The 23rd should work for me, if it's still open for you.

Maria, I should have the whole day off.

Grace eating! What kind of puff, exactly? Cheese, I hope, just because I love them.

I think the Real Doll episode is the first Real Sex episode I ever saw, too.

I don't have another board! Except Twitter. And I mostly do that because I have to.

IOW: I have become that person.

My building is a 6-flat: 3 units front and three back. I live in the back. There is a tenant in the first floor front unit. Their back staircase is the front staircase for the back unit (we also have decks with outdoor staircases as our back entrances).

So, tenant has taken to putting their bags of trash out the back door. Which means an indoor staircase which, again, is the front staircase for those of us in the back. I am OVER it. First time, it was there for about three days. Someone stuck it outside, then someone (who knows who) actually took it to the trash. That was about a month ago.

Current one - has been there nearly a week. I got aggravated after about 12 hours. (I can see not wanting to take it all the way out late at night. But you get your ass up and take it the rest of the way the next morning.) That was Thursday.

Still there. Sunday, I (with the help of a fair amount of whisky) left a classic passive aggressive note.

Tonight - STILL F'ING THERE - I banged on the door as a reminder. An hour later, still there - I wrote their landlord.

It's so fucking rude. In a small building, you don't want to cause any awkwardness or hostility. But jesus.

Yay Gracie!

I'm actually even more impressed that in a NICU they do it bedside and, at our NICU, it's a nurse who does it! Grace and Noah still have their PICC line scars, on their wrists, because their limbs were so tiny.

My twins were born at 31 weeks, and for a couple of months they were attached to a frightening array of tubes and wires. Every day had news of more problems that the wee little babies had to deal with. Something dreadful every day.

At 18 months they are robust, charming, and apparently healthy, for which we are very grateful. But they have clusters of tiny scars on the top of both hands from the IVs and another cluster on their arms from the PICC lines. I don't think that other people can even see the little scars. But their parents see them, and remember the NICU. At least 20 times a day.

YAY for Grace eating!!

I forgot to say, go breathing, little guy! I hope he keeps kicking ass.

At 18 months they are robust, charming, and apparently healthy, for which we are very grateful.

Eighteen months! So unreal. I'm glad they're doing so well.

Wow! Good on Grace.

Noah and Grace turn FIVE in 2012. FIVE. They exhausted me over TG. Noah can out talk, well, most. Clearly. And he'll tell you how it SHOULD be. And Grace is the noisiest, most opinionated, silently articulate ( the face, oh the face) willful child without a regular voice (not counting her deliberate Darth Vader impressions.)

You can't compare preemies. They all have their own path. But you can take heart from other preemies who are badass toddlers and preschoolers. Cause those creatures are now indestructible. (Or so they try to be.)

Rick, 18 months is amazing! Hard to believe.

I do NICU and PICU support for families and, really, few want to hear about the experiences we have had. But they do like to hear that kids grow and change. There aren't words of wisdom to be passed on about the NICU experience, other than it's hard. Each day is its own thing and it's hard.

Amy, it was a Gerber puff, the kind that essentially dissolve. They are pretty low risk.

OH HOLY HELL. I just looked under the couch and there is a trache under there. It was from when we changed it on sunday. I am not that slatternly but WTF?!