Posting pictures later

I'll get some pictures up later. The camera battery is currently dead, But, I'll do a quick update on what's been going on lately.

Pinkeye. That's what's been going on. The boys have had it for the second time. Although, we're not sure if they got reexposed somewhere or if we didn't treat it thoroughly the first time. Brian thinks it's the latter. Especially since Xander got it back in less than week. Luckily, Grace hasn't gotten it a third time, and I haven't gotten it. I crazy cleaned the house for the third time and am hoping that does the trick. We got some more drops, not the expensive ones this time, but they're still doing the job. Let's just hope that's the end of this, because I can't take it anymore! Otherwise, they are finally healthy. Just the tail end of coughing for Will, and the others are fine. The weather is starting to get a little nicer, we played outside for a while on Sunday and this weekend is looking nice. Hopefully we'll get out a little then! Because of the pink eye, the kids didn't really go anywhere or do anything Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. They spent the day at the Niebuhrs on Saturday while Brian and I went with some friends to the Air and Space Museum. Tuesday night the Hoefs grandparents came over and put them to bed for us and we went to the Lied Center to see a cello quartet. Boy, was it good to hear music that wasn't sung by a red fuzzy monster! That's about all, kind of a quiet week. I'll get some pictures up soon. Have a good one!

Is it Spring yet???

On some subconsious level, I think they were having spring fever on this day. They got the sunglasses from Dale and Ellen as a Valentine's Day present, and they found their hats in a pile of clothes I was going through. They wore them all day long. It's as if they were saying "bring on the warm, sunny days". And, I agree. It's been far too long and cold of a winter. Where is spring?!?!? Do you see how wet Will's shirt is? That's drool. The poor kid has been a fountain the last week. It's because his nose is stuffy, so he can't breathe through it. He leaves his mouth open all day long to breathe and then he drools a ton. We've had to change his shirt a lot, just like we did when he was a baby. I'd give him a bib if I thought he would keep it on.

In other news, I spoke too soon last week when I said no one else had pink eye. They all three have had it (Grace for a second time). However, it was a week and a day after Grace got it the first time that Will came down with it on Saturday. My theory is that it came from the museum again. We played in the same places on Thursday we had the week before. Needless to say, we will NOT be playing there Thursday. So, luckily the drops from Grace's prescription have lasted to get all three of them over it. And, I went nuts again on Sunday and Monday, sanitizing, spraying, washing and cleaning everything that I could. Unfortunately, Brian also got pink eye on top of whatever illness he currently has (he thinks it's the flu). I, thankfully, have not gotten pink eye. But, we have not gone anywhere or done anything much this week. No church, library or anything else. Their colds/coughs/runny noses on top of the pink eye make them look and sound terrible. There is green stuff everywhere on their faces! The coughs sound horrible, I've been doing 3 nebulizers every 4 hours, plus 1 for Will at morning and night of his Pulmicort. That poor nebulizer machine is overworked, maybe we should invest in another one!

When they are not grumpy from being sick, they are learning everything at a fast pace. What little sponges! Will now knows about 10 letters, while Grace knows about half the alphabet. Xander is still learning the letters, but counts to ten accurately by himself. Both boys are better at their colors, which is good. And, they seem to learn or say something new everyday. The lastest things are opposites. On/off, up/down, hot/cold, in/out, open/shut are all interesting to them. They love to turn lights on and off whenever they get the change and the garage door going up and down is fascinating. Another language development is that they will answer questions with free recall. Last night, Brian came home from work and I said "Tell daddy where we went after nap." Grace said "store". (We had gone to Target.) Then I said "Tell daddy what you ate for dinner." Xander said "peas" and Will said "chicky" which they had both of. We also do this when we're leaving the store, I'll ask them what we bought and they'll respond pretty accurately if they know the answers. It's also neat to ask them something like "What did you play with at the museum" and they'll tell us. Two to three word sentences are the norm now, and I even got a four word sentence out of Xander the other day "daddy car all gone". It was neat to hear an actual sentence!

They are also coming into the "spontaneous song" period of development. This is where the child will make up words using notes and some rhythm patterns, but do it spontaneously. I've noticed Xander singing about his "ucky diaper" or Grace singing about her baby. They just do it in a sing songy kind of way and it's usually about something they see or are currently doing. I've also caught phrases of actual songs they know that they try to sing, which will happen more and more often now as their language increases. Just fun little stuff for me to watch develop in them, and it makes me glad that I actually learned something useful in all those years of college! Stay warm everyone in Nebraska, it's cold here!

A good week

Paris Hilton wanna-be

Will wants to wear glasses, too!

Downward dog (thanks to Aunt Kara for "teaching" them yoga)

Xander and Grace carrying the bag. They love to help.

As you can see, we've had a good week. No major illness to speak of. They have runny noses today and Xander is coughing some, but they're not horribly sick. We did get out quite a bit last week and this week. All the normal spots, museum, indoor playground, storytime, mall, church and grandparents' houses. Will is doing fine handling the steroids twice a day. No real major problems. He is a little more aggressive than usual, we've caught him pushing Grace around and throwing a lot of things. Time outs usually take care of those behaviors, though. I'm glad we're not having any huge temper tantrums. Xander's tantrums when he's tired are bad enough! Grace did have pink eye last week. On Friday morning, she woke up with a lot of matter in her eyes. I didn't really think anything of it, and wiped it out. About 20 mins later, it was back and worse. It just kept getting worse and worse, until by the time we met my mom for lunch, her eyes were huge, red and puffy and the matter was just flowing out of them and drying on her face. I called the doctor and they called in a prescription for eye drops (which cost me $60!). I went crazy that afternoon washing everything in the house and spraying the entire house, including toys, with clorox spray. Luckily, no one else has gotten it. I think she may have picked it up at the museum, and I'm completely shocked the boys didn't get it, because it's so contagious. She's better now, the drops helped almost immediately, and she was pretty good about letting me put the drops in. But, you could tell she was uncomfortable with the pink eye before the drops, she whined a lot about it.

In other news, I have a funny story. We have have been trying to get them to understand pronouns, so we'll say "What's your/his/my name?" etc. Well, they say their name now, and with enthusiasm. (We've also been trying to get them to say their first name and then Niebuhr, so far they don't really get that.) Anyway, during church on Sunday, the kids came with and didn't go to the nursery. Here is what happened during a prayer...

Brian: Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...

Xander (loudly): Name? Xander!!!

We thought that was pretty funny.

The other thing they're getting a kick out of lately is helping. You can see that they were carrying the diaper bag for me. We refilled it with diapers and packed it to take to the Niebuhrs house that night. Grace likes to sweep and unload the dishwasher. They all love to turn lights on and off, open and shut the garage door or any door for that matter, and do any other number of tasks we let them do. They've become great at getting undresses, coats, shoes, jackets, shirts, socks, working on getting pants down, those are harder. Will and Xander immediately take off their pajamas in the morning when I say "Let's go get dressed" They run around naked until I get around to putting their clothes on. Thanks to Grandma and grandpa Niebuhr for teaching them about red, green and yellow stoplights. I have three backseat drivers now who tell me when to go and stop. When Grace sees a yellow light she announces "yellow!" At least she keeps me aware of how many yellow lights I run. They are also using expressions that Brian and I use all the time like "there you go" and "come on". I think those are funny to hear them say. They are getting good at letters, Grace can receptively do about half the alphabet. When you ask Will what an X is he says "Xander", so he's recognizing that X is for Xander. And speaking of Xander, he counted to ten today, almost all the way by himself. I helped him at 4 and 5, but he got the rest by himself. I was so excited I called Brian to tell him. It's so neat to watch them learn new things like that! Well, that's all for this week. Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Super Bowl and a specialist

Sorry for the late update this week. The time kind of got away from me. We were dealing with a sick Xander over the weekend and Monday. He had the same junk the other two had last week. A very high fever, 102's and 103's, but not really any other symptoms. He is a little congested and he keeps asking for "keeka" (Kleenex). I think he thinks this will help the stuffy nose, but it won't because he doesn't know how to blow. We've had a couple of sleepless and frustrating nights, but he is better today. We had a good week last week, despite the illnesses; storytime on Wed, museum class on Thursday, haircuts for the boys on Friday, a night out for mom and dad on Friday, too! Saturday, we took them to Valentino's buffet for dinner, and they were very good and ate a ton. Places like that should be sorry when they see us come in the door and kids 3 and under eat free! Sunday, after a long night with Xander, we slept in and didn't go to church. We decided spur of the moment that morning to invite our families over to watch the super bowl (bottom 3 pictures). They came, with tons of food. We made barbeque brisket, ate lots and watched the game. The kids had a bath at halftime (top picture), and went to bed in the 3rd quarter, so we watched the rest of the game in peace. It was a fun night. We laid low on Monday and Tuesday, still dealing with a sick and grumpy Xander.

This morning, we took Will to an asthma specialist. He classified Will's asthma as "severe, persistent". I wouldn't have said his asthma was severe, but he's the doctor and I'm not! He gave that diagnosis based on the number of times Will's had oral steroids in the past year and a half (at least 4, possibly more). He says it's severe and not controlled. So, one of our only (and the best) option is to continue on the nebulizer steroids, Pulmicort, that he is currently doing. He upped our dose to twice a day (which was originally prescribed, but I had been doing it only once a day because of the "devil child" side effects we get). He thought the side effects were because he was more sensitive to steroids given the amount of times he has had oral steroids. He was concerned about the side effects he may already have because of that many doses of oral steroids and says we need to have it all under control ASAP do he won't have to have any more. We go back in six weeks for a follow-up, and then may re-evaluate the twice a day Pulmicort. It depends on how he gets through his next few colds. If there is minimal coughing and no wheezing, then we are on the right track and may drop down to once a day for the warmer weather season. I just wonder how we'll make it through at least six more weeks of "Crazy Will".......I'll update you next week on how we're handling his alter ego!