Bella, Gabe and Josiah

This morning we had an appointment with Infant Life. Due to his extremely low birth weight, he qualifies for services for PT and OT, so we meet with them about once a month, just to make sure that Gabe is meeting all of his developmental goals. The therapist came over this morning and was very impressed with how well he's doing. He was even scooting backwards, rolling toward his toys, and really just showing off. While I'm pretty sure that he's doing everything that he should be doing for his adjusted age, it's really nice to have someone else agree, particularly someone whose entire job is childhood development. However, while she was here, I noticed some pus in Gabe's ear. It was his left ear, the same as last time. The same ear that he finally finished the antibiotics for on Sunday. It took three rounds of antibiotics to kick the ear infection the last time and apparently it only worked for 5 days. So, off to the pediatrition we went. Gabe has burst his eardrum a

Um, I'm pretty sure that's not how that's supposed to work... I dropped Gabe off at school like this... Seriously. Everything must go in his mouth all of the time...      

Great minds think alike... Pat broke his foot six months ago while Gabe was in the NICU. Now it's my turn. One of the perks of having a big sister is that she makes sure that you get to sign Mom's cast too. It says "Bella :) The one and only Gabe!!! :)"    

Today was Bella's Halloween piano recital. She got to dress up in a costume that matched her song, so she dressed up as Rey and played the Imperial March. Since Bella got dressed up in her Halloween costume, I figured this was a good excuse to get Gabe to wear his costume. :) My little giraffe even did really well during the recital, not hardly squawking at all! Also, doesn't every giraffe need a bug to eat?      

Since Gabe is now eating solids, I figured it was about time to pull out all of the bibs. We've got a whole stack of bibs, but the cutest one has to be this one, given to Gabe by Grandpa Phil: Clearly Gabe liked it too: Clearly the bib serves it's purpose, aside from the sweet potato on Gabe's forehead... Gabe got a bath tonight and he was particularly fascinated with the water falling on his belly, so Bella got some really good pictures. Then, of course, he had to eat it.          

Oh, the life of a baby. You roll all the way over to eat Mom's pants, only to get attacked by the lamb that you thought was your friend... Baby yoga? This picture just cracks me up... Sorry kid. You can't eat Mom's cast!        

It's been quite the day... First of all, it's Alaska Day, so the kids and I all had the day off. We had big plans to make baby food and do art projects all day. It was going to be lovely! Last night, I decided that it was time to change my dressing on my foot and take a shower. Pat and I carefully unwrapped my foot, so that we could rewrap it afterwards. We got my foot fixed back up and it all felt good. When Gabe woke up at 11:30, I got up and fed him and my foot felt fine. I was able to walk without the boot and it was great. A couple of hours later, Gabe woke up again and I told Pat to get him because my toe was throbbing. By the time that Pat came back in the room, my toe was on fire. It felt like it did back when I broke it originally. Pat rewrapped my foot again and we propped it up on a pillow and I was finally able to sleep. A couple of hours later, my foot felt fine so I put it back under the blanket...and it felt like it was on fire again. It was a long night. This mo

Gabe can finally eat solid foods! He's been watching us eat for a long time, wishing he could join us, so he was very excited to actually get to eat today!  

Gabe is 10 months old today, which is just crazy to think about! So much has happened in the last year... Anyway, here are the pictures from his photo shoot. "Help! He's tickling me!" "Uh oh. I'm falling over!" "I'm stuck!" Bella to the rescue!

Dear Gabe, Today is Miscarriage and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, the day that we remember all of the babies that we didn't get to bring home.  I can't help think about how close we came to not bringing you home.  You shouldn't be here, my little man.  When we found out that I had an incompetent cervix and that you were literally falling out of me, you shouldn't have survived that.  The sac should have popped and that would have been the end.  Then you shouldn't have survived the cerclage surgery.  The doctor told us that he'd never pushed a sac back in and he didn't know if it was even done.  Dad and I went to the hospital that day knowing that we were probably going to have to say goodbye that day because you were too little.  But you held on.  And then when the placenta abrupted and I had you at 23 weeks, you shouldn't have held on then either.  You were so small.  But you did.  You're a little fighter.  You were determined to live.  Then the doc

Poor Gabe doesn't understand why I won't let him eat the boot. I'm having flashbacks to bedrest. This is very strange...

This morning, while I was taking a shower, I grabbed the handle to adjust the temperature.  The handle slipped off and landed on my little toe. It hurt so bad and I couldn't get out of the shower because the nob was on the floor and I still had soap in my hair. It was rough... An hour later, my toe was still throbbing.  In fact, I dropped one of Gabe's burp rags on my foot and that hurt.  Since it's Friday and I didn't want to fight with it all weekend, I went to the doctor.  It turns out that I chipped a piece of bone off of my little toe. I'm now in a boot with a broken toe.  A toe that I broke in the shower. Nope, my life isn't bizarre at all...

We have reached a new era of parenting with Gabe: bedhead! With the amount of hair that he has, I'm surprised that it's taken this long... In other news, he tasted sweet potatoes for the first time last night. He seemed to like them better than bananas. We'll see if he starts liking bananas more as time goes on or if  he is going to take after Gram on that one...

Today was Bella's last day of Marathon Club. She's been running a mile before school every day for the last 26 days and today they finished their marathon by running down the halls of the school for their last .2 miles. All the classes came out to cheer as the kids ran by.

Gabe has gotten permission to start tasting food! He's not ready to actually eat solids since he can't sit up, but he can taste it. So this week he got his first bite of banana. I think he was mostly just confused... He really just wanted to play with the fork...

Doesn't everyone do this when they go to the doctor??? We tried for some sitting practice this morning. Um, someone need a bit more practice... Apparently Gabe did not want to wear this outfit anymore. He took off his pants and pulled one arm out of his sleeve all by himself.

Gabe is now officially in his big boy bed. Well, he's in a crib in his own room... He was in there one night a couple of weeks ago because his bassinet sheet was dirty, but I wouldn't let him sleep there any more because his window didn't have blinds and I didn't want him waking up with the sun. On Monday Pat put up his blinds so Gabe moved in Monday night. So far, it's going pretty well. Monday he made it until 5:30. Last night he only made it until 12:30, so clearly we've got some work to do. But it was really nice to go to bed last night at the same time as Pat and not have a baby in the room! This will be a good thing, even if it makes me sad that my baby is growing up. :( In other news, Gabe has figured out how to roll around in his sleep sack. He's been rolling around for awhile, but the sleep sack restricted his movement just enough that he stayed in one spot when you put him down to sleep. Not  anymore. One more sign that it really is time for him to

Back in January, while I was up in Anchorage, Laurie called to tell me that she had a funny story for me. I assumed that it was an embarrassing funny story, like tripping in front of a large group of people or something and I was a complete mess with that whole NICU thing, so I told her that I couldn't handle hearing it right then. I'd remember randomly when I was up in  the middle of the night to pump or something, but I figured that she'd forgotten about it also. Well, finally, she asked if I was ready to hear the story and as my head was in a much better place, I agreed. I had no idea that this funny story was going to change everything... It turns out that Laurie had started online dating. If you knew Laurie in person, you would understand why that by itself could have been the funny story, but it keeps going. She'd met a guy that she really liked and he was from Oregon. Actually, he was from the town that I went to college in. And he went to my college. And we had