swimming

Lance and Alex did thier first swimming last night and it was so much fun!

Alex loves the water and had a great time, especially considering that it was his first time in a big pool with all the echos and tons of other people. They started off with songs, sit-listen-wait at the edge of the pool, and a game of playing with little plastic balls in the water. They did some backfloating, which we'd already been practicing that in the tub and hottub. They are getting ready to learn how to go under water - so Lance would say to Alex "Ready, set..." big breath by Lance and the instructor would squeeze a sponge over his head to have water on his face. He did very well at this.

She said next week he is going to try going under!

Lance had the biggest smile on his face the whole time and it was visible how proud he was of Alex and how much fun it was for him, too. Alex was really aware of his surroundings - since he would see me on the sidelines and wave to me. It warmed my heart!

We are so excited about next week! Lance is already planning on all the practices in the bathtub and hottub.

P.S. He was so tired... on the way out the door of the pool he was fading fast. He had a big bottle and was asleep in the car at 7:00 PM. We got home around 7:30 PM and picked him up and put him right into bed (he already had his pjs on - thank goodness!) and he was still asleep! He slept a so good because he was so tired out. Good tired. He did wake up 2x last night for a bottle - I guess all that swimming makes one a hungry little boy!

Hello...who is it? This is Alex

Alex is obsessed with phones.

Everything is a phone. Anything can be a phone. Even nothing at all.

He holds all sorts of big and small objects up to his ear and waits for us to say "hello". It's really funny when it's something really big and he gets mad he can't get it up to his ear. We know that the phone is his magical item right now. When we need to calm him down, like when we're talking on an important phone call ourselves, we give him a phone. And when we give him one of his cellphones (read:fake) and he knows it, and it's a really important phone call - we sacrifice one of our real phones, or the best of the best - one of our real cell phones.

Works wonders!

We took him home one year ago today

April 4, 2007 - We took our little 5-lb boy home for the first time after 16 days in the NICU. We walked in the door to our house and looked at each other and literally said "what do we do now?". After all the things that had happened, pre-eclamsia, c-section, hospital, feeding tubes, CPAP, jaundice, preemie baby... Here we were - "normal". Going home with a baby.

We just decided to hold him and remember this special day. Of course, we didn't have everything as set as we needed, either, and there were things that we didn't even think of thinking about, but everything worked out and we had Alex home. So there was a bit of scrambing that first night.

April 4th, 1998 - Flash back

It also happens to be our 10 year first date anniversary. Lance called me up and asked me on a blind date. Our first date was Saturday April 4th, 1998. Allison was 20 years old! And Lance was 25!

Wow - I can't believe it's been that long!