No Surprises

James's appointment at the Special Infant Care clinic went well. As we expected, the two main areas that we need to work on are his expressive language (making sounds, speaking) and eating (more solids). His receptive language (understanding) was in the normal range, which was nice to hear (no pun intended), and they were happy with his progress on motor skills.

Did I mention that he's cruising -- walking while holding on to furniture -- now? Go James! He's also holding out toys to give them to us, although he only sometimes actually lets go of them. It's very sweet. (I think this may be in part a result of his audio-verbal therapist working on the phrase "give it to me" with him last week, although he's just doing it spontaneously, rather than in response to our requests.)

We met with the nutritionist, and she suggested that instead of increasing the calories in James's formula, we should try adding some rice cereal to his bottles because it might stop the food from moving through his system so quickly (which might mean that he's not getting the full benefit from what he's eating).

I'm still struck by the irony of all of these post-surgery things that we're doing to slow down the passage of food through his digestive system, because I clearly recall the period of time in the NICU when they thought James might have a functional motility problem (that is, that his intestines might not be able to move food through well or quickly enough). There are not good treatments for those conditions, so the worst case scenario there was that he would never have been able to come off IV nutrition (with the high risk of early death from liver failure or central line infections). I vividly remember the world-famous neonatologist standing next to me at James's bedside, with eyes full of sympathy, saying, "We all hope the surgery will help, but it may be that his intestines will just never work right." We're sure glad that James exceeded expectations there! :)

In other news, the boys went swimming in their pool again yesterday, and Mattie got to try out the new swim diaper that Grandma Georgia got for him. (Thanks, Grandma!) We don't mind them going in with nothing on, but the swim diaper seems like it will work well if they have a chance to go in a bigger pool.