90 days

I can't believe that the boys were born 90 days ago. it is one of those strange paradoxes where it seems to have gone fast, but looking back, some of the big events seem like forever ago. Life is a lot different for us now. We have decided to call it "new normal." It has been a real blessing to watch with our own eyes the development of the human body that many will never witness because it happens in utero. God not only knit Max and Wes together in Kate's womb, but He has continued to knit them together outside the womb. It is so amazing to me that the boys have developed very unique personalities despite their often desperate circumstances. Wesley is just a spitfire. If he is uncomfortable with ANYTHING...he lets us know. Red face, flailing arms...this child's neck muscles astound me. Lou Ferrigno has got nothing on Wes. He likes to be held upright against our chests, but if he is uncomfortable (usually because of something in his diaper), he does a move that can only be described as a proper military push-up with perfect form. Toes together, hands shoulder width apart, back straight and butt down. And then there is Max. His personality has really started to shine through since the evil jet vent was turned off. He spends a few hours a night calmly absorbing his environment. Eyes wide open, looking around until he sees something of interest, and then focusing very intently on that. It seems like my hair is one of his favorites things to contemplate...so we certainly have that in common!!

Max is still on "just" the conventional vent!! He has had a couple of "iffy" gases, but they have been able to find his happy place without increasing the pressures to the point where they need to think oscillator or jet vent. In fact, the doctor told Kate this evening that they now have some room to play with the conventional vent if he has some bad gases, so that was good to hear. Kate got to do skin-to-skin with Max and Wes at the same time today!! I was sad I couldn't be there to see it, but she said they were both just conked out. We are both very curious what their reaction to the other will be when they finally are introduced again. They spent 24 weeks and 5 days sharing a very tight space but have not really been near or touched each other for 13 weeks.

Wes continues to do well on the nasal cannula. His oxygen needs have been creeping up a bit over the last few days, and one of the doctors told Kate that they might opt for putting him back on the CPAP machine for a few days to give him a little rest. That doesn't sound great to us, but we don't want him to digress at all either. He also had another "throw-up" episode today. He had bee doing well on gravity feeds (the breast milk simply drained into his stomach via gravity), but he threw up once, so they move him to a compression feeding, so instead of getting his whole feeding in a bout 10 minutes, he gets it over 1 hour. He did well on that, so they tried to wean him to 30 minutes, but he threw that up. This was all a few weeks ago and he has been tolerating the hour long feedings well since. Kate said she thought this episode was spurred on by him "working" so hard to get "things" moving. I am trying to be discreet but I am not sure it is working. The throwing up is a little concerning purely because once he is stable on the nasal cannula, learning how to take his feedings from a bottle is the next big milestone before he can come home. We are praying this is just a little bump in the road, and I realize that children some times throw up, but with their delicate lungs, the docs don't mess around and hope it was a one time event in case they aspirate something into their lungs and really set things back.

I have to say that I am more than impressed with the number of mechanically inclined people that read this blog. Maybe their wives are the ones reading the blog, but, at any rate, I received some very comprehensive and immensely helpful emails concerning our car that took a little too big of a drink of water on last Friday evening. Using the great advice I got, I was able to get the car running fairly well. The engine is running well once started, but it feels like the battery is almost dead when I turn the key. I had Autozone test the battery both on the car and off the car, and it is in good shape. They also tested to see if the alternator is doing its job of recharging the battery and that seems to be working well too. Any ideas what might be causing the hesitant starting if not a bad battery?

I apologize for hijacking this blog for car advice, but I am sure Max and Wes don't mind too much. Maybe these car woes are God's way of saying it is time to buy that minivan Kate has always wanted!!