Kit’s going to blog later with his thoughts, but I wanted to get the picture up. Here is Bennett with one of his doctors from Baylor. Well, one of MY doctors because this is the perinatologist (maternal-fetal specialist) and Ben’s doctors were technically the neonatologists. But either way… one of the doctors that helped save Bennett’s life and also followed us along with Emiline’s pregnancy.

We dropped off our goodies today and it was a wonderful, wonderful experience. Our first stop was labor & delivery and we were surprised but thrilled to catch my doctor there. He commented to Emiline, “I remember looking at YOU a few times!” and I heard him telling the nurses about Bennett. They asked how old Bennett had been at birth and then there was a collective GASP when my doctor answered. The kids are all appropriately adorable, Christopher kept telling everyone, “Thank you for helping Bennett be better.” Moira was spelling her name and SIGNING THE LETTERS, which impressed all of us. Emiline just smiled and flirted. Bennett mostly ran away and climbed things. But when he saw this doctor, he immediately started to hug him and when the doctor put him down, Bennett grabbed his legs and started to climb back up! I got this cute picture of Bennett giving the doctor hugs. We also found one of the nurses that attended Bennett’s delivery, she played with Christopher while I was being raced to the OR and she remembered us. I heard Kit telling all of them, “THANK YOU, we know that’s inadequate…” There really is no way to express our gratitude and I heard my doctor, oh-so-humbly state in his quite tone, that they’re all just part of the team.

Then my doctor took us up in the back elevator to antepartum where another nurse remembered us from my stay there. Then up to the NICU where we caught THREE of Bennett’s primary nurses and several others we had and they were all thrilled to see Bennett (as he streaked past them) and had tons of questions for us about his progress. The doctor that we had when Bennett was just a day old was in - he had to give us the big scary talk when Ben’s lungs collapsed and the prognosis went from bleak to exceptionally depressing. I remember us trying to get our minds around it because they initially gave us a 50/50 chance of survival. Then the lung thing came up and I asked the doctor what this meant now and he sort of shook his head and said it wasn’t 50/50 anymore… So anyway, he was there! We got a picture of him with Bennett.

So cute doctor moments - one from today and one I remembered from Bennett’s discharge day. His glasses were all fuzzy today (of course, since he grabs them all the time) and my doctor noticed so he took them down the hall to clean them. It was thoughtful and one of those little things that made me realize how attentive to details and just plain kind my doctor is. Which reminded me of the day we brought Bennett home, his doctor came in to do his last physical and someone else was working on Bennett - maybe his RT giving a breathing treatment? The doctor said no problem, he was just going to hang out and wait. Kit had brought up the older two kids and Moira discovered my piece of “Baylor Pie” (which is legendary to our kids.) The doctor asked my permission and then sat there feeding Moira pie. I remember noticing that and laughing because even after all our experiences with these doctors, their thoughtfulness and humor and patience and attentiveness to us as an entire family, it just struck me as very kind for this doctor to sit down and give this little two year old some attention and help her eat pie. For breakfast.

As much as I knew it would be wonderful for US to see them, I was really caught off guard by how thrilled they were to see us - my doctor kept saying it was really good for them to see a baby so young make it, one of the primary nurses kept shaking her head and laughing, saying she just couldn’t believe it… On the way down Kit & I had been talking about the experience and I said I’ve often wondered lately, “Why US? Why did this happen to us? Why were we so unbelievable blessed with inspired medical staff every step of the way? We could have just been another sad story of a family losing a baby and instead we have Bennett! But this isn’t normal, this isn’t what usually happens… why us?” We don’t know why Bennett made it, or why my incredible midwife did what she did or why we were sent to Baylor instead of somewhere else or why my doctors advised the course they did. But if anything had been different, if we had been sent somewhere else, if I hadn’t been living at the hospital, if he was at any other NICU in this area, I don’t believe Bennett would be her with us now. It was humbling. And healing. And now I’ll let Kit talk.

There’s a new addition to our family. (NO, I’M NOT PREGNANT!!) Today we welcomed into our lives a new Mac laptop. We packed up the whole gang (yes, I know, in RSV season I took a newborn & preemie to the mall. Bad me…) and headed to the Apple store (kids chanting in the backseat, “Apple, apple, apple store!” I asked which they prefer, Apple or IKEA and Christopher said he can’t decide.) We walked in and the sales people actually recognized Bennett as the one year old that broke the power cord. Twice. They didn’t know about the recent hard drive crash, compliments of Bennett. So they are all cooing over Emy and realizing there are people in the store (and people=germs) I nudge Kit and he quickly says, “Okay, Macbook Pro, 15″, glossy screen!” and the sales people scurry off and grab one for us.

Now, getting back out to the car was tricky because Bennett woke up from his nap and escaped from the stroller and Kit was holding Emy and herding the older two (have you heard his analogy about toddlers & herding cats?) so how did we get Bennett back out of the mall? We showed him the box with the pretty picture of the laptop on it and he ran towards it, wiggling his fingers as if trying to type. That got a lot of laughs as the toddler chased down the laptop box heading out of the mall. He’s now happily dancing on the empty laptop box.

Kit acquired this laptop in a rather sneaky fashion - he mentioned to me in passing that someone had approached him on-line about a server set up or something else tech sounding that I don’t completely understand. I expressed concern that I didn’t know how he would find time for such a big project, knowing it was a many, MANY hours long process but knowing the payment would be a new computer that he has been drooling over for months. But new baby, work, three older kids, blah, blah… I honestly forgot about it until he mentioned a few weeks later that the project was DONE and payment was on the way. Oh. Okay. So Kit’s now giddy with joy and we have a laptop with the break away power cord that will be harder for Bennett to break! Hooray! And now I get more video of the kids edited, so everyone around here is happy.

Emiline is 12 lbs and 25th percentile for height and weight. Perfect in every way, she had her check up this morning. I was reading up on development while I was there and they have the list of what a child should be able to do by certain ages. Bennett is 23 months tomorrow (19 months adjusted) and doing every single thing on the list for what a 2 year old should do. Can you tell how happy that makes me?? They said most preemies “catch up” by two years developmentally but that’s ALL the preemies, and the micro-preemies take longer than the later term ones. We’re thrilled with his progress but we’ve also been told there are some more hurdles down the road when we hit school age. For now, we’ll just celebrate the fact that Bennett is acting like a typical two year old.

This weekend we’re bringing some treats to Baylor - the antepartum floor where I lived, labor & delivery, and the NICU. I just called Bennett’s primary NICU nurse and she said she’ll be there for sure (we were hoping to catch her on shift.) She’s going to try and snag a couple of our favorite doctors if they are working so we can get a picture of them with Bennett. They haven’t seen him since he was discharged - oh, except for the picture of him hanging in their hallway! But that doesn’t count.

If Bennett wants something, he’s remarkably good at getting his point across. Example - today he opened the dishwasher, pulled out a plate, handed it to me then walked over to the silverware drawer, opened it and searched for a fork. I asked if he wanted noodles and he said, “Nooduh” and smiled. Hmm… Bennett is currently stuffing his face with his second bowl of pasta salad. We’re a bit surprised by this child’s new found appetite. We got new glasses again this morning and he’s great about keeping them on - it’s just when he takes them off and tries to close them that we’ve got a problem.

Christopher gets very distracted while eating so we’ve set the rule - no getting down from the table until you’re done. He hopped down and came to hug me and said, “I love you and want to hug you - is that a good reason to get down from the table?” Kit told the kids that if they are scared going into a dark room they should quack because it will scare away the monsters, or whatever is in there. We just asked Christopher to turn on the desktop computer so I could access Photoshop with the laptop and he ran off, then we heard quacking over the baby monitor and we burst out laughing… What a brave boy.

Two years ago things were not going so well with Bennett. I spent December 23rd in the ER on IV fluids because I was losing so much blood my heart was racing to compensate and my blood pressure was dropping and it just did NOT look good. We spent Christmas pretty worried.

This year, we’re facing a new worry. KEEPING BENNETT SAFE. I was nursing Emy and my stomach sank when I heard the telltale scraping of a dining room chair across ceramic tile. Emy’s learned to nurse while I run around in order for us all to survive because I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve had to jump up (while nursing) to save Bennett from himself. This is what I found. At first I thought he was going for the chocolate stash to the right of the stove but he had his pancake turner in hand (his current love object that he won’t put down even during therapy) and he was reaching for the skillet. Thankfully everything was cool, but still…

But notice he is keeping his glasses on?? I love it.

However, HOW do I keep this child safe??

In the last six months Moira has gained 2 lbs and more impressive, grown two inches!! Bennett today said “gogick” as he discovered the four pounds of chocolate I was trying to hide in my bedroom, the Trader Joe’s stash Jenny brought me from California. Very happy with the progress from both kids.

We posted lots and lots of pictures in the gallery, enjoy. I’m going to collapse in bed and hope to catch up on lost sleep - Emy seems to be having another growth spurt.

Next week we plan to make up our goodie plates and go deliver them to Baylor to celebrate our two year anniversary in January of my stay there & Bennett arriving. Can you believe in just over a month he turns 2 years old??

So we just had a nice mother-daughter team knock at the door from a different religion than our own to share a pamphlet with us and some of their beliefs. We’ve had people from this church come to our door before and they are always very polite and we’re happy to accept whatever they care to give because I think it’s fascinating to learn about other religions. I’m usually blocking Bennett from escaping using my leg and holding Emiline and the two older kids always want to know who is there and what’s going on so it’s usually a pretty brief interaction. And they’ve never asked to come inside. But this time I noticed the woman was looking over my shoulder at the frame we have hanging by the door. You can only see one picture frame if I have the door opened a crack - all the way and you could see our wedding picture & our certificate from our temple wedding. But I was curious about what she was looking at and so I turned to see - it’s “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” issued by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. If you are LDS, you are probably laughing and if you aren’t a member of our church and are curious, you are welcome to read the proclamation here. It’s a statement from the prophet, Gordon B. Hinkley, and his counselors.

so, Proclamation

We were blessed this year to have my entire side of the family (now numbering 27 and one on the way, last I counted) and Kit’s parents up for the holidays & Emiline’s blessing.

Here is my family.

Here is Emiline with the aunts she is named by (Jennifer gave her Jamilah) and for (Emily.)

Here is Moira Christine with Aunt Christine. Mo’s name means “Noble follower of Christ.”

Here are our four children with their grandparents on both sides.

It was a wonderful experience to have so many loved ones in town this year and to be able to have Emiline blessed surrounded by them. We’re looking forward to visiting with many of them over the next week or two.

We hope your Christmas day was as incredible as ours!

So the family has begun to descend upon Texas and I think my kids’ heads are about to burst with excitement. They were able to see Aunt Christine for the first time in over 2 years, and meet their new Uncle Brian (whom they madly adore and tried to talk into sleeping over.) Christopher was working hard to convince Brian to stay the night and then added, “And Christine can sleep over, too.” The next day Becky, a friend, came to stay with her DOG. I don’t know which one the kids were more thrilled to see. Though the sad dog has been quietly sitting at our backdoor, staring in at Becky, since she got here. Christopher’s attempt to get Becky to stay the night was, “I have a fan, I can fan you!”

Today we add Aunt Emily & Aunt Jenny to the mix and my parents and tomorrow Jenny’s husband arrives, their new Uncle Sean. Kit’s folks come in this weekend and add the 20 family members that lived in town and you get the picture…

Sunday we’ll be blessing Emiline and I’ll post pictures of everyone after.

Christopher is asking awkward questions about his new cousin in Christine’s belly and how exactly he got in there. Brian referred him to me and I’m just distracting Christopher for now. Moira spelled her name out with ABC books, I was pleasantly stunned to learn she can spell M-O-I-R-A all by herself. Bennett’s fever has broken but he’s still acting sick so he’s on house arrest for now. Emiline is getting LOUD. We can hear her squealing and giggling across the entire house. We’ve never had such a talker this early.

Emy’s still a nursing fiend. Our newest nursing activity is working on my coursework for a class through the Hadley School for the Blind, I can read & highlight while she chows away. I’m starting with a “fun” class before moving on to the braille intro. Because I don’t have enough books in my pile of reading. I will not ever catch up, I’m making peace with that.

Bennett had vision & occupational therapy, speech therapy in the morning. It’s a therapy marathon. Both the VI and OT were stunned by his eagerness to keep his glasses on - he now yells at me if I take them off him to clean him. Though sometimes he’ll throw them down somewhere and we have to ask, “Bennett, where are your glasses? Go get them,” and he’ll go retrieve them. His VI has ordered a light box and some toys for him but we’ll wait until after the holidays to bring out the new “toy” and she was really impressed by how well he’s doing with tracking and focusing more. Next we’re working on walking up & down stairs and tracking things farther away (a ball thrown, etc.) The stairs are a skill he’s not actually expected to have for quite awhile, but we’re running out of areas that he needs help “catching up” in. Speaking of which, he had a couple areas to work on for OT - stacking 4 or more blocks in a tower, pointing to at least 3 body parts, etc. Our little show off was stacking six blocks and pointed to six body parts.

I ask them every visit what we need to work on, where is he lagging, how can we help. They give us suggestions but always with the disclaimer that he’s not suppose to be doing that yet. Then of course he does it.

SO the vision thing still sucks but Bennett is caught up in almost everything (and he’ll never “catch up” in vision.) His OT, VI and I all predict that in a year he will be so caught up that he won’t qualify for services through the school district (where he would transition at age 3, like Moira did.) And tomorrow I’m guessing his SLP is going to be stunned by his new vocabulary and she’s already said she’s thinking he may not need speech therapy, either. How amazing would that be??

(Insert: Did you know it’s possible to actually bite off the top of the fluroscent highlighters, then chew it up and spit it out on your Mom’s brand new course book? Yep, you can.)

My conversation with Christopher in the way home from the store:

He’s talking about Rudolph and then asks how reindeer are born - do they use eggs.

H: Nope, they come out like humans, they are mammals & have an amniotic sac.

C: Oh, so maybe Rudoph’s nose was brown inside his mommy and turned red when he came out?

H: Maybe. (And now Rudolph gets left behind as this conversation takes a sudden turn…)

C: How does a reindeer push a baby out?

H: Same way as people.

C: Out their private parts? Are private parts the same as your bottom?

H: Nope, they’re different. Your bottom leads to your intestines, the vagina leads to the uterus where the baby grows.

C: Oh, that’s good, because the baby wouldn’t have food in the intestines. And it would get poop on it! (Laugh, laugh, giggle, snort.) Can babies eat while they are being pushed out?

H: Nope. OH, wait, yes, as long as the umbilical cord is still attached.

And then this goes on and on with questions about the umbilical cord, how it’s clipped, if it hurts the mom or baby, why the lady that came to check on Emy and fix her umbilical cord clip gave her a shot, etc, etc.

So, yep, that’s my lovely Reindeer Reproduction 101 chat. I’m just thankful we’re focusing on the baby aspect and not worrying yet about the whole getting the baby in there part…

I was changing Bennett’s diaper and he took off naked, holding his onesie up. I chased him down and he was standing by the bathroom door. Curious to see what he would do, I opened the door. Bennett walked over to the toilet, lifted the lid, stepped up on the stool and tried to sit (I caught him before he fell in.) Then he reached for some toilet paper, wiped (though he didn’t actually pee) and threw it away. Hopped down, with some help, then walked over to the sink and pointed at the soap! He wanted to wash his hands. We’re shocked! I remember Christopher showing an interest in toilet training long before he was really going to learn, but Bennett showing such an awareness was very unexpected. And knowing the whole routine!

How weird is it that we find our son’s interest in potty training to be utterly amazing? Do we just have really low expectations for him so we’re easily impressed? He’s 22.5 months, 18.5 months adjusted. I know on average boys train later than girls, closer to 3 years. We’re not by any means expecting him to potty train in the next year but I’m excited to know Bennett is making these connections and processing so much.

In less happy news, Bennett is sick. The day he came off antibiotics for the sinus infection he came down with a fever and it’s been a couple days and seems to be going up. He’s having a hard time breathing through his nose, though he’s not wheezing or showing signs of it being in his lungs (our fear) and we’re praying this doesn’t lead to an ER trip. Last fever he was back on oxygen so fingers crossed…

Bennett sings. And hums, dances, tries to lead the music. Kit and I both observed we’ve never had a kid sing like this, and on tune! He can’t say the words but I can sing one line of “Twinkle-twinkle little star” and he’ll hum the next line. While he’s playing you can hear him singing to himself.

He’s also learning phonics, thanks to his big brother & sister. Christopher sings a line, “The B says buh, the B says buh…” then signals to Bennett and he’ll say, “BUH!” Moira has been working on the phonics sounds, too, so it’s this little singing trio of phonics around here.

Kit commented that it’s little things like this that make us not so worried about the impact of his brain bleed. Bennett seems to be doing okay.

Christopher has been sharing jokes today and started to tell me one but had to stop because he was laughing so hard. It’s one of his & Kit’s favorites:

Why do ducks have flat feet?
To stomp out forest fires.
Why do elephants have flat feet?
To stomp out flaming ducks.

Okay, back to the key lime pie bars & “lower” fat chocolate chip cookies we’re baking. To counteract the very HIGH fat but exceptionally delicious truffles we made yesterday.