Remembering . . .

I was planning on going to bed early tonight but it's just too nice to have the house to myself! All is quiet and peaceful. I'm trying to go to bed earlier so I can get up and run in the mornings but so far this week it has not been going well. I even made sure I didn't nap this afternoon so I'd be more tired but here I am, wide awake.

I was reading my friend Judy's blog tonight and a lot of memories came back. She had her baby yesterday and he's in the nicu because his lungs were a little underdeveloped. She writes about getting to hold him for the first time and talks about his stats and how her older boys have to have their temp taken before they can go in. Tears just started dripping down my cheeks.

It's amazing to me how quickly I can get taken back to this time:

The emotions return in full force. My eyes tear up, my heart rate goes up and I get a little pit in my stomach. It was such a helpless feeling to have Rachel and Owen in there and not be able to do much to help them get out. I remember crying a lot and feeling guilty no matter what I did. I remember wanting to see them but not really wanting to be at the hospital a lot - feeling like I couldn't do much when I was there and there were two older kids at home that needed me also. Then feeling guilty when I was home because I had two newborns that I wasn't taking care of. And it felt so incredibly wrong to leave the hospital without them. And even more wrong bringing one home without the other 10 days later. Although when Rachel came home 8 days after Owen, we did contemplate taking her back - she was not an easy baby! We did seriously wonder if they let her leave too soon because she was not eating well but after a day she seemed to get the hang of it.

I mostly remember crying a lot during this time. My mom would try and prepare Brendan and Tori because it really bothered Tori. She started looking deep into my eyes, trying to see if I had been crying or if I was going to start soon. I remember one time a few months after they had been home I was laughing hard and my eyes teared up and she instantly looked very concerned. Then I almost did start crying for real. I think I have extra tear ducts.

On a more light-hearted note, this morning we were doing our Bible and history lessons. I got the books we needed and sat down on the floor and told the kids what we were going to be talking about. Owen came in the room and saw me sitting there and ran to the bookshelf, grabbed my Bible, climbed on the couch, opened it up and began to "read". What a great thing for him to imitate.

It's very difficult to get a good picture of both of them together but here they are looking at all our books for school. I had to move this step stool and put the books on a higher shelf because it was impossible to keep them on the shelf and the edges of the books were getting nibbled on.

Rachel apparently has inherited my blinking problem when getting a picture taken. And of course, they both decided to get up after 2 tries. They really do love looking at books though!