December

Since I haven't blogged since November, I thought it appropriate to title this blog "December" and catch everyone up on what we have been doing this month. As you can imagine, we have been very busy. December is full of birthdays in the Ivey family - happy birthday to Ellie, Mamo, Steve, and John! We celebrated Mamo's birthday early in the month at our favorite BBQ restaurant, Peggy Sue's in Snider Plaza. I highly recommend the fried pies. And I guess this is an appropriate time to point out that Andy has started his own blog (see link to the right). He now eats barbecue about 4 times per week and blogs about it. So if you are in the mood for good barbecue, you can check out his blog to see what he recommends.

I have officially accepted that we are going to be crammed into this tiny house for what seems like forever. We took the house off the market at the beginning of the month and will reevaluate later in the spring whether or not to try again. Hopefully the market will pick up soon. But for now, I have to get organized or I will go crazy. So I took off a couple of days and my mom came to help me clean out all of our storage and organize what I decided to keep into bins. We ended up with so much stuff in the "give away" pile that I decided to have a garage sale. I have never had a garage sale before, but I thought I would give it a try. I posted an ad in the Dallas Morning News and we put up signs at the end of the street. The morning of the garage sale was FREEZING! We had a couple of people as soon as we opened but traffic was pretty slow. Around 10:00, it was getting warmer and all of a sudden the garage was packed. We sold almost everything and made nearly $600. I consider that a huge success although Andy is still very skeptical about garage sales and thinks I just got lucky. I still have my double stroller to sell so hopefully we will get more money for that.

Now for news about the boys. I took Henry to the pediatrician to check his ears following his third ear infection. I had been out of town for two days before this appointment and when I returned, Henry was wheezing and had a cough. So I was glad that we already had this appointment. Sure enough, when the doctor heard his breathing, he was more concerned about that than his ears. They swabbed his nose and tested it - he had RSV! I never thought I would miss the Synagis injections, but now I actually miss torturing them every month. They gave him two breathing treatments at the pediatrician's office and his breathing got somewhat better so we were sent home with a nebulizer and a prescription so we could continue the breathing treatments at home and return to the pediatrician's office the next morning. If his breathing had not improved, we would have been sent to the hospital so I was very relieved to avoid another hospital stay. And of course, RSV is extremely contagious so Ben got it a couple of days later, but fortunately, not as bad. We just gave him some breathing treatments at home and he was better in a few days. Here's a picture of Ben enjoying a breathing treatment.

So what about Henry's ears? When I took him to see the pediatrician, the ear infection was gone, but there was still fluid behind his eardrums. Since the fluid has been there for several months, the pediatrician felt it was time to talk about tubes. He referred us to a pediatric ENT whose office was downstairs. So Henry and I went downstairs and were seen right away. The ENT agreed that he was a good candidate for tubes so we scheduled him for surgery on December 22 in an attempt to get it down before the end of the year since we have already met our deductible for Henry (thanks to our stay at Children's in June). However, the anesthesiologist cancelled the surgery the Friday before because it was too soon after he had RSV. So now he is scheduled to get ear tubes this Monday, December 29. Hopefully this will go smoothly and put an end to his ear infections. When I picked the boys up from school last Friday (the same day the anesthesiologist cancelled the surgery), their teacher told me that Henry had a fever all day. It was too late to call the pediatrician's office so I took him in Saturday morning. Sure enough, he has ear infection #4! Poor guy!

In addition to the numerous visits to the pediatrician and ENT, we took the boys to the developmental pediatrician for their follow-up to check their development. Since they were born 9 weeks too early, their "adjusted age" is 15-1/2 months instead of 17-1/2 months, their actual age. On average, it takes preemies about 2 years for their development to catch up to their actual age. Their motor skills are great - both boys are pretty much caught up to their actual age. However, their language skills are behind, as we expected. They are just now using a few words - "ba" for "bath", "da" for "dad", "a" or "ca" for "cat", and an occasional "mama". We know that they understand a lot more because we can ask them to go get the ball or their sippy cup and they will do it. They also wave, blow kisses, clap, etc. But they just don't talk, at least not to us in a language that we understand. They definitely talk to one another. So anyway, the developmental pediatrician suggested that we take the next step and get their language skills assessed by a group that will come to your home to do the assessment and any therapy that is recommended. Another item for my to-do list. At the developmental pediatrician appointment, the boys' growth is also measured and tracked according to their actual age and their adjusted age. Here are their stats:

Ben - 24 lb, 0 oz (25th percentile for actual age/almost 50th percentile for adjusted age) and 31.3" (25%/50%)

Henry - 25 lb, 12 oz (50%/50-75%) and 32" (50%/75%)

Okay, now for the fun part of the month - Christmas! We celebrated Christmas with Andy's family last weekend. The boys got soft floor tiles to play on, musical instruments, bath toys, big boy towels, books, and more. Here are some pictures, thanks to Aunt Kellie (it is not really possible to take pictures with your two toddlers opening presents).

On Christmas Eve, we packed up the car and drove to Waco for Christmas with the Ratcliffs. We went to church with Gee and Pops, Aunt Christi, Uncle Bryan, and cousin Hayley. Mass was at 5:30, which is dinnertime for the boys and Hayley. Gee was smart enough to pack sandwiches, Teddy Grahams, and Nilla Wafers so they were all very good during the service. When we got home, we put on their Christmas PJs and put them to bed. The next morning, Santa showed up with presents for Ben, Henry, and Hayley! The boys got a jogging stroller (probably the last Christmas that Santa can get away with that kind of gift), a stuffed elephant and a stuffed horse, and a couple of talking toys. They were not really sure about Santa though. Maybe next year?

After breakfast, we opened the rest of the packages. I could barely keep up with all of their presents. They got lots of new toys, including a basketball goal, Sit'n'Spin, and piano. The boys also got to taste lots of new foods. They both LOVE Christmas cookies. Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to bake cookies and let the boys decorate them. They also LOVE fresh pears. And cannelloni, the traditional Ratcliff Christmas meal. I was really surprised that they liked the cannelloni, especially the filling, but they did. And Henry enjoyed the dried cherries that Mamo and Papo sent to Gee and Pops. But Ben was not too sure about them.


Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends! I will make an effort to blog more frequently next year. Hopefully the new camera I got for Christmas will help.