14 Month Update and questions for you.

I've been thinking about a couple of things lately. First I must tell you that sometimes I am a chronic worrier. I always have been with the exception of the few months that I was on anxiety pills(happy pills) from all the stress of pre-term labor and early births, I still worry. I know it is normal to worry about the safety and health of your children that is a normal worry, but sometimes I get a dread, I'm sure some of you will know what I'm talking about. A dread that something awful "might" happen. This is what happened when I watched an Oprah that I had taped the other day. It was about Autism, something that I have known about and being the spaz that I sometimes am I have of course googled. Jenny McCarthy was speaking of her experience with Autism and her son Evan. What really got me to thinking is the statement that the CDC released to Oprah.

"CDC places a high priority on vaccine safety and the integrity and credibility of its vaccine safety research. This commitment not only stems from our scientific and medical dedication, it is also personal—for most of us who work at CDC are also parents and grandparents. And as such, we too, have high levels of personal interest and concern in the health and safety of children, families and communities. We simply don't know what causes most cases of autism, but we're doing everything we can to find out. The vast majority of science to date does not support an association between thimerosal in vaccines and autism. But we are currently conducting additional studies to further determine what role, if any, thimerosal in vaccines may play in the development of autism. It is important to remember, vaccines protect and save lives. Vaccines protect infants, children and adults from the unnecessary harm and premature death caused by vaccine-preventable diseases."

Before I had children I had heard of Autism and the possible link with vaccines, however I thought I had heard that that had removed the mercury, which is thought to be the culprit. I was wrong. Now I wish I would have done some research before my kids started getting vaccines. They have their 15 month checkup next month and I plan on doing some serious reading where vaccines are concerned. It is my understanding that they will be getting several vaccs. some which have the ingredient that is feared might be the cause of vaccine related autism. Now with that said I am no expert or health freak for that matter, but I feel as a mother it is my responsibility to protect my kids, I feel now I have the obligation to do my research and decide what is best for my kids.

What have you other mothers out there done? Did you vaccinate? Did you even worry about it? Hubby was telling me of an article he read that states just simply spacing out the vaccines helps. What do you guys think?

Now with all that said I have to tell you that I don't worry all the time. I don't lay in a fetal position worrying, who has time for that anyway. I don't limit my kids of most experiences or hinder their learning because something "might" happen, although daddy does not agree with me at times. I do realize that it really does no good to worry about those things that we can't possibly change, such as cancer or a bad accident. Those shows are supposed to make you think and to make you aware of such things, it did it's job for me.

Now for fun stuff.

Just this week the boys have taken off developmentally. I'll start with Karter this time.

Karter has really upped his babbling and talking. He is mimicking, for example he will pick up his toy phone and talk on it, and tonight daddy was making a popping noise with his mouth and Karter imitated him. It was so cute. This week he has gotten really good at just standing up in the middle of the floor, without pulling up on anything. He will stand there for a minute or more holding or playing with something and look around to see if I am watching, then give me a huge grin and sometime he even tries to walk to me. He loves, loves, loves chocolate milk. I have taken to squirting a little Hershey syrup in some whole milk, just to give it a little chocolate flavor and he loves it. He wants if first thing when he wakes up, kinda like a morning coffee to him. He has backed off on his eating a little bit, but still eats well. He drinks everything out of a cup, but is still allowed a water bottle in bed, eventually we will move to a sippy cup there as well. I have started working on the binkys a little bit. I would prefer them to only have them in their beds. Most times he is fine with this but there has been several times he crawls around saying ba ba, ba ba, this means two things. He either wants his cup or his binky, it always makes me smile cause the boy knows what he wants. I keep the "good" binkies in the bed and the ones that they aren't too fond of are somewhere in toy central in the living room. They don't like them as well so don't suck on them too much. One thing I have been keeping an eye on is his right foot. On his last visit to the doctor I asked him about it and he said it's no big deal right now that kids joints are loose and it should get better. At first I was like ok, no prob, but then I began to think, because he is still doing it that we might need to take further action. Like maybe that leg is weaker and we might need to do some strengthening exercises. I like my Ped. He is a nice man, but I kinda feel that he has not been as involved or as proactive as I would like him to be. He really hasn't, as far as I can tell, done any real developmental tests. He always seems happy with their development when we see him, but being that they are preemies I want to make sure there are no serious delays that we can be working on before they are two. He says they should catch up before or by that time. I'm sure they will, they don't really seem to have any serious delays to me. With that said I decided to have an evaluation done on my own, just to make sure. I don't foresee any serious delays but it never hurts to make sure. Being that they were preemies we qualify for a service until they are three. When they came home for the hospital they where evaluated, but Jimmy and I decided for several reasons, which I don't feel like typing all out since this is becoming a book, but if you want to know just ask, not to partake in the service. I called them to do another eval. and we should be getting that soon.

Wow, that was a lot longer than I wanted it to be and I still have Kolton left. To sum Karter up he's doing great, still no more teeth though, but he is getting lots of hair, so all those our there can stop worrying about him and his hair. It's growing. Oh, and he is sleeping through the night. YAY!

Kolton is such a copy cat. Whatever daddy does, Kolton tries to do. He is walking for the most part. He still crawls if he has somewhere he wants to go fast or if he falls down. He talks up a storm, most the time I have no clue what he's saying, but he does. They have both learned to feed the dogs their food. Today Kolton was trying to make our dog Baylee eat a piece of plastic something he found on the floor. I forgot to mention this about Karter in my book above, but they are both climbing on things. Some rearranging on the living room might be in order soon. They have learned to push their toy car up to stuff and try to climb on it. Today Kolton did this and climbed on the coffee table. Kolton is mean to Karter sometimes always taking what he has away, sometimes I have to intervene because he is holding Karter down to take something away from him. However Karter has taken stuff away from Kolton or if he wants something really bad he will whack Kolton in the face with it. They are both big flirty hams. They love the ladies. They are getting so fun, I can't wait for all the holidays to see the looks on their faces. We have our Halloween costumes. I have two for each, but that's another story. We just have to decide which one to wear depending on the weather.

Picture time. Oh I forgot that I broke the camera! I dropped it and the latch that holds the batteries in broke. I need to ghettofy it by taping it shut, so I can take pictures and upload them without having to hold the battery door closed.

We went to the State Fair last Sunday. The boys had fun, they like to people watch. I slathered them down with sunscreen and forgot about myself. Needless to say I have a pretty bad sunburn, my first in a long, long time.



The other day I gave them a KidCusine frozen lunch, gasp, the shock I know, but it was fast and they were hungry. On their faces is the chocolate dessert. Pay no attention to the horribly dirty glass on the door behind Kolton.