October and November

October was busy, we had Flaming Foliage at my parent's house, then my friend had her vows renewed for her wedding, Josh turned 11!!! And, Chris got an ear infection (or two) that never went away. He ended up with tubes that were put in last week. He has an MRI next week to look into optic nerves that are too large for where they should be at his age.

Josh at the 3:13; the time he was born on October 21, 1997!

The little ones went to an eye doctor at the suggestion of our peditrician for them. When you are a premiee, you can have eye issues. And, considering George and I both wear glasses and given George's history of the cross eyes they wanted to check things out. Jon was fine. Matty has astigimatisims (I know I can't spell so don't hold that against me) and Chris has optic nerves too large for where they should be for someone his age and he will be nearsighted (I hope I got this right; he will be able to see things close up but not far away). Last week Matty came to me and said he was having issues seeing but they tested him at 20/20 in one eye and 20/30 in another eye.

Chris' ear infection started on Josh's birthday with a double one and when I went back to have them rechecked, they one had cleared but the other was still there. They told me to call the ENT. I got him in several days later and both were back to being infected. This was ear infection number 5 and 6 to start out with so we decided to put tubes in. I called the following Monday and they told me they had an opening for Wednesday and did we want that day. We took them up on it and we were there at 7:30 in the morning. I'm hoping he takes after Jon and has no more after this. Matthew on the other hand, now that his tubes are out, the ENT said she'd give him one and if he had two this winter he'd get tubes again. I'm hoping that doesn't happen.

Halloween was a hoot! I am a bad mom since I didn't download the pictures yet off of my video camera. I actually took the boys around. I talked to them about what to say and when we got to the first house (our next door neighbor), Jon walked right in and told them "Give me chocolate". OYE! At least they knew him. For about a week after, they kept trying to get their costumes and make me take them around for more candy!

We took the boys to their first movie. They saw Madagascar and loved it!

We had an appoitment for Matthew on Monday to talk to a speech person about him speaking clearly and the sounds that he is still ommiting or changing. For example he says "lader" instead of "water".....He has a low tone when he speaks. They are also concerned with him not using the steps appropriately to go down them. He gets on his butt and scoots. He was starting to walk down stairs when he broke his foot. Now he seems afraid. They also said that he has a "funny walk". They will do testing on December 22nd to see if he qualifies for services through our local school district.

I will leave you with a few random pictures and a video. The video is a surprise aand I won't tell you what is on it.








For the record....go up to Jon and Matty and say "WE ARE...." They will reply in "Penn Tate!"

And now for the video......

Just because is hasn't been mentioned, October had a week that was Infertility Awareness week. I know most of you know that we owe our Jon and Matt to IVF but I just wanted to say how incredibly greatful for our Reproductive doctor for doing our IVF with ICSI for us. So, thank you RMA of NJ for our beautiful boys!

Also, November is Prematurity Awareness month. Jon and Matty were born almost 2 months early. They had some breathing assistance in the form of CPAP for several days, had been put under billi lights for jaundice and then needed to learn to feed and grow. They spent 18 days in the NICU. Christopher was born 5 weeks early and only had breathing assistance in the form of CPAP for a few hours. He had been put under billi lights for his jaundice and had issues with apnea and bradycardia as well as maintaining his temperature. He came home after 7 days but had an apnea monitor that we had to use for 2.5 months to make sure he was ok.