reed4: What a Difference a Month Makes

It has already been one month since we brought Aislinn home from the hospital! In some ways, I cannot believe how fast it has gone, but in other ways it seems like her hospital stay was a lifetime ago.

We have had a busy month, but so so good. The week was especially fantastic. Tonight I was feeling extra blessed and thankful for our two cuties. One can't just stay home and follow the normal routines when feeling this way, at least I can't, so I decided we needed to go on a little date.

Huge praises this week as Aislinn's progress is beyond all expectations. In the past few weeks we could comfortably tell people that she is doing "really well." Now I can say she is doing "great." After she pulled out her feeding tube Monday and has had great oral intake progress, we got the green light to do a 2 week trial off of the feeding tube! And even better, we can switch her over completely from Pediasure to whole milk! We just pray the trial goes well and that we don't have to put the tube back in in 2 weeks. Her appetite and desire for solids seems to be returning so we're very hopeful.

Her appointments with the Occupational Therapist and Physical Therapist were so fun and encouraging this week. They were thrilled with her progress and quite surprised that Aislinn is crawling already. We get to space out her appointments to once a month now! (that will make a huge difference in our schedule!) The main issue she is working on now is gross motor skills and essentially increasing her core strength so she will start standing/walking soon. The PT feels she will be exited from therapy sooner rather than later!

Aislinn is always putting something in her mouth these days. She's crawling across the room, though would rather someone help her out. She wants to stand more than sit and is so close to pulling her self up to standing position. Our house went through another good round of baby proofing this week! She's waving hello, goodbye; signing thank you, more and eat; tells us "na na na" when she wants to eat and has added "ook" (book) and a version of "good girl" (yes, she hears that a lot!) to her vocab. All the more reasons she will probably not be needing speech therapy!!!

Also, she had a blood draw Wednesday and we found out that her cortisol and thyroid levels are normal so there is no adrenal deficiency!!! Praise the Lord!

See, it was a good week. So we went on a picnic. :) This spot under the weeping willow looks magical every time I'm at Manito and I'm so glad we were able to snag it for our picnic.

The ducks left us alone until they hear our crinkling packages. I looked up from the camera and they were swarming us. Creepy. Even worse was the turkey that even at 20 yards away was a little too close for comfort. Ultimately they all left us alone, thankfully.

I adore watching the two of them interact. At least the good interactions. :) Many times Ronan thinks Ais is hitting him when I know she is just trying to feel his hair (I think she's jealous!). Ro is already the overprotective brother/third parent and Ais will most definitely know how to push his buttons. But they also love each other very much and miss when the other is not around. Ais looks for Ro when she wakes up from her naps and is showing a lot of concern when he is crying. I love seeing this relationship develop, it's so cool!

Ro is less and less likely to cooperate for photos lately, unless it's a huge cheeseball grin. I got him gut rolling, but then all of the photos were blurry because he was laughing so hard! So there's just this one. Classic. Oh and I should add that the kid's got style. I went in for khakis and he insisted on the green pants. Sure, why not? I think they're pretty cool too. :)