Autumn Weekend

Mattie has been enjoying the wonderful fall weather, including "baby's first cookout" with friends. He was also eating like crazy today; maybe he's hitting a growth spurt.

Jamesie is doing fine. He's getting his daytime feedings over about 45 minutes (every three hours), with continuous feedings at night (which is the plan for when he comes home -- this way he will, in theory, sleep through the night). Today they gave him feedings of half special formula (Elacare) and half preemie formula (Enfacare), and he seems to be fine with that. Assuming he keeps tolerating it, they'll go to all Enfacare tomorrow, and then try him on breastmilk after that.

He's also doing well with his bottles. He took about 45 ml from Mike this evening, and did 60 for his night nurse -- but then threw up some of it. (Not a big concern; he probably just needs a little more time to get used to the larger volumes.)

We practiced using his g-tube today. The "mickey button" that he now has is a little round valve that sits on top of his skin, and there's a tube that attaches to it when it's being used for food or medicine. It's not difficult to use, but it takes a little getting used to -- attaching the tube to the "button" part that's on his skin requires pushing it in a little, which I worried would hurt him (but in fact it doesn't seem to bother him at all). The important thing is just to make sure the tube doesn't pull on the button when it's attached. (Too much pressure or movement on the button over time could cause the opening into the stomach to get bigger, which we don't want.)