Another Milestone...

It is now official...

Hallie has been home longer than her stay at the ICN!!

What a superstar!

(*Sunglasses courtesy of Aunt Laura - Thank you!)

This major feat was accomplished on Saturday, but I'm only now just getting around to blogging it. It's sort of amazing to think that Hallie has been in our lives for going on 245 days now. It was just this time last year that we found out that Sharon was carrying twins. It's amazing--and frightening--to think what can change in the course of a year.

Anyway, Saturday was a major celebration day for us. We suspended RSV protocols by having 18 people over all at once (they all washed, purelled, and three of them were nurses). I spent the week prior to this gala event in a mad dash of preparation. On Thursday I made brownies (check out the excellent recipe for Art Park brownies in Ruth Reichl's fabulous first part of her memoir, Tender at the Bone. They are scrumptious and super easy to make; just use the best chocolate you can afford). Sharon stopped at Whole Foods Market three times on the way home from work to pick up supplies (she hates food shopping, so this was pretty major). And Saturday, after going to the gym (yes, the gym---I am trying to resume a so-called normal life) and getting a haircut (while at the gym; happily my gym has a salon in it), I made a million finger sandwiches. Let's just say that I felt as if I was in school lunch hell. Hopefully Hallie will never ask me to cut the crusts off of her sandwiches. Not only is this a terribly wasteful practice, but it's also a major pain in the butt. Especially if you happen to be preparing 150 finger sandwiches.

Most of the people who spent their summers with us in the ICN were able to be there to celebrate Hallie's milestone. And happily so were three out of her four primary nurses. I don't have the greatest pictures of the event (I am waiting to download better ones from my mother in law's camera or for Aunt Laura to send me her pics, if she took any), but it was a memorable occasion even if I did miss a kodak moment. Ellen has seen Hallie a bunch of times (about once a month), but Meghan hadn't seen her since the day we left the ICN and Corinne since later that week. They were thrilled with how big, alert, and generally excellent their baby looks. And we were thrilled to get a chance to share Hallie with them once more.

On top of this, this was Hallie's first day off of oxygen, so we had plenty of reasons to celebrate.

I'll leave you with one picture that we did take of Hallie and Corinne. Hopefully I'll be able to add better ones later on: