Grow Babies, Grow!

Solids and butter are making a world of difference for the babies! Their weights Wednesday night at baths were: Annabel - 17 lbs 8ozs, Madelyn – 16 lbs 1/2oz, and Johnathan - 17 lbs 4 ½ ozs! The original plan with Dr. Madison was that they would stay on Neosure (22cal) until they were on the growth chart for their true age so we are hoping that by their 15 month well-baby (which has been moved to November 5) they’ll be there and we can stop buying the expensive formula! We have been slowly weaning the girls to all whole milk (20cal) but they are having issues with the cold so it has been a slow process. Johnathan is staying on all Neosure for now but he’s starting to eat more solids so hopefully we’ll be able to start transitioning him soon too. We are offering him whole milk at meals so he gets used to the taste. For a lot of children that have chronic lung disease the doctors decide to put them on Pediasure (30cal) for awhile to help them grow quicker so their lungs grow faster too, so depending on where Johnathan falls (and possibly the girls too if they’re not on the chart yet) at the 15 month appointment we may need to supplement with the Pediasure. The tricky part is that you don’t want to make them too full with the Pediasure that they don’t want to eat solids, especially when they’re doing so well with the solids! It won’t be the end of the world if we need to go on Pediasure but it would be great if we can avoid it so we are majorly pumping them up with solids until the appointment to see what we can do on our own. The newest things the babies have eaten are lunch meat, cheese, cottage cheese, vanilla pudding (Johnathan loves!), and vanilla ice cream. We’ve been working on having them feed themselves depending on what the food is, let’s just say it’s been quite messy at our house some days! : )

Yesterday was a special day for me as I received recognition for my 2nd published patent with General Motors. With all of the uncertainties in today’s workplace it is nice to be recognized for your hard work..

Today was Annabel’s last day at CHAMP. I can’t believe how quick those 3 weeks went by! The two main therapists were great to work with and we will miss them! I definitely feel that the program has been beneficial to Annabel. She has shown us some awesome things with her left hand and I feel that we learned a lot of useful information to incorporate in to her everyday life that will help her immensely to use her left hand. Throughout the therapy she also improved on her sitting, weight-bearing, and focusing on toys/people, which are all huge developmental steps! Depending on how she is doing down the road she may or may not need to have a refresher course in CHAMP.

Annabel and I had some nice one-on-one time while she was in CHAMPs. A couple of the days I took her to the mall across the street afterwards and walked around and she loved taking in all the sights and sounds. On Tuesday this week I got Auntie Anne’s pretzel sticks and gave her some, along with the melted cheese dip and boy did she love that! It will be nice when eventually my only one-on-one time with the babies isn’t for doctors appointments!

This morning our Early On PT came to work with Johnathan and Mady and Shirley was so impressed with all the stuff Johnathan’s doing – all the sounds he’s making, feeding himself his bottles, sitting up, crawling, pulling to stand, and even starting to make the slightest moves to side-step along the couch. Our little man might be taking a few steps by their adjusted 1 year yet!! We are so proud of him, to think of where he started and the handful of nights we weren’t even sure if he’d make it. What a miracle! Shirley was also very happy with Mady’s vast improvement in sitting, now sitting unsupported and playing with her hands free! She also pulls up to stand but she’s not as solid in her leg support and doesn’t last very long standing. One thing we need to continue working on with her is that she still has some tightness looking left, so we’ll need to continue stretching and incorporate getting her to extend left in to her daily routine.

This afternoon I took Annabel in to the pediatricians because I had this suspicious intuition that her right ear infection didn’t clear up all the way from two weeks ago because she has been a touch more finicky with the bottle than normal and sure enough, it wasn’t totally cleared so she’s back on Amoxicillin for 10 more days. She still didn’t spike a fever, no sign except for the mild fussiness with eating!

And one more thing happened today – Johnathan FINALLY cut a tooth! It’s his top right central incisor!!