What do you make for dinner when it is a hot day…. and I mean a really HOT day?

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I blogged for the March of Dimes Fight for Premies awareness day yesterday… and of course I started looking back through photos from when the girls were born. These two photos are of the girls at about 5 days old, … as much as they are not the normal ‘gorgeous baby photos’ and probably freak some people the heck out (which I totally understand) for some reason I find them just so beautiful…. blury, but beautiful.

I play Wordless Wednesday at Five Minutes for Mom. Find more wordless Wednesday at Technorati.

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A while back I blogged about premmie babies for Australia’s Premmie Awareness Week. This time it is for the US based March of Dimes Fight for Preemies (I didn’t miss-type that, they just add an extra e in the US) supported by Bloggers Unite.

Zoe 6 weeks old

Izzy 6 weeks old

Of course our experience with babies born too soon is rather fresh in my mind, having just celebrated the girls’ birthday. It’s hard to believe that it’s been six years since they were born. If you look at them today, as two six year old girls, you’d never know that they were born 11 weeks early. You’d have no clue that they weighed 1.13kgs and 900grams each. You couldn’t tell how close we came to loosing them before they were even born.

But there are things, little things, things only I notice that remind me.

They both have tiny lines of scar under their noses from the weeks and weeks of c-pap tubes wearing away their delicate skin.

Zoe has an asterisk shaped scar under her left arm from the chest tube used to treat her pneumothorax (hole in her lung) when she was three days old.

Then there are the other things…. things that may or may not be because they were born early. Things that make you wonder, and worry and wonder some more. The allergies, the asthma, the sensitivity, the emotional immaturity. Maybe those are related to being born too soon? Or maybe not.

In the early days I wanted to wish away the fact that the girls were born early. I was desperate for them, for our lives, to be ‘normal’. I wanted them to grow up and away from being prem babies and to forget it had ever happened.

Time has made me a little wiser though. Being able to watch them grow and thrive has give me a different perspective. I don’t wish away their difficult beginning because that is part of who they are. It is part of who I am.

If someone gave me a magic wand and told me I could change history…. I’d probably still do it… maybe….

But we have walked that path and made it through that journey… so I think I’d rather use that wand to change the future. I’d wish the path of the premmie babies to come to be a smooth and easy one, a short road to a happy and healthy baby.

If you are in the US you can donate to March of Dimes Fight for Preemies. If you are in Australia you can donate directly to any major maternity or children’s hospital in your state with a NICU. We donate to RWH NICU in our girl’s name each Christmas.

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So we are right in the thick of six now.

Izzy got up Saturday morning (the day after the birthday), after not much sleep the night before and proceeded to be horrible. I asked her what was up. Her reply…

“This is just how six is Mamma”.

Oh crap… come back five!!!

And as you can see above, Izzy lost her first tooth last week and now Zoe swears one of her’s is wobbly too. Or it will be wobbly if she has anything to do with it. Goodness knows why Zoe thinks she has to compete, Izzy’s one tiny wobbled out tooth is never going to catch her three smashed out teeth… but still.

Six… please get better.

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Things I know…

If you wear crocks to the zoo your feet will get REALLY dirty.
Bickering baboons sound remarkably like bickering children.
Birthdays have a tendency to go on and on in our family.
Cool nights make hot days wonderful.
Mermaid Barbies that squirt water are both a blessing and a curse.
November is one of those months that disappear in a haze of stuff.
After the birthday is over Christmas suddenly seems scarily close.

Brought to you by the letters I, Z and M and the number three, oh, and Yay for Home.

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