11 Months - In the Raw

I have a confession to make...after four birthdays, thanksgiving, christmas, new years, and a vacation all in three months, I am sick and tired of taking pics. I know, I know, it will come back before she turns one...or as soon as they do something so adorable I can't resist.  :)

So, in my rebellion, I decided I was not going to try to set up the background, get the lighting right so that it won't reflect off Em's glasses, and make sure I am on the right side so you can't tell her eye is crossing. I put the girls outside and hoped for the best. So, good lighting, bad lighting reflections in glasses, today you just get her 'in the raw'...

This is Emily. She is 11 months adjusted. She is doing AMAZINGLY well!  She is eating well and breathing well.  She is taking three steps on her own, but until we get her stretched out, she won't likely do more than that.  She is feisty, feisty, feisty and has a temper that you would never believe...that's part of why she is still here today.  She is adventurous and will touch and taste anything.  She goes after what she wants and won't back down...she even 'gets burned' by some things and still doesn't learn.  She is about to take a leap in development so I can't wait for the next few weeks.

She grows her teeth one at a time.  Right now we have three.  Her hair is long enough to get messed up and look crazy but not long enough to do anything with.  Still more than her sister at this age though!

There's the third tooth.

What you don't know is that Em was not in the mood to smile, so I enlisted the available help.  K is sitting next to her on the swing and tickling her to get her to laugh.  I have some really funny pics of a girl curled up in laughter.

This tongue is always out.

See that look?  I told her to come to me and this is what I get.  "Hmm, I'm not sure.  I wonder if I should listen to her or pretend I don't understand.  What does she have that I want?  Is she just trying to take a picture?  That's so not worth it."

Who IS that pretty girl?

This is just a bonus picture to show you her hair and teeth...and because it makes me smile and laugh...it's so Emily!  :)

Thanks for your prayers for her!!  She is not done and we are likely looking at at least one more eye surgery but she is doing SO much better than most of the babies born like her! 

We are just getting over a mild cold, but dad came home with the flu last night and has a temp of 103 so please keep us in your prayers, especially all the girls that we won't get what dad has!!

Working Out with Dad

Remember how I told you K was smaller than all the other kids? Well we had her two year check up today and I couldn't have been more correct. She is 32 inches tall, which puts her in the 10% for height and 23.7 pounds, which puts her in the 15% for weight. My little cutie is a very accurate statement!

She decided today that she needed to workout with Dad using her own bands. :)

I guess this is just another example of why it would have been good to wait to have Em...I tried to tell them in the NICU that expecting Em to get to the 30% before she left was unreasonable, but if I could have given them the information above, I might have gotten somewhere!

God Bless!!

Pictures Finally!!

All right, so there will be a LOT of pics but I need to catch up so forgive me and bear with me as many are out of order. :)

K had her second birthday...recall that she is obsessed with the letter 'W' and loves butterflies. So we found some butterfly decorations and I made a castle cake with a big 'W' on top.

She discovered the frosting on the cake right away!  :)

The bday girl in front of her cake.

Singing to her.

Our big girl! Funny thing is that everyone always seems to complain about how fast they get to two and how fast they grow up. Well, when you live every moment of a year (for Emily reasons), the bonus is that you live every moment of that year for your toddler too. Her constipation didn't go by too fast for me, her teething didn't go by too fast for me, her learning to run and jump and play hasn't gone by too fast and her learning to talk hasn't gone by too fast.

It has been a very long year but I feel like I have really LIVED. I have cherished every moment I have had with her and not taken one for granted. She is my heartbeat and I LOVE it that she is growing up! I love being able to talk to her and interact with her and teach her things. She is so smart and, wow, I could go on forever...I just can't find the words and love just isn't strong enough. I won't look back and wonder where it went, I will look back and thank God that He slowed my life down (to a screeching halt) and taught me to cherish every second at such a wonderful time in K's life.

Okay, no more talking and no more trying to put these in order...I will just dictate. We did a family bday and since Doug and Margarethe were out for the weekend, it made for a good little party. (They are M's aunt and uncle whom he actually lived with for several years while he was in high school).

We did some playing outside since it was 70 degrees and no wind...sorry all those in the midwest and on the east coast.

A brush came with her purse, so she had to try brushing everyone's hair...Poppy was the most willing candidate.

Did you ever really think you would see this guy putting a tiara on a little girl's head? As a mother, this is one of my favorite pics, even though it will never win any awards, it is precious to my heart. He is a GREAT father and she ADORES him!

Doug and B hanging out.

I rarely get pics of Em's eyes and her beautiful long eyelashes but Nana got this one so I had to share.

This is not at her party but recall how I keep telling you K is so small? These are Em's 3-6mo pants that Dad accidentally put on her the other day...yes, she is still in diapers.  That, by the way, is her worst cheese face.

Why do all little kids have to go for her glasses?

The two oldest cousins (on this side) going for a ride.

I was trying to take some pics and everyone was ignoring me when I realized this clown was looking right at me and smiling. I asked him for a pic and this was what I got!!

K still thinks any time is a good time to read!

Ha! We were praying before we ate supper...

K can't eat lasagna so she was having bread in spaghetti sauce and her cousin decided he would eat with her...not that either of them ate much after filling up on cake. :)

Apparently you have to have one gift opening pic. :)

In her full princess glory.

This was the morning of the party...K loves to imitate so she was pushing Em in the car. This is a very heavy car as it has an engine but no battery. I am always impressed that K can even push it. Em looks like she's on the Titanic and they both love it, so I took a pic.

Auntie K reading books. How come my youngest will read when other people are around?

Happy Birthday baby girl!!



I took the girls in to Fullerton the next day to keep visiting and see Chuck and Penny as well. We took a walk to the park and K decided she wanted to push the swing, not ride in it.

And apparently Em decided to push the stroller instead of ride in it. :)

After a bottle...look how BIG she is getting!! Remember when she was the size of my hand??

The ladies.

Oh, on Em. We saw GI today and they are pleased with what is happening. Yes, you read that right. A dr is HAPPY with her progress!! He is not worried about the missing protein as long as we add meat to her soup. She is 16 pounds and gaining about 11 grams a day since she started eating. He has also decided that since she showed she just needed the feeding tube while she was sick and will go back to eating afterward, we don't need worry about waiting too long to put it back in if this runny nose turns into a cold.  He doesn't want to see us for TWO MONTHS!

The eye dr says her vision is getting better in her weak eye. It is still turning in so we are going to start patching for four hours a day instead of two. He doesn't want to see her for THREE months!! But we he will decide then if she needs to have surgery to fix her eye. Please pray it will strengthen on its own!

I sent M in for Em's OT appt and I know this is going to kill all our dr family and friends but we have decided that we can do as much as they are on our own with the advice of our GI and primary dr, so we are stopping OT.

Thank you for your prayers! We will keep up now, especially since Em is 11 months old and we need some new pics!  God Bless!

Update

Well, for some reason, blogger won't let me upload photos, so I thought at least I would update you all verbally.  Hopefully soon I will have pics of K's birthday party, visiting with family and just some fun ones of around here. 

Starting with why Emily isn't walking...We had a physical therapy evaluation of Emily this Saturday and it was determined that she is "REALLY strong" and "very single minded"...he just kept repeating that so I had to throw it in. I have different words for those same qualities. :) Anyway, the reason she isn't walking is because she is too stiff.  If you recall when we first brought her home from the hospital, we had PT exercises for her.  It was because her muscles were so stiff (from laying on a flat surface for five months) that her hands didn't even meet in front of her (like to clap).  So we had to stretch her out each day.  Then it came up again when she was trying to learn to sit...her hamstrings were too tight, forcing her too far back and causing her to lose her balance.  More stretching and finally sitting. 

Well, here it is again.  Her right hip flexor is too tight.  This doesn't allow the extension she needs in order to walk correctly.  In fact, she is turning circles because one leg is correct and the other swings too short.  They have determined that she has everything she needs and should be walking by now but the stiffness prevents her from having the balance she needs to build the confidence to let go.  She does take two to three steps on her own but that is it.  So, off to start stretching her out again.

On her eating, she is still doing pretty well.  Her bottle amount is down lower than we would like and she still chews more than she sucks (which really just infuriates me), but her solids are up significantly and she is doing very well at eating her solids.  She still gags on anything that isn't puree (except baby cookies), but we are getting there.  She is adventurous and will try anything.  She seems to like most things she tastes, unless it is sweet.  No fruit yet but she will eat yogurt.  I am still making her 'german potato soup' although it is less like the real thing every time I make it because I replace some foods with higher calorie and fat foods each time I make it.

We will find out about her weight, eating and eyes more tomorrow.

K is still doing great.  She has moved in to her big girl bed for the second try (she has nightmares quite often and hasn't liked the freedom yet).  She is still on a pretty restrictive diet because of her egg and peanut allergies.  People ask me all the time what they would be surprised she can't eat, so I thought I would share with all of you.  Eggs are in all things baked (cookies, cakes, most breads, etc) and most things deep fried or breaded (yes, nuggets, onion rings, etc).  They are in most crackers, pre-prepared meals, mayonaise and all white noodles (so no pasta dishes and many soups are out).  The catch, and what makes it hard, is that many things that do not have egg in them are "made in a plant that makes products containing egg".

So, what DOES she eat?  Well, to be honest, pretty healthily.  Most of her food is just the real deal.  She eats plain meat and cheese when I eat a sandwich.  She has oatmeal for breakfast and yogurt and fruit for snacks.  I make her soup which is just veggies in chicken broth and some seasoning and she eats that every day.  At supper, she eats whatever we are eating, which means that M and I have nearly cut all eggs out of our diet as well.  We eat rice instead of noodles and have a lot of meals that are just meat and veggies.  I have found the crackers and treats that do not have egg in them and just buy those.  We very rarely eat out.  On the occasions that we have something like spaghetti, we are just careful to keep the sauce separate and she dips bread in the sauce while we eat noodles.  Honestly, we have told her since the day we found out that 'eggs make owies' and are 'bad for K', so she generally doesn't fuss if we just tell her she can't have a food item for that reason.  Yes, I make all the birthday cakes egg free so she can still have them.  Really, it just means a lot more baking from scratch.  I make almost everything she eats, we even still eat pancakes and cookies, I just have to make them the old fashioned way and replace eggs with baking soda, oil and water. One of K's first words was oil because she always helps me cook and that was one item she could go get for me all on her own. 

The girls are getting better at playing together, although Em is still too young to really get the idea of playing together yet.  She understands when K is on the floor crawling around with her and getting Em to follow her and other simple games, but most of the time, K is more interested in reading a book or coloring or having tea parties in her play house to really be interested in Em. Em just seems to be happy if they are in the same room playing with different things. 

We have them sleeping in the same room and although they wake each other up sometimes, I plan to keep them together as long as I can.  On the mornings when they wake up together and I hear laughing and giggling in the monitor, a smile comes to my face.  On the mornings when one wakes the other one up because of crying, and soon they are both screaming, I wonder what I am thinking keeping them in the same room.  The answer?  I am hoping that some day most mornings will be laughing and giggling. 

Well, that is plenty long enough and I hope it wasn't too boring, but sometimes I get asked a lot of the same questions, and as a teacher, I figure that means there are plenty of people who are wondering but just not asking.  Have a great day and God Bless!!