Mr. W noted on Sunday night that Allie’s appetite seemed to be returning. My parents were over visiting and we all took a walk to a nearby Baja fish restaurant for early dinner. Allie ate quite a bit of black beans stirred into white rice, grilled whitefish, guacamole, diced tomatoes. And then when we went home, she gobbled up papayas.

Monday, we were all a little nervous as I briefed Jayne on Allie’s recent changes. We’d prepared a bunch of separate veggies and fruits for Allie’s lunch, plus some shredded Kahlua turkey stirred with Mediterranean white rice to place her previous one-pot meal. We left in the morning with Allie happily in Jayne’s arms stuffing her own little face with cut papaya from her little bowl, eagerly closing the door behind me. Jayne had expected Allie to cry to watch us leave her after 2 weeks straight with her.

When we came home, we were greeted with a happy giggling girl who greeted me by pointing at Jayne, saying, “Jean? Jean?”, like “Look who I had all day! Jayne!” And she’d randomly run up to Jayne and hug her leg. It was very cute and I was happy to see that there was no readjustment needed. Jayne had clearly missed her, and said that Allie ate like a bottomless pit AND took almost a 3-hour nap. No issues whatsoever, no tantrums. I was very relieved. Jayne said Allie recognized the broccoli right away and said, “brocky?” unprompted, which surprised me because I hadn’t given her broccoli in months. She did the same thing with peas, just pointed and said “pea” and I can’t even remember the last time I’d given her peas. I’m impressed with her memory.

Today, Jayne’s teenage daughter Alyssa is with them (whom Allie LOVES and who loves Allie and had reportedly said to Jayne, “Mom, you know you have the best job in the WORLD, right?”) so I hope everyone has a lot of fun. Allie again couldn’t shoo me out the door fast enough this morning, practically closing the door before I could squeeze out. 🙂