More new photos

Not much to report. Blaise is still working on rice cereal. We went for a blood draw yesterday to check her nutrient levels. I'm assuming that no news is good news there. We're just hanging out, having fun and working on eating and gross motor skills.

Mostly, I'm posting to let you know that there are more new photos up in the June/July album, including a super-cute series of Blaise doing tummy time with Ben.

Oh! That's how this works!

Blaise's rice cereal experience went much better today. She downed the entire amount that I made (honestly, not that much, but...) and would have had more. It turns out that you're supposed to open your mouth, slurp/chew the cereal off the spoon and then swallow it. She's still working on coordinating the motor program and we're still watching closely for weird reactions, but, well, see for yourself. (Notice how little is on her chin and the seasonally appropriate bib is completely clean.)

"Solid" food

We got clearance at our last clinic visit to try rice cereal with Blaise. We decided to make sure she was doing okay with the big bottles before we introduced anything else. Two weeks and 10 oz of weight gain (!) later, we figured we'd give it a try.

She was completely indifferent to the taste and had no idea why we were trying to stick a spoon in her mouth. When we give her a clean spoon to play with, she pops in right in her mouth, but I guess us doing it was too weird.

Still, not total failure. She didn't gag or retch or anything. It's hard to say whether she swallowed any cereal, either, though. We'll keep working on it. We also have to wait a bit and make sure she doesn't stool out or get a rash or anything. Here's hoping this goes smoothly.

In other news, Blaise is still falling asleep on her back and waking up on her belly. The International Brotherhood of Gnomes who Flip Babies Over While They Sleep has denied responsibility. If you have any information that might bring the perpetrators of these attacks to justice, please contact Blaise. Anonymity is guaranteed.

Starting early intervention

Today was Blaise's first real early intervention visit (as opposed to the three previous visits, which were all prelude, apparently). She did great and didn't even complain about spending so much time on her belly. The therapist seemed very impressed, so we must be heading in the right direction. Unlike during the assessment, Blaise was in fine form this morning, showing off all of her most recent skills.

When Ben's parents came to visit last, they brought an old electronic keyboard, thinking Blaise's fondness for music might make that a fun toy. She's been banging on it occasionally while sitting in our laps at the table. I decided to use it this afternoon to get her through some more time on her belly. It started off super-cute. (I know she's my kid, so I shouldn't say it, but really.)

Then it devolved into a Dean Martin impression, as such things are wont to do.

June/July Pictures

Not much to report around here. Blaise continues to do very well with her bottles and we've been given the green light on trying rice cereal sometime in the next week or two. We might wait a little bit to see if the blood in her stool clears up before we try anything new. It's looking better, but it's not completely gone. Fingers crossed.

Instead of news, I finally got around to posting photos from the last month. They're here.


Sitting is very hard work, even with help from the Boppy. Blaise tipped over about 3 seconds after I took this picture.

Boring is good

This is becoming a very boring blog. You started reading in January or February about a cute, tough little baby fighting really lousy odds. And she completely turned the tables on those odds. A "less than 1%" chance of ever coming off TPN became no TPN and normal daytime bottle feeds in the space of six months. So now we have a cute, tough little baby who is really just doing normal cute baby things. Boring is good. We like boring. Now if the paparazzi would just leave us alone!


A week into this on demand daytime feeding thing and Blaise is doing great. She happily takes 3-4 ounce bottles several times a day with relatively little problem. She's gaining weight (up to 11 lbs, 5 oz) and having fun. Her mood is a little different, probably because she's learning to deal with the fluctuations in blood sugar levels that come with not eating constantly. She still has great happy times, but she gets cranky from hunger now. Who knew?

Adventures in "normal"

When we left clinic last week, we were told to feed Blaise "bottles during the day like a normal baby." No fixed schedule, no fixed amounts. "On demand" feeding. There is one problem with this plan: No one involved has any idea how a normal baby eats. We're working on it, but Blaise doesn't recognize hunger and doesn't know that she should eat more at once than she did before. It's pretty clear that she still thinks of anything above 34 cc as a bonus. We also have no idea how long she should go between bottles or how much we should expect her to take at once. We'd take our cues from her, but she hasn't worked out her own cues. It's an interesting project anyway.

Speaking of interesting, the fun never really stops around here. Last night around 10, I was getting ready for bed (yeah, we're real party animals) and Ben was changing Blaise's diaper. All of a sudden, he started yelling for me. I ran into Blaise's room, where I found both of them very upset and formula gushing out of the hole in Blaise's belly, the one that usually contains her tube/button. We slapped gauze over the hole. Her tube had caught on something and tugged out, with the balloon that usually holds it in place still inflated. I deflated the balloon, re-inserted the button and inflated the balloon again. Lots of tears from all three of us and a couple of panicked phone calls to Children's (to find out if we needed to come in) and to Andrew (to give us a ride in case we needed to go to Children's) and we settled down. It sounds like a much bigger deal than it is. The g-tube site is healed up all around like a piercing, so you can just stick the tube back in, but we'd never done it before and I'd only seen it done once. It was much more an emotional crisis than a medical one, but I don't recommend it as an experience.

By this morning, though, we were back to our usual calm.