How are they doing?

At first they were easy. Wake 'em up, change the diaper, feed a bottle, put 'em down. When you put 'em down, they stayed down. We thought this meant that life in the NICU had conveniently sleep-trained them on a strict three-hour cycle, which translated into "Everything will be easy and will remain so."

Then our lactation consultant hinted that this behavior was really developmental in nature, and that they were still in utero as far as their brains were concerned all the way up until their term date. We were told to expect therefore that they would behave like normal newborns upon the arrival of their term date.

I ruefully report that this has turned out to be completely true. They are 10 weeks old measured from their birthdate, but only about 3 weeks measured from their term date. The middle-of-the-night alertness and desire constantly to be held has most certainly begun, right on time.

On the upside, Anna is showing a smile now and then. Which is nice, because it takes the edge off of being awakened at 3 a.m. and dealing with a baby that is fussy and needy despite a full meal. Evelyn has yet to grace us with a smile, but we assume she is smiling on the inside.