Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

Happy Anniversary to me! It has been one year since I came home from the NICU after a very long six week stay. In those six weeks I had a trach and a g tube placed and my parents learned from the nurses how to care for me. Everyone kept telling my parents that before long the trach changes and suctioning and use of the feeding pump would all seem pretty routine and they were right. As members of the trach website told Mommy "welcome to the club you never wanted to join". A year later, my parents are seasoned members. Now they get to be the ones welcoming new parents to that club nobody ever wants to join. My Mommy and Daddy were technically parents the moment I was born, but I don't think either one of them really felt like parents until they were able to bring me home. It's been a long year filled with lots of challenges but also so many wonderful accomplishments so happy anniversary to you too Mommy and Daddy!

And how did I celebrate my big day - with new toys of course! Since I am about done using my walker and I refuse to get in my exersaucer any more, Mommy had to find some new toys for me to use during the day with Lucille. She did some research on Toys R Us to see what ones other parents recommended and two of them arrived today - the house and the shopping cart. The house has lots of fun things on each side for me to to. I can turn lights on and off, ring the doorbell, deliver mail in the mailbox, open and close the window - and on and on. Mommy also got me a shopping cart that I can use when I start walking. Daddy says we need to buy stock in Fisher Price!

You can see in the picture above that I am getting much better at using my hand and Lucille and my parents are encouraging me to use it as much as possible. My parents got a call from the agency that Marianne is feeling better and will be back tonight so Mommy is looking forward to a good night's sleep (hopefully)!

Peyton Nicole Smith