Thankful.

This Thanksgiving could not be more different from last year (well, Adam IS working again...some things don't change).  On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving last year, one of Aubrey's doctors called me at work (I already had the number memorized and knew it couldn't be good to see it appear on my phone) and told me that they were going to put her back on the ventilator to give her tiny body a rest from her breathing struggles.  The rest of that week was tough as we watched her sort of take a step backwards, and Thanksgiving was just weird considering I spent the day at the practically deserted hospital.  My wonderful family brought food for the nurses and doctors, so we at least got to be together.  Adam was able to come long enough to eat and to see Aubrey for a few minutes between sleeping and going to work for the night.

A video of Aubrey clapping.  It's cute.

Looking back, I realize that I have more to be thankful for this year than I could ever have asked for.  This time last year, Aubrey hadn't even hit 2 pounds yet; now she's about 15 pounds or so.  She is healthy, happy (most of the time), and still developing right on track for her adjusted age.  The progress she has made in the 12 months since last Thanksgiving is pretty unreal, and I could not be more thankful; if I let myself think about it too much when I'm sitting in the dark, rocking her before I put her down to sleep, I still tear up.

Working on a apple core.  Now she sits in front of me and stares and me and grunts until I finish the apple and hand her the core.

I'm thankful for my husband, who still loves me so good.  He puts up with all my insecurities and neuroses about Aubrey--is she eating enough? Sleeping enough-or too much? Should she be doing that? Why is she crying? He calms me down and takes her from me when he can to give me a break.  I'm thankful that he has a job that he loves and is very good at, even though it means he misses holidays and sleeps weird hours.  I'm more than thankful when he comes home safely after a shift. He's a good husband and a good dad, and those are not a dime a dozen these days.

Daddy at home=happy baby

I'm thankful that I have a job that is flexible and a boss (aka friend and second mom) who loves Aubrey and lets me bring her to work with me. I can't imagine leaving Aubrey with someone else every day, and thankfully I don't have to.

I'm thankful for family. Aubrey is blessed to have grandparents that adore her and want to spend time with her, even if it's difficult to get everyone to see her between their schedules and ours.  My nephews love Aubrey, and the feeling is mutual; she lights up when she sees them and thinks she's as big as they are.  We're blessed to have lots of family not too far away that we see fairly often. 

If I were to list every single thing I'm thankful for, this post would be way too long.  Suffice it to say that this Thanksgiving finds me more whole and at peace than last year.  I can only hope that I remember to thank God every day for all my blessings, and not only on Thanksgiving.

-Keli

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

So, what's new?  Oh.  You want to know what's new with Aubrey?  Oh, ok.  Well, let's think about this for a minute...she's growing and I'm trying to keep up.  That about sums it up.

She's still not very interested in the feeding herself thing.  She mushes up some banana or avocado in her hand, but not much makes it to her mouth.  We're still working on the pinching motion it takes to get the food to it's proper destination.  It's become a struggle to get her to take her bottle at all sometimes.  She usually takes it no problem first thing in the morning but will only take a couple of ounces the rest of the day.  The bedtime bottle is a toss up--some nights she sucks the whole thing down and some nights she takes half then pitches a fit and won't take any more. I guess she'd rather have solid food.  I fudge a little and put some of her formula into her oatmeal. :)

The pediatrician told us at the last appointment to work on getting her to take a sippy cup; we can't do that until we find out if she still aspirates on thin liquids.  We finally got a call last week about a swallow test at the hospital: "How does December 3rd sound?"  Considering that's the first available appointment and that if I said no it would probably be months before we got another one, we'll take it!

We're also still working on shifting weight from foot to foot and moving forward so walking will come easier in the future.  I think it frustrates her right now because she knows she can just get wherever she wants to go so much faster if she crawls.

I'm sort of blah about Thanksgiving next week since, naturally, Adam has to work.  He's worked every Thanksgiving since we've known each other (this will be the 8th...I think).  Oh well.  I'll just have to bring him leftovers and we'll have another Thanksgiving the next day.

-Keli

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Snippets from the last week in our house:

I turned another year older and got to spend the day with my two favorite people.

Aubrey's hands are in her mouth almost all the time.  When they aren't, she's crawling.  Therefore, we have slobber trails all over our hardwood floors that make it look like a giant slug comes through every day.

She's not crazy about the whole "feeding herself" thing.  She hasn't gotten the hang of it and would much rather pull my hand to her mouth and suck the food off of that.

"You seriously want me to put the food in my mouth MYSELF?"

Her favorite toy at work is a plastic squeaky dog toy shaped like a bone.  She carries it everywhere, even when crawling.  All I hear is thump-SQUEAK-thump-SQUEAK-thump-SQUEAK.

A friend of mine featured Aubrey (and Adam and I, by association) on her blog (that lots of people read).  The links follow:

Premature Births, Part 1

Premature Births, Part 2

Aubrey is Human of the Week!

We're even getting smiles while taking baths now. :)

-Keli

Monday, November 4, 2013

Let's see...what has gone on in the last week...uh...hmm.

In her new winter hat playing with one of her favorite toys.

 My brain isn't working correctly lately.  I've heard it's called "mommy brain" when your child sucks all of your common sense and reasoning and ability to remember things directly out of your cranium.  This seems to have come about as of late (who am I kidding? This happened the minute she was born.).  Example: I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription a few days ago.  They asked for date of birth.  I gave them Aubrey's and then couldn't figure out why the whole exchange wasn't working out.  Mommy brain-1, Keli-0. 

Aubrey, on the other hand, doesn't seem negatively affected by "mommy brain" in the least.  That's because she has sucked out all my brain power and is using it for herself.  Example: she can now climb the entire flight of stairs in our house.  We watched her do it yesterday (and stayed directly behind her while she did it).  She grabbed the carpet with her hands, hiked that little leg up and planted her foot on the step, gave a heave, and up she went.  To the second floor of the house.  By herself.  We are in SO much trouble.  Baby gates are being purchased tomorrow. 

I think we have finally gotten past Aubrey's previous pure hatred of baths.  She cried with every kind of bath I tried to give her.  I've bathed her in the kitchen sink for the past 2 weeks and she seems to tolerate it pretty well now.  She even almost smiled a little.  I have to leave a trickle of water running from the faucet though, so she can play in that while I do the scrubbing.

Adam and I went out on...what do you call those things?  Where the guy and girl go out and do stuff, away from home, without the baby?  Like dinner?  And a movie?  Oh yeah!  A date!  Yeah, we did that last week.  We left Aubrey for more than an hour and went out.  We had an actual face to face real conversation for the first time in a week!  And we went to a movie for the first time in a year!  It was lovely!

I think that's pretty much it for now...as far as this brain can recall, anyway.

-Keli