Another Mother's Day

The internet blogosphere is atwitter with Mother's Day posts, I'm assuming. Just seems like all the moms like me who maintain blogs will be ticky-tapping their day's events into cyberhistory. :)

This is officially my second Mother's Day, as Adele was born 6 days before M.D. last year. It's old hat now. Ha! But seriously. This year's day was a billion times better than last year's. Oh my, yes. Last year was "happy." Sure, I was thankful for my daughter, and so very happy to be a mother, but at that point things were still pretty tenuous so it was hard to be happy about much of anything. But somehow, despite her precarious health and the fact she was attached to a ventilator, she managed to go shopping for my first Mother's Day present (a picture frame) complete with a hand-made card. How she climbed out of her incubator is still a mystery to me! ;) [Editor's note: Eventually I will stop with the "this time last year" notes and comparisons. I'm sure you're all tired of it by now! It's still so hard to stop thinking about this year in relation to last year, especially since "this time last year" (ugh) was so crazy.]

Today was definitely a HAPPY Mother's Day. We made it to early church, then headed for K.C. around 10:45. I'd decided I wanted my special day to involve a meal from Pei Wei, and the closest is in Overland Park. Also, Adele had a Toys R Us giftcard to use (thanks Grandparents Buren!), so we did a little shopping, too. We were home by mid afternoon, which gave us plenty of time for a nap. Ahhhhh.....

The next few weeks should be crazy as our kitchen floor is being torn up tomorrow. We're getting some foundation issues corrected, and they'll be fixing the crack in the kitchen floor (slab) at the same time. I'm glad it will be fixed, but I'm DREADING the condition of the kitchen in the interim. We're not sure how much of the floor they'll have to tear up, and the fridge is on the possible borderline. We will definitely have to move the dining room table and the deep freeze. Ugh. I hope we can just move it far enough to get out of the way, leave it unplugged and closed for a few hours, and then move it right back at the end of the day. I really don't want to have to find an out-of-the way place where we can also plug it in. Our dishwasher died last week, so we'll be using part of our stimulus rebate to buy a new one. We'll also have to put a new floor down in the kitchen, and then we figure might as well replace the stove too, so our rebate is pretty much spent. We're doing our patriotic duty to restore the economy, yessir. Anyway, hopefully the tear-up won't be too inconveniencing in the meantime. Of course the area of work is between the fridge and the sink, both places we have to have access to to fix and wash bottles. Things are always so much more difficult when you throw kids into the mix. But it will be so nice when it's done, and that's what I'm focusing on!

I guess it's been a while since I've done any basic updating, so let me give you those details. At her 12-month check-up Wednesday, she weighed 17 pounds, 15 ounces and was 28.5 inches long. Still on the small side, but she's gaining slowly, and that's all that matters. The exciting thing about the appt was finding out we don't have to come back for THREE MONTHS! This is the first time in a year we haven't had at least monthly doc appts. Of course, we will have to start having twice-monthly feeding therapy, but I'm hoping we can roll that into the early intervention appointments we already have, and we can avoid special trips to K.C.

Developmentally: Adele is crawling all over now, on all fours. She's ditched the army-crawl, for the most part. She's not always terribly fast, but she can get out of sight pretty quickly when she wants to. Just during the past week or so, she's really started pulling up on things. She's playing on her knees (both low (resting her bottom on her heels) and high), which is usually followed by her trying to pull herself to standing. She's been successful a few times, just depends on what she's balancing on. Just recently she discovered she could reach the buttons on her mobile in her crib, but that also meant she was mighty close to the top rails of the crib, so down the mattress went, to the lowest level. She should be safe for a while now. Walking doesn't seem to be anywhere in the near future, but I would expect her to show interest in cruising soon. The toy I linked to above and another one she got for her birthday should give her some help in that area, when she's ready. Also, I'm not sure, but I THINK she may be working on another tooth. She had a few fevers this weekend and has been drooling buckets, plus she's not been eating as well as she usually does. Since she doesn't have any other signs of illness at this point, I guess I'll just keep checking those gums for the tell-tale white poking through.

Okay, enough rambling. I hope all the moms and moms-to-be out there had a good day! You deserve it!