My great grandmother's name was Ila. She was feisty and strong. So much so, that she insisted on splitting wood at 6:00 a.m...when she was 80. She lived until she was 96 and passed away only a few years ago. She was known mostly to family and anyone else as Maw Chapman. For Thanksgiving our entire family of about 35 crammed into her maybe-900-sq-foot house and had some of the best Thanksgivings ever. I loved it and miss those gatherings in her house. Maw loved to cook for these get togethers and ... View the Post
Wi-Fi Available Here
It is the one constant in our life since the moment Tucker was born. A monitor. Every single moment of Tucker's almost 9 months has been captured in numbers. In vital signs. His heart rate. His respiratory rate. The oxygen saturation in his blood. The first 3 months of the NICU experience, the parents spend watching, staring, and willing the monitor to go a certain direction. I journal-ed about it one of those first weeks we were in the NICU. When we would visit Tucker, the majority of our time ... View the Post
A Rookie Lesson in the Walk
Tucker has never been on a walk. He's 8 months old and the only time he gets in the stroller is when we go to doctor appointments. When we brought him home, it was right in the heat of summer. The air quality was terrible and his lung doctor didn't want us to have him outside, he was after all, already on oxygen to help him breathe. Dense heat and humidity would not have been good for his little lungs. So we waited. And it was hard. Before we had Tucker, I had imagined the long walks we would ... View the Post
Make a Joyful Noise
When Tucker was born, he was so small and so fragile it was really unbelievable that this was our baby. We watched him day in and day out do the things that most babies do inside the womb. His eyes were fused shut. We got to see them open-first his right and a few days later, his left. His movements were jerky and uncoordinated-I should have been feeling these twitches and spastic kicks inside my tummy. But we watched as his nervous system developed and his movements became more and more easy. ... View the Post
The Countdown and the Big Break Up
I love fall. Favorite season-hands down. But fall means something different this year. On October 1st, preemie and especially micro preemie families all over the country started the dreaded week 1 of isolation. The official start of cold/flu/RSV season. We're heading into our cocoon for the winter. Sigh. We visited the lung doctor today and he re-iterated the plan. And he said Tucker was one of the best dressed babies he had ever seen. Score. Isolation means more intense hand washing. ... View the Post
Crying at the Stoplights
It happened. I said it wouldn't. I was ready for it. It would be no big deal. But there I was, laying out his clothes the night before. Making his bottles. Writing out his schedule. And color coding it. I felt it coming, tightening my heart a little, trying to sting my eyes. I ignored it and looked for my heels. And my pearls. And where did I put that pair of Spanx? I was going to need them. Then it was time. Monday morning. My first day back to work. First of all-you should know this about ... View the Post
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