The Howlands: A Day of Firsts

Happy Easter! Well it was our first Easter as a family, and it was a good one. The boys are doing fantastic, and continue to progress their way closer to home. Braylon and Kaden are both getting so big and chunky. Braylon has some thunder thighs going on, and Kaden is still playing catch up, but he is getting bigger and better. He only comes off his cannula when he needs to, well I guess some of the nurses take him off to give him a break now and then, but most of the time he is on the cannula. He seems to be more awake during his care times and is really starting to root. Last night I was talking to one of the nurses and telling her that she was going to give our kids bad habits. They stick a suction tube up one nostril and some saline up the other side to clean out the buggers. Then when they get done with both sides of their nose they stick the tube in their mouth. For a place that has a lot of germs and people that are trained to handle germs, that doesn’t seem very sanitary to me. So I told her that she was teaching our kids that eating their buggers will be ok, because they are already starting to get used to the taste. They do it in that order because the saline washes down the backs of their throats and they can suck out the excess fluid after they are done with their noses. I would just have two suction tubes, but that’s me. Also, Braylon has been getting into a habit of giving everyone the one-finger salute, and showing his true feelings. I don’t know why he insists on holding that finger up all the time, but I think it’ll cause some problems in the future.
Today was our first family picture. This was a picture that all four of us were in. Ash and I were able to hold Braylon and Kaden at the same time. Earlier today Ashley gave Braylon his first bath and he hated it. The good news was that he didn’t have any monitors or tubes with him during his bath, and Ashley was able to feed him after. He showed Ashley that the faucet wasn’t the only thing that could spray, as he decided to turn his bath into a Braylon fountain and shot it straight up in the air. Well back to our first picture, since we were able to take Braylon off his monitors and cannula for a little while it allowed us to hold the boys at the same time. Kaden was wide awake for this milestone but Braylon wasn’t gonna have any of it as he decided to sleep through the whole thing. So Kaden saw how selfish his big bro was being and that he couldn’t even wake up to say hi. It was pretty cute though as it looked like Kaden was reaching out to touch Braylon, but I think he was stretching out or looking to get a few cheap shots in on his bigger brother while he was zonked out. Braylon stayed awake from one care time to about the other. It means Braylon was up for about 4 to 5 straight hours without sleeping, so it was understandable that he slept while we were holding him and his brother. All in all this was a great day for the Howlands and hopefully we will be able to get some more family photos.

Braylon's Buns