There aren’t a whole lot of updates to give or stories to tell about Brooke and Claire these days because they’re still doing what newborns do, and there’s not a lot of variety to that. Don’t get me wrong – I love it. It just doesn’t make for a lot of interesting stories to tell. They sleep (a lot), cry, eat, burp, poop (infrequently), spit up (occasionally), grow, smile randomly, jerk their arms around, grab stuff reflexively (including their own faces), get the hiccups, make a variety of adorable expressions and sounds, and study their ABCs. Next week they’ll start learning pre-algebra.

Our days mostly consist of watching or facilitating the above activities. We feed them on demand, which usually works out to about once every three hours, but no more than four, even if we have to wake them up to make them demand it. (That’s not necessary often.) We change, feed, burp, swaddle, hold, coo, sing, comfort, watch, try to eat once or twice a day, and generally live the life of newborn parents. We get tired and wish we had more sleep, but can’t complain too much because we’re very fortunate to have an excellent baby nurse who handles the night shift so we get to sleep. That arrangement will run out eventually, but for now, we are very, very glad for our full nights of sleep.

Even though we don’t have our own baby scale, we think both girls are growing well. Claire is still smaller than Brooke, but it’s not so obvious just from looking at them. Not only are they starting to reach the limit of fitting into their preemie-size clothes, but they’re starting to demand more food, which means our ample supply of 2-oz. bottles from the NICU will stop being enough soon, and we’ll have to add to our small supply of bigger bottles. We’ll find out what they weigh at their pediatrician appointment coming up next week, but I’m guessing 7-8 lbs. for both.

They’re definitely growing and developing and starting to show us hints of their personalities, but even though they’ll be eight weeks old in a couple days, they’re not even born yet in gestational age. That is, their due date based on a regular full-term pregnancy was not until June 5. So, when we look at age-based developmental milestones to watch for, we – and anyone evaluating them – have to subtract two months from their actual birth age, to get what’s called their “corrected age”. Thanks to their rapid progress in math already, the girls should be able to calculate their own corrected ages within a few months. In the meantime, we’re poised to celebrate their 0th birthday next Friday, because we really like Coldstone Creamery cakes and that’s a good excuse to get one.