What's Been Going On Lately...

Things have been pretty quiet around here lately, and that is a good thing! This weekend has been especially quiet because Kyle and Malloy took another Daddy-Daughter road trip. They drove to Houston on Friday to watch the Braves play the Astros. I am sure I will have some pictures to share once they get back. At first, I was a little nervous about being home with the twins by myself for 48 hours. It has actually been really EASY and really QUIET. I actually found myself saying, "Having 'just' twins is so easy!" It is amazing how much quieter it is around here when the TV is not tuned to Nickelodeon all day and a certain 4 year old is out of town. Don't get me wrong - I miss Malloy and can't wait to see her tomorrow - but she certainly adds a lot of noise, drama and excitement to the household.

The twins and I are having a great, relaxing and somewhat productive weekend. We took a long walk this morning to the grocery store and Starbucks. I cleaned up their closets while they had a little tummy time. I even got to take a nap because I miraculously got both of them to sleep at the same time! Gardner's night time sleep is improving steadily. He usually needs some sort of attention (put the pacifier in, help him flip back over onto his back) between 7:30 and 10:00 pm. He has gotten much better at self soothing during the middle of the night. I think he is sucking his thumb. This morning he was stirring around 6:30 so I stuck the pacifier back in and he went back to sleep until 7:30. Maisey is a championship sleeper. She falls asleep right away and stays asleep until morning. Today she woke up around 7:10, so I got her out of bed and fed her before her normally hungry and demanding brother woke up.

I finally got around to uploading a bunch of random pictures so I decided to post them all on the blog. The first one may require a little explanation. Gardner has a flat head. Flat heads are not uncommon now that babies sleep on their backs. G-Man likes to turn his head to the right all the time. He has been doing this since he came home from the hospital. It might be related to his reflux, or it might be because he's a twin and was cramped up with his head twisted that way before he was born. Whatever the reason, his head is pretty flat on the back, right side. We went to the doctor this week for a head scan to see exactly how out of whack his head is and to determine if he will need to wear a helmet to reshape it. His scan revealed that his head asymmetry is 12.7 mm. No one has a perfectly symmetrical head, and anything less than 6 mm is considered 'normal'. 6-10 mm is mild and over 10 is moderate. I don't know where the cut off is for severe, but Gardner falls into the moderate category. Before we go straight for the helmet, we are going to work really hard on getting him to look the the left a lot more. We are going to seriously increase the tummy time which should strengthen his neck muscles and possibly pull the skull bones back out. I have learned different ways to hold him to encourage him to look to the left. I've even reversed the way I lay him on the changing table when I change his diapers. We've got lots of work to do to see if we can improve the situation before we resort to the helmet (which has to be worn 23 hours a day). Fortunately, the company that makes the helmets now has an office in Shreveport where they perform the scans and do helmet fittings. This just happened in the last few months. Before that, people had to drive to Dallas for all of this. Below is a picture of Gardner before his scan. He was an excellent patient - he didn't even mind wearing a sock on his head. The scan was totally painless and took 3 seconds to create a 3-D image of his head with all of it's measurements.




I am finding that I really enjoy dressing the babies alike or in coordinating outfits. Twins are so much fun! Malloy has a big sister outfit that matches the white and khaki ones below, but she said it "isn't pretty".



Matching pajamas with adorable Scotty dogs.
Coordinating in preppy Polo.
Big sister wanted to jump in too. Not quite sure what is going on with her hair in this picture!

One day while I was either not here or was taking a nap Kyle posed them like this and took all sorts of silly pictures that I am sure they are going to LOVE to see one day. They are wearing "McTwin" onesies that my friend, Lindy, made for them.






No matching outfits this day - just hanging out in Big Sissy's room (and drooling on her bed).

Matching whale outfits. More cuteness!