Sorry for the Lack of Posts

This is Todd-

I've noticed, as I'm sure you have, that we haven't posted many entries lately. I apologize for that. I think I've figured out the problem (see below) and I'm working to resolve it.

EDIT: This is Maddy and that happens to be IBC Root Beer!!!! Also there will be no more posts from Todd for awhile as he is living in the back yard and only allowed inside to help with the twins.

The Pee Contest and The Pacifier Defense

We have been keeping score of how many times the twins pee and poop on us (we can’t keep up with the spit-up). Madelyn is winning right now with 8 incidents. 7 from Dylan and once from Kiera. Yes, Madelyn knew the possibilities of this happening before the twins arrived but it still happens. Kiera got Madelyn during their first bath. As soon as Madelyn took off Kiera’s diaper and layed her on the towel Kiera completely relaxed. Madelyn did learn her lesson and Dylan’s diaper stayed on until the very end. Dylan did get Todd two times at once. Todd was being very nice and changed Dylan’s dirty diaper even though the diaper was soiled while Madelyn was holding him. During the diaper change Dylan let loose. Todd jumped got a diaper covered Dylan up but then relaxed on the covering and Dylan let loose again all over Todd this time. Dylan has a rather impressive aim. The best part is that all of this is not just limited to parents. Kiera got Nana today. While changing Kiera’s diaper Nana was delayed on having the diaper just right and Kiera not wanting Nana to feel left out peed all over her blanket. When Nana asked if Kiera thought that was funny Kiera actually giggled. Now just as we stated previously, we are first time parents so if we say Kiera giggled, she giggled.

Current Stats
The Twins:
Dylan – 9
Kiera – 2

Everyone else:
Madelyn – 8
Todd – 1
Nana – 1
Teah – 1

Kiera after her first sponge bath
(This doesn't fit with anything in this post, but how could we not post a picture this cute??)

The hospital told us that we needed to give the twins a pacifier to help with sucking reflexes and digestion. Now that’s not needed anymore, so we have almost completely stopped using pacifiers. Apparently, Dylan’s afraid we are going to completely eliminate the pacifier as he’s learned to hold onto his pacifier with a death grip. He’s always done a better job of holding on to it. Kiera’s too intense with it and it flies out of her mouth. One day Dylan was holding it with both hands like he was afraid to lose it. Maddy tried to pull it out and he fought her for it. See the pictures below to find out who won that fight – I bet you already know who won.

My Pacifier

And No One's Taking it From Me - Not Even Mom!
(Look at the intensity in his eyes)

The Winner!!!
(and future Texas Tug-of-War Champion)

Kiera has been making the greatest pirate face ever, but we haven’t been able to get a picture of it yet. She closes one eye and opens her mouth to the side in a huge yawn as if to say, "Arrgghh, Matey". Okay, maybe we're sleep deprived, but its funny to us. And yes, that is what she's saying. She says a lot of other things to us, but we're afraid they'll commit us if we reveal all our conversations with Dylan and Kiera. Anyway, it’s the funniest thing, but it never lasts long enough to record it.

Sleeping, Screaming & Smiling

We took the twins in for their two week visit and are thrilled that the doctor said they’re in perfect condition. Kiera got back to her birth weight and Dylan was actually an ounce over his birth weight.

Its funny to watch the “twinship” between them. We didn’t know what to expect on how close they would be or when they’d even realize a potential partner in crime is sleeping (or crying) to the right. It’ll be a while before we really figure it out, but we’re seeing the comfort level/security blanket they have of each other. If you take one out of the crib they share, the other will wake up and start crying in just a matter of minutes. For example: Kiera can scream loud enough to start a war. She’ll wake both of us up from a deep sleep (lol – we don’t know what that is anymore) from across the house. We’ll go to the nursery expecting that the ceiling has caved in or at least some other atrocity has occurred to instigate this level of intensity, only to find Kiera screaming in Dylan’s ear for the fun of it. He never budges. If we remove her from the bed, he’s crying almost instantly. They don’t have to be touching each other, as they ride in the stroller and car seats without a problem, but they apparently must be close or everyone else suffers.

Is it love? Not sure. The first smile we saw - hey, we’re new parents and the corners of the mouth went up – don’t argue that they’re too young to smile :) – was when Todd was feeding both of them simultaneously. He had them propped up against a pillow on his lap. Dylan was on his left leg and Kiera on his right leg. He burped Dylan, and then started burping Kiera. As he was burping her, he held her head toward the left, right in front of Dylan’s face. Kiera started crying, Dylan opened his eyes, looked up and started smiling, almost laughing. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe it was gas or maybe it was our first sign of sibling mischievousness.

First Recorded Smile: We weren't quick enough to do it justice, but at least we caught the end of the smile

We have discovered that along with sleeping in the same crib, they also like to be close enough to touch and that they MUST be swaddled TIGHT!!!! If either one of them is able to get free of the swaddling we hear about it. Mom and Dad are able to wrap them up pretty good but sometimes they are able to break free. So in an attempt to keep them swaddled up tight Todd started wrapping them together with an extra blanket. They love it. The double swaddling has greatly reduced their crying.

What happens when you don't double swaddle. Even Kiera suffers Dylan's wrath!

Aaah! Double Swaddling Magic!

Oh yeah, did we forget to mention that Dylan has learned to scream? He might have started off quiet and calm, but he’s learning from his sister – and he’s a great student.

Back to Kiera screaming. If Dylan cries, its because he’s hungry, has a dirty diaper, Kiera was taken out of the crib, his dad rams his head into the doorway or his mom drops the remote control on his head (actually, she got both at once – she’s a good shot). However, Kiera yells for the fun of it. However, we might have found a “magic wand”. I tried four times to record Kiera screaming at the top of her lungs in Dylan’s face and Dylan sleeping and not reacting to her at all. Each time she saw me lift the video camera, she froze. Not sure how long it’ll last, but we might have a solution to the crying. I’ll definitely try it out tonight if she’s screaming in full force.

Poll Results

We were surprised that so many people picked that we’d have a boy and a girl – they were right. The blog poll results were:

Two Boys = 4 = 28%
Two Girls = 1 = 7%
Boy/Girl = 9 = 64%

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Purely Photos

Class of 2030
(Kiera on the left and Dylan on the right)

Leaving the Hospital

Dylan's First Thumb Suck

The Cutest Twins Ever!!
(What's up high that she likes and what's down low that he dislikes?)


Daddy and Daughter
(Ignore the painting shorts)

We're Home!

This post is a combination of several intended posts that we haven't had time to write.

We're Home

We left the hospital Saturday around lunch time! So we were there about three days and 14 hours. The twins never had to go to the NICU and we didn't have to bring them home with tubes, machines or anything else attached. Pretty good considering we had premature twins from a c-section. We're praying that this continues and Dylan and Kiera stay healthy.

One Week

Dylan and Kiera are a week old today! Of course, you could also say they're negative 2 1/2 weeks old if you look at their due date, but that's too much trouble. We're thrilled that we've made it through the first week with healthy babies and neither parent has been put in a looney-bin - though we're not far off.

Cross-Eyed

Todd's been frustrated that he doesn't burp the babies as well as Madelyn. She keeps tellling him he has to hit harder and he thinks that's cruel. So we were discussing this as we were feeding and burping (yet again). Todd is burping Kiera, when he looks up and sees Dylan go cross-eyed after getting burped by Maddy. So yes, Maddly literally slapped her son cross-eyed! It only lasted a couple of seconds, but is one of the saddest, scariest and funniest things to happen to us so far. Todd's sticking the softer pats and the back rubs even if it takes twice as long to get the burps out!

Cuddling

Dylan and Kiera seem to fit the stereotypes of males and females. She loves to cuddle and he tries to get away. Yes, we know they're only a week old and they don't know what's going on, they can't roll over, they don't know who anyone is, etc. etc. They do just enough, though, to convince you that maybe they do know. They're sharing a crib (there's enough room to put four more kids in there without anyone touching each other) and almost every time we put her down on her back, she rolls towards Dylan and quite often reaches out to grab him. Compare the first picture below, "Snuggling", with the Sept 28th picture, "Two Cute Babies". In "Babies", Kiera starts off close, but not literally face-to-face. By "Snuggling", she's all the way next to him when he hasn't moved. This happens every day. She usually has to move further than that to get next to him and she always finds a way.

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While in the hospital, Kiera was able to get ahold of Dylan's nose and she wasn't letting go. We laughed as she held on for quite a while. Eventually, Todd had to pick Dylan up for a feeding and she still wasn't letting go even as Dylan was in the air. When Todd pulled Dylan free, Kiera was ticked and let everyone know about it!

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Kiera (on the left) Snuggling with Dylan

Got Your Nose!
(Kiera's grabbing Dylan)

Gulliver's Travels into the Land of Giants - What a Difference a Few Weeks Makes!
Neil and Andi Weathersbee visited us in the hospital and brought along 4 week old Jonathon. We were amazed at the size difference so we laid our "biggest" twin, Dylan, on the couch next to Jonathon - WOW!! Technically, Jonathon has eight weeks on D&K since he's four weeks old and our twins were almost four weeks premature, but still. Its amazing to see how fast they grow!

Dylan and Jonathon

Cats
At this point we have three cats in the house, two babies, a mother-in-law (she's not allowed to leave) and the two of us, so we have a pretty crowded house. Why do we have three cats - I don't know! Maddy found Lucky in the middle of the street when Lucky was a small kitten. Eight weeks after getting married we adopted eight week old Peanut from the shelter. When Maddy's father died, we found a home for his dog and younger cat, but we're taking care of Sydney until we find her a home. The cats haven't eaten since we've been home - obviously they're a little bothered by all this. One of them (Todd's blaming Lucky) peed on our bed Sunday. This is a frustrating situation. One bright spot is that Peanut seems okay with all this. Ironic since she's the biggest coward you'll ever see. By Sunday, she was sniffing the babies and even laid down and rested her head on Kiera's bottom.

I'd like 2 Burritos - To Go, Please

We've really been blessed by God to get these two wonderful babies. The two of them seem really healthy. We're extremely fortunate.

Burrito Babies


Two Cute Babies

Thursday brought in the first (non-family) visitors for the twin terrors. Here are a some pictures of a few of the visitors

Charis and Sam

Jenny

Jessica chillin' out

Kiera's Close Up

Janelle's Crazy Eyes - No idea what's going on

Janelle loved holding the twins, but soon asked us to take Dylan so she could hold Kiera. She LOVES her "Keer-wa".

The Day After - What Do We Do Now????

I'm not sure if "the day after" is accurate since we basically never slept. We got a couple hours sleep this morning around dawn. Its been a full day with all the doctors, nurses, therapists and every other profession that can stop by - and find a reason to bill us! :) They've all been great, but they have a long ways to go to match up to the antepartum nurses that helped us for so long. Those nurses were incredible and were probably the reason why we didn't go crazy.

Here are some pictures of our immediate family that stopped by today. Actually, Madelyn's mom, Della, drove up here as soon as we told her Maddy was going into labor and left around 3am this morning. Todd's parents live in Livingston and drove as soon as they found out and arrived at the hospital about 2am.

Happy Mom and Babies!

With Todd's father, Charles

The Grandmothers: "Nana" Della and "Grandmom" Sherolyn

Big cousins Preston and Janelle loved holding the twins

The Twins Are Here!!!

Last night Maddy started having contractions every 2-6 minutes, so the nurse called our doctors and said it was time to go have some babies! Todd hadn't eaten in 8 hours, so he told Madelyn and the nurse that no kids were being born until he ate the sandwich he just made. It turned out to be a great sandwich! Afterwards, we went to Labor and Delivery and the babies were born about 10pm on Tuesday, September 25th. The first one was a boy and named Dylan Jacob King. The second one out was a girl and named Kiera Jane King.

Dylan weighed 5lbs 9oz and was 17 inches long. Kiera weighed 5lbs 6oz and was 17 1/2 inches long. Both are doing great and were able to bypass the NICU and go straight to the nursery - a huge accomplishment for premature singletons or any twins.

Madelyn is doing great. She's enjoying not being confined to bed rest as she has been for the past month and a half.

Dad (with the Lunch Lady cap) & Twins minutes after their births

Dylan

Mom and Kiera

Dylan and Kiera

The Bachelor

I generally hate reality shows, but I have to admit that I'm recording "The Bachelor". And if any of you are wondering, this is Todd writing this, not Maddy! Brad, the Bachelor, is from my hometown of Livingston.

If you watched the show tonight, Livingston is the town where they moved after his parents split up and he ended up in a trailer home in a small Texas town. Yep, that's us! Couldn't he have said something flattering about us? His brother, Wesley, and I were in the same grade and I went to high school with all three brothers. Is this a good enough reason for a guy to get a pass to watch a show like this?

The Waiting Game

Now we're just waiting. We really thought (hoped) the twins would be born by now, but the doctor keeps saying, "Not yet". Friday would have been a good day since Todd's parents were in town for our nephew's third birthday party and niece's soccer game.

If you haven't seen a five year old girls playing soccer, you're missing out. There's such a wide range of personalities from the tomboy to the princess that doesn't want to get dirty. At this age, its just four on four, with no goalies. The concept of passing is completely over the kids heads. They just try to teach them to kick the ball, don't hurt each other and where the right goal is. If you look in the first picture, you'll see a teddy bear hanging in the net. That's because one of the girls broke away and had a great shot, but scored in the wrong goal. So her mom brought her stuffed animal and hung it in the goal for the next game (and for the rest of the season). At half time, one of the girls switches it to the other side - just to make sure they're aiming for the right goal. In case you're worried about the bear, the girls don't kick hard enough or high enough to hurt it.

In the first picture, our niece Janelle, broke away and we thought she had an easy goal. She drove all the way from the other goal, was looking great and then suddenly forgot to dribble as she was getting close. This is a shot of her remembering she needed the ball and trying to get back to it before the opponents closed in on her. No good they swarmed her before she could score. She was able to score later in the game. That's three goals in her first three games.

Her team, the Cheetah Girls, won 10-1. They even tried to not run the score up. Todd's brother, Chad, is the coach and benched the best player before it was her turn to rotate out. When she scored her fifth goal of the game (she has 12 goals in three games), he told her to go sit on the side. She resisted and when he got on his knees to talk to her, she put her hands together (like she was praying) to plead and beg to stay in the game. The sidelines roared with laughter. He had to physically pick her up and carry her off the field. He relented later and she scored a sixth goal and then got benched again!


The suspense of not knowing when the twins will be born and the incredible desire to see our babies, but not being able to, is driving us crazy! Hopefully, they'll be born within the next week.

Madelyn stays on bed rest in Medical City until they get here. Fortunately, the nurses are incredible! They're all knowledgeable, helpful, nice and compassionate. They've been a huge blessing. Todd's also learning his way around this labyrinth of a hospital - huge accomplishment.

Todd thought Friday would be the day, but was obviously wrong. The kids watched A&M get destroyed by the Miami Hurricanes Thursday night and must have been too depressed to come out!

The Latest News

Well there is no chance of getting out of the hospital now until the babies are born. It is official I have pre-eclampsia which is a fancy way of saying that my blood vessels spasm throughout the day causing my blood pressure to significantly increase and making it harder for my kidneys and liver to function. So I'm in the hospital for the doctors to watch over me and make sure this does not turn into something worse. Also the munchkins are trying to escape a little bit more now, another reason for my stay here in my luxurious new vacation home. According to the doctors the babies could arrive anywhere from today to another 3 weeks from today.

So if anyone has nothing to do and they want to sit in some uncomfortable hospital chairs and visit with me, that would be awesome. I am in room 774 of Medical City Hospital, North Tower. You can reach me either by my cell phone: 214-704-2959 or my room number: 972-566-4950.

The Nursery

We finally finished the nursery!! Well...we're 99% done and that's good enough for right now! Fortunately for us, Courtney Bertrand helped us get started with the circles and painted the Bible verse (Joshua 1:9) on the wall. We have no idea how she did it with no templates, but Courtney's obviously pretty talented. Todd was not as thrilled with the concept because Courtney left, Maddy went on bed rest and Todd got to finish and then touch up the 123 circles on the walls. Yes, 123! That's why 99% complete is good enough for right now.

Maddy cross stitched the blanket hanging above the crib. If you can't find the second crib, its because we're starting them out in the same one. We'll let them share a crib until they get big enough to kick each other and wake us up with crying. We don't want to deal with kicking until they're in their terrible two's.

You can see Todd's influence in the nursery with the Reveille mobile, the Dodger baseball cap on the teddy bear and the Twins hat on the white bunny rabbit. Yes, we really were corny enough to buy Minnesota Twins outfits for our Wylie Twins!

Maddy's in the Hospital

Madelyn was admitted to the hospital today. She and the babies are doing fine, but she's at Medical City until the twins are born. So, she could be at the hospital for a week or for a month! While here, we had another sonogram and the babies have grown a lot. One is 4lbs, 12 ounces and the other is 5lbs, 4 ounces. How do they get that by measuring the circumference of the head through ultrasound waves? Saturday will be 35 weeks which is great. 36 weeks is considered full term for twins.

Welcome to Our New Blog

We don't really know what we're doing or why we're doing it, but here's our blog. We hope you enjoy it- what ever it is. Hopefully, we'll use this to post updates about Madelyn's pregnancy and the birth, progress and pictures of the twins.