Emily's 8 Month Pics

Well, she looks the same to me as the past several months, but Emily Grace is 8 months adjusted so we took some cute little pics!

This is not the cutest picture, but I included it because my heart leaps for joy and my eyes tear up any time I see her looking super intently at something.  I don't know if the miracle of her sight will ever fall to the background, but I hope not.  Every morning when she gets up, she stares, bug eyed around and holding on to me with super-girl grip, with her face right next to mine.  Then I locate her glasses, put them on and she shakes her head like, "Whoa!  What is all that?", starts staring at each thing individually and suddenly the hand grip turns into a shove and she is off to play with all her toys.  I kid you not, I tear up every morning.  She was supposed to be blind and God gave her sight.  Praise the Lord who gives sight to the blind!

Ummm, okay, Emily...she is crawling, pulling up to a stand, transferring from one object to another, oh, and finally sitting on her own long enough to take a bath without me holding on to her. Her gross motor skills (those listed) and visual/cognitive are doing awesome...miraculously!! She is way ahead of schedule and working hard to walk long before they ever said she would (18mo - 2yr adjusted age).

Everything else is just about as far behind as they predicted but it just doesn't bother me. She will learn to eat some day, and when she does, she will learn to pick up small objects with her fingers and all the other things she needs to learn. I think we can cut her a little slack. :)

For those praying for my brother-in-law, he is still in ICU. Medically, the tests are not showing any improvement yet, but he is sitting up more, talking and trying to eat, so something is working right. Please keep him in your prayers as well as my sister and their two little girls.

God Bless!

Mitch in ICU

This is just a quick post to ask for prayer for my brother-in-law, Mitch, (married to my sister) who was admitted yesterday to the hospital for severe pneumonia but last night he went into acute kidney failure and has been moved to an isolated room within the ICU. His kidneys seem to be doing a little better, but he is on oxygen and the whole shebang. As my sister put it, "He in one of those glass wall rooms, just like in the movies".

Anyway, they have two little girls age 4 and 2 and the oldest is having a hard time dealing with it. She went into the hospital to see Dad and spent the ride home crying. My sister is sick as well but is hopefully on the tail end of that. Please pray for this family. More medical issues is not what they needed, but they are here. Pray for strength and endurance, healing for Mitch and whatever you can think of for the little girls. Thank you.

A Day of 'Mourning'

M might be mourning the loss of Cammy (our 1994 Toyota Camry), but he might be the only one. She had 285,000 miles, windows that don't work, a sunroof held in by paper, torn seats and a host of other issues...then, this week, she decided to have the entire dashboard turn off every time M hit the breaks. So, we decided it was time to stop putting money into Cammy and get a new baby. Our newest girl's name is Lily. She is a white (thus the name) 2008 Honda Accord and she came to be a part of our family last night. The girls and I couldn't be more thrilled.

We were measuring out space in the garage so that we can fit two cars back in there and K thought the measuring tape was a new toy.

Going for a run in mom's shoes.

I love this pic even if it is over-exposed...Em is watching - SIGHT!! - the bubbles and K is laughing...all with Dad.

K made this bed for her doll.  She is totally into pretend play and it is so cute!!

 

We took Em to the ENT today to follow up with the "obstructive apnea" (something blocking the airway) they found in the sleep study and I heard some stuff I rarely hear...Emily's obstructive apnea falls within 'normal range' and she does NOT need surgery of any sort to fix it.  She also just needs more time for her voice to finish healing.  They don't know if her voice is weak from being intubated for so long or from her heart surgery (they nick that nerve sometimes working in that tiny space), but as long as it gets progressively louder over time, they don't have to go in there to look at it for a couple of years.  Let's hope.

We do still have to go to the pulmonologist to address the "central apnea" (her brain forgetting to breathe) as her blood oxygen levels are dropping too low while she sleeps.  She will outgrow this one but they may want to put her on oxygen while she sleeps to keep those levels up higher.

More Randomness

If you have ever wondered, this is what a hungry baby does when they have been banished from the kitchen. Looks like a nature video: "Waiting for her bottle, the hungry human child turns to chewing on the wooden gate that now prevents her from reaching her mother."

Em is now pulling herself up onto things and even starting to transfer. What does that really mean? Lots of fussing and angry sounds as she stands but is still too scared to bend her knees to get down. I think I have now shown her about one million, two hundred thousand times how to get down but apparently bending your knees is a very complicated lesson to learn.

K on the other hand is in a stage where she just melts my heart.  I just want to hug and kiss her all day long. When I watch her, I know she was made perfectly to be Em's big sister and our oldest daughter.  She is SO gentle and has been from the very beginning. When Em finishes a bottle, she climbs up on my lap and says, "goo (good) gah (girl) mama (her name for Emily)" and then claps for her.

She is finally in the stage where she will try to repeat what I say and it cracks me up. I can understand most things she says...but I may be the only person on the entire planet who can. I mean, how many people know that a "doo-dah" is a truck? :) Her language is so adorable to me! For example, she calls a matchbox car, "baby cah (car)", peas are "baby galls (balls)" and when em cries, she says, "sah (sad) mama". Last week, I wanted to teach her to say please without just repeating what I say so I told her to 'say it nice' so now she walks up to me and says, "nice" before making her request. "Mommy, mold (hold) me. Nice!" is her favorite sentence.

My favorite thing she does is take my grocery list or a recipe and start pointing at the page and very seriously gibbering a million words, and then looking up at me like she is reading it to me and I am totally supposed to understand.

This was so cute until the moment K realized that Em was actually using her chair to stand...

Em trying out her new headband at Poppy E's house.

Oh the deep conversations these two have.

NaNa and her two grand-daughters.

Helping NaNa make supper.

They have broken Dad's heart all year, but let's hope the last game was a better indication of things to come.

Why do I have a pic of a spider?  Look at him?  I went to clean K's slide and bring it in for the winter and he was there.  I, being who I am, took pictures, googled pics of spiders and identified this one as a harmless jumping spider.  But look at him!  Doesn't he look creepy?  So I still waited for M to get home to finish the job for me.  I have turned into such a sissy!