Poop Talk

The past week has been a bit stressful with non-Nora stuff but Nora’s had a pretty good week and when she’s doing well it always helps deal with other things.

Montana’s dad came home from the hospital Monday afternoon still feeling pretty yucky and without many answers as to what happened. Jody (Grandaddy-o) continued to feel poorly through out the week but thankfully has started to feel a bit better over the past couple of days. It was a struggle for Montana to know his dad was in the hospital right up the road from us and not being able to go visit him. With the flu running rampid everywhere we did not want to put Nora at risk and stayed clear of the hospital. Jody’s care and concern for Nora’s health is a top priority as well and he wouldn’t have let us go up to visit even if we had tried. Thankfully Nora’s Uncle Kia, Montana’s younger brother, was able to pull hospital duty all weekend and made sure his dad was well taken care of .

Nora’s communication skills are growing by the day and the developmental therapist for special needs children thought she was doing so well at her appointment on Wednesday that she said she didn’t think Nora needed to be in the program anymore unless special concerns came up. Nora’s language and cognitive skills were assessed at 1 1/2 to 2 years of age and her physical developed is right on track rating at 10-12 months. She is now not only saying “poop” but telling us when she does so, which with short gut is quite often, although it’s rare that she goes and we don’t either hear or smell it. Most parents probably wouldn’t be so happy for their little girl to be saying poop but when you’re a parent to a short bowel child it puts poop in a whole new perspective. Nora is also pointing to her hair and feet when you ask her where they are.

Nora’s TPN rate stayed the same this week because she had lost 6oz on Monday’s weigh in. It’s always disappointing to see a decrease in her weight but we’re not too concerned because we feel pretty sure her weight loss was due to a poop-a-thon that began the day before she was weighed. Her stools had been consistently thicker but then last Sunday boom, LARGE quantities of VERY loose poop. It’s hard to portray the magnitude of how explosive her poops can be until you’ve seen it first hand. Nora is teething again and her poops always get very loose when she’s cutting teeth. They’ve thickened up in the past few days and she still has a good appetite so we’re hoping for a gain back of what she lost plus some at tomorrow’s weigh in.

Nora started eating Cheerios last week, well not the name brand Cheerios cereal but an organic version and loves them! She wasn’t too thrilled with the first try but after a few days of eating a few at a time she has decided that they are very fun and yummy to eat! She’s very good at chewing/gumming them up before she swallows all the while making “mmmmm” noises.

Nora loves stroller rides and being outside. Thankfully the weather has been nice and warm enough to get her out and about lately.