Just an update...

All of the girls are doing good. Here's the latest:

Emilie is still healing from her surgery. But aside from still needing soft foods and having a bit of a sore throat, she's doing pretty well. She went back to preschool today. She did fine except for snack time when she ate a brownie that had candies on top. We think the candy scratched her throat a little. She started crying, so they called me and had me talk to her. She didn't want to come home though, so she settled back down and was fine after that.

Chloe is a crawling fool right now. She's seriously into everything and gets really mad when you take her away from the latest treasure she's found. I'm not used to this! I've also started weaning her this week. After the rough start we had (she had colic and latch issues), I'm really proud that Chloe and I managed to breastfeed for the first year. I almost gave up a number of times. She just had her very first bottle of formula yesterday at 11 1/2 months. We'll probably cut down a feeding a week so we'll be done by the end of May. I think she's working on getting some teeth finally. She's been crabby and drooly and I can feel her top two teeth right under the gums. Claire and Elise got their top teeth first too.

Claire just went to the eye dr. today. She's been wearing glasses for about two years now. Eric and I are both blind as bats so its expected that all of our girls will be too :-) Anyway, Claire's eyes have gotten a lot worse in the past 10 months so the doctor is wanting to try something new with her in an attempt to slow the progression. Claire is going to be getting bifocals. Yes, old people bifocals. They've found that when you have a stronger prescription for nearsightedness, it actually strains your eyes to read up close which in turn makes your eyes start to adjust for that, which makes you get more nearsighted, and so on. Supposedly kids adjust well to bifocals (and yes, we got the no-line kind so no one will be able to tell) and the lenses prevent the eye-strain, more nearsighted cycle.

Elise is doing well just being 3. She's finally behaving well at preschool. She spent most of the year getting "x"s on her sticker chart for being disruptive, etc. She's not had any "x"s for a few weeks now and is really proud of herself.

We're all enjoying the nice weather and playing outside a lot. I guess that's it for now. Here's a few Chloe pictures I took the other day. She's not usually a ham for the camera so I thought these were cute:

I just like baby toes :-)

Chloe

Exciting news at our house: Chloe is finally on the move. After 11 months of happy sitting, she decided this past Saturday to start cruising and yesterday to start crawling. Now if only I can get her sisters to keep their toys picked up...

Here's a few pics of Chloe crawling. (We video taped her walking behind a push toy, but I haven't figured out how to get the recording from the camcorder to hear. I'll work on that later!) Anyway, here you go:

Are you watching, Mom?

I just liked this one :-)

Emilie update

Well, we're through the worst of it. Emilie's surgery went well on Monday. The anesthesiologists said she was the happiest patient they'd had all day as she chattered away while they pushed her bed down the hall to the operating room. An hour later her dr. stopped by and said that her tonsils were as large as we had thought, but her adenoids really stole the show. They were huge and blocking over half of her airway. So after she heals up and the swelling in her throat goes down, Em should be breathing and eating much better.

Emilie had a rough time in recovery. She was really disoriented, shaking, and almost hysterical. Once mommy and daddy got to hold her and some of the pain drugs kicked in, she settled down a lot. She did good after that and was soon eating popsicles like a champ. We got to go home about 5 hours after surgery. Oh and Chloe (who was with us all day) did really well. She ate, took a nap in her stroller, played with the toys in the play area, and talked to all Em's nurses and drs. We were thankful for that since a crabby baby would have made everything more stressful!

Emilie's done good at home too. She's watched a ton of movies, had lots of popsicles, and is even eating some soft foods like eggs and yogurt. Her throat is pretty sore (she let me look in her mouth today and all I can say is "OW!"). You can definetely tell when her meds start wearing off too. Its really hard to keep her drinking so hopefully the popsicles are helping to keep her fairly hydrated. We've been bribing her to drink half a glass of juice/water and then she can have another popsicle. She's loving all the sweets! She's also running about a 99.5-100 degree temperature which they said was OK for up to 48 hours after surgery (as long as it doesn't go over 100.5), but it doesn't seem to be bothering her. She's just a little flushed. So now we just have to keep her from doing too much for the next week or so and drinking plenty of fluids. They also mentioned that around day 5-7 her throat will get more sore again as the scabs come off (yuck!). We are definetely glad that is over and that everything has gone well so far! Thanks for all the prayers.

Meeting our nurse right after we got there.

Checking her vitals after she changed into her hospital gown.

Practicing breathing with her bubble gum scented mask

Resting a few hours after surgery. Yes, her lips are purple. Its from the grape popsicle she just ate.

Emilie a couple of hours after surgery (when the pain med were working well!)

Emilie and her tonsils update

So Monday the 14th is the big day. We find out our surgery time on Friday. Emilie is very excited right now about having her tonsils out. We've been to the grocery store and picked out pudding, jello, popsicles, soup, go-gurt, etc. We also got kool-aid (per a nurse's instructions) to freeze in ice cube trays. We're supposed to pop one out, melt it a bit in the microwave, and make slushies. We've watched the DVD with Emilie that the hospital sends about a little girl having surgery. We're supposed to have her wear her jammies to the hospital and bring her favorite blanket and stuffed animal. We've been told to have a bucket and towels in the car in case she throws up on the way home from the anesthesia. She is supposed to stay home for a week with little activity. She can return to preschool the following week, but isn't supposed to run around at recess, play sports, etc. for another week. We can expect that she will be on a soft diet for 7-10 days and will lose some weight. So needless to say that while Emilie is very excited right now, I'm not so sure how happy she'll be feeling by Monday night.

As for me, I feel confident that she needs the surgery and will feel better afterwards, but I'm a bit apprehensive about the anesthesia the day of the surgery and about the first couple of days afterwards.

So while I know all will be fine, and people have been having their tonsils out for years, if you don't mind, say a prayer for us on Monday!

Here's some Emilie pics:

Sisters

Elise and Emilie- getting along for once. They've been fighting a lot lately...

All four of them

Chloe was ready for a nap and didn't appreciate being laid on the floor by her crazy sisters.

Chloe and her 10 month lamby picture

Here was her 1st lamby picture at 3 weeks

That's all I've got for now.

Zoo pictures

We went to the Zoo on Sunday to take advantage of the warm weather. Aside from the traffic getting there, mostly from the Marathon that took place that morning, we had a great time.

On another note, Eric ran the half-marathon that morning. Here's his results:

http://results.active.com/pages/oneResult.jsp?pID=35651866&rsID=60591&pubID=3

Not bad, considering he didn't train much for the race. He's definetely feeling it today!

Here's some of our zoo pictures:

Chloe

Feeding time for the Polar Bear

Sleeping Alligator

Checking out the giraffes

Climbing on the beetle outside the insectarium

Raising strong girls...

I read an article in my Fitness magazine the other day about modeling a healthy body image for your child. The author's attitude towards fitness and her daughter are similar to mine. I had a pretty negative body image for most of my childhood. I really didn't like team sports (just wasn't that coordinated) and didn't really know there was anything else I could do that would be fun and active. I was also a sedentary child by nature who loved to read- all the time. My family also didn't eat the best, Little Debbies and Soda were everyday things. So I always saw myself as fat. Even when I was in high school when growth spurts, a constantly on the go social life, and marching band kept me pretty skinny.

Therefore I'm doing my best to help ensure that my daughters don't ever feel that way about themselves and their bodies. I want them to feel that their bodies are healthy, strong, capable, and that they can do anything they want to. While I know that my girls are still on the young end of all of this, I try to make certain they eat healthy (without being too controlling!) and stay active. The girls play outside as much as possible, hike with us, swim, and do gymnastics. Eric and I also try to model an active lifestyle. And we talk about what makes you healthy- things like a "diet" is when you eat healthy foods to make your body work well and be strong, what foods are good for you and what they do when you eat them, and that exercise makes you strong and feel good.

Anyway, that's just my soapbox for the day. We'll see how well it works when the girls get a little older.

Here's a video from Dove about girls and body image:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaH4y6ZjSfE

And here's the article from Fitness if you're interested:

Girl Power Starts Here: Spreading Family Body Confidence
When workouts become "cool" and playing sports is as fun as playing video games, teen girls won't have to learn positive body image -- they'll already have it.
By Denise Brodey


Family Body Confidence

Thanks to a brave notion I had after several cocktails on my 40th birthday, I decided that this would be the Year of No Fear. Fear No Triathlon. Fear No Swimsuit. Fear No Class with Pelvic Thrusting. True, I may be the most reluctant exerciser on earth (I'd rather sleep, eat ice cream standing up at the counter, even do my daughter's homework than get on the treadmill). But I'm proud to say I've run a marathon and a half, climbed a mountain on snowshoes, and learned how to stand on my head for the sake of proving to my children, Emily, 11, and Toby, 9, that finding your inner athlete is an adventure worth pursuing.

Instilling this kind of confidence is not a cakewalk. More of a 100-mile hike. Together, we watch videos for the Dove campaign on girls and body image on YouTube, download cool female vocalists singing "I Am Beautiful" to our iPods and track our steps on my Sony cell (it has a pedometer!). My approach with my own daughter replaces the "Be the ball" speeches from my coaches and the "You are so not fat" pep talks that I got as a kid. They were well-meaning but somewhat useless. In reality, I was judged by my weight, by my jeans label, and by the college I was attending. With Emily, I've taken body image beyond a discussion of loving your curves. Here's my logic when it comes to making Fit the New It. Hopefully, it will help you with your daughter -- and spawn a new generation of can-do girls.

1. Exercise together. Some days just do it for a good laugh. You should see the pileup on our yoga mats when we try to do a downward dog and then shift to the left for the next move. Crash. We fall in a heap and giggle. Other days we don't need to feel grounded, we need to blow off steam. We turn up the tunes and burn rubber on the treadmill.

2. Plan activities with bragging rights. The simple act of trekking to the top of a landmark or making it to the end of a long road is like a trophy. You can go to school or work and announce, "When we were out on this trail it started pouring, and we ran the half mile to the trailhead." Adrenaline-steeped stuff like this gives a kid what her brain is really craving: a getaway, a challenge, and a triumph -- an "I did it" moment.

3. Document your success. I have a photo of my kids and me holding up our medals just after we finished a one-mile race. We look at that picture often.

True empowerment doesn't come from gawking at celebs on the red carpet or shopping for new skinny jeans, although both are decent forms of entertainment. And saying "Love your body and all its flaws" is good advice, but it's not enough. You need to get active. Imagine yourself as a mom/athlete in training. Your Olympic potential might show up on the treadmill or the yoga mat or a vacation bike ride. You must get off your butt and get moving, and I say that in the nicest way. I am biking, swimming, and running these days, having created my own personal Mom-athon. I plan to get a gold medal and share the glory with Emily.

Originally published in FITNESS magazine, May 2008

Answers

All right here's the answers:

1st picture- Chloe
2nd picture- Elise
3rd picture- Emilie
4th picture- Claire

Birthdays-

Claire- June 3, 2000, 12:50 PM
Emilie- July 6, 2003, 7:08 PM
Elise- March 1, 2005, 6:06 AM
Chloe- May 8, 2007, 8:45 PM

Birth weights-

Claire- 8 lbs. 6 oz.
Emilie- 9 lbs. 2 oz.
Elise- 8 lbs. 1 oz.
Chloe- 8 lbs. 1 oz.