This is Elvis (pronounced El-vees). He is one month old and was brought in by his mother after a rat climbed into the box he was sleeping in and bit him on the face. The bite is mostly heeled, but I think it still hurts him. He has the softest, thickest black hair you have ever seen. He is a very serious little thing.

This is Lorena (pronounced Lo-ray-na) and she is two months old. She had some complication with her intestines and is staying in the hospital indefinately. She's happy all the time and cries the least of all the babies. Evertime she sees someone stick their tonue out her whole little face lights up, she thinks it's so funny.

This is Tunde (pronounced Toon-day) and she's less then 1 month old. She still sleeps most of the time, but when she is awake you can see her eyes are starting to focus on things. I'm not really sure why she's in the hospital... sometimes the doctors tell us and sometimes they don't.

This is David (pronounced Da-veed) and he is 5 months old. David (on account of being the oldest) is the most active. He has two of the most adorable dimples that act as an early warning system whenever he is about to smile. He has a problem in his throat that make him very susseptible to choaking when he's eating. However, they tried to return him to his family and they refused to take him. This is farely common, the families won't accept the baby back but they won't sign him over to the state either. So the child lives in the hospital, and every few months the ambulance takes them home to try to get the mother to take him. Sometimes the children can be in the hosptial for years. Holding him is Dora, Vera's daugher.

And this is Istvan (pronounced Eesht-van) and yes, he's still in the hosptial. Over the past few days he has started getting worse again, and he lost all the colour that he had been gaining. He quite likes being in the smaller room because, even when I'm not holding him, he can always see me. When he's not sleeping, he's watching me. He started talking, or at least making noises when I talk to him. He has the cutes laugh but lately, whenever he laughs, it turns into a coughing fit

This has been a truly crazy week. They are doing renovations at the hospital and as a result, we had to move our babies into a different room. This wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have seven babies and if the new room wasn't half the size of the old one. David and Darius (the twins) aren't even with us right now, they are in the next room over. And if that wasn't making things interesting enough, some kind of ruptured cyst under her arm that just won't heal. The doctors have pumped her full of medication and places her on bedrest for one week. Her daughter, Dora, and I have been holding down the fort. Between spending approx. 7 1/2 hours at the hospital everyday and helping with Codi and Andrea when I get home, blogging just sort of fell to the bottom of my to-do list. And yet, it has been an amazing week. The little babies are so tiny, so fragile, so young. And yet you can already see their individual little personalities. Watching Elvis stare in fascination at his own fingers, or seeing Tunde focus her gaze on something for a few seconds... it makes me feel blessed that I'm given the chance to see those moments. I could literally talk forever about all the little happenings that occur over the course of the day when you are surrounded by five little infants.