First Monday ever

Freedom!

It's not often you experience your first ever Monday. The boys have been celebrating it by eating and sleeping, with the occasional jazz-handed flailing about and protests at the indignations of day to day life. Dash's first lesson of action-consequence involved pulling the feeding tube out of his nose.

He had a few minutes of unobstructed freedom, then paid for his audacity by having to have it gently re threaded down into his belly. He was less than amused. He was eventually pacified by having an e-z meal down the aforementioned tube (his first breast milk, to my excitement) while reclining on Charlie's very warm lap. Liam spent his e-z meal with me.

Dashiel absorbing food like a futuristic spaceman

Right now they're full after yet another round (they eat like hobbits) and alternating between snoozing and throwing the occasional power fist out of the swaddle. The doctors and nurses are talking in the hall and it sounds like a rather relaxed cocktail party. Every once in a while you can hear a baby complaining and then things quiet down again.

Liam's energetic hands

Next up: first Tuesday ever.

Liam and Dashiel

Liam Alexander Brown

Dashiel Perrin Brown

The boys made their entrance in the wee hours of September 16th, several weeks ahead of schedule. I'd already been staying in the hospital to deal with various complications, and it was Charlie who got the 2 am phone call and had to make the mad dash drive from home to get there in time. At 3.50 am Dashiel and Liam were born, just one minute apart. Charlie got to hold each of them near to me so that I could see, and then they all whisked upstairs to the nicu to get checked out while I was pieced back together again.

Dashiel weighed 5 pounds 1 ounce, and Liam 5 pounds nine ounces. Big boys! Since they came so early, they still have some growing to do and skills to learn before they can come home. We can tell already that they aren't identical....their faces are strikingly different and they have different shades of wispy hair. Dashiel seems determined to experience the world through sticking things in his mouth. Just after he was born, he impressed the nurses by shrieking until he was given something to eat. Liam is more observant and likes to look around and see things. Often I'll look over at his little space capsule bed and see wee dark eyes peering out at me. Over in the other capsule, Dashiel is wiggling until he can get a fist out of his swaddle and into his mouth.

the boys in their space capsules

Thank you to all of our family and friends who have been celebrating with us. Life with babies in the nicu isn't quite the same as your typical homecoming....it's more difficult to have visitors, and we can't always answer the phone or talk because we're spending time with doctors and nurses. In some ways we have more time than your average new parent, since those same doctors and nurses are taking care of the boys 24 hours a day. In other ways we have less, while we spend lots of time at the hospital learning about how the boys have advanced each day and what that means for their development and growth. The boys can't breastfeed yet, so I'm trying to get my body to realize that I had babies early and pump breastmilk that they can eat through a nose tube. Oh, and heal from this pesky c-section thing too.

Hopefully the boys will be coming home in a few weeks, and we will definitely be in the "bring us a lasagna and hold a baby for me so I can close my eyes!" stage that most new parents go through. Till then, I'll try to be sure to take lots of pictures and share them here so that you can see how awesomely cute a tiny person can be when they look a whole lot like a miniature Charlie.

we did it!

Punks

You leave the front door open, and all sorts of riff-raff comes right in.

Harry has no problems with his sleep habits.

Contented cat is content

Lorax

Henry promotes a relaxed vibe

The boys are increasing their footprint on the world, both in terms of my expanding girth and in household preparation. What started as a simple blue room with grass one day turned into Charlie remarking that he would love truffula trees. So, with the help of artist friends we have progressed from blank walls to chalk sketches to colored paint. All that remains is the task of inking the walls, using black paint to give everything definition and make it look like the book. No swammy swans or barbaloots, just trees. And one enormous puffy cloud on the ceiling.

Drew chalking out the trees

Krista cutting in the cloud

my favorite crazy tree

much more colorful than in the beginning!

In other surreal news, cribs get delivered on Friday.

growing

There are an awful lot of things growing around here.

Tomatoes: the romas I started a few months ago have graduated to larger pots and are almost ready to start hardening off. If only it would get a little warmer outside!

Basil: Charlie makes the best pesto in the universe. We eat a lot of basil. So much that we've never tried to grow it for fear we would have to seed an entire field. It also tends to grow a little pokey and slow with our cool weather. This year's experiment is to grow a bunch of pots indoors in the greenhouse permanently. These started as seeds and I just bumped them up to larger pots yesterday.

Vegetables in general: we signed up for a Full Circle CSA box and once a week we get a surprise on the front porch filled with tasty treats. It's like christmas, but with more strawberries!

Me: the wondertwins continue to squirm and grow in my belly, though I can't feel them yet. I seem to have left the hangover portion of this pregnancy and am now just dealing with the fact that I could easily sleep 14 hours in a day. It sure is nice to be able to eat again though!

Harry: well, he isn't exactly growing. In fact, he got shaved a few weeks ago and is at the lovely felt stage. But he sure does look big.

Chickens: the four babies are now officially teenagers, flapping around and looking mangy while their feathers come in. Grow faster, so you can move outside and stop making my kitchen smell like a barnyard!