I'm Eight Months Old!!!

Yup...you got that right! Kalista is officially 8 months old today.

Here's our latest adventures:

1. We saw our nutritionist on Tuesday. She says that Kalista is on the growth curve and that we are doing well with weight gain and height. Kalista is now 15 lbs, 15 oz now and 26 inches. We are adding one ounce to her total feedings to account for her age bracket. That makes it 810 mL (27 ounces) a day. Other than that...no other nutrition concerns.


2. We are coming up soon in saying goodbye to our "Lil Steps for Feeders" group and heading into individual occupational therapy since Kalista has progressed so well. We need to emphasize more of the feedings issues and less on the fine motor skills. Today, Kalista got to play with large marshmallows (sticky!), Slim Jim beef jerky, and we almost got gummy worms...but we ran out of time in our OT session. For homework, it looks like we are to encourage Kalista's food exploration one step further and let her touch the food, talk to the food, play with the food and smell the food that we may be eating. Our mantra for the week will be: "Kiss the food Kalista, the food loves to kiss you".

Mmm...pickle lover like mama?

3. Our Gymboree class is fueling Kalista's motivation to get moving. She is starting to think that it is pretty cool to be able to crawl and get around. She stares at all the other little ones in her class as they interact with each other while crawling from one side of the room to the other. This week, she has learned how to pivot herself in a circle while sitting on her bottom. We found out this morning when she was trying to escape from our occupational therapist. Crawling is still a challenge, but she is slowly getting there. She loves to plunge forward into your arms from sitting and has taken a few face plants in the last day or two. Poor baby!!!


4. Balls. What can we say....she loves them as much as our dogs do.

Come and play with me!

5. Our days of continuous sleep are over as we know it. Kalista is going through some crazy stage that makes her wake up at midnight and won't go back to bed until 1:30 am. She cries and tosses and turns like she can't find a comfy position to sleep in. Ugh!

Hey...I'm a baby. What do you expect?

6. Lastly, Kalista has a new expression.

The STINK face!

So....that sums up all the new things that have been going on. Stay tuned for more exciting news!

Adventures in Eating...Taste and Textures

We have some milestones that are noteworthy. Kalista started her Lil' feeders group three weeks ago and is showing some great progress. She has been "experimenting' with rice cereal/baby foods for taste and is now working with carrot sticks and celery sticks for texture and stimulation. She is doing a great job and can tolerate select items in her mouth. The key word is "select"...since bottle nipples are still in the dislike list. She loves holding her carrot sticks and on occasion it makes it to her mouth. We have to keep a close eye on her since she is starting to bite down harder now and we don't want it to become a choking hazard. She has also blossomed into terrific thumb sucker. We're not sure if this will be a positive or negative thing in the long run, but for now...we'll take it as a positive stepping stone.

Messy me and rice cereal

Ooh yum...carrot stick!

Kalista has also figured out to sit up on her own now. It will only be a matter of time before the crawling starts since she is starting to figure out how to get into crawling stance. Watch out doggies...here she comes!

I can sit up all by myself now...YIPPEEE!

I'm so proud of myself!!!

First Day in Lil' Steps

Oh yes....finally! We have been waiting for this day since we spread our wings from the NICU. We had our first day in the Lil' Steps For Little Feeders group (occupational therapy). We saw one of our favorite OTs and familiar face, Anne. Kalista and the other OTs did a few exercises with her balance and flexibility, neck control and of course feeding and eating. Today we tried good 'ol plain rice cereal in a super thick oatmeal-like consistency. We worked on massaging her gums and getting her used to the taste and consistency. She didn't care for the gloved hand or spoon very much, but she loves her momma's fingers. We have been working at home with a spoon and bowl since the bottle seems to be heading nowhere at the moment. We met two other babies in the group today and Kalista just stared at them...no smiles...just that serious stare. Overall, we think she had a good time and made some good progress. Good job baby K!

Little Feeders Here We Come!

Field trips can be exhausting for Kalista

We had our OT evaluation with Molly over at Rady Children's this morning. It looks like we have been approved to move on to the Little Steps for Feeders therapy group to help Kalista transition from her G-tube to eating by mouth. It was pretty reassuring that what we have been doing at home (oral stim and taste testing) with Kalista has been bang on target with what they suggest. We just need to add in a few bubble blowing sessions and water play and then that'll top the list.

Kalista's PJs are getting too small

We both had the day off and did some cleaning since we have guests heading into town this weekend. We also did some cleaning in the nursery and realized our baby doesn't fit her 3 month sized PJs anymore. It was bittersweet since those were the outfits she wore in the NICU (some of you may remember the blue one with pandas, the little fuzzy ducks and the ruffle butt car PJs). It is true, babies grow so fast out of their clothes. Goodbye 3 months....Hello 6 months!!

Hanging out with Joey after a long day

Now that Kalista is getting older and bigger, she can now hold her own around the dogs. Joey still likes to come up and lick her toes...but she just nudges him with her foot and he moves away. For all of our sakes, he has never been a face licker unlike Bella (Thank goodness!!). We can only handle one face lickin' dog in the house. Kalista likes to babble at the dogs and they just stare at her with puzzled looks....waiting for a word that makes sense..like "treats".