Proud big brother

Ethan is such a wonderful big brother already — even though the twins are still in the hospital. He is their staunch defender and will be their fiercest protector when they come home. As an example, the other day I referred to Colin as my little “pune” (as in short for puny guy), and Ethan got very angry with me.

“Don’t call him that. It’s not nice. I don’t ever want you to call him mean things like that.”

I tried to explain that I meant it in an affectionate way, but he wasn’t buying it. Needless to say, that was the first and last time I referred to Colin this way (at least within earshot of Ethan). 

Ethan is very involved in tracking the twins’ medical condition — especially Colin’s. It’s a sign of how surreal our life is right now when Ethan’s side of a typical phone conversation with John goes something like this:

Ethan: Hi Daddy, how are the twins? [pause] And how are Colin’s oxygen levels tonight? Is he still at 21%? [pause] Can I share that information with Mommy? [He does.] And how are his saturation levels? … You get the picture

Ethan has absorbed an amazing amount of medical information and really has a pretty good understanding of what he’s asking about. At one point, we had a full NICU set up in our guest room (soon to be nursery). Each baby was laid out in its own “isolette” with a board showing its vital signs. Some of the babies were on IVs and others were able to take bottles. And Ethan would regularly make his rounds to check on the babies. I wish I had taken pictures, because he did such a nice job with it.

One of Ethan’s biggest disappointments (besides that we haven’t been able to bring Veronica home yet) is that he isn’t able to visit the babies every day. I told him he would probably get bored with daily visits because it really was a lot of sitting around, but he disagreed. 

So while we’re not able to bring him every day, we do try to set up sibling visits as often as possible. Here are some pictures from his last one — the first time he was able to meet Colin up close. 

Meeting little brother Colin for the first time
(after 7 weeks of waiting).

Colin’s biggest fan.

Mugging for the camera with Veronica.

Getting to hold Veronica for the second time.

He is a very proud big brother.