Open Mouth, Insert Feed

Last night we had a great time at the Gates Ambulance 42nd annual banquet. On either side of the banquet, we hung out at the NICU and gave Jeffrey his feedings. It was really nice to see all of our friends from GVAS and to catch up with everyone. Of course, we brought pictures to share. Danielle was in a great mood because Jeffrey had his first complete feed from nursing. It sure tired him out, but he dined at Café Mom for almost 25 minutes.

Today I had a chance to give him a feed from a bottle, which is how he’s getting more and more of his feeds when Danielle is not around. One of his goals is to be completely orally fed and off the feeding tube before he can go home. The success of his feedings is being reflected in a steady weight gain. He’s up to 1.53 Kg (3 lbs 5.8 oz).
As far as meds go, he’s still on Reglan and Pepcid for GI motility and reflux. Tomorrow he’ll be 34 weeks old and will get an eye exam. From what I hear, it’s a pretty scary ordeal to watch, and Jeffrey will need eye drops to dilate his pupils. It’s another check box on his way to coming home.

Alicia finished his bedroom on Saturday. The pictures are all online now, and the mural is so beautiful… even better than we imagined. This morning I set up the crib and a bookshelf in there, along with Deb’s mobile. It’s very cute.
Finally… a plug for our local baby store, Simon’s. We stopped in there today at 4:03 (not realizing that they close at 4:00 PM). Our same salesman, Joseph, was there. We told him that we wouldn’t be long, we knew exactly what we wanted – just the Peg Perego SIP car seat. His co-worker went into the store room and grabbed one for us. That’s when he told us – the Britax infant seat is better, and $40 less expensive. Even though the store was closed, he took us into the car seat area and gave us a quick breakdown of the two 2006 seats, side by side. We were convinced, and now we have our new car seat sitting atop the stroller and ready for Jeffrey’s NICU car seat test.
Now, all we need here is the boy…

PS: (Thanks for the reminder, Sue) Jeffrey was wrapped in his Terrible Towel tonight while his Pittsburgh Steelers won their 5th Super Bowl, 21-10 against the Seattle Seahawks. Jeffrey says "One for the Wrist"!