Baby Steps

Our appointment with the Feeding Team yesterday went well. Alex now weighs 19 + lbs and is 29 inches long! This puts her in the 50% of her adjusted (for her 3 month prematurity) growth chart which is exactly where they want her to be! She is growing out of her 6-12 months clothes so it looks like I have a big laundry day ahead of me washing all the 12-18 month clothes for her so they are ready when needed. We are now to take another baby step in our feeding exercises with Alex. Instead of touching her lower lip with an empty baby spoon 3-5 times during a tube feed once a day and then letting her play with the spoon and during another feed or time offering her a teething cookie or a graham cracker we are to now put the spoon in her mouth allowing her to bite down on it 3-5 times twice a day and after she plays with a spoon for a while take it away and offer her a teething cookie or a graham cracker. Sometimes she eats most of the cookie and sometimes she just plays with it and then throws it overboard which is fine. It's a far cry from Alex not even wanting a spoon or food anywhere near her...And because there does not seem to be a anything wrong with Alex as far as swallowing, etc. we have been put on a waiting list to meet only with a Child Psychologist (instead of the whole Feeding Team) to work on different eating exercises. These meetings will be on the same day/time every 2 weeks. The waiting list is about 6-8 weeks long...so in meantime we are to call the Child Psychologist and talk about progress and possibly adding new things to her feeding exercises over the phone.

Last night while Steve and I were eating dinner we gave Alex a graham cracker. She ate the whole thing! And was taking really big bites which we have never seen her do before! She even drank a good amount of juice which she has not had any interest in since we started the Mic-Key button tube feeds. We were very excited!

As you know, Alex has been learning to walk. She tends to walk on her tip-toes so to help her with that I try to keep shoes on her when we play. With all this growing Alex somehow went from a size 2 shoe to a size 4 WIDE skipping size 3 altogether! She has little pudgy Flinstone feet with a high instep! So cute. We also had to give up the Velcro shoes because Alex takes them off in 2 sec and chews on them. For now, she has not figured out how to undue a double knot lace. Phew! Last night while playing with Alex I put her hands on the handle that's on the back of her fire truck and "let her go" - she walked by herself pushing the fire truck and bumping into whatever was in her way! It looks like it won't be long till Alex is walking all by herself!

She is also talking up a storm! With words and sentences that are really funny sounding - it makes us laugh especially because she is very serious and definite about what she is saying. She laughs a lot and everyone she meets always comments on what a happy baby she is.

Alex continues to love water and baths. She gets her bath at 7:00 pm every night and if we are running late she chants "Bathy, bathy, bathy" over and over again and waves her arms around. Now that her Mic-Key button is healed and I have a better handle on it we are going to try to re-sign Alex up for the Mommy and Me swimming lessons.

Baby steps... :)

Thank you for your continual prayers and support! We appreciate you.