Hannah Grace - Six Months

I cannot believe that Hannah is really six months old! Six and a half, actually. She is such a happy baby and is so good. She loves to play and talk to anyone and is so smiley! She recently has enjoyed sitting up. She is a very active little girl. I'm not sure if that will continue as she gets older. Uh-oh. If only she would sleep a little more...

Today we went in for Hannah's six month appointment. It went OK. She has only gained one pound and two ounces in the last couple of months, so Dr. B wants to move forward with labs. He isn't sure which ones to run yet, but will research it so we only have to stick once, hopefully. We will probably not do that until at least Wednesday and I have no idea how long results take or what our next plan of action will be. One step at a time. I'm not as concerned as she is following the exact pattern of growth that Austin did and after three years in the growth clinic at the Children's Hospital, we learned he was fine and just "fine featured." I am willing to do whatever Dr. B wants, though, because we never did run labs or anything with Austin and maybe it will help us avoid problems later on. She does eat...boy does she eat! She nurses every 2 1/2 to 3 hours during the day and at night, she actually eats more, every 1 1/2 - 2 hours. I think it's because it is much quieter at night and there are no distractions. She is at an age where she is highly distractable while eating...and let's face it, our home is highly distractable! She is also eating homemade baby cereal once in a while and we have thrown in sweet potatoes for some variety. Tonight, she gets to try avocados...yummy!

Hannah's length today was 25 1/2 inches (not sure about percentile), weight was 12 pounds exactly (off the bottom of the chart), and head circumference was 16 1/4" (not sure on that, either). She's doing excellent developmentally. She babbles, sits on her own for a few seconds, grabs things (including glasses and hair recently!), reaches for me when she sees me, giggles, and loves to stand.

So that about does it for today. I'll update more on her labs and our next steps when we get that all back. She goes back in a month for a weight check.

Random Photo Challenge

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This week's challenge:

27th folder or December 2007

Picture 27

I chose December 2007, 27th picture. This picture was taken December 9, 2007 and the boys had just turned 10 months old. They look so tiny here to me...and yet, still so big compared to Hannah! This was one of their first times in the 'big tub' and they hated it. Noah didn't mind once it got going, nor did Ethan, but Nathanial pretty much hated it the whole way through. In order, left to right, it is Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah (in case you were wondering).

What is Going on in Here???

We are in a very interesting stage with the triplets. They co-slept (all three) until they were almost seven months old. Then, we decided they were getting "too big" to be sleeping together and they each needed more room, so we separated them. This is the moment that sealed the deal for them...and it still took me another month to actually do it. Now, they have decided, at two, that they want to be together again. And so, after I lay them down separately in their own (or each other's) cribs, there is a lot of commotion and when they get up at least two, if not all three, are in the same crib. Last night, Ethan and Nathanial were so crammed in there, I moved one to the other end of the crib. I did not have the heart to remove one and put him in a different crib, though. They also love playing "musical beds." No longer is the crib they have slept in for the last two years good enough - they want to sleep in each others. And they trade all the time. It has gotten to the point that I actually ask two year olds to tell me what bed they want to be in. Obviously, though, it does not matter. We did move all side rails to the lowest level just to be sure they are not climbing too far and are in the process of buying big boy beds, but that is probably a few months away.

They tend to get into a lot of trouble when they are in their rooms these days, also. I, frankly, need the break, so they are not about to get out of their naptime yet. I just deal with the mess. To prove a point, the other day, I took before and after (nap) pictures.

Here is the view you get when you walk into the room...Nathanial's crib is to the left and Ethan's is to the right with the dresser in front of them (it's roughly four feet from Nathanial's crib). This would be Noah's crib - across from Ethan's. Here is another clean view of the room...

This is what I walked into two and a half hours later (two of which were spent quietly - either sleeping or resting)...

Where did the crib go?? (Oh, and the holes in the wall??? That's Nathanial's daily attempt to escape Alcatraz.)

I do not seem to be able to recall a crib being in the middle of the room when I laid them down...Oh...the entire sock drawer must be emptied?? Hello, Mother. Yes, we were being perfectly well behaved boys. What's that?? Ethan is in my crib with me?? And we seemed to move it?? And Noah crossed the room to Ethan's crib??? We have no idea how that could have possibly happened!!
Ummm...guys, quick, don't look at her. I think she might be on to us....
Any other MOM's have any ideas on how to keep them in their own beds (minus the crib tents - that's out)??? Just let them be?? I have no idea what to do anymore. I just wish they weren't so cute when they get into so much trouble!!

Random Picture Challenge

This week's challenge:
3rd Folder
First picture with brown in it.
This one was hard. Austin has brown hair, so I hope that counts?? It was his school Christmas play 2006. He looks so little! I was lucky I made it to this one. Technically, I am not sure I was supposed to, because I wasn't with my feet up, but I wasn't going to miss it! He did a great job reading his letter to Santa.

Head on over to 4 Little Men and Girly Twins to join in the fun (click on the button)!

We Have Braces....

How to Make - And Eat - Cereal...

I cannot believe little Miss Hannah is old enough for solid food! And, technically, she isn't - not in my book. However, she's been showing lots of readiness signs and she is only a week from six months, so Daddy thinks she is. I was all prepared to stop at the first little bit of spit out food. She must have known that, because she ate like she had been eating for years. She did awesome! I usually do not start my children on cereal (usually first food is avocado), but I found an awesome, simple recipe for brown rice cereal so that is what she's eating...and loving.

We started with 1/4 cup of whole brown riceThen I tried to turn it into a powder in my food processor. Not a good idea. The thing started smoking - a lot. So, I moved it to my blender, which took maybe 20 seconds. Then I dumped it into 1 3/4 cup of boiling water, cooking and stirring constantly for 10 minutes. I let it cook and then put some into her own little dish. This is the finished product.

Hey! Why did you put this thing around my neck this time???

Oh. My. Word. This is delicious, Momma! Of course, not near as good as my nummies, but it is go-od Momma!

Wow...that is tasty!

That's it?!?! Seriously??? No more???

Random Picture Challenge

This week's challenge:
February 2009
First picture that isn't of your children.
Well, thankfully, we have birthdays in February, or I may have had to look for months of a picture not of my children. This is not a great picture, but it's Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah's second birthday cake - all lit up and ready for singing!

Wordless Wednesday

From the very first few hours of Ethan's life.... ....to two years later...
...Austin and Ethan have maintained a very special bond.

Developmental Testing Results

On Friday, we met with Julie and Lindsay, the child development specialist and the speech pathologist, for the results of the testing they did on the triplets. It was eye opening, to say the least.

I knew the boys were behind - I just had no idea they were as far behind as they are. All three qualified for services, at the highest possible level. They each get one hour per month with Julie and one hour per month with Lindsay. That will mean that on the second Friday and fourth Monday of every month they will have someone here.

I'll start with Nathanial since he's oldest. Social-Emotional and physical were well within normal ranges for him at 29 months and 26 months (respectively), which is fantastic. Adaptive was right at 18 months. Cognitive was 15 months and communication (receptive and expressive combined) was 9 months. That's a very significant delay. A 25% delay, to qualify for services, was 18 months. For him, we are going to work on first learning sounds and then building words from those sounds with Lindsay (speech pathologist). With Julie (child development), we will be working on sequence of play, behavior modification (specifically for hitting/biting, smearing, and throwing), and toilet sequencing and signs.

Ethan was at 22 months for social-emotional and 20 months for physical. He was at 18 months for adaptive. Cognitive was 16 months and communication was 14 months. Again, significant delays. For him, with Lindsay we will be working on learning sounds and then building words with those sounds. With Julie, we will be working on behavior modifications (specifically for hitting/biting and throwing), developing a very strict routine, and play sequencing. We have been noticing a lot of responses to stress with him, so will also watch him with that. Right now, it actually could be a very good thing developmentally (he's learning emotions), but we want to make sure that it is an appropriate response to appropriate stress. For example, sometimes the tiniest thing can happen and he does his little automatic response (sucks fingers and rubs his hair) so that could be a problem. Surprisingly, his stubbornness was a good thing developmentally. Who knew?

Noah was pretty close to Ethan developmentally. His social-emotional was at 22 months (lost some points because he was very clingy and has been lately). Physical and adaptive were both right at 18 months. Cognitive was 16 months and communication was 13 months. More significant delays. For him, with Lindsay, since he already has an excellent base of sounds, we can just pick up on that and work on building words right away, so that's a huge advantage. With Julie, we are going to work on sequence of play, toilet sequencing, and learning more signs and using them.

At this point, none of them appear to be on the spectrum, but we are still going to watch them closely. A huge plus was they all were well within normal ranges within the social-emotional testing areas.

Ethan was chosen to have a strict routine because he is the most rambunctious of the three and really has a short, short fuse. I thought we had a pretty strict routine already, but when I looked at it, there is a lot of freedom within our schedule for pretty much anything for two hours at a time. That's a lot to a two year old! The hope is, also, that if Ethan learns it, the other two will naturally follow it since he seems to be the ring leader.

They talked with us a little about preschool and since we are right now qualified under the "Birth to 3" program, if they still need services, they may have to go to preschool at 3, instead of 4, like I wanted. I think this will probably be OK, it's just an adjustment in my thinking. Then, also, they may not qualify for the private preschool we currently use because they do not have a special ed teacher. However, when I talked with Aidan's teacher about this, she said that she thinks they could qualify and just have aids for them. We'll just have to see. That's a l-o-n-g way off, so I'm not concerned about it right now.

I'm relieved they are getting services and relieved we finally have the results back. It seemed like it took for-ever to get those back! I'm still wrapping my brain around all the information we received and processing it all.