We're Home

We are home and settled in. Esias did sleep last night in his crib- he did not want to sleep in the crib at the hospital - his incision is on his tummy and he likes to sleep on his tummy so that makes sense. But I was worried he would never want to sleep on his own- apparently not even a 1/2 inch piece of plastic sticking out from his stomach can make this guy give up his favorite sleeping position! He did good last night, only waking once when Dan had to unhook his feeding at around 4am I think.

The site is still swollen and tender but they say it will be for a while. I hope he feels better though. I think this is going to be good for him. Already yesterday he gave me more love and smiles than I got for the last two weeks total. He was NOT ok with that NG tube. Oh, and I did I mention that he's gained 3 lbs since starting the tube feeds? He had gone down to 19lbs (a slight weight loss after we found out he was aspirating- I think we were being timid with his liquids for fear of his choking) and now he is up to 22lbs! He is in the 25th percentile! WOW. He is still really short though, 5%. So now we've got our little chunker! What's funny is that these feeds are not really for his weight since he was gradually gaining before, but just to bypass his throat while it heals. So we might get this big chunky baby out of the deal anyway! The formula he uses in the tube is like double the cals of regular formula! But we're using it because it has all the nutrition he would need if he did not eat any other food orally. He is still excited about eating purees so we do that 2-3 (or 4) times a day to keep his eating skills alive. So far so good! What I think is funny is that he now recognizes the pump as food too, and asks for that as well. We say, "Do you want some food in your tubey?" He knows what we mean. It must give him a good full feeling.

So far since we've stopped the oral liquids, we've seen TONS of improvement in his speech development- he is babbling lots more and saying consonants randomly. He even is making strings of jibberish that are somewhat sentence-sounding. In fact the other night, Dan was putting him down to bed and Esias was not pleased about it. When I got home from my errands, Dan said, "I swear Esias cursed me out in Amharic tonight!" I bet he did!