Day 119

Today marks the 119th day that Pierce has been home. What does that mean? It means that he has now officially been home longer than his stay in the NICU!  Yesterday, also marked Pierce's 4 month adjusted mark.

Pierce's personality is really starting to shine through. Everyday Nik and I find ourselves cracking up at the little things he's beginning to do. One of our favorite games is to see if we can get P to mimic us. We stick our tongue out, he'll stick his out. We smile, he'll smile. We coo, he coos. But our favorite one of all is the newest trick up Pierce's sleeve. I don't even know what you'd call this, but the face he makes while trying to do it is HILARIOUS. For weeks I've tried to successfully capture it on camera. And I finally caught it. About 2 weeks ago we started Pierce on rice cereal. I really had my suspicions. But wouldn't you know, our little chunker took right to it! He immediately mastered the whole "move the food with your tongue to swallow" technique. Since then, we've moved on to apples, pears and carrots. I was initially worried that introducing solids this early would slow down his bottle feeding (something we definitely don't want) or cause him to be constipated (a common preemie issue), but neither of those are an issue for him so we will keep forging ahead. If anything, it has increased his appetite. Pierce is now taking 6-8 oz at a feeding. I remember the days of 6-8mLs! Almost every day I find myself thanking God for granting us easy success in the feeding department, something that I don't take for granted at all.

These videos were taken on Thanksgiving Day. He thinks he's so funny, singing along to the Macy's Day Parade. (Yes, I do believe that's Christina Aguilera on the TV in the first video.) Please pray for us this week as we head to Asheville to meet with Pierce's new therapist. Also be praying as we continue weaning Pierce off o2. He's able to come off for a good portion of the day, but was having some significant wheezing when feeding, so we put him back on at .1 during the day. Pray that he'll be able to come off for good soon. Thanks for walking this journey with us.

Love, Lindsay