Bringing home baby (A . . .then B. . .)

That's right!  Don't know how many of you have heard, but we're gradually getting our family together at home.  Last Monday we were able to take Eero home with us.  We went on Sunday and spent some time with all the boys, had some visitors, and then took Axel to a hotel for one more night as a threesome and so he could swim in the pool.

He's been telling us for weeks that he "needs" to go to a hotel, even saying, "I feel I have to."  Since he felt so strongly about it, we figured we better take him!  He loves the pool, and suddenly thinks he can swim.  I don't have a swimsuit I'm prepared to wear in public, so I man the ground while Jesse goes in the water (sometimes Axel decides to run down the edge of the pool and wants to jump in the deep end when no one is there to catch him, and since he's not wearing floaties of any kind, that would be bad).  He swims/flails off by himself, which is terrifying for me because it appears he is just struggling to get above water, but when he comes up he's not coughing or spitting or anything, so maybe he is swimming.  At least he's not afraid of the water.

We were to pick up Eero after lunch the next day, and so, as I see happening many times in my future as the only girl in the house, we went to Hooters.  We then collected Eero from the hospital, and brought him home.  As we pulled away from the hospital Axel asked him if he liked to watch the airplanes in the sky, and of course Eero didn't answer.  A couple minutes later he asked him if he liked it when we went over bumps, and again, silence.  Disappointed, Axel finally asked, "Does he talk?" Teehee.  Eero has been a very good baby, unless he really needs something and then lets out a very high-pitched shriek that he must have picked up from the exotic birds in the room next to his at the hospital.  But otherwise good.

On Tuesday we got a call that Rex was ready to join his brother at home on Thursday, and so within a few days we went from a threesome to a fivesome rolling in the Escalade.  FYI, if you have an Escalade, people will stare at you as you drive through north Minneapolis.  Might want to lock the doors.  Anyway, we took off back to the Cities on Thursday and brought home baby B.  He, too, has been very good thus far, and is not as ornery as I expected him to be, yet anyway. 

Axel loves his little brothers.  He can't stop kissing them and wants to show them all kinds of things.  Within the first 10 minutes of Eero being home, Axel thought he would like to watch a movie with him, eat a mint, and look at the Walgreens ad.  We've finally got him understanding that he should not pick them up by himself, and it will be awhile before they want to pillow fight with him.

Leaving the hospital with Rex on Thursday was the hardest leave since the first time we came home, because this time we had to leave Magnus there all alone.  Before I took comfort in the fact that these three little jokers had each other, and even after we took Eero home Rex and Magnus were together, but now it's just him.  He's not ready to come home for a little while yet . . . he's had a couple little spells, where he decides not to breathe for a little while and a nurse has to stimulate him to remind him.  They want to make sure he's not doing that anymore when he gets home, where we won't have a monitor to be aware of the spells.  The doctors have noted that sometimes babies go home with monitors, but we'd kind of like to be done with all of that when we take him home.  No more monitors!

We haven't left the house too much since bringing home these two little boys, but when we do we turn a lot of heads.  People stop us and say, Oh, you had twins!  The rest of the conversation goes like this: Actually we had triplets, but one is still in the hospital.  Oh my gosh!  You're going to be busy.  Are these your first?  No, we have a 3-year old at home, too.  Oh my gosh!  You are really going to be busy.  Congratulations!  Wow.  Oh my gosh. . . and we part ways.  On Friday we had a few of these in Cub Foods, except one woman came back to the cereal aisle, handed us a hundred dollar bill and said, "You're going to need that," and walked away.  We tried to give it back to her but she just shook her head and kept walking.  I've heard of random acts of kindness, but that was really something.

On Friday Jesse and I will have been married five years.  It got me thinking about that day, of course, and then all the stuff that's happened in that time.  We got married.  Started building (and someday hope to complete :) ) a house.  My dad's cancer came back and he passed away.  We had a baby.  I'm two classes away from a master's degree and a teaching license.  We had three more babies.  And a bunch of other stuff, but those are some of the big points.  That's a lot of change in five years.  Think about the last five years . . . how has your life changed?  Maybe more than you think.

I'll try to update a little more - I've just been a bit preoccupied.  Honestly, though, taking care of two babies is so far not that much different than caring for one.  Check back in a few months when they become mobile.

Eero and Rex - enjoying each other's company on the living room floor.