Day 11 - packing

Today was a full day of 3 family meals!  Breakfast was a breeze - everyone can do cereal and milk, right?  Colleen spooned her own bites of pureed pears a bunch of times and then at lunch she had no trouble managing her own tube of go-gurt!  That makes eating my own meal a lot easier.  At dinner, Dave took a turn in the 'hot seat'.  It went pretty well, all things considered...we tried ordering a veggie burger for her and I think the ketchup was the only thing that saved it!  It was supposed to come up w/cheese on it but I guess they forgot.  I am feeling pretty confident that we can do this at home.  Much more confident than I was 2 weeks ago, or even 1 week ago, obviously.  The part that will be missing of course is that so far all of Colleen's meals have been prepared.  And not by me!  There will be no magic cafeteria fairies who deliver!  We have been told of a recipe book that will be given to us upon discharge tomorrow.  I'm still researching a new powerful blender...I have expensive tastes in blenders! WHO KNEW??  Ours works well - the smoothies we make are proof of that!  But if I am going to be using it that much more and for a lot more variety of foods, I think it might be time to look at others.  I sort of started that a while ago when I wanted to get her off the 'toddler formula' drink.  I researched home blended foods for the G tube and 'everyone' advised readers to invest in an industrial blender.  We'll see...there are a lot of blenders between our Oster and the top of the line!  I know it would be a worthy investment, no matter what we get.  And for now I know I can do a lot of soups and baby food type stuff to start, not to mention yogurts and those squeezable foods for kids that are really popular right now.  Anyway - I didn't mean to write about blenders tonight!  I really wanted to talk about GOING HOME TOMORROW!!  Seriously, I hadn't given much thought to life w/o tube feedings and now that it's here...would you believe that I'm speechless?  Yeah, I didn't think so!  Being here and seeing all these other kids who have been/will be in the hospital much longer, really puts things into perspective.  These 2 weeks were so hard, but we get to go home!  The emotional aspects we were dealing w/seemed like they would never end, but now there is some hope in my heart for not just the future, but the near future.  Please pray for the families here who might feel like they don't have much hope for their kids outside of this hospital.  There are so many things I feel like I need prayer for when we go home - that I can keep my cool when it seems like we hit another wall, that I can keep up w/preparing the meals, that Colleen will transition to eating at school well, just that we can keep this going! - but that is nothing compared to the prayers of these families, I am sure of it...alright, I didn't mean to turn this into a sad post either...can you tell I am a bit emotional tonight?  I am so excited to get out of here!  I am scared too though.  I am feeling confident and a bit worried at the same time - is that possible?  I feel READY though.  I sort of wish Colleen could explain her feelings.  I know she wants to go home for the 'normal' part of it all.  Me too.  =)