Adios, Oxygen!

Dr. Dickerson wrote the d/c order for Lily's oxygen, so the Care Group came to the house today to pick up all the equipment. It turns out that we had the pulse ox long enough that we actually purchased it! The insurance company only pays for rental equipment up to the purchase price, so now we own a pulse oximeter. If you're ever wondering what your oxygen saturation is, feel free to come visit and we'll check it out!

How exciting it was to watch the concentrator and tanks go out the front door this afternoon! I am so proud of Lily.

Occupational Therapy

Since we're switching insurance plans starting in April, we are either going to have to pay for Lily's Occupational Therapy out-of-pocket or discontinue therapy. We decided to stop the therapy because Lily is progressing very well. So we had our very last session first thing this morning. Lily showed off for Tina, putting lots of shapes into the shape sorter and working on stacking the blocks.

Tina has really helped Lily along the way. Do you remember the Kodak slideshow of Lily rolling over by herself for the first time? That would not have happened so soon if not for Tina, and everything else stemmed from there. Here are a few flashbacks of the big accomplishments, starting with rolling over in August, when Lily was a little over 7 months old, 3 months corrected:

Rolling, spoon-feeding, prop-sitting, sitting, standing/bearing weight, scooting, crawling, pulling up... And now she's cruising, too. These pictures are mostly gross motor skills - they don't even show all the fine motor and cognitive skills Lily has developed. There have been some big changes since Lily came home from the hospital, and Tina helped Lily with all of them!

Saying goodbye was bittersweet... Nice to know that Lily doesn't need therapy, but sad to stop seeing our friend every week. Hopefully we'll get to visit once in awhile.

Oh, by the way, Tina - I found the missing yellow bead! hahaha... What a silly girl.

Table Food and Sippy Cups

Lily's transition to table food has been interesting for me. It is very easy to open a jar of baby food and start feeding the baby at mealtime. I have suddenly learned that table food takes a little more thought. Since Lily has decided that she doesn't want to be spoon-fed anymore, I have to make sure we have lots of healthy finger foods on hand. Lately, the only way to get her to eat from a spoon or fork is to give her bites of whatever we're eating. Here's a picture of Lily eating some tetrazzini from Dusty's plate. She had already eaten her own dinner that night; she had several bites of Dusty's food, and he put her down on the floor to go play. But instead of going to play, she came over to my chair and stood up, wanting to eat some of my food. She is quite the little piglet these days.

She loves to eat her vegetables; fruits are more challenging because they're slippery, but she still likes them (especially pears). Surprisingly, Lily doesn't really like the Gerber Graduates foods that lots of other toddlers love. She just wants whatever Mommy and Daddy are eating.

She's also getting the hang of sippy cups. There are two different kinds that she seems to like, although I'm only putting water in them for now. After the 15-month well-check in April, we'll see about switching to whole milk insead of formula. When that happens, we'll use cups instead of bottles. This is assuming, of course, that Dr. Jon allows Lily to go back to thin liquids. I'm giving her water without thickener so she can practice with the sippy cups, but we'll wait on milk in cups until she can have it without Simply Thick.

Subscriptions

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Lily's First Skirt

Lily can't wear any of her dresses right now because they get in the way of crawling, but we found a skirt that works!

Lily's Bedroom

As many of you know, we have been working on Lily's Dr. Seuss - themed "nursery" for ages (I don't think we can really call it a nursery anymore, now that she's over a year old!). No, don't let this post fool you into thinking we're finally finished! I just wanted to share what it looks like so far. Maybe we'll be finished with it before Lily graduates from high school.

This is what we started with, in October 2006:

We painted the whole room green and started working on Thing 1 & Thing 2. We started with them because they're small, so we thought they would be easier. That's actually wrong - the smaller pictures are more difficult because of the details.

This is how the characters come to life:

Next came The Lorax, Dusty's favorite character:

Then my favorite, Horton:Then Sam, so we could put the crib where it belongs in the room:The most recent addition to the room has been the fish, from The Cat in the Hat, finished just last week. Grandma Karen, Great Grandma Mary and Dusty painted the dresser last May, when Lily came home from the hospital; Dusty also put the knobs on the drawers:

My good friend, Katie, made this adorable bow holder for Lily:

And this is what the room looks like today:

And just because this picture makes me smile, this is what Lily looks like when she eats broccoli and spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner:

Our New Blog

I decided to create this blog to eventually replace Lily's CaringBridge site (www.caringbridge.org/visit/lilycorning). Blogger offers a little more versatility than CaringBridge, although I'm still figuring it out. Hope you enjoy!


Lily's new accomplishment for the day - walking behind the toys (she has another walker toy similar to this one) all by herself.

Easter

Easter 2008
Lily had a fun Easter Egg Hunt at home after church.

River Pointe Church Easter Egg Hunt

Lily's first Easter Egg Hunt at church. Daddy and Mommy helped her gather eggs!

Lily on the Stairs

Lily's First Camping Trip

Lily went on her very first camping trip from March 15th to 17th.  We all had a great time!