February 5 baby update, continued

I spent the afternoon with dear Jossie. She's so little so her cries are kitten-like, but I can see this is a girl who likes to speak her mind. She is never too pleased when we interrupt her sleep with changing her diaper or taking her temperature. Luckily, she is very easy to soothe at this point.

We are still brady-free and we're closing in on the 2.5-day mark at 10:40 p.m. this evening. She is eating well and we had a few good nursing sessions today, which is extremely satisfying. I think it's because it's something I can only do - not a nurse or a doctor. I was there for her weigh-in, and she's 4 lbs 6 oz (2000 grams on the button, gaining 30 grams from the day before).

She had a bath last night, and her hair was in fine form, nice and fluffy in the afternoon sun.

I took a break for dinner and saw a big brother around Jack's age walking with his mommy and new baby out of the hospital tonight. Rather than feel sadness, I felt a lot of hope that we'll be in that place soon.  Speaking of Jack, Jeremy took him to the Chicago Children's Museum today while I was with Joss. While they were there, Jack put a construction hat on Daddy's head, and declared to him, "Daddy, you can be anything you want to be." He'll always be my sweet guy.

I bought Jack a few lollipops from the Argo Tea stand in the hospital lobby, and the Argo guy recognized me as the "orange lollipop lady." This has been Jack's request and we've probably bought 25 or so of these lollipops in the past four weeks.

Four weeks - I can't believe we've been doing this for that long. One week for my hospital monitoring and three weeks for Joss in the NICU. We will get through this, and we'll be home together soon.