Duncan and the biter biscut

Duncan duked it out with his first teething biscut today. They went at it for a while and truthfully, I think the biscut won, but see the pics and judge for yourself.

I forgot to mention that the babies went to the Anderson cabin on Sunday night and had a great time. Duncan just likes to be outdoors. And it's also good because we got the cutest day sweat suits from Abbi and we certainly can't wear them in 100 degree weather. So she got to wear something cute that she will probably never wear again.

Duncan has a sinus infection

That's about all that's happened in the last week or so, just a little sinus infection. Poor guy stopped sleeping through the night and so I took him in and it's a good thing I did. He doesn't mind it either because he sure loves the medicine. His arms and legs start waving and he starts yelling thinking he's getting a special treat.

We had our 9 month check up today and Dylan's official weight is 12 lbs, Duncan is at 18.9, which means he's almost out of his carrier seat. Good thing, we break our backs and strain our shoulders carrying him, we might as well take him out. She's under the 3rd percentile in everything, completely off the charts but she is in a nice growth pattern which is great. He's around the 20th for a 9 month old but right around the 50th for 7 months, which is what we should really look at at this point. Other then that they are doing just fine, nothing big to report.

We went for a walk around the neighborhood the other night and Duncan loved it. One of the neighbors stopped us and was holding Dylan for a while so Duncan decided it was a good time to go right on to sleep. He woke up to eat before he went in his own bed though, which is good... it could have gone the wrong way and he could have decided that he got a second wind after a late nap. He's pretty easy though so I can't see him doing that to his mom! He's so good to me!

I haven't even been taking a lot of pictures this week but I do have a couple new ones. Duncan found his toungue which is great. Not sure if you can tell on Dylan's but she has this look on her face like "Yeah, whatever".

Absolutely nothing

Watch out, below are the cutest toenails that you have ever seen, I promise. We went swimming today and while Duncan and I were in the pool. Aunt Kristen was giving Dylan her first pedicure. She did an incredible job considering how tiny her little toes are!

The other picture is from yesterday, Duncan was napping so Dylan was helping me do laundry. Well, kind of, okay, not at all... while I was doing laundry I put her in the Bjorn and she toodled around the house with me. She was so comfy she even fell asleep, so I had to take a picture. That's my view looking down at her cute little face, seriously so cute. She is the tiniest little thing.

Matthew's in New York so I am a single mom today and tomorrow. Hence the swimming, that should do a number on Duncan, he will be sleeping soundly tonight for sure. Not that he has a problem sleeping, he goes down easy at 9 or so, it's the getting up at 7 that I have an issue with. Boo! And tomorrow Traci, Greg and Abbi are going to come over and keep me company which should be really fun, a little baby holding, baby chasing and some Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii, now that's a Friday night!

They think they are soooo big...

It's official, I have two babies who think that they are too big to lay back. They have to be either laying flat or sitting up, with sitting up being preferred. I need to mention that they can't exactly sit up on their own, of course not! They need help! Duncan's been doing it for a couple of weeks but Dylan's now joined the party. She's happiest when she's looking over your shoulder, not snuggling. Boo!

Dylan's surgery is scheduled for the 12th of August. Unfortunately I don't think she will be able to keep her PICC line in which totally sucks. We have to go on the 11th so they can get a unit of blood. I think I will go in really early to deal with the blood thing so if they have a problem, they will have time to deal with it before surgery the next day. Since the doctor only operates on Tuesday I hope this doesn't cause any problems.

We had to move her GI appointment that was on the 12th. We have waited for months and months and now we have to move it again. The first cancellation they have is on the 24th of September! So we took it. Hopefully that appoinment will clue us in on why she has such a hard time eating.

Appointments and more appointments.

So we took Dylan up to Primary's for a few appointments this week The first was the Plastic Surgeon again about Dylan's head shape. He said that her Craniosynostosis (when one or more suture has prematurely closed) is with the front suture so she has Trigonocephaly, or a triangle shaped head. Although, it's not as bad as a lot of kids, it's definately there. He said it's up to our Neurosurgeon if they will need to operate because her brain might not need the room. Since we were meeting with the Neuro on Thursday he said he would speak to him before then and let us know. That surgery is pretty involved, it's a 5 hour surgery and they basically remove the bone of her forehead and eyebrow bones and then reshape them and put them back. It's a 5 hour surgery with a 5 day recovery. Bah!

Then we saw Infectious Disease who said that she can come off one antibiotic but she should stay on the other for a week.

Then on to MRI, she went in late and couldn't seem to wake up from sedation. Since they have to go home at some point, they threatened to keep her there all night unless she woke up by 7:30. Then... on the nose BING! Her big eyes opened and she was chatting it up with everyone. It's like she knew because 5 minutes made the difference between night and day.

On Thursday we saw the General Surgeon first and he took a look at the MRI and said the cyst was completely deflated which was great! He said there wouldn't be reason for him to operate but if the Neuro goes into her spine anyway they might as well take it out. He tried to get ahold of our Neuro but he was (quite literally) in some one's head. Don't rush the brain surgeon! So we went down to wait for him to get out of surgery. He's going to operate to untether her cord but wants the General Surgeon to be available so we don't have a date yet but we should have one by Monday. I guess it's a three day recovery for that. The nerves that can be affected are her bowel and bladder but the risk is definitely greater to leave the tethering as is.

And, he also said... "Of course her brain will grow!" and said if Dylan were his he would want to fix her little skull which was good enough for us. He just said that we would want to give her brain the best chance and creating room is a big part of that. If we chose not to operate and she did need it, it could affect her vision so that's basically a given. We will have to do this first surgery and then schedule the next on for after she's recovered.

Boo to the factual posts! Maybe something fun will happen and I will get to post again!

Happy Birthday Matthew!

Yea! It's Matthew's birthday today and... he's getting up there. All I know is that when you are older then my BIG brother, you're old!

Not a terribly eventful week and in the Anderson household that's not a bad thing at all. Jessica and Steve got back form their vacation in Italy and brought us back cheese and chocolate. Seriously, this chocolate is insane. It's like the kind of thing that you want to eat so bad, but then again, you don't want to eat it because you know that you will probably never have it again. I have to ration myself. There's like 50 pieces so I should be good for a month... week... well....

For the 4th of July we went to Trina's house for a barbecue and to see Aunt Jane and Uncle Dee. It was really fun and I finally got to see Trina's house. Dylan was in no mood to be trifled with though, not exactly a social butterfly that day, or yesterday for that matter, but today she seems to be quite cheery. She's moody, no idea where she gets that from.

Alice from Matthew's work got the twins the cutest matchy 4th outfits so we took a lot of pictures. Before digital cameras I have no idea how people got good pictures of two babies together! We took like 50 and we only have a couple keepers. They needed a new picture together so it worked out perfectly. HUGE thanks to Alice, that was so nice of her to pick up a random gift. It's those things and all the calls and e-mails of concern that surprise and humble us. These babies certainly are loved!

The other big news that we got this week was from the geneticist. Matthew and I got tested to see the likely hood of having another baby with Holoprosencephaly and it came back that we don't carry the gene for it. She's an anomaly, more proof that she is meant to be ours I think.

Here's more details on the gene thing since I have had to explain it a couple of times. She is missing part of her 7th chromosome, the Sonic the Hedgehog gene (yes, it's named after that Sonic, terrible...) which caused her to have some problems, the Holoprosencephaly, the tethered cord, the hole in the heart... all from this gene. I guess you can have that part of the 7th chromosome attached to like the 8th for example and still be normal. But if a baby gets the 7th from a parent that has it attached to the 8th, and the 8th from the other parent then that part comes up missing and then you are like our little Dylan... or more likely, worse. Hope that helps explain it for those that are interested. Anyway, I feel better about that and better for Duncan who I didn't want to have to worry about this with his own babies.

So, here are the pics!

Just a few pictures

Our little birdies have flown the coop! Already! Sniff... they grow up so fast don't they? And they aren't robins, they are some sort of brown speckly type bird. I have no idea, but I do hope the mom comes back next year.

The babies and I went to the mall today to pick up a few things for Matthew's birthday which is coming up. I think I got a few winners, we will see. They do get a lot of attention in that enormous stroller I have to wheel them around in. We get a lot of "How far apart are they?" Which is very odd... she is small, but they don't look more then two months apart if that! "Oh they're twins!" Then come the "You have your hands full!" It's mostly little old ladies who make comments.

I have a lot of new pictures but they are mostly Dylan and I am not exactly sure why, we just took a bunch of her lately, we go back and forth on who we have more of. Her outfits are so cute though, I find myself taking a picture just to document the cuteness. Then of course there's one showing a glimpse of what we have in our future, Dylan's trying to bite Duncan, I am sure she has good intentions, maybe it was a kiss...