Five months old already!!!

Yesterday was the babies' five month birthday! It's funny because they're so big and doing so much more, but they're still so small. Our friends Maria and Craig came over yesterday with their toddler and almost two month old baby. And their little guy already weighs more than our babies (granted he was over 9lbs at birth)!  But he feels so different because he's still a squishy newborn.  All the babies have pretty good head and trunk control and are really grabbing toys and bringing them to their mouths, often with two hands. Everyone is smiling and laughing. The best bet for getting a laugh is movement and singing.

Ellie continues to be a chatty little lady though she prefers to talk to herself more than to us. She's quick to give big gummy smiles and her big eyes just light up when she sees us.  Ellie is rolling to her side from her back and pushes up really high on her tummy. 

Oh my!  I'm really 5 months old?!

Isaiah is still the big guy around here though his sisters have been catching up. He's quite the wiggle worm now rolling to his side and grabbing his knees. He wants his feet but hasn't quite figured that out yet. He kicks his legs a lot when he is excited and it kind of looks like he is doing an Irish jig.  Isaiah doesn't "talk" as much as the girls but he's a mover and shaker.

Avery found her voice in the last week or so and for now it's the voice of an old woman who's been camped out in a bar! :) She has this adorably gravelly little voice and she's been "talking" up a storm.  Sometimes, when she's really happy she makes noise while inhaling, which makes it sound a bit like she's choking but it's very intentional.  Avery is the most interested in her siblings and loves to watch them play. Avery's still driving me crazy with her inconsistent rolling despite LOTS of practice but she's a rockstar in the bumbo. And as you can see she was being quite the little ham during the photo shoot.

Here's an assortment of group shots where I think you can see how close they all are in size now.

My nighttime "logic"

Another middle of the night blog post coming your way because I want to jot this down before I forget. So tonight we got the babies down around 7:15. Then we had a super fancy dinner courtesy of our freezer. I know it sounds like I'm probably being sarcastic, but seriously, it was fancy! We had perfectly cooked filet mignon with a potato, mushroom, haricoverts veggie mix from Trader Joes and a glass of red wine.  We chatted with  Hope, hung up our pull up bar (more about our "get fit" plans later), and competed in a game of Dance Central 2 on Kinect. We haven't played Kinect in over a year so it was fun to bust that game out again!  And it gave us all a good laugh. I'm loving this earlier bedtime for the babies because I actually feel like I see glimpses of our former selves in that extra hour we get before we go to bed too!  But I digress from the point of this post!

So Michelle and I head to bed around nine and go to sleep around 9:30/9:45 (our typical bedtime these days).  Pretty much right at midnight I-man starts crying. Now, this next part I'm telling you is courtesy of a re-telling by Michelle because I don't actually remember this conversation, but it went something like this:

Michelle: "Should we get him (to feed him) or just give him the pacifier (to try soothing him)?"

Mari: "I thought we weren't doing the pacifier." 

Michelle: (very confused about this as we haven't discussed weaning from the pacifier yet) "Why?"

Mari: "Cuz they're not ready... We said they're not ready for solid foods..."

What?!? And when Michelle challenged me on this completely unrelated and ridiculous thing to say I got defensive, even mad!

About five minutes into nursing the babies (Michelle had him & I'd gotten Avery to eat), Michelle says to me "What's your mental capacity right now?"  When I respond with "Um fine??" In a questioning tone she goes on to tell me about the above conversation. Bits and pieces sound vaguely familiar but more clear than the actual conversation is the memory of a feeling. It's like I remember feeling like I was underwater and struggling to reach the surface. Like my brain knew that it wasn't working at full capacity and so at the same time as I was arguing with Michelle I was working incredibly hard to figure out if what I was saying actually made any sense, which clearly, as you can see, it did not! And as I was swimming back to the surface of full awareness I was struggling to remember what I'd just said, making it very hard to construct a logical argument.

As Michelle retold this conversation I just laughed and laughed and then apologized over and over because I was getting frustrated with her and not being my best kind living self as I worked my way back to full consciousness! I wonder now, is that maybe what it feels like for people with dementia? In the early stages do they know that what they're not quite making sense? Does it feel like they're always struggling to make sense? If so, I can imagine that it's very frustrating!  But enough of the serious middle of the night reflection. Conversations like this are why Michelle and I have to make a game plan for the night together before we go to sleep because I'm often useless when it comes to making decisions at night, at least for the first few minutes!  Here's hoping that this blog post makes more sense than my argument and that the babies start sleeping longer stretches soon!  I think Isaiah will be wearing this tomorrow!

Grandma is one funny lady!

Grandma Stephen came for a visit last week and the kiddos and mommies all agree that five days felt too short. Denise was, as always, a big help.  It was great timing for the arrival of another set of hands because our little ones have been struggling with sleep again lately.  (More on that in another post). But having an extra person when we're feeling particularly sleep deprived is very helpful! Denise made some yummy dinners, kept the laundry moving, and, of course, gave the babies lots and lots of love.

Grandma & Ellie in their coordinating colors

Apparently Grandma is funnier than she knew because she got a ton of good laughs from all the babies. Denise is great at exaggerating her facial expressions and the babies were really responsive to that.  Ellie was particularly enamored with Grandma this trip and just laughed and laughed with (or at!) her! Denise sang them lots of songs, but the crowd favorite was Wheels on the Bus!  They especially liked Grandma's action packed version that gave Denise a good arm workout each time.  Making ten pound babies go "round & round" and "swish swish swish" is tiring! Check out this adorable video of Ellie & Grandma.

On Saturday Denise and I took the trio out on a little shopping trip. Denise is a member of Sam's club and we like to take advantage of that to stock up on a couple of things when she's in town. My favorite purchase was a "handy hauler" for gardening since this summer I won't be able to use the kiddos' wagon as my wheelbarrow like I did last summer!  The babies were very good and all three took little snoozes while we were shopping.  All in all, a successful outing!

Grandma can still hold all three

Motor Monday-Primitive Reflexes Part Two

Here's the promised part two of primitive reflexes and why they matter. This is a short one because we haven't been getting much sleep around here lately and I'm not functioning at the top of my game cognitively!  Like I said last week, we still don't fully understand the role of primitive reflexes and their relationship to motor development though I talked a bit about how primitive reflexes are hypothesized to help with motor development.  Primitive reflexes are controlled by the brainstem and as the higher level parts of a baby's brain develop they learn movement patterns that are more complex that take over for the reflex patterns.

The important thing to know about primitive reflexes is that they aren't normally "obligatory" in that they don't happen to the extreme every time the stimulus happens. Sure, most of the time if you touch a baby's cheek they will turn toward the touch because of the rooting reflex, but it doesn't happen every time.  Obligatory reflexes where the baby or older child can't NOT do the movement is a red flag that there is something atypical going on with the nervous system.  Cerebral palsy is a good example of a diagnosis that might involve primitive reflexes that are obligatory.  Another red flag is when reflexes don't fade away as much as they should or when they should, known as persistent reflex patterns.  One study of very low birthweight infants (i.e. tiny preemies) found a clear association between the strength of primitive reflexes and motor delays (i.e. infants with very strong reflexes at 4 months were more likely to have motor delays), while another found no association between primitive reflexes and motor skills in term babies.  Persistent reflexes may also be associated with delays in other areas like reading skills.

Last week I included a picture of Isaiah in ATNR or fencer's pose. Can you picture how ATNR could seriously get in the way of rolling back to belly?  Baby looks to the left and tries to roll that way to get to mom but that darn left arm is sticking out to the side like a kickstand?!  ATNR typically fades by 4-6 months, which happens to be just when babies are learning to roll from back to belly.  A persistent ATNR could also interfere with crawling.  Picture the infant below who turns his head to the left to see his dad.  If he has persistent ATNR (which you'll remember should be integrated by 6 months), his right elbow would bend or buckle, which would be pretty inconvenient and might mean a good head bonk for baby. 

When crawling we need to be able to look side to side without
our support arm collapsing

One other interesting thing to note about primitive reflexes before I sign off on this post is that they sometimes show up again in older adults, particularly those with severe dementia or Alzheimers.  I think this is fascinating! Okay, time to try to get some sleep before the babies wake up again!

Motor Monday-Primitive Reflexes Part One

Are you calling my baby primitive?!  Do you think we are cavemen or something?  Nope, no name calling here, but when babies are first born their nervous systems are not fully developed and most of their movement is controlled by a more primitive part of the brain called the midbrain.  These movements are reflexive, in that they are in direct response to a stimulus.  You are probably familiar with some of the primitive reflexes like rooting and sucking. To me, these reflexes make sense because they are true survival instincts that help infants find and take in food.  Similarly the gag and coughing reflexes are important for survival, clearing the airway.  Some of the other primitive reflexes are not as clearly linked to survival now, but you can see how they might have been at one time. (It's already late and I need to get to bed, so I'm only going to touch on a couple of examples of other reflexes tonight!)

The Moro (or startle) reflex is a good example of a reflex that you can see being useful some time in human evolution. When you watch the video, watch how Avery's arms initially flare out to her sides and then pull back in to hug her body.  This is the baby's response to a threat, in this case being "dropped."  This reflex may have helped a baby cling to his mother if she began to fall.

Other reflexes are harder to see the "survival" value in.  If you have kiddos, or have spent a lot of time around babies, this pose probably looks pretty familiar to you.

This is classic ATNR (assymmetrical tonic neck reflex) where the babies head is turned and the arm and leg on the face side straighten and then bend on the skull side.  It's a little harder to see how this type of reflex could be survival based unless the baby can hold a sword and shout "on guard!"  (This position is often referred to as the fencer position.)  As babies get older, these reflexes get integrated into more purposeful movements or are inihibited and essentially disappear.  We still don't fully understand the purpose of these reflexes, but they are hypothesized to play a role in motor development.  ATNR, for example, may help babies see their hands and recognize that their hands are in fact theirs and may turn out to be pretty useful.  

Did you know that tiny babies can walk if you support them in standing and tip them forward a bit?!  This reflex is aptly named the stepping reflex, which may set the foundation for the general patten of walking and even for kicking that helps build the muscle strength needed to walk.  I am sooooo sad to say that I don't have a video of the stepping reflex to show you.  I had a great one of Avery when she was about a month old, thought I uploaded it to YouTube, and deleted it from my phone only to realize I'd uploaded a different video. =(  By the time I realized it, all their stepping reflexes were pretty hard to elicit.  So if any of our readers have a newborn and want to send me a video of them "walking" I would be so grateful!  

In Primitive Reflexes Part Two I'll talk a little more about what can happen if these reflexes don't integrate properly or are what we might call "obligatory" and the baby or child can't override the reflexive response.  Are there any other reflexes you've heard about and want to know more about?  If so let me know and I'll add that into part two!