came back with Zach, there was Hoochie running free and Rissa looking very proud of herself.  Will this skill be on their next development checklist?  “Can your baby open a cage and release their pet?”  Check, check!

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Augh!!!

I’ll start by saying that I consider myself a part of the medical/helping community, and I definitely mean that community no harm.  My own profession, speech-language pathology, contains many specialists in swallowing, head and neck cancer, traumatic brain injuries, and diseases pertaining to aging and I find all of that very interesting.  My mom is a registered nurse.  A very close friend is in medical school right now.  Other friends are already doctors.  I like the medical profession.  I’m a fan and supporter.  I know that lots of fabulous people work very hard to ease, cure, prevent and treat suffering in people.

That being said, augh!!!!  This past week has been a medical nightmare.  I spent all of last week NOT writing this post.  I’ve spent 8 days calming down and have decided to go ahead and write it.  Last week, I had a consult for Rissa with a doctor who shamed his profession and clearly works daily to unravel the good name and reputation of all the good-hearted, well-intentioned, well-educated, physicians with people skills everywhere.  We went in and the guy had not read Rissa’s chart because he thought I was the patient.  Yes, I’m 12 months old and I weigh 20 pounds and I was referred by my pediatrician.  I very much want to tell you his specialty so you can shake your head and be insulted with me that he thought I needed his help, but we live in a small community and I’m not writing this to shame him, so I’ll leave it to your imagination.  I will say that he perfectly fits the mean stereotypes of his specialty area.

He did a decent job of trying to build rapport with Rissa for about 5 minutes but put no effort into building rapport with me.  I was grilled as to why we drove 3 hours to St. Louis for Rissa’s hernia surgery and didn’t have his good friend and colleague only two hours away do it instead because this office is trying to get him to move his practice here and if we aren’t supporting these efforts to get him here, we suck… we being me, Matt, our children, and our pediatrician, apparently.  Um… it was our choice of where to go and we wanted to visit the Granades who are on the way to St. Louis and why am I being involved in “office politics” of this man’s medical specialty during the consult for my daughter?  We went to St. Louis because we chose to and we had an excellent experience and it was over NINE months ago… I don’t need to hear why that was stupid and irresponsible on my part from this jerk!

He didn’t listen to a word I said during Rissa’s consult, but he is convinced she needs treatment from him.  He couldn’t remember her age (I told him 3 times), on the way out the door, he said, “oh, are they twins???” (Zach was sitting RIGHT there next to her in the stroller during the entire consult), and he grilled me for being so “misinformed.”  (During the health history, I suggested a sensitivity to a certain type of stitches in our family given that I had a horrible reaction and stated that I would rather not find out if Rissa would have the same reaction if she ever needed stitches).  He wanted me to name names of the other medical professionals who had led me to believe in this sort of irrational thinking that people are sensitive to stitching materials and then verbally bashed the reputations of the 3 doctors I’ve received stitches from, all without knowing them.  I was suprised that he didn’t demand to see their work… “let’s see those gums and C-section scars!  Mmm-hmm, just as I suspected… this work is crap.”  Is this supposed to increase my trust in him as my daughter’s specialist… that he arrogantly thinks everyone else is wrong and bashes me and them for our collective stupidity as compared to his obvious intelligence?

It was horrible.  I am by no means a pushover, and I felt bullied!  How must other patients and other parents of patients feel?  I tried to switch to the only other specialist in our community because I don’t want to support this guy in any possible way, but she doesn’t work with children or with the type of the treatment that this guy thinks Rissa needs.  And it’s a tiny thing that we agree should be taken care of, despite the fact that we are stuck with him.  Matt and I are writing a letter once we’re done with this whole thing, but I wanted to blog to just vent my frustration.

My current frustration is not helped when 2 years ago, we took Hoochie in to have a lump checked out, and he didn’t have cancer.  Right before they got his results and told me he didn’t have cancer and was fine, the vet med student preemptively handed me a packet on “when your beloved pet has cancer.”  I was like, “Oh crap, this is how they tell you it’s cancer… they don’t want to say it to me directly so I’m supposed to read this packet and then I get Hooch’s results.”  And then it wasn’t cancer.  So today, I get a letter from the vet med school with updated info regarding my beloved pet with cancer.  What is going on???  Are we on some sort of hit list or something?

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Sigh of Relief

Heroes has been in our lives almost the exact amount of time that the babies have.  It started 2 years ago, but we didn’t watch the first season.  After countless recommendations that we would love it, we bought the Season 1 DVD and started watching it last August.  Our goal was to get through it before the Season 2 premiere in September, and amazingly, we did it!  That was our non-baby time… whenever we weren’t with the babies, we were watching Heroes.  We became accustomed to watching several in a row, so the big cliffhangers week to week had no effect on us… we just watched the next one.

Then Season 2 started, and we mostly had to tape it because we were always busy with our tiny twinfants at 9pm on Mondays (seriously, we were busy with them 24 hours a day back then!)  It was so hard to wait a whole week (sometimes more) for the next episode because watching it on DVD had spoiled us.  We were annoyed by interrupting commercials and by Tuesday-Sunday until Monday came again.  Then the necessary and important writer’s strike happened, and Heroes wrapped up Season 2 last November or December.  We spent 10 long months without it… enjoying our kids and living our lives and trying not to miss it too much.  But the show is our drug of choice and we NEED it.  Must have Heroes…

Last night, the Season 3 premiere aired and Heroes returned to our lives.  It was a 3 hour special starting at 7pm, and we taped it.  We weren’t sure if we could get our kids in bed in time to watch in real time, but we made it with about 20 seconds to spare!  The first hour was a red carpet-style hoopla with the actors and lots of flash backs and flash aheads to what we already know and what is to come.  Then the 2 hour premiere started at 8pm and again, I was annoyed by interrupting commercials and the difficulty of waiting until next Monday to learn more!  This show is so engaging!  Despite how hard it is to wait a week, at least it’s back!  Ten months was a LONG time to go without for Heroes addicts such as ourselves.

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An update in stories and pictures

I’m typing this as I listen to Zach-a-bean jumping in his crib upstairs, thump thump THUMP right above my head.  He loves to do that.  Riss-Riss is furious because it is hard to sleep next to thump thump THUMP and she would like him to please sit down, shut up, and take his nap like she is trying to do!  This is going to be a mish-mash of news and pictures, so bear with my lack of organization.

We are traveling soon to Matt’s parents in MN because Matt’s sister Alana and her husband Neil are coming from Scotland for a US visit!  It’s going to be amazing.  My poor mother-in-law… I have burdened her with a large list of “how to baby-proof and Hoochie-proof your house,” complete with a warning on how Hooch can open luggage zippers to dig through stuff and find what he wants (he usually wants chapstick and gum, but he gets excited about medicine containers [Tylenol, etc.] as well!)  After I type this post, I’m about to burden her with a “grocery items the babies will eat” list too.    So don’t feel sorry for me and my giant mental to-do list, feel sorry for Lynette!  But not too sorry, because she’ll have all her kids and grandkids home at the same time and that is a beautiful thing (we’ll actually be missing a few grand-guinea piggies and grand-hamsters, but almost all of us will be there!).

I’ll start this update with my most exciting news.  Words are the (latest) best things about babies.  I love to hear what they have to say!  There are 2 categories of words:  1) words that they understand the meaning of and can say on their own to send a message and 2) words that they hear us say and try to copy with varying success whether they understand the meaning or not.  Rissa copied us on a few 2-word sentences a couple weeks ago, and it was amazing!  She said “bwuddah saaaa” when Matt told her that brother was sad.  She also said “mo bite!” for more light (we have a touch lamp that gets brighter each time you touch it, so we touch it once and ask them if they want more light?  She sure did, so we complied!)  The other one was when Matt was feeding them people food.  *They are obsessed with people food.*  He asked if they wanted more, and they both said, “mo!”  Matt said, “more?  okay!” and Rissa said, “mo otay!”  Then, last week, Zach copied his first 2-word sentence!  Matt was leaving for work and I said, “Bye-bye, Da-Da!”  Zach said, “Bye-yiiiiii, A-Da!!!”  It was so cool.  They are little one-hit wonders… Rissa said her 3 sentences within 2 days and not another 2-word grouping since.  And Zach just had the one.  But that doesn’t make it any less cool for us… I like this random skills at random times thing, where the skills disappear for awhile, and then reappear later.

More talking stories… today, we were looking at a picture of Aunt Alana and Uncle Neil, and Gramma and Granpa and Great-Grandpa to prepare for our coming MN trip, and I said, “That’s Alana and Neil!”  Rissa fixates on this picture because she loves Alana’s wedding dress and she said “Ahh-na” for Alana!  Super cute.

Shots actually went pretty well a few weeks ago.  The actual shots were awful and my poor children cried and I cried and it was horrible.  I let the nurse handle it by herself while I stand off to the side and then I rush in to pick up my screaming shots are abysmal, but you would never know it! child and hold them and ask them to tell me what happened, and then they scream for a little bit and we talk about it and then we’re okay.  And then we do it again with the other child.  We have a new nurse and she is very nice.  She handled it much better than I did, but that is to be expected.  Usually, we have a miserable rest of the day after shots, but they came home for a nap and woke up happy.  I have no idea why, but it was such a relief!

There was this big thing with plastics and BPA and research that came out back in February.  Basically, plastics that recycle as #7 are usually hard and clear and don’t break.  It has recently been discovered that BPA (a chemical) releases from these plastic containers into whatever it holds, especially when heated.  When ingested, it simulates estrogen among other things in humans and rats.  This is very bad, because most bottles are made out of this hard, clear plastic and are warmed (camping water bottles by Nalgene, etc. are made out of this plastic too).  But babies and adults should not be receiving doses of estrogen-like chemicals because it messes with their hormones and internal chemicals and that’s all bad.  I should mention that researchers and bottle companies do not all agree on these results and some companies are making new, BPA-free versions of their products and others are saying it’s a load of crap and are staying with their current products.  If you need more info about this, email us and Matt will dig up the research info we used because I don’t remember it right now.  But we decided that safer is better, so we switched from our BPA-full bottles to glass bottles back in March and we’re praying that our babies (and the millions of others over the past 20+ years who used those plastic bottles) won’t have negative side effects.  The glass feeding themselves!bottles were safe but they were too heavy for the babies to hold by themselves.  Then Dr. Brown’s, our favorite bottle brand, released some BPA-free plastic bottles, so we bought those.  And the babies can hold them by themselves while laying down!  They can also hold them while sitting up, but they don’t realize that they have to tip the bottle up to get anything out of it, so they just suck empty air when they try in their high chairs 🙂

The new playroom is still SO great!  We did some more work on it this weekend, and it is DONE!  We have a cool gate with a doorway in it so Matt and I can get through without killing ourselves by trying to jump over it.  The babies know that we step on the foot pedal and push the white square to open the gate, but they can’t figure out why it doesn’t work when they do it!  They just try to climb it, but that doesn’t work either.

Rissa tries to open the gate   Zach tries to open the gate   Daddy and the babies hanging out in the new playroom!

These cuties need no introduction.  I give you Little Lavender Riding Hood the dancer and Little Red Firetruck Man the climber.

Little Lavendar Riding Hood    beautiful smiles

Little Red Firetruck Man   Dancing on the couch   bouncing babies

Matt built a mask out of the babies’ new “Legos” and they thought it was hilarious when he talked to them from behind it!

Rissa thinks Daddy’s mask is hilarious!     Zach loves Daddy’s mask too!

Check out this picture of Zach!  Notice anything new?  See it?  See it right there in front of you?  See it?  No, not the 4 teeth he’s grown in on the top — you can’t see those in this photo (Rissa still has 2).  Check the caption.  Finally!  Also, we are totally those people who blow raspberries without thought for what others think of us.  We may have drool dribbling down our chins from all the spit-blowing, but we think it is fun and we don’t care who sees or gets sprayed!

Zach has hair! And it’s wavy!      drooly, spitty, hilarious raspberries!

I got the idea to use a tin can as a toy from Celina and her older son.  Matt bought me some Pirouettes and after we ate them all, the can became the home for our 20 finger puppets.  The babies love to dump out the puppets.  Sometimes they play with the puppets, sometimes they play with the can.  I can only wonder if it still smells like chocolate?

Zach tasting the lid     Rissa tastes the lid

We went on a walk together as a family — we even took Hooch!  He was so thrilled.  Strollering is a great time for playing the “who is touching who” game.  I’ll take anything over eye-poking, so this is fine by me!

a family walk

Rissa touches Zach      Zach touches Rissa