1st birthday countdown - devin's 3rd month...

i think devin's 3rd month of life was the best month of my life! he finally came home from the NICU after 79 days on 9/9/09! he was 2.5 months old when he came home but was only 37 weeks 6 days old at the same time! the fact that he came home before his original due date and of course the fact that he was perfectly healthy and didn't require any oxygen or monitors was just so satisfying for me. he weighed 7 lbs.at discharge, which was also pretty impressive. he really proved so many drs. and nurses wrong and amazed his dad and i. the day he came home was a busy one. we had "roomed in" the night before. this is when preemie parents spend a night in a hospital room with their child alone. we had to prove we were capable of taking care of our own kid. in many instances i think this is a great thing, but in some, its just degrading. devin didn't have any special equipment or anything we needed to learn and get used to, so it was just an uncomfortable situation. needless to say, the next night when he was home with us was totally different so i don't really see a point to the whole rooming in thing even though we loved spending alone time with devin, it just wasn't fun. nurses were bothering us for silly things all night and it was a really crappy room. so the morning he was being discharged was a loooong one. we had to sign a bunch of stuff and bring in proof that we had made appointments for his first drs. appointments after discharge. we had to wait for a pharmacist to come and explain how to administer medications, we had to watch a demonstration of how to mix formula in pumped breast milk for added calories and so much more that i cant remember!

this is one of his last NICU pictures. since we never got to get one of those newborn hospital pictures, this is the one i consider ours ;)

i finally got to dress my little one in his going home outfit and the nurse stripped him of all his last monitor wires! we finally had a cordless baby! i picked him up and stepped out of his little cubicle into the hall i think i almost died! it felt so weird/scary/wonderful. hospital policy was to wheel the moms out of the NICU in a wheelchair and i honestly couldn't have been happier about that rule. i felt like all the moms i had been watching for the last 11 weeks. i would see them sitting in the lobby waiting for their husbands to pull the car around. they would be holding their healthy baby and most likely had never seen the NICU- while i was going up to watch my son grow in a plastic box. man, i hated those women for the longest time, but today, i WAS one! the only difference was that i was sitting next to about 6 HUGE bags of pumped breast milk stored in little bottles that had been kept in the NICU freezer. oh well, to me, it felt normal.

driving home was crazy, fabian was driving and i was in the backseat with devin. every little thing made us jump and i was so nervous about devin not being hooked up to any kind of machine. for all his life we had relied on a screen to let us know he was safe and we didn't have that anymore! i dont know how i got over that! but i did... and quick ;)

finally home!

first feeding at home!

fraggle meeting devin for the first time. (devin is yawning not screaming in agony despite what it looks like). i think fraggle was like "hey! that was my bed you made for me pulled up next to your bed! why is there something in it now?"

this is the picture i stared at constantly while i was in the hospital. this is what i was waiting for the whole time!

here's what out freezer looked like... yeah, we literally had to duct tape it shut.

the day after he came home we ventured out for the first time to his first pediatrician appointment. the office was way too far away and the dr. was really weird. we didn't go back again but here are some pictures of how cute devin looked all ready to go!

we finally felt like a normal family. we had our healthy baby, home and happy. he liked his swing and liked to cuddle in his boppy and nap for a good part of each day. he was just a normal newborn and it was great! thats how i remember it at least. i know it was stressful and we didn't get much sleep but in my mom brain, i remember it as being a wonderful time. i think we're programmed that way so we force ourselves to make more babies!

devin really was easy going in those days. i would put on soft music and he would just relax and do brand new baby stuff. i was pumping every 3 hours and we kept him on a 3 hour schedule which included a diaper change, breastfeeding, then a bottle as well so that was pretty rough. pumping was just horrible but i did it for 7 months and im pretty proud of that! like i said, devin was laid back and just slept alot. we gave him tummy time a few times a day and he seemed to like looking at little toys placed close to him. he liked bath time also. even with all the new activities going on in my life it seems like i had alot of free time those days! devin was just a joy and getting to know him at home was just wonderful. it felt even more special because we had all worked so hard to get to  this point!

devin and his baby leg warmers!

 much to fabian's disapproval, i made devin several pairs of baby leg warmers last weekend and they look so cute on him! i had been wanting to get some for him but just didnt feel like buying them online and paying about $10 for a pair. i found pairs of women's socks at target that were just the right length and cut the feet off and stictched the ends and they work great! and no, they're not just an embarassing 80s blast from the past, they actually serve a purpose! im able to put them on devin while hes just in a onesie instead of having him in pants. this makes for much easier access at diaper change time! he also has very stinky feet and wearing socks all the time really does'nt help that so these are great because they cover some of his feet keeping them warm but allow his toes to get some air, kind of like those weird fingerless gloves. i'll also put them on him this summer while he's hopefully learning to crawl, but i'll be honest, functionality is the least of my concerns, they are just too cute!

fraggle hitched a ride with his bff and stayed there for an unbelieveable amount of time letting devin "pluck him" and squeal with delight right in his ear! there is something truley wrong with this feline and it does'nt ALL have to do with his excessive amount of body fat.

i found this fisher price satge/mirror toy at a thrift shop the other day and he LOVES it! he gets so happy when he sees himself and makes the lights and music go on. he'll play and then look over at me with a huge smile and go right back to playing. so cute! oh, i scored this for $2.50!

ooooh ipod...

we let him play with the mesh feeder again (our second try) and he loved it. he sucked it dry! i had offered it to him with a mango chunk the first time and he was'nt interested. this time i mashed it a little and he ate two big chunks out of there. he could'nt get enough!

and he can never get enough of daddy :)

so much to talk about!

first of all my aunt kathy came to visit and it was soooo much fun! it was really great to spend some time with her and my mom together and get to see her and devin together. im going to make a seperate post about that this weekend sometime once i get those pictures on the computer.

i have way too many cute new pictures of devin and there will be a ridiculous amount of them in this post :) hes doing some new stuff and its pretty cool. hes getting so big, hes now wearing 12-18 month clothing and it just amazes me! every time i dress him i keep grabbing 3-6 month stuff and expecting it to fit, but it doesnt even come close to squeezing on! i look at the 12-18 month gap footed onesies and think "yeah right, maybe next year", but they fit him perfect right now!

i found an AMAZING deal on the exact convertible carseat that i planned on getting him in the next few months and had to jump on it! we paid a total of $96.44 for the graco my ride 65 which is pretty much an unheard of price for a good quality carseat. we ordered it from bed bath and beyond and i was able to use one of those 20% off coupons that are always coming in the mail. i just had to go to the store to have the clerk apply it. the price was actually $99.99 but after 20% it was brought down to $96.44 after tax and shipping. i was so proud of myself for saving so much there! and devin is so cute in his big boy seat! we have'nt installed it yet, we just have it in the living room for now acting as a baby couch, he loves it! i stitched some cute little animls cut out from two of his preemie onesies onto the strap pads.

in this one hes just chillin watching some sponge bob, i want a seat like that!

here are some that i just love

so devin obviously doesnt have much hair at all. you can see it better in real life than in pictures, sometimes it actually lookes like we wax his head! he looks so bald in some pictures... but i have proof that he has SOME hair-

look! you can see about 7 of his hairs standing up! we gave him a bath one night and that little clump is always standing up now, i love it!

he also just realized that feet are not only for grabbing, they're also for tasting! which is pretty gross because devin's feet smell pretty bad. even very shortly after a bath (i pay close attention to the little piggies during bathtime too) they still smell! i even wipe them down with baby wipes a few times a day! i guess it doesnt bother him beause he discovered he can eat his toes the other day and they are a new favorite treat.

hes been getting stronger and stronger about standing lately but hes really started to feel confident with it in the last week or so. he loves to stand on our laps and can even hold himself up on stuff now.

look at that little butt!

i cant believe how many things happen in just a week.