(sorry, no pictures of josie today... i took a bunch of good ones at the hospital last night, but i accidentally left the camera there. oops!)
the only thing really keeping josie at the hospital is her feedings. she has to take a bottle for all 8 feedings a day for several days. as of saturday she'd take a little of her bottle then fall fast asleep. the doctors & nurses told us that one day she'd just wake up and take her bottles. kind of like turning on a light switch. so we waited...
when i called this morning to check on her, she'd taken 4 straight bottles. woo hoo! perhaps she'll be home before we know it.
what's ironic is that before josie's early arrival, i was a little worried how we'd squeeze in her delivery with our plans in late march. this saturday we have a fab-U-lous ice show tickets and next saturday we are going to be jammin' to the sounds of go fish when they visit grand rapids. so now i'm thinking about how we'll squeeze in her hospital discharge! but it will be worth it - we can't wait to get her home :)
(man, i really need my camera! as i sit her typing this, ryan has got my pumping stuff out, has the motor turned on and working on getting milk for josie. such good pictures to show his future wife!!)
at garrett's preschool, the kids know the church's pastor pretty well. he stops in the class all the time (he's married to the teacher). garrett really likes him. the kids just call him "pastor".
here's my conversation with garrett yesterday before preschool...
me: garrett, today is st. patrick's day
garrett: WHAT? it's pastor's day?
me: no st. patrick's day
garrett: pastor's day?
me: no ST. PATRICK'S day
garrett: WHAT?
me: ST. PATRICK'S day
garrett: WHAT? say it in my ear.
the funniest part of this whole thing is that we have similar conversations ALL day long. and they always end with "say it in my ear" as he turns his head and puts his ear in my face. for a while i've been thinking i should get his hearing tested, but i think it's just a phase because if i can get him to stop saying WHAT he can usually repeat back exactly what i say.
(oh to be a fly on the wall at preschool. let's all say a little prayer for patience for his teacher!)
fast forward to yesterday afternoon... olivia comes home with a note from the school. she failed her hearing test (left ear). so now i have to have her screened again at the health department. i'm thinking i'll take "say it in my ear" boy with us :)
it seems like no matter how often we help olivia pick up her room, it's ALWAYS a mess. the mess isn't big toys that are easy to throw into the closet. it's all sort of little minutia...polly pocket clothes, barbie hair brushes, colored pencils, scraps of paper, hair bows, etc.
so yesterday at meijer she really wanted me to buy her a barbie doll. i told her that i wasn't buying her one more thing until she started keeping her room picked up. end of conversation...
later in the car, she got really excited.
"hey mom!! i don't have to keep my room clean to get new stuff. i get presents in the mail all the time." (big smirk on her face)
so true. at least once a month a box of fun, random stuff arrives from her grandparents or aunt. well, little miss smarty pants has outsmarted me once again. i don't remember being this smart at age 5.
sunday night josie got transfered from her isolette to a spacious & roomy crib. definitely a step in the right direction. it's also way, way easier to change her diaper and get her out :) she also moved out of the nicu wing into the nim wing. it's an "intermediate" wing of babies who are less critical and are on their way home. it's quite a change. the rooms are brighter and the babies are typically older...which means they can cry loud enough to be heard. so it's both brighter and louder. we're happy she's making progress...but i have to admit i miss the cozy dark, quiet rooms of the nicu :) but i definitely don't miss all the alarms going off in the nicu!
josie is just about 36 weeks and her one main goal is still to figure out how to eat. well actually, she has kinda figured out the bottle & even nursing...the only problem is that she's rarely awake so she doesn't get much practice. so i guess we need to add another goal...wake up!
more specifically she needs to wake up at every 3 hours starting at 5am. the nurses are pretty specific about when she gets a chance to eat. but silly josie doesn't care because she knows her little feeding tube will give her whatever she needs :)
the past 5 weeks we've spent a lot of time away from the kids. or what time we have been here has been spent catching up on house stuff. so we figured the kids needed a fun weekend just about them.
if you're 5, 3 or 1 where do you look for fun? well, the trampoline outside is covered in snow...so chuck e cheese is the obvious answer! then it was off to a hotel for pool time (ok, that didn't work too well...a hotel full of traveling teenage hockey teams and cheerleaders in town for a competition...coincidence? well the pool was more than a little busy at night, but at 8:30am it was perfect!)
ryan decided the hotel was just way, way too fun and he needed to stay up till 5am. wow, that was so much fun.
then we were off to ihop for the much advertised "horton hears a who" kids breakfast. as we pulled into the parking lot olivia said "mom, i can't really say IHOP, so i'm just going to call this place HORTON HEARS A WHO." ok, that makes sense. but with a 30 minute wait and 3 hungry kids it was off to perkins for pancakes with ketchup for ryan and large plates of bacon for the other kids.
the next stop on the fun train was the mall to figure out shoes sizes. ok, ok, that wasn't the kids' idea of fun...until the lady at track & trail let them scan our order. now that was cool. and we learned ryan's feet were 2 sizes bigger than we thought. who knew?
our next destination was the hospital to see josie then on to the childrens' museum. but let's remember the 1yr old was up till 5am...so you can guess how he was doing at that point. so the revised plan sent us home and then back to visit josie on sunday. the kids loved seeing her with out all her tubes. plus they brought tons of "art work" to decorate her crib.
so all in all, our weekend was a success. the kids had fun and so did we :)
here's a few shots from the past few days - josie is 35 weeks and they estimate she'll be home in 2-3 weeks. they took off her nasal cannula today and are going to see how that goes. so when we left her this afternoon, she was breathing totally on her own. this week she's worked on the bottle (with some success) and she even latched on yesterday - which totally shocked me. but within 2-3 minutes she was totally zonked out.
a recycling flyer came in the mail yesterday and olivia was looking at it...
olivia: mom, i am soooo NOT into recycling. it's garbage and i'm soooo NOT into garbage.
later after she got off the bus...
olivia: i sat with a girl on the bus, mom.
me: that's cool. what did you guys talk about?
olivia: boys
me: (ok, she's only 5. this might not be good.) what about boys?
olivia: just that all they do is poop and burp.
(ok, i can live with that conversation. whew!)
wow, how much do we love canon customer service?
TONS!
we mailed in our camera on monday, minus the warranty or purchase receipt. the camera was delivered to us, fixed and FREE of charge on saturday. now that's great service!
and thanks to our friends at canon, here are the most recent pictures of josie...
josie's had an excellent week. did i mention she's 4 weeks old? wow, where has the month gone? she is completely off her cpap and is on the nasal cannula. her feeding amount is up to 28ml (30ml = 1 ounce) every 3 hours and she's up to 3lbs. 10oz. as of saturday night.
this next week could be fun... if she can bring down her respiratory rate (how fast she's breathing) she can start working on a bottle. we're pretty excited to have our camera back to capture those moments! and after that, she can try out nursing. don't be alarmed...no pictures of that will be posted! (sorry missy...i know you wanted to see the glamour mom in action.)
and a special thanks to caryn for the best fitting preemie hat. i need the pattern!! all the hats i've made are either too big, too small or fall right off. josie says "thanks" for a hat that finally fits :)
