diaper rash and other adventures

Okay, so diaper rash is one of those things that I expected to have to deal with, at least at some point. Not sure I was prepared for week-old babies to have it, but such is life I suppose. Several days ago Noah's little bottom started looking a bit red and he started to let us know he'd much rather skip his diaper changes, thank you very much. Pretty soon Lily started to follow suit. Before we knew it, and despite liberal application of various ointments, our little babies had icky red cracks and open spots all around their little poopers. We got fairly worried about it, and were glad we had a doctor's appointment coming up in a couple of days. I was prepared to be told that they were severely allergic to all kinds of food in my diet, that they had weird skin-munching intestinal worms, or all sorts of other horrible things.

So we went to the doctor yesterday and expressed our deep concern over our kiddos' wounded bottoms. The nurse and doctor took quick looks under their diapers and gave us some samples of diaper rash creme. Apparently what we thought was an extreme case of bottom ickiness is nothing more than mild diaper rash. Mild!! God bless the poor little babies with the severe cases!

In other news, the babies are growing! Lillian is up to 5 lbs, 9 oz. And Noah has hit 6 pounds!! The way he eats, I wasn't surprised at his gaining more weight than her, but... 6 pounds! He's like a normal baby size! Normally they're content if babies regain their birth weight by their 2 week appointment--let alone gain nearly a pound! My days of toting little teensy babies are definitely numbered, anyway. It makes me wonder if Noah is going to turn out to be some hulking beast of a boy.

Several people have asked us how the animals are adjusting to the new additions. They're doing really, really well, thankfully. Both Hank and Dakota know that the babies are off-limits unless they're given permission to sniff. And Cooper has decided that little baby people are even less worthy of his kitty attention than the grown-up variety. We do think they are bothered by their relative lack of attention lately, though. Yesterday Dakota tried to convince us she could defy gravity and walk on the wall, just to get a bit of notice.

Since the babies are less-than-interactive at the moment, Scott has been looking for ways to increase their entertainment value. Noah appears to be constantly hungry, and will generally attempt to drink from anything within 6 inches of his face. One time, he seemed very interested in Lily's ear. (She was not impressed.) We tried to repeat the little scenario by pushing their little heads together, but apparently Noah had decided his sister's ear was not a good source of nourishment:

And one more picture, just because they're so stinking cute...