. . . except more crazy.

It's been a trying couple of weeks here in the Haven. We ran out of breast milk and Crazy II decided she didn't want to drink bottles anymore. Between the need to have her gain weight so that the pulmonologists would let us get her off the ventilator (which means she HAS to eat) and the spectre of developing oral aversions from forcing the bottle (some preemies don't eat cause they don't like to - and you wind up with a 5 year old drinking Ensure all day), we had our hands full every 3 hours. Frustration and Anger filled our house. Before that all happened, we took some pictures.

Our visiting physical therapist left a mat for Leigh to crawl on. DHV appropriated it for jumping.
He makes "ay bee dee zoup" with actual letters. That's the letter Q he's feeding to baby.Play time. DHV's face reflects great concern that LRV is getting attention.
Tummy time.Janine and Leigh.
That's a crazy face.

There ain't no cure for crazy . . .

It snowed here last Monday. DHV and DKV made snowballs, and snow angels, and shoveled snow . . . and then got in the swing set. That's how you get the nickname, Crazy I.
LRV has been working on standing. She seems to really enjoy it. Here she looks like she's had a few too many down at Mory's.
Baby Leigh does not like being messed with.
DHV thinks her head is just perfect!
Crazy I tumbles head over heels and Crazy II could not be happier.
Crazy II giving her teething rings the business.

Cars

DKV and SHV went for a run with DHV in the chariot this morning. Before we left, DHawk insisted on taking his red car with him and stuffed it in his fleece pocket. He ran the last block back to our house, then ran down our backyard hill and fell. The impact jolted the red car out of his fleece. Still on all fours, he picked up the car and started pushing it around the driveway. 100% seamless transition.

And then refused to go inside.
Note the intensity.And the exhilaration. NASCAR, baby! Our ticket out of this dump!The only thing that got him moving was the temptation of Naples pizza.

Leigh is getting all kinds of better. "Who's the number one robobaby in this house?!"
Here we practice crawling.
This usually makes her cry. Robobabies have a very muffled cry, so they tend to over-dramatize their facial expressions.
Here she is actually crying but has forgotten to make the face.
Not! This was after we pumped laughing gas into her vent and made her forget the whole thing!

No place like home

Baby Leigh drummed up some sort of cold last week and her room was filled with a cacophony of beeping alarms and furious suctioning, so SHV took her to the hospital last Friday. They decided to keep her while they decided she didn't have any of the viruses they could test for. Leigh got bored pretty fast so we took her home on Sunday. She was so tired when we got home that she fell asleep right on her face.
We also got our very own mega-tank of liquid oxygen. That's that shiny cylinder that looks like R2D2 (or a Dalek, for you super-geeks) in the background. It likes to make ominous hissing noises, like a rocket being fueled at Cape Canaveral.She didn't need the oxygen bar after the weekend so now we're left with a giant fire hazard in her bedroom. If DHV was a little older we could go outside and freeze some stuff, like gummy bears, or soda, or slugs, or GI Joes. Of course, it's already freezing cold outside so maybe it wouldn't be that fun.

Danny just kept playing with his cars, and amazing us with random complete sentences.

Developmental Milestones

SHV took robocop (aka McBigcheeks, Queen of Vomit, UC, Crazy II, babyleigh, Lady Fartsalot, etc) to the Yale Child Study Center last week for a 6 month follow up visit. They made her do all kinds of things and pronounced her an overwhelmingly average 6 month old. Average sounds pretty good to us.

In celebration, pictures!
Baby Leigh peacefully being suctioned.
Behold the rolls and belly and tubing.
A more reflective moment.DHV remains the average little boy in his obsession with "ghars." We recently engaged in a long debate over the performance of each, categorizing them as "pfast" or "loh."And here's Crazy I, running so pfast.

Home life

Just some more pictures to show you what life is like here.
DHV sure likes to run. Here he runs with his hands up high.SHV and LRV sharing a chuckle.
When you take 100 pictures, one is guaranteed to be a keeper.
We think he should be selling cigarettes, or toddler cologne, with this look.

Drooltime has come. We suspect this heralds the appearance of teeth.DHV plays valet.This is Danny at his best; concentrating, head low to the floor, with no concern for anything outside the 1 meter sphere around him and his cars. Here's Baby Leigh sitting up unassisted . . .. . . and dancing. Check out those gang signs, Theo!

Floortime

Some photos of Leigh and Danny hanging out. Every couple of days he asks to hold her.
Checking Baby Leigh's posture.
Teaching her to pick her nose.Obligatory noogie!
We all fall down!