Learning New Things

Cheering on her favorite football team!

Lucy's been busy learning all sorts of new things and seeming so grown up!  She's been into "table time" during the day, when she plays with markers, colors and stickers and even colored a birthday card for her Grandma Jeanette this week!

Showing off her artistic skills!

We had a swallow study last week.  It felt like a total waste of time to us.  The feeding clinic and ENT docs recommended it to ensure she wasn't aspirating - which we feel pretty confident she is not, since she doesn't cough when she drinks and always has really clear lungs when they listen to her.  In any case, against our better judgement, we schedule one for her.  During a swallow study, Lucy is expected to sit in a high chair enclosed on three sides with X-Ray equipment while we feed her barium-filled food and beverages.  She HATED the chair right off the bat and pretty much cried through the whole thing.  It was tough for the techs to get any good pictures of her swallowing, but she didn't show any signs of aspiration when it was done, so it was considered a success.

Getting ready to go to grandma's - tights, shoes and a bow!

Her eating has been so GREAT lately!  We've figured out which consistencies she can handle and what kind of foods she likes and she has figured out how to pace herself.  She still has times when she gets a chunk of food that gets stuck or eats too fast and spits everything up, but overall it's gotten much, much better.  We haven't used the Feeding Pump in over a month (just the bolus syringe) and it's so much quicker, more convenient and overall more comfortable for all of us.  I finally feel like she would be OK without a feeding tube, which I honestly couldn't say until recently.  Now that doesn't mean she'll get rid of it any time soon, since she still takes about 1/2 of her calories through the feeding tube, we can definitely can see that she WILL get there!  Her current favorites are pasta with tomato sauce (we grind up the cooked pasta so it's in really small chunks), pureed sweet potatoes, peanut butter and crunchies (long-standing favorite)

Not sure if she should eat the crayons or draw with them...

She continues to love hanging out with people, playing dress up and watching herself in the mirror, reading books, watching "The Price is Right" and eating snacks.  We moved her slide into the basement since it's getting cold out, so she thinks it's a huge treat to be able to slide over and over and over again when we are downstairs with her.  We're working on having her feed herself more consistently - some days are better than others - and we've transitioned from her high chair to just a booster seat at the table - such a big girl!

We have esophagus dilatation #11 this week - prayers are welcome!!