Four-year-old Richard Graves loves Power Rangers, trucks and Transformers, boys' toys that are strong and scrappy like him.

"I'm big," he says now, and he is, at an active, happy 32 pounds.

He doesn't remember that he was born prematurely at 30 weeks, and weighed barely 2 pounds, that he spent the first month of his life isolated from his mother in a hospital incubator.

Now, his sister, Makel Jones, is enduring some of the same difficulties. She was born seven weeks ago at 31 weeks, weighing just 2 pounds, 13 ounces.

Having a second preemie has overwhelmed the children's mother, Monica Blackwell, financially and emotionally. The pregnancy with Makel was difficult, forcing Ms. Blackwell, 22, to leave the job she'd held for a year with a Children's Hospital opthamologist. Her short-term disability coverage ran out at the beginning of the month.

She shares a subsidized Mount Washington apartment with her fiance, and her daughter's father, Matthew Makel Jones, 21, a tutor at the Hill House. Marriage is "in the future," they say.

But Christmas is right around the corner, and Ms. Blackwell worries that the extra expenses of caring for her daughter will mean a holiday without toys for Richard.

"He wants every toy he sees on the Cartoon Network," she said. "It's heartbreaking. There's nothing you can do. I try to talk to him. I know I want to get him more but I can't."

It became real for Ms. Blackwell and Mr. Jones when they made plans to celebrate Richard's 4th birthday on Nov. 23. They originally planned to invite lots of his friends to a party, but they realized their budget would only allow for a cake, one cousin and two gifts.

"We're just saving up," Ms. Blackwell said. "We spend a lot for Pampers and gas."

Ms. Blackwell said her situation would have been much worse without the help of the Transitional Infant Care Hospital at The Children's Home, a nonprofit that promotes the health and well-being of infants and children. The T.I.C. teaches families how to manage the needs of medically fragile infants in a licensed 11-bed pediatric speciality hospital.

But when Richard was born, the nurses at the hospital where Ms. Blackwell stayed did everything for her.

"I felt helpless," she said. She wasn't even able to hold her son, having to settle for gazing at him in the incubator.

"It's already an emotional time because you see all these people coming out of the hospital with babies in their car seats," she said. "You're all torn up inside."

The T.I.C.'s medical staff includes neonatologists, pediatricians, and physician consultants and specialists, along with a registered nurse staff. They created a care schedule for Ms. Blackwell so that when she returned to her home after three weeks she could maintain the level of extra care a preemie requires. Makel now weighs five pounds.

The nurses there showed her how to take Makel out of the incubator, check her temperature and put her back. Ms. Blackwell was able to hold her daughter all the time.

"It is just more home-based," Ms. Blackwell said. "It helped me to know my baby better.

"The nurses are great there. My nurse was awesome. They really make you feel at home."

Ms. Blackwell plans to attend the Christmas Eve service at Good Samaritan Baptist Church in the Hill District. Until then, she is going to bake lots of cookies with Richard, who is convinced that Santa eats them all before Christmas morning.

And she and her fiance hope that through the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Goodfellows Toy Fund and the Marine Corps Toys for Tots that Richard's dreams of toys will come true. Donations by Post-Gazette readers help to ensure that no child suffers a Christmas without toys.

You can make a tax-deductible contribution to Goodfellows using the coupon on this page, or online at www.post-gazette.com/pgcharities.