I'm BAAAAAAAAAACK!

So, after one long stressful day and evening of not feeling well and LOTS of sleep (and of course pumping), I am now happy to say that I am fever and GI issues free. But, I'm still tired, imagine that!? SOOOOOOOOO, since I am officially 'cured', means that I got to go see the girls today! Of course, I was totally paranoid, so I didn't take them out of their isolettes this afternoon, which is no fun. :( Boo. That's what I'll be doing tomorrow. :) So, in order to amuse myself while I was there, we had photo shoots! So, you'll get to see some new pictures from today! :)

Again, I didn't go down to the NICU until later on in the afternoon to give Cassius a little more time out of the cage so that we could minimalize his potty issues, which seems to be working. I think what I am going to do is start 'retraining' him like he is a puppy and gradually work his hours in his cage back up to where he used to be. HOPEFULLY that will work, but by the time he's back up to 8 hours the girls will be home and he'll never have to go in the cage b/c we'll always be home. Oh well. I used my time 'wisely' this morning before going to the NICU, I ran errands (well, what I could in 2 hour incriments), like going to the grocery store (again), the chiropractor, doing laundry, and working. Yes, I said working. Looks like I am going to use some time on Friday morning to run up to West to take back some of my curriculum/lesson plan notebooks so that my substitute has them for while I am out. AND so that I can clean out some things from my office that I had wanted to do a long time ago. Tomorrow, I'll be running more errands again, like to get our new license plates for the Tribute and maybe to return some of the millions of things I need to return at Babies R Us and numerous other places. Fun times.

Let's see...baby news...the girls are getting a new team of Doctors (well, 1 doctor and 2 nurse practitioners), they no longer need their acute care team (made up of 6 doctors), so they are getting a step down team who will focus on helping them learn to feed and grow. That's cool, but I will miss their current team, they rock! The girls didn't gain any weight today. :( I want 3 pounders soon girls...hear that!? (Shockingly enough they don't seem to listen to my 'lectures', like the one about gaining weight and Olivia's being a lazy breather lecture). While I was there today, Sydney pulled out her PGA (feeding tube), and squealed like I have never heard, then she cried. Poor baby. The nurses had told me that babies pull these out all the time and that the usually squeal when they do it, but I had yet to experience this. Due to the pulling of this, our nurse today put some tape (the white gauze looking stuff) on her feeding tube so that she couldn't pull it out again). Olivia has already done this once...which is why her feeding tube is on a different side of her face than Sydney's.

Matt had me ask the Dr's today when they'll get to move to open air cribs, to which I was told they don't usually do that until babies are 1800 grams (which is about 4 pounds), so we have awhile. The main reason is that it takes a lot of energy to heat themselves that much so they wait until babies are bigger before they do that, and the fact that a lot of babies lose weight when they are in open air cribs b/c of the amount of energy they are expending. Matt also noted today that you can tell that Miss Olivia's eyes are getting lighter, which is cool!

So, since I was paranoid about having lingering illness issues, it was a short NICU day for me, we were actually home by 6:30 to start our dinner of fajitas! Then at 8:00 our neighbors (the Moro's) came over with a gift for the girls and us. They made us really cool plaques with the girls names on them from Glazed and Confused (and in the mean time gave me some GREAT present ideas for future gifts) and a gift certificate for dinner at Frankie G's which will come in handy when the girls come home. Now, Matt and I need to figure out where we are going to hang the girls new plaques....which are absolutely adorable! As I reminded Matt, this means he's going to have to officially commit to the house...he's been so hesitant to hang stuff in the bedrooms (the office and the girls room), now maybe we can get some other pictures (like our wedding collage) hung in the house! :)

Now we're just winding down for the night...I'll be napping on the couch and Matt will be watching all the political junk he can find on the television so that he is the MOST informed American on the candidates for the upcoming election. Sadly, for once (as a History teacher, so this is depressing to admit), could care a less about the election. I pretty much only care about 3-5 things....the girls, Matt, the dogs, our family, oh and paying our bills on time. Fun times.

(Both girl's onesie's for today say....Party at MY Crib 2 a.m!!!!!!!!!!)

Olivia...

Sydney....

(Ah, Daddy...heads up this Hat it STILL too big, I don't care that it's a preemie hat, it's still too big)...I have a very petite head, what can I say?

Hope all is well!

J