Dolly and Me

Brooklyn Eating Cereal

This is Brooklyn eating her cereal.

 Brooklyn before her cereal.

 Eating cereal for the first time.

 Cereal all over her face.

 More on her face than in her mouth.

 Notice the cereal on her leg and the bumbo chair.

Brooklyn's First Attempt at Cereal

Brooklyn had her first attempt at eating rice cereal on Monday. It was very successful and messy. She ended up with more on her than in her. I'm not sure she actually ate any of it but it sure was funny to watch her. We set her a little area up in the kitchen for her to have her first feeding of baby food. Matthew put a big blanket down on the kitchen floor and then we sat her in her bumbo after tying a plastic bib on her. Needless to say she still ended up with it everywhere. It was so adorable. There is nothing like witnessing your child's first attempt at eating baby food. On Tuesday we had the speech therapist come out and do an assessment on Brooklyn's tongue and a little demo lesson on feeding with a spoon. It was very helpful. At this point her tongue doesn't seem to be a problem so we are on track to continue with our daily attempts of feeding her rice cereal. We were thankful to hear that she is right on track for her adjusted age. I am going to attempt to post some pictures and videos of Brooklyn's first eating experience with rice cereal. The videos are in windows media player.

 

Video Before Brooklyn eats her cereal.

Mid-July Update

July has been a busy month so far. We went back to the Pedi on July 6th. Brooklyn weighs over 14 pounds now and is 24 inches long. She is now almost 8 months old. Adjusted she is 5 months old. We are so thankful for all of her growth!! We are also excited because she no longer needs to use the g-button. We feed her completely by mouth for all of her feedings now. We will return to the surgeon in August to see when we can get the g-button taken out. The surgeon wants her to go two months on full feeds before he takes it out. By the time we return to the office it will have been one and a half months that she will have been on full feeds. So we are hoping either at the end of August or in September she can get it out. We will see what the surgeon thinks. In the mean time we get to start giving her rice cereal with a spoon. We will see out that goes and post pictures of all of the funny faces I'm sure she will make.


We took Brooklyn to church to the big service last Sunday. She did pretty well. She only got a little fussy one time.Brooklyn also made her first trip to Mimi and Grandpa's house this month. She had her first sleepover at their house this past week. Mimi and Grandpa were excited!. Plus she got to help Mimi celebrate her 55th birthday. Below are some updated pictures from this month.

 Brooklyn wearing her dress Mimi bought her on Mimi's Birthday.

Mimi's 55th birthday.

 Brooklyn layig on the blanket her Nana made for her.

 Brooklyn (24 inches) and Dolly (9 inches) now.

Brooklyn (13 inches) and Dolly (9 inches) then.

First Fourth of July

 I celebrated my first Fourth of July with my parents and grandparents.

 I'm an All American Cutie.

 Mimi and Grandpa with Brooklyn.(April's Parents)

 PaPa and Nana with Brooklyn.(Matthew's parents)

 All the grandparents.

 Go Rangers!!

Brooklyn's first Fourth of July was celebrated with both sides of the family. We had a cook out on Saturday with all of the grandparents. Brooklyn was feeling the love that day. She is our All American Cutie.

Speech Therapy Visit

On July 1st we took Brooklyn to Cook's for another follow up Speech Therapy appointment. The speech therapist helps her with her bottle feeding skills. After her visit she said that Brooklyn was doing a nice job of eating from her bottles and that we should keep her on the preemie nipple for a bit longer. She had some issues with the flow of the Level 1 when we stopped thickening her formula so we went back to the preemie nipple which is a slower flow. The therapist also said we could start weaning her off the continuous feeds at night.Which means we will have to give her bottles at midnight and at 6 a.m. In addition we are also going to start giving her rice cereal in between bottle feeds during the day to get her used to eating solids. We will start out really slow with just one tablespoon of cereal a day. This of course will not be her means of nutrition. It will just be to get her body warmed up to the idea of solids. While we were at Cook's we took Brooklyn to lunch with us at the Cook's cafeteria. When Brooklyn was there during her stay in the NICU Matthew and I ate at the cafeteria quite a bit and we became fond of the Nacho Salad. We just couldn't pass up the opportunity for Nacho Salad. They only serve it on Friday and Saturdays. We of course had to have a picture of this outing as well.

 Brooklyn in the Cook's Cafeteria.

 Brooklyn and Mommy at Cook's.

 Daddy and Brooklyn hanging out .

Brooklyn's first trip to the Cook Children's cafeteria. Her first time seeing another part of Cook's besides the NICU.