tiny victories & daily goals

We are getting closer to finding a daily routine that approximates sustainabilty. The daily grind involves giving Iris her medications five times a day (these are oral medications, not shots), changing her incision coverings once a day, making sure her oxygen tank is working, fortifying breast milk with formula so that she gets more calories, recording the amount she eats, trying to pump every three hours, and then washing all the syringes and breast pump materials so we can start over again. All that is added to the normal babycare stuff: comforting when crying, changing diapers, playing...

In an attempt to find a routine we've found it important to set exactly one daily goal. Two days ago it was "nap for Sarah." Yesterday it was "morning run." Today I am being ambitious. My goals are: do some laundry, take a nap, go on a walk with Iris, and post something to the blog. A shower would be good, too. That might wait till Evan gets home.

There are some tiny victories to report. Iris is still averaging one vomit a day but yesterday's daily vomit was small -- what I would call a "normal kid" vomit. She barely noticed it and was happy before and after. Yesterday also marked the first day I drove alone with her. I have been nervous to drive by myself but she did great. We had to go to the pediatrician's office - about 10 minutes away. The main news is that she gained weight since her first visit to the pediatrician. Her new weight is 9 lbs 14.5 oz (4.49 kg). This is what she weighed at the emergency room a couple days ago. This is also up 7.5 oz since her visit last week to Dr. Sagel. Dr. Sagel was really impressed with her weight gain and encouraged me to start nursing Iris again rather than exclusive bottle feeding -- or at least to begin to reincorporate nursing.

Some other funny things that happened at the pediatrician: Iris peed on the table after we weighed her naked. She then pooped and peed again as the nurse was trying to take her (rectal) temperature. The nurse almost got her face pooped on.

Iris is starting to hold her head up on her own when I burp her. She is also cooing and making sounds that sound an awful lot like "hi."

As far as long term goals (i.e. this weekend), I am hoping that the three of us can have a small visit to a park on Sunday morning (Father's Day) before it gets too hot. And we're also working on getting Iris to bed at a reasonable hour. All we have read about parenting emphasizes the importance of predictability and routine for children so it's also very important to me that we get her into having a regular bed time. I expect this to take a while to lock in.