Junk Food Junkie

Today we travelled North to see our favorite nurse practitioner - Mary Jane Gillum - for a renal report card! We've been shoveling food in Carter all weekend to make up for his weight loss from being sick, knowing that he needed a decent weigh-in for this appointment. He's been eating like a champion, but it still wasn't enough to get him back up to our 21 pound high. Last week at our ortho appointment he weighed 19 lbs 3 oz (fully clothed). Today, completely nakey he weighed in at 20 lbs 3 oz. and is only in the 4th percentile for weight and height (he's 28 in tall today!) Honestly, we're just happy to still be on the charts! However, they understand that with his bronchiolitis and the weird UTI-like symptoms a couple weeks ago, it's pretty impressive that he gained over a pound in a week! As long as we can keep the boy well he may chunk up again. We were given orders to make him a junk food junkie. Anything he'll eat that's super high in saturated fats - keep it coming! Our nutritionist, Brooke, paid a visit to give us some tips and tricks. We're going to try adding 1 mL of oil per oz to his bottles, and can also add flavored syrups - hello, chocolate milk!! She said to keep carb loading him since he likes it, and add butter or oils to any veggies we may get him to eat. The higher the calories and fat content, the better! The boy is addicted to the Gerber cheese puffs, so Mary Jane suggested a Lays natural white cheddar cheese puffs that her girls like. Josh is currently a healthy eating nut, so it made him cringe. Dr. Feig encouraged us that kid's nutritional needs are very different from ours - while saturated fats make us have a gut, they provide nutrition for Carter's brain to develop! So, after we got back in town, we made a stop at Winn-Dixie for these fattening treats!

Unfortunately, they didn't have the cheese puffs, so I'll have to check Publix for those later this week. He ate spaghetti o's tonight, and loved them! Also a big fan of the mini Nilla wafers - he gets that from his Meemer! Overall, Carter's kidney health continues to be stable. His iron was down a little, so we've got to start giving him his supplement more faithfully. His potassium is still holding steady, so we're staying on the low elemental formula for now. We're so thankul that his kidney is healthy, and that all we have to worry about is weight gain. It seems like alot at times, but it could be much more stressful if we were having to deal with poor function of an organ that has no back-up plan! Please send prayers our way for C to be HUNGRY! We'll be weighing in with our pediatrician in a couple of weeks just to see if he's put anything on... if not, we've been warned that a G-tube may be in our future. As long as they're satisfied with his weight, next up will be our ortho surgery on May 2nd, then another renal check the first part of June! We're so glad that our visits are becoming more sparse, although we love everyone up there! Here are some pictures from today - Josh loves Carter in overalls, so that's what he wore today to visit with his doctor and nurse friends :)

Where'd it go?!

Clinging to dad for dear life before labs

Playing after a busy day