How's Tad Doing?

He is a mover and a shaker, I am afraid.  He is also estimated at 12 oz now which is a "good size" according to the doctor.  That translates in my mind to the doctor saying, "I am glad I won't be pushing that baby out of my own body."

I had another ultrasound at 20 weeks on Wednesday, and he never stopped moving.  He looked beautiful and the perinatalogist took her time because she was admiring how healthy he looked.  I guess she sees a lot of unhealthy babies since she is the high risk doctor.  He has a minor thing called Choroid Plexus Cysts in his brain, but these are not harmful to him and will go away by the end of the pregnancy.  One percent of the time the presence of these is related to Trisomy 18, and so they offered us a non-invasive blood test to check the levels of the chromosomes in the fetal cells in my blood.  We decided to do it because it is non-invasive and has a very low false positive rate.  The results of the test will only give us peace of mind if he doesn't have Trisomy 18 or help us to start preparing a birth plan for our Tad if he has Trisomy 18.  As I mentioned before he was all healthy other than these cysts, so there is no real reason to believe that he has Trisomy 18.  Trisomy 18 babies usually have many other things wrong with them, like with their kidneys, heart, hands, and lip.  We are fairly confident that Tad is healthy and all will be well, but we will rely on God and get through it if he is not.  Easier said than done, I know, but we will cross that bridge if we come to it.

Here are the promised pictures of Tad.  We have tons more, but most of them are very similar to these two.  The one on the left is straight on his face with his hand up kind of waving.  The one on the right is a profile.

18 Month Well Check

This guy loves lemons!  He can even say the word pretty well.

With the other children, I wrote down every word they said until I made it to one hundred.  Drew is hard because he didn't say many words for so long and now he will try to repeat almost any word.  He went from saying a couple dozen words to repeating nearly any word.  However, he really doesn't say things as clearly as the other children did either.  If he uses the word on his own, I may not understand it. I am listing the most common words that I can usually understand here.  He is learning about 5 new words a day, on average.

lemon
milk
dirty
wall
ceiling
shoe
water
milk
bear
butt
one (answer for his age with his finger too)
nine
dinosaur (sounds like "dy-nor")
me (This is my favorite because he does it while raising his hand when I ask the kids if they want some specific thing.)
Genna ( sounds either like "Nenna" or "Denna")
cheese
please

He is making more animal sounds too.  Lion, elephant, dog, cat, horse, frog, and sheep are the most common.  I think I previously mentioned that he has mastered all body parts.  My personal favorite is when he shows us where his bottom is and says, "Butt."  He has also finally mastered repeating to me his two Mass rules.  Mastering following them is another story, but he is getting better.  If I ask him to tell me his Mass rules, he will put his finger to his lips and say, "Shh," and point down and sometimes say, "Mom."  His two rules are to "be quiet and stay with mom."  Seeing that he wasn't going to be an early talker I made the abbreviated hand signs to go along with it so I know he is listening and knows what to do.

For his 18 month well check he was a stellar patient.  I prepped him like I always do and told him what the doctor would do.  He was all smiles and "Hi's" to the doctor when she came in.  He got a serious face when he was being examined, but was super quiet and compliant with all that she did.  Then came the shot.  I try to keep this as separate from the doctor experience as I can since, growing up, I always related the two things which made my doctor visits highly stressful for many years.  It makes it easier that we go to a different room and have a "shot lady" (occasionally a "shot guy") administer the shots instead of the doctor and nurse we see regularly.  I told Drew ahead of time that he would get a shot in the leg (I would point and push on his leg a bit) and then he would say, "Ow," and then I would give him a treat.  I told him this enough times that he could demonstrate it to me when asked.  He sat right down in my lap and watched his shot.  He tensed and whined when it was given, but he didn't cry.  He actually forgot to say "Ow" until later.  I promptly gave him his first lollipop ever and he was drooling all over that and never cried.  He is such a touch guy.

He weighed 28 lbs and was 33.5 inches tall.  He was 75 percentile across the board.  Isaac was always higher than that in height (90-95 percentile, 29 lbs and 35 inches.)  I could tell Drew was shorter because of the way the clothes fit him differently.  I still have to roll his 2T pants, and Isaac's fit by this time.  Since they were born just a month apart during the year, they wear the same clothes at the same time.

Snow in the Spring

 Brian went in late to work and so he had the pleasure of taking them out in the snow this time.

Hannah was hit by some compact snowballs by her loving father.  One got her head!

Okay, now we are really ready for spring weather!

Blanket Brothers

I don't know what they were doing exactly.  I just thought it was cute that Drew wanted me to put a blanket on him too since Isaac had one.

My Getaway Weekend

I mentioned before that I was taking a rain-check on my birthday since I was elbow deep in puke on my real birthday.  This weekend was me taking that rain-check.  Brian's gift to me was giving me a whole weekend responsibility-free.  I invited some of my good friends and we headed down to National Harbor for the whole weekend.  Friday night we had our veggie Thai meal.  I tried green curry for the first time.  Saturday was a day at the Gaylord spa (during CPAC if you can believe it!)  I got an 80 minute pedicure, which is just amazing, a prenatal massage, and a Tropical Island Glow body scrub.  It was fantastic!  Then we all went to Rosa Mexicana for dinner and a fifth friend (a nursing mom) met us for dinner before she had to head back home.  We then went shopping.  There was a Peeps store and a Tea store that I particularly enjoyed.  I got something for the kids for a return treat and for Easter from the Peeps store.  I even got something for Tad.  On Sunday, we had a breakfast buffet and even went to Mass before heading back home.  I went home with quite the upset tummy from my super spicy meal selections, but happy and rejuvenated nonetheless!

How did Brian fare?  Just fine, as you may have suspected.  My uncle came Friday night to hang out with him and the kids.  Saturday he took the kids to German school, got to deal with Drew puking again in the car (he is still very congested and pukes easily in the car when he gets to coughing), and managed to study a bit.  After a brief rest time/nap he took them to one of the other dad's homes for a dad and children sleepover.  I was nervous about this at first, but it ended up being fine.  Drew even slept without a fan...against my wishes, of course.  The two dads and seven children went to Mass the next morning, and I hear it went just fine.  Crazy!

St. Patrick's Day- I'm still catching up a bit here!

 I took the kids on a St. Patrick's Day scavenger hunt last Friday at a nature/garden center.  They had a good time and got to bring home their very own shamrock plants.  It was sunny, but still pretty chilly in the 40s.

It cracks me up that Isaac would wear this hat he made when he is embarrassed to wear any hats because he is convinced that people will laugh at him.  He wore this one all day long, even to our co-op in the afternoon.

Drew hung out, so mellow, in the stroller the whole time tricking all who don't know him into thinking he is an easy toddler.  I know the truth, he is just happy in the stroller and car-seat as long as you are moving most of the time with things to see.

Daddy's Boy

  

Drew is such a daddy's boy!  He gets so excited when he hears the garage going up in the evenings.  He'll yell "Dad! and run to the garage door.  Brian takes some time to get in the house, so Drew will knock and yell trying to get him to open the door.

Pope Francis I

The kids all watched the announcement of the new pope last week.  We missed the smoke, but luckily many people on Facebook alerted me.  I called the kids down from their rest time to watch the rest on TV.

Gender Reveal: Tad the Tie Breaker

I found out today that we have been blessed with another boy which makes two girls and three boys...a full house for the poker players out there.  It was clear as day on the screen that this little one is a boy for sure.

It was no secret that I wanted a girl since they are not born quite so big as the boys (in the 8-9lb range instead of the 10-11lb range), but I can make the sacrifice and "take it for the team" again.  In the end, I am beyond enchanted with the little ones the moment they are born and placed into my arms no matter the size or the gender.

The kids had a babysitter today and did not go with us.  I bought some cute football pacifiers on the way home to show the kids as their hint to what the gender is.  The kids were all routing for a girl this time.   Isaac wanted a little sister to protect, and the girls said they thought a little sister wouldn't pester them so much like they claim Isaac does to them.  (I have no idea what they are talking about because he is just about the sweetest four year old boy I know.  He's just being four years old.)  Everyone handled the news well except for Hannah who took a little time to warm up to the idea.  Before she went to bed tonight she came to say "Good night" to Tad though, and all seems to be forgiven for his lack of cooperation in the gender department as far as she is concerned.

I am only 18 weeks, but I had a special level 2 ultrasound today and so it was earlier than the regular 20 weeks.  So I have to go back in two weeks because they couldn't quite get the 4 chamber heart shot they needed.  I hope to get some better pictures then since they had trouble getting a good shot of his face or profile.  He is breech and face down, so his position for that wasn't ideal.  So no new pictures yet, but in a couple of weeks I hope to have some.

As for the name, the name search begins all over again.  We have a girl name, but no one boy name that we agree on fully.  So here it goes again.  Drew's name was so hard to pick out and agree on, I can only imagine the difficulties that lie ahead for us on this front.  There is a family name that I am tempted to use as a middle name, but Brian said he might kill me for it one day.  I guess there is always Jorge, Mario, or Francis since we found out his gender on the same day that our new pope was elected.  Or Juan Diego since I found out I was pregnant on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  Somehow I don't quite think those names will fit him.

Happiness is found in books!

Hannah has been stalking the mail and deliveries lately waiting for these Fairy books by Andrew Lang.  If you are not familiar with them, there are a ton of them and they are filled with old fairy tales from all over.  The girls love them.  We just had two, and Hannah has been begging for them for months now.  Since I can barely go to the library often enough to keep up with her reading habit, I relented and got some really good deals on Amazon for them as it turned out.  Hopefully, this will keep her busy for a while.  When I brought the box in she was bouncing around waiting for me to open it.  When I did and took this picture, she quickly took the stack to her room to read for several hours.  Gotta love that!

Genna's Morse Code

Genna has developed her own way of communicating with Tad.  She uses her fingers and taps out a coded message to the baby on my tummy.  So adorable!  I love it, and it makes me laugh every time!

I usually don't get informed what the special messages mean.

So this pregnancy is flying by.  I have my big ultrasound on Wednesday if you can believe it!  If it weren't for my painful varicosities in my left leg, I would be really upset that it is going so fast because I love being pregnant for the most part.  I have felt this baby move so much earlier (at 15 weeks) than any other pregnancy, but it is just occasionally that I notice it so far.  One reason it is going so fast is that if my leg isn't hurting, I forget I am even pregnant.  My belly is certainly growing, but it is still small enough that I am not bumping into things and needing a crane to turn over in the middle of the night.  Somehow Tad is the size of an onion and my belly is the size of a small watermelon.  It's a mystery.

I have been craving all things lemon (mostly lemonade and lemon Italian ices,) oranges, jalapenos, and other spicy stuff.  I made a big thing of spicy chex mix and most days for lunch I eat it with a fruit and a wrap with meat, cheese, celery, relish, and carrots, smothered in Frank's Buffalo Hot Wing sauce.  I get a lemonade everywhere we go, and I eat an Italian ice every night when the kids are in bed.  I have eaten literally bags of oranges since getting pregnant since Brian bought my 5 bags of Cara Cara oranges when I sent him to get me "a lot of oranges."  :)  At least I seem to be craving healthy-ish foods.  The problem is I am drinking too much sugar with all the lemonade.

Long Overdue Blanket Time

Last week I finally got my act together and started Drew on "Blanket Time."  I guess because he is number four, I feel like he gets way more leeway than the rest did at this age.  So I anticipated him being difficult with this, but he wasn't.  We started with 5 minutes and he only got off twice.  When he did, I told him, "No, get back on the blanket" and he immediately turned around and obeyed me.  So I upped it to 10 minutes the next time since 5 minutes seemed to be too easy for him and he was almost disappointed when I put the toys and blanket away in the bucket for the next time.  He didn't get off one time during the 10 minutes.

The keys to the success of this, in my opinion are a timer so they know when they can get off and special toys that they don't play with everyday.  Keep the toys up and away so they are "new" to the child.  The benefits are discipline practice, learning to have a longer attention span, learning to play alone, and it gives mom time to get things accomplished.

Trust Fall Boo Boo

So Brian showed me this video on Youtube, and I couldn't stop laughing.  Go watch it!  It's hilarious.  Brian insisted this would be Genevieve for sure!  He decided to test it out (without me much to my disappointment!) and set it up just like in this video, where he stood behind Genna and told her he would catch her if she closed her eyes and fell.  She totally fell forwards onto the floor.  What a nut!

The Supposed Snowmageddon

This was all on Wednesday, but I seem to be dropping the ball on posting lately.  As you can see, the 6-10 inches of snow that was supposed to hit the DC area didn't quite accumulate since the temperature was hovering 2 degrees above freezing.  But Daddy got to stay home from work and the kids got to play and have fun in the snow, so that is all that matters.

We did the bulk of our lessons in the morning early so we could get outside and play.

This is before he took quite the fall in the mud and hit his face (right above his eye, near his nose) on the edge of the bricks around the tree (pictured in background.)  It didn't look so bad at first, but it left a bad mark.  Poor guy!  He even cried for a second, so you know it hurt.  :)  My tough guy was done with the snow at that point, but had a blast while we visited the neighbors for the rest of the morning.

Here's an "after the fall" picture.  I guess it wasn't that bad after all, but a couple of centimeters to the right or left and it could have been much worse.

Our Newest Addition

 Bye bye, keyboard!  Hello, piano!

Our newest addition is an upright piano! 

Isaac can't wait to start learning to play too.

It took some serious measuring to find the perfect spot for it, but it was given to us.  We only had to pay for it to be moved.  Brian didn't want it to crowd our main living areas since our house is kind of broken up and not a wide open space.  I was afraid of crowding us in the school room, but in the end I think it does fit best down in the school room.  I just had to shift a few things around.

A Fun Punishment

Isaac is always telling me I have the worst punishments ever, as if they are supposed to be wonderful.  Finally, he got one he liked.  Daddy came up with this idea, and I implemented it one evening while cooking dinner and getting fed up with the mutual pestering.

It may be hard to tell, but they are both inside one of daddy's shirts.

This is similar to the old "tummy touch" punishment I used on the girls in the past, but Hannah seemed to enjoy this one so much more.  It worked like a charm.  No more pestering the rest of the day.  I'll be bringing this out again for sure.