Tommy's first trip...

No time to really update now, we are going to see my mom who has requested hospice in her battle with ALS. Please pray for our family.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-H-I-O.......

Here we come! Just thought I'd fill you in...it's for real. We will arrive in Ohio the first week of August! Now I'm on the crazy house hunting spree. Actually only over the phone, my dear friend Peggy is doing the crazy walk-throughs for us!

Quick stats... 20 weeks, 1 day old today and....

Okay, yesterday Tommy turned 20 weeks old. In 10 days he'll be 5 months old! This all seems so unbelievable. One minute it feels like he was just born, the next like he's been with us forever. Time is flying by...5 months...crazy. Okay, okay...

So today we went to the pediatrician as he's PCSing and he wanted one last check up on Tommy and to make sure his notes for the new doc were current. So, Tommy weighed in at 9 pounds, 8.9 ounces, 21.5 inches long and his head was 40cm. His weight gain was a little less than I expected in the last week, but the big picture of weight gain is good still.

Over the past few weeks I have been pondering the fact that my 4 month old weighed less than my second child at birth. Granted Kaitlyn was "cooked" the longest out of all my babies...she was born just 3 days before her due date of Christmas Day 1999! Well, Kaitlyn weighed in at 9lbs, 7.4ozs and I would look at Tommy thinking, well she must have been shorter and so on... Barely! She was 21 inches and her head was 35cm at birth. As I look at Tommy, I really understand why Kaitlyn's birth was so very traumatic...that was one huge baby!

As I was looking up these stats I wondered how big Tommy's head was at birth, I think it's fair to say half the current size now. Well here's what just caught my eye....Tommy was 38.5cm LONG at birth. His head circumference today (40cm) is more than his length at birth! For all those stories of my frustration about people thinking Tommy is small, now you see...he's so huge to us! Now I'm very curious to really find out his head circumference at birth though :)

SMILES!!

I can not believe I forgot to post this picture!!! This is from May 5th...Dad was hanging out with him and stealing all these fabulous smiles from me!



HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!
I bet this is the first picture of just Mom, Dad and Tommy! It's about time!


Beware...here comes another storybook, enjoy!


Kimberlyn enjoying her afternoon snack with Warlock. I sincerely didn't think he was going to eat the fruit snacks and fruit-flavored marshmallows?? He kept asking for more. Well, not asking but saying "Is that Good?" which is his way of saying MORE PLEEEEEASE!


May 10, 2007 ~ Kimberlyn was playing outside and I believe I was trying to get her inside for a nap. She brought a roley-poley in and said "look mom, I got a roley-poley from the flower"...GREAT! I said and told her to put the stinking thing out of the house! Okay, Okay she said...then comes in "but mom, he really loves me and won't get off my finger"...the third time she came back inside with her beloved friend, I decided to take a picture!

Well the prior post I told you that we wanted to go to OKC but feared Tommy was catching my cold...he did fine and we decided Friday morning to go. He did marvelous on the trip and we had a nice, quick visit with Glenda. Please pray for Glenda, as you may recall Glenda is our dear friend that I lived with when Tommy was in the NICU. She was diagnosed last month with a rare, nasty (I don't recall the name of it) cancer. She's doing her chemo and overall doing very well. But, at the moment she is battling a bug of some sort and not feeling so well.

We took Glenda to our (Kaitlyn and Mom's) new favorite restaurant in the city, Ted's. It's this wonderful Mexican food place and best of all one of Tommy's NICU nurses, Neans (pronounced the same as our last name) works there on weekends, so we got to see her!

Those of you who have stayed the night with us or had us stay the night with you know HOW serious Kimberlyn is about her 'raggies.' These raggies are seriously her old cloth diaper spit-up 'rags' as we called them. She never outgrew them and I believe when she was 2 and chose to throw her paci's in the trash in exchange for some cute twin baby dolls, she bonded even more with her raggies. Well, these are dwindling away as she hauls them everywhere and must leave them places. I try to always have one put up for emergencies... Last night I had no emergency raggie. I had no energy to find one after just getting in from the city. I decided IF Kimberlyn was desperate enough one of Tommy's 'rags' would do! They are the same type 'rags,' just his are a bit more blue. No joke, she took it fine, notice the white rag with blue stars she's snuggling!



Kimberlyn also got herself a new bike helmet...with the cute matching elbow and knee pads to protect herself. This is her demonstrating her one-handed riding skills last night!

He's still growing and smiling...

Tommy (19 1/2 weeks old, 9 lbs, 5 ozs) and Kimberlyn (too close to 4 years old!) smiling together yesterday.



May 2nd, Tommy 18 1/2 weeks old. Cute as can be! 8 lbs, 12ozs


Tommy 18 1/2 weeks old trying out his Jumperoo, he needs to grow a bit more! Although he couldn't touch the floor with his feet, he sure liked being 'pushed' back and forth by Dad!


Tommy 18 1/2 weeks old...just waking up after sleeping 10 hours for the first time!



Well, I have great intentions of updating this more frequently but seem to get sidetracked or tired.

Tommy is doing well and we are loving all these smiles. Larry's dad visited over the weekend and although he got some pics with his camera, we didn't. Our camera was MIA for most of the weekend.

Friday night was his first night to go 10+ hours in between feedings. Now, it's pretty standard for him to take his bedtime bottle (supposed to be at 9:30pm, but he can't hold out past 8:30om max.) around 8 or 8:15pm and then is in bed by 9pm. Most mornings I have to (actually Kaitlyn has to) WAKE him for his 6:30am morning bottle. Nothing new here, mom has always been a die-hard scheduler!

Kimberlyn woke with a congested voice on Friday and then I came down with a cold, mostly a lot of congestion and tiredness on Saturday. Kimberlyn's never turned into a real cold. Now that I'm feeling better and almost congestion-free, Tommy is catching it. Say a prayer for him. I'm so worried. Right now he has a congested, runny nose and a little cough. I may have him checked out tomorrow if he seems worse.

Unfortunately, due to Tommy not feeling well, I don't feel like braving a trip to OKC. We planned on going to get out of town overnight and visit Glenda.

I took Tommy into get weighed on Tuesday. He gained 9ozs in 7 days again. WOW! 9lbs, 5ozs now. We're so glad he finally steadily gaining well.

Still no "official" news on our move...we'll keep you posted!

Thanks for keeping up with us,
Tricia

Girls playing in an afternoon rain shower last week.

Tommy's turning into a heavy-weight...

Okay so not quite yet, BUT he did gain 10 ozs in 7 days. He weighed in yesterday (18 wks, 1 day old) at 8lbs 12ozs. Kaitlyn had an annual exam as I haven't done a healthy check-up for her or Robby in years... Robby had his yesterday, his last one was 4+ years ago! Bad mom! Just seems silly to take a healthy kid into the doctor... They checked out great and are growing right along just fine.

Tommy and I went to my eye doctor appt on Monday. Much better experience and much more reassuring findings. Back in January my doc would not / could not give me any idea on if my eyes would fully recover. Well, they did! I'm so glad and am now released from her care. Tommy and I also visited my OB as he'd only seen Tommy at delivery. It was fun to show him off, especially to people that agree with us that he's HUGE now!! Not only is he huge since birth, but in the 2 1/2 months since he was discharged from the hospital he's doubled his weight!

Tommy is doing fabulous. He takes his 3oz bottles rather fast (most of the time) and is sleeping 5-8 hour stretches at night. Just depends, I can't figure out what it depends on though :) Some nights I wonder if he didn't eat enough the day before or was he sleeping too much the day before. Either way, 5 hours is just fine and 8 hours is a big treat. BUT as most newborn moms will agree, I still wake up to check on him when he goes past 5 hours....

Over the past week or so, Tommy has seemed to change. A friend emailed saying he now looks like a really mature newborn...PERFECT description of him. He looks like an old newborn. He's gaining head control and smiling some...I will post a picture of Daddy stealing a smile from me. They aren't the huge smiles, but they sure melt your heart and I'm happy as can be!!

Aww, such brotherly love! Robby sure is enjoying his baby brother! 4-25-07 Tommy 4 months old!



Tommy's first time in the bouncy with the toybar attached...he's liking this! Even caught one of his little smiles! 4-26-07


One very impatient baby boy! Well, he only slept for 9 HOURS!! Kaitlyn got him when he woke at 6:30am...he had to wait his 10 minutes so his medicine could take affect to help him not spit up so much. 4-28-07 (17 1/2 wks old or 6 wks old adjusted)

Now this has turned very serious you see...



Daddy trying to get a smile from Tommy... 5-1-07 18 weeks, 1 day old!

Daddy go tthe smile and Mommy cut his head off...off of the picture that is :)

4 months old!! Oh, my...

Sorry for not posting on here...Okay so yesterday Tommy turned 4 months old (17 weeks 2 days) his adjusted age was 6 weeks old! He weighed in at 8lbs 2ozs and is 20.5 inches long. He's growing. Just when I think he's huge and close to the normal size of baby the same age as his adjusted age....well on the chart as a 6 week old, he's still teeny. He's in the 5th percent for weight and just under the 5th percent for height on the growth chart using his adjusted age.

I just heard the other day that preemies normally take a year to catch up to their gestational aged peers and take two years to catch up to their chronological aged peers. To us, Tommy is just perfect the way he is!

He's doing fabulous gaining just over an ounce a day. We are so thrilled for that. Since we should be moving SOON, I've stopped pumping and have started feeding him frozen breast milk with the HMF and alternating with the preemie formula.

Oh, you want to know where we're moving, well so do we. Seriously, we have it narrowed down to two places. Langley AFB, VA or Wright-Patterson, OH. We'd be thrilled for either. Long story, but we think we'll be going to Ohio and this is great since our long time friends. The Rogers are there. Robby started going to a Mom's Day Out program with Katie R. in Enid, OK and then continued on into preschool in Dover, DE with her. They had always been in class together until early in their Kindergarten year...they'd love to be in the same school for 4th Grade in the Fall. Now if we go to Virginia, I'll be slightly disappointed, but the beach is kind of like living near your best friend :) I sincerely pray we find out for sure where we'll move. Either way we'll move sometime in between Jun 15th and August 1st. More details on this to come...

Okay so the pictures...I'm going to upload a few. All of which are from Tommy turning 4 months old yesterday...and then below his big bro playing soccer on Monday night.
What an angel...

Come on Mom, no more pictures...

Tommy and Mommy...

Tommy in his new Bumbo baby seat...totally cool, wished they made this when the others were babies...

Robby into the game, just before scoring the first goal of the game, his team has won all but one which they tied!
Robby kicking or just kicked actually the first goal of the game!

Kimberlyn "goin' on a bug hunt" actually she was catching roly polies as this must be her and Kaitlyn's favorite thing to do.

Kimberlyn driving Emma out of her mind...at least Emma is girl wearing a crown. Kimberlyn made this crown at school and is very proud of it. Emma should feel honored to be able to wear it :)