We've been home for two weeks tomorrow.  It seems so much longer than that though.  We are starting to get the hang of what our days and meals will be like for quite some time.  Naomi still doesn't like drinking and she is getting more creative with her stalling and avoidance techniques.  Her newest being a return of the "I'm going to throw up" tactic and the all new "I have a brain freeze" tactic.  The throw up one is the best by far because what parent wants to clean up vomit but seeing as she hasn't yet, I'm not buying it until she is pale and clammy.  Her tactics do make for some interesting looks though.  Nothing like a little girl announcing she is going to vomit and the parent not even acknowledging it, then telling the child to eat to get you a few stares.  We are learning that this is a long slow process.  Although the program at CHOC jump started Naomi's eating, it will be quite some time before she is eating like her peers.  She went to two birthday parties this weekend and at both parties she ate the frosting off her cake, even though both were at mealtimes and served food.  I did learn my lesson after the first one.  I had figured after an hour and a half of jumping that she might eat half a piece of pizza or at least be thirsty.  Nope about an ounce of Coke and she might have licked the pizza before the extremely efficient teens whisked it away to serve cake.  I ended up taking her to In N Out Burger (the one place she has always willingly ate at) afterwards for her meat patty with cheese and a chocolate milkshake.  So the next day when we had another birthday party I was much better prepared.  I had her drink a Pediasure before we went in and brought some preferred foods with us to give her while the other kids ate pizza.  She wasn't big on the Pediasure until I informed her we would sit in the car in front of Chucky Cheese until is was gone.  It is amazing how fast she drank once properly motivated.

School is a challenge with getting food into her.  Last week she had a low for lunch of 1/4 slice of bread and 2 ounces of chocolate milk and a high of 1/4 peanut butter and honey sandwich, 3 ounces of chocolate milk and a few bites of diced pears.  I was very stressed about it until she went into her pediatrician on Friday for a weight check and she hasn't lost so we will keep trying and check her weight again in two weeks.  I'm still concerned but not nearly as stressed as I was.  We are considering sending her with a Pediasure, the pros are it is 250 calories, adequate fluid and balanced.  The cons, it isn't really food and ideally we don't want her dependent on it.  Sometimes you have to take the lesser of two evils though.

I have been making her lots of smoothies and am having fun with it.  I think we've gone through a dozen avocados in the last two weeks.  We might need to invest in an orchard.  I've also been mixing flax seed meal, coconut oil and lots of other good fats into them and so far she is liking them.

She is still taking the appetite stimulant, periactin, and you can see an obvious change on the days she cycles off of it.  I have started looking into other natural ways to stimulate the appetite though most of them involve drinking eight ounces of various herbal teas before meals, I don't see that working well for a girl who doesn't really want to drink in the first place but in the meantime I'll keep reading and bring whatever I find to the attention of her doctors and see what they think.

We are excitedly planning a "Bye Bye Tubie Celebration" in a few weeks.

That is one beautiful belly!