That's All She Wrote.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we did it. Today was our very last day of as an inpatient of the Kennedy Krieger Feeding Clinic. We're home.

Whew. I feel like I need to repeat that. Whew. What a crazy, amazing, stressful, wonderful, insane, intense 55 days these were. Before I say anything else let me start by saying this:

To everyone who works on the 3rd floor:
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. It was our home for 55 days. You became our friends. You became our family. We came to care about you just like you did about us. We learned your names and your faces and a little bit about your lives outside of your work. We came to love you. You made our mornings and evenings and nights there good. You learned how to handle Jack and most importantly, you learned how to handle me!! You all were kind and caring and everyone was always there with smiles or tissues if need be. I'll never be able to say thank you for all the wonderful care Jack received in his time in 309 but I'll remember each and every one of you fondly.

To the 2nd floor:
Oh goodness, where do I even begin?! How do you say thank you for the gift that you've given us? To everyone that worked weekends to do his therapies or dodged spoons during his meals or played with him during playroom or watched him during unstaffed hours so I could shower, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You all are truly amazing at your jobs and I feel blessed that my child had the opportunity to meet you. I don't have the words to properly or eloquently express my gratitude so I'll just say thank you again. For the rest of my life I will treasure this experience.

So yes. We're home. Man. It feels GOOD. Jack is THRILLED. THRILLED. Oddly enough the most thrilling thing for him is that we have a cat?! But we had the cat before he left and in fact, we've had that same dumb cat since before he was born but still, he spent the better part of the first hour being home chasing poor Oscar around. "Hello kitty." "Come here kitty." "Don't run kitty." Yea, the cat is a big hit. Even bigger than the Octonaut toys I ordered from England. Sigh.

Once the excitement of our old pet wore off, he ran around looking around the house looking at everything. He and Daphne chased each other and he wanted her to be with him everywhere he was. "Come on, Natknee Kate." He was stinking adorable. Around 430 we fed him his snack using his protocol. It went PERFECTLY. Honestly. It was perfect. No issues whatsoever.

After snack Steve left to go pick up some pizza since neither of us thought ahead enough to think about dinner for he, Daphne and I. Jack's dinner was already planned and measured out but the three of us were left high and dry. He gets back with pizza and my Dad is here and we're all eating and Jack walks up to me and points at my plate and says "Pizza." I said, "Yes, did you want some?" He nodded and grabbed my hand and took and small bite and walked away. A few minutes later he walked back over and took another tiny bite. About five minutes passed before he walked over, grabbed a whole piece off my Dad's plate, said "Mmm pizza" and walked away. Damn if he didn't eat the whole thing too. I adjusted his dinner amounts when I fed him a little while later to account for the pizza but we were all thrilled and shocked!

He 1. ate pizza WILLINGLY! Pizza has been one of those foods where he tolerates one day and then hates it the next and 2. he was taking appropriate sized bites off of a larger piece! There was no shoving the whole piece in his mouth!

Man. What a night. Now, to be honest, we aren't expecting every night to be like this. Dinner was a great meal comparatively. He did throw his spoon once but honestly, one time is not the end of the world, especially not after such a huge transition. If it keeps happening then we'll contact his feeding team and talk about a resolution but we'll give him a few days.

Okay, I feel like this is getting long enough. I'll try to update at the end of the weekend and let everyone know how he does. Thanks if you hung in there through this incredibly long entry.