My blessings are in front of me...

it's not about the land
I'll never beat the view
from my front porch looking in
-Lonestar, My Front Porch Looking In

With some help from AJ and Poppper, we successfully packed up all the stuff we've accumulated over the past 6 weeks and returned HOME! Not only was it great to come home, but a wonderful group of friends cleaned our house and stocked our fridge. Unfortunately, unloading our 6 weeks of stuff has hidden the carpet they worked so hard to vacuum. We have some amazing friends.

They also converted Jay's crib into a toddler bed, so that it will be easy for him to get in and out of bed as he continues to recover. He's still on "sternal precautions" (for some reason, I find that term amusing) which means we can't lift him under his arms. At his age, it's time to move into a big boy bed anyway! I was a little worried that he wouldn't like it, so we told him that his 4 year old idol, T., had fixed it for him. It was kinda true - T. was here during the bed conversion, though I suspect he was busy exploring Jay's toys rather than working. When Jay woke up from a nap this afternoon, he wanted to call and let his buddy know that he liked his new bed, so I guess he's not mourning the loss of crib sides too much.

People kept telling us that Jay's appetite would come back when we were home. But I didn't really expect it to come back the instant we walked in the door. All he's been willing to eat in the last week or so is meat. No lie - when we ordered spaghetti with meatballs in the hospital, he ate all the meatballs and ONE strand of spaghetti. At RMH, he ate nothing but hotdogs. He wanted them for breakfast. (We want him to eat so he'll stop losing weight, but I draw the line at hotdogs for breakfast.) But as soon as we got home, he said "I'm hungry!" and ate a regular lunch of deli turkey, black beans, chips & salsa, chicken salad and a banana. (I never said his combos weren't a little weird, but at least there's some non-protein options in there...!) So I'm hopeful that the appetite really is back, and the good food habits will return as well.

Luke is now re-learning how to fall asleep, thanks to a bit of baby boot camp. While I hate to call it "cry it out," it pretty much is. We've let him scream for 10 minutes, go back and settle him down, then put him back into the crib. Wash, rinse, repeat. Took him an hour to settle for his nap this afternoon, but only 55 minutes to settle at bedtime. Progress is progress, right? We are open to suggestions if any of you baby whisperers have tips on how to break a month and a half of sleep spoiling.

As for me & Derek, we've never been so happy to plop onto our couch and watch some Wolfpack football on our own TV. We've done the most mundane things - sort the mail, pay a few bills, pick up some cat food at the grocery store, feed the kiddos some dinner. It's almost like we never left.