Day 10! Prepare yourselves!

After reading the last blog post, you are not going to believe me...

That was Saturday.  You are not going to believe what happened on Sunday....



Colleen was a whole new kid.  She leaned in for bites, swallowed fast, cleared her mouth well, slammed back the milk and finished foods!  She beat the timer too!!  And then she repeated that feat for the rest of the day...and at snack too!!  Now it's Wednesday and we haven't looked back.  No I'm not saying that things are perfect, but it really seems like we've gotten past a few issues.  I haven't written anything b/c Dave and the kids have been around and we've been enjoying time together =)  Colleen has not had a tube feeding since late last Tuesday night!  I never thought I would see the day...now we're talking about what to pack for school lunches!!!
So the 'formula' of sorts that has been working for us?  (I need to write it so I don't forget!)  Start w/milk, move to 2 smooth foods and then a crunchy chewable food.  Milk gets interspersed in there...we try to finish 5 bites of all foods and finish the milk and at least 1 food before 30 minutes.  Snack is about 6 oz of milk and a crunchy food.  Calorie counts should be over 1100 and I can't remember how many ounces of milk...over 20.  Maybe 26-28?  I know it's going to be in the discharge papers!  Which, btw, is going to be FRIDAY!!!  LESS THAN 2 DAYS!!!  I want to write more but I am tired and tomorrow is another day.  Tonight was our first meal practicing the new strategies w/everyone around the table.  I am still figuring out how to help feed Colleen, keep the kids on task eating and talk to everyone all while eating myself!  It was a good meal, Colleen was almost 100% as successful w/everyone as she had been by herself, but it was a bit much for me.  It reminded me of the days when we had a baby - feeding baby food out of one hand and our own fork in the other.  I know I have accidentally eaten a few bites of baby food over the years b/c I got the utensils/hands mixed up!!  Although, back in the day we didn't have as many kids around the table!  So yeah, I am learning a lot about how to manage the meals.  I'm grateful we have 5 more to practice!
Thank you everyone for praying for Colleen and the rest of us.  I know there is no way we could have done this alone!!