I know, I know, I know...

...it's been forever since my last post, but please don't yell at me!! I have very good excuses, er, reasons for my lack in posting and you will feel really badly for yelling at me at my lack of posting.

(So here's a cute photo of the boys in their holiday card outfits to help you to forget your disappointment in my non-posting)


First off, as most parents dread, we had our 1st AND 2nd visits to the ER over Thanksgiving weekend (well, with twins, you get to do two of everything, right...even the crummy stuff). The first visit occurring on actual Thanksgiving day with Josh waking up with tons of gooey gunk in his eyes. Well, I say waking up, implying that the poor boy actually slept the night before, but in reality his sleep probably added up to about 45 minutes in total. So, my husband being the trooper that he was staying with Josh through the night, I took one for the team and took Josh to the Emergency Room while Matt stayed home and entertained a wide-awake Brody.

It was a very run of the mill ER visit with very little waiting, thankfully (I'm guessing not too many people have turkey frying burns at 9AM). We got our eye ointment and were sent on our way. Too bad it meant that we were now quarantined at home on the best food day of the year. And to add insult to injury (or is it injury to insult, sigh, mom brain at work here, ladies and gentlemen), we had to spend our day of cleaning. And not normal cleaning, nope, we had to sanitize every living thing in our house, every toy, every fabric, EVERYTHING. In hopes that said pink eye would not be passed on to me, or Matt, or Brody. We knew that this could be all in vain, our futile attempt at de-germing the house, but we had to at least try.

Needless to say, we ended up at the ER on Sunday night for Brody this time...his eyes had gotten all gooey after an afternoon nap. And Josh's pink eye never totally went away, so we decided to bring them both in to get checked out because they seemed a little on the wheezy side as well. So, we packed up and off we went to the ER, but unfortunately, there were many, many more people there than the last time, so we had a feeling our night would be spent surrounded by all sorts of sickness and injury. But unfortunately, we were wrong.

They took Josh back right away, which if you know anything about emergency rooms, that is not a good thing. Especially when there were 20-odd people waiting before us. Matt took Josh back to get looked at while I stayed in the waiting room with Brody who was apparently not quite as sick as his brother and could stand to wait a while. Minutes felt like hours until they finally took us back to be with Matt & Josh. I was expecting the worst after many flurried text messages back and forth with Matt (thank goodness for technology!) saying how it wasn't good what was going on with Josh, and he was right. Poor guy couldn't breathe well at all, so it was decided that he was going to be on oxygen while they were waiting for tests results to return. And then his brother had to go through the same torturous poking and prodding that his brother did, but unfortunately I was there to witness Brody's screaming, unlike Josh's. Long story short, both boys were admitted to the pediatric floor of the hospital to be monitored overnight.

But the overnight monitoring turned into a 5 day stay at Chez Lowell General, which is not what we were expecting in the least. And it was a tortuous 5 days, with lots of poking and prodding the boys, taking temps, suctioning noses (the WORST thing EVER), administering breathing treatments. And this happened AROUND THE CLOCK, meaning no sleep for anyone, worst of all no sleep for the poor sick little boys. Finally on our last full day, we had had it and told the nurses that while, yes, it was important for the boys to get checked out, it was JUST AS IMPORTANT for them to get their sleep! Thankfully, they agreed and our last night I think we actually got 2-4 hour blocks of sleep which is the most we had the entire time there.

And now we are home, glorious home, but still needed to administer breathing treatments, nose suctioning, and medication. Turns out the boys had RSV (click this link to read about it, it's not a fun thing for babies, but preemie babies, especially), Pink Eye, Ear Infections, and Pneumonia (just Josh had this). Poor guys, when they get sick, they REALLY got sick! Thankfully, they are so much better, although not 100%. We are still quarantined to the house because they could still pass on the RSV to other babies, so better to be safe than sorry.

So now, in order to keep our boys safe we have decided to cut way back on their exposure to other people. Which means; no big parties, no mall, no Santa (sniff, sniff), no sick people visiting. While our boys may not look like preemies anymore, their immune systems still are, and will be for the first two winters. So, I apologize ahead of time if there are times where we can't visit or have people visit us, but we gotta do what's best for our little guys. They are our priority now.

I have lots more to share with you regarding the boys and all they are getting into now a days, but that will be for another day. Just wanted to update you on Team Gillis and promise now that the sickness has subsided for the most part, I'll be able to update more frequently...I promise!!

And on that note, here are a couple fun photos of the boys that I took this weekend (they are getting so big and so fun!) :