Insanity’s Oasis

The boys are all due for their yearly physicals, so I scheduled the twins for theirs today. Might as well get them done and out of the way early, no? I was amazed to see just how much they’d grown in a year! Zach has gained 8.5 pounds and grown 2.25 inches. Not super growth in terms of height, but I was shocked at how much weight he’d gained. He still looks lean and lanky and he’s still bony (lol), but the doc said he’d progressed fine in terms of height vs weight. He’s still on the short side for his age, only between the 25th and 50th percentile (closer to the 25 end, though). He’s 55 pounds and exactly 4 feet tall

Ryan, on the other hand, has gained a whopping 11.5 pounds and grown 3.25 inches in the last year. I was much more impressed with his gains. I knew he had grown quite a bit taller, but I had no idea he had gained so much weight! He’s much better than Zach in percentile ranges, being in the 65th for weight and in the 48th for height. He’s 61.5 pounds and 4 feet 2 inches tall. If he keeps growing at this rate, he’ll be as tall as me at age 11 (I’m only 5 feet 1/2 inch tall)!

I’m glad they seems to be *finally* catching up with their same aged peers. Admittedly, I think it’s taken longer than most preemies. Maybe it’s because they were micro-preemies? I dunno. At any rate, seeing them against their classmates, they seem to be right in the middle.

They also appear to be starting to get sweat glands under their arms. We were worried about this, but the doctor said it can start around age 7. It’s intermittent, as it’s supposed to be. She said as long as they weren’t showing signs of early puberty, they’d be ok. So far, they are still prepubescent. That put our minds at ease. They were also due for a chicken pox booster. Zach didn’t even flinch! Ryan yelled “OUCH!” and then looked at me and said “Wait, that’s it? It didn’t even hurt!” I think the ouch was a bit premature, lol, and much more for show than actual feeling!

Now they are officially ready for third grade. 2 down, one to go. And he’ll be taken care of in 2 weeks

Oy, I have been in a funk, lately, as it relates to the blog. Don’t know why, but I just have not wanted to blog/have not had anything to say. I am trying to rededicate myself to blogging at least semi-regularly. Even if it isn’t anything anyone wants to read but me, I guess that’s ok. I’m also going to try NaBloPoMo again for July. This month’s theme ought to be easier for me, since it’s routine. I have that down pat, that’s for sure. Even if our routine is mundane, it’s a routine, nonetheless.

The boys are finally out of school. They finished last Wed. and it was a heck of a day for the twins. They were bawling by the time they got off the bus. They so didn’t want to leave their school, and I can’t blame them. It’s such a wonderful school, and I will miss it for them. Alex will be there 2 more years yet, so we aren’t totally done with it. And I suppose it’s harder for them because their only experience with a new school was when we moved here; they knew no one but each other. They feel, at least a bit, like that’s the same experience they will have this time around (for those who don’t know, they are leaving the primary school, which is K-2, and heading to the elementary school, which is 3-5). Especially Ryan, which is not uncommon with PDD/ASD kids.

So, part of our daily routine has become talking about their new school and reminding them that they will still have their friends with them. They’ve been in the same class, with the same teacher/students since they started (A great idea for the primary school, I think. Whomever Alex has next year will travel with him to second grade, as well.). While they won’t have the exact same students, they will be placed together in groups of 4, so that each student knows at least 3 others on the first day of school. I also remind them that all of their friends are also going. They’ll all be on the bus together, albeit a different bus than before.

So, such is the start of our summer. More tomorrow on the summer reading challenges the boys and I are involved in…

One set of my in-laws are always gracing the boys with artsy gifts. This is probably attributed to the fact that they are heavily involved with museums and my mil used to be (and maybe still is) an antique seller/appraiser. They live in a quaint little area of Connecticut where there are lots of little mom-n-pop toy stores, antique stores, etc. Very neat shops, to say the least. Anyway, for Easter, they sent the boys each a Nyokki egg plant pet. I’d never heard of this before, but assumed, from the description, it’s like a chia pet, but on a smaller scale for kids. We finally opened one up and started it a couple of weeks ago. It’s very cute!

Nyokki means “grow” in Japanese. And boy, once they start, they really live up to their name!

Here’s a pic from yesterday:

And here’s a pic I took this morning:

Once I compared the pics, I couldn’t believe how fast the grass is growing! A couple more days and the boys will be able to cut the hair, if they want. So far, we’ve really enjoyed them. It’s fun to see how fast they grow!

Tags: egg, Nyokki, pet, plant

Sunday was the March of Dimes March for Babies. It was a beautiful walk along the Erie Canal. Altogether, I’d say it was a much better walk than last year. More organized, more entertainment, more food, much better location. It was much harder to fundraise this year, though. That was my downfall. But as the family teams chairperson, I’m looking forward to calling people and getting feedback. Can’t wait to hear what they think of the new place, etc. I took several pictures, especially along the canal. I have never walked along the canal before, and would love to do it again in a different spot. There are lots of locations to walk along the canal. Anyway, here are the pics I took from the walk, in no particular order:

Tags: charity, Erie Canal, March for Babies, March Of Dimes, pictures, Rochester

We took the boys to the circus on Saturday. I remember going a couple of times as a kid and I loved it. It was the first time the boys had ever been and they didn’t really know what to expect. While on our way out, we asked the boys what they thought. The first words out of Zach’s mouth were “It was sweet! It was excellent!” I guess that qualifies as a rave review! His brothers had similar views about their first circus. All-in-all it was a great family outing. Below are some of the pics. I won’t post them all, as that would be too daunting. But I’ll post some of my favorites.

Keep in mind that the whole show was basically about the head clown taking the ring master’s hat, which made the ring master not do his thing real well and made the clown sort of take over the circus. It was cute banter back and forth b/w what kind of acts the ring master had and what kind of acts the clown had.

I’ll warn you: some of these are blurry. I had to sacrifice taking “action” shots for taking pics in night mode. I couldn’t do both. Either I could take action and they would all be dark, or I could take them in night mode, get some good shots but have some of them blurry. I opted for the latter, obviously.

DH tells me he’s really playing. Brian would know…he’s a trumpet player. Anyway, I thought that was pretty awesome. No way could I play like that! I give him mad props.

It’s a porcupine! He’s cute, isn’t he?

This was the view from our seats. Pretty good seats

Tags: circus, Family, fun

I’ve decided to dive in and take part in this month’s nablopomo theme. I’ve neglected my blog for far too long and it’s high time I start giving it some love. May’s theme is sweet. I can’t say I’ll be posting on the theme every day, but I’ll try. Today, though, I guess I’ll just give a big, huge update. We’ve been super busy this last month and May isn’t looking any less busy. We had my sister-in-law’s wedding the first weekend in April, which was fun, but exhausting all the same. I’ll post pics at a later date, once I get them all re-sized and blog friendly I stayed in Indiana for the following week to finally meet my niece for the first time. She’s SUCH a cutie! So sweet and chubby! I’ll post pics of her, too! Then we had Easter and our wedding anniversary. Then my father-in-law was in town, and then we had Ryan and Zach’s birthday this past Tuesday. April was a fully-loaded month for us and I’m glad the spinning has finally stopped!

This weekend, I think we might be going to the circus. I remember going as a kid and loved it. I would love to take the boys. I think every kid should experience the circus just once in their life. Then on Sunday, the twins and I are walking in March for Babies. I’m only abt halfway to my goal (which I ended up lowering). You can sponsor us, if you’d like. You can also read our story there.

After that, next weekend we’re taking the boys to Day Out With Thomas. That was our birthday gift to the twins. I can’t wait to see the look on their faces, either! I’ll definitely be posting pics of that for all to see! We took them to Red Robin Tuesday night for dinner. and I’ll get those pics up, too. I’m going to work on resizing them tonight/tomorrow. I promise to get them up by Monday.

A great accomplishment happened this week in our house…Brian received his NWA seal of approval! We’re celebrating tonight with yummy dessert and a movie (or back-logged dvr’d svu’s, lol).

We’ve also joined a photo challenge over at PhotoChallenge.org. They have a daily challenge and a monthly challenge. Until now, I’ve only been doing the daily challenge. But I think I’m going to start the monthly challenge this month. It gives me a way to hone my photography skills, anyway

For now, I’m heading out side to enjoy the beautiful weather. I hope you do the same!

Tags: life, nablopomo, photography

You know that age-old question we all ask ourselves after doing laundry: Why am I missing socks? Where did they go? It appears, the majority of them go to Narnia!

see more Funny Graphs

Tags: funnies, memes, socks

Not much new around here lately. Just the same old work-home routine. We finally got a computer set up for the boys after theirs crashed awhile back. We’re trying out the kid browser Kidzui. So far, I think it looks pretty neat. The kids haven’t been on it yet, so we’ll see how easy it is for them to use. It looks pretty easy. We tested it out by typing in some non-kid friendly search terms and found that no websites came up, which we really liked. It’s loaded with something like a million websites approved for kids by teachers and parents. There area TON of websites for just about every topic a kid could want. I’m excited to try it out. If we like it, we may pay for the membership, which is really, really reasonable.

Anyway, Here’s a Manic Monday meme for today.

Do you screen your phone calls?
Yes, I do.

When was the last time you lost your temper? If we’re talking the last time I really blew my top, as opposed to the last time I got mad at the kids, it’s been awhile. I’m not easily ruffled, I guess, because I’m so laid back.

When you’re lost, do you ask for directions? I usually look at a map and try to figure it out myself first (if I’m alone). If I can’t, then I’ll ask for directions. I’m directionally challenged, so I usually always take hand-written directions with me so I don’t end up getting lost in the first place!

Finally, after 4 1/2 months of trying to get it right with Zach’s medicine (see this post and this post for reference. What a struggle it has been. We started with one pill a night. That didn’t work. Even with waking him up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. He was always wet. And if he was wet when we woke him up, he would change and would still likely be wet when he woke up in the morning. After 6 weeks of that, we upped him to 2 pills a night. This was still hit-or-miss, but mostly miss. In other words, it was only slightly more effective than the previous dose. We gave this a go for about 6 weeks, hoping it would just take some time for the increased dosage to kick in. When it didn’t, we upped it to three pills a night, the highest dose he can take.

We weren’t really sold that the increased dosage would work, since none of the other had. About 3 weeks into the new dose, however, he started to wake up dry. A couple of nights went by and, honestly, I thought it was a fluke. You know, we happened to time it just right with middle-of-the-night bathroom breaks, the time he took his medicine vs the time he went to bed, stuff like that. But when a week went by and he was dry 6 out of the 7 days, I was secretly hoping this was it. Another week week went by and again, 6 out of 7 days dry. I knew this was no coincidence. One night he actually woke himself up and went to the bathroom, which has never happened in the 4 years we’ve been dealing with this. Last week, he was dry 6 out of 7 nights, again.

We had a doctors appointment yesterday and I was so happy to report the good news! We were really ready to throw in the towel. We’re keeping him on this dosage for awhile, then we’ll gradually start weaning him off. The worse case scenario is that that he reverts back to wetting the bed and we have to go back to his current dosage. He’s currently going through a growth spurt, and I can’t know how much of this current turn of events is due to that and how much is due to the meds. Probably it’s more likely a combination of the two. Either way, I’m sure glad we’re on this side of things now!

Tags: bedwetting

Today’s tackle is actually kind of a silly one. Well, not silly to me or my kids, but silly to think of it as something I needed to “tackle.” It is, however, something I’ve needed to do for several weeks and just keep putting off for some reason or another. It required major surgery.

The boys have these stuffed reindeer. I don’t know who gave them to the boys or where they got them. We have looked everywhere online to try to find replacements but have not had any luck. The best I can do is patch them up until they are too decrepit to do anything with. We tried to take Ryan’s away (his is red) because it looked awful; nasty, dirty, etc. He cried and cried and cried. I took a chance, washed it, and (luckily) it turned out fine.

So today, I finally fixed Zach and Alex’s reindeer. Both are missing legs, but Zach’s is legless. Here are pics of my tackle:

Before:

After:

(No before picture of Brownie, but you wouldn’t have seen the hole on him, anyway)

So, there’s my Tackle It Tuesday tackle for the week!

Tags: meme, Tackle It Tuesday