Surviving

We are still stuck indoors, but we are surviving! Some days it's no big deal. Other days I have to throw the kids in the car and drive around just to save my sanity. So far Savannah is staying healthy, but  I can't say the same for the rest of us. We all got hit with a cold a couple of weeks ago. Dan's awesome immune system got rid of it in a couple of days but Owen and I were not so lucky. It must have been super contagious to get through all the crazy amounts of hand washing and sanitizing we do around here, which means it was an act of God that Savannah didn't get sick.

In other news, Savannah has been rolling over for a couple of weeks now. I am so NOT ok with my two month old preemie already rolling over. She's growing up way too soon!  Now we just need to get her to figure out how to eat faster. She is still taking a full hour which means I feel like I'm feeding her all day (because I am). Bless her. But mostly bless me and bless Owen for surviving all those hour long feeding sessions.

We escape to the cemetery on good weather days. Owen loves it! Here he is celebrating "Aunt Linz's" birthday with a delicious cookie. She would have been proud!

On bad-weather days I have to get really creative to keep this kid entertained. A bucket, a bowl, and a few other random things filled with water kept him happy for 2 HOURS! People, this is huge. I didn't even mind that he was soaked. A win for us all.

These last few days of good weather have been just what the doctor ordered for both Owen and me. I can tell a huge difference in the happiness level in our home when we are able to get out and enjoy the sun for a bit. And it doesn't hurt that he naps for 3+ hours on days he gets outside to run around.

Love his ketchup grin

I finally cleaned out my purse which produced all sorts of treasures, including a gift card to the movie theater. So I dropped Savannah off at Grandma's and took my little man on a date to Moana. Watching his face as we walked into the theater was priceless. And he ate his popcorn by the fistful, which made his popcorn-loving mama very happy. But even the awesomeness of the "big movie " couldn't entertain this crazy kid for 2 hours. Luckily I came prepared with fruit loops so I could see how it ended (cute movie!)

 We have lots of fun dressing up Savannah in all of her adorable outfits. Sometimes it makes me sad I don't get to show her off in real life, so to make up for it I just take lots of pictures.  This outfit is one of my favorites because she looks like an 80's aerobic instructor- too bad it only lasted a couple of hours before she spit up all over it.

I know, it's not much of a winter outfit, but when you stay
inside your warm house all day, you can wear whatever
you want!

It's always a good time to see how Husband dresses her when I'm out and she needs a change. This one was on backwards.

Tummy time!

Smiling with her eyes.

Thankfully Owen still likes Savannah - a lot! Any time she cries he goes running to help and yells "Savannah sad!" I came out of the shower the other day to find him on the floor right next to her. He was giggling his head off and trying to give her high 5's and knuckles.

Someone found her thumb!

Daddy snuggles.

  

She has her dad wrapped around her finger for sure.

At least 2 of us are happy.

The best chocolate cake ever!

"Hey dude!"

Baby Pics

Be prepared for a picture overload! A friend of a friend does photography out of her home, which is perfect for the likes of us who can't take Savannah out into the world yet. I jumped at the chance to have some newborn photos done and they did not disappoint!

And to answer the oft-asked question: as of Thursday she is exactly 7.5 pounds. Most of the world delivers full-term babies bigger than this, which blows my mind! I can't imagine having her still in the womb at her current size, let alone a couple pounds bigger.

ENJOY!

If you look close you can see her smiling!

My handsome 2-year-old

Big Brother

DIMPLES!!

Dressing up girls is seriously the best.

The bink! I love that it gives perspective for her size. She was a little over
five pounds in these pictures.

HOME

It took FOREVER to get a decent photo.

I am so behind on a Savannah update. We made it home 3 days before Owen's birthday, so I even met my goal! She turned a corner during her last couple of days and really just figured everything out. She was discharged after 31 days (3 less than her brother) and NO oxygen. Hallelujah! Sometimes it makes me sad when I think that I basically missed the first month of my baby's life, but once again, we are just grateful she is here and healthy.

So excited to be coming HOME!

The last bottle in the NICU

Our favorite nurse! She was the nurse for my nephew Max when he was in the
NICU 8 years ago. She was also Owen's nurse and saved his life
when he stopped breathing. She's the best. And yes, I'm ignoring my giant
scarf in this picture.

Our chauffeur.

Love.

Lovin on my kiddos. 

Snuggles with Dad.

On our way to the doctor for our weekly weigh-in! She's just over 5 and a half
pounds. Our little porker!

She is such a good baby! I kept telling her in the womb that after everything we were going through to get her here, should would have to be perfect. She must have been listening! She's never cried longer than about 14 seconds, and except for her two night feeds, she sleeps the rest of the night away.

Yes, that is what you think it is. Also, I think she holds the world record
for her umbilical cord - it finally came off after SIX WEEKS.

While she was still in the NICU, one of the head nurses came in to ask me if a local news station could come film us for a news story. I'm definitely not enamored with being on the news, but decided it would be fun for Savannah to look back on, so we said ok. I really didn't know what it was even for, but I did my hair and put some makeup on so I wouldn't look too embarrassing. I laughed to myself when the crew arrived and told me they were doing a story on the new safe sleeping recommendations. Now don't get me wrong, of course I don't want anything bad to happen to my children, but there is NO WAY I'm going to have my child sleep in my bedroom until they are 12 MONTHS OLD. Seriously - whoever makes these recommendations obviously has never raised a child, and they must hate parents. Sometimes I picture them like an evil villain, laughing at all the silly parents who follow their advice to the letter. And here I should pause and say props to anyone out there who actually follows all the guidelines - you are better than me! So they were asking me all sorts of questions about how I was going to follow the new guidelines when we made it home. I basically lied through my teeth and gave the people what they wanted. At least Savannah looked cute and smiled at the camera. But now I'm wondering if I wasn't all that convincing because it still hasn't aired! Joke's on me! ;)

Happiness is a milk coma.

Poor Owen has been through SO much the past few months. His mom leaves him to live in the hospital for  TWENTY EIGHT days (I finally counted). He doesn't see much of either parent that week Savannah was born. Mom finally comes home only to drop him off at Grandma's each day so she can go to the hospital, and when we're finally all together again he discovers he is competing with his sister for attention. And he has handled it all like a champ! Seriously - he only had a couple of meltdowns the week she came home and has been great since then. We've been blessed.

The birthday boy! He's obsessed with soap lately. Should
have just got him his own bottle to play with. ;)

He is usually a very well-behaved kid (don't get me wrong, he's still a kid and he has his moments). Most of his "moments" are at mealtime. So I read up in my favorite parenting book about how to appropriately use time-outs, and was ready to tackle mealtime. The next day at dinner his "awesome" behavior struck again, so Dan carried him to our bathroom downstairs (the designated time-out place because there is no way this kid would sit in a time-out chair for longer than 4 seconds). Unfortunately for Owen, he locked himself in. After a couple minutes of failed locksmithing, Dan decided it was time to break down the door. (Owen was in full-on alligator tears mode by this point.) Thankfully the doors in our new house are cheap and flimsy (and I think it's secretly every man's dream to break down a door). Dan was one kick away from breaking in when Owen hit the magic button and unlocked it. I'm not sure Owen learned his lesson, but his parents sure did!

Looking at "Sahnanna"

Parenting fail #2 occurred last week when I decided it was time to potty train Owen. He just barely turned 2 and has been wee wee-ing on the toilet for months now. But only when I put him on (it's never self-initiated). So I read the book, took notes, bought all the supplies and figured it would be as easy as the example in the book and my two-year-old boy would be trained in a mere few hours. I'm pretty sure the beautiful snow storm we woke up to that morning was a sign. It was screaming at me to skip potty training and let Owen come out and play, but I was determined, naive, proud, and had made up my stubborn mind. It was a disaster and thankfully Owen still loves me. We'll try again. Maybe in 2 years or something. (Kidding. Sort of.) We threw in the towel about an hour before it got dark, so at least he got to make a snowman with dad. These poor oldest children who are the "experiment" child. It's amazing they turn out normal. :)

This is the "before" picture I was going to proudly display when
he was all trained. Parent fail!!

Holiday Life

Remember how the week between Christmas and New Year's includes both Husband's birthday and our wedding anniversary? Just in case you were wondering how we celebrated everything this year, here is a quick re-cap:

Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like donated pizza in the NICU parent lounge. Seriously, the pizza was a god-send. We'd had a crazy morning (snow on Christmas is both BEAUTIFUL and a lot of work. Welcome to being home owners, right?) Our crazy morning meant we didn't have time to put a lunch together before we left, so we were pleasantly surprised when there was real food to eat.

This is the only picture I took on Dan's birthday. I promised him a re-do when life has settled down and I'm fully recovered. Bless him for not being high maintenance when it comes to birthdays.

This was supposed to be a picture of the TWO of us having a romantical lunch of leftovers in the NICU parent lounge. But husband forgot to tell me he had a work lunch that day. So...Happy 5 years to me! I did make sure we watched our wedding video that night, so that sort of (but not really) counts as doing something for the anniversary.

Hooray for family who lives close and let us pop in for a quick New Year's celebration. Usually we play the Wii, but the theme of this year was Old School and the grandkids thought the powerpad was the coolest toy ever.

Owen is handling his crazy life like a champ. Every so often I can tell he misses having his mom around, but overall we've been really blessed and I am so thankful to the Dittos who have basically adopted him the last couple of months.

And of course Miss Savannah is as beautiful as ever. She is such a good baby and is doing really well. I'm trying not to complain about our situation, because really we're just so grateful that she is here and healthy, but can I just say that I am SO done with the hospital? My goal is to have her home by Owen's birthday. Please bless!

Sweet Savannah

Savannah's favorite napping position.

I think I've started this post 4 times now. Obviously my NICU brain is in full swing and I have no idea what happened with the previous 3 versions.

Little Miss Savannah is basically the rockstar of the NICU. She was completely off all oxygen one week after birth. ONE WEEK!! To put that in perspective, it took Owen 2 months to go completely off oxygen (in Owen's defense, he didn't get the steroid shots and he went through a lot of trauma before delivery). She stayed off oxygen for 4 days, but when we started working on teaching her how to eat, she had to go back on a low flow. She just didn't have the energy to eat and breathe all at the same time (this is normal).

No oxygen! It's so nice to see her face (mostly). That last tube is for feeding.

She has amazing nurses and I am reminded daily of the sacred experience it is to spend time in the NICU. Angels walk these halls and it is so neat to be a part of the miracles in these baby's lives.

Savannah is such a sweetie. Once they figured out how much to feed her, the "feistiness" the nurses saw went away. She pretty much never cries and she LOVES looking around at everything when she is awake. She is a great pooper (yes, I'm talking about poop on the blog) and has already nailed me (and her incubator) twice. During those moments I am grateful she's in the NICU because her nurse gets to clean up the mess while I snuggle her. :)

Giving a daily update for a NICU baby isn't really feasible. It's constantly 2 steps forward and one step back but most days don't differ much from the day before. Baby steps.

We have no idea when she will be able to come home. The doctors and nurses also have no idea. If you ask them they will tell you to plan on being here until her due date, and be grateful if she comes home earlier than that. So we are taking things one day at a time and letting her take the lead on how much she can handle. But she is a champ and we are seeing miracles in her development. We think she wants to come home as badly as we want her to!

Spending so much time in the hospital during the holidays means I often forget that Christmas is only a couple of days away. But I am given reminders all the time. Twice now the NICU has allowed Christmas carolers to stand outside the door and serenade us. It's awesome. We were also given a HUGE gift basket full of things only a NICU parent can truly appreciate. People are so good.

Being reunited with Owen is the best. (It's right up there with being reunited with my bed.) It took him about a week to trust that I wasn't going to leave him again, and now we are in a pretty good rhythm.

Owen has learned how to smile for the camera. It's awesome.

Merry Christmas!!