No Botox for Me Please

We saw Kalista's plastic surgeon today, Dr Gosman. We also met Dr. Wong, who is Dr. Gosman's assisting doctor. They took a peek at her "O" and at the area next to it to see if there was enough room for tissue expanders. Because Kali's "O" is fairly large, they feel that there is not enough room for expanders at this time and are thinking she may be a better candidate closer to the age of one.

The whole purpose of today's visit was to see where we are at in terms of placing tissue expanders for a cosmetic closure in the future. The goal is to expand enough healthy skin and muscle tissue to replace all the scar tissue over her "O". The expanders are like breast implants that are placed under her ab muscles and will need injections weekly to expand the implanted sac. The doctors said the expanded skin will have to be equal to the size of her "O" and can take up to almost 6 months to achieve that size, since they can't stretch healthy skin too fast otherwise it becomes thin and weak. We hope that by the time she is one, the "O" may be a lot smaller and not need as much expansion. We can't imagine two big bulges around her abdomen right now.

For more info you can visit: Tissue Expansion

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!

More Family In Town

Kalista is pretty excited that her grandparents are in town

We had big plans to go to the pumpkin patch today but the weather was a little bit depressing and we all decided not to go in the end. We did a bit of grocery shopping instead and spent time together for some good ol fashion family bonding. We ended the evening with a "hot pot" dinner, where you cook at the dinner table in a soup broth. Yum!

A little bonding with grandpa

Kalista also spent part of today trying on various Halloween costumes. Matt's sister, Kathy, loaned us some of their previous costumes to try out. Kalista fits the pumpkin costume pretty well. So cute! We were also given a daisy costume, but it's a little too big.

Kalista with grandma, posing in her super cute pumpkin costume

Jen is getting close to finishing Kalista's Monster Boo costume. Her fashion design skills are finally coming to good use. She still needs to make the booties and add some final details and then she will be completely done. Take a peek...

The Monster Boo costume (from Monsters Inc.)

This is what the finished costume should look like

Yahoo...Date Night!

Thanks to having Matt's parents in town...we were able to go out for "date night" yesterday. We decided to go to Hash House, one of our local favs for breakfast, but decided to try the dinner menu. It was pretty yummy! Their presentation of food it very elaborate. Their plates and bowls are equatable to the size of of turkey platters and sinks.

This bowl is bigger than our sinks at home. (sorry so dark)

Hook Me Up

Kalista and Mom were playing with the photo booth program on the Mac

Kalista had another cardiology appointment today. She has a full set of electrical wires coming from her body that hook up to a mini black box. She has to wear these EKG like patches for the next 24 hours, also known as Holter monitoring. She is so mellow and doesn't seem to mind the extra accessories on her. The goal of the monitoring is to find out how often she has these SVT (tachycardia) episodes so that we can get an idea if the arrhythmia is mild, moderate or severe and how we should go about treating it.

Jen is almost done with Kalista's Halloween costume. She just needs to add a few finishing touches and we will be ready for some treat-or-treating at the end of the month.

Matt's parents are coming into town this weekend. This will be the first time that Grandpa David (Yeh Yeh) gets to hold Kali. It looks like we saved the best for last in the immediate family to cuddle with her. We are all excited for their arrival tomorrow. It also looks like we may be able to sneak away for date night if we they agree to babysit Kali for a few hours. We haven't had one of those in awhile.

I'm Five Months Old!

Kalista is 5 months old now! She is growing up so quickly before our eyes. She is almost on her way to high school already....just kidding. We celebrated by going out to dinner tonight. Matt had a craving for pho, so we went to our usual place for some yum yum Vietnamese food. Kalista didn't get a taste, but she enjoyed her usual dinner meal (breastmilk and rice cereal...yum).

She has been drooling a lot more lately and we think it may be the beginning of the teething phase. Oh boy...the pearly whites are coming!

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.

Boo!!!! Family gone...

Kalista got to spend more time with her Uncle Bill this weekend

We had a fun and relaxing weekend with Grandma Susan (Pau-Pau) and Uncle Bill. It was a short visit, but we are so grateful to have them here, even if it was just two days. We even had Kalista's great aunt and uncle visit too this past Friday.

Hello Auntie Sue and Uncle Chick Fai!!!

I think Kalista is a popular gal! What do you think? Family from different parts of California all at one time!

Although this weekend was meant to be relaxing, there were a lot of out-n-about activities for the wee little one. We did a few shopping trips, some to the grocery store and some for retail therapy...which meant a lot of fun car rides around San Diego. Kali really does not mind the car rides at all since it jiggles her to sleep (...sometimes...most of the time).

Fun is my middle name!

Jen has also started the fitting process for Kalista's Halloween costume. It is her Project Runway Halloween challenge! We have decided on "Boo" from the movie Monsters Inc. and the cute monster costume she wore during half the movie. Jen has a Sully costume that has been put to good use in the past and this will yet be another year that she gets to enjoy wearing it. We'll post some pictures at the end of the month.

Kalista is sporting the beginning stages of the costume's headpiece

The weather is starting to warm up once more and we are breaking out our summer clothing once again. Kalista is not fond of these days since she breaks into a sweat so easily and hates the feeling of being sticky. If you think she is a quiet child, you have not heard the heat holler yet....ow wooo!

This Bumbo almost makes her look like she was in the jacuzzi

We are getting very sleepy from the weekend of excitement and are ready to head to bed. See you early in the morning for our nutrition appointment!

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".

Another Week...Another Day

Enjoying some time in her high chair

We had our cardiology appointment with Dr. Nigam today. Jen had to go to work, so Matt took Kalista to the appointment with chest X-rays and EKG results in tow. We realized that it is the same pediatric cardiology department that we passed by for 3 1/2 months when Kalista was in the NICU.

So...the results....Dr. Nigam confirmed the previous diagnosis of Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) Syndrome after looking at the EKG and X-ray. Kalista had a few other doctors look at her and listen to her heart and told us that she seems fine at this point in time. We were advised that WPW is characterized by SVT (spontaneous ventricular tachycardia) and can last for up to 20 minutes. The doctor said that when her heart rate goes sky high for this long period of time, she will most likely be uncomfortable and sweat a lot (which she does) and should Kalista ever turn into a "devil child" or turns super red or blue, then we need to be seen immediately. We have two more follow-up visits scheduled to further investigate the severity of this condition. She will need to do another test called the Holter test next Friday. It monitors the heart's electrical activity more closely and involves little electrodes stuck to her chest. The other follow-up won't be until the beginning of December for another repeat EKG. We hope it is mild and only needs monitoring. If it is worse, then we may need medication or cardiac surgery to ablate (zap) the part that doesn't seem to be working properly. For more info...you can also visit: WPW info

Who me? A "devil" child?

We have an occupational therapy evaluation this coming Wednesday and it will be interesting what they discover about her feeding issues and oral aversion, since she is a bit more accepting of bottle nipples and things in her mouth. We'll keep you posted! We have been working with her sitting activities and she can easily reach for items in front of her now while supporting herself. She has also taken a new liking to the crawling stance (also known as the cow pose in yoga). She is getting better at rolling on to her belly 75% of the way. We have to supply the remaining 25% of support because she can't quite get over her bump.

Socializing with Mallory the Monkey

She continues to build her vocabulary through babbling and laughs at our jokes now. She enjoys hanging out with her NICU friend, Mallory the Monkey. It seems to be the only toy she smiles at when we bring it close to her. They have been through a lot together!