This week, Papa Bear went on a long trip to California, leaving me alone with Lemon and Lime for I think the longest time since they were born, a total of 6 nights. And you know what? It has gotten tremendously easier to take care of them solo. It's still a busy time, and the challenges are different than they used to be, but we made it through just fine. We have finally reached a stage that I have been dreaming of since Lime was born, where they can be playing outside, and I can also be outside but doing yard work, and that can be stable for stretches of up to several minutes at a time. Likewise indoors--I can do things like prepare food or, heaven forfend, take a shower, without too high a risk of calamity. The fact that they both use the toilet and more or less sleep through the night (as long as you define night as ending somewhere between 4:30-5am) are added bonuses.
After writing the post last week, I saw no reason not to just take Lemon up to 4 cartons of formula a night, to see how he would tolerate it. Guess what? After a week of that he gained a pound. It's almost like putting in more calories causes weight gain or something. I will of course talk to the dietitian about it on Wednesday but I think this is a good plan for us for the summer. I definitely want to see him above 50 lb before school starts up again. Speaking of which, his kindergarten graduation is on Friday, how is this possible???Other than keeping up with the kids and working, I spent a good amount of time this week getting all the paperwork in place for the various summer things. Emergency contact forms, immunization forms, authorization to give medication forms, and on and on. Two kids, two summer programs, and it was several hours to get all that done, but I think it is, except for the actual hard part of meeting with the different people at the camps to give them instructions about how to give enzymes and when. At least our plan this summer is much simpler than last summer, when we were still doing the whole "beads in applesauce" business. Good riddance to that.
I have to say I am not looking forward to our epic clinic visit on Wednesday. We are doing EVERYTHING at this visit, X-rays, labs, PFTs, meeting all the various providers, etc. I know it will be long and draining, but I am glad that right now Lemon is at his baseline (no cough!) and his weight is good, so we should be in good shape. I just hope the rest of the tests are in line with my overall impression that we are in a good position going into the summer. Just to make sure we cram in absolutely everything before the summer gets going, we are also going to the dentist and having a liver ultrasound in the next 10 days.
