a toothless grin

Kate lost her first tooth! Can you tell she's excited? That night we received a thorough commentary on the tooth fairy. According to Kate, there is a boy tooth fairy for boys and a girl tooth fairy for girls. "Oh I hope the girl tooth fairy visits me! And if I wake up while she is almost ready to get my tooth, then maybe she'll fly away and never come back!? Ohhhhhhh I will make sure I go right to sleep. Sadie doesn't believe in the tooth fairy but I DO." love love that girl. Fortunately the tooth fairy made it and now Kate is $1 richer. I don't know if that is the going rate for baby teeth but I think that there's been a lot of inflation since my days .....

our sweet baby boy

Isn't he beautiful?

photos from February 2010

progress

Our little man is making some progress and we are thrilled. Having a preemie means being on a roller coaster, having good moments and bad. But we feel so blessed that Spencer is having many good moments and getting bigger and stronger each day. He is now 3 lb 11 oz and big enough to be dressed and swaddled. He also got low enough on his ventilator settings that he was able to get off the ventilator and move to c-pap, which gives him breaths through his nose. It took him a couple days to stabilize, but he seems to be doing better. Hopefully he'll be able to stay on c-pap and eventually lower his settings. The c-pap actually looks scarier - it's a lot more gear. Plus all the head-gear scrunches his face - I promise he is not as chubby as he looks in these pictures.

mama heaven

I got to hold Spencer for the first time on Jan. 24th (he was almost 2 weeks old). At this young age, they have me do "kangaroo care" which means holding him skin-to-skin while he has a feeding (for at least 1 1/2 hours but up to 3 hours). I hold him almost every day (except this week because I have a cold) and it is mama heaven. The first time I held him, his body was so tiny I could barely feel his weight on me. There are definitely some scary moments while holding him. Babies his age just forget to breathe sometimes (apenea) and that can make their heart rate drop significantly (bradycardia - aka brady). It is emotionally draining to hold him when I can feel he is not breathing and all the monitors are alarming. But it makes me grateful that he is in a place where his nurses can help him when that happens, and as he grows those episodes will hopefully happen less and less.

Is there anything more amazing then holding your sweet baby? I love being a mom.