Thanksgiving

Oh goodness. It's Official Arlo Guthrie Gets Played on NPR Day, and I haven't checked in for three days. Whoops!

Penn continues to get bigger and better, except for the bigger part. We've switched to a feeding-on-demand schedule, and it's a few steps forward and a few steps back all the time. I'm learning how to figure out if she's really swallowing or not and trying to gauge how much she takes in, anxiously timing her breastfeeding, measuring post-breastfeed pumps, and making sure her diapers are wet when they're supposed to be. She's learning that for eight hours each day, the only food she's going to get is from me, and she'd better get to work. It's a bit of a learning curve for both of us, and she's actually dropped a little weight in the last two days (she's just a hair below 5 pounds now). But the nurses say that's to be expected, we're pushing her to eat and taking away the easy put-on-the-pounds tube, which can plump up kids quick but leaves them with no eating skills. All right.

So I can deal with a day or two of dropped weight (especially since she gained a freakish amount, 100 grams in one day, on Monday) as long as I see she's peeing and pooping. What I don't like is how fussy she was yesterday. Babies are fussy, I get that, but she just never settled down, and I kept putting her to breast, thinking she must be hungry. But even when I gave up and gave her a bottle, she was restless and seemed uncomfortable, and that just worries me. If it turns out she's a restless baby, fine; but so far, she's been very predictable, letting me know when needs something and settling down when she gets it. So this is unusual and I am looking forward to seeing her today to see if she settled down after we left. Randy did get her to sleep by the time we left -- at like 11pm. It's really hard to leave when she's fussing.

The nursery we're in is much more crowded -- fewer nurses to more babies, in less space. But it's the step-up nursery, where the kids don't have any real problems other than being small and dumb, and everyone is friendlier and more engaged with one another (especially the mom of the twins who's been in the same room with me from the beginning, except during Penn's infection). There are fewer beeping machines and less of a sense of pervasive dread. So that's a plus.

Anyway, here we are on Thanksgiving. I am thankful, of course, that she's doing so well. I'm a bit aware that I'd originally hoped to have her home today. I'm worried, now that I've met with her pediatrician, about keeping her safe from the flu and, of all things, whooping cough, which is apparently pandemic right now. But mostly thankful, yes, for Penelope and for the team that's been caring for her. Okay.