Life has been pretty uneventful on the recovery front. Bella’s home and she’s been talking away. Her voice doesn’t even sound hoarse.

Every now and then, she’ll mention her throat is hurting, or her tummy is hurting, or her head is hurting. But it’s only gotten severe enough to inspire tears once, and every time it’s happened in the thirty minutes before her pain meds are due.

The prescription pain medicine stings.We were following the doctor’s suggestion and giving ibuprofen except for at night, but then we realized that we could only give ibuprofen every six hours instead of every four. And at 3 and a half, she’s hurting. Every time we did two doses in a row of ibuprofen instead of alternating prescription pain meds with ibuprofen, she’s been in a lot more pain and the medicine has stung more going down.

So, now we alternate, and that seems to defeat most of the stinging and keep the pain minimal.

With the pain managed, the next hardest thing to deal with is boredom. She can only watch so much television before getting bored. We have an entire season of Dragons: Race to the Edge that we’re working through, and she has video games to play. Between episodes, we do crafts and play board games, but with the exception of that thirty minutes between doses, she feels like she can play. She gets down right hyper.

Also difficult is food. We’ve got breakfast down (eggs, yogurt, banana), and for lunch I found these great birds-eye pasta shapes meals that have soft pasta and corn and squishy peas and such that she can eat. But she doesn’t want it twice a day and she’s still unwilling to try soup or mashed potatoes. It wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t starving. We’re keeping the worst of the hunger at bay with those two meals, lots of ice cream, jello, yogurt, and pudding, and at least one carnation instant breakfast a day. But my kid, who has happily lived on air for most of her life, has now of all times decided she really wants a meal she can sink her teeth into.

But overall, I’m really pleased with how well her recovery is going. By contrast, here’s where I was on day one and two (post-op, if you’re counting the day of the surgery push both back by one).