After resting from last night's drama, it was nice to wake up to a cool and calm morning. I took a colder-than-warm shower to start my morning off and complained about not having electricity. I took Canon to OLS then met Barry back at the house to drive to the hospital together. I don't know if it was during this drive or some other time during the day, but at some point today, I heard on the radio that the death toll from last night's storms was continuing to climb. At one point, there was only one known death. Then, it was thirty. Eventually, someone reported 150. By the end of the weekend, the scary number was not the number that were dead, but the 500 that are still missing. And I'm complaining about no hot water. Typical!
To be honest, it's very difficult to think about anything else when I get to the hospital. I said yesterday that I lose track of the Outside World when I'm there, and that goes for when I actually know what has happened to the Outside World. It may be selfish, but it's hard to focus on such destruction when I have been witnessing the opposite of destruction - development - in my daughter.
She gained another ounce last night. 5 pounds 4 ounces (2371 grams). When we arrived at the hospital and I was ready to get Tera out, the nurse handed me a blanket and said "Call me if you need something." Usually, the nurse does pretty much everything. She unplugs her temp probe and wraps her up while I sit in the recliner and wait on her to hand the baby to me. Today, I got to unplug her temp probe. I wrapped her up. And I sat myself down in the recliner while holding Tera in my arms. At one point during her feeding, when I had set her bottle down to give her blow-by (she had choked and lost her breath), I accidentally knocked the bottle on the floor. I picked it up, got a new bottle, and got it ready all by myself so that Tera could keep eating. I have never done this much for her in one day, and it made me feel like . . . like her mother.
When it was all over, I put her back in the Isolette, unwrapped her, and plugged her temp probe back in. The nurse even showed me how to reset her bed so that it would read her temperature correctly. Barry sat with us and watched, sometimes talking to Tera or showing me pictures from the disaster of last night. Eventually, we left the hospital to get some lunch then came back to visit with Tera for just a little longer before getting Canon. I love having Barry here. I get jealous of a lot of the women here whose husbands or boyfriends stay with them all day everyday. I know that this is not a possibility for us - Barry has a job, and for our well-being and his own sanity he needs to be at the job as much as possible. I'm sure I ignored him most of the time while I held Tera or busied myself with the usual things I do at the hospital, but still, it was nice to have him all to myself today.
Tonight, we went to a Birmingham Baron's game with Sam, Alicia, and Sae. I love taking Canon to sporting events like these. He's been to a few Troy University football games and some high school football games, but this was his first baseball experience. Of course, he didn't care a bit about the game, but he enjoyed playing on the bleachers.
And hanging out in the Cheap Seats with his daddy's buddies.
I love this picture!
We returned, again, to a dark house. After playing with flashlights for awhile, it was finally time to go to bed. Canon was completely worn out, as were the rest of us. What an amazing thing to have a house to sleep in tonight.
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