Boxers & Babies: Another Weekend Comes & Goes...

Just a few weeks ago, while speaking to our Nurse Practitioner, Jeni jokingly said "You can send the girls home whenever, just make sure its not on Sept. 11. I'm going to the Kenny Chesney concert that day." Not sure if she doubted my abilities to handle the girls alone or not, but I think we both thought they'd be home by then or pretty close to it, so if they were home, it would be my first "test". However, as you all know, they are still not home... :(

People ask us every day "So, when are the girls coming home?" It used to be we could say "Oh, probably in the next 2-3 weeks." Or we could say "Probably late August or early September." Well, honestly, now I don't know what to tell people when they ask this. The fact is, there's no timetable (or "time horizon" as our President likes to say) on when they'll come home. It's not a matter of a date or age anymore... its simply when the girls decide to eat. And when I say eat, I mean eat like all other newborns where they wake up, cry, and basically demand to be fed. Our girls don't do this... And that's what is the most frustrating part is that there isn't a magic fix to this problem... We are just basically waiting on them to 'get it'.

So Friday was pretty standard. We visited the girls, headed home afterwards, and had some tilapia & rice for dinner. The usual, boring Friday night around our house...

Saturday morning, Jeni met Nancy for breakfast while I hung out at the house and Mike came over to watch the Mizzou game. When Jeni got back from visiting the girls at the hospital after breakfast, we headed over to my Dad's cousin's Karen & Don's house in Sunset Hills to visit with some relatives I'd hadn't seen in a really long time. It was nice to see everyone! Later that evening we stopped by to visit Keith & Amy and Baby Caroline before heading home.

Sunday morning I set my alarm early and went down to spend the morning with Olivia & Sydney. I swung by our favorite coffee place and picked up some coffee and breakfast for Jeni before getting on the highway. Unfortunately, Hurricane Ike (or what was left of him) decided to pay a visit to St. Louis at the same time. So, my usual 15-20 minute drive down to the hospital took me nearly 35 minutes as I avoided flooded out portions of the highway and the wind-driven rain.

I was able to arrive in time to give Sydney her 8 AM & Olivia her 9 AM feedings. They did better than they had been, but still no consistency. While I was there, I met with the girls' new pediatrician in the NICU. He said he was very happy with the girls' progress but totally understood our frustrations. He assured me that once they start taking their feeds, it will only be a few days after and then they'll be released to go home. That was good news...

I spent all morning with them until Jeni arrived at around noon. I left and went home to spend my Sunday afternoon watching some football. Jeni made it home around 6 tonight and we had some stir-fry for dinner. We finished the evening just being lazy on the couches... Again, typical boring night. I used to relish the boring evenings... now they just depress me because I think about what we should be doing with diapers & crying babies. Oh well... Keeping my fingers crossed that the 'eating fairy' will visit the girls sometime in the next few days and suddenly they will totally get it.

Until then.... more pictures.

By the way, there's a new problem that has cropped up... Now that the girls have put on more weight and their faces have filled out, it's VERY hard for us to tell them apart in some of these pictures... I honestly feel like a bad parent not being able to tell them apart always...

Anyway, here are our little lazy eaters...

Sydney (I think)