today is - according to ancient math master adam riese - the completion of the fourth month of life. so in the case of triplets - our case - this amounts to what? three times four months...

exactly: 1 year.

happy birthday, little three headed dragon! i wish you all the best and good health forever starting today!

take off!

the phone rang again. this time it was all super positive, though:

the kids move, up one floor, out of the intensive care unit, into the "regular" unit 25. this afternoon already...

they are finally on victory lane... :) we did it! it will be _JUST_ the normal standard chaos of 3 kids, from here on out... :)

while the weather in germany currently does not exactly spoil us, inside it looks a lot friendlier!

collin took his first ever bath with mommy, drinks entire meals all alone by now and informs his surroundings by means of cunning-funny faces about his obviously excellent mood.

with a little luck his siblings will probably move up one floor this week, at least we already had a visitor from upstairs telling us that "they" are prepared... :)

also, there was the clinic party (happy 30th and stay as you all are!), we have attended an internship with a 2.5 year old trainer and learned that our house is not quite ready, yet, for the wits and skills of little explorers. looks like we're gonna have to install flexible dog leashes at the ceiling for the interim! :)

we also received the first foood shipments from the sponsors. and now we have a little storage challenge... :) still, we are very grateful, of course! and our aupair-girl sends good news, too: a very friendly woman at the embassy is helping from afar...

so, putting it all together, the rain can not spoil our mood. :)

today is the day they would have been born... the day that was computed as the delivery date, a long time ago...



16 weeks ago they did in fact get delivered... 16 weeks that have seen many an event:



+ our dragon has gained 6865 grams, that's more than a stone! :)
+ nurses and doctors have had 336 duty shifts.
+ we drove almost 6500 kilometers, over 4000 miles.
+ the dragon has seen the other end of 5 surgeries.
+ and has had treatment to 4 eyes.
+ and i wrote 85 chapters since they were born, chapter 32.

and now we summarize it all together and get: ZERO

which means, day zero. THE birth-day. now it's for real... welcome to life, little dragon!

another issue cleared on the side: today came the spare parts for our super crowd stroller: a set of wheels (for traction, after all, the kids aren't supposed to think we can go round corners only slowly! :) ) and some small parts. they all look a bit cheapish, all plastic, ya know? i handle those kids every day, i know how strong they are already, how about a year or two down the road? i am fighting my fears of them making short work of the pride of my vehicle collection...

let's hope for the best. otherwise i'd be forced to buy one of those olde mail man bicycles and stick them into the front basket! :)

hard to believe what people collect... stamps, coins, coasters, sportscars, shoes...

collin seems to collect surgeries. not even regularly born yet, and he's got four already! well, at least he seems more interested in the good ones, for he already has - including this morning's - three time as many as of the not-so-positive ones...

would be cool, if there would be sort of a budget... like with teeth, coming only twice. because then we'd know that until, say, 18 years old he wouldn't get anything else... but, i guess this would atomize the whole health insurance concept, huh?

so, enough dreaming... time to return to the real life. our little hero needs us to wrestle down this latest infection. we're on our way! and with all your fingers crossed, we know we can do it, too...

well, it's ground hog day. again... this time in repetition of chapter 66... only that our path wasn't cut as late as in the doorway this time.

actually our three (yes, all!) headed dragon was supposed to move up one floor, to the "normal", not so intensive care unit. as early as tomorrow! but our youngest decided - instead of getting to know a whole new crowd - to stay a little longer. and to make sure he gets his way, he caught another infection. well, was caught by one, to be more exact.

i admit, today was anything and everything BUT funny, but i decided to look at the whole thing as just another card in the vast game of life and just bear it with (gallows) humor...

the quote of the day was: "you deserve the bad news to end!" (which was no sarcasm at all and was understood that way, too!)

the action of the day was really scary, involved myself and shall not be contemplated any closer. anyway, it ended in commending, even if it was not easy for me to understand and accept this...

summarizing: although the past 4 weeks were very very positive, it looks as if we'd be in need of a few more fingers crossed... they did have some time for R&R, i hope?

panic isn't always a bad thing. here and now, for instance: as anounced in chapter 26 the dragon needs a "cave". and because the home-coming struck panic into me, i readied the cave - FINALLY! well, homes are never really ready, there is always some more thing one would like to add, so do we. but at least it is ready for the dragon to move in.

highlight is certainly the cradle. bought by the grandparents, made by a handicapped-workshop to a parental idea - so it was a real team job. hanging from the ceiling by heavy duty straps, so should be safe. and when it is on the move, it raises quite some wind! i just hope the beam will suffice! :)

the wall paper is not ready-made stripes, by the way. all do it yourself: four sorts of paper, a little phantasy and loads of time and motivation make something unique that no-one else has...




and the cradle really does swing, look:

in order to keep you from getting bored, we play a game again, shall we? a contest, to be more precise:


goal is, to "put words into the mouth" - or head - of the sweet one there on the left...

something he could have said with this kind of impression on his face, if he was old enough to talk, yet...
or something he could be thinking if he was this big already...



let's roll, it's real easy, you can do it!



for playing, as always, use the comment feature... :)

our vicky is rid of all tubes and hoses! no oxygen she had for a while, now, but lately she also has no more tube into her stomach for milk... the first of our babies' faces containing nothing but dot, dot, comma, dash! :)

the engineer rejoycing: it's all happening!