Dentist Time for Wynnie
Dori enjoying dentist time
Dori and Wynn dressed up for New Years to hang with bro.
After Christmas Dorian started saying DaDaDa and MaMaMa sometimes and just two days ago Wynn surprised us with BaBaBa (which according to Anna, BaBa means grandma in Russian). We completed yesterday our annual review with our team of therapists (we had 2 Occupational Therapists, 1 speech therapist, 1 auditory therapist, and 1 cognitive development therapist present at the evaluation). It was really neat to compare what our goals were for the babies last year -- Dorian met nearly all his goals from last year except turning/rolling over. But he can now eat/swallow without assistance of tubes or feeding machines, he enjoys his bath time instead of crying like he used to, he reaches for toys, he engages and responds to people when they interact with him, etc. Wynn is the show off... he met all his goals for the year. So we look forward to continuing working with our harem of therapists :) Luckily for us they all come to our house and the boys are sweet on all of them except the Occupational Therapist since they think therapy time with her is torture. She's the nicest gal... she just pushes them to do more with their body than what they naturally do (stretches, loosening up joints, bearing their own body weight on legs and arms) and they just scream until she is done.
Today the babies had their second visit to the dentist. He recommended the babies see an oral surgeon about cutting down their overgrown gums to continue allowing more teeth to sprout out instead of them being in a perpetual discomfort of teething. Wynn has two baby "fangs" on his top, and two little teeth on his bottom (it's his homage to Chris & I's favorite show True Blood), and Dorian's teeth are begging to come out but just haven't broken through the gums. Surgery isn't urgent so he said we can wait a few months to have it done. Three dental assistants gathered around the babies and were lovin' on them during the whole visit and saying how they couldn't believe how calm and laid back the babies were. Proud mama and daddy after those comments!!
Dorian last Friday had to participate in an overnight sleep study at the pulmonologist's sleep institute to measure whether Dorian is getting safe levels of oxygen while he sleeps. I spent the night with him and knew all the alarms going off during the entire night were not a promising sign. Normal oxygen levels for people is usually around 98-100%. Borderline is considered 92%. For Dorian he kept dipping throughout the night to 65%, and that is considered severe sleep apnea which is not uncommon for children with constricted airways or facial abnormalities. Our first intervention will be to possibly have his tonsils removed to help free up space in his airway. Second intervention would be to install a CPAP or BiPAP on him. They are basically a face masks or nostril tubes connected to a machine that delivers pressurized air to his lungs. It doesn't breathe for him, but it helps deliver the proper amount of oxygen to allow his lungs to work right. He would only wear it at sleep/nap time. We have to wait until we see our ENT for him to determine the next step with our pulmonologist. We'll be seeing our ENT as soon as we can get a slot in his schedule early next week. We need to fix this very quickly since O2 levels as low as Dorian's put too much strain on the heart and don't provide enough oxygen to the brain to allow normal brain function and development.
On a lighter note, Ben and Alex are doing great. Ben sat down and read us a book about sharks for the first time this weekend. He persistently sounded out every word until he could figure it out, and we were so proud!!! I almost cried!! He really likes writing and playing games on his computer. He likes math and letters games. When he's doing his letters/numbers he announces to us "I'm doing something very important!". Boxing and basketball are going really well for him too. He needs his own iCalendar and chauffeur to be his taxi to all the stuff he does.
Alex is loving having friends over to play, having dance parties with me (he only likes Michael Jackson music), and lovin on his baby brothers. He started science club this semester and he is really excited about that. At least once a week he gets sad and tells me he'll miss me when he's married. I told him I'd still be around and I'd take care of his kids for him, and even cook for him and his wife every now and then. Tonight he almost started crying at Target about it!! I don't know where that's coming from but Chris tells me I'll probably be a slightly overbearing mother-in-law so I'm sure Alex won't have much time to miss me ... ha ha ha!!
Anna will be going back home to the Ukraine to finish her studies and get back to her normal world in April. We have already selected our new au pair, Aury. She is from Barranquilla, Colombia and will be joining us as soon as Anna leaves. Wynn will REALLY miss Anna. When she feeds Dori he insists that she put him close enough so that he can touch her with his feet. If not, he'll scream and holler until she does. Then once Dori is finished eating, then he is happy being anywhere as long as Dori isn't getting all the attention anymore. We think she's his first crush. :)
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