Day 6: Our Day

So every night this week I sit here in my small firm hospital bed next to Whitney's, in the dark typing up my blog post on my smartphone. I'm half under my blanket and sometimes sit up to type. We've been having restful nights here. Yesterday was the first time Whitney woke up early to come sleep with me. I enjoyed cuddling her like I do at home but this bed is just too small to that comfortably.   The nurse was late coming in this morning and I woke up on my own at 7:45 am. So we only had a few minutes to get ready for breakfast. The nurse and feeding therapist came in at 8am. 

The therapist lead the meal and I helped with the reward which was reading books to her. It went great and she gave me a few last tips for the weekend on my own. 

Whitney's oral/eating skills are like that of a 6 month old baby. Her mouth needs lots of practice to feel more comfortable with food in there and to help desensitize it. Although she does have teeth so she likes eating crunchy foods rather than puréed which make her gag. 

Her frequent eating times are similar too! Small meals every 2-3 hours a day! 

Listening to music and playing a game on the iPod in between breakfast and snack.  She made herself comfortable snuggling up on me. 

Morning snack went pretty well! She ate a couple sun chips, licked up 1 tbsp of yogurt, and drank 2 oz of grape juice! Her reward was to see daddy and she was so excited!! 

They did this puzzle a few times and then colored in the play room. They had a great time together! One of daddy's friends kindly drove him here and then he took the jeep back home.  I played a little with them but then had to work on planning tomorrow's menu and turn it in. 

Photos of the day: these we both taken earlier this year. 

Thomas brought me a bamboo plant for my room! I love it! 

Soon we had to kick daddy out so we could have lunch and focus on that. Daddy went to get his own lunch downstairs.  Whitney ate 1/2 an apple slice, dipped her celery in chicken broth, 1/4 slice of ham deli meat, and 2oz of chocolate kids boost essential. That took about an hour, then we meet daddy downstairs and had some more fun with him for two hours! 

Daddy left for the day and will come back tomorrow! I'm so glad he is going to do our laundry and bring it back!  Three meals down three to go.  Whitney didn't do super and I know she can do better. She did do great with the teddy Graham's eating 5 whole pieces and later she ate almost a strip of bacon (I had to model some tiny bites and she feed me a few pieces). I'm so happy to say that Whitney loves bacon and can eat a whole strip of it!! I may have to cook some up once a day for her at home! Not every meal but at least once because we still want her to have a good array of foods.  She doesn't do as well with the smoothies as she does with the supplement drink. But I don't like the smoothies here either, they are pretty frothy like they don't know how to use a vitamix, or just put fresh (not frozen) ingredients or something. I'm sure she'll like mine better!

Quiet time in the evening watching a little blues clues on her leap pad. 

Trying new foods and licking them! Whitney is so cute, every time I ask her if she likes it she says in a very high pitched happy voice, I love it!! 

The play room was closed tonight along with most everything else so I pulled out some things I bought for her. I found a bunch of fun things about the very hungry caterpillar a while in the dollar section of Target! How fun. She loved them and we spent a while working on the lace cards ( from Amazon) and the other in things. Then it was bed time snack and time for bed! Whitney ate one carrot and gagged once but didn't vomit so that was awesome! I guess I can also say that she loves carrots, apples, and teddy Graham's because she hasn't turned them down yet! 

Whitney fell asleep at nine o'clock just like last night. We started her formula at 8:45pm and gave her Zantac. She's off the periactin for the weekend but will start it up again tomorrow night.  It still feels so weird not using her tubie during the day! Sometimes I feel like I need to give her extra water through it or bring her formula and back pack with me but I don't! And I hope it continues this way and that I can get use to it! We'll see! 

Whitney holding the Halloween balloon daddy got her to bed. 

Weight: 15.3kg Keeping it up good!!