June 27, 2006

As will be the trend in my upcoming posts, this will have to be quick. I'm sure that someone very small and very pink will be hollering for one thing or another soon.

Things are going very well here in the Pruetz house. Sleep is a very elusive thing, especially last night when Grace decided that she would cry from 1:30 a.m. until 5:30 a.m. Todd's alarm goes off at 6:00 a.m. You do the math.

But aside from walking around like zombies, we couldn't be happier with our little bundles of (noisy) joy.

Today I took the girls to see their pediatrician for the first time. I harbored a lot of anxiety about the trip -- getting the girls and their stupid apnea monitors in and out of the building using the enourmous double stroller, what to do with Devin and keeping him in line (as if that's possible) and what Dr. Trexler would say. I took Addison, my eight-year-old niece with me as a diversionary tactic for Devin and she was a huge help. Learning to manuever the stroller will take some time and I'll be so darned happy when we can rid ourselves of the monitors. I felt like a bull in a china shop with all of my "equipment."

The appointment went as any other pediatrician appointment would go. Take their temps, weigh them, check limbs and joints and measure stuff. Happily, the girls are doing perfectly. Faith weighs 5 lbs, 0 oz while Grace is tipping the scales at 5 lbs, 13 oz.

Just for good measure, Dr. T sent us over to the hospital next door to do a CBC (complete blood count), just to make sure there are no abnormalities in the vitamins and minerals present in our blood.

So we packed up all of the stuff and the kiddos into the minivan (Todd calls it Black Thunder...) -- an event that takes at least seven or eight minutes -- and drove a block-and-a-half to the hospital parking lot. Once again, Addy got Devin out of the car, while I fought with the stoller, got the girls out of the car and into the stroller and tried doing so without setting off the very loud monitors. Success. But it took nearly ten minutes. I kid you not.

The hospital was fine and the bloodwork looks good. Both girls are perfectly healthy.

But my first outing with Faith and Grace was an eye-opening experience. The world loves a set of twins. The world especially loves a set of identical twins. And the world has no problem letting you know how much it loves them.

I'm not usually one to shy away from attention. In fact, give me the spotlight and it'll take a hook to get me off stage. But when it comes to my very small, very premature children, I get a little antsy. And so, as stranger after stranger after stranger stopped to say, "Oh look twins!" or to tell me about their niece in Chicago who had quadruplets last summer, I started to get a little frustrated. First of all, I couldn't get three feet without someone stopping me. Secondly, why did they all feel the need to touch them??? I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

As we were leaving the hospital, a tour was coming through and when we passed them, all 15 or 20 men and women sighed, "Awwwww..." in unison. Do they rehearse this stuff?

Okay. I'm outta here. Devin is requesting a "Thomas the Tank Engine" book this evening and I must oblige. Poor kid -- his center-of-attention status has been ripped away. He's doing well though. We're very proud.

Pray for sleep for us. We need it. :)

E