Saturday, August 13, 2011

Class Reunion

Last weekend, Piper got to enjoy her first NICU reunion.

It’s actually the second one she got to go to, but at the first, she was less than three months old.  Frankly, she could have cared LESS at the time.

But this year, this year, she could actually enjoy all of the activities they had to do.  Well, almost all of them.  She THOUGHT she wanted to go in the bouncy house, but as soon as we’d walk up and look in, she’d vigorously shake her head “NO!”  So, we stayed clear of that after three or four attempts.

They had lots of treats that she never gets- like ice cream sandwiches and juice boxes (yes, I’m that mom who doesn’t let her kid have juice.  So sue me.)P1100652

The REALLY big new thing she got to try was cotton candy.  This is the “small” one that Luke got for Piper to try.  But, alas, it was too big for Piper to have, so Luke had to have the rest.  He’s good at taking one for the team…  (insert rolling eyes here…)P1100655

Let’s just say that she was NOT ecstatic about the flossy nature of cotton candy.  Or the fact that it melted when it hit her tongue.  Or the fact that it stuck to her fingers.  And lips.  And face.  Amused?  Not so much.P1100656

A little perturbed?  Probably.P1100661“Can I have more juice instead???”

Daddy also decided that we should try to get her face painted.  But painting a two-year-old’s face???  Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.  So we opted for the spray-on stencil instead.  And we picked the smallest, single-colored one we could find so that it would require only a 5 second stint of toddler cooperation.

Nervously sitting on the chair- NOT sure what to think…P1100693

Wearily watching-P1100695

Looks like Daddy was way more enthusiastic than was Piper…P1100701

It was really hot; and we’d already spent the whole day in the car because we had our Ds community group, WAY on the other side of town, right before this.  The girls were pretty much SPENT that afternoon, and shared their grumps with synchronized “aaaaaah” faces.P1100669

MY favorite part of the day, though, was the photobooth they had set up.  You got to take your pictures, and then it printed two copies.  You kept one, and the other was pasted onto a scrapbook page.  And then we got to write a note for the NICU staff.  How cool is that?

Apparently they email you your photobooth photos now.  Rather convenient, actually.  So here’s our very poor attempt at a strip.PhotoBooth_picture

Picture #1- Addy’s falling behind us.  As she slept.  Woops.

Picture #2- Not so bad.  You know, for a photobooth.  Too bad we’re all looking at the monitor below instead of the camera.

Picture #3- I have a completely goofy face as I was trying to convince Piper to give Addy a kiss.  Lovely.

It was really fun getting to see the nurses and doctors that cared for Piper while she was there.  It was also truly amazing to see ALL of these families who watched their babies grow for so long away from home.  There were lots of kids on G-tubes and trachs.  Kids that were doing fabulously well, and kids that were obviously developmentally hindered by their traumatic births.  But everyone there had something in common- everyone was just glad that they had a child to be able to take there! 

See you in two years, St. Joe!

1 comment:

  1. And the OLDEST NICU graduate there was???? Hmmmmmm???????

    ReplyDelete