The Year of Nora!

It’s hard to believe that the first month of the new year is already almost gone. Our little family has been busy with typical life stuff and Nora is chugging along and doing great.

We wrapped up 2009 with a trip to the Sopchoppy River to visit my dear friend Ida who was in town for the holidays. Her parents live right on the river so we got a chance to take Nora out in a canoe for the very first time. It was just a short stroll in the water to see what she thought about it all and she did great and loved every minute of it. Before Nora was born canoeing was a regular hobby of ours which we haven’t done since my early pregnancy. You can see by the smiles on my face that this experience made me one happy mamma. 🙂

Watch out 2010, this is only the beginning….I see many canoe trips and more fun adventures than ever before in our near future. I am proclaiming 2010 as the Year of Nora! Not to sound braggadocios but I am saying it with pure optimism and hope, although I’m never shy to brag about my girl. 🙂

Each year since Nora has been born has come with many challenges and hardships but they have also come with overwhelming happiness and amazement at the many huge successes our Nora girl has made. Medically and socially I just can’t help but believe that this will be Nora’s biggest year yet. We have high hopes of finally getting Nora off of TPN for good this year. She has really beefed up her oral intake and is only on 3 nights of 335ml TPN which is a very low dose. We’ve been talking with her GI doctor and nutritionist and plan to start decreasing her TPN even more soon. The plan will be to take her off Omgaven first to see if she can handle not getting fats intravenously and go from there. But even if this isn’t the year for her to be able to get off TPN completely we know she’ll continue to make leaps and bounds.

Nora snuggeling up to our good ol’ cat Maxwell.

Nora had a nice visit with her Uncle Kia (Montana’s brother) this weekend.

With her fishing hat from Uncle Kia and her boots Nora is all ready for a fishing trip!

On the social front, we are planning to finally get Nora up to visit my family in Kentucky this spring. This is something we’ve been long awaiting and very much looking forward too. Some time on my dad’s farm and visiting with family is just what we need. We will still be cautious with Nora when it comes to germ exposure but we are really planning to open up her social horizon more than ever this summer and hope to have many play dates with friends and family.

Watch out world, here I come!