TWO MONTHS HOME

 Milena is doing well, all things considered. When she was first admitted, based on stomach size, blood work, height/weight, etc. they came to the conclusion that she was previously eating 200-250 calories per day, we are now, with feeding tube, up to 1440 calories per day. She came home at 37lbs and is now 45lbs at exactly two months home. Right now we are enjoying a hospital free 2015. She is able to stack a 10 piece stacking cup set and enjoys making towers with blocks (which works for Eli, because he loves knocking them down). Up and coming still: 3 hour eye appt, likely eye surgery; Ortho for AFOs; and in 4 months, the food aversions clinic, for intensive feeding therapy to hopefully get her chewing and swallowing. She's extraordinary and doing so well, in her own way, and I feel blessed/honored to be the one who wakes up every morning getting to watch her miraculous transformation. She rarely grinds her teeth anymore; the almost animalistic sounds have greatly decreased; It's rare that she intentionally spits or drools; I can't recall the last time I have had to tell her not to hit herself in the face.....Keeping it real, I'm sure she's still an intimidating kid to meet, but to us, totally different kid than the one that got off the plane two months ago. She goes to church, she LOVES worship time, she went to children's church (with me) for the first time last week and had a great time, she has receptive language that I really don't think she had in Bulgarian. She makes eye contact, follows me with her eyes as I move around the house throughout the day, and is noticeably anxious when I leave her sight. She's phenomenal, we're truly blessed to call her ours! 

ETA: Forget a big one, she SLEEPS! Through the night, without meds of any kind. She goes to bed around 8:30 and is usually up around 8:30 and if not, I wake her up.

Elijah is not a huge fan of me. I meet his needs, and that's just not cool with him. I feed him, I change him, I clothe him....and I would say he tolerates me. He will not smile at me and he does not enjoy my many attempts to hold and cuddle him. He loves daddy, daddy is spectacular, and I'm pretty sure the only reason he tolerates me during the day is because he knows soon daddy will be home and he can be done with me. Major anxiety. The more I am the only female caregiver in his life, the more we are noticing an increase in anxiety towards women period, he very much clings to men. In a room of men, he will only want daddy, but if daddy is not around, he would much rather be with any other man in the room than to be held by me. If Dan leaves for work after Elijah wakes up, Eli will cry and bang his head until he exhausts himself, So we have been tip toeing around him in the morning and making sure Dan leaves before he wakes up, then he can handle the day much better. Eli is a child on the move! He can get around so fast now, both crawling and in his gait trainer. He is sitting independently for much of the time now but still enjoys the extra support of the bumbo too. When I picked him up from the orphanage, anything you put in his hand would immediately be thrown and he'd laugh histerically/uncontrollably, but now he picks things up on his own and studies what he's holding, he appropriately decides whether it's food or toy and knows to do different things with each. Yesterday he picked up a toy car and tried his best to make it roll back and forth on the floor, thats real attemptive play, for the first time!!! And food, he's come a long way! When I picked him up he would only eat from a spoon, and only thick puree with no real chunks to it. By the end of the 2 weeks in country I was offering him puffs but wanted nothing to do with hands near his mouth and would not take it from us, unless on a spoon, but then he would push it back out with his tongue. He is now eating puffs that can be hand fed to him, he eats pastas, ravioli, peas, cooked carrots, etc. This weekend we went out for one of the kids' birthdays and Eli kept grabbing for his sisters pizza while sitting up in a restaurant high chair without needing to be propped up....Pizza wasn't going to happen but I did hand him a thick overcooked hard fry to see what he'd do with it, because so far he has had no desire to use his own hand to bring finger foods to his mouth, but he DID IT! He sat there gnawing on a fry and getting little chunks off at a time, removing the rest of the fry from his mouth, chewing, swallowing, and then back to gnawing on the fry!

I cannot believe it's been two months!

Feels like just yesterday that we got off the plane, but at the same time like they've been here forever.