REGROUPING & GIRLS' FIRST DENTIST TRIP

We are getting into a sort of routine.  John and I have decided that we want to meet every nurse that cares for our children which means that we need to go at least once on the day shift and once on the night shift.  Usually I am spending 2-3 hours there a day, and John is stopping by during his work day. Then, one of us (or both if we have a sitter) will go back up for a while at night after the older girls are in bed.  We want to just be around our sweet William and Violet and hold them when we can and give them bottles when we can.  They tire very easily, and so today, they were mostly sleeping and getting tube fed.  Such is the life - you lay there sleeping and have food delivered straight to your belly.  Bless their sweet hearts.

Here's William with his eyes open - we have just seen them a few times!

And, here are Violet and I a few days ago.  She is just precious and cuddly and wonderful.  I plan on putting bows on her as soon as she weighs enough to get into the crib with brother.  (in case you were wondering . . .)  She has way more hair than Lily and Bella ever did.

The nurses have been truly wonderful.  They seem genuinely delighted about all of our circumstances and the way that God put us all together.  We have met lots of different nurses and been so pleased with all of them.  We also found out that we will have to spend the night there with them before we are allowed to take them home.  I guess keeping other kids alive at home is not good enough.  But, we do understand, and I am thankful that they want to make sure we know what to do.

It hit me today that these children are really ours (eek!  still amazing!), and I need to switch gears on what I do with my time when I am not at the hospital.  Like I should clean out the nursery closet and put Lily and Bella's stuff together in what will soon be their shared room.  I would like to decorate the twins' room.  I should sleep some more just for fun.  I am trying to regroup and wrap my mind around having four kids and the logistics that entails.

Before the sweet babes were born, I had scheduled Lily and Bella for their first dentist appointment for today.  Lily is a little past due, and Bella is a little early.  I wanted them on the same schedule, so we did it all in one fell swoop today.

I made the extremely poor choice of scheduling it at 2 p.m.  That is smack in the middle of nap time.  Now, let the record show that neither girl ever naps during nap time, but I am beginning to see (since I have been frequently disrupting it since the twins' arrival) that their daily time alone is so good for them.

In spite of that, Lily did beautifully at the dentist.  She was a model patient.




The TVs on the ceiling playing cartoons definitely helped.  Bella was much less cooperative, which is what the dentist said he would expect from a 2.5 year old.  We did finally manage to get her into a chair with me watching The Little Mermaid on the ceiling.  Just what I was hoping for my afternoon to look like.  She screamed through her exam, but he was able to see all of her teeth.



After they both got a clean bill of dental health, they got to pick out toys.  Lily picked a rubber snake, and Bella picked a car.  I tried to gently steer Lily away from the snake, because I loathe snakes.  But that's what she wanted, and she had done so well that I couldn't refuse her on the grounds that I just don't like snakes.

I had told the girls that we could get ice cream as a reward.  (I didn't realize they would be getting toys when I dangled this treat out there.)  I made another poor choice and took them to get McFlurries.  Which should really just be called McMessies for a two and four year old.  It required a full outfit change when we got home.

In the picture below, you can catch a bit of the sour attitude that Bella carried through the afternoon.  Also, you can see a bit of what was about to be my low point during this outing.



Lily had been struggling with the crazy spoons that they give out, and she opted to use her toy snake's flicking tongue as a spoon and started to eat ice cream off of that.  Oh. My. Gross.  At that point, I told the girls they had one more minute to eat as much ice cream as they could before we cut our ice cream losses and headed home.



And that wore me plum out.  Lord help me when I have them all home, and I mean that sincerely.  I will need a lot of the Lord's help, sustenance and patience to take care of four kids four and under.  People will tell me all of the time, "You've got your hands full."  And they will be right.