Visiting Nurse Day

Maddie is 58 cm (22.8”) long and weighs 5.92 kg (13.05 lbs). We’d been so concerned about her eating – she should be eating at least 700 ml per day but rarely gets more than 650 – that we were nervous about her weight and afraid what Elisabeth (the visiting nurse) might say. But what she says, as Trine just conveyed to me over the phone, is that Maddie just seems very efficient: she’s gained the right amount of weight over the past two weeks, so we shouldn’t worry about her consumption level as long as she’s packing the weight on at this rate.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday she managed her first hat-trick: she produced shit three days in a row! So we’re cutting back on her laxative and we’ll see how that goes. And we’re not going to stress about feeding her at night, so we can really capitalize on her phenomenal ability to sleep through the night – often from 8 or 9pm straight through to 5 in the morning!

We can start experimenting with solid food in about a month.

One thing we didn’t worry about going into today’s visit was Maddie’s overall status. She’s visibly thriving. Maddie is a very happy baby, full of smiles and gurgles and, increasingly, little efforts at laughter. (Kind of smile accompanied by a squeal.) Her head control continues to improve slowly but surely. On Sunday she managed to kick-push herself off her mat for the first time – good thing the spitup cloth under her head traveled with her to soften the blow when her head plunked off the mat onto the dining room table!

The little black-and-white drawing hung up over her changing station and the clock on the living room fireplace both enchant her: she stares at them and smiles and even almost giggles when she looks at them.

She has begun playing with her toy rattle. It was actually the rattle belonging to MM’s doll Haddie, but Molli Malou gave it to Maddie one day. If you put it in her hand now, she’ll hold it and rattle it and stare at it and wave it around – and cry if she drops it. She also reaches out after toys hung beside or above her.

Molli Malou is very excited about Easter this year, and we’re planning a good one for her — it’s her first Easter where we have our own back yard, and you know ole Peter Cottontail is going to take advantage of that! (We’ve had some talks with him just to make sure: Trine made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.)