30 Cheerios

That's what I've been telling anyone who will listen to me over the past few days. Char ate 30 cheerios at breakfast on Monday. Since then she's had pasta, raspberries, blueberries, lots of avocado and many more cheerios (for those overseas that's the round oat cereal in the shape of an "O"). It's official! I've had confirmation from her feeding therapist, the speech therapist and the GI doctor that this is the change we were looking for. She's actually taking the food in her mouth, moving it around on her own, chewing it and swallowing with no problem. I can see on her face with every bite that she's so proud of herself. And her daddy and I are so proud of her, too. This has been a long road, and there's bound to be some hiccups along the way, but it's such a great feeling to report that all of Char's hard work is paying off. Tonight ..... we try lasagne. Yummmmm!


Charlotte eating more is going to result in her taking in more nutrition and eventually less need for her to be on the insanely expensive formula that we've been giving her. Per the GI doctor, we may be able to take her off by the fall if things keep changing as fast as they have been in the last week. That news made my pocketbook do a little jig of joy. That has to be the most expensive formula on the market. Check this out though .... I belong to a few user groups online made up of other families with special needs kids and sometimes people post things that they have to give away. Recently I was the lucky first responder to a post about some free Elecare
(that's the name of the expensive formula) and the people giving away a couple cases said all I had to do was pay for shipping. Well, imagine my surprise yesterday when 4 1/2 cases arrived at my door, and all it cost me was $30 for shipping. That's $800 worth of formula for only $30! That family is getting a HUGE thank you card from us. Is it true? Could my luck be changing?


On Monday, Char started her summer camp at the Center. She's going 2.5 hours a day, 5 days a week for 4 weeks. It's almost like boot camp for toddlers. I've already seen her strength improve in her legs and we're only on day 4. This is a testament to how great it is for these kids to get such intensive therapy. She's still getting her individual PT, OT and Speech on the side, so that has resulted in no time for naps. Which means no naps for mommy, either. Booooo!


Char and I went to see my college friends Kari and Teddy and their daughter Isabella (6) in Syracuse, NY this past weekend. Charlotte was so excited to hang out with Isabella, and as always the Avramov family showered us with love, good company, awesome food and some great wine (the wine was for me, not Charlotte, no need to make any phone calls). And keeping with the theme of firsts here, Charlotte went to her first indoor playground at one of the local Syracuse malls and totally held her own amongst all the other kids. With Isabella's help Char also had her first experience on a see-saw. She even managed to do it all by herself a few times, sitting up straight and pushing herself up to the sky. It's so cool to see how exciting the simple things are through the eyes of your child.


Char and I flew to Syracuse. I held true to the promise I made last year that I was not going to make that drive again with a small child (or any child, for that matter). I was so nervous about flying with her by myself. The trip there was a bit stressful. I had to bring a car seat with us because Charlotte still doesn't have the core strength needed to sit in an airplane seat by herself. So, let's imagine I'm one of the last people to board a plane (no, there was no call for people needing special assistance), and I have a car seat attached to my back, a backpack on my front, Charlotte on my side and somewhere in there a cooler with her meds and formula and Grover the stuffed animal. Did anyone offer to help me? Nope. But that could have been because I hit almost every passenger in the head with the car seat as we made our way to the back of the plane. Thank god, the ride back was the total opposite. I made sure we were seated closer to the front, we boarded first and I asked for someone to help me carry all our gear. It's always good to be able to learn from those awkward moments in life.

Since coming back from Syracuse I've been doing really good. Did a lot of self-reflection there and have done quite a bit more since. Learned I need to work on myself quite a bit. Learned that I haven't always treated other people as kindly as I should have. Learned that things aren't always about me (what's that all about?). Learned that I need to do a better job of covering up my gray. I'll take care of that on Saturday morning. I'll start working on the rest Saturday afternoon.