November 22, 2010

What a fabulous weekend! Patrick had a great trip to the JFK 50 mile in Maryland with his friend Andy. I knew he was feeling good when he called me to let me know he'd slept from 12:30 a.m. to 8:10 a.m. the first night. He then rewarded his well-rested body with a punishing 50 mile run, which I'm sure he'll post about in detail on his running blog: theunforgivingminute.blogspot.com. In short, he finished in 6 hours 26 minutes for 9th place - go Pat!

While Patrick was off partying it up at places like IHOP and historical Gettysburg, I was enjoying every second of my first extended weekend of single parenthood. Charlotte and I started off the weekend with Friday morning appointments at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin before heading off to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Minnesota.

Charlotte's developmental appointment brought only good news. No concerns, and her report card is below. In italics on each line is how this visit compared to her last visit in May.

Age from birth date: 15 months, 9 days; 9 months 4 days
Age from due date: 12 months, 10 days; 5 months 21 days (One thing I love about CHW is that they are not afraid to use her adjusted age for developmental milestones. You may notice the growth information from her pediatrician appointment a couple of posts ago is comparing her to other 15 month olds which just doesn't make sense).

Growth Progress:
Weight: 20 lbs 1 oz (45th percentile); 14 lbs 7 0z (25th percentile)
Length: 27.5" (10th percentile); 24.5" (10th percentile)
Head size: 17.75" (57th percentile); 16.5" (45th percentile)

Bayley Test Scores: Age Equivalent
Cognitive (Play skills): 15 months; 7 months
Fine Motor: 15 months; 6 months
Gross motor: 11 months (because she's not yet walking - still normal range though); 6 months
Receptive Language (Understanding): 9 months; 4 months 10 days
Expressive Language (Talking): 10 months; 6 months

Her receptive and expressive language skills are a bit behind, but the therapists were confident she'll be talking and understanding in no time and did not recommend any additional therapy. After the developmental appointment we saw GI and have started slowly transitioning Charlotte's feeds back to her G-port, so the food goes into her stomach instead of her intestines. Hopefully this goes well, but if she starts throwing up again we'll go back to the J-port. So far so good!

We had lots of fun at Grandma and Grandpas! I took a few photos:


Charlotte got to do whatever she wanted, including emptying drawers.



She's learning to help with the dishes!



Grandma introduced Charlotte to the piano, and she loved all the buttons!


And, Charlotte had a nice time playing and reading with Grandma and Grandpa. Sad to leave, but Christmas will be here before we know it!

Today we met with Charlotte's speech/feeding therapist and are going to start thickening pureed foods using rice cereal. When she took an entire container of apple sauce I was ready to pull out the feeding tube and be done, but that's just not how it works. Slow and steady.

We're all home and happy to be together again. Patrick and I don't have any separate trips planned, so hopefully we'll be able to relax a a bit with two of us to watch with Charlotte. Everyday she gets more and more fun to play with! So full of laughs and smiles. :)