It had been over 4 months since Peanut’s last visit to UIHC in Iowa City, so the DW and I were understandably a little anxious for Peanut’s most recent check-up at the end of August. The visit turned out to be one of Peanut’s best check-ups yet. Her doctor was so happy with how Peanut has been doing since he last saw her that he felt labs weren’t necessary this visit – and nothing makes for a better visit than skipping a blood draw.

The plan for now is to stay the course on the current version of the Green Bean Shake while restricting sugar, and watching for foods that don’t agree with her. If she continues to grow at the current pace, we may be able to modify the shake recipe to further decrease Peanut’s dependency on it as her main source of calories. Amazingly, Peanut is still off all prescription drugs – only a small dose of Imodium twice a day, a D3 supplement 3 times a week, and her daily gummy vitamin.

Instead of hopping in the car and heading straight back home after the quick check-up, we took Peanut and Lulu to the outdoor playground area to blow off a little energy. The playground is filled with large cartoonish forest animals for the kids to climb on. We have photos of the three oldest kiddos playing on the exact same animals while Peanut was in the NICU 3 years ago.

Speaking of three years ago, one of Peanut’s doctors from her NICU days stopped by the playground to say hi. Dr. McElroy is a leading doctor on NEC and we’ve kept in touch over the last three years. He took the chance to get some new pictures of Peanut for an upcoming lecture he’s giving in London.

An afternoon of check-ups, and playgrounds, and photos makes a girl hungry, so before heading home we swung by the U of Iowa dorms and picked up the kiddos’ cousin who just started his first year at Iowa and found a place to get some burgers and fries. About half way through the meal, Peanut left her spot next to the DW and buddied up with her cousin. Normally, she only does that if she’s trying to steal your meal… not the case this time.