A day in the life of...

It was a busy day today, but I figure, rather then tell you all about it, why don't I just show you.
But before we begin let us go back to our game from the other night, except this time for real. Below is a picture of the girls together. Can you tell them apart? To us they look drastically different and it is immediately apparent who is who. You'll have to read the whole post to find out if you're right.
Here goes:

Mom decided the girls needed some bathing. She started off with Emma Jane.
They're finally big enough to take baths in little tubs, which is kind of fun and kind of scary all at the same time. After all, babies are slippery when wet. Little babies are slipperier still, and little soapy babies are slipperiest of all.
"Ahh...this is the life"
After a bath it was time to get all spruced up in her new duds. Emma Jane had to admit, she was pretty stinking cute when it was all said and done. (So, Emma Jane was the one on the left. Okay, honestly...who got it right?)
Next it was Parker's turn for a bath:
"Oh dear Father in Heaven, save me from this horrible wetness"

"Mother, why do you do this to me? Can you not see that I am getting cold? Help me."

"Ahhh, warm...better"

After both had been bathed and dressed it was time for their photo shoot

"Psst. You think these guys have any idea what they're doing?"

"Ehh....probably not"

"Seester...I love you"

After a long hard day it was time to sleep (and poop).

Where the blog?

So, as some of you have already noted, last night was the first night since all of this began without a blogpost. I have already received an e-mail asking: "what's up with that?"

Here is what is "up with that":

Blogger was down last night when I got home. I was able to log in, I was able to create the posts but I was unable to "post" and when I would try it would delete everything I had written. I tried three times, and after the third time I was too tired and annoyed to worry about it. It's too bad too, because you missed out on some serious blogging last night. There was the unveiling of their current outfits, along with the story of the sleep deprived nurse back from vacation, forced to work the night shift, and playing dress up with our babies to keep awake, as well as a series of now and then shots to give some perspective on their progress thus far. All in all a long and interesting post, lost to the whiley ways of the Internet. (I'll get you for this Internet, you and your little dog.)

PS I am rereading this post a couple of hours later and realizing it could be read in one of two tones. Read it in the cheerful one.

...

I have nothing to say. No really. I have absolutely nothing to say. Where I am usually full of random meaningless babble, I am currently full of nothing but a blank slate. An empty cavern. All that is left is a desire to say...but nothing to say. Now a smart person realizes this is the time to say nothing, lest people figure out how foolish you really are. However, I have never claimed to be a smart person, so here we are, with a blogpost full of nothing.

This is like the Seinfeld of blog posts. It's about nothing, only it's not funny, just long and rambly.

Ooh..Ooh. I know. I know. Let's play a game. It will test how closely you have been paying attention over the past 80 some posts. I will show a picture below and you will try and guess which girl it is. Here are a couple of hints to help you. a) Parker's hair is darker than Emma Jane's. b) Emma Jane has the owl and Parker has the monkey. Okay. Take your time. Here goes:

nope. Sorry. It's Parker. Yeah I know. It can be really tricky. But once you get to know them there are certain signs which make it obvious. Try this one:

ooh so close...but no, wrong again. That one was Emma Jane. I know. It can be hard. Well. that's all for tonight.

"ummmm, dad?" Yes Parker. "Ummm are you aloud to do that to my sister?"

Oh, don't worry Parker. Emma Jane is fine. It...uh...it's not as bad as it looks. really.

"ow"

I saw the robot, finally!

Tonight's blog is going to be a little sideways from the usual fair. Mary Jane is upstairs next to laptop and the camera snoozing. I don't want to bother her, so I'm down here writing a quick little post. She's sick. The nice thing about having a graduated nurse practitioner for a wife is that she's pretty good at self diagnosing the problem. She knows what she has, and it's nothing serious, but she has a slight fever and feels icky. She needs to get up soon to take care of things only she can do, so I'm letting her sleep a little while. With the camera and stuff next to her you'll just have to wait until tomorrow for pictures and details about the girls.
In the mean time,
I finally saw the robot. Way back in the beginning of all this there was almost a week where we were living at Barnes, and, after the girls were born, I was wheeling Mary Jane between the two hospitals so we could go see the girls. The path we would take was a long and twisty one. The first time I took it was Saturday August 30 when I came down from the OR with Emma Jane and went over to Children's. I didn't notice the sign that first trip. I was a little distracted. But later that night coming back to Barnes I noticed the sign which said "Robot Path." I was still pretty distracted so I didn't think to much of it, other than to say "huh". Well, as the days wore on and we traveled back and forth between the two hospitals my curiosity quickly began to grow. I mean...robot path? What's that all about? Eventually I asked Mary Jane about it (she is familiar with the path between the hospitals for rather unpleasant work related reasons) and she said "yeah, there's this robot that goes back and forth making deliveries, actually it's kind of annoying."
Bam. There's an image of R2D2 rolling down the hall in my mind. It was quickly replaced with an image of Twiki, which in turn was quickly replaced with an image of R2D2 going "beede beede beede, good luck in space Buck."
Mary Jane quickly pushed all of these images aside and told me it didn't look like a "robot" it was more just of a rolling box.
Any of you who know me will not be surprised to know that I quickly became obsessed. The obsession was even greater because this was the early days of things. I needed to see that robot. I needed the sheer thrill of all my nerdy science fiction dreams coming true in the form of an actual robot doing actual work. Not some silly vacuum cleaner. Oh, no boys and girls, this, this was a robot doing work at a hospital. A fully automated machine accomplishing a task with it's little robotic mind. Every time we walked (rolled) down the hallway I would keep my eyes peeled. However this was during labor day weekend and usual business at Barnes was suspended (something in general that was nice) and so the robot was not out and about making deliveries. During that entire stay I never saw the robot.
Flash forward to last Thursday. I'm at Children's visiting the girls during lunch and then walk through the passage to Barnes to do a hospital visit with one of the members at Salem. And there it is! It was rolling right down the hallway. My initial R2D2 thought hadn't been that far off. It didn't look like R2D2 but it did look a little like this star wars robot. (except shinier and rollier) At one point it "sensed" someone it's way and it stopped and did this weird maneuvering thing to get around. It arrived at it's destination and loudly announced it's arrival and the arrival of the package it was carrying. Evidently it even had a secret compartment, because I couldn't see any packages. Secret compartment or it is a really stupid robot. One or the other. Either way it was about the coolest thing I had seen since I saw Snake Eyes guarding the president of the United States at the White House. But that's another story.

All this got me thinking. If I could wake up tomorrow and it would be the day we brought the girls home, and I would have no memory of all this I would have to turn the offer down. No, not because of the robot. And not because I think loosing memory is one of the scariest things that can happen to a person. But because there have been good times in all of this. I wish it hadn't happened this way. But it did. And I have seen my girls baptized. I have seen them cry. I have seen their personalities existing weeks before many people even believe they are alive. I have held my girls and I have cried over them. Yes, some of those tears were tears of fear, but many were tears of joy, and I wouldn't want to loose them. I have seen that God will do things his way because he is God, but I have also been an eyewitness to his mercy. I've kangaroo cared, and I've swaddled. I was the first to get pooped on and I've put clothes on them. I've seen them fussy and I've seen them just sort of looking around. All this I have done with my wife and my Lord by my side. Who would want to get rid of all of those memories?
Don't get me wrong. Not recommending this whole experience to people who are bored on a Saturday night, and there is a large part of me that just wants this phase to be over and to have my beautiful girls "safely" at home. Just saying that I wouldn't dump these memories even if I could.

grandparents

Over their short post-womb life our beautiful girls have had a number of visits from their grandparents. Here are a couple of quick multi-generational photos.Above: Grandma Broge was here back when the girls were still a bit too small to be passing around (sorry grandma). Three generations of Broge women. Only one born that way;)
Above: Nanna came a couple of weeks later and got to hold one (don't worry grandma...next visit for sure!)
Grandad came a couple weeks after that and got a chance to hold to!o Now we just need grandma and grandpa broge to have a chance!

3lbs!!!

...and all that goes with it.
Yes, another mile stone to celebrate. The girls have hit 3 pounds. Of course that is still amazingly small, but it is another blessing, another brick in the road heading home.
So, as a part of being three pounds their life has begun to change in a major way. They start wearing clothes! The goal is to see if they are developed enough to maintain their own body temperature. So today we bathed them, clothed them, and swaddled them up something good. They got all "burrito" wrapped. And there is little cuter then a baby burrito wrapped.
Emma Jane enjoying a little pre-clothes burrito wrap.
Emma Jane getting clothed (Mary Jane would like you to notice the cute elephants)

Mary Jane with both the girls

family photo

the girls together. I love this photo because it sums up their personality so well. Emma Jane on the right, her arms at her side because she just couldn't be bothered to pick them up. She's laid back and asleep. Parker? She's was fussing and making it hard to get the picture with all her thrashing. She finally stops, looks up at her sister and says, 'What do they want from me anyway?'

I learned something about myself throughout today's adventures. You will all be happy to know that kangaroo days are pretty much over, they might actually be over. so...no more chest hair pictures to wade through in order to see cute babies. But the realization him me hard. I actually had a moment where I realized my girls had grown up a bit. Some land mark happened in their lives. We have already had the first of the lasts. As in the last time I will do kangaroo care, and I didn't even know it was happening when it happened. With that there was a small moment of...oh no my little girls are growing up.
Yes, I know...ridiculous. Yes, I know....if that got me wait till they crawl, walk, go to school, graduate, get married...etc. Turns out I'm going to be "that" dad.
ehh...there are worse things to be.

A letter intercepted from the Home Office

Dear Ms. Mary Parker Broge,
We would like to take this opportunity to address what is becoming a regular problem in your on the job performance. While your overall output has been at acceptable levels we are not pleased with when you drop off your work. You have decided to hold on to the work and then drop it off all at one time, and often this is only after we have sent in a messenger to remind you to drop it off. There are a number of problems with this delivery of your work. One clear issue is that the sudden drop off of a ton of work creates a mess which is hard to organize and clean up after. It is also worth noting that holding on to the work until a messenger is sent in after it actually provides more pain and trouble for you. Let us take this most recent excursion. You will note for the many hours leading up toward the “great work delivery” you had so much work in your cubicle that you felt all cramped, were irritable, stiff, and at one point were so hemmed in you looked positively pale and lethargic. This cannot be an enjoyable condition to be in. Please look at your fellow worker in the nearby office space, Ms. Emma Jane Broge. Note that her output equals yours, but that she is able to drop it off at regular intervals. This actually allows her more time to be laid back, relax, and make cute faces at the office security cameras. This mode of delivery also provides a great deal of stress for upper management back at the home office. They end up spending the bulk of the day wondering where all your work is and worrying that it might not get turned in at all. This eventually erodes into their precious sleep time as your nightly managers begin calling in the wee hours of the morning when it becomes apparent you are going to miss yet another dead line.
In closing, we are very grateful for the massive amount of work you dropped of early this morning, but we would appreciate it if you would begin dropping your work off in smaller chunks and in a timelier manner. I am afraid that, because of this, Ms. Emma Jane Broge will once again need to be given the Employee of the Week award. And of course with that comes the coveted parking space. I will remind you that the quality and quantity of your work is up to this standard, but until you begin dropping it off in a timely manner this award will continue to elude you.
Sincerely,
The Home Office.