GETTING READY FOR HALLOWEEN

Olivia wanting to help mommy but soon realizing things inside the pumpkin feel a little too mushy for herNot very happy at all with cleaning out the pumpkin. Look at that face!After a little convincing she tried again and had a lot of fun
Avery decided she would just read the newspaper instead of getting her hands dirty. She's such a girl!
Our final result!!

Can't wait for the real fun tomorrow night!!!

PREEMIE FRIENDS...

AVERY, ELIZABETH AND OLIVIA THREE AMAZING LITTLE GIRL'S

AS THE SEASON'S CHANGE, THEY CHANGE....

OCTOBER 2005.....

OCTOBER 2006.....

OCTOBER 2007.....

THANKSGIVING.... THIS IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

SPENDING TIME WITH FAMILY

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIT

I recently received an e-mail about my previous post in regards to "preemie moms verses full term moms".

I am writing this post because I feel I need to clarify with everyone that when I wrote of these "full term moms" that I had met, I was not referring to ALL full term moms out there.

I know a lot of mother's who have given birth to full term babies and they are exceptional mother's. I spoke of this because this was what I had witnessed on this particular day and on other occasions as well.

I'm sure that even a woman who has given birth to a perfectly healthy term baby has had encounters with other mother's that were not so pleasant. I guess I just notice these type of people more because of the experience I have been through with my own children. I can also say that I'm sure I have been judged on several occasions as well and labelled as being "Too over protective of my girl's". I AM AND I ADMIT IT. I am actually extremely overprotective of them. If their birth had of been different, maybe I would be different.

But...

-I am a mother who gave birth three months too soon.

-A mother who watched their children fight to stay alive night and day.

-A mother who spent hours pleading with God to give them a chance at some type of life.

-A mother who was asked if I wanted to have a DNR signed if Olivia crashed because they didn't think she was strong enough to make it.

-A mother who had to donate blood so both of my children could receive a blood transfusion.

- A mother who two years later is still dealing with my children's prematurity.

A mother who is waiting an Autism/Asperger's assessment due to prematurity.

-A mother who has lost friends because I had too many "rules and regulations" about visitors at my house.

-I am a mother who has been through a lot!

As Billie recently wrote in her most recent post "I cannot pick and choose my audience of readers" I now know exactly what she means by that. This does not mean that I will stop saying my opinion if I have one.

Like I said before at the beginning, WE have all witnessed parent's handle a situation in an inappropriate way, and every time I see this I always think to myself "I wonder if they would scream, yell, and roll their eyes at their child if they went through what myself and many other's have gone through". I appreciate every single breath that my children take because I know the other side of things. I know the feeling of possibly losing my child to prematurity. This doesn't mean that a full term mother doesn't appreciate their kids less than I do. It just means that I see certain things differently than others. If I had insulted ALL full term moms than I would be insulting women who are a part of my family as well. But that's not the case.

I honestly don't think that what I said was offensive. It was what I saw and how I felt. Once again, I never said ALL mother's of full term babies are inattentive. I said the one's I saw on that particular day were.

So I'll leave it at that. I think I've set the record straight!

PRESCHOOL, TEARS & FULL TERM MOMS VERSES PREEMIE MOMS

Over the past month I have been checking out different Preschools in the area. Most of them were not taking any kids and others were just way too expensive. Can you believe some parents pay $40.00 a day for one child! If you double that for someone like me with twins that's a lot of money. Putting the girl's into Preschool was a suggestion made by their Pediatrician at our last visit. He suggested it because he noticed how attached they were to me and of course how attached I am to them. So after a lot of searching I finally found one that I liked and that I knew the girl's would like.

So today was the big day for them, I got them all ready to go and had all these wonderful plans for myself. I figured since I didn't have any kids I would be able to get a million things done. WRONG! I dropped them off, stayed for about 15 minutes while they got settled in and then I quietly walked away. I wasn't even in the car for 5 minutes and my eyes began to well up with tears. When I walked in the door I honestly didn't know what to do with myself. There's so much to be done around here and I just couldn't do a thing. My house was so quiet that it felt so strange.

When I arrived back at the school to pick the girl's up, I waited patiently for them to come out, and what I expected did not happen. I expected to be greeted by two little girl's who were anxiously waiting for me to return. Not really the case. They were happy to see me, but they acted as if I never really left. Which is a good thing I guess.

I got to meet some of the other mother's today as well. I have never compared myself to a mother who delivered full term before. Really if I did it would be like comparing apples to oranges. They are two totally different experiences. But I'm going to admit that today I did. I got to observe a lot of the other moms and see how they handle situations with their child. I noticed that a lot of them walked in, said hello dropped their screaming child off and left. I myself could never do that. No wonder these kids are crying, to them it's the place that their mommy's leave them at. One poor little guy was crying so hard he ended up throwing up all over. I watched his mother as she rolled her eyes and walked out the door. To me this child needed some type of reassurance that he was going to have fun and mommy would be right back. I know that's how I would have handled it. It doesn't really take that long to distract a child away from something that they are upset at.

So all in all the girl's survived and I survived. Maybe next week I'll be able to get some things done while they are at school and not worry about them as much. I still can't believe they are in a Preschool program.

Where have my preemie babies gone?

Some cute artwork from their first day of Preschool