homecoming

On Thursday (4.8.10) of last week, Jayce busted out of "prison" and came home with us for the very first time in his short 26 days of existence on planet earth. We shortly found out that Josiah would be kept for another 5 days for bad behavior (he had a brady—an abnormally slow heart rate—just hours after Jayce left—which is in my opinion, quite related and could give confirmation to him having a broken heart that his brother was gone). At whatever rate, we didn't know that we'd be grateful for getting a chance to break in our new set of parenting skills on our 2^nd born son. His first night home was spent tossing and turning, eating every 3 hours, and messing up diapers like it's his job, which of course, it is. He adjusted pretty well to living with us, and occasionally he'd cry really loud just to see if we were listening and would come and hold him, which of course, we were and we did.

Sometimes, we'd just pop in to see if he was still breathing, which we knew he was because we have this pretty amazing video monitor that lets us literally "see him when he's sleeping, and know when he's awake." (You started singing, didn't you? I knew you would) Now, yesterday (4.13.10) we got to bring home our first born son, Josiah for the first time. His transition was much easier, at least for him. He didn't squirm or fuss a whole lot, and slept quite comfortably in his new bed right next to his brother. We were up late feeding both of them, and last night was my first night actually getting up around 3 or 4 AM to help Jenni feed them. She's come to the conclusion that having one baby at home isn't really that difficult, but having two definitely turns this into a full time job, with the need for a part-time assistant. So, I'm the part-time assistant, and she's the full time Mom. Man, I LOVE my new boss. In an effort to make things easy on her assistant, she got up, changed Josiah, warmed up the bottle, and brought him to bed and gave him to me so I could feed him without hardly waking up, and then go right back to sleep after she put him back to bed. I have a sneaky suspicion that this won't always be the case, but I'm grateful for a first night homecoming where I get to be a full time Dad, and part time assistant.

By the way, my boys are ONE MONTH OLD TODAY! We may as well PARTY!

...not home yet

The boys are still in the NICU at St. Joe's, and are really healthy. We are waiting on them to jump over a final hurdle, which seems to be more like a roller coaster. They have to eat all of their food via the bottle at each feeding. The boys are sometimes on their game and are downing the food like hungry little gregg's at an all you can eat wing buffet, and sometimes, they are more like little mice trying to eat a mountain of cheese. Sometimes, they do well and eat it in no time flat, and sometimes they don't finish, and it seems to take forever for them to eat just more than half.



With that being said, we are still hopeful that they will come home soon. We are all ready for them with a few final touches to be placed on the nursery (thanks to Kristen and Nate), along with picking up a rocker/glider for mommy and daddy to rock them to sleep. The car seats are already in the car--the boys passed the car seat tests--and they got their hearing screens done already and passed with flying colors there, too. Now, we are on their schedule with when they will decide to eat.



My mom flew in today from South Carolina to see the boys for the first time, and she was ecstatic. We went straight from the airport to the hospital, and she held both of them and just rocked away. I know she's already feeling like it was 30 years ago and she was holding me and Nate in her arms. But now all she has to worry about is spoiling those little monkeys rotten, while we do the dirty work! I'm betting that YaYa will be the one to push them over the edge and make them eat--after all, she did a good job of fattening me and my brother up!


here's to hoping they come home soon,

one proud daddy <><