It's A NICU Reunion

The GHS Bryan NICU had it's 29th Annual NICU Reunion yesterday. It was so great to see all the healthy and happy NICU grads. We were happy to see all of the nurses and doctors that helped us so much when our boys were in the NICU.

Daddy and the boys next to the sign.

Here are the boys with Claudia. She was their nurse a few times in the NICU and then she had Alex several times in the Special Care Nursery.

This is Dr. Ohning, Alex, Ben, Mommy and Daddy. Dr. Ohning treated Alex when he had Sepsis. He remembered Alex and was so glad to see him doing so well.

National Prematurity Awareness Day

November 12th is National Prematurity Awareness Day. In the United States today, 1 in 8 babies is born prematurely. More newborns die from premature birth than any other cause, but solutions are within our grasp. Together, we can find the causes of premature birth, ensure mothers have access to health care during pregnancy, reduce unnecessary early c-sections, and create work environments that support maternal and infant health.

As I've thought about this day and what it means to help babies make it to full term, I thought I'd post some pics of our preemies 19 1/2 months ago.................

You've come a long way baby!

Every Baby Has a Story

We are doing a lot with the March of Dimes in the coming months. Tomorrow we'll participate in the 1st Annual Plane Pull for Preemies. In preparation for this I was snooping around on the MOD website and found the Baby Quilt. It's a "quilt" of baby stories....about preemies. So I posted our story on there. Here's a link to our "square" in the "quilt."

Click Here to View "Our Story."

Please, please, please plan to participate in the March for Babies 2009. Form a team with your co-workers, buddies or clubs. Before I ever had preemies, I worked with the MOD to raise money during (the then titled) WalkAmerica. I wouldn't wish prematurity on anyone. It's hard to understand unless you've been through it, but everyone has time to form or be on a team and help us fight prematurity.

As our liason from MOD says, "For Babies!"

Alex Also Loves Miss Kathleen

Alex's Early Interventionist (EI) from KidVentures is Miss Kathleen. She comes every Friday and spends about 45 mintues with Alex. She does a lot of activities with Alex that help him develop different skills like walking, bending over to pick up toys off of the floor, and He did so well today! He is always happy to show off his stuff to Miss Kathleen. He always hugs her and gives her kisses. I'm so glad that he likes both Miss Kaci and Miss Kathleen so much. It makes his time with them so enjoyable.

Here are some pics that I snapped today.

Ben wanted in on the action so he tried to do some activities, too.

Alex gave Miss Kathleen a HUGE smile.

The garbage truck comes during our time with Kathleen and Alex loves to yell "HEY!" to the garbage guys. Most of the guys are inmates on work release from the DOC. They always smile and wave back. I hope that it brightens their day.

Miss Kathleen read My Speedy Turtle to both of the boys.

Then she gave Alex a BIG hug.
Alex also played peek-a-boo with Miss Kathleen. He pulled her hair in front of her face and then pushed it back and said, "There she is!!!!!" Very, very, very cute!!!

Alex Loves Miss Kaci

Alex just loves his Physical Therapist, Miss Kaci. She always calls when he has surgery and leaves him a message. Once I was listening to her voicemail on speaker phone and when Alex heard her voice, he perked up and started smiling. He always smiles when he sees her and gives her hugs and kisses.

So, I thought I'd post some pictures from Physical Therapy since we talk about it all the time. Today was a great day at PT. Usually, when Alex has a great week (walking a lot) he just doesn't feel like performing for Kaci. Maybe it's because it's so early in the morning or maybe he's tired by Thursday. Who knows!?! But, this week we tried a new approach. We went into a smaller room and moved the mats (that are usually there for kids to "workout" on) out of the way and gave him the whole room to walk around in. He did so well! Today he set a record. He walked 28 INDEPENDENT steps. We hope to see him walking "full time" by Thanksgiving.

Ben was right there with Miss Kaci and Mommy yelling "YAAAAAAAAAAAY" when Alex would walk really well. He's so supportive of his big brother.

Here are a few pictures that I snapped today.

Alex showed Miss Kaci that he'd been walking around a lot over the past week.

Kaci decided to try Alex on the swing and Alex just wanted to hug it and press his nose into it.

She also wanted to check Alex's leg. He drags it from time to time and she wanted to make sure his muscles weren't tight. She said they aren't, so she decided to try something else.

She wrapped his leg in a special bandage. It's kind of rubberized on one side. Kaci said it gives "feedback" to his leg and would help him not drag it when he walked.

So here's our little 1/2 mummy checking out his new bandage.

And here's Alex just trucking along toward the end of our hour with Kaci.

A Big Ol' Playdate

We had a fantastic playdate at my friend Amy's house. We had five sets of multiples, a newborn, and five mommies. It was complete insanity! The kids all play so well together (they were all born within a year of each other). So here's a pic of the whole group, or at least those that would cooperate.

Front row: Anna & Carlos, Ben & Alex

Back row: Avery, Ciara & Gavin, Ashton, Zachary

And waaaaaaaaaaaay in the back doing her own thing......Ally.

Our First Trick or Treat

I love Halloween! Not the scary part...not haunted houses or the spooky stuff. But I LOVE seeing all the kids dressed up in their costumes. Transformers, fairy princesses, Harry Potter, and various storybook characters. My favorite part of Halloween when I was growing up was all the free candy...and all you had to do was say three little words, "Trick or Treat!"

To kick off our first Halloween, the boys went to a Halloween event at ScanSource (Daddy's work). They were a huge hit and everyone loved their costumes. But there was some serious competition! All of the kids were so cute and you could really see the pride in the parents' faces. We got to meet the president of ScanSource and his son was dressed as a hippie. We also met several of Daddy's co-workers and their beautiful kids. My friend Lisa was there with her twins Emma and Riley. It was so much fun!

Daddy and Thing 1 (Alex) and Thing 2 (Ben).

Alex really got into the "pick out a piece of candy" thing.

Ben decided he wanted some Whoppers.

They also had fun "spinning" in Daddy's chair.

Emma and Riley were happy to pose for a picture, but Alex and Ben weren't being very cooperative so we didn't get a picture of both sets of twins together. Oh well.....we tried!

Then we took our boys our for their first Trick or Treat at about 7 o'clock (after we got home). It was a lot of fun. We petered out about halfway through the neighborhood but they got a decent haul, nonetheless. Everyone was so sweet and was sure to give them "soft" candy. Our neighbors were so kind.

Here are some pics of Thing 1 and Thing 2 and their special escort.......The Cat in the Hat (thanks Ann-Marie!).