surgery recovery continued

I'm just about a week post surgery.  I saw the surgeon today, and he took out the drainage tube I had.  He was a bit concerned with how red and swollen I was, but thinks its because I was wearing the compression garment too high.  So now I have another type of compression garment and will be going back to see him on Thursday.  I'm supposed to call if I have any signs of infection:  fever, etc.

I'm still in a fair amount of pain.  As long as I'm on my regimen of Tylenol I feel ok...but once it wears off, ouch!  Definite pain.  And lots and lots of swelling.  I'm definitely glad I did it, but the recovery is pretty rough.  From what I've read, it could be a few months before the swelling completely goes away.  I'm going to have to take it easy for that amount of time, which is fine.  I don't want to mess up the recovery and have it all be a waste of time.

Regarding the kiddos, the girls have their six month Early Intervention assessment this afternoon.  They've been seeing an Occupational Therapist through the MA Early Intervention system since they came home from the NICU:  they qualified because they were preemies.  So every 2-3 weeks, we've had a visit and the OT has looked at them to see how they're doing.  Now that its been six months, they'll have a formal assessment and it will be decided if they still qualify.  Obviously the goal is to be kicked out of the program.  If they still qualify, we'll have to decide if we want to continue.  Unfortunately, due to state budget cuts, the cost of EI went up 400%, and to keep them in the program for another six months, it will cost around $1000 (that's for both of them).  So if they still qualify, Jason and I will have a lot of talking to do.  I am interested to see how they are progressing.  Meorah is a crawling machine, and Tzelia is just starting with the army crawling.  Both girls are on solid foods, but cannot feed themselves either solids or their bottles.  Finger foods are completely absent.  Both girls can sit a little bit, but are not all that stable, Tzelia particularly has difficulty with that.  Both girls are very vocal.  Obviously I'm not an expert, but I think they are on par with their adjusted age.  We'll see what the professionals think.

Zev is starting to get into the habit of leaving his room when he gets up in the morning.  I'm considering getting him a toddler clock to teach him to stay in his room until the clock turns a certain color....something like this toddler clock.  They get good reviews.  This morning he came into our room at 6:30 and didn't want to go back to his own room.  I'd rather not have to deal with that every day.  There are a few different types, so I'm going to look into them and pick one out.  If it has a clock on it, he can also start to learn how to tell time.  Nicole has him working on the days of the week and months of the year, and he already has a general idea of the seasons.

We also need to step up the potty training.  I think I've been slacking a bit on that.  He isn't even three, and I know boys can be later than girls.  I just have so much on my plate, its hard to get to everything....