Baby, Basement, and Food

Little baby Ploeg is 28 weeks now. He's moving and shaking all the time (especially right around 10pm ... hopefully that isn't indicitave of life outside the womb) and my Baby Center weekly email says he's over 14 inches long and 2 pounds. Crazy, huh? He'll be here before we know it and frankly, we're not ready! We are absolutely stuck on a name. We have yet to move the twins upstairs (or get it ready for that matter). I'm not ready for three hour increments of sleep. I'm not ready for another set of lungs hollering for mama. All that said, we are excited for this precious little babe to join our family. I'm excited to see who he looks like, how my boys will react to him, what he will be like.

In the mean time, the boys are doing well. They love to play outside ... a little too much and I'm nervous for the weather to really turn on us. Which is why we are seriously looking into doing some work on our basement to get it usable for them. They will need a place to run and they already love to go down there and play with the ping pong table and toys. Hopefully we can make that happen before December and baby roll around!

We went to the dietician last week but in all honestly, it wasn't all that helpful. We did get a recommendation for a prescription nutrition drink that I think will be good for the boys but all in all, she didn't have any novel ideas or recipes or tactics to make them magically eat carrots or grow out of their allergies. I got the sense that we weren't exactly an easy case (which to be fair, if we actually decide to follow Sam's full list of "bad" allergies, he won't be able to eat much more than carrots and beef -- all easily available grains are out and a lot of fruits). We haven't at this point taken any new steps in the diet though because both boys have been doing relatively well on the current wheat, milk, egg, and nut-free diet. If anything, I may try to exclude soy but that's in a lot of their existing foods that they actually like ... so I haven't decided yet. Wouldn't it be great if #3 didn't have any of these allergies? Unlikely, I know, but man that would be great!

Cheese Monkeys

Every night when I get home from work, the boys follow me into the bedroom so I can change my clothes ... partly because they'll follow me anywhere but mostly because they just love to jump on bed. I didn't quite catch in on the video but they love to jump and shake their fingers and say "No more momos" (ie. no more monkeys jumping on the bed). They also will say "cheese" when I pull out the camera ... not sure where they learned that from but it's awfully cute (not that I'm biased or anything)!

September

We recently had our 8th Annual "Party at the Ploegs" -- this year's theme was "Prom". I was a little nervous about this year's party -- not sure if it was just that a lot of people couldn't make it, I'm simply less "excited" about the hubub involved in preparing for a party with 2.5 little guys, or if I wasn't sure people would dress the part ... but it was a success, as usual. People showed up, people dressed up, and people had fun. Jack and I already have a couple good ideas kicking around for next year!

In other news, there isn't really anything new. The boys are doing great, baby boy (and belly) is growing, work is work, and overall we are just busy with life. We haven't yet had the dietician appointment for the boys so no changes yet to their diet and in all honesty, they look pretty good. Tyler is noticeably taller than Sam now -- maybe an inch and a half and definitely meatier. Ty has a full set of teeth, Sam is lacking only the eye teeth. Sam has a few more words to say than Tyler, but not by much. They both can be very insistent (Up!, Juice!, Sit!) and at least half of the time, I can understand what they want. They definitely love each other like brothers. If Ty wakes up before Sam, it isn't long until he is running over to his crib to go wake him up. If Sam is sitting on the front stoop, Ty has to come sit right by him. They also love to fight, push, steal toys, and generally annoy the other. We are working on taking turns (on the baseball tee, pushing the shopping cart at Nana's, etc.), but it's a tough lesson to learn and a frustrating battle for momma (and anyone else watching them). Thankfully, most of the "important" toys have come in pairs ... like these Cozy Coupes!

They love being outside with their cars, a bat and ball, sidewalk chalk, or just simply running down the sidewalk. I'm a little nervous for winter as I'm not sure how I'll get all their energy out without having the great outdoors to suck it out of them.