teeny-tiny diapers.

Oodles of years ago when I was a girl, the toy companies started coming out with these realistic looking and feeling dollies. They felt like a newborn, had the right weight and skin texture/resistance, etc. Some home ec classes even used them for the 'practice' babies.

My baby, when I birthed her last year, didn't look anything like those realistic babies. She was a squiggly little limp Holly Hobby doll... She looked like a wrinkled spider monkey and it was several months before she wasn't considered 'floppy'. Most newborns are floppy and that's why one needs to be so careful with their necks and heads. Preemies take that floppiness to a whole new level.

When she's sick she's still my little preemie, all floppy and listless. No more wires, thank Diety, but I still creep in and check her breathing as though she were. When she falls into that deep sleep that only the very exhausted and the very young can achieve, and I have to carry her off to bed, she's floppy again. It's just that this time she's got some weight to her. Like a sack of potatoes instead of a piece of overcooked spaghetti.

One of these days I still want another baby doll to hold in my arms and rock. It's likely that will mean another roller coaster through the NICU, and teeny tiny diapers, and lots and lots of sleepless nights and hormonal depression. But it's so worth it. I wouldn't give up my Kitty for anything in the world.