Today is World Prematurity Day. Last year (and the years before last that I wasn't so aware of the day) it was just Prematurity Awareness. This year, we get the whole world involved. Something like 13 million babies worldwide are born prematurely every year. 1 million of those don't survive.
Last year, I wrote I tried to do my part of spreading the awareness by posting our story of Jaxon's birth. Never in a million years did I expect that one of the people that read it would be a mom whose
twins were born prematurely when artificial surfectant was being tested. Her babies were among the first to use it. When I read her comment on my blog last year, I was so grateful to her and her babies for participating in a study that probably helped my son breathe 18 years later, I cried. (Today her babies are 20 years old! Happy birthday and thank you to them!)
Until Jax was born I was aware of premature births, but not
aware of it. No one expect their baby to be born too early. 2 years, 6 months and 2 days later I am painfully aware of it. Last year's awareness day made me realize that I (whether I wanted to be or not) am apart of a community of preemie families. And that each of those families is tied to every other preemie baby that was, is and will be born from here on out. The work that the March of Dimes ties us all together and knowing that ... floors me. It also makes me feel like Jax, Josh and I aren't so alone in our story.
On this day, I hope you will be more aware of those 13 million babies, their families, all the doctors and nurses that work with those families, and what the March of Dimes does to help all of those people.
To our families and friends, I hope you realize how much we appreciated your support and love in those first 20 days. To any doctors or nurses that work with NICU babies, the work you do is amazing, though sometimes underappreciated. To our local March of Dimes chapter, especially Collette, thank you for checking in on us and answering our questions. And to
that mom & her twins as well as any other preemie families whose story is tied to ours, thank you.
Writing a letter to Santa
He's walking backwards on the balance beam ~ he doesn't like to do this without a hand to hold onto and forgets about the whole "airplane arms" thing.
Please note the overhand throw. He played skee-ball like this too. I was convinced for a bit that we'd end up having to buy one of the machines because he was going to break it. 
The birthday boy! :)
I LOVE the look on his face. Mostly because he hadn't opened the gun that went with the bullets yet and was flipping out over them. So funny!
This was actually just us hanging out at home one day. Jax felt like it was a pajama sort of day (he loves these Buzz Lightyear jammies!) and asked if he could wear the wings I got for my Halloween costume for school. So we spent some time flying around the living room with our fancy wings one day :)
Front Flip
I think last year he was about 2 feet tall....I'll have to look
Our pumpkin picking process was a lot like last years: kick it, smell it, roll it, lift it, sit on it. 
Jax and Keegan loved playing in the straw (hay? I don't know, I know nothing of farm terms.) So we played in it for a good 20 minutes before finding pumpkins and then again after the pefect pumpkins had been picked.
This picture makes me laugh because right before I took it, we had been looking at the petting zoo animals and Kate said "Let's go pet the cow." She meant the real cow, but Jax walked up to the wooden cow for milking and started petting it. 
Those awesome sunglasses were included in our admission fee. They are pretty classy :)
