Toddler Speak

C: "Open dif fo me mommy, open diffff!" (as we're opening all of his birthday toys)

M: "Okay, here, let me open it for you."

C: "Ret me help you~~"

M: "You want to help me help you open your gift?"

C: "Yeah mommy, it's called TEAMWORK"

Normalcy

The weather dictates my mood on an almost daily basis. During the fall/winter months when it's gloomy, cold and rainy, I get fatigued and grumpy. But now that it's beginning to get sunny and warm, I find myself getting happy and energized! Add that to the fact that we're getting braver and taking Lauren out to public places and I almost feel normal again.

We're beginning to take more family outings and enjoying our time together. It feels so good to be out of our dark hole when we were wearing masks around the house because we were afraid of getting Lauren sick with RSV, me pumping every 3 hours, washing pump parts, sterilizing, preparing medications and oxygen tanks.

I never thought that I'd be where I am with this whole ordeal. I'm definitely not 100% better. Not even close. But I was in such a dark, bitter place compared to now. Though, I confess, I think that place is still there - hiding. I'm probably trying to bury it some place deep hoping that it never finds its way back to the surface. Only, I know that no matter how much I try to push it aside, it'll always be there lurking... until I decide to deal with my emotions and sift through all the millions of pieces of me that shattered when I went into preterm labor. The guilt and anger and the worries of "what if" - they slowly seep through at unexpected moments and I turn my back on them hoping that they'll just go away.

I plan to meet with a therapist soon....I just need to make the time. I want to heal from this. I need to be strong for my family because I know that this is going to be a long road of ups and downs. I need to be in the best condition I can to face everything that will come our way so that we can come out of this on top.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy this beautiful weather. And in between the constant doctors visits, therapy sessions and other exams, I'm going to keep claiming the bits and pieces of normalcy we experience and continue to push those pesky unresolved issues aside.

A Lesson In Love

Lauren is beginning to get her nights and days mixed up. She sleeps during the day and then is fully awake at night wanting to be put over someone's shoulder and then walked around. The lack of sleep is beginning to really take a toll on us.

Starting this month, I decided to keep Christian home from school 2 days a week just so I can spend some time with him. He's growing up so fast and I feel like I'm missing out on the cutest age ever. So, today, I had both kids with me. He was an angel. She, well, was not such an angel. I wasn't able to put Lauren down for more than 2 minutes - literally. She was driving me nuts with her shrilly cry.

At one point, I got so fed up, I snapped at her. To me, it didn't sound too bad - I just sounded really annoyed and kept saying, "what! what! what do you want?!" as I was walking down the hall with her in my sling. I walked into Christian's room and in the middle of playing with his toys, he looked down at the floor and just sat there looking sad.

I asked him, "What's wrong, honey?"

C: "Mommy mad to Rauren."

Me: "Oh honey, no, mommy's not mad - mommy's just tired of hearing Lauren cry."

C: "Mommy happy?"

Me: "Yes, honey...mommy's happy. Mommy loves Christian and Lauren very much."

C: "Then, mommy talk nice to Rauren."

I nearly cried when I heard him say those words.

He could've easily been jealous of Lauren because he wanted me to play cars with him all day but I couldn't really.

He could've easily been resentful to her because he was forced to keep on a poopie diaper for over 10 minutes while I was nursing - all he kept saying was "owie, owie - poopie diaper" as he patiently waited.

He could've easily been annoyed at the fact that he was trying to watch tv but Lauren's cry kept drowning out the characters' voices - instead, he went over to Lauren's swing and tried to comfort her with a cheerful, "Hi, Rauren!" as I was trying to get dinner ready.

In that moment when he told me to talk nice to Lauren, I was humbled. I realized he was so right. All day today he was nothing but patient and thoughtful to his little sister.

Today, my son taught me a simple lesson in love.

Our Budding Little Chef

One of Christian's favorite books is a book by Karen Katz called Grandpa and Me where the grandkid and grandpa make a pizza together. Everytime he reads that book, he pretends he's making the dough, sprinkling the cheese, sticking it in the oven and then gobbles up the imaginary pizza. So, we thought it'd be a great idea to make pizza at home and have him really play the part.

I made him a makeshift chef hat using cardstock and tissue paper, presliced all the ingredients and just had him assemble everything. He had a ton of fun and we got to eat a healthy whole wheat organic homemade pizza made by our budding little culinary artist!~ Enjoy the pics!!

Hi Everyone! Today, I'm going to show you how to make a delicious homemade pizza. First, you need to put on your chef hat.

Then, you add some sauce on the crust.


Make sure you put lots of sauce on!


Then, sprinkle lots of cheese.


Add fresh tomatoes and other toppings of your choice.


Here mommy, have a taste!


Mmmm...Pepperoni!


Bake in the oven and Voila! Yummy, delicious, healthy homemade pizza!~


Enjoying the fruits of my labor. Chef Christian signing off!~ ;)

I've Finally Caved...

and jumped on the FaceBook bandwagon.

Because all of my friends are talking about pictures of eachothers' kids on their facebook accounts and I'm the only one who doesn't know what's going on.

But the idea of someone from my past being able to track me down is not appealing. Not that I have anything to hide. But I'm the type of person who likes to weed out all unnecessary relationships and just keep the ones that are meaningful.

I have a close knit circle of people who I can truly call friends and I am soooooooo grateful to have them in my life. I don't want my inner circle to be invaded by a bunch of people I don't really know or care to know.

Plus, I feel like Facebook can take up a lot of time. Time that I don't have to spare. But can easily get sucked into.

Oh what the hell am I complaining about - I run a public blog for crying out loud. And I'm announcing that I'm on Facebook.

I just want to be able to see my friends and their babies.

So girls... how does this work? Do you add me as a friend? And then I get to see pictures? Sorry, I'm Facebook illiterate. =/

Photos

When I was a little girl, I'd go to the library and hated it when my mom would select the books with too many words in them and hardly any pictures. That's how I feel when I look at my blog lately. Too many words and not enough pictures.

So here you go... LOTS of pictures of my TWO wonderful and insanely adorable babies!


SNOW DAY at SCHOOL...



At Tyler's 2nd Birthday Party...



Christian fell asleep on his little chair. He looks like a college kid who partied too hard the night before. Umm...do you love his "USA" socks? And that white-ish fluffy thing he's holding is his beloved Humphrey the Hedgehog. He can't sleep without him.


Little Miss L trying out her new little hair pins.


Christian passed out on mommy's bed from throwing up so much when he was sick... =(


Lauren swimming in her little mary jane socks...


Crazy towel-dried hair after a bath.... I looooove his smile!!


On our way out to go eat lunch with "Nay Gomo" aka Renee


Lauren posing for the camera with her little bunny, Lilou. Lilou has been with Lauren since she was in the NICU. Can you believe that Lauren and Lilou were almost the same size at one point?

A wonderful lady heard about Lauren's early arrival and sent her a bunch of soft plush dolls that are made by a company in Belgium. It's the same company who makes Christian's Humphrey the Hedgehogs. You can purchase them here at her store.

Tell them that Sue sent you!~ I've been a loyal customer for almost 3 years.


Christian holding Lauren...


Little Miss Lauren on her 100th day sporting her booties...


Christian doing "sae bae" on New Year's Day.


Taking a nap together...


The only comfortable position Lauren likes after feeding because of her reflux.


Just too cute for words...

ROP Surgery - Update

So the past few days, Lauren was beginning to vomit frequently after each feeding. Reflux is a very common issue with preemies. Wednesday, when I took her to get her Synagis shot at her pediatrician's office, she seemed okay. But later that night, she had a bad episode of deep gagging and barfing and then would choke a little and hold her breath. We decided to take her temperature and it was at 99.5. She kept sneezing. And her sinus and throat sounded really gurgle-y. We were worried that she might be coming down with RSV (Christian was recently diagnosed with RSV and we were crazy germaphobes for a couple of weeks) and called the doctor. She called us back and recommended against going through with the ROP surgery until Lauren was better. So we left a message at the opthalmologist's office saying that we had to cancel the procedure. Yesterday morning, Lauren seemed much better. Her barely there temperature had gone down and she didn't sound very gurgle-y at all.

We took her to the pediatrician's office and were advised that the surgeon was very adamant about getting Lauren in for her surgery today. She was checked out and the doctor thought that she may be coming down with some sort of bug but that it's still in the early stages and that we'd be able to get the surgery done before it got worse. So immediately after leaving the doctor's office, we went to the hospital and got admitted. I called Ben to come to the hospital as soon as possible.

They began prepping Lauren for the surgery and one of the nurses was trying to put a pulse oximeter on Lauren's foot and instantly Lauren began wailing. During the time when Lauren was in the NICU, she was pricked almost daily for blood samples on her feet. She's traumatized by that so when someone touches her foot the wrong way she'll start crying this deep, sad, i-know-that-pain-is-coming cry and it just breaks my heart.

I changed her into a hospital gown that was about 10 sizes too big. Just the arm hole alone could've fit her entire body. We just sat around and waited. She began crying for food and I just had to told her and have her suck on her pacifier. At first, she wouldn't even take the pacifier because she knew she wasn't going to get any food out of it. But after a while, she finally gave up and took the pacifier and sucked on it vigorously. It was so sad to watch. Seriously, seeing a hungry baby is so sad because you know that if you just give them some food, they'd feel better. I was so tempted to just whip out my boob and let her eat but I kept telling myself that she needed to go through with this surgery. Finally, Ben came.

A nurse came and put in like 4 different kind of drops into Lauren's eyes and left. The surgical nurse came to talk with me to explain the procedure and told me about her 12 year old daughter's friend who was a former 24-weeker and is now completely healthy with the exception of having to wear glasses and to stay hopeful. Then the anesthesiologist came to talk with me. He explained that Lauren would first be given a gas through a little mask to help her sleep. Once she fell asleep, they would run an IV on her and give her general anesthesia through that. He explained the risks and that since she may be coming down with a little cold that there would be some risk and that she may have to get intubated (breathing tube down her throat).

The nurse came back to put another set of drops into Lauren's eyes. Then, before I knew it, the surgical nurse came back with a warmed blanket, wrapped it around Lauren and started taking her away. Ben was able to sneak a little kiss on Lauren's forehead before she was gone.

Then, Ben left to go pick up Christian from school and I hadn't pumped all day so I pumped. A few minutes later, Ben called and said that Pastor Sam was in the waiting room so as soon as I was finished the nurse went to go get him. Then the next thing I knew, the anesthesiologist was holding Lauren and walking towards me. I couldn't believe it was done so quickly.

Her eyes were red and swollen. They had applied some sort of antibiotic ointment on her eyes so they were sealed shut. I asked the anesthesiologist how it went and he said it went really well. That she didn't need anesthesia after all (what?!). They used local (which were the drops they put into her eyes) and they just used some sugar water and she responded really well to that. Apparently, she was so hungry that the sugar water helped to calm her and the surgeon was able to inject her with the dye, take pictures of her blood vessels and then laser all the blood vessels that were growing abnormally - all without her being under. Isn't that great?

Pastor Sam came in and sat with us for a while and then said a nice prayer and was on his way. Because Lauren wasn't put under general anesthesia, I got the ok from the doctor to feed her and she ate. Her suction was a bit weak but she took her time and almost drank a whole bottle. Then, Christian and Ben walked in and Christian was so happy to see Lauren. He kept saying, "Hi Rauren! Hi!!" It was cute. One of the nurses brought Christian some graham crackers and an apple juice so he happily drank and ate. After a while, Ben and Christian left to pick up some dinner and go home.

Shortly thereafter, I got Lauren dressed and we were discharged. At that moment, I was able to let my guard down a bit and I realized how tired I was. It was now close to 6pm and I hadn't eaten anything all day and my first cup of water was when I was pumping so I was famished.

When we got home, I put Lauren down on my bed and let her rest while Ben, Christian and I ate In-N-Out. It felt so good to be back in our comfortable home and back to our normal routine.

Today, Lauren was pretty alert and ate well. She is definitely coming down with something though. She continues to sneeze, throw up and she's somewhat congested. Poor thing. She's gone through so much from the moment she was born.

Thank you all so much for praying for Lauren. Your prayers worked so well that she was able to go through the procedure without getting general anesthesia so eliminated a lot of potential complications. Thanks again, everyone. =)