January 26

Yesterday was a good day. We had a whole gaggle of wonderful visitors to see Elsie (she pretty much has her own fan club, lucky girl), and while I was chatting with them in the waiting room, who comes around the corner but my lovely sister, Roberta. She flew down from Portland as a surprise for my upcoming birthday and so that she could meet little Elsie. Ok, she probably came to see the rest of my family too, especially my sister Rhonda who is moving to Phoenix soon. But it was a happy surprise for me, and it totally made my day to see her, and to know that she would fly so far to come give me a hug.

Elsie has had a good weekend with few changes, which is good. No changes means stability, which means growth and healing and rest. She's up to 7& 1/2 ml of breast milk every 3 hours, and the TPN (IV "food" that was feeding her when she was having digestion trouble) has been removed. We saw her little eyes open for the first time yesterday, which was totally exciting. I know she can't really see very much yet, but it was still exciting.

My sister Rhonda took a bunch of cute pictures of Elsie yesterday, so as soon as she emails them to me, I'll post a bunch for you all to see. In the meantime, this is the cute name tag that Clayton's cousin Chantel made for Elsie's incubator. It's pretty much the cutest name tag in the whole NBICU :)