Lily AnneMarie Mac: February 15th, 2010

Wow . . . we have been home over a week now and it's getting tougher to come on here to update. Not for any real reason other than we are at a comfortable place and there has been no excitement. Not that all the time spent in the NICU was exciting, but it certainly was worthy of updates on a regular basis to let everyone know what Lily went thru that day and how we felt.

Late last week I joked with Tracy that I should update this blog with a simple:

UPDATE: Eat, sleep, poop, cry, eat, sleep, poop, cry . . . etc.

That is pretty much the extent of it. And that is a WONDERFUL thing! We don't like excitement. We would much prefer that Lily keeps it boring for a long time. Let her get over the difficult first month of her life. Let US get over the difficult first month of her life!

Sounds good to us!

So . . . Let's see. . . eat, sleep, poop, cry is a pretty accurate update. Although, Lily doesn't really cry that much. She really only cries when she's hungry or when her diaper is wet (she seems to enjoy when her diaper is chunky....sorry, but it's true!) She sleeps unbelievably well. Overnight, Lily would probably sleep much longer than we let her. At the hospital's direction, we wake her up at least in the 5th hour to feed her. Although, last night we let her sleep and she slept from 10pm until 5:45 this morning. What a good girl!!

Last week, Lily caught her first cold. It's bound to happen!! She had a very stuffed up nose, and luckily it didn't seem to aggrevate her too much. She slept fine and got a little fussy here and there, but we would just take the little bulb thingy (whatever it's called) and suck out the little nasties and she would be fine. She is still a little junky, but getting better.

She really is quite the perfect child so far. She loves to be held and talked to, isn't a fan of extended stays in the swing (she'll put up with it for about 5 minutes before deciding she wants out), and finds anything to stare at for 10 minutes at a time.

As for eating, there was one thing that we were told could be a "side-effect" of her surgery. That is reflux and vomiting. She has done pretty well with both so far. She is on Zantac as a preventative measure for reflux. She really has only spit up maybe three or four times - which is actually better that a typical baby. Tracy and I have noticed that her spit ups are pretty obvious, so we've been able to avoid those. She gets a look on her face just before she spits up. She starts to move her tongue in her mouth a lot and lifts up her chin. As long as we notice that and lift her to a more upright position, she seems to avoid spitting up. We just make sure that we keep her from laying down for about an hour after she eats. It's worked very well!!

Lily also had her first couple doctor's appointments. She met with her pediatrician and also with her surgeon, Dr. Caty. Both were uneventful! We tried to get a picture of Lily with Dr. Caty, but our camera ran out of batteries!! =(

For the frequent followers of Lily's blog, sorry it's been so long. I will try to do better with at least posting pictures. She truly is changing every day. We get the ocassional smile now. We can't wait for them to be consistent. Pretty soon!

Until next time, enjoy some pictures:

For those who say I don't put enough pictures of myself on here....duh!! now you see why!??