Allowance (a true story by Elias John Murdock)

Hello everyone! Mom and Dad said I could write the update for tonight. So, here goes!

Everything is going well for me and my brother. We are eating, sleeping, and pooping. Yep, I said it, deal with it (it happens you know). Our nurses continue to take real good care of us and mom and dad are always there loving on us. We like that, and don't tell the ladies, but I like to snuggle with mom and dad. Our grandparents are pretty cool too, Grandpa showed up with a gun today (silly people, he is a police officer!), it made all the other NICU kids jealous. We still are learning to breathe on our own, but cut us some slack okay? I mean, I am trying to gain weight, breathe, eat, sleep, and all of these other things, so sometimes I need a little help.

But, I HAVE BIG NEWS TO TELL YOU ALL: I BROKE OUT OF RESEARCH. Here is the story. Mom and Dad gave me my first ever allowance the yesterday. They gave me 5 pennies. Initially I was mad. I was like, "what the heck can I buy with these, this aint the 1920's". But then I hatched a plan. I went over to one of my NICU buddies and offered him the 5 pennies, all he had to do was give me 4 nickels. I convinced him 5 was better than 4. Then I offered another buddy the 4 nickels in exchange for 3 dimes. He took the deal. I then went into the other NICU room and offered the 3 dimes for 2 quarters. Bingo! And finally, offered the 2 quarters for one piece of paper money. Jackpot! Had a $20 now. So, I offered it to the mean insurance company lady. She had told me the day before I couldn't go see my brother. She wouldn't take it. I offered it to the Research nurses. They weren't allowed to take it either. The mean insurance lady must have told them to stay quiet! Finally, I offered my twenty to Children's Mercy and asked them to call me a cab.

But they did better than that! They sent this big van lookin thing with pretty lights and a music box that made the other cars go to sleep and drift to the side of the road. Pretty cool machine if you ask me. Anyway, let me ride in that and I got to set up shop at the hospital! So, NOW MY BROTHER AND I ARE RIGHT NEXT TO ONE ANOTHER. AWESOME!

And the best part? Children's Mercy let me keep my twenty! Piggy bank time baby!

We will continue to have more tests done in the next few days but I will let mommy and daddy give you all the medical terms, that is boring stuff for a 5 day old kid.

Thanks everyone for reading my story. I will tell Isaac to write something here soon.

Elias

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