Holiday wrap-up

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We had a lovely Christmas with Adele. We were happy to be spending our first family Christmas at home, but that meant missing seeing extended family that day. We were able to see a bit of family on each side, but there were lots of people we didn't get to see at all. We hope to catch up with those we missed soon into the new year. One personal disappointment was missing the DeLorio's visit. Lindi and kids were going to come through Lawrence on their way to Wichita before Christmas, but the weather had them changing their plans. We rescheduled for after Christmas, but wouldn't you know it, by the time the day rolled around her baby, Izzy, and Adele were both sick. Neither one of us felt like it would be a good idea to swap baby colds so we sadly decided to skip the visit. Lindi was pregnant with Izzy the same time I was pregnant with Adele (our original due dates were only a few weeks apart) and we talked a lot during that time and we were both looking forward to FINALLY getting the babies together. But I suppose the kids' health is more important than a photo op... ;)

Christmas morning we all managed to sleep in a little bit, which was nice for Steve since that was the first day off he'd had in two weeks. When we finally did roll out of bed we made coffee and had First Breakfast (coffee cake) in preparation to open stockings. After we'd finished, Adele completely crashed out on the floor so Steve and I decided to open our gifts to/from each other, and leave hers for when she was awake. We only got a few gifts in when she woke up, so we got her back into the rotation. Steve opened the ones for her that I purchased and I opened the ones that he purchased, that way one of us would be surprised by what was inside (Steve was in charge of toys & books, I bought clothes). Adele seemed mildly interested, but I think that was due more to the crinkly paper than what was inside the paper. (I could swear I got some photos of her opening her first gift, but I guess I didn't. Oh well...) We all ended up with a great haul and a nice mixture of fun and necessary, which is how it should be. We spent the rest of the day eating and playing with toys and eating and napping and eating and reading books. It was a fantastic Christmas! For Adele, the highlights are her Fisher-Price light-up/musical "stage" toy and the green maraca that Santa left in her stocking. She got plenty of other fun toys, stuffed animals and dolls, which she'll have loads of fun with. Of course Mom & Dad were thrilled by clothes and cereal spoons and sippy cups and other necessary items. She really got a lot of great stuff from people and folks were very, very generous this year. We're truly thankful--for many things!

Other, non-holiday related news: We've been giving cereal a try now and then. Adele's not too excited by it, at least as far as I can tell. She may take one or two decent bites and get them from the front of her mouth to the back sucessfully, but the majority of the bites come right back out or just hand out in her mouth for a few minutes. We've been making an effort to make sure she's seated at the table with us during mealtimes, whether she's eating or not, so that maybe she'll begin making the connections between plate, food, fork and mouth.

Steve said her heard her use consonant sounds the other morning, specifically "da-da-da-da." He assured me she wasn't saying "Daddy" or any form of it, since it wasn't addressed to him. I do know that the "da" sounds are some of the first consonant sounds that babies make, and I was waiting for her to start making sounds other than vowels. Truth be told, I was starting to worry about the lack of other vocalizations and it was going to be brought up at our next doc appt. I hope that maybe she'll start making different sounds more often and I can stop wondering if she's delayed. You'd think that as much as she's around talking (ahem) that would be the one area she'd excel in.

Her weight is yo-yoing again. I took her in for her monthly Synagis shot 12/24 and she'd lost weight again. Sigh. She just can't break the 16-pound mark. She had gotten up to 15 lbs, 12 ounces, once but had dropped back down to 15 pounds, 9 ounces, on Monday. We were back in the office on Thursday to get her cough looked at (common cold--nothing to worry about) and she was back up to 15, 12 again. Go figure. I know she's much more active now than she was a month ago--we're working on spending more play time on the floor (back and tummy) and that leads to more kicking, twisting, attempted and successful rolling and other activity--but she's not really ingesting any more calories than before. January 18 we have her CMH pediatric appt and her local monthly pediatric appt, so hopefully between the two docs there we can find out how concerned they are about all of it. We also have her cardiology follow-up at CMH that same day, and I assume it should be pretty uneventful. It's just an echocardiogram to check that her PFO (heart murmur) is definitely closed.

I think that's about it from here. Here's to a Happy and Healthy 2008 for you and yours!

Some photos:

With her life-size stocking

Adele says, "Merry Christmas!"

With her Fisher-Price Little Superstar Sing-Along Stage (She also received a play guitar for Christmas--looks like she's bound for musical stardom!)
She's doing a good job of sitting up without assistance for small stretches of time!

Won't be too much longer and she'll be asking for a bite of Dad's Boo-Berry cereal.