It's Almost Christmas??

Time is all but meaningless to me right now. I have a difficult time keeping track of what day it is, but apparently Christmas is in less than ten days. We officially have none of our shopping done.

Graduation was this past Friday. It felt good to go through the ceremony, but I still won't officially done until this Wednesday. I am waiting for a few slackers to turn in papers that will be graded for a maximum of half credit. And then they will bitch about their low grades. Most of the students are normal responsible adults, but there are definitely a few that make life difficult. I'm not sure if I would want to pursue teaching in college for a career. Once their grades are turned in, I will feel like I can concentrate on all of the crap around the house that needs to be done.

We had a graduation party that turned out really fun. My mom and Bernie's parents made a ton of food and we had about 30 people. I didn't think we knew that many people around here. I was ready for bed at 7pm.

Our guests are slowly trickling home. My grandma was only here for a couple of days. It was great to spend some time with her, she really is a fun lady. Bernie's parents left today as did Melanie. My mom will leave tomorrow. I hope Mel had some fun with all of the family. We can be an interesting group. I'm sure I will start to miss people in a few days, but it will be nice to have some time on our own. There are a couple of books I would like to read that have no academic value.

We did a shit ton of shopping over the past four days. Bennett and I were very spoiled. His room has almost everything it needs. I plan to post pictures once we get the dresser home and the rocking chair is delivered. My mom bought him the cutest vintage Humpty Dumpty lamp along. Jackie brought an unbelievable amount of clothing (some new and some from our nephew Grant who is four months old). None of it fits of course, but he will get there. I bought a pile of preemie clothes because they are dressing him now. Check out the pictures for one of his new little outfits. They look like doll clothes and they sort of hang off of him.

Along with being dressed now, Bennett has started to gain some weight (keep your fingers crossed that it continues). He has been up and down over the past 10 days. He is now at over 3lbs 14 oz. We are almost to 4 lbs! That's when crib time becomes closer. It will be a big step to have him out of the incubator.

The most exciting news is that he had his first feeding by mouth today. I got to feed him a bottle and he took to it surprisingly well. The nurse tried to prepare me that it might be a struggle at first, but he ended up drinking 25ml (a regular feeding is 35ml). He was so cute. He would suck really hard for about five seconds, rest for 30, and suck for five more. It totally wore him out. He was basically sleeping at the end. We will keep this up once a day for a bit and then slowly increase. Hopefully, we can introduce the breast soon also.

My mom and I put together as much of his room as possible tonight. I will post pictures of that when we get everything in place.