Now she's ready for the summer

We had a follow up visit today with a developmental therapist that helped us while Ruby was still in the hospital. We're happy to report all gold stars!! Ruby is meeting all the developmental milestones for her adjusted age. She weighs an ounce shy of 17 pounds. The therapist gave her a cereal snack and she pinched it with her little finger and thumb and bit the tiny piece of cereal in half. The therapist said, "she's so polite!"

Ruby had pancakes for breakfast and I think she ended up with more maple syrup in her hair than in her mouth. She loves the tub and at least once per bath she will very slowly lower her face down to the water. Then she remembers that she doesn't like that.

She's so fun.

Here's Ruby giving me a hint that it is time for a blog update. I can't believe that I haven't posted anything here since the summer. Ruby celebrated her first birthday, had her first Christmas (hospital Christmases don't count), sprouted some teeth, grew more sparkly blonde hair, and enjoyed her first road trip where she also experienced her first chocolate milkshake and her first Oreo. She still says dada every time I tell her to say momma. She laughs out loud a lot more now. My favorite thing that she does right now is "no hands." We say "Ruby, no hands" and she will stand up and let go and squeal.

How is it that these have not made it on to the internet sooner?

In July, Ruby took her first airplane trip. To me this "milestone" wasn't even a blip, didn't even register but we have family members who made sure we remembered it was a big deal. She made her way down to Vegas and I have to say, she handled it all like a champ. Things could have been a lot harder - she really is pretty low maintenance, considering.

I absolutely took too long to write about the trip and I really regret it because you know there are things that we did or said or played or laughed at that could have been fun memories forever if I would have written them down right away. Now they are gone. Escaped me. It makes me sad.

I do, before I forget, want to tell about Ruby's NICU graduate picnic. We never really counted the days that Ruby was in the hospital. I guess once we were in to multiple months, we just didn't really see much of a point. It wasn't a conscious decision we made or anything. Though I must say thinking about it now, I feel good about it, like that only would have made the time go by more slowly. Anyway, they gave us a little t-shirt and there was a space to write in the number of days. We counted. 124 days. We saw a few of Ruby's nurses and a couple of our NNPs and they held her like a normal baby, without any cords or monitors attached. They snuggled her and loved her the way they couldn't when she was a patient and it was lovely. So lovely.

Ruby had PT early this week and, after what Russell felt was a bit of a rough weekend, she gained 4 ounces in 4 days. We are still holding our breath every time she eats.

Speaking of eats - I cannot stop baking! I'm just in the mood. We've been watching Cake Boss on Netflix. That must be it. Let me just tell you, my scratch vanilla cake recipe? Perfected. No lie. Tonight I'm thinking banana bread scones but I promised Russell chocolate chip cookies. Both maybe?

Instagram is awesome but it makes me so lazy! I've been posting pictures there instead of updating here.

Ruby gained 6 ounces this week; she weighs 10 pounds, 8.5 ounces. Yes, we really are counting by the half ounce. It's so crazy. I keep wondering at what point we're going to feel comfortable and whether feeding her is ever going to be like feeding a normal healthy baby. Will the day ever come?

The longer I am back to work, the more comfortable people are with asking about her. When people ask how she is, all I ever talk about is eating and weight gain because those are our only problems! Really though, they are asking about her brain and whether they think she is going to have any disabilities. Ruby didn't have any bleeding in her brain but we won't really rule anything out until she is pretty old. At this age, the biggest indication that something isn't right is any delay in motor development. Physical therapy comes to the house every week and we do range of motion exercises and keep pretty close track of her motor skills. Right now, as far as motor control is concerned, Ruby is ahead - she does more than a 3 month old would be doing. We give her a little bit of a break and assess whether she's meeting milestones by her corrected age, that is, how old she would be if she came when she was supposed to. She's still the size of a newborn but isn't all floppy like a newborn. Sometimes we wonder if she feels like she's a 7 month old trapped in a newborn baby's body. Today, we don't have any signs that Ruby's brain isn't totally normal.

Are there other things? Things you want to know but feel too scared to ask? You know what I think? I think it's better just to ask. It helps me keep a little perspective. I get caught up in what's going on this second and forget a little about how lucky we are that Ruby is even around at all. Doesn't it just make you want to go to church just thinking about it? Plus I love talking about how awesome my baby is...

Ruby slept for 8 hours Friday. It makes us nervous because if she's sleeping, she's not eating and we are obsessed with eating. We know we should be jumping up and down cheering but we've had a little trouble relaxing.

I got up with her and gave her a bottle and then we turned on Sleepless in Seattle and fell asleep on the couch. It's weird how having a baby can be so crazy busy and lazy at the same time.

I will pay anything for convenience these days. Before Ruby came, I would scoff at the guy walking home from the gas station with a gallon of milk. I thought to myself, dude, you probably paid 6 times what that gallon of milk costs at the grocery store, you are a moron. Guess what I did yesterday. I NEVER want to go to the grocery store.

I hate bringing Ruby's car seat with me anywhere. I can't really stop thinking about the germs. I don't know if I read something about it or what. Anyway, I always take her out of the car seat, put her in the Moby, and run the errand. It's great. When you have one errand. Sucks SO bad when you have more than one! In and out and buckling and unbuckling. Horrible. So, these days I skip the grocery store and make one stop. Target. You can buy milk at Target, even if it's not a Super Target and yeah, it's at least twice as much but the convenience of only having to make one stop. It's priceless. Priceless I tell you.

I can't stop staring at this picture. Look at how fat she looks. She's sitting on the scale - 9 lbs 3 ounces.

Our Vegas trip is planned for July which means I'm in the market for a baby bathing suit (why am I so excited about this?). If you see anything spectacular, give me a heads up. I already passed on the Juicy string bikini from Nordstrom Rack. Maybe I better go back...

That's a neck roll. Can you see? Ruby weighs 9 pounds 3 ounces this week. She has had really good weight gain over the last three weeks. Tonight, we're going to let her sleep as long as she wants.

She really makes us work for the smiles.

She's ready for Dad time

Ruby was passed out after about 2 minutes of PT today. It's okay. We got the most important thing done - Ruby weighs 8 lbs 11 ounces.

She had two weeks of big gains so this week we are going to start feeding her ad lib - let her tell us when she's ready to eat. It's actually stressing me out more than feeding her on a schedule. Wish us luck.

Oh come on