Our New Pet

Our borrowed cat Ginger who danced on our living room floor, and endured much unwanted love, has been displaced, and replaced by our new pet. She went home with Grandma Janet a bit dejected that she could no longer hop up into the crib with all those blankets. As far as pets go, however, Ian is a little bit high-maintenance. As far as sons go he is well above average. While he can't dance yet, he does accept our love more graciously than Ginger. His highest function is to suck. A simple action that allows him to add an ounce a day to the package that we have to carry out to the car. The fact that Ginger ate from a bowl was also a plus. Ian, on the other hand,just keeps sucking, day and night: Like he's just waiting for us to put some food in there for him. They say that is normal. Normal for him if no one else. He easily makes up for his all-night sucking habit with his all-day being cute habit.

So far we have been about 90% successful in keeping him to the four hour eat/sleep cycle that the NICU nurses so thoughtfully put him on. Maybe he is too small to make much trouble yet, but we think we have it pretty easy. The only real problem with having him home is how incredibly obvious it makes it that Jeremy is not. In the beginning of our NICU stay it felt like the best thing for all of us was to have them there. Not anymore. Jeremy is a couple ounces away from his release, most likely this week, but not soon enough. The more we learn about Ian the more we are aware of how little we know about Jeremy. The more we hold, cuddle,and play with Ian the more painful it becomes to think of Jeremy in his plastic crib, receiving only visits from people who have to scrub and put on gowns before they touch him. The more we hold one at a time at different times in different parts of town, the more obvious it is that they should be together. Of course we realize that it is short lived, yet every time we go to the hospital it feels unfair that he has to rely on us taking a drive to come over to see him while his brother is under our constant care. Every time we leave him there we have to tell him that we will break him out soon, that he will be reunited with his brother soon. Our outings take place with a constant place-holder. Half of our sons is missing. We feel his absence though we have not yet experienced his presence.

All that sadness aside, Jeremy is easily on track to be home this week. He needs to be 2000 grams, last night he was 1921. He is doing great and often eating as much as his heavier brother. Just a couple of grams until freedom.