You may already know,...........

............Marlie Elizabeth is home! Shanon brought her home on New Year's Eve. She had been at the hospital with the baby since Wednesday, without any visitors from home, due to the virus the rest of us had. She slept in the babies room so she could nurse her and learn to clean her incision. As it turned out, the infection didn't get any better so the surgeon ordered a dose of morphine for Marlie and reopened her wound. It just had to be cleaned out and I guess that was the fastest way to get it done. Unfortunately that required a wound care protocol that included removing the bandage twice a day and squeezing out the remaining infection. My daughter is an amazing mother and nurse. The first day she was home I heard the baby quietly screaming and when I went into the nursery to investigate, Shanon was performing her training. I spun on my heals and headed downstairs to weep. This little Marlie Elizabeth is one tough baby.

On New Years Eve. it was Shanon and I at her house with Marlie and Michael, and Danny at his parents house down the street, recovering from the flu. They stayed away for week to give the baby a chance to nurse and recover without subjecting her to any nasty possibilities. We took her to her doctors appointments and everything seems to be just fine. She doesn't eat much and hasn't gained much weight yet, but she's back up to 7 pounds, from 6.5 after surgery. She was 8 at birth and looked so healthy....she'll catch up. She's eating almost two ounces every three hours and is still on antibiotics. She'll see a pediatric cardiologist throughout her childhood and young adulthood. Thursday afternoon I stayed home with her while Shanon and Danny took Michael to Chuck E Cheese. I held her, sang to her, fed her, changed her and held her some more. I was in heaven.

This morning I kissed them all good bye and drove back to my beach town. I drove through a raging wind storm that blew over a couple of tractor trailers. It was a brutal drive from Phoenix to LA but Maggie and I arrived safely. I got a chance to catch up on Air America and all the government shananigans. I hope you are all paying attention to what's going on. Stay vigilant. We must preserve our freedom for the wee ones.

Love you all, thanks for all the emails, phone calls and prayers.

Back to work!

Oh yeah! Happy New Year!