Our friend Dave came down from Wisconsin this weekend for Thanksgiving. It was great to have company in our new house and an extra excuse to get out and see the town. We had a simple, but great thanksgiving and spent a lot of time exploring and having fun with Davis. The highlight of our adventures was a day out at the City Museum:
"Housed in the 600,000 square-foot former International Shoe Company, the museum is an eclectic mixture of children’s playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects."
Davis had a blast, and by extension, we did as well. There was:
An outdoor ball-pit
An indoor ball-pit
Slides
Blocks
Trucks
Art projects
Face painting
An indoor train track
Climbing
Lights
Caves
Mirrors
Marshmallows
Fire pits
Crazy fun
Here are some pictures from the day:
Outdoor ball-pit
Building with blocks
Making a mask with Mom
Glittering up the msak
TRUCKS!
Getting his face painted (awesome)
Tiger!
Tiger in the ball-pit!
More ball-pit
Tigers like marshmellows
Future visitors be warned, we will use you an an excuse to go to the City Museum again.
Last week, we had an ultrasounds where the snapped a few pictures of the boys for us. I have another roll around here somewhere that I need to scan an post. With twins, we get ALOT of ultrasounds.
Davis and I had a fabulous day out today. With Kristen going to the hospital last night, Davis and I took off for most of the day so she could rest and recover from a late night. We started our day with breakfast at the coffee shop in Kirkwood. After breakfast, Davis and I took food and coffee back to Kristen, then headed to the Saint Louis Zoo.
We've been to the zoo here a couple times before, but this was by far our best visit. We started or visit at the insectarium (sponsored by Monsanto, a chemical company). Davis was hesitant at first, but by the end I almost had to drag him out. The insects were great; they have such amazing diversity that I could watch them all day. My favorite display (this time) was the leaf cutting ants. They have built an elaborate climbing structure with leaves on one end and the ant hill on the other. It was great to watch an ant cut a chunk out of a leaf and head back on this relatively long path back. After the butterfly exhibit, we headed to the children's zoo.
The children's zoo was awesome. Davis had a blast. We spent an hour in the indoor section. There were animals to pet and interact with including a tortoise and owl wandering around with their keepers. Beside the jeep to drive, there was a kitchen to play with, a vet station, a climbing structure and sand. Outside was great as well. They had a farm setup for kids to play in with shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, fake food and a few buildings. Davis had a blast digging and filling wheelbarrows. I was able to peel him away and we finished the zoo with a train ride.
We wound up our morning out with pizza at Fitz's watching college football on the big screens and the bottling operations. After a few hours at home and some yard work, I took Davis for a trike ride around the neighborhood. He rode his trike all the way around the block and had a great time steering into the leaves, "running away" and "crashing".
Since we have moved to Saint Louis, we have switched from having midwives for Kristen's pregnancy to having a M.D. who specializes in twins and labels himself an interventionist. The approaches and philosophies are very different, but we have been happy with the changes. At this point, we need a little more aggressive monitoring and specialization in twins.
At our last appointment, we he gave us some guidelines for when to come in. One of these guidelines included having 6 or more 40+ second contractions for two or more hours. Last night, this threshold was met and Kristen went into the hospital at 10:30 pm to get checked out to see if she was in pre-term labor (this is rightly the doctor's biggest concern). She wasn't in pre-term labor and one of the tests they did was a test for fetal fibronectin production. This test came back negative which means that there is a 95% chance we will not be having the babies in the next two weeks. While the night was a little rough and the contractions were not fun, it was a great relief to know that the babies will make it to at least 33 weeks and we will have grammie or grandma here when they are born. It also means that Kristen won't need any other interventions like bedrest or heavy meds. She will just be on a schedule of ibuprofen for the next two weeks to reduce the contractions.
This update won't cover everything that has happened in the last 3 weeks, but I'll try to hit some of the high points. My last posts came from the car as my mom and I were traveling from Boston to St. Louis to meet up with Kristen, her mom and Davis for the closing of our house and to finalize the move. Needless to say, a lot of happened since then.
I'm sure I'm missing lots from this post, but something is better than nothing.
House / Move
My mom and I arrived well ahead of the closing and we met up with Kristen and entourage for lunch before heading to the walk-through and closing. The only interesting discovery in the walk-through was that the fridge we purchased was not going to fit in the space. Other than that, the house was in great shape and everything was as promised. The closing went smoothly and easily. The closing was on a Thursday and the movers were to arrive on a Monday so we camped out in the house for the next few days. We spent a lot of time cleaning and shopping. Grandma and Grammie were huge helps; both with cleaning and with Davis.
The movers finally arrived on Monday (5 hours late) and were able to get our stuff unloaded just before dark. We ended up camping out for another night and spend the next day unpacking. Since then, it has been a lot of unpacking, shopping, cleaning, unpacking, shopping, cleaning and shopping. We are all unpacked and mostly settled in now. However, since we moved from a 900 square foot apartment into 3400 square feet of living space we have a lot of empty rooms and probably will for the foreseeable future. We are enjoying having a place to ourselves and Davis has settled in very well to his new house.
We really like our neighborhood. It is very different from Arlington as there aren't as many people out walking, but the people here are very very nice. Our direct neighbors loaned us toys for Davis while the truck was in route (a lifesaver!) and we went to a neighborhood Halloween Party (which is an annual event). At the party we learned that a pink flamingo in a front yard means there is going to be a neighborhood drinking party there so get a baby sitter :).
Work
Kristen and I are both settling into a work routine. I'm adjusting to working from home and Kristen is going into her new office a few days a week and working from home the others. We both have offices upstairs which are nicely isolated spaces and we are taking advantage of having shorter commutes and more time together.
Tomorrow is my last day of work at Varolii. It will have been almost 7 years since I started there after moving to Boston. Its been a great job for me; I've learned a lot and been given a lot of great opportunities but it is time to move on. On Monday, I start work for GoodMeasures, LLC building tools for managing nutrition and health. I'm looking forward to the change and the new opportunities it brings. It will still be working from home, but since the entire development team is remote, it will be fairly different than being the only remote employee.
Kristen's work seems to be progressing. She is working on a paper for publication and the end of the year and should have a draft done in the next month. She has also been spending some time working our her lab plans and going to weekly seminars as Wash U.
Davis
Davis is adjusting great to being in the new house. He misses the old house and his buddy Charlie, but he is mentioning them less as time moves on. He settled in well to his new daycare and seems to really enjoy it there. Most of the kids there are his age and the operator is able to really tailor the activities to his age more than at his past daycare. This week, they have been doing a lot of grocery shopping and last week he came home with artwork everyday.
Recently, he has started asking "Why"? Everything we say is met with "Why?". At first, it was cute, now it is mostly cute, but quite annoying as well. But with the "Why" comes other things as well. He is reading longer books, counting to 10 (I don't think he understands exactly, but he can repeat the numbers and do them on his own). This weekend, I believe we are going to start potty training in earnest. His daycare has provided some suggestions and we are going to dive right in.
We've found some good fall activities to do with Davis. He really enjoys raking leaves and helping out in the yard. His help is sometimes not entirely with direction, but he enjoys being outside with Dad doing the same things as me. We also started a gymnastics class with him this last week. They are doing lots of tumbling and jumping (I mistakenly called it Monkey time at the Y) which has led to him jumping off our couch.
Twins
Kristen is big and uncomfortable and very limited in physical activities. Two weeks ago, when she was 28 weeks, she was the same size as she was with Davis at 38 weeks. We had our first appointment with our Doctor down here and really liked him. He is very different than our past providers (midwives) and he is very upfront that he is an interventionist. He has 25 years of experience with multiple births and we feel very comfortable in his care.
Growth wise, the twins are doing great. The ultrasound showed they were both measuring 29 weeks and 3.5 pounds at the 29 week point. Twins should normally grow the same as singletons up to about 36 weeks at which point their growth will taper off. Accordingly, the doctor we are with thinks the best time to deliver twins is at 37 weeks which would give us very late December babies. We have another appointment with him next Thursday and another ultrasound 2 weeks after that.
We took a sibling class with Davis last weekend which might have made some small impression on him. He knows that mommy has babies "in there" an that he is having brothers, but I'm sure he doesn't understand what that means. The class had some good tips for us, including having the twins give him some gifts when they are born (a truck and some work tools) and making sure to spend some quality time with just him; even if it is only 5 minutes at a time. He is in for a very big change and in the long run I know he will be fine, but the short term is going to be very tough for the little one.
Pictures and Videos
Here are some pictures and videos from our recent adventures and play
Feeding goats at Grant's farm
Post snow-cone at Grant's farm
Davis was a firefighter for Halloween
Davis and our pumpkins
Kristen at 28 weeks
In the backyard
Putting leaves in the wagon
Working on the leaves
Leaves go in, then get raked out. Just like how Dad does it?
Having pudding while sick
Goofing around at the zoo while waiting for the train to take us to the lions
Goofball and Mom
His new chalkboard is a hit
There are lots more pictures and videos on Picasa and YouTube.
