A couple of items I meant to include in last night's post:

Juri - thank you. I didn't mean to forget you on the list of NICU nurses. You were wonderful and kind and found Natalie to braid Emily's hair.

Ryan - Emily would love a visit from the senior creative writing majors. She really, really enjoyed seeing the senior projects last year, so please come. The 3 person rule is officially waived for your visit.

On to today: Emily's not sticking to her prescribed schedule very well. She was wide awake when I got to the hospital at 7:30 and then proceeded to doze during much of her time with Angela the occupational therapist. This afternoon/evening she slept through most of her "high stimulation" times and poor Uncle Gary has had to sit in the dark and just make eye contact with her during much of her low stimulation time. I'm sure the therapists and I will be discussing the schedule more in the days to come. Please just (a) don't be surprised if she's sleeping when you come to visit; and (b) keep an eye on the blog in case the visiting times change to better reflect her schedule. She had a good session with the speech therapists and the occupational therapist said she saw some very positive signs. The consistent, daily therapy is wonderful and we can already see Emily responding.

Emily had visits from both of her neurologists today - Dr. Yarnell from St. Anthony's and Dr. Cilo from Craig. She was wide awake for Dr. Cilo and I think he was pleased with her movement and alertness. In keeping with the last month, she was asleep when Dr. Yarnell came by. Thankfully she's shown him what she can do when she's alert so he didn't feel the need to pinch her. Most interesting, perhaps, is Dr. Yarnell noticed the book I'm reading (a gift from Gary - thank you again) on neuroplasticity. Basically it's a summary of the most current research on the mind's ability to heal the brain. Dr. Yarnell had lots of good things to say about the book. I'm very disappointed neither Ken or I was there when Dr. Yarnell came by (we were home celebrating Hannah's b-day), hopefully he'll stop by next week as well.

Thanks to all of our friends that were at my confirmation hearing this afternoon. All of the support was wonderful.