Post 32

"Dirt Farm 1 to Houston...the Izzy has landed"

Well....we have Isabelle home finally...and she spent a little too long in the NICU we are afraid. She looks like a noodle that's been cooking too long...a little squishy and swollen.

PICTURE TIME!

Here we have Jabba the Izzy informing Maddie how poorly her armpit smells. (If you think that smells...you outta check out the posterior of her business...)



...and here they are being sweet. This is a rare occurrence (my opinion may be a bit biased having just been screamed at, puked on, and pooped on...all before 5am this morning).



...and here's Maddie checking Izzy with her sweet karate moves. This emanates from her awesomeness, which is just now being learned by Izzy. You must respect the Mad Dog or it will BITE YOU (or suck really hard on you, because Mad Dog ain't got no teeth).



"Take that tubby! WHACK! This Pack-n-Play is MY HOUSE...and I play to WIN!" (or something really tough-sounding like that).

Charlie's really taken to the girls, and really likes them, probably because they are people that are ACTUALLY SMALLER THAN HIM! Plus they make funny noises and smell like poo. Basically he thinks we've gone to PetsMart and gotten him two new toys...I didn't have the heart to tell him they will grow to be larger than him and will pull his his fur, his ears, and his tail, and generally harrass him for many many years to come. Oh well....he's not much of a deep thinker anyway.



...and here's a picture of Misty the Cow...she's the humidifier we bought for the girls' room. Note the atomized water coming out of her ears. Kelli and I love this thing, mainly because it scares the crap out of Charlie and it's fun to watch him bark like an attack cat at it, second because it's cute, and third because it's great for moistening up hot dog buns. Yummy! Thanks Misty! (yes, we made that name up...aren't we clever little monkeys?).



...and here we are upon arrival at The Dirt Farm. It wasn't a bad trip home, and it was definitely nice knowing we won't be going back to the hospital anytime soon. Everyone there was so nice to us. I am going to miss everyone there, and I am sure they are glad I won't be up there any longer yelling at them. Seriously, they were awesome...Thanks Presby Plano!

Check out the head on Izzy!



...and now for some close-ups...

Here is super-cute Izzy and her giant tongue. Man they really fattened her up at the NICU. She came in at 5 lbs, and left a month later at 8lbs 7 oz. From my last post, you can do the math on this weight gain. Scary. It's not that she's gained too much weight, it's that she doesn't have enough height. I better start saving for her Rascal now.



...and here is little Maddie...she's our talker/groaner and founding member of the Dirt Farm Super Funtime Pack-n-Play Girls Club. As you can see here she's bogged down in wondering how she's going to manage the new member of the DFSFPnPGC. Quite honestly, Kelli and I could tell she was much happier once Izzy arrived, and yesterday all Maddie wanted to do was reach out and touch her sister...luckily she was only millimeters away.



They are such cute little bunnies.

Post 31

From here on out, I will more than likely drop little vignettes and spot bits down on the site rather than author a slow trickle of long stories.

So here goes....

I just woke up from my 3 1/2 hour night's sleep and decided to make some coffee...



Kelli, having been up for a few hours, let me know that my coffee may end up being a little weak if I brewed it like that.

What can I say? A mother knows...and she is really a mother.

She's also decided that my driving privileges have been suspended today.

Post 30

It's 5:20am and we just put Mad Dog down after her 3:30am feeding. I"ve been up since midnight...but you know, it's Saturday night...and I love the nightlife, I love to boogie...

It normally doesn't take this long to get her through a feeding cycle, however, true to form here at The Dirt Farm, Kelli and I had to run out to the backyard and, while Kelli held the flashlight in her bathrobe and houseshoes, I took a few potshots at the skunks that live under the house with the .22.

You see, last night while I was feeding Maddie, and K-Pez was getting her 2 hours of sleep, the skunks that live under the house, who normally, by the way, are pretty well behaved and don't stink up the place, decided to, well, stink up the place. I don't really know why this happens, but I suppose they, like us, are fat, dumb, and happy with their skunk family members then someone gets upset about something and you have an argument on your hands. However, in this case, when the skunks have an argument, The Dirt Farm house gets inundated with skunk stink.

This has only happened a handful of times but I had had enough! Last night, we declared a jihad on the skunks under the house. Yes, we have decided to murder the skunks under the house for the betterment of mankind.

Some people may see this as being inhumane...I mean why don't we just capture them and release them somewhere else? To those people we say, we don't care...and if you think it's a good idea to catch a skunk and "move" it to be released at another location...well, you need your head checked. The logistics of that operation are pretty tough without a tranquilizer gun...and if I had a tranquilizer gun, I wouldn't be taking an hour and a half to feed Maddie and get her back to sleep.

Check out the peapod right here....



Isn't she just a cutie pie? Jeanae, one of the nurses at the NICU, made those hats for the girls. Kelli and I think she looks like a little Aunt Jemima.

So...I bet you are wondering about Isabelle? She's decided to hang back at the NICU for a little more grow time. She was supposed to come home this Monday, BUT.....this morning she had another apnea and, when that happens, it restarts the "go-home" clock to 5 days. So, we may see Izzie at the Dirt Farm by this weekend, barring any more apnea episodes.

So that's a bummer, but it's ok. Like everything else, we will muddle through with God's grace and the help of friends and family.

Here's the little Mini-Me herself..



Isn't she just too sweet?

She's a little chunky monkey too (Karr genes are kicking in here)...she weighs in at 8 lbs, having gained 3 lbs in a month.

You know, at this rate, by the time she's 18 she will weigh 648 lbs! And by the time she turns 30, she will weigh in at 1080 lbs...over half a ton!

Good grief we've got to get a handle on this situation....pronto! Oh well, who knows, by then, we all may be that fat, and that weight may be normal. At least she'll fit right in at Wal-Mart on her Rascal, parking in the handicap spot so she doesn't get winded walking the 20 feet across the drive aisle into the store.

Oh man that's bad...but funny...at least it is on 3 hours of sleep.

Ok...I promise to blog more from here on out. This last week has been a total cluster...with Maddie coming home, K and I having NO SLEEP, no idea what to do, and no idea how to do it even if we knew what to do.

I commented to Kelli last Wednesday morning after we spent the night up at the hospital "rooming in" with absolutely no sleep whatsoever, that it's either a cruel irony or extremely bad design that new parents have this incredible responsbility to care for a frail little human being, having had almost no training, and all the while doing it with a lack of sleep and therefore diminished mental capacity. To me, it's like showing up for the first day of Driver's Education class (I guess they still have this...who knows) where on day one they hand you your license, give you the keys to a car, and put you in the middle of the pack of a NASCAR race at 220mph. It's insane....and I think that's the way people like it!

After we had Maddie home a couple of days, I went back to work for a few important meetings (those were fun!), and had people at work looking at me and my dazed and glazed eyes, and they'd kind of smile a little and enjoy the fact that another person was going through this little joyous misery that they too had to endure. No one tells you ALL the gory details, not because they don't want to, but more likely because when it happened to them, they too were operating with 2 hours of sleep and probably can't remember the mess they were in.

Oh well...with these two little monkeys, I'll take it all day and night (which is good, because that's what we're doing)

Better close....

Thanks for stopping by. Be cool, stay in school...and don't do drugs.

Don't forget to have a look at the Flickr site ever now and then for new pics. Right now we only have 450 or so up.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/littleloosedeuce