Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Here are a couple of pictures of Lauren in her first Santa hat. We had a great first Christmas with Lauren. She had a great time with both of our families and was excited to meet many of them for the first time.


On Christmas Day Lauren decided she was very interested in food. She was trying to get at my sister's plate, so we decided to start her on rice cereal that night. She's really not a fan of rice cereal, but she does like oatmeal w/ banana, carrots and sweet potatoes. Tonight she ate the entire jar of carrots (2.5oz) and almost all 6oz of her bottle. I hope she sleeps well and doesn't have a tummy ache after all that food. She just kept wanting more and more! It is fun to watch her expressions while she is eating. Part of me can't believe she is actually eating baby food now. She has come such a long way!
We got our 2nd shot of the RSV vaccine today. They base the dose on weight so her weight as of today is 13lbs 9oz. We also had her 4month NICU follow up with a Physical Therapist @ St. V's last Tuesday and she said that Lauren is ahead of where she expected her to be after reading all of her history. So proud of our little girl! Lauren does have what is called "torticollis." This means her sternocleidomastoid muscle (on either side of the neck) is contracted (tight.) Her right side is where the muscle is tight so we have to do some stretching exercises and carry her a little differently to help loosen it back up. The worst case scenario would be that it stays tight and she would start to have some facial asymmetries due to her always tilting her head one way. We do her stretches many many times throughout the day and hopefully things will be better when we got for our next appointment at the end of January.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and has a Happy New Year! Adam is working right now and supposed to be off at 11pm, but I expect he will be held over till 1am or so since that's what has happened every year before. Lauren is in bed and I am relaxing waiting to ring in the new year!