Poor Brynn Still Going Strong

So Saturday was an eventful day for my Little Trooper. Brynn, as you know, has a feeding tube. It's a little, flat "button" that was surgically placed in her belly about a year and a half ago. What you may not know is that the button is kind of like a fresh earring hole--where if you take the earring out, it will heal shut very quickly. Well, Brynn decided to rip her tube out Friday night and no one knew until the morning. Sure enough, it had healed so much that Matt could not insert another tube. Additionally, she had some minor skin burns from the leaking stomach acid.

Sigh.

One trip to the emergency room later, complete with a lot of screaming while they tried to stretch open the hole again, Brynn made it back home with a new feeding tube.

Poor girl.

What a life she has: her mommy is in the hospital, her daddy disappears all week long and doesn't even come home at night, she has to spend a morning in the E.R. ... and little does she know she's going to be moving to a new house and have a new baby sister to boot. Could any Little Trooper possibly have to deal with more gigantic life changes at once?

I just keep telling myself that the Lord will help her in this time of utter chaos and confusion since both Mommy and Daddy are unavailable.

Thank heavens for loving grandparents (and a sister-in-law) who travel here to comfort and console her. I think Brynn will always feel a sense of attachment to her grandparents in a way most children don't.

On the upside, though, just when I thought all of her development would be plateauing under the stress, Brynn is taking off! Her walking continues to mature, she started climbing the stairs, her recognition of speech is growing exponentially, and her oral eating is exploding. I can't believe it.

Just a couple months ago, we could hardly get food NEAR her mouth; and just today at dinner, she ate an entire pudding cup, some watermelon, crushed Cheetos, and sweet potatoes. And all that after being full from a near-complete tube feeding. As soon as she learns to chew and take higher volumes, it won't be long before she can pull that tube out for good!

Here she is licking crushed graham cracker off mom's finger:


As for her language development, she's copying more and more sounds--like "Quack" for the duck, "Whoo" for the owl, "Eee eee eee" for the monkey. Grandpa has successfully helped her understand the word, "No," which she promptly used against Grandma when Grandma took something away from her. She waves at "Bye Bye," and claps when we say, "Yay!" And she does all of this only 5.5 months after hearing her very first sounds. Unbelievable.

My sweet girl continues to blow me away ... and to think she'd be doing this well with 5 weeks LESS than Heidi has already had in the womb! Premature babies truly are miracles and I am happy I get to witness one (soon to be two) every day.


Still pregnant
~Natalie