Update Monday night, January 29th

Thank you to everyone who wrote such sweet comments! I wish I could write you ALL back! I read all the comments. I don't always, admittedly, but I sure did for this last post. I knew those pictures were going to be a hit. :o)

Today the weather was wild and wacky, and so were the kids, but Seth is indeed thriving! He seems SO happy to be here, so at peace, and so interested in his new little world. He loves the hustle and bustle of everyone around him and is interested in the other babies. I had him outside for the first time today, and he discovered breeze. He seemed to love it and fell asleep for quite a while. The other babies joined us out there with Deb and Donna. It was 76 degrees!

We are having ongoing issues with Seth's vomiting (again, retching and profuse, but not truly projectile) and definitely need continued prayers for that. We have him on the anti-reflux formula which seemed to help a lot at first, but I'm not sure it's doing much now. We are taking him for his first doctor's appointment tomorrow, which I'm glad about as we'll be able to get a professional opinion of what we should do to help him. It's frustrating because all the good developmental activities - sitting up, drinking from the bottle, tummy time - seem to exacerbate the problem!

The gal who came today to give us further training on his g-PEG had no idea that we had quintuplets. She came in and saw one baby (Marcie?) being held by Robin our volunteer and asked if that was Seth and if Robin was me. Then she started looking around and saw more and more babies. I guess her reaction was pretty fun. :)

Speaking of the quints: Will is now a chilled-out version of his former "five-alarm" self. Gracie totally has him beat for screaming/crying power and volume. Her lung capacity and vocal cords are astounding! And she doesn't mind telling you if she is bothered, hungry, tired, whatever. I LOVE how tiny she still is! She's gaining weight really well and has big ol' rolls on her thighs, but she's just so petite! I feel like I get to keep my babies as babies longer because of Gracie. Will, meanwhile, has muscular thighs and loves to stand up or bounce for minutes on end in someone's lap. David is just nuts about his Johnny Jump-Up and continues to be happy and smiley and relational. Marcie is busy taking in the world around her with her beautiful blue eyes (which may actually remain blue, as may Seth's!). She squeaks and screams like a tropical bird when she has a need, but otherwise is probably the easiest of all the babies. Seth's big blue eyes and long lashes melt my heart. He's been giving out more and more smiles as the days go by and "talks" too. He's a very easy baby, too, but when he does get upset (too hot, woken up, needs his diaper changed) boy howdy, he cries harder than any baby I've ever seen! He turns purple and stops breathing, he's crying so hard. And there's nothing we can do, really, to shorten his period of upset-ness. He's just MAD. The nurse practitioner warned us that his angry cries would set off the apnea ("not breathing for 20 seconds") alarm!

Guess I'd better close. I was only able to write for this long because the babies took a long evening nap following a VERY wakeful day! :)

Love and gratitude,
Carrie

Seth's main nurse saying goodbye. We love you, Kendall!

First bath at home. He loved it! This gives you a good picture of his g-PEG.
I fuzzed out his key parts down below :)

David and Will are enjoying their mini airplane kit from LeTourneau University, Gavin's Alma Mater
Thanks, LetU (and Auntie Karen for wrapping the planes)!

One small child . . . looking very angelic! Guess who it is? The swaddles have "wings" that happened to be "unfurled" in this picture. (Editor:  Of course, we know that real angels don't have wings, so she looks more like a "winged being") Strange not to see other babies around, isn't it?