Monday, March 24, 2008

I've been a mother for two years

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of our bringing Caden and Avery home from the NICU. Nine weeks to the day after they were born, at 4 lbs 5 oz and 5 lbs 5 oz we wrapped them up in blankies, padded their tiny little bodies in those huge infant seats and strapped them into my Subaru. There wasn't room in the backseat of our car for one of us to sit with them, so we stopped a million times on the three hour drive home from Missoula to check on them. Funny thing is, in those million times, neither one of us noticed that Caden's oxygen was turned off. He rode all the way hom with no oxygen. Being the new mother that I was, I began crying the minute we reached home and realized what had happened. Although, looking back I wonder if that's part of why he was only on his oxygen one more week rather than the months they had predicted.

We slept with both of them between us the first few nights, although there wasn't much sleeping going on. They both were on apnea monitors, and you don't really sleep through the beeping they do.

I can't believe it's been two years. What ups and downs we have been through since! But, oh how it was worth it. They amaze me a little more each day.

Yesterday we hid little plastic neon colored eggs in the yard for the kids. Caden was out helping Carl and Papa build the fence while I hid them, so as I finished he noticed what I was doing and ran to the first egg he spotted. He immediately sat down in the dirt, popped open the egg, and upon discovering of all things CHOCOLATE inside stuffed it in his mouth and took of looking for the next egg. They were so shocked to get to eat chocolate in the middle of the day for no apparent reason! (Chocolate, at our house, is usually only reserved for pooping in the potty. So for Avery, this is enjoyed fairly frequently but for Caden it is a very rare, special occasion!) I think they consumed more candy yesterday than they have in their entire little lives combined. But they loved it, and it was Easter, so I pretended it didn't drive me mad thinking about it. I made sure their teeth were extra shiny before bedtime.

We had wanted to make it to church yesterday morning, but Cece has come down with something and we couldn't take her to contaminate all the other babies so decided to stay home. The girls wore their gorgeous little dresses anyway, and Caden wore his adorable little robin's egg blue polo under his Carhartt overalls. Compromise, right? I'll make them wear their cute clothes next week (and probably for several weeks after to make the price of all of it worth it!) and I'll take a few more pics to post. The girls really look adorable in those dresses.

Since we didn't make it to the service, however, I decided to download Levi's Sermon onto my iPod before I took the dog for a walk. I only listened to a part of the podcast, but it was really great. I am going to try to finish it today. He is literally one of the ONLY pastor's I have ever been able to listen to and enjoy. Makes going to church a little more motivating, that's for sure. One of the things he brought up is that any of us can have as much or little of God in our lives as we want. Which made me think about how little I choose to have in my own life. He wasn't at all telling people to come to church more often or anything like that. Just that God is so near us all the time, is all around us, yet so missing from most of our lives. I know I always feel nearest to God when I am outdoors. In the house it's hard for me to think of anything other than the kids, housework, etc. But outside, I can feel him. I don't have to search, or wonder I just know. Since that's a rare feeling for me, I enjoy it when it does happen.

Anyway, my evening walk was wonderful. Our meal was delicious, although I ended up making a few lemon meringue pies instead of the cake. All of it turned out wonderful, we all ate way too much, but all in all it was a really great Easter. Hope everyone else's was lovely too!

4 comments:

Kristen said...

Sounds like such a nice Easter! We'd love to see pictures of the kiddos.

R said...

i can't imagine how scary that was . . .
glad the dog is finding her place

Sandra said...

Congratulations on two years! :)
Your Easter sounds beautiful. When I saw that cake you were going to make, I wanted to make one too. It looked so yummy! It was just the three of us though and Erin doesn't like lemon anything. So, I made simple lemon bars and pretended.

Kelli said...

Easter was really nice. Relaxing, even for me!

Becky- The dog went back to the animal shelter. I will probably blog about it tomorrow, but in a nutshell she snarled at the kids three times in one day, and over their toys. She just wasn't a good fit for us. Horrible experience, very rough day. I HATED HATED HATED leaving her there. It was so awful! But we just couldn't have the kids' safety an issue while we tried to work her into being a gently, kindly dog. :(

Sandra- I LOVE lemon bars! They are my FAVORITE dessert! I didn't end up with the cake; my husband actually forbid me from making it, as I tend to get a liiitttlllee stressed out if I take on too much. :) Hence the lemon pies. But they were good, too. Just not as pretty!