Keyword Search and Hershey

Apparently if you google Hershey Feeding Clinic, I am the fourth entry. Maybe this will move me up a bit.

For anyone who wants to know, we LOVED it there and highly recommend it. We did two stints, with the idea that we might have to go back again. Our first stay was a month in 2008, where they got our son off a feeding tube by teaching him how to drink enough PediaSure to keep his calories up. Our second visit was a few weeks in 2010, where they taught him how to chew. The staff there is EXCELLENT and if you want more information I am very willing to discuss it with you by email or phone. Just leave a comment and we can chat.

Day of Rest

Jim has a stomach thing and my allergies are really acting up, so we both stayed home from church. That’s actually a Very Big Deal for us, being that we comprise the leadership of both worship teams. I can’t wait to hear what the elders chose to do for worship time.

Having a fairly eventful week here:

Monday is lunch with my mother and sister (which I don’t get to do nearly enough).

Tuesday Ethan and I are trekking up to the Hershey feeding clinic to see what’s in store for him. Tuesday evening the appraiser is coming over to figure out an amount that she thinks our home is worth and then give it to our new mortgage company. We’re hoping it’s the same amount our realtor thought, because if it’s less they won’t give us all the money we want. That would be BAD.

Wednesday and Friday I’m working

Thursday is a dentist appt and I’m really hoping for no cavities.

Saturday we’re having a get together here with two other families that each have four children. 18 people in all.  All the adults like each other and get along and have a wonderful time together. We started doing this last summer and are trying to make it a semi-regular thing. Fellowship ROCKS.

In between all the above I’ll be cleaning and doing laundry etc. Especially cleaning! Having people over is GREAT incentive!

Progress!

Ethan tried “real” food today–waffles, french toast, pancakes, hot dogs, french fries….and liked everything. Whew! With only 7 days left here (man, the time is FLYING), I’m thrilled that he’s moving forward with things that we actually eat in our house.

Less than two days until Jim and the kids come up for a visit to both the clinic and Hershey Park. I’m SO looking forward to having them here. And then it’s just a few more days and we’re home for good and I’ve got to figure out how to be a stay at home mom again!

And post on this blog again regularly!

Another Running Post

This was an incredibly great week with Ethan up at Hershey. He worked very hard and everyone is thrilled with how he’s doing. We’re home this evening, Saturday and head back up on Sunday afternoon. Jim and the kids will come up next weekend and we’ll all go to Hershey Park (with just Jim and me!)

He and I are getting along very well so far this weekend–I think both of us are making more of an attempt and he’s not sick. That helps!

Sorry for such a short post….I promise to return to my regularly scheduled blog posting as of July 26th…until then, please feel free to check out our progress at www.carepages.com

Hugs and Kisses!

Long Week

Yeah, I know, the last post’s title had the word Long in it as well. So I’m not feeling creative right now. I’m tired. I want a good night’s sleep in my own bed, without a child nearby just lying in wait to start talking at 1:25 AM. Yes. you read that right.

I’m off to order some food. No, I haven’t cooked since Friday (Thursday?) of last week, but certainly have no desire to do it now, either.

On the way home from Hershey, it occurred to me that as much as I want a break, so does Jim. That’s why two-parent homes work so much better than single parent homes. You actually get a break. I need to find a babysitter up there. Seriously. Just one or two hours would be HEAVENLY. I figure, between bathroom breaks and when he wanders off while I’m eating and he’s not, I probably am in his presence for about 22 hours each day. Man, that’s a long time. I love my son, but whew. I’m glad I’m 1/4 the way through this little experiment!

Long, Tiring Day

Whew, I’m BEAT. I woke up at 5:30, thinking it was 6:30, and couldn’t go back to sleep. Ethan WORKED today!! He did amazingly well…if you check out the carepages  you’ll see how much he did, but I’ll give you a huge hint: chew and swallow!

The hardest part for me, other than the long hours at the clinic, is the lack of things to do in the free time. I’m obviously physically tied to him pretty much all the time. Although right this second he’s watching TV in one of the common rooms and I’m across the hall (very open layout) in the other common room.

I don’t want you to think I’m complaining, because I’m not. I’m extremely grateful for the Ronald McDonald House and the opportunity we have up here. I just wish I could hire a babysitter!!

Hi From Hershey

This is just a flying visit because somehow I got my room to hook up (previously only had enough signal down in the common rooms). Things are going well here–Ronald McDonald House is amazing…food is terrific, people are very nice (both staff and guests) and the beds are sleep number, which I’m trying to get used to. Ethan didn’t fall asleep until after 10 last night, but went down around 9:10 tonight.

His first day at Hershey went great. We love his therapist, Kathy. She worked with him 10 minutes on, 15 minutes off, which equaled 12 times total today from 9 until 4:30, plus an hour off for my lunch break. It’s actually very tiring sitting around all day except when you get up every 15 minutes to go watch someone else feed your child.

He:
worked on licking pudding off a spoon that was on the side of his mouth (putting his tongue on the side instead of only in the middle)
worked on drinking (ingested 11 ounces, an unheard of amount!)
worked on putting a piece of dry, crisp food (i.e. apple jack cereal or pb cookie) between his teeth and bringing the teeth down on it, but not biting thru–I think she’s going to try that tomorrow.

Already she is confident that he’ll be off the tube by the time he leaves! Not kidding. She was THAT happy with how he did today!

There’s another little girl, same age, same gestation of 25 weeks (twin), that’s here. She had to take ONE bite of whatever was on her plate, go away and come back again in four minutes. ALL DAY. They did something like 50 tries with her over the course of the whole day. Her poor mother did nothing but get up and sit down over and over.

I’m thinking the nausea from the previous post was actually nerves. I’d forgotten how sick I can get when I’m stressed–haven’t been that stressed without Prozac since the kids first came home. I felt fine this morning and all day. I bought saltines just in case, though!

Jim and I got Skype to work, so I got to see the kids and him this evening and they got to see Ethan and me via our webcams. It was totally geekily cool!

I think that’s it. I’m going to start getting ready for bed….lights out at 10 with the understanding that I will probably have a difficult night like last night–I woke up a TON with a weird bed and the a/c going on and off and just a new and different place. I’m SO GLAD this is going well!

Incentive

I should be packing. Really. But I just woke up from a grueling nap and I just can’t seem to make myself do it. Maybe I’ll just do it tomorrow after church?

Care Pages

I wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested, but thought I would post just in case. I’ll be doing a carepage for Ethan while we are at Hershey.

1. Go to www.carepages.com

2. Click “Visit a CarePage”

3. Register (first-time users only)

4. After you’ve registered, enter the exact CarePage Name below:

I can’t guarantee that I’ll update it every day, but I’m going to try! We leave on Sunday, four short days from now!

My Email Inbox

I used to get a lot of email. A LOT. I belonged to FlyLady.com, which would send me probably 1-2 dozen emails PER DAY. A few months ago I got fed up and unsubscribed. I still follow some of her program, but happily have a less cluttered in-box.

Then there’s Freecycle. If you haven’t heard about it, I highly recommend you check it out. I belong to two local chapers–Chester County and Southern Chester County. From these two organizations I would get dozens and dozens of emails per day. Some were interesting, many not. Some were worth me asking “Oh, Please, may I have your thing?” and I would go and get said thing. Or post my own thing that I wanted to get rid of…many, MANY of those, thank goodness!

With being away at Hershey, email is going to be very low on the priority list. VERY LOW. I will have wi-fi at the Ronald McDonald House, but that’s it. And I’m not going to have time this week to be even on the hunt for things, so I opted to not get email from either of those groups. All of a sudden, my in-box is reduced to maybe 3 or 4 emails per day. And probably two of them are junk mail. I’m actually loving it. Yes, there was a certain thrill to looking thru all the items waiting my perusal, but the simplicity of an empty in-box is very attractive. I’m not saying I won’t rejoin my two Freecycle groups when I come back. I don’t know. But for now, I’m enjoying it!