Tobie here: My days are soooo short. I only have 9 weeks left with my girl J, who by the way is fabulous. Eric likes to call her my corporation. I am trying to schedule as many appts and activities as humanly possible while she is still with us. Nap times for the babies have become project time for the adults. Luckily for me she is as task oriented as I am. We made a list of all the projects and places we want to go on non-therapy days. Hopefully we can get it all done before she leaves us. We're organizing the house, cooking dinners (which for y'all that know me is HUGE because I'm not the best cook) and getting out in the real world. It's very rewarding, but oh so exhausting.

A week in review:

Monday: we took the kids to the park because it was a relatively cool day (you know, low t0 mid 90s). We had the park all to ourselves and the slides were in the shade. We made the mistake of sending Cole down a slide by himself instead of going down with him. He totally freaked out even though the time between letting go of J's hands at the top and sliding into mine at the bottom was only a split second. Seriously the slide was only about five feet high. After that first attempt he was shaking and would not even consider another slide. Paige saw all this go down and she started sympathy crying. It was a disaster.

Also on Monday I had scheduled an appt with a child safety specialist. This guy comes to the house and advises us on what to child-proof in each room. He had a lot of great ideas and products. He also is a car seat specialist and I had him take a look at my car. He was horrified with Drew's car seat and temporarily fixed it, but said that the third row was not designed for an infant seat and Drew's seat would inevitably tilt again and become unsafe. I have since made an appt with the local fire station to switch Cole's seat with Drew's seat. It should be interesting trying to coerce Cole to crawl into the trunk and get in his car seat. I may have to add 20 minutes onto our getting out the door time.

Tuesday: my BFF's (best friend forever) parents came for a lovely visit. I hadn't seen them in over 3 years so it was really nice to hang out. It was super great getting parenting advice from my BFF's mom because she raised 5 kids really close in age so it was almost like having multiples. One great tip I got from her was giving Drew a nightly bath to relax him and help him sleep longer. More on this under Drew's update below.

Wednesday: my girl J and I went car shopping. Am I getting a new car? Hopefully someday, but not in the near future (insert tear here). I wanted to be prepared when Eric asks me what car I think would be best when the time comes for a new car. You would not believe how many people have told me I need a minivan for my three car seats so I felt obligated to go check it out. I think minivans are the most hideous looking vehicle out there . I was fully prepared to hate it. I now absolutely love minivans. It was so practical and awesome on the interior. The second row has two bucket seats for car seats and it scoots forward making the third row easily accessible without having to crawl in like the Tahoe. And don't get me started on the trunk space, convenience features, the automatic opening doors, and the spacious trunk. Aagghhh….it's dreamy I tell you. I shall call it: Dreamy McMiniVany. Nikki–I don't want to hear it!! I know, I know….but you have to see it to believe it! Next thing you know I'll be wearing mom-jeans. Ha!

Thursday: not much happened.

Friday: we had our follow-up appt with allergy doc. He confirmed the blood tests that Cole has a mild peanut allergy. We are not to give him any peanuts or peanut oil or anything possibly contaminated with peanuts in case it develops into a severe allergy. We're also going to start carrying an epi-pen just in case, but the doc thinks we will never have to use it and the allergy could go away within a year. That is the next time he wants to see us. All in all a pretty good appt. Oh, yeah, no soy allergy which is super-great as he drinks soy formula.

Kid update: Let's start with the lady; Paige is walking everywhere. She seems to walk better on tile floors which is scary if she falls, but she falls pretty gracefully. She is also a very smart cookie. I can't cite specific examples off the top of my head…but I know that she follows every adult conversation. Her personality is rocking and I absolutely love her laugh. Oh something else: her legs are super dark. I can't figure out why she tans more than everyone else when she's not in the sun longer than anyone else. But she is scary dark. I need summer to be over before she develops baby skin cancer. Did I mention the minivan comes with built-in window second row sun blockers?

Cole is awesome. The kid loves chase. That's all he wants to do all day long. He also is running everywhere. Just when I can relax that he's walking really well he starts running to keep my heart rate high. He also is letting us tuck him into bed now for naps and bedtime. It makes me warm and fuzzy inside to lay him down, kiss him and put his blankie over him. Seriously my heart melts every time it's bedtime now. If only Paige would let us put her to sleep without the screaming and tears……. sigh. We've also been giving both babies a bath before bedtime for the past few weeks. It works out nicely into our routine. The babies love to play in the bath together. By the time we get them to their rooms for their bedtime bottle, they are barely awake.

Drew is huge. I think he's pushing 14 pounds now. I talked to one of our old NICU nurses today who has a 4 month old. She said her baby was just over 13 pounds at 8 weeks old and was only in the 75th percentile. I have no idea what percentile Drew is in, but it's up there (us preemie parents live for percentile updates). We have a peed appointment next week so we will find out his true stats. He has officially outgrown his bassinet. Sorry Aunt Nancy. It was wonderful while it lasted. I think this weekend we'll move him into his own crib and room. It'll be weird for me not to have him sleep inches away from me but the kid is just too big. I started bathing him at night and last night he slept 6 hours straight. It scared me. I woke up with my breasts killing me, looked at the clock and lunged at Drew's chest to check if he was still breathing. Last night was the first time he's slept more than 3 hours between feedings. I can't believe he went from feeding every 3 hours to every 6 hours in one night. Hopefully this trend will continue tonight.

That's it for now. Have to give the big boy his bath so Mommy can get some rest.