Micropreemie Play Date

This is one of those much overdue blog entries...I meant to get to it last week, but then last week became this week...and well, you get the picture.

Anyway, about three weeks ago, Hallie had her first real play date with a former ICN-mate named Maya. Her mom, Rachel was nice enough to bring Maya to our house for the visit since Hallie was still on oxygen at that point. It was really great to see them. Rachel and her whole family were an important part of our support network while in the hospital. Our families share a similar philosophy on caring for our children. They helped to make us feel like we weren't the only crazy ones for staying at the hospital all day and night no matter how much the doctors and nurses told us to go home.

But the girls have come a long way since then and it was amazing to see them interacting with each other. At first they were more interested in grabbing each other's toys (even though they have the same ones) and then Maya slowly started to notice Hallie by grabbing at her feet.


Then Hallie responded by trying to grab Maya's nose.

It was not malicious though. It was more like, "Hey, you've got a nose!". In fact we were all remarking on things they have in common. Like, they have the same hairdo:

(Notice Maya also likes grabbing the nasal cannula tubing. It apparently can be marketed as a fine motor skill building toy!)

And they BOTH have big eyes and long eyelashes.

Hallie really enjoys tummy time but Maya enjoys sitting and she eats a lot better than Hallie. (Alas I have no pictures of this, but suffice it to say that Maya downed four ounces of milk, a veggie, a fruit, and a dessert in the amount of time it took Hallie to swallow about 10 cc of her formula. It's embarassing. As is the fact that Rachel and Maya had to endure at least fifteen choruses of the "ABC Song," which is what we use to get Hallie to eat. Sharon says that this should be the subject of a separate post. Perhaps she is right, but what are the chances that I am going to get to that, really?)

The girls share the same occupational therapist and she is always commenting that Hallie and Maya should draw inspiration from one another. We plan on having more play dates in the future. So maybe they will catch on to what the other is doing. So far they seem to be really curious about each other. It is just so adorable!

It really makes us feel good to see Hallie with another baby close to the same age. We often think about Olivia and the things the girls would be doing together. It is too sad to think about how much we are all missing.

Anyway, that is a topic for another day. So let's move on to one last cute picture. I like this one beacuse it really looks like they are working on something BIG (like perhaps they're own blog entry)!

Well, that's all for now---I hear the call of the wild, so it's time for another bottle (and yes, it IS getting easier to feed Hallie--more on this later! Just don't tell Hallie...we don't want her to notice.)