Who'da thunk it

We have a new sitter starting next week and she just spent the morning getting acquainted with our systems and routines. As we worked our way through the morning I gave her some tips on how to help the day go more smoothly and I realized something: I am good at this. Who'd have thought! It was about 11 months ago now that they were handing us Ella and Clayton and actually letting us walk out the doors of the hospital. If you have ever made that walk with a new child you know how terrifying it can be. The walk becomes even more terrifying if the children you are taking home have been hooked up to machines for the last 7 weeks with an army of doctors and nurses monitoring their every breath and heartbeat and actually intervening at times to help those hearts continue to beat and those breaths continue to come. So when they unhook the last monitor, say good luck and send you on your way, you kinda want to ask, are you sure? How will we know if they have a heart rate drop or burp and can't clear their airway or any of the zillion other things that we had seen happen in the last months? You mean this is MY job now? I guess that is kind of how it is supposed to work for new parents we just had a little delay, or maybe not so much a delay seeing as they cheated and even that trip home at 7 weeks old was over a week before their due date.

As she was thumbing through their first 6 month photo albums with all the feeding tube pictures and later when she was learning to feed Mya we talked a little about their first few months and how they learned to eat. I kinda smiled when I told her that one of the cautions we first heard when we got Mya's MRI results was that she might not ever take a bottle. Well look at her now. It might not be the easiest task of the day but ever since April 17, 2010 when she finished her first complete bottle she hasn't looked back. I remember those 2 weeks when we just had Ella and Clayton home and how during the night feedings we were in a panic: how are we going to do this when we have 3? But somehow we just did. You sleep when you can, you get help when you can and at some point you emerge from the blur and realize you have become a competent parent. Who'd have thought.

I love a good before and after shot: