The party's over

Turn out the lights, the party's over. It came quickly. Stephanie is back at work today. That's right, Stephanie is teaching middle schoolers the finer ways of theatre and the boys + Gracie are all at Nanny B's. This day has come with lots of mixed emotions for both of us. On one hand, Stephanie is excited to be back at school, to see her teacher friends and her kids and get back into doing something theatre-related. On another hand, she's away from her children. All will be good, though. It's very temporary - only 6 weeks. And then summer time.

She had her 6-week doctor appointment yesterday and it was like 2 BFFs who haven't seen each other in a long time with her and Dr. Jan. Dr. Jan brought her camera and took lots of pics - all the ones you see here. I told Stephanie that I felt like if Dr. Jan didn't have any patients, the two of them would have gone out for lunch. She said, yeah, we probably would have. I've said it before, but I'll say it again - it's such a blessing that she came into our lives when she did and I think we'll look back on this and probably see that we've made a life-long friend.

Well, my feet hurt and my eyes are droopy. It's going to be quite a thing over the next 6 weeks. Here's to it all....

Pics

Well, Gracie helped me fix the software issue. Now, we have pics.

1 5 9

Ah, God bless Nanny Barbara. So much has happened since my last post.

- Boys are doing great.
- This is the longest stretch we've gone solo with the Cearley family. No moms.
- Gracie's feeling better.
- Now something's wrong with my picture-loading software so I can't load pictures.
- Got the final results back from Max's test - all negative. He is good. No metabolic disorders.
- Steph's sister, Andrea, had her baby - Avery.
- The NFL draft. The Cowboys got 2 immediate starters & 1 great value pick in the first 2 rounds.
- Gracie and mommy had 2 mommy/daughter days.
- Nanny Barbara watched the boys when Gracie and mommy had 2 mommy/daughter days and got them on the 1, 5, 9 schedule.

We thought we were doing good, keeping to a 3-hour schedule, give or take. But once Nanny Barbara got a hold of them, she put them on a 4-hour schedule, fed them 4 oz. each, and laid the groundwork for our first real schedule. She's like the baby whisperer.

On our schedule, if the boys really wanted to eat, like nothing else would work, we would feed them. Not with this one. We are strict. And I think it's really going to pay dividends. It already is. We're able to rest longer, the boys are growing accustom to it and it just adds a level of predictability that we need.

Oh yeah, one other thing that's happened - we watched Juno. It's a very charming movie. Solid job overall with acting, directing & writing. If the girl can play another character she'll be a pretty good actor. The dude from Superbad was in it and he's good. Definite recommend.

Fussiness

The general feeling as we begin the week is fussiness. Everyone is fussy, including me and Steph. Let's start with the boys. They are no longer preemies. They are infants and require infant attention. It seems like they are awake more than they are asleep and the amount of food that we fed them prior to now...well, that just doesn't seem to be enough. So, they are acting like they have toddler tummies when in fact, they're probably closer to preemie tummies. If they get too much food they freak out because their insides just don't know how to process all of it. The result - fussiness. Skin on skin contact, familiar voices, even occassional swinging curbs the fussiness for moments, but they're just band-aids.

Gracie woke up Saturday morning feeling like the equator. She was very lethargic and not her go go go go self. Fussy pants. We took her to the doctor and she has another ear infection. The antibiotics have helped, but if it's not that with her, it's something else. Try not getting her way. Goodness gracious. The moment she hears 'no' or anything like it, she starts fussing. As soon as whatever didn't go her way goes her way, it stops. On a dime, this fussiness. Needless to say, she's seen her fair share of time-outs this weekend.

I won't even go into me and Steph but suffice it to say, add a garage sale on top of everything you just read and you can imagine the state we're in.

Oh joyous day.

Pictures

Can you tell who's who? Hint: I think Gracie's holding Max. Another hint: Max's nose is bigger than Nick's.

Quick recap

Um......I just spent 15 minutes writing one big, long post and I navigated away from the page, thinking I would preview the post and when I returned.....all of it erased. Goodness. So, let's see how few words it takes me to regurgitate what I so skillfully crafted.

Steph, Gracie and Max spent the day today at Children's Hospital getting more tests done on Max. Even though the screener(s) came back negative, we were advised to make sure nothing was wrong by getting him tested one last time. He didn't enjoy the poking. Steph didn't enjoy seeing it. Gracie didn't know what was going on. She was a great big sister, though.

Gracie is not feeling well, is 2 1/2 years old and is feeling deprived of attention. We are doing everything we can for her.

Tomorrow is the boy's MONTH-OLD birthday which means they are officially 'term.' They are behaving like newborns - eating more, sleeping less and feeling deprived of attention :)

2 movies to review:
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry - garbage.
August Rush - Steph liked it. I fell asleep. Good music.

Test - negativo

I woke up sick, sick, sick yesterday. I thought I had contracted Gracie's 'minor' strain of strep (is there a minor strain? Isn't it 'you either have it or you don't?') yesterday morning. So, I went to the doctor to find out that I just have a serious sinus infection. She gave me some antibiotics and I feel like a champ today. This morning at 1:40 am I didn't feel like a champ, but obviously, as the day progressed, I was the same-ol fairly-energetic Mike that everyone's accustom to seeing. Some people at work even said to me today, 'man, you don't look tired at all.' I laughed.

Max's doctor called us today saying that 1 of the screeners that we re-took last Friday, the one that tests for more conditions, came back negative! Needless to say, this was such a relief to us. He doesn't seem like he has any condition other than general fussiness which is typical for a 3-week old. See there, they're 3 weeks old already and fussing with the best of them. You could never tell that they were born a month early.

Back to work

First day back at work. People were like, "dude, did you get run over by a truck?" I was like, "come on, I don't look that bad?" The reality is no, I don't look that bad. So what if I have bags under my eyes. They are more evident under flourescent lights. I'll just avoid that sort of light for the time being. My throat started hurting this morning. I hope I'm not getting sick. Steph made it through Day #1 by herself. And she looks a heck of a lot better than I do :)

Vacation's over

My last day of vacation, for this stretch anyway. That last day before I have to go back to work is always so bittersweet. On one hand, I'm glad that I've had some time away and will enjoy the last day as much as I can, but on the other hand, I find myself constantly anticipating tomorrow - what happened while I was out, are all of the projects moving along, has anything slipped, should I check email so I can get a head start in at least going through them?

My first day back at work when Gracie was born was the day I decided I wanted to move back to Texas. Stephanie had wanted to long before then, but I was really happy and excited about the life we had made there. We both knew that we didn't want to raise a family in New York, but realistically, that was at least a few years away. It really doesn't matter where you are in the infant years, at least to the child. That day, we woke up to news of the London subway bombings. The day was sweltering in New York, where even in the morning, your clothes stick to you. I had to stand on the subway, the whole ride in. Standing next to 100 other people whose clothes were sticking to them, asking myself, 'is this the life that I want to live? More importantly, is this the life that I want my family to live?'

I'm not anticipating such a drastic change tomorrow. I expect to go back to the whirlwind of work and do my best not to get immediately swept away.

There are so many perspective-getting moments throughout life, especially after big life events and especially for me, after children are born. You look at this new being and think about all of the miracles that had to happen for them to be here and how you are tasked with molding them into the best person possible and my breath is just taken away. Nothing that I have to do at work is even close to that responsibility and importance. I find it hard to remember that all the time, but this week off, as most week's off do, has renewed my purpose and my mind.

Stephanie has gotten the feeding-at-the-same-time, aka: 'tandem feeding', down pat. Like me, she's even got a couple of different techniques.

We tried watching The Kite Runner but couldn't even make it through the first 15 minutes. SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW.

Gracie is clamering to play games on Noggin so I won't make her wait anymore. She just gave everyone kisses through the monitor. :)

2 week appointment

The prospect of the boys becoming star football players took another step in the right direction today. They are growing. Max is 6.6, Nick is 5.12. That's regaining birth weight and then some. Max is now 20" long, Nick 19.5". They're sleeping well but opening their eyes more and...feeding. I have a feeling that these guys are going to FEED, especially now that they're officially 'term.' This whole preemie-strictly-eat-and-sleep schedule is about to be long gone. We can feel it. We can also feel the lack of sleep. It hits me the hardest right when I have to wake up. Once I'm up for about 10 minutes, I've got my wits about me and I'm good to go. Really. But that wakeup call sure is a rude one.