We went to the park one day, in the very merry month of October….

While last Sunday was Zuzu’s first ride on her shiny new tricycle; her little sister also got a turn for firsts- her first swing ride! And she LOVED it! She was all smiles and giggles. It was a beautiful day for it and it was so wonderful to watch the girls swing and giggle together. Zuzu was about the same age when it occured to us to take her to the park and ride on the swings. It has remained a top activity choice in her repotoire and looks like the little Quail will be following suit.

Thanks to all of you who inquired as to our wellbeing after last week’s Quail post. Thursday was the last day of the worst of the worry and eating difficulty. It really does seem like she just had a cold and that was affecting her appetite and sleep. On friday we went to OT and PT prepared to tell Kathy that we thought we might be done with trying to nurse if she was now doing so poorly with the bottle and it was affecting her sleep. We had been to the cardiologist and the GI dr that week and there didn’t seem to be a clear cut medical cause for the difficulties and she had no fever and was playful inspite of the decreasing amounts of food and sleep. Perhaps it was also a little growth and developmental spurt taking up her time, her focus and her energy. We went into OT and I told Kathy about what a difficult week it had been. She suggested we try nursing so she could assess if anything could be done differently or if there was something causing the problem. I figured this would probably turn into a scream-and-sob fest. But really the lesson in all of this was to just be. We don’t always have to “diagnose” every little irregularity. We don’t have to make ultimatum-style decisions about what we will or won’t do. Some days will be hard. Some days will be cake. But they are all our days. We sat down to nurse. The Quail fussed and clucked at me for all of a few minutes and latched on and nursed like old hat. 23 minutes later she was drifting off with a belly full of milk. She did pop up long enough to throw up a full ounce down my shirt. I guess the lemonade of that is that we now know exactly how much milk makes up Niagra Falls. We had done a feed and weigh and she took in 4 oz and then threw up and we weighed her again and an ounce was missing. Well not missing, more like down the front of my shirt; but you get what I’m saying here. It was fine and Kathy felt we didn’t need to come back the next week. It had also been just before that session that she had sat up for Ashley our PT. It was the best day! And to top it all of Sara Rosenfeld Johnson; the illustriave speech therapist; was at the clinic doing evaluations and she had a few minutes to pop in and introduce herself and meet us! We are thinking of signing up for an evaluation the next time so it was nice to put a face with a name. It was just a brief hello but she took the time to get down face to face with the Quail and talk to her. When she reached out to touch her face though The Quail flinched away. We questioned if that was just her stranger anxiety which she has been having a bit of a time with or a hypersensitivity to touch which she has on occasion exhibited as well. When she knows someone though she really doesn’t mind them touching her face- so I would tend to lean towards the former explanation albeit less clinical. Although didn’t I just get through saying I didn’t need to diagnose every little irregularity?

All in all a wonderful wrap-up to a hard week and we are grateful for the little bits of Zen training in our lesson in letting things just be.