Happy Birthday, Daddy!!!!!

Charlotte's daddy celebrated his birthday today--in NYC where he has traveled for business this week. We were very sad because we couldn't wake him up with a shower of baby smooches to celebrate. And, of course, Miss Charlotte babbles all day long, but just stares and smiles at the telephone. Oh well.

Happy Birthday, Charlotte's Dad!

Charlotte and I went to CHOW for a follow up with Dr. Long, behavioral psychologist, and M. Kirby, nutritionist. Charlotte ate beautifully. Not surprising since she'd eaten terribly at breakfast (5 ml.) and then vomited hugely before we left. Dr. Long and Midge were thrilled with Charlotte's progress. (At least she vomited at home and not in the car.)

Here's the scoop: --Stats: 20.7 lbs, 31 inches --Charlotte has gained more than a pound since her 5/31 visit. The team was thrilled with her weight gain. She's jumped up the growth chart, but I didn't write down the exact stat (sorry, Philippe).--Over the past 3 weeks, we've missed her nap feed about 2 out of 5 times. Midge calculated that she's had this stupendous weight gain on an average of 920 calories as opposed to the 960 we're supposed to be serving. This is good news in terms of our goals. --Our goals: Getting rid of the ever-frustrating, ever-elusive nap feed.--The plan: Slowly phase out the nap feed. Once it's gone, we'll add blenderized high-calorie food and then Duocal to add even more calories. (The Duocal may have been the culprit in much vomiting earlier this year--the vomiting decreased when we cut the Duocal. Since she also got really active at the same time, we're not sure of cause and effect so we'll keep an eye on it.)
What is blenderized food? Following recipes from our team (and, I’m sure from P2P), we'll make things like super-charged, high calorie meatloaf blenderized (not quite puree) it with gravy and beef broth. Adding all these calories, and hopefully enticing her to eat more solid food, will help get rid of the nap feed.
That's the upshot of the feeding clinic visit. We’ll do another follow up in 4 to 6 weeks. Stay tuned.

We had an uneventful ride home. Charlotte, who did not nap on the way to Milwaukee, was asleep before we left the parking lot. I listened to Gary Sinise read Of Mice and Men. Sooooo gooooood. Baby slept all the way to Skokie where we stopped to do some birthday shopping for Daddy. Charlotte saw a little boy with a balloon and…ootzed until I found her a (well-deserved) balloon of her own. Then she was perfectly content for two hours of mall-walking!

Heading home, Charlotte chatted all the way down the highway. About 5 minutes from home she suddenly stopped talking and vomited, two hours after a feed. Poor thing—it was clearly very painful. I had to pull over in front of the place where the neighborhood homeless men all bring their aluminum to turn it in for money. I’m sure that I was quite a sight stepping out of the BMW to strip my kid. Two seconds later she was happy again and off we went.

By the way, yesterday was a “DWOV” (day without vomit) but today’s 3 biggies sure made up for it. Yuck! In fact, I think I need to skip tonight’s bedtime feed because she’s not so soundly asleep and I can’t stand to have her be miserable again today.

That’s it for now!