James and Claire

James was a good boy last night....just sleeping and eating. Piece of cake.

Excitement was in the air all day as the end is finally within striking distance. There is a strong possibility that we can go home tomorrow. We need to wait for official word before leaving. We will literally have the bags packed and will be circling the airport waiting for the call.

Today's mission was simple: Get Claire out of the NICU and fax paperwork to Gladney before 5:00 to facilitate a possible Friday departure. Around 9:00 AM, I was contacted by Diane, who is a transitional care specialist for Gladney. She was going to sign Claire out of the NICU and was wondering what time to show up. So I called the hospital and talked to Claire's nurse. To my delight, Claire's nurse today was Mary, who is one of my favorites. We bonded when James covered her with green sewage last week. I explained that we really wanted an early afternoon release, and she promised to make it happen. True to her word, she called me a bit later and told me we were all set for 1:00.

Christy went to Walmart and picked up a mid-size rolling duffle bag for the journey home. While she was gone, James and I made ourselves presentable for the arrival of Claire.

We got to the hospital and headed towards the NICU. James and I had to wait in the hall outside because nobody under 17 is allowed, including babies that were just released from there. While we were waiting, James was luring nurses over to say hello. An elderly woman stopped to chat with us for a bit. After a couple of minutes, she reached into her bag and handed me a CD (with her on the cover) of lullaby songs. The name of the album is 'God Made You Special'. She made it clear that it was for James, and not me.

As I was chatting, Diane arrived and we talked for a few minutes before heading in to release Claire. After an hour or so, Diane came out to watch James so I could go in. When I went in, Claire was free from her monitors and Christy was already engrossed in Claire's first photo shoot. She was chatting it up with several of the nurses, who we have gotten to know over the past month. Some of these folks are scattered among our pictures from the beginning. It is bittersweet for us at this point as we have really gotten to know these wonderful people who have been caring for our babies over the past month. We have also made friends with some of the parents in the NICU and their babies. We have met so many interesting and wonderful people who have shared thier stories (as we have shared ours) and we will truly miss them. At the same time, we are just so happy to finally be going home! Finally, it was time for goodbyes and we were escorted (by Mary) out to the curb.

After we loaded the duo into their car seats, Christy looked at me with eyes of rebellion and said, 'Cheesecake Factory'. It was only fair...we wanted to make it up to Claire that we went without her yesterday. Plus we knew that at 3:00, it is a perfect place to eat a good lunch tucked away in a corner all by ourselves.

I went to the front desk to settle up my tab. When I came back up to the hotel room, I opened the door to find Christy with her arms in an 'X' across her chest, with one baby on each shoulder. She told me that she just patented the 'Double-Burp' hold (see photo). Her maternal instincts are taking over...by tomorrow morning she might have sprouted another pair of arms.

The blog stinks like my rental car tonight. But I have nothing left in the tank and need to get to packing. I will update the blog through the end of the weekend and then I am retiring.

Today's question comes from Mike Hunter, who asks: If the moon were made of cheese, would you live on it?>
The moon is in fact, made of cheese, and I do not live on it. Thus the answer is no.