Nursemaid's Elbow...GREAT Success!!

Inara has been hit with nursemaid's elbow a few times in her short (but illustrious) life.  Fortunately for us, our friends the OMs had given us a head's up before her first episode.  The primer was definitely helpful.  The first time I saw my baby holding her arm, refusing to bend her elbow and reaching with her less dominant hand across her body to grab something that's usually verboten (whats's exciting to babies? knives?  forks? Dangerous things?  okay, more like keys).  I didn't freak out, I thought "I should call Anique!"  

Anique gave me some tips and I tried to reduce the dislocation myself...initially it seemed that it was a success. Inara lifted a few cereal puffs to her mouth, but by bedtime, she was back to not moving her arm.   In the morning we took her to her pediatrician to no avail. Eventually, after about 16 hours of not moving her arm, torturous x-ray and a long but fruitless morning at the pediatrician's office, she lifted her arm gingerly to remove a hat Joe had placed on her head. Recovered. The second time was during Passover in Central MA. One minute she was crawling around the next, she was UN-HAPPY Joe missed a special seder with his Zeyde to rush Inara to UMass Medical, where the doctor reduced the dislocation.  This time the doctor fixed her elbow and showed us how to reduce the dislocation.  We got back in time for her to help her dad (the second to youngest in attendance) sing the 4 questions.  Good as new.  This brings us to the CHARM! The third time, that the dear girl saved just for mom.

 I was welcomed home today by the wails of a limp armed and unhappy baby.  The arm again! I saw it happen.  She was climbing the stairs, got a little unsteady, put down her arm to break her fall and torqued her little chubby arm.  What time was it? Oh, just 5 minutes after 5!  That's a big 

C-L-O-S-E-D for the doctor's office.  I considered letting it ride until the morning visiting hours at the pediatrician but the poor dear was so uncomfortable that I decided to go ahead and attempt to reduce the dislocation. First firm supination, and flexion, next hyperpronation...then a lot of screaming...finally, a happy baby whose arm moves and who, again, grabs keys.  Here's a video that might help if you find yourselves needing to nurse a nursemaid's elbow.

GREAT SUCCESS!

Silhouette Quiz

Joe and Bubbe took Inara and Gloria to acclaimed silhouette artist, Erik Johnson.  Below are the portraits of the girls. Can you guess who is who? Resi, Joe, and Bubbie guessed on their first try. Special thanks to Bubbe for assistance in baby wrangling during the portraiture.

Morning Fun

We usually wake to Gloria calling "Daddy!" We're up and at 'em, we have breakfast, then we play for a bit.

A little late, but worth the wait?

Oh my! We have fallen behind in updating.  The truth is, we lead busy lives. With the girls more mobile, it's more difficult to get good pictures of them and when we do catch them, we're too tired to upload to the computer by evening.  The answer is NO! They are not walking yet, but they cruise and scale couches and benches and...well, all things dangerous.  Add to this the new (and frustrating) Blogger and Picasa/Google+ interfaces and you have the fine mess we're in.  Enough of my excuses for now.  I'm aware of the reasons you keep up with this blog so...check these out!

Ma Nishtanah?

Pesach/Passover 2012

not so little feet!

Midnight any day 2012: Girls just want to have fun (and not sleep!!)

Joe's strategy of ignoring her until she falls asleep is clearly not working!

Breakfast around these parts

Glo Gets Down

Despite my membership in the bad dance hall of fame, luckily most of the girls dance ability clearly comes from Resi's side of the family. Inara's had her wiggle down for a while but Glo has her own dance, we call it "the Gloria". Here's some footage from the past week.

Big Girls

After a year of holding them to (and on) my breast, our girls have graduated!  No more bottles! No more Mom! Sippy cups all the way!  When we started the weaning process at about 10 months, I had this idea that we'd go from two bottles of breastmilk during the day to one then eventually to none.  I was prepared for the fallout, for the tantrums for the Incredible Hulk-like ripping of my blouses at the hands of two enraged babies, the thing is, nothing happened.  In one day, ONE DAY, they lost two bottles and could not have cared less, no tears, no affectations, no nothing.  Happy little girls.  They were ready.  The girls still nursed first thing in the morning and right before bedtime, but their daytime bottles?  The way of the dodo.  Just this last week, I have been experimenting with getting up in the morning, having some playtime and moving the girls straight to breakfast instead of the breast.  No issue!  They're happy to eat their pancakes and drink their 50/50 (mom (archived in the deep freeze)/moo) from their sippy cups.  We'd been using the evening nursing session as a tool to make the bedtime routine a bit easier on us, but Inara has decided it's not for her.  After dinner, she'd rather suck her thumb and drift off to dream land.  Gloria would nurse all night if allowed, but the truth is, she goes down just fine (okay with a bit of kicking and screaming but not too much) without it.  Onward and upward for these girls!

I have mixed feelings about the whole weaning process.  To be honest, I wasn't as sad as I thought I'd be during the process.  They're growing up.  It's happening.  I knew that it would.  My sadness doesn't come from the place I thought it would come from.  So far, it's actually been a delight to watch them grow and discover new things.  I'm not upset that they don't need me anymore, per se, I just miss my babies!  I miss my sweet little lumps of brown sugar!  Now I have these wild animals climbing bookshelves and getting into things!  Also, I feel like I've run the course.  I heard "Wow, your twins are exclusively breastfed?! My friend did that.  She stopped after _____(3 months, 6 months, leaving the hospital)" and "I've never heard of anyone be able to make enough milk to nurse growing twins for a year." more than once... We did it (at time with the help of galactogogues...but we did it all the same)! And while it was physically challenging and resulted in loss of sleep and personal time and personal space among other things, it was nowhere near impossible.

Here we are.  My big girls have taught this BIG girl Part A of the lesson that culminates in an 18 year old kicking you out of her dorm room on move in day.  17 more years of these little lessons and I might just be ready to go when I'm shoved out of the door with a "Mom, I'll be OK, you can leave!" 

1 is Their New Number! Happy Birthday Inara and Glo!

On Tuesday Inara and Gloria celebrated their first birthday! Below are some pictures of the pre-birthday celebration at Bub and Zade 's house ( featuring the girls first encounter with cake) and their actual birthday cupcakes at home (first time with frosting and sparkles).