Little Valerie

Valerie Anne was born over 3 months early, and 25 weeks and 3 days gestation.  She was 2 pounds and 12 inches and began her stay in the NICU before I woke up from my emergency c-section.

Today Valerie is 7 weeks old.  She has made lots of progress.  She has had a nasal cannula to help her breath all her life (which she hates), but is getting close to not needing it anymore.  She is now on room air, with just a little pressure.  She spent many weeks on a machine that helped her take breaths, but is now breathing all on her own, and has been for a couple weeks.

She has been getting breastmilk via a tube to her tummy (which she periodically pulls out), but should be able to start nursing soon.  Or at least trying to nurse.

She is doing really well maintaining her own temperature, and only gets a little heat in her incubator.  She started wearing clothes about a week and a half ago; she is certainly cute in her little outfits.

She is a sweet little baby, who sleeps most of the time.  She also protests if you disturb her rest, by changing her diaper or moving her around too much. She likes to be held by mommy and daddy, though (and they are the only ones who get to hold her until she leaves the NICU.)

Valerie is over three pounds now, and growing.  She needs to chub up, she is still very skinny.  She gets extra calories with her breastmilk to help her grow.  Growing is the best thing for her right now; the bigger she gets the better she will do.  

We love our little Valerie.

Laundry Then and Now

Today I need to do laundry, so I started think about it.  Not about the clothes mounded into my laundry hampers, and not about how I am going to get it done, but about laundry itself.

When I was in college, I waited to do laundry until all my clothes were dirty.  Then I seperated my lights from my darks, and gathered up my quarters and spent the afternoon washing my (possibly 5) loads, then drying and folding and putting away.  It took me an afternoon every few weeks, maybe once a month.  Whenever I ran out of clothes.  There were usually several machines in the apartment buildings I lived in, and I could wash most of my laundry at once.

Now laundry is another story.  To start with, there are more laundry baskets.  In college, I had one.  It got full (and probably over full) and then I washed the laundry.  Now we have multiple laundry baskets.  I have the ones I shlep the clean laundry around in, the hampers the dirty laundry goes into, and the laundry sorter in the basement, which usually holds all my dirty kitchen linens until I collect enough for a load.

And there are so many loads.  One load devoted to poopy clothes, that have to get washed separate, and probably a couple times.  Then there is the load of whites, and the many loads of little shirts and pants, as well as the really big man clothes.  Theses are not even my clothes.  But they have to get washed.

And the laundry has to get done at least once a week.  And once I wash it all, over the course of a couple days, and sort and fold . . . it is usually time to do laundry again before I get the clothes put away.

This is why I was thinking about laundry, because I have several baskets of clean clothes in my room, and the laundry hampers are getting full again.  And today is my day off from work.  Doing laundry is officially on my list of things to do.

Emily "helping" with the pile of laundry when we lived in Indy

But . . . there are dirty little pants and socks and shirts because I have three precious kiddos, who play and learn and grow.  And my basement is pokey and cluttered, but it is MY basement.  And I am queen in my house, and of the laundry, and those sweet kiddos.  And I do the laundry instead of my awesome husband (who does help me) because he is usually working, and because I remember what needs to be air dried and what doesn't (although sometimes Emily's tights still get thrown into the drier by accident).  He understands wiring outlets, and I do the laundry.  It works.

So, especially since today is the day before Thanksgiving, I will be thankful for the laundry, for the clothes we have to wear, and that we are all here to wear them.

Last week we went on vacation

Dan's family came into town last week, and then we all took a trip up North (which, to those of you not as familiar with Michigan vernacular, means somewhere away from the Detroit area.  In a northerly direction.)  Specifically, we went to the western coast of Michigan.  And, for some reason, I completely forgot my camera, so all pictures are courtesy Dan and his iphone.

The first day we drove up the Charlevoix, which is a very cute little town, right on the coast.  We walked around the downtown touristy area for awhile (well, after we went to the fabric store).  I got some awesome fabric.  I also found a book by one of my favorite authors, which is ALSO a novel with the same plot as a show Emily has watched on Netflix, based on fairytale characters.  Double squee.

We stayed for a couple days at Boyne Mountain, which is a ski resort in winter, and a fun place to hang with little kids in the summer.  There is a little private beach, where you can go boating, and there's a playground.  Friday night they had a magician and smore party, which we attended, and the kids had lots of fun at.

Saturday evening was Dan's cousin's wedding reception, in Traverse City.  The bride was beautiful, and they played Star Wars music when they had the wedding party come in.  And then throughout diner, they played other nerdy music, like one of the themes from Lord of the Rings.  Emily had a blast dancing with her cousins and eating cake.  William loved climbing the stairs.  Dan was on William chasing duty.

Sunday we went to church in Petoskey, thereby probably doubling their primary, and then had lunch at the beach by Lake Michigan.  The wind was cold off the lake, and the water was freezing when we dipped our toes, but it was gorgeous.

We went home from the picnic, while the rest of Dan's family went off to go camping for a couple days at a state park a little farther north.  We heard later that there were swarms of mosquitoes.  And this pregnant lady wasn't going to try to camp again until after the baby came (we went camping a month ago for Memorial Day).  Emily, though, was devestated at not getting to camp.  She'd been trying to convince me for the last couple weeks that we WERE going to camp, and I'd been letting her talk about it.  And then we didn't go camping, and she was very sad.

We stopped at a couple rest stops on the way home.  I packed some sandwiches and snacks to eat for dinner, and the kids were running around, feeding and chasing seagulls, and then chasing each other around the vending machine building, when William fell into a pole and split open his forehead.  There was an attendant at the rest stop who helped me get some gauze and such from the first-aid kit, and there was a hospital at the next exit down the freeway.  William ended up with 6 stitches.  Emily, who is very tender-hearted and can't bear to see William actually hurt, wouldn't look at him all the way home.

Now he's off to get them out, and they haven't seemed to bother him much.  He has a owie on his arm, which started as a couple mosquito bites, I think, which he's scratched at all the time and kept from healing very quickly.  So I was worried I would have to spend all week watching him like a hawk to keep him from tearing at the stitches.  But his forehead he's mostly left alone.

We had a great time on our vacation.  And while the time at the ER wasn't my favorite part, I wasn't too surprised.  Because Emily had stitches on her face, too, and William takes after his daddy.  Who had lots and lots of stitches on his head.  And still has some of the scars to prove it.

Perfect Moment

A while ago I read a couple happy mothering moment stories from others, and it got me thinking, what is my happy moment, that I will want to take out and hold when my babies are all grown up and gone.

I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom, in the alcove, where we had squished in the kids' dresser, the changing table, and all my sewing stuff.  Behind me was the bedroom proper, with my bed and dresser, and through the door in front of me was the alcove where the girls slept, curtained off from the rest of the basement.  We had lots of alcoves in the basement.

I had a sweet baby on my lap, and I was singing a lullaby I made up to her.  Her sister sat on the floor beside me, and I switch the words a little and sang the lullaby for her.

Sweet baby girl, Mommy loves you.

That sweet baby girl on my lap was happy just to be held while I read her sister books, trying to divide my time so that Emily didn't get jealous of this precious bundle.

Sweet baby girl, Mommy loves you.

Their daddy was at work, and it was Saturday night.  While I was pregnant, Dan working late was a trial, so hard to make it through.  I would get in my pj's, and get Emily in hers, and we would go to sleep together.  But with the two girls, I would get them asleep, and then have time to myself while I waited for their dad to come home.  I had a schedule worked out, for nursing and meals and activities for Emily.   We stuck to it fairly well, and bedtimes were easy.  It was a little before bedtime, and I was spending some time with my munchkins, cheering up a crabby 2 year old and loving on a happy baby.

Your my baby forever, and Mommy loves you.

Sweet baby girl, Mommy loves you.

I sang that song again to her, briefly, so quietly, a week later when they closed her coffin.  I sing it at her grave.  And the memory of that night, her last night, is a treasure.