New Trick

She's throwing her sneaky stealth moves out the door. There is no subtlety anymore with my little missy! Forget the sly thumb flick. She just grabs and pulls!!! I'm having to change the sticky pads on her face almost every other day! But we figure if the prongs are at least in her mouth she still getting oxygen right... right?? Oy! She keeps me busy...

Darbi and Crew

We paid a visit to Darbi's boy Crew on Saturday! Darbi did better this time around. She didn't scream when we sat them together!

Stretchy McSleeperson

This is how she sleeps every night! She's napping on our bed here. I don't know about her.. but when I sleep like that my hands fall asleep and it's painful to wake up like that!! Oh she's so crazy.

First Day

Clint hates that I make him do this. I tell him it could be worse. I could follow him to his classes.. make him pile his books and school supplies on his desk and smile with his pencil case in his hands! I can't wait to do that with Darbi! This year, Clint is only taking 2 classes. We planned on him doing school in 3 years full time but little D is demanding and said no. He's in a math class and a computer science class. He gets so excited and comes home wanting to tell me every cool thing he learned but (I love you Clint) it is the most boring stuff!!! I love that he loves it though! He also got a new job! I think it became official last Tuesday. He is still in the same department but now he works in Risk Management. He really likes his boss which makes for a happy husband when he comes home!

LOVE this pink shirt! Man he is good looking! :)

Confessions... Sorta

I made taco soup/chili for dinner and my whole family will have gas for the next 4 days. :)

I am super happy that my friend Audrey is back in P-town! I'm sad her blog is private because I can't share with you all how awesome she is. Take my word for it! It's not private anymore!!

Clint has every Friday off from now on and I am SO EXCITED!!!

The semi-mentally-handicapped bagger at Albertsons told me, today, that I needed to pull my pants up after helping me unload my cart. Yes. I laughed and Yes. I was embarrassed. He told me to go buy a belt.

I watch TLC's What Not To Wear almost everyday at 1 and I wish I had $5000 to spend on a new wardrobe.

BYU Football starts a week from Saturday we already have our BYU outfits ready to wear... It's a growing obsession for me.

Baby gas is super cute but smells NOT so cute.

I want to go back to school SO BADLY. I want to buy school supplies and walk around campus like a cool college student. I miss that. :) I secretly want to get my Masters but I'm afraid to actually say it out loud or do anything about it.

I drink Dr. Pepper like it's water. I also drink water like it's water. So I don't feel too bad about my DP "problem".

I hate when people spell wEIrd and recEIving wrong. Makes me crazy.

I will probably be completely gray by the time I'm 30. Maybe 35. I'm not kidding.. and I won't tell you who's fault it is. :)

I love that Darbi loves Clint and only wants him to put her to bed. :) I'm the play time parent and he's the snuggling parent.

And sometimes I eat Peanut M&M's for breakfast. It's a wonder how I got the chub on me!! :)

So Sneaky

In order to help Darbi move along a little quicker with developing her motor skills, our Welcome Baby nurse recommended we get one of those play mat/gym things for D. It's also to help with tummy time apparently... she still hates it. I've been looking on KSL like crazy but haven't found one clean enough - for a price I'm willing to pay - at a distance I'm willing to drive. We decided to use one of our gifty cards to Wal-mark to invest in this apparent MUST HAVE play toy. As soon as I got home, we laid her right down and she hated it. It took a minute to get her eyes to focus on the toys that were 2 cm away from her face but she started to kind of like it. It will take time.. I know. She's still not a toy player. Anyway. She's yelling and swinging her arms and hitting toys but not like she's mad so we left her there for a minute. Clint was on my lappy on the couch and I started to pick up the apartment. We noticed that she stopped yelling and we laughed that this thing will just put her to sleep.. but on closer inspection.....


SHE'S WATCHING ESPN. Look at her sprawled out lookin' all lazy - tryin' to look like she's playing with toys but really catching up on baseball. She is SO her father's daughter. We are big baseball nuts though... it's in her blood. We didn't notice that the tv was in such an easy gazing distance for her initially.. we were just trying out her shiny new toy! I am all innocence! I swear!

She is so sneaky. She pops her little cannula prongs out with a sly little flick of her thumb and I have to watch her so closely sometimes! She hates that thing. I'm sure I would too. Last night, she was rubbing her nose like crazy and when she does that I have to really watch her because I know she's going to try her stealth-like-cannula-removal tactics. I look closer and right under her nose it looked slightly redder than normal. She had a bloody nose. I was freaking out.. ALMOST in tears. It wasn't a bad one though.. or really one at all. I called the After-Hours-Call-Us-Because-You-Are-Paranoid-Office and the nurse said that if she really had a bloody nose serious enough to require real panicking.. I would know it. A little residue, she said, was probably because her nose was dry and I just needed to moisturize. Crisis averted. I'm sure the rubbing didn't help though. She's so sneaky...

We're Cool

We finally got our air conditioner hooked up!! Thanks Amy & Dennis!! You guys are life savers! It took us a few weeks to get it hooked up but we are all very happy campers! These last few weeks of summer will be so nice!!

Just One of the Girls!

Darbi finally got to met her cousins last Thursday!! Now that she's bigger, the doctor gave us the ok to let her be around squeaky clean kids before the sick season and school starts! Darbi was a little bit fussy but the girls were so excited to meet her!! I am sure D and Halle will be besties someday! Halle kept putting her arm around D's head and giving her hugs! It was so sweet!! I love these girls!

Someday Melissa will be the best babysitter!! I can't wait! She's starting 2nd grade this year! When I met Clint.. she was 2!! I feel old..

Sariah was so sweet with her too! She was so helpful to me while I tried to get D to calm down. She would bring be her blankets and her rattles. She'll be a great babysitter someday too!

D's head is as big as Halle's! HA!

D's face the whole time... She needs to get used to larger crowds. Just not yet..
And check out that Mommy cleavage! :) I'll be sad when that goes away... Clint too. :)

This'll put a smile on your face!

We finally caught it on tape! Don't make fun of Clint too much... Yes, it's him growling in the video! It's the only thing that works.



This second one was taken with my phone.. The quality is crappy but she's laughing a bit more.

I'm Not Lying...

She giggled today... TWICE!! :)

Day 125

Today marks Day 125 at home with Darbi!
She has officially been home LONGER than she's been in the hospital!!

Neonatal Follow Up Clinic

Today was Darbi's first Neonatal Follow Up clinic visit. She met with a Nutritionist, an Occupational Therapist, an Ophthalmologist, a Neurologist, a Pediatrician, and she was weighed and measured! It was a full day... 5 hours of Dr's. Surprisingly, Darbi was really good! There was a TON of kids there this month because the ophthalmologist wasn't here last month and won't be here next month so he was seeing 3 months worth of kids. It was cr-aaaazy. Everyone there was SO nice though! We got called back right away and seeing that D was still real tiny and still on oxygen, they let us just hang out in the back in the lab area to stay away from infection! I was so relieved. Parents were only supposed to come with the child that needed to be seen but since it's the summer, some parents couldn't get a sitter and came with an entire van-load.. We also had a NICU Fellow (Med student on her way to becoming a Neonatologist) following us to listen in on all of our visits. It was nice because she orchastrated where we were supposed to be and made sure that we were taken care of. I felt a little spoiled. :)

We started by getting weighed and measured. D is up to 10 lbs. 12 oz.! I don't remember the length and head cir. but she is in the 52% for her head cir, 24% for her weight, and 3% for her length! Not too shabby. Then we moved onto the Nutritionist where while she was talking with us, I fed D. I tried to take advantage of the time because I didn't know when I would be able to again. She was blown away by her medical history and couldn't believe how well she was doing! We got that A LOT today! She was pleased with her weight gain but said that I need to be more consistant in taking my calcium and mulitvitamins. I try.

Then we went in with OT to check her motor skills. Her head control is still a little lagging but we were shown different ways we could help her stay happy while we are doing it. We'll see how it goes. The therapist asked us how Early Intervention was going for us and we told her that we didn't qualify. She was actually a little upset about it. Although they said (back in June) that she didn't qualify, she should automatically just because she was a 23 weeker. And because of her brain bleeds, we are to anticipate problems and that is exactly what EI is for. The review they did on her at 1 month shouldn't be a factor because she's not going to show any developmental delays so early. So this next week, our mission (the therapist and my own) is to get her in an EI program. The last few days, Clint told her that he had noticed she was beginning to show preferrence on her right side. I hadn't noticed this but our therapist did a few exercises with D and actually noticed the same thing. She noticed it more in her right hand. D's hands stay pretty open when she's awake and playing but she tends to keep her thumb in her palm and it's very difficult to try and have her keep it out. She said that it's something we need to watch and work with her more on her right side but we really won't know more about how she's going to do until she's a bit bigger. She tends to use her left hand more and we need to teach her to use her right as her helper hand.

Next we waited for about 30 minutes for the eye doctor to just dialate her eyes then another 40 minutes until they were ready. We've been cleared back in June by our eye doctor and this was just to make sure we were all good. As suspected, no problems! Then we went right in to talk to the Neurologist. Right away, she also noticed the right-side-preferrence thing. It seemed like now everyone was starting to notice it and apparently is a big deal. She was pleased with how well she can track objects (which I attribute to her favorite bird mobile).

FINALLY, we met with the Pediatrician. We LOVED this guy. He was so eccentric.. and kind of looked like an elf. :) He kept muttering under his breath as he was reading her chart, "holy smokes"... "oh my goodness!" ... "holy moly!" ... "2 PDA ligations?!" It was awesome! One of my favorite parts... he listened to her lungs and said they sounded NORMAL!! No BPD sounds! I guess it is supposed to sound kind of crackly and he said they sounded PERFECT!! They said to still expect to be on oxygen at least for a year (meaning until next April-ish) but he thinks maybe sooner!

So all in all.. it was a good but tiring day. We know what to watch for and what we need to be better at. My favorite was definitely all the attention about how well she is doing for her age and everything she has been through. I'm guilty of bragging like crazy about her but I don't care! Everyone should know how special she is!!

Ironic/Funny story of the day: The OT was asking about how her reflux is doing and we told her that she doesn't have reflux. Her PCG5 test that was done in the hospital showed no signs of it. Then she asked how much she eats and for how long with both the bottle and breastfeeding. She'll take about 4 - 4 1/2 oz from a bottle and she NEVER EVER has a problem with spitting up. We were so proud of that. Well... tonight while I was at work, I got a text from Clint that said she took 5 oz. from the bottle!!! I was stoked... but then.. she spit up... big time. What a day to prove Mommy a liar, right??

We Think We Are SOOO Funny!!

Smile & Shake!

I've got a sucker, a smiler, and a shaker!! I have to put the keys right near her hand and wait for her to grab them (she won't just reach out on her own yet...) but once they are in her hand, she's shakin' away and she loves it!! Until they slide down her arm and her fingers find their way into her mouth...




The last three night's she has been an angel about going to bed! She's been real snuggly when she ready and she'll just turn her head into my chest, we snuggle with the binky for about 2 minutes and she's asleep before I can even put her down! It's awesome. I wish it would last!