What's Up, Doc?

Tamsie and Evangelyn have been staying busy their last week in Louisville. As you know, they're members of the elite University of Louisville NICU Follow-Up Program, and on Monday it was time for their scheduled check-up with the neonatologist. Each of them received an excellent report and are advanced for where they should be developmentally, given how early they came! The doctor was very impressed with them, and we are extremely thankful for such good reports!

Waiting, waiting! (E on left, T on right)

They look a little bigger than they did last time they went to the neonatologist back in January, don't they? :)

Both of them have recently discovered how to make this face - which means they now make it ALL the time!  (This is E.)

This face of E's just makes me laugh!

Typical Tamsie mouth

Tamsie, contemplating flipping over and tearing the paper to shreds like she likes to do when at a doctor's office

 Yesterday, we took them back to Kosair Children's Hospital, where...
1) we've been so much lately that workers there are starting to recognize us and say things like, "Oh, it's the twins! They're back!" and "Haven't we seen you here before??"
2) a doctor-ish looking fellow in the elevator saw them and kept saying, "Mmm hmmm" in a slightly awkward way until we reached our floor.
3) they saw a very helpful speech pathologist who gave us lots of tips to try at feeding time and, most importantly, tons of hope that they will, in fact, overcome their feeding issues!! :) After watching them eat, she was convinced they actually still have reflux (and so was the neonatologist the day before when we described everything to her) and that we just got false negatives on the upper GI test... which means we're going BACK to Prevacid! This time we're going to try a liquid version, because I never was convinced they were getting the full dose of solu-tabs. She also told us they do appear to have a feeding aversion, but thankfully it is mild and totally overcome-able - and that it has most likely been brought on by reflux. I'm just happy we have new ideas to try out with them and hopeful that they will work! :)

Evie in relaxation mode after a busy morning

Yesterday after their appointment at Kosair, we took them to see some friends at Huntington Learning Center, where I worked until T and E came into my life. It did my heart good to see these sweet friends, and I think they enjoyed seeing the babies, too! :)

I guess the girls were worn completely out after yesterday! This morning I put Tamsie in her bouncy seat and Evie in the playpen while I went to make breakfast. When I came back to the living room, this is how I found them: sound asleep!

But naptime didn't last long. When they woke up, I put them on their play mat together, where they created a bit of a traffic jam. 

That's Evie looking up at me, hoping I'll move Tamsie out of her way so she can get where she wants to go!

We are very thankful that the appointments this week went so well. God really is giving us the grace to handle every little situation that comes along! Now I'm about to go implement some of those strategies we talked about yesterday with the speech pathologist, because it's feeding time around the Vafi house! Wish me luck! ;)