Getting Ready For School

Kalista gets to start school tomorrow.  We got the green light to start a few weeks early.  Since Jen has been going to a Hanan speech and language workshop at the elementary school, Kalista has been dropped off for daycare in her future classroom so she can interact with her new teachers and other kids in her class.

Kalista got her new backpack the other day.  It has Hello Kitty on the front with neon stripes.  Her first mission, when she got her hands on it, was to take all the paper stuffing out of it.  Once that was accomplished, she decided that she would pack the Kung Fu Panda 2 blu-ray case, her stuffed panda and a few other toys in the backpack.

Jen packed up all of Kali's necessary medical accessories and diapers/wipes to bring on the first day of school.  The school nurse will be readily available for any g-tube help during her school days.  Rest assured...Kalista is in good hands!

We know potty training is stressed highly before kids start preschool at age 3, so we have been working hard on that.  Our potty training skills are much improved since we started 3 weeks ago.  Kalista now lets us know if she needs to go potty...of course...when she remembers.  At night, she has been really consistent with her pee-pee skills as part of her bedtime ritual.  All new parents out there listen up....ROUTINE and CONSISTENCY PAYS OFF!!!!  We began by just sitting her on the potty right before bed, just after her PJ change and right before teeth brushing.  Now it's so automatic....  pajamas...potty...brush teeth...sleep.

Big milestone....we are off our night feedings!!!!  Well...this is the first night...not to jinx ourselves.  Per our nutritionist, we have switched back to the higher calorie drink (Boost or Peptamen 1.5) and requiring less volume to accommodate her nutritional needs. This makes for a hungrier kid that eats more.  At least, that is what we are hoping for.

We've got lots of things going on this week and we will continue to keep all of you posted.

Chubby Cheeks

We had our nutrition appointment yesterday and it looks like the Duocal powder is working. Kalista gained half a pound in two weeks. She is back to her 16lbs, 8 oz and getting back on to the growth curve. Yahoo!!!!


Kalista also met her new occupational/feeding therapist, Lauren, today. The two hit it off well, but we are sad to be leaving Adriana, our past therapist. We had to do some recapping and updating during our therapy session today, which made us look at the big picture and how far we have come. When we look back to last September, when Kalista came home, she has made some really good progress. She will pick out her favorite foods (ugh...Slim Jims and Cheeto Puffs) and put them in her mouth all on her own, compared to not wanting anything in her mouth at all. We still have a long road ahead of us, but we are definitely proud of our little angel and all the progress she has made.

Standing By Ourselves???

Can you believe it? Kalista standing up without holding on to anything. She has made some huge strides in the past two weeks. We saw her teacher today and she said the same thing. It's cute since some poses she squats like a sumo wrestler and other times it's so grown up like. Our baby is turning into a little girl!


What have we been up to since our last post? Hmmm....plenty of doctor appointments. We spent the past three days visiting Rady Children's for all of Kalista's appointments. It kinda felt like the movie "Groundhog Day"....we wake up...get ready....head to Rady's...come home...feed Kalista a few times...go to bed and then it starts all over again. So here are the latest specialist/doctor updates:

Nutrition:
Yahoo...we got samples. We are about to start Peptamen Junior as her new meal mixed with breastmilk this weekend. That means Jen still needs to pump for another few more months ("Maybe"....says Jen). The great part about all this is that we don't have to feed Kalista as often since it packs in a whopping 30 calories per an ounce (compared to breastmilk of 20 calories). This means we can spread out our meal times farther apart to encourage Kali to get hungry enough to try new things by mouth. We'll see how it goes as we do a trial run.

Cardiology:
Kalista made it through her sedated echocardiogram yesterday and she did fabulous for the hour long procedure (...and she did look like Sleeping Beauty by the way). The echo technician said that everything looked great, but we get the final results from Dr. Perry on Monday. Kalista was not a happy camper since the sedative weakened all her muscle tone. She ended up being one floppy gal for about four hours after we got home. You can tell that she wanted to play and stand...but her legs kept giving out on her. Poor thing!!!

Occupational therapy/Feeding therapy:
Um yah...not much there to update all of you on.....fresh fruit smoothies and keep working on what we have been doing. We got the suggestion to try seaweed since Kalista likes the texture of paper. How Asian is that? Too bad she can't have rice and raw fish with it...mmmm...Sushi.

It has been a truly busy week and we still have Friday to go. We are so glad this is going to be a low key weekend. We are in the midst of planning a big birthday party for some little person we know and would love to finish tying up all the loose ends this coming weekend. Whew!

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!

We Are On The Curve

We have made it on to the growth curve at the 25th percentile in height and weight. We are all very happy that we have had stable growth since we left the NICU. Kalista has the typical baby chubs and sports it very well. She was measured and weighed this morning at her nutrition appointment. It looks like we are staying on the same feeding regimen for now, but have a little freedom when it comes to condensing her feed times during the day. Our goal is to condense her down to 30 minutes instead of the current hour long eating sessions. In the long run, when she starts to move and crawl, we will have a little bit more freedom to let her roam without her feeding tube hooked up. Ideally, we hope she will be eating by mouth and can forget about tube feedings. We're always keeping our fingers crossed.