Yesterday, today

Gosh. So, as one might imagine, I haven't had much time to blog since we brought Alex home on Wednesday. Lots of laundry. Many diaper changes. It's a huge relief to have him here with us all the time, though being tethered to the apnea monitor is a big chore.

Above all else, Alex the baby is a cliche. We literally did not sleep a single minute his first night home. Between him crying (or screaming) and the apnea monitor going off relentlessly because of problems with the leads, I think we finally got to sleep around 6 AM. Not kidding. Last night, we took shifts. I fell asleep on the sofa with Alex next to me in his bouncy chair around 5:30. When he awoke at 8 ready for breakfast, I passed him off to Mike, who had called it a night somewhere around 4. Today, we tried to keep him awake as much as possible in the hopes that he might sleep better (or at least some) at night. That of course required us to be awake as much as possible.

I'm functioning surprisingly well for someone on three hours sleep, though this has given me an entirely new appreciation for what it really would have been like to have twins. My friend Kelly just had twins two weeks ago and she seems to be handling it all surprisingly well- in that she is still sane and she was not a puddle of tears when she called me today.

Today we took Alex out for a long walk to have dinner outside at a local restaurant. It was really nice. Finally a family untied. Of course AO, in a moment reminiscent of his finest NICU moments, puked all over himself. Discovering that this restaurant has no changing table, I learned how to re-dress a baby on my lap, a valuable skill apparently.