It’s sunday. I’m sitting at the dining room table typing away on the laptop with the soft, soothing sounds of the music coming from the babies’ swing in the background. Gabriel is quietly snorting away in the bouncy chair while Chloe dozes in the swing. Robyn’s eating a bagel and sipping coffee in our bedroom while catching up on some TV. I look out the window and see the sun shining through the what’s left of the golden leaves on the trees in the yard. I take a deep breath and take time to savor these moments of quiet solitude before tackling the list of things that we are going to try to get done today.

Robyn’s mom stayed with us for the last couple of days to help out. She was really a huge pair of helping hands, giving us the opportunity to get some badly needed chores done and just generally take the pressure off. After a really bad few days of reflux and babies crying last week, we’ve now, on our doctor’s orders, begun adding rice cereal to Gabriel and Chloe’s formula in addition to a bit of Maalox to calm their bellies. So far, we’ve seen a huge improvement. Although Chloe is still having some reflux, it’s no where near as bad as it was. We’ve also had the opportunity to sort of take a step back and observe without feeling like bad parents in order to take stock of what works and what doesn’t. Overall, the situation seems much more manageable than it did just a week before.

I’ve been back to working from home during the week. That made the beginning of last week particularly difficult as Robyn was feeling a lot of pressure to not bother me and I was feeling torn in two directions – do I ignore the crying and screaming upstairs and continue to work or let work slide? It was a challenge! It will be interesting to see how this week goes.

What’s on the list for today?
[list]
[*][url=http://www.shoprite.com/]Grocery shopping[/url]
[*]Order more prints from [url=http://www.costco.com]Costco[/url]
[*]Pick up prints and other necessities from [url=http://www.costco.com]Costco[/url]
[*]Blow the leaves out of the back yard
[*]Blow the leaves out of the front yard
[*]Put together new bouncer and swing
[*]Get more stuff out of the office
[*]Bathe babies
[*]100 other things I’m sure I’m forgetting
[/list]

There’s never enough time to get everything done anymore. We know that it’s unrealistic to even think we can get it all done, but that’s the list as it stands this morning.

We’re quickly approaching the one week anniversary of the day we brought Gabriel home. You would think that going from one baby to two, would simply involve doubling the amount of feedings that need to be given, diapers that need to be changed and cleanup that needs to be done. This is not the case. I would say the work has probably tripled, actually. I’m not sure why this is, but I think it has something to do with keeping the two babies on a single feeding schedule. Everyone we spoke to who knew anything about raising twins told us that getting them on a similar schedule is the most important thing you can do – at least for your mental state. Since Gabriel has to eat every three hours, we are trying to keep Chloe to this as well.

We’ve had a couple of difficult nights so far, but nothing too bad. Last night was tough because Chloe was crying a lot for several hours. We’re pretty sure that she has bad gas, but it’s hard to tell because she won’t answer our questions cleary. The Internet has not longer become an additional means of communication, but also a method of researching [url=http://www.colichelp.com/shop/gripewater.html]gripe water[/url], [url=http://www.coliccalm.com/]Colic Calm[/url] and colic symptoms.

Gabriel got the okay from his doctors to come home on Friday the 13th. After exactly one month in the NICU he was discharged from the hospital. He seems very happy to be home with mommy and daddy and Chloe.

Sorry for the lack of updates here. We’ve been a little overwhelmed.

So, obviously, Chloe is home and has been since September 20th. In speaking with his doctors today, it sounds like Gabriel could be coming home by the end of this week! All his tests have been negative for any serious conditions and seem to point to his being born small and premature. His blood sugar levels have been good for several days running so the neonatologists will stretch the time between his feedings tomorrow to see what effect this has on his glucose. If all is good and he can maintain safe levels for that period between meals, then he will most likely come home with us on Friday.

It’s very exciting, but of course we’re a bit scared of missing any low sugar levels that might occur and then causing him some harm. The doctors and nurses at the NICU have assured us that he would not be coming home if it wasn’t safe.

Chloe may be coming home on Wednesday. We’re both very happy and quite frightened all at the same time! It will be wonderful, but I think we have a serious case of the “new parent jitters”. Gabriel is still going to need some time (how much, we’re not sure yet) but he continues to improve each day by increasing his food intake and gaining weight. He’s still having a little trouble with his sugar levels, but everyone seems confident that that will work itself out.

Things are going well. It was a bit of a rough day because Robyn was discharged and we were leaving the babies at the hospital. But, we know they’re receiving excellent care and it’s the place they need to be. We’ll be visiting each day, of course.

Here are the hightlights from yesterday and today:
[list]
[*]Gabriel’s eating 11 ml at each feeding. He sucks it down in no time!
[*]He gained a few grams, so the nurses suspect that he’s on an upswing with his weight. Chloe is down a bit to 4 lbs 13 oz, but this is normal. A 10% decrease in weight is considered to be normal and she’ll stay in the intermediate care area. We heard today that we can probably expect her to come home sometime this week.
[*]She’s also looking a bit yellow, so she’ll probably be back under the bili lights tomorrow.
[*]His bili levels were also a bit high, so he’s back to sunbathing for a day or two as well.
[*]We’ve tried to make it to most of their feedings in the past 24 hours, so that made for a lot of running back and forth to the NICU and Robyn overdid it a bit yesterday. She’s feeling a bit better today though and trying to pace herself and take it easy.
[/list]

Both Gabriel and Chloe are doing well. Both Robyn and I got to hold Gabriel for the first time yesterday and Robyn was able to feed Chloe a few times as well.

We are very happy to welcome our two beautiful children into the world!

Chloe Rose Houle was born at 7:40 pm on September 13th. She weighed 5 lbs 1 oz.
Gabriel Matthew Houle was born at 7:41 pm. He weighed 3 lbs.

Although they arrived a bit earlier than expected, both babies are doing well and seem to be adapting nicely to their new world.

Mom is resting comfortably at Morristown Memorial Hospital.

Another summer has come and mostly gone…. Time really does fly and that seem especially true for us this year. So much of our time has been taken up with going to doctors and worrying and planning for the babies’ arrival – not to mention the fact that Robyn’s been on bed-rest – that we haven’t really had much opportunity to get out and enjoy the weather or see friends.

[img]http://www.oninohana.com/gallery/__phpAutoGallery__picLoaderTmp/www.oninohana.com/gallery/Don/320_rainy_days.jpg[/img]

As the weather has been a bit cooler, not to mention a lot rainier lately, it starts to feel more and more the end of the summer and I keep looking at my to-do list and thinking about the things that I’ve been meaning to get done. In the last week or so, some of these items have been crossed off the list as I’ve managed to pull together the resources and time to complete them. At least getting stuff done has decreased my stress levels a bit. I feel better about how things are going at home and in preparation for doubling the size of our family. I still worry about work a bit, but I figure that people have to have some sympathy for what I’m going through. I haven’t let anything slide as far as really important projects go and I’ve been making some headway on those as well.

John and I went for a bike ride today. We checked out an little road that we had passed on our rides previously and we were surprised to find an abandoned building. There were no signs to indicate what the place used to be used for, so it’s hard to say what it was, but it looked to me like an old bank or something although I tend to doubt that since it’s in a bad location. At least one of the doors was left unlocked, so we could have gone in, but decided against it. I believe that would be trespassing. We also managed to find a section of the old Morris Canal that was still intact and we rode on the towpath until it came out on Planeview Rd in Stanhope. The area we rode can be seen [url=http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=40.905453,-74.714767&spn=0.011596,0.019999&t=h&om=1]here[/url]. The last thing we checked out was an air ambulance helipad on Love Lane. We rode around the chopper once and then saw the crew watching us closely from their office. I was tempted to ask them about it, but they didn’t seem to be very interested in talking so we left the area.

Later in the day, John, Kath, Evan and Zoe and George, Shannon, Drew and Cam came to hang out at our place for a bit. It was really nice to sit and chat. We’ve been dying to get out of the house and hang out with other people, so this was the next best thing. Staying in and seeing people! I feel really lucky to have such good friends and to be associated with good people.

After I cleaned up from the company, I downloaded some video from our camera and I watched some short videos that we had taken of the babies moving around in Robyn’s belly. I’ll put a link to some of the edited “bumps” as they are really quite amazing.

Today was Wednesday, May 24th – my last day in Japan! I awoke early to finish packing the last of my stuff. Since there was class with Shiraishi sensei this morning, I had to leave some training items out and the things that I would need to clean up after training. Once the majority of my things were away, I readied for training and walked over to Honbu. Paul was there this morning and we worked together for the majority of the session. Shiraishi sensei was nice enough to let me get video of the class, so I captured most of it using my digital camera. I was quite happy when he seemed to give a nice “overview” of the things he had taught in the previous week’s time that I was in town as well as some additional points about walking. Once class was over, I took a few last minute photos of the doujou and bid my farewell to the people I had met and to the space itself.

I hurried back to the inn and quickly showered and packed away the last of my gear. After paying my bill and thanking the staff for their hospitality, I met up with Lauren and Roger to say my goodbyes. They walked me to the train station and soon I was headed back towards the airport.

I was a bit confused by some of the signs at Abiko station, but I managed to catch the express train to Narita with the help of one of the station attendants. These guys are great. They’ll actually run with you to the train if you don’t seem to understand their directions!

I really enjoyed the ride from Abiko to Narita. As I mentioned in my Day 1 description, the scenery was really beautiful. I wish I had gotten some photos, but much of my attention was drawn to the twelve or thirteen year old kid sitting a few seats down from me on the train.

There were maybe a dozen people in the car in which I was sitting. To my right was the kid I mentioned above and across from him was a woman in her early 30s or so. This kid, who I will henceforth refer to as “Sleepy”, was dressed in his school uniform and looked like he had pulled an all nighter or was just a very relaxed person. When I first noticed him, he was slowly “falling” to his left side. He got to the point that his head was quite literally hovering an inch or so away from the seat next to him. At this point, he awoke and jerked back upright. Adjusting his glasses, he looked around sleepily and then closed his eyes. Within a minute, he was slowly slumping in the other direction until his face was again just above the seat next to him. Wake up…look around…close eyes…slump forward this time…. This continued for almost the entire ride. About half way to Narita, Sleepy got up and moved to the seat next to the door so that he wasn’t slumping to his right anymore, but that didn’t stop him from falling to the other directions. I couldn’t help but smile as I watched this display. The woman across from him appeared to be entranced, too and we shared a laugh about the whole thing. On one hand, it was a funny thing to watch, but I felt a little sad, too. Maybe this kid had been up all night studying and was really struggling under the demands of his school work. Of course, it’s more likely that he was up all night playing video games or chatting with friends or “texting” on his [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_mobile_phone_culture]keitai[/url].

At Narita station, I hopped the local train to the airport and followed the signs to check-in. Things went quite smoothly from there and I was at the gate before I knew it with about 45 minutes to spare.

Most of the flight was quite unremarkable. I watched two of the Harry Potter films and a Japanese film about a group of high school girls who form a band to play in their school’s variety show. By the end of the flight, I was tired and my ass was killing me from sitting even though I had gotten up several times to walk around and hit the restroom. As we neared Newark and began our descent the air was a bit rough although the skies were perfectly clear, and I started to feel a little sick. A few passengers that I could see sitting towards the front of the cabin required their air sickness bags and I think that started a small chain reaction….

I didn’t throw up and we were soon safely on the ground. After claiming my baggage, I made my way through customs and the security checks and out to the passenger pickup area. It was good to be back where everyone was speaking English! Not long after, George and Drew showed up and we piled my luggage into the trunk and off we went.