So long ago...

As my folks and I were sitting at dinner tonight (while babies crawled and whined all over us and Declan was on the iPad), it dawned on me that it's almost a year that 2 of the 3 girls have been home. I honestly couldn't remember the exact date that Bria and Aven came home, so I opened up my trusted blog journal and found that it was February 7th that the two came home. While saving the new blog address as a favorite on my dad's computer, that you can see from outer space, I read through a few posts...

Here's what i discovered... I was way funnier, more clever and creative when I got more sleep. I think this time last year, the only thing that caused me not to sleep is my middle of the night wake ups for pumping. That's nothing compared to where we are today :-) Now when I write these posts I silently say, "please stay away, please stay awake." Reading the posts also seemed like a million years ago... Where has the time gone? Oh, I know where, it's in 1,534 dirty diapers, 2,201 bottles of milk, 2,000 hours of missed sleep and 456 gray hairs.

Here are a few pictures of the girls from today... they are still not back to 100% health, but they are getting closer...

And in the spirit of nostalgia, here's a post from when we brought Stevie home... She was the last to arrive and was about 10 days after Aven and Bria were already home...

Return Policy?
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2012

It's nice to not have a number in the title, although maybe we should put day 1 and count upward to when Andy and I are admitted to a psych ward... There should be an over under on us somewhere...

So I have to admit - I take back part of what I blogged about last night... The part that said I would enjoy the lack of sleep. What was I thinking? Needless to say, Stevie's homecoming was a little challenging... There was a lot of screaming and crying and swearing - all of these by Andy and I. Stevie just wanted to make sure we knew she was pissed about being the last one home and that she missed out on all that snuggle time. We knew it would be a challenge bringing her home, mostly because she was on a different schedule than the other two girls (and also because I've known from day 1 that she is going to be a feisty little trouble maker). So starting today begins "operation same schedule" - our goal is to get Stevie up to eating every 4 hours like her sisters... Not sure how we're going to handle the feeding 3 at once in the middle of the night, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.  I was about 2 minutes away from calling NICU last night and asking them about their return policy - I was beginning to think Stevie should stay there a bit longer (KIDDING!)

Today Declan had his first bout of being a little stinker about the girls... He wasn't jealous per se, but I think he was just a little annoyed. I wanted to say "welcome to our world buddy," but I didn't... He's going through a lot and it's amazing to me how well he has taken having three sisters at once. So this weekend he's going to go with my mom to my Aunt and Uncles house (Grandpa Jim's) - he'll get to run outside, play with his cousins and just get out of the house. Should be good for him (and us :-))