Special Care Nursery Reunion 2009

Each year, the NICU at Presby Hospital Matthews, where the boys were born, hosts a reunion. All families whose children were born prematurely or in need of special care at this facility are invited to the event. The boys were born at 32 weeks and weighed 3.8 and 3.15. The nursery had just opened a month previous to the boys birth, and was fully resourced to care for babies 32 weeks and up. During the past three years, they have more than doubled their beds and space and are now able to care for babies born at 30 weeks and up, while still maintaining the intimacy of a smaller hospital. Here's a special shout-out to the staff at the Special Care Nursery who cared not only for Nathan and Seth during those tender first three weeks of life, but also supported, educated and helped me and Jeff during this time of transition and trips back and forth to the hospital each day. Susan and Gladys especially deserve multitudes of praise, and we were so excited for the boys to meet them again today. Susan remembered that when Nathan was born, his hair stood straight up and could not be smoothed down. He was instantly dubbed "Rod Stewart."

Here the boys are getting face paint (or arm paint) and meeting Gill, the mascot for Presby Matthews.

Sweet Stuff

It seems unbelievable to me that another spring is ending and another summer is beginning. I was just reminiscing about last spring and summer which was flooded with sweet memories like family ice cream nights, rides around the neighborhood in grandpa's black convertible, star gazing, moon phasing, listening to the crickets, watching the toads jump in the pool to cool off...all of these things fascinated our boys as they learned about the world around them. They were leaving 2 years old and heading more into 3. Now this spring, it seems too fast for them to be leaving 3 and heading into 4. There are new things to discover and explore.

Just tonight, Seth, who usually finishes his food first because he likes to eat, was taking his sweet time enjoying his dinner. Dusk was settling in through the kitchen window and Grandpa called to say that he was bringing over a parfait from McDonalds for the boys. Nathan had excused himself from the table, I was cleaning up the dishes, and Jeff was just about to clear his dishes when Seth stopped him. "Dad," he said, "where are you going? This is the moment we've been waiting for!" This insight from our 3 year old made us stop and think about the precious moments that we might miss if we just hurry through our day. Jeff bent down and gave Seth a big hug...

...It was like the world stood still for a few quiet moments as we captured that memory in our hearts. Then the doorbell rang and the boys were racing off again to greet grandpa and tell him about their day and eat their parfaits and enjoy some more sweet memories.....

Weekend Projects

Jeff has worked so hard the last two weekends finishing up the "big" projects around the house. He finished painting the arbour and sealing the deck first. Then he moved inside to finish up the bookshelves...yay! Things are looking good!