Brotherly Love

 Ethan is so helpful with Noah.  (Please excuse the pantless picture.  He is potty training.)  He loves to help Noah swing.

While Phil was at SXSW, Mimi came to help.  I prayed for a snuggly baby and apparently REALLY got what I was asking for.  Noah wants to be held ALL the time.  He's up there now fussing because I put him down long enough to complete this post with two hands.

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E's first time holding his brother.

Ice cream with daddy on the porch.

Petting the kangaroo (a Joey, he corrects me) at the Austin Rodeo. 

My friend Bethany and her son Hayden with Ethan.  She was  a huge help that day.  

Ethan is doing better at entertaining himself while I care for Noah.  He is really into challenging puzzles.  This one is a 28 piece Dora one I got at Target for $1.  He put it together all by himself!  So proud.

I made delicious cornbread to go with our chili yesterday.  In memory of my G-ma, I made cornbread, sugar and milk that night.  Mmm 

Last days of leaves

Somehow learned to swing on the regular swings.  He's even pretty good at pumping his feet to gain momentum and keep going.  Awesome!

Swinging together

Enjoying the leaves.  Yes, we need to seriously mow and mulch them up.

Still working on playing by himself.  This is what happened when he finally did.  He also 'painted' his finger nails purple.  He was fascinated when he saw my toenails were painted dark.  He kept saying, "momma that SILLY!"

Sleeps in the swing!  He loves to be in all the action and cries when I try to lay him down upstairs during the day.  Who can sleep with Ethan yelling about...but this seems to be what Noah wants.  I forget that he is as used to Ethan's voice and Phil's or mine.  Yesterday Noah was crying and I told Ethan to go sing him a song, and he stood right here by the swing and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  Then he patted his arm and said, "it ok baby noah, momma coming".

Playtime

Since Noah is home, I'd thought this blog would be laid to rest.  However, my family has enjoyed hearing about the happenings up here, so I promised to keep this blog going and share all that we are up to.  So, welcome to the newly repurposed Coffman family blog.  (If your not interested in following along, you can delete this blog from your reader, I won't be offended and honestly, I won't know.  There's no way for me to track those kinds of things.  ;)

No one from my small group was able to attend our New Parent's class baby shower.  They through me one instead last Monday night.  It was so very beautiful!  Of course, I didn't remember to take pictures of the balloons and table set up - but it was very very sweet (literally).  Thank you friends! 

Sleeping in Daddy's arms

Ethan loves to help.  I had to buy him a taller stool so he could reach our counters.  Here we are making a dessert for  Daddy.

Ms. Bonnie and Ethan's MDO classroom. 

 Playing play dough has become so much more fun with an imagination.  Here we are making a birthday cake and singing happy birthday to 'all the family'.  Notice how perfectly spaced the white 'icing' and candles are.

Having to stay home and avoid large crowds for Noah's sake has started to wear on me.  Ethan loves going to the park, and we do try to go once a week, but he definitely needs his outdoor play more often.  My mom went in with us to buy E a playground.  Here almost every guy from our small group came to help out.  It was a HUGE job and an even bigger blessing.  They even worked through the drizzle.  We are very blessed to have our community. 

In progress...  It's completed now.  We still need to stain it, and get much requested wheel so Ethan can "drive to Africa" and replace one of those swings with a bucket type swing.   Overall it is the perfect height and size.  Ethan begs to go slide.  I love it.  Thanks MOM! 

Noah all snuggled in my homemade (by Morgan V) Moby wrap.  can you see a sweet little hand?  He'll sleep in there for hours.  So not like Ethan.  :)

Enjoying the beautiful weather.  Finger painting!  

Playing with Daddy.  

Fat and Happy

The day we brought N home.  

Ethan has been great at learning to occupy himself while I help Noah.  He truly built that train track mostly by himself.  He was so happy - running around it saying, "I DID IT! I DID IT! LOOK AT ME!"  I had to take a picture.

 Our family.

 Ethan loves Noah.  He'll go to him and give him kisses while he sleeps.  Here he wanted me to take a picture of him with Noah. I forgot what we started laughing about, but I love that I captured his silly personality.

And, Ethan has decided he wants to potty train.  When we are home, he wants to be "all naked".  It was so cold last week, that I decided he needs to at least wear underwear.  We have few accidents, and he is great at telling me he needs to go "poo poo potty", though sometimes he means he needs to pee.  Terminology mix up aside, I am so proud of him!  We love this "too cool" pose he struck.

Noah now weighs 6 lbs. 5 oz. as of Tuesday.  He is growing so extremely well.  He is also sleeping 4 hour stretches sometimes, so it's promising that we'll get even better nights sleep in the coming weeks as he gets bigger.  We are all very very thankful.

Sunday's the Day!

It looks like our journey in the NICU will end on Sunday!!  Noah is coming home!!  HOORAY!   Here's our big boy!  5 lbs. 9 oz. today and ready to come home!  

It's been a long month, but we are so incredibly thankful for all the help, blessings, and prayers we've received.  Here Ethan is enjoying a gift we received in the mail from our dear Sugar Land friends the Armendarizes.

When Phil's parents were here they blessed us with a kitchen re-organization, complete with some much needed Elfa shelving.  Here is the work in progress.  HUGE difference in the functionality of our kitchen.  Everything is so easy to access!

I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but in the midst of this I had to complete defensive driving online.  I got a speeding ticket last November for going 35 in a 25 in our neighborhood.  :(  I would like to note this was my first speeding ticket in 12 years, if that excuses my lawlessness.  While taking the course, I finished knitting Ethan a hat and knit Noah's hat.  Unfortunately Noah's hat fit more like a yarmulke (yamaka).  

Phil and I had to kick in it gear to get his nursery ready.  We still need to replace the E's with N's, but Ethan is now in his new big boy room, so we've been spending our nights in here getting things ready.  BIG thanks to my mom for making the bumper to match the crib skirt.  It helps having a great seamstress for a mom!

So anxious for Sunday!  We're trying to prepare ourselves in case there is any reason he can't come home on Sunday.  It almost seems too good to be true!!!

The Countdown

It's like the NICU nurses told me, once you settle into a routine, it will be time to prepare to go home.  I arrived on Monday to a 5 lb. 2 oz. big boy!  Look at those chubby cheeks!  He's taking bottles like a champ - 4 feedings a day he'll take the full bottle and then the other 4 he eats over half and then poops out and gets the rest by tube.  He's 34 weeks now, and his maturity is still wowing the nurses.  We are so proud of Noah for working so hard so that he can come home.

The NICU is now estimating he'll be home in less than 2 weeks!  There are a number of things we need to do to prepare...I bought his new sheets for the crib, borrowed newborn clothing from friends (and got some cute warm pjs from his Gram), and secured a car seat.  Now we need a double stroller and a new monitor.  Anyone have a double stroller we can borrow?  Preferably one that works with a Graco car seat?

I'm trying not to get to fixated on a coming home date.  I won't know the exact day until 24-48 hours ahead of time.  So many things have to align perfectly before he is released.  Please pray he doesn't have any more apnea episodes; his last one was Jan. 30, so five days from Feb. 1 he is considered safe to be released, but he still has to take every feeding fully by bottle, and still not have any new apnea episodes which will incur another 5 days in the NICU.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  Phil went out of town this weekend on a pre-paid trip to Dallas.  We had booked it on Hotwire, non-refundable, thinking, of course, I'd still be pregnant and I'd be able to go.  He found a friend to go in my place.  Anyway, he came back from the trip with the flu and today returned to work.

I'll take another picture of Noah tomorrow.  By then, he would have gained a few more ounces.  Maybe I'll try to take one so you can see his little fat rolls developing on his legs.  ;)

Uncle Brian and Daddy gives him a bottle

Ethan loved having Uncle Brian here.  At first he didn't understand why Chloe and Molly and Aunt Ange weren't coming too, but he quickly settled into demanding Uncle Brian's attention every waking minute.

Brian meeting Noah for the first time.

I like that his hand shows perspective of Noah's size.  As of yesterday, he is 4 lbs. 7 oz., though Phil and I will get conflicting gram conversions at our separate visits during the day.  Hm.

Our sweet boy sleeping.  He no longer requires the canula you saw in earlier pictures.  He has very few instances of breathing apnea, so they removed it a few days ago.  Notice that beautiful blanket?  Volunteers at the hospital knitted/crocheted (I can't tell which) it and gave it to us.  It is so beautiful and cheery to see and keeps him warm.

Last night we took Ethan up to see Noah again.  This was only his second time because he had a runny nose for the past few weeks.  Daddy had never bottle fed Noah before.  Noah took half the bottle.  He is taking a full feeding by bottle up to 3 x a day, and then sometimes a half feeding and then sometimes not at all.  Huge progress!!  They still project 2-3 weeks until he comes home.

I am asked a lot what he needs to do to come home.  I realized I might not have posted that here.  There are three main criteria for him: 1) get all of his feedings through a nipple, either breastfed or bottle 2) no instances of breathing apnea plus 5 days and 3) there are some physiological things he just has to mature through before he is safe to be home with us without the constant monitoring.  Like right now he doesn't know how to suck, swallow and breath at the same time.  He is only 33 weeks - so that really doesn't develop until 35 weeks, so just waiting on that and then he should easily be able to take all of his feedings efficiently by a combination of bottle and breast feeding.  He does not have to master breast feeding at every feeding in order to come home.  We'll transition to that on our own once he's home.