We've seen visits to the dentist on cartoons on TV. A few weeks before their appointment, I told Kayla and Megan that we'd be going to the dentist. Megan was excited! Kayla was not.
I continued mentioning it periodically, and that didn't change. When it came time to go, I told them that they didn't have to let the dentist do anything, but they had to go meet him.
Megan, getting used to everything
Megan, brushing an animal's teeth
Megan, getting a panoramic X Ray
Kayla, brushing an animal's teeth, waiting her turn
Megan, getting her teeth cleaned
Kayla's turn!
Kayla, without fear!
Kayla, getting her teeth cleaned
Picking out new toothbrushes!
They surprised me when we went -- they were both perfect angels!
Robbie cleaned their teeth, and Dr. Stephen checked them out. No
cavities, and everything looked good!
Happy New Year!
My recap glimpses have finally reached this year!
January brought a bit of excitement.
There is nothing that can accurately describe the feeling you have when one of your daughters comes to you and tells you there is a bead stuck in her nose.
But that's what Megan told me. WHY she put it up there, I'll never know
It wasn't a big bead. It came out quite easily, in fact.
I explained that we don't put beads in our noses..and she seemed okay with that.
At least we didn't have to go to the ER for this one!
Jayhawk Kayla & Jayhawk Megan
Loki,Kayla, & Megan
I took Kayla out shopping and to Wendy's for some one-on-one time with mommy.
Last October, 2011, the girls' had their 3 year check up.
I took some pictures, because they were so dog gone cute!
They gave us some paper gowns for them to wear.
Megan & Kayla
That didn't last.
I can't post the pictures, because well, the girls proceeded to run around in nothing but a pull-up until the doctor came in. They read books together, sat on the doctor's stool, explored everything in the office.
I just can't bring myself to post those pictures on the internet, though. But they were cute!
They were very well behaved when they had their ears and eyes checked out.
Megan, getting her hearing tested
Let's see if they do as well this year, with their 4-year check up!
Maybe this time they'll keep their gowns on!
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Dang, I don't even want to go back and look how long it's been since I made a post. I know it was well before Christmas. If only there had recently (ha!) been a holiday that, via tradition, would have encouraged me to resolve to do better at posting regularly. Oh well.
Despite the lack of documentation, we do continue to thrive here. Girls are continually getting bigger and smarter. Potty training is *this* close. Kayla considers herself trained it seems; though of course there are still accidents, she will mostly go when we prompt and occasionally on her own as needed. Megan is tailing a bit in this area, but it hopefully won't be long now. In fact Mommy and Kayla are out and about right now, having a day of shopping at "special" stores, which of course will coincidentally be wherever Jenn wants or needs to go. Megan had to settle for Best Buy with Daddy.
Our biggest challenge as of late is dealing with little girls who still need to learn a few rules about how it's acceptable to act. We're not taking the word "No" very well lately, resulting in some spontaneous crying fits, or more humorously, Megan crossing her arms in a huff, wrapped around her torso about as far as possible, looking very much like the worlds cutest gansta rapper. I imagine it's poor discipline theory for me to laugh at it, but sometimes these things cannot be helped.
But overall they're both slowly becoming fully functional humans. Letters and numbers are recognized; Megan could tell we were in Lane 5 at Best Buy today. We want to read books as often as possible, do puzzles quite a bit. One of the more popular games is "Mommy", where one girl will pretend to be a baby (human, puppy, kitty, cow, whatever), and the other will care for her.
One thing lately that has been interesting to me: You can see the bond between the twins..."deteriorating" is not the right word, perhaps "getting some slack". There was a time when one girls going to daycare without the other (because of sickness) was a very distressing event. Tears from the girl that had to stay home, confusion for the girl going on the car ride over ("Where's Megan/Kayla?"), and reports of the girl at daycare "not being herself" when we picked her up. Kayla stayed home with both me and Jenn a couple days last week though with a cold/sinus infection, while Megan was sniffling but well enough to go to Miss Kelli's, and it wasn't nearly the problem it once was. Again today, Mommy took Kayla out to celebrate her being a "big girls", and while there were some tears from Megan initially, they were because she didn't get to do something special too, not because Kayla would be away. We went out to Best Buy real quick, came home and ate some lunch, watched Team Umizoomi, read some books and laid down for a nap, no big deal. Only a couple of mentions of Mommy and Kayla being home soon.
Expected of course, but still fascinating to watch. They continue to develop their own personalities. Kayla will often want to change clothes as soon as she gets home from daycare, because Mommy and Daddy will typically ditch their work shirt and put on some shorts or sweats in the evenings; most of the time Megan couldn't care less. Megan though seems to have much more patience with using the iPad, figuring out how to get it to do something, etc.
Last night, I was watching the girls while Jenn went to Target. It was around 7:30 or so, getting close to bedtime, when one of the girls asked for a sippie. Now, I've been in this Daddy game long enough to know a stall tactic when I see one, but at the same time, who am I to deny a thirsty child a drink? So trying to strike a compromise, we went to big girl glasses.
Typically what we'll do is fill a couple of cups with two fingers of water, and break out the towels as they inevitably spill most of it down their shirts. Sure enough, they were a bit wound up, Kayla dribbled, and we put down a towel to clean it up.
It was at this point that Megan decided to just pour her drink on the floor, eliminating the middle man so to speak, and went running for a towel of her own. By now though the floor was quite soaked, and she took a spill, face first, right onto the kitchen floor.
It was traumatic of course, we had a good cry about it, had a bit of a red mark over her right eye, but not too long after she seemed to be doing relatively OK. We sat for a bit and watched some Dora, and after a half hour or so were getting really tired, so off to bed we went.
About an hour later I heard crying from their room, went in and found Megan awake and extremely fussy. We went back to the living room to sit and snuggle some more, and waited for Mommy to get home. Mommy was a little more successful in getting her calmed down, but not completely; still, we chalked it up to being over-tired and tried laying her down again.
Twenty minutes later, we heard an aborted cough, followed by crying, went to check and sure enough, she had thrown up in her crib. We got her cleaned up, called the on-call nurse, who told us that for concussions, their rule of thumb was two bouts of vomiting deserved a doctor visit, but since she was so fussy as well, the nurse would recommend bringing her in. Which became a moot point anyway when Megan threw up all over our bed as we were getting prepared to leave. We called Ruth over to watch Kayla (who had slept through the entire ordeal, including me changing the sheets on Megan's crib), and loaded up for Wesley.
We got there and got all checked in, nurse gave her an initial once-over, and as per usual in a hospital situation, we began The Long Wait. Somewhere north of 12:00 a resident finally showed up, looked Megan over, and gave us a diagnosis of a mild concussion. He told us a few symptoms to watch out for going forward, said that all she really needed was a lot of rest and to take it easy, and after another 45 minutes or so we finally got checked out. I think we ended up getting home around 1:30 or so, and Megan, Mommy, and Daddy all went to sleep without much fussing.
I stayed home with Megan for a nice, relaxing day today. Poor Jenn had to go struggle through a day of work on four hours sleep. Megan slept until 11ish, we made a run to Best Buy, came home, and Megan had another nice 3.5 hour afternoon nap. Definitely wore out more easily than normal today, but otherwise was quite happy and playful, every bit her normal self. We're going to keep her home tomorrow as well with Grandma Ruth, just to avoid a lot of excited play at daycare, and to make sure we don't take another tumble.
A while back, I drew the short straw had the pleasure of staying home with the girls for a couple of days while they were sick. Luckily, it wasn't all sickness -- they had spurts of energy where I pondered why I though they were sick in the first place. Of course I was reminded when the moods swung the other way, following the fevers.
Under the weather Kayla
Under the weather Megan
And in a more spirited hour, they decided to play with baby dolls. Although somehow, the grey cat door stop got into the mix. Relocated from the front hallway where the heavy plaster cat waits to block open the front door on warm days, the cat enjoyed the attention of two little girls who fed it toy bottles and sippy cups, and wrapped it in blankets along with their dollies. If only all doorstops received such attention...
Kayla and the doorstop cat
Megan and the doorstop cat
Kayla and Megan
Kayla and Megan
Kayla and Megan
We definitely have had our share of colds, sinus infections and ear infections -- so hopefully this bout was the last one for the season.
After the girls were first born, Jenn obviously was home with them for a while, and I actually took over after that for about 3 weeks, give or take, mostly because I get more vacation than I can use, and I could. This took us to around Jan '09 without needing any kind of daycare. Jenn's mom Ruth took over for us at that point; she'd walk over in the morning, and take care of them until I got home at around 5 or so. Which was awesome of course - daycare showing up at your house - but couldn't last forever, as we knew. Seems like I'm remembering she took care of them until about 9 or 10 months old, until they eventually became too heavy and too active for her to keep up with 5 days a week, and still keep her sanity. So, we started looking for daycare options.
While we looked, we briefly toyed with the idea of me becoming a stay-at-home dad. We weren't sure what our daycare costs were going to be, and whether they might threaten to make my take home pay redundant. As it turned out, the answer to that question was "No", but for several days I was seriously considering the possibility, what it would mean for my life, whether I'd have been able to handle it, etc. I'm sure that overall it would have been great, but honesty compels me to admit that there are times when I could not imagine having to take care of the girls by myself 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Times like this weekend, for example.
Kayla and Megan are sick. A cold ravaged the house a few weeks back that the girls mostly recovered from, save for an occasional cough. It was never serious enough for us to worry, we know by now that the answer from the doctor would have been "Push fluids, watch her appetite, let us know if there's a fever or it gets worse". Late Friday and this weekend, however, the cough started getting worse, and we started seeing all the classic "I don't feel good" symptoms. We had Megan in on Saturday as she was the first to start a fever, and had the worse bark. They told us it was probably viral, but gave us an antibiotic just in case it was "clinical bronchitis", which seems to be one of those medical terms that translates into "Eh, we're not really sure". Kayla we had in yesterday, same diagnosis/result (although the over-eager PA did try a breathing treatment as well).
You come to appreciate how much kids depend on their routines. This is something every parenting source in the world will mention, but doesn't really sink in until you've experienced the consequences first hand. Even at 2+, it seems to snowball. A little stuffiness leads to a missed nap. A missed nap leads to a cranky afternoon. A cranky afternoon leads to an even crankier evening, at which point they become overtired and fight sleep more than usual. Rinse and repeat for 3 days, and your result is Megan still awake at 9pm tonight, sitting on Mommy's lap watching House in the living room.
Jenn stayed home with both girls today. It was up and down most of the day it sounds like, but when I got home, it's like a balloon popped. Within about 10 minutes Megan was in an inconsolable mood. She wanted Daddy to hold, then Mommy. She wanted juice, then sent it away when offered. She wanted to sit and snuggle to watch Dora, but why would I expect her to want to sit in that chair? Megan's ability to keep herself awake is legendary, but she really took it to another level tonight. At one point she crawled down from Jenn and wanted to go play with some blocks. She got as far as the block bucket, put her hands in to fetch some....and that's where the effort stalled. In retrospect we maybe should have just let her stay there, she probably would have fallen asleep right there, hands still half-clutching the blocks.
We finally got her down around 9:30, which of course means she'll be 2 hours in the hole to start out with today. There's some concern of ear infection, but they tend to wake up feeling OK, I think we'll probably have to try daycare today. Schedule, how we have missed you.
*Editors Note*: The following writings were found scribbled in crayon, on various scraps of paper, tucked underneath a pile of stuffed animals in the bedroom of Kayla and Megan Vogts. They are presented here, unedited, for posterity.
Jan 2010 (Megan): Still reeling from the implications of late last month. Many grown ups brought us things, which of course isn't unusual, but for some reason they chose to trap them in brightly colored paper. Kayla insists this happened a few months back as well. We played along, but a troubling development.
Kayla stricken with some kind of mysterious disease, resulting in spots all over her face and body. My attempts to find a cure frustrated by constant interference from the parents. Kayla however seems in relatively good spirits, and my research indicated the threat is minor.
Our attempts at communication proving fruitful, yet slow. Talk of certain toys or food are sometimes recognized, but a request for a periodic table of elements has so far been met with only blank stares.
February (Kayla): We continue to explore our surroundings, determining if this domicile is adequate for our needs. So far the facilities seem sufficient; however the laboratory, on first inspection, seems woefully understocked.
We're hopeful the basement may provide a more suitable research environment. Our daily excursions to this "Miss Kelli's" is providing an incredible intelligence opportunity, though, even if the required attire is somewhat confining.
March (Megan): A breakthrough. It turns out the noisy person in the corner of the living room is, in fact, some sort of communication or entertainment device. We have bore witness to the exploits of a girl named "Dora" who seems to be some kind of philanthropist/globe trotter (funding for our research?), and a group of four men known as the "Wiggles", who seem overly concerned with fruit salad for some reason. I have attempted to speak with their leader, Greg, about procuring some computer time in their "Wiggle House", but he so far has not acknowledged my requests. Perhaps his communications are being monitored.
We received some grooming recently, and continue to do what we can to assist the parents in making our surroundings acceptable for our purposes.
May (Kayla): Megan's theory that procuring the parents shoes would allow us to "grow big" proved to be false. Disappointing, but this is part of the scientific process of course. Tomorrow, we will attempt again with their t-shirts.
We continue with our designs. By my calculations, we can have the wind tunnel installed by next month, which will allow us to begin work on our prototypes. Megan believes she can have the reactor online by the end of the year.
June (Megan): Summer has brought an unexpected windfall: a cooling pool! Revising my estimates on the go live date for the reactor by at least a month.
Our anti-gravity experiments, however, have met with mixed results.
Communication with the parents has continued to improve. We can finally make them understand simple sentences, such as "More fruit". Again, however, their understanding proves limited, as a request for an industrial strength diamond drill resulted in a graham cracker. Must remind ourselves that science can afford to be patient.
July (Kayla): A rare recreational opportunity.
The respite was brief, of course, as that fractal generation software wasn't going to program itself. Not yet, anyway.
Daddy and Mommy left us in the care of Granny and Grandpa for a couple of days. We had high hopes going in, but sadly there was not a copy of the Journal of Applied Physics to be found in the house.
September (Megan): The parents mean well, but honestly...
THEY HUNG IT ON THE FRIDGE! That paper proved P = NP, presents a unified field theory that will one day be the theoretical basis for observing and manipulating the graviton, and identifies several promising theories for describing the effect quantum entanglement might have on current black hole theoretical models, and did they call the Nobel committee? Did they even submit it to a single scientific journal? No, up it goes with a 6 month old shopping list. Nice.
Diego, how do you deal with stuff like this?
October (Kayla): Once again, we celebrate the anniversary of our birth. It's somewhat depressing to think that we're already 2 years old, and have yet to have a single mathematical theorem named after us, but Megan reminds me that Einstein worked as a patent clerk for several years as well. I suppose we can afford ourselves a little bit of leeway.
We have decided to take on some interns to train, and to help us around the lab, perform routine experiments, etc. So far they seem to be a bit overwhelmed with the workload, but we're confident we can whip them into shape.
December (Megan): At last my reactor is ready to be brought online. The cold fusion reaction is providing nearly a 500% energy return, and that's even before we introduce the quantum superposition field.
Once again our parents have unwittingly provided us with some key components, including scientific instruments, and a simple yet effective housing structure.
We're confident that if we can achieve a stable petawatt output, the Nobel committee will have no choice but recognize our accomplishments.
The big news this week, at least the past two days, has been sickness, unfortunately. If you follow Jenn on Facebook you already know the story, bear with me.
Thursday night Jenn went to bed early, and I stayed up late playing the new Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft reading a very dense and complicated tome of classic literature while weather-stripping all the windows. Girls had gone down at their customary ~7:30pm time, and at one point I heard an aborted cough out of one of them. I needed to sneak in and steal a laundry basket anyway, so went in and checked. I could see Kayla kind of squirming but all seemed well, and I didn't investigate further, for fear of waking them.
Fast forward to 6:20 yesterday next morning, our equally customary weekday wake up time. As soon as I walked into the room I could smell it, and turning on the light confirmed it: Both girls had thrown up in their beds. All over the sheets/blankets/dolls/etc. Aside from the coughing the night before which, in retrospect, was probably the first throw up, we didn't hear a peep out of them all night. Jenn was in the shower, I grabbed them both, stripped off the sleepers, and headed to the bathroom. About 5 minutes into the sponge bath it was clear this wasn't going to cut the mustard, so I started a full bath and tossed them in. Right about that time Jenn came out, she took over the bath while I stripped beds and wiped sick off of various cloth items.
Complicating this medical crisis is the fact that I'm involved with a major software move/upgrade at work this weekend, involving our clinics' EMR systems. It's one of those things that doesn't directly require my involvement (clearly, as I'm writing this on Saturday sitting here in the office), as our vendor is handling all the heavy lifting, but does require my attention should the vendor run into problems. It's a task that HAS to be done by 8am on Monday, and really they'd prefer to have it by 4 or 5 am, because nurses keep odd hours (says the guy who's alarm is set for 4:30am). In short, I wasn't going to be taking off work Friday, so the task fell upon Jenn.
As it turned out, both girls were fine all day, if a little manic, wavering between crabby and hyperactive. They had a short fuse from what I hear. I managed to get home about 6:30 or so, just in time for another bath and bedtime. I haven't called yet to check on things, but I imagine everyone is up by now and well into some breakfast and Nick Jr.
Keeping both girls at home by yourself all day is certainly an experience. It's by no means an impossible task, and both Jenn and I love doing so, but nevertheless it can get pretty hectic. The girls tend to feed off each other, either in their moods or level of activity. They can be sitting quietly, playing with toys or watching TV, then all of the sudden one will jump up and run into the kitchen, and then it's on. Or they'll be in a good mood, then one girl will get mildly scolded for grabbing something off a counter, and all of the sudden both are crabby, and you find yourself looking at the clock, wondering if it's nap time yet.
It ties into something I wonder about a lot: Are we "normal" parents? A day at home with twin 2 year old girls leaves you frazzled...Imagine that. But the doubt creeps into your mind: Am I this frazzled because I'm not as up to the task as I ought to be? Or is it just a natural consequence of having twins? People used to express amazement at "how we did it" when Kayla and Megan were infants, but the truth, as I expressed here I believe, is that having two at that age wasn't really that different than one. Make two bottles instead of one, change two diapers instead of one, get used to a little more crying...it wasn't that big of a difference. But now that our living balls of hunger/poop/screams have gained mobility, independent thought, and indeed, even deviousness, the game has changed from checkers to chess. And not just regular chess: the freaky 3-D kind they had on Star Trek. I knew this would be the way of things of course, but I also wonder if I'm adapting at the necessary rate as well.
It's a problem Jenn and I have struggled with, related to taking the girls to do things as well. It's beyond clear that both girls are Turbo-Powered Knowledge Vaccuums, and like Johnny 5, they need input. Yo Gabba Gabba has a live show that tours the country, and was due to swing through KC sometime in November I believe. When we learned of this some months before hand, we toyed with the idea of taking them up for the show, maybe staying a night, and doing some other kid-friendly activity on the way out of town the next day. Then we began cataloging the realities of such a trip. How long into the 3 hour drive up would the girls reach the "OK I'm done with this car seat" mark? Would we need to budget time for a nap before the show? How are we going to get them down for a nap in an unfamiliar hotel room? When/how are we going to squeeze meals into the schedule? What about the return trip home?
The logistics scared us off that particular trip/idea; perhaps it shouldn't have, but Mommy and Daddy are kind of learning as they go as well. I suppose a lot of the problem is just the age. Did Kayla really understand when I told her to not run off across the street, and she said OK? Or was that the same "OK" she uses when I ask her if she would like to fly to the moon? All part of the process I guess.
Near the end of 2009, Mike started having problems that were indicative of a ruptured disc. Not wanting to go down that road again, he was able to put off surgery with medication. Our hope was to make it until spring or summer, when the girls could walk in and out of daycare, when they would actually listen when we'd say 'no', and when Mike's mom wasn't in school so we could ask her to help us out with the girls some while we had the surgery and while Mike recovered. The best laid plans....
So the year started out quite hectic for me at work. First week of January was some long hours at work closing out the year. Second week of January we revamped the inventory system at work. We're still dealing with the that effort and working through things.
Megan had another ear infection, and both girls got a mouthful of teeth. I mean a mouthful! They had just 4 teeth each for the longest time. Then all of a sudden, they had teeth coming in all over! Molars included. I took the girls to the doctor to get the diagnosis and meds for the ear infection, so I was at home one afternoon --and Mike came home early from work. In pain. And it went downhill from there. An MRI, pain meds, more pain meds, and ER visit, and finally an official diagnosis of 2 ruptured discs and a surgery date scheduled. And a snow storm. And a snow blower that wouldn't start and a huge drift in the driveway. And a doctor's appointment for the girls to get their H1N1 booster shots. And January month end at work needing my attention. So when ever anyone asked me what I needed, I kept saying "sanity".
My mom, Grandma, was able to come help out. A. Lot. Aunt Karen came over to help me out as well.
Granny was kind enough to come stay for the whole weekend. Grandpa came for part of the weekend, too! Things are looking up!
So instead of wallowing in the down sides, let's focus on the positive!
I've gotten a lot of mommy time with the girls. Aunt Karen got Aunt time with the girls. Grandma is getting more Grandma time. Granny and Grandpa are getting more Granny time and Grandpa time. And Mike is getting some rest.
Speaking of the girls -- the ear infections are gone, and while the teething continues...overall, they're doing great! And we are too -- things are going okay.
Before the girls were born, Granny and Grandpa gave us two books that had holes in the middle for you to put your face. They're too cute and the girls love them! They were quite popular when Granny was staying with us.
Granny and Megan
Granny and Megan
Granny and Megan
Granny and Megan
Megan poked Granny through the book.
Then she had a better idea -- and she gave Granny a kiss!
Granny and Megan
I ended up with lots of pictures of Megan and the book, and none of Kayla. Well, there's this one -- but Kayla is standing with a funny expression and Megan's playing with the book.
Kayla, Granny and Megan
It's rather indicative of reality, though. Megan is more interested in books than Kayla. But as with everything, I'm sure it will change.
