The Whole Fam-Dam-Ly

Let's be crystal clear. I HATE to have my picture taken. I hate it. The last time I agreed to have my picture taken willingly was my wedding. The camera loves a lot of people, it detests me. I just don't take a good picture. However I love taking pictures of others.

About a month ago I had a wonderful idea. I asked Raif if he would take some pics of my parents and the kids when they got here for Thanksgiving then I could frame the best one and give it to my parents for Christmas. I mean is there anything better for grandparents than pictures of their grandkids??

But about 2 days before Thanksgiving Raif dropped the bomb on me that he wanted a family picture of everyone...including me. Ugh, my perfect idea had somehow gone horribly wrong. I gave him a million excuses which all got turned down. Damn. So here are the pictures from our whole family shoot.

These Moments

Greyson has had his two blankets "Duckie" and "Fluffy Blue" since he was a baby. They have served in many capacities over the years....isolette covers, baby beds in the NICU, baby blankets at home and travel companions. There has rarely been a day in his life where one of these blankets hasn't been with him when he has drifted off to sleep.

When he moved from his crib to his big boy bed it was these blankets that went with him and smoothed that transition. Most nights when we put him to bed he insists on being blanketed by one of them, though he is far too big to actually be covered by it. In the mornings I usually find him like this....


with big boy comforter and sheets discarded and curled up in a tight little ball under one of his trusty blankets. At some point, he will be too big for his blanket and will eventually cast them away as most children do with their childhood possessions but until then I will cherish some of these last bastions of baby-dom.

Over the years many people have asked me why I blog. I give my usual pat response "It helps the grandparents keep up so many miles away." But the real reason, I have come to learn, is more for me than for them. These types of moments, the ones that just aren't captured in a baby book, the ones that easily slip away from old faded memories like mine, will be forever captured here. When I am old and gray in the nursing home I can read through these entries and remember these simple moments that I forgot. The moments that capture Greyson or Quinn's personality better than a birthday party memory, even though those are far easier to remember. Because life isn't ever about the big things but it is always about the little ones.

Well Worth The Wait

It took us a little time to get Quinn's 4 year portraits done. Raif got a new camera for his birthday and wanted to wait to use it for Quinn's pictures and then our weekends got jammed up and it was already Thanksgiving. How did that happen? Then we looked at the 10 day forecast and realized if we wanted to get them done before it froze yesterday was the day. So while our lobsters were simmering we took a little field trip. The pictures, as always, are amazing. Here are some of my favorites....




As always go to Raif's smugmug account to see them all...and they are really worth taking a look at!!

Speaking of Sucking....

Early last week while Greyson was building LEGOS with his father when his part boat, part airplane, part helicopter broke apart to which he cried out "This sucks..."

Hmmm, I instantly assumed he must have learned that at school, the downfall of exposing your kids to others, but honestly Raif and I have a habit of letting that lovely phrase slip out every now and again. But where ever he got it from, Raif and I quickly agreed that we needed to nip it in the bud.

We sat down with him and talked about how that wasn't a nice thing to say and while we appreciated the need to 'let it out' when you are frustrated perhaps we could think of some other phrase to use.

Raif and I ran through the usual suspects - darn, rage, shoot. None of them appealed to the boy so then we went on to slightly funnier ones like fiddlestix, darn-nabit, and the like. While he was amused by them he turned them all down.

"So Greyson, then what do you think would be a good word to use when you are mad?"

"PUFF!!!"

"Puff?????"

"Yes, puff!"

Well all rightly then, the new I am mad phrase around our house is 'puff.' Both kids have caught onto it and I have heard it several times when things get dropped on a toe or the one puzzle piece just doesn't seem to fit. Admittedly, I have tried it on a couple of times but it just doesn't have that umphhh, that quality that channels the anger out like a sucks or a shit or a fuck does. It just seems a bit too happy for my taste but hey its not my word. I just hope that I can keep my anger words under my breath so we won't have to come up with any more alternatives because Lord only knows what these two would come up with for motherfucker.

Bloggers Unite - Prematurity Awareness

Can you believe that someone other than the grandparents and my 5 friends read my blog? I couldn't either but a few weeks ago I got a comment relating to my November VIP post by some random person. She let me know that November 17th, was a Bloggers Unite event for Prematurity Awareness Month and would I like to help get the word out. Well of course I would, but the problem was that I already posted about Greyson so now what? Well as luck would have it, while reading another blog I follow about a fellow preemie I found a post I could have written myself (but didn't). It was all about why prematurity sucks. So here is the post from Following Elias about the side of prematurity that the rest of the world doesn't see.

I think the main thing we need to be aware of about prematurity is that it sucks. It really sucks.

Prematurity takes what should be a normal infancy and turns it into a journey into medical hell. It robs both parent and child of a normal infancy. Instead of filling baby books with milestones like "smiled for the first time" you make note of milestones like "weaned off ventilator." You and your baby are robbed of quiet, private moments. Instead, the two of you spend those moments in a room filled with strangers, doctors, nurses, monitors, alarms and machinery you didn't even know existed when you were filling out your baby registry. People tell you well intentioned, yet terribly stupid things, like "things happen for a reason," "God doesn't give you more than you can bear," "at least you never got stretch marks since the baby was born so early" or "you're lucky you get to sleep at night since the baby is in the hospital."

You wake up day after day wondering if this is the last day you will see your child.

Prematurity financially devastates families. Contrary to popular belief, there is no insurance fairy who pays the tens of thousands of dollars of co-pays or the endless "uncovered" things like speech therapy or adaptive equipment. Even "good" insurance isn't "good enough" to cover prematurity. Instead of paying for a babysitter, you have to pay for a nurse to watch your child, instead of daycare, you have to hire a nanny, instead of working full time you have to take a leave or work part time because of the sheer number of medical appointments your child will have after leaving the NICU.

Prematurity is isolating, physically and emotionally. Because of the baby's fragile immune system, you have to limit to whom and what the baby is exposed. Of course friends and family assume you are simply nuts, because, as they will all tell you over and over, everyone needs to be exposed to germs. Actually not. It is emotionally isolating because no one, other than the other shipmates on the SS Prematurity have even a clue as to what it is like to take your infant to a minimum of one doctor visit every week, not have a single day for just you and your baby because three therapists show up everyday, on schedules that are convenient to them not you and your baby.

Prematurity devastates families emotionally (see all of the above).

So what can we all do to help make this suck less? Well, you can donate money to various charities in the hope that some of the research they fund might end prematurity. Or you can do something a bit closer to home and more personal. Call your local NICU or its support group and ask what you can do to make this whole thing suck less. Small things can make prematurity suck less. For example, my mother, my aunt and I make blankets and hats for the babies. There are dozens and dozens of babies that have worn my aunt's tiny "wee caps" and many who have been warmed by one of my mom's blankets and even though my blankets are far from "perfect" they are made with love. Some people make isolette covers, some people donate disposable cameras for parents to leave at the baby's bedside (yes we do take photos of our babies in the NICU), other folks donate gifts cards for coffee or gasoline to be given to those in need in the NICU. Others donate story books to the NICU (yes we read to our babies the same as you would at home). If you are feeling really generous, ask if you can send over bagels and coffee for a Sunday brunch for the parents and nurses (they get hungry too). Not all parents in the NICU can afford NICU clothes for their baby, so think about donating some NICU shirts or preemie clothes to your local NICU. Even if you can't prevent premature births, you can make prematurity suck less for the parents and the babies who are in the NICU right in your hometown. So this November, let's see if we can all make prematurity suck less.

We've Only Just Begun

I wonder if this is how the Carpenters started out??



FYI The song is titled "Princess and the Pea"

One Little, Two Little....