Seven Months

Dearest Gifts~

Today Grace turns seven months old!  Wow!  You sure are getting old little lady!  ;-)

There was a loud thunderstorm early this morning.  It woke me up, but you all stayed sleeping .... from what I could tell. 

Joshua slept in his toddler bed all night and didn't fight falling asleep either!  But, he was really tired last night so he probably didn't have much fight in him.  ;-)  Grace slept in her bassinet all night.  I changed and woke her at 6:30am so I could nurse her before going to work.

I had to go to work today, but Penny came to watch Grace as daddy took Joshua to his feeding team appointment at the Children's Hospital at UNC.  He saw a nurse first and she took some measurements of him.  Joshua, you weigh around 22 and a quarter pounds. 

The gastrointestinal specialist was Dr. Kim.  You all appeared to like her and daddy said she was nice.  She's putting Joshua on prevacid 15mg twice a day (a reflux medication).  She might also put him on a decongestant.  The side effect is weight gain and she wants to take advantage of that side effect for his case.  Dr. Kim said that she typically sees food aversion from preemies because of the feeding tube from the NICU.  Preemies tend to associate 'eating' with pain because of this.  Also, reflux is common with preemies as well.  She wants to hold off on the barium swallow test and radiograph because that would involve potentially strapping him to chair, forcing him to drink the stuff, and possible sedation.  That would just cause more aversion to things near his mouth.  So, we're going to take it slowly and see if the reflux medication will help.  We have to be better at giving it to you .... it's so incredibly hard to get you to take the medication, and now we have to give it you twice a day.  I pray this helps.  Dr. Kim will call us in the next week or so to set up the next visit which can then be in Raleigh on a day that I can take you.

You two got me some gifts today .... well, daddy picked them up as he was running errands this afternoon while Penny watched you two.  He got me a mirror for my car so I can see you all rear facing and a CD that I wanted.  How nice!  :-)  He also picked up milk and bread for the house.

We all played before bed this evening.  Oh, everyone that I talk to say that Grace is pretty impressive for pulling up and standing at 7 months!  You go little lady!  ;-)

This is the first evening that Grace has fallen asleep on her own and not used me as a pacifier before bedtime to fall asleep.  You're growing up little lady .... and, you seem to be growing up too fast! 

Tomorrow is another work day.  I'll come home as fast as I can!

Sleep tight you two!

I love you both!

~Mommy