Tube Wean, Day 3

I don't want to bore you with too many details of what Elsie did and didn't eat today. It was a good day, very similar to yesterday. Elsie is still working on solids, but is doing very well with liquid and liquid foods. Heidi and I are helping her on each meal to practice chewing and swallowing solids first, and then giving her a liquidy food she can easily swallow to help her feel successful and full.

Heidi has estimated that Elsie took in about half of her normal calories today by mouth, which, considering that 3 days ago she took in zero of her normal calories orally, is pretty awesome. She went crazy today with some cream cheese on crackers, had soup with her lunch, drank a lot of juice and water, and had more ice cream before bed, just to name a few.

Things are going very well, and Heidi is very happy with her progress. She keeps telling me to be patient, which is hard, but she has absolutely no doubts that Elsie will be fully orally eating very soon.

You should see her at dinner. She is chewing and tasting absolutely everything on the table. There is no hesitation, even with foods that she is unfamiliar with. She's not scared of food anymore! We let her stay at the table as long as she wants to, which often ends up being over 45 minutes! She frequently moves from her own plate over to her sister's abandoned plate, and picks at whatever Evje has left behind,.and then on to any serving plates that might have food left on them. There is a huge trail of dropped and spit out food that she leaves behind, but the quantities that she is *trying* to eat and chewing and tasting and *enjoying* are just amazing. She has never been this interested in food, and has never wanted to eat this much. She has never even expressed before ever in her whole life that she was hungry. Now I hear it all the time, ha ha. She's going to figure it all out, soon! This kid loves food!