You're Watching Adelevision

Better late than never?

2010-04-14T21:19:00.005-05:00

I've decided, somewhat at the last minute, to again participate in our local March for Babies, which takes place April 24. However, I'm planning to RUN the route this year since I've been doing some 5k training. I figure it's a good time to try out a longer course and see how I do.

I know things are difficult financially for many folks, but if you feel the urge to donate to a very worthy cause, you can click on the purple badge to the right, visit my personal March of Dimes page, or email me directly. Any amount will help and is greatly appreciated. I'm trying to raise only $96, which is $1 for each day Adele spent in the NICU.

Thanks for your time!

And here's a picture of Scout and Adele to hopefully tug at your heartstrings a bit. (I'm not above playing dirty...)

Happy Easter, happy spring!

2010-04-04T18:08:00.003-05:00

I know it's been a very, very long time since I've updated this blog, and I do apologize! We seem to be busier and yet have less to talk about (or less that I feel is interesting enough to talk about). I'm going to try to be better about at least posting pictures for the Grandparents and family who are far away.

Adele is almost 3 years old--I can't believe it! She's amazing and smart and SO funny. She's a joy to be around. I can't believe how big she is. We're interviewing preschools this week and next, and that blows my mind. To think she was once a tiny, tiny baby and now she's old enough to go to preschool. To think we once didn't know if she'd have disabilities or learning problems or if she'd even be able to go to school. She's a miracle and I remember that even more the older she gets!

As for Steve and I, we are both fine. I started a new job in December (after I'd gotten laid off in late Sept). It's going well, but I have a long commute to Lenexa. But I am thankful to have a job--period--let alone one that pays decently, has benefits and is something I enjoy. Steve is still at The Toy Store and enjoying that. It's a lot of work, but he has as much fun as he can!

In October, we got a new dog. Yes, our dear Skeeter had only been gone a month but we felt we were ready (and missed having a dog around) and we found a great one at the humane society. A sweet dog that's good with kids and isn't too crazy is too good to pass up! His name is Scout and he's a HUGE yellow lab. We're not used to a dog that's the size of a pony. But he's a good boy--most of the time--and fun to have around. One thing I appreciate about him is that he's forced me to get outside and exercise every day, which is something I'd been neglecting for quite a while.

If he doesn't get two good walks a day he has a tendency to destroy things (did I mention he was huge??), so it's in our best interest to keep him worn out. And I am happy to say that over the course of the past few months, I have begun a regular running program. I'm using the Couch-to-5K model, which gradually works you up from walking to running 3.2 miles. It's been really fun and Scout is a good running buddy! We both benefit from the exercise. Don't be surprised if I work some running posts into this blog--you can just ignore them if they bore you. ;)

Since today is Easter, I thought I'd share some photos from earlier today. Which, by the way, was a GREAT day. Weather was absolutely DIVINE (complete opposite weather than what I remember of Iowa Easters). We had brunch at church, service at 11:00, a trip to the dog park for kite-flying (and a mudbath for Scout), home to wash the dog and blow bubbles, and now we're waiting for Easter supper to finish up. It was a fantastic day! I hope yours was, too!

Finally, the update I promised weeks ago!

2009-09-03T14:25:00.006-05:00

Skeeter, in happier, healthier days. (June 2009)

Okay, I'll get the yucky news out of the way first... We put Skeeter to sleep a little more than a week ago (the day before Steve's birthday, unfortunately). It was a sad, SAD day, and such a heartbreaking thing to have to do, but he was very sick and there was no hope for him. He went peacefully and we were there to hold him until the end. We miss him so much, especially the happy, silly Skeeter he was earlier this year. What a good dog we had for 9 years. I cannot say enough good things about our vet, Dr. Tom Liebl, and the entire staff at Clinton Parkway Animal Hospital. They showed us so much compassion and support and shared in our grief when Skeeter passed. They're the best!

Now for a better topic--sweet Adele. She is fantastic, and such a joy. I love this age (even with its tantrums and trials). Her little personality is so fun and funNY, and she already has a fantastic sense of humor. I don't have a lot of exposure to 2-year-olds, but she seems to be ahead of the curve when it comes to vocab/speech stuff. We received her 27-month questionaire from Early Intervention and one of the questions was if she was speaking in 3-4 word sentences yet. Uh, YET? Try for the past several months! We have to give an example, too. The hard part is narrowing it down to just one. Will it be "Momma! I need to go potty!" or "May I be excused, please?" or "See the big, blue bus, Mommy?" Decisions, decisions! Maybe this is all perfectly normal for this age, but I can't help but be amazed at her language/comprehension skills. It's probably because I know how far she's come and how different things could be. We still don't take much for granted!

I think one of the last times I posted, I mentioned we were trying out potty training. I'm happy to report that early training was successful, for the most part! She's in big girl underwear during the day and rarely, if ever, has accidents. She's still in pull-ups at night and for naps, but I can live with that. We're still working on perfecting the, uh, second type of bathroom event, but that is getting better too. We reward each one of those successful trips with a Barney viewing, and since she L-O-V-E-S Barney, it's a great incentive.

Last weekend we went to St. Louis for Steve's uncle's memorial service. It was a sad occasion, but it gave us an opportunity to see Grandpa and Grandma Buren, whom we don't see often enough. We sneaked in a trip to the STL zoo on Saturday, where the picture below was taken.

Adele, August 2009

The STL zoo is AMAZING, if you haven't been before. They've improved a lot of the exhibits/landscaping since we were there last time (at least 3 years ago), and it's definitely a world-class zoo. We rode the carousel and the train (and before we even started moving, Adele exclaimed, complete with scrunched-up face "I don't like it." She warmed up after a while), but she LOVED the sea lion show. She was fairly miffed when an older girl got called on to help with the show and she didn't get to go up too. Ah, it's so hard to be 2.

This weekend we're going camping with my parents and my brother and his family. Luckily the weather looks like it should be decent (the rain chances have been removed, thankfully). I hope the little girls have a good time and aren't too scared to use the outhouse! Hopefully I'll have some fun pictures to share from this weekend's adventure.

Enjoy what's left of summer--I know we will!

We're still here!

2009-07-30T10:16:00.002-05:00

Yes, we are all still alive! Things have been busy lately: Steve is working late three nights a week, my work days are jam-packed, too, and then we both get to come home and chase a 2-year-old. Not much time left for blogging, I'm afraid! I hope you understand. :)

There are a few things to report, one item not so good. Should I start with that first just to get it out of the way? Yeah, probably.

You may remember that last year our dog, Skeeter, had his right eye removed because of a malignant eye tumor. He quickly recovered from that surgery and went right back to his usual, silly self. Earlier this summer I started noticing some on-and-off lameness with his right front leg, but just about the time I'd get ready to call the vet to have it checked out, he'd recover and start putting normal weight on it. He went in for his regular check-up in late June and all was well. He was overweight, which is normal for him, but otherwise healthy. The vet was happy to see that he was still doing so well after his bout with cancer last year.

In less than a week after that check-up, a lump appeared on his right front-leg "wrist," and he'd begun favoring that leg so much he wasn't putting any weight on it at all. We also noticed that he wasn't eating much or at all, which was HIGHLY unusual. Skeeter had never met a food item he didn't like. We took him back to the vet, and the first thing we noticed was that he'd dropped 4 pounds--in less than two weeks. Yikes. The vet brought up the possibility that the lump could be a tumor, which was a thought that had crossed my mind, too. He put him on some anti-inflammatory medication to see if that would reduce the swelling and we waited a week to see how he fared. Unfortunately, there was little to no change to the size of the lump and his appetite never increased. Back to the vet yesterday for x-rays--he'd lost ANOTHER 4 pounds in that week and a half. The results from the x-rays were not what we were hoping for: A significant chance that there is a tumor growing there (probably osteosarcoma (bone cancer), since it's unlikely that it's metasticized melanoma from his eye cancer) with a slight possibility of a bone fungal infection (this would be extremely rare considering where we live).

So, now we're faced with the high possibility that Mr. McWheeter has yet ANOTHER form of cancer, this time a very aggressive form that is generally incurable. In most cases, by the time a lump has formed and is obvious to the naked eye, the cancer has already spread to other areas. Our options at this point are 1) A biopsy of some sort to rule out the fungal infection or to diagnose that it is really cancer (and what kind) or 2) to skip that entirely and assume it's cancer (since the odds are in our "favor") and just let him be. The vet himself said he doesn't have much hope that it's NOT cancer.

We're really wrestling with what to do in regards to a biopsy. It would be nice to know for sure what we're dealing with, but the most accurate biopsy is a fairly invasive procedure (requiring full sedation) and can cause weakening of the already compromised bone, which in turn could cause a fracture or some other injury to that leg. We had already decided that if it WAS cancer, we would not be doing treatments of any sort. With me losing my job in a month, there's just no way we could afford ongoing chemo treatments. I hate to automatically assume the worst, and I would HATE it if it really was a treatable infection of some sort and we didn't even try to fight it, but let's be honest here--we're not made of money, and this guy has already survived malignant cancer once in his 9 years. Is it really practical or humane to drag this on any longer than necessary?

So yeah, Steve and I have a lot of tough decisions to make. Our vet is fantastic and let us know in no uncertain terms that we have already done more for him than a lot of pet owners would and that our concerns (financial and otherwise) are valid and we would NOT be bad people if we chose to stop the fight. Right now, Skeeter is on some pain/anti-inflammatory medicine while we decide the next course of action. I bought some canned food that he will eat a bit of (enough to get his medicine down, thankfully), but I can tell he's not the same Skeeter he used to be. It's just hard to have to decide if/when the right time is. Do we wait until it's obvious that his body is failing or do we do it sooner, before he suffers any more? This is one of the times I wish Skeeter could speak in words, so that we knew what HE wanted. We want to do what is right for him, so that he has the best life possible, as long as possible. But Steve and I are struggling with the guilt that comes along with making a decision that may seem (to others) based on inconvenience or cost alone. You know? It's hard. I knew this decision would come someday--it's one that every pet owner has to face at one time or another--we just weren't ready to have to make it now.

Wow. That turned into a much longer post than I'd planned. I guess I have a lot on my mind today! I'll be back later with a happier, less Debbie Downer, Adele-centric post. :)

It can always be worse.

2009-07-02T12:31:00.002-05:00

Yeah, so I know I still haven't put up a recap and pics of our Boston trip. I will try to get those someday, I promise. It's just that we've been distracted lately, what with me getting the news that I'll be jobless at the end of August. Oh, good times. Goooood times. But hey, things can always be worse, right?

We'll be okay. I've been through the layoff process once before (and it was with the same company--ha ha!), so it wasn't as earth-shattering this time. Of course our situation is different now--a mortgage, a child--but I also feel like we're in a better place mentally and financially. We're not rich, but we take better care of our money now than we did years ago so I feel like we know how to make it work during tough times. We also have some irons in the fire as far as replacement incomes. I decided I would like to stay home with Adele for a while and think about "what I want to be when I grow up," since I think it's safe to say that I'm done with publishing for a good long time. We're in discussions with a friend to watch her daughter part-time, which will bring in a bit more income, but there's still a gap that we'll need to fill. I won't bore you with all the details until I know that things are finalized. I do belive wholeheartedly that we'll be fine. I believe things always work out for the best--I don't know if that makes me an optimist or delusional. Ha!

In other, hopefully less-depressing news...

Since this is a three-day weekend for me and I'll have all day Friday and Saturday at home with Adele, I THINK I may run and get her her first pairs of training underwear today. Figured this is as good a time as any to try some full-on potty-training. We'll take the diapers off and go free as a bird, and hopefully she'll get the picture. If not, no harm, no foul. We'll wait and try again later.

Next week we will go to Kansas City to see NICU nurse Lauren get married! I'm so excited to see Lauren and show off Adele to her--it's been more than a year since we've gotten together. Hopefully I'll get a few good pictures to share.

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Forth of July!

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-21T21:08:00.005-05:00

Steve and Adele watch the Swan Boats at the Public Garden,
Boston, Mass., June 2009.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there--I hope today was a good one! Steve, being the Super Dad that he is, is off reading Adele a bedtime story. I couldn't have asked for a better partner in parenting. Adele and I are lucky to have him. :)

And because I love a good trip down memory lane, here are some photos of Steve's first Father's Day.

Hooray!

2009-06-20T14:11:00.003-05:00

ADELE POTTIED IN THE BIG POTTY TODAY! Yay!!! She then promptly peed on the floor but hey, SHE WENT IN THE POTTY! Woot! We celebrated with lots of clapping and praising and a jellybean. :) We have a lot of work ahead of us, but I'm so happy she finally went in the potty. Whew.

I plan on having a bigger post in the near future recapping our Boston trip and some other stuff, so stay tuned!

Officially

2009-05-08T15:11:00.007-05:00

(If you're just here for the photos/videos, scroll to the bottom.)

We went to the doctor this morning. First, the stats:

Weight: 24.75 pounds (can't remember percentile, but still on the small side)
Length: 34.5 inches! (75th percentile for 2-year-olds)
Weight-to-length: 15th percentile (a little higher than at her 18 month appt)

Doc says she's going to be tall and skinny like Steve and I. Doc is only half right about Steve and I--I'll let you guess which half. ;)

The good news: Adele is 100%, officially, ALL CAUGHT UP! YAY! She's totally on target for normal 2-year-olds in all areas, and even ahead of the curve in some (verbal). Gross motor is probably the only area where she might be on the back end of the curve, but Dr. Murphy said there's a pretty wide range of "normal" at this age so not to worry. For instance, Adele doesn't jump flat-footed and clear ground yet, and kicking a ball is sometimes walking into it, not deliberately moving her foot into the ball. So she'll be a talker and a reader and won't be top of the class for coordination/athletics. Uh, have you met her parents?? I was happy that Adele chose to actually speak at this appt, and even showed off some of her color-naming skills so Doc could see for herself what she's doing now.

The bad news: There is no bad news! Woo hoo!

The plan: Since Adele is now a typical toddler, we don't need to come back until her 3-year checkup. Keep her on whole milk, since she can afford to have the extra calories. Start watching for signs of "toilet-training readiness." Basically, keep doing what we're doing and continue life as normal. We can drop Ages and Stages (Tiny-K questionaire) at any time.

Two things I'm looking forward to: 1) Being able to stop counting her age in months. From now on, she's 2 years old (maybe 2.5 when November rolls around), not 24 months old. 2) Being able to stop adjusting her age. I think this one will be the hardest since I've been doing it for two years now. Always saying "well, she's really only supposed to be X months old." No more. You get no more slack from me, kid! ;) But in all seriousness, this is a day that all parents of preemies look forward to--the day when your kid is just the age s/he is, and not the age they're supposed to be.

Since Adele is healthy (physically, mentally and developmentally) I feel like that "preemie" period of our life is officially behind us. Once a preemie, always a preemie? I don't know. Right now it doesn't seem that way, but only time will tell what/if any issues arise from her early birth. What's different now, as opposed to last year or the year before, is that I'm not obsessed about what COULD happen. I'm just not worried. (Please don't let the other shoe drop now. Thanks!) I know I've said it before, but we're lucky. Blessed. Unusual. Not all the stories have happy endings. Don't think I don't thank God every dang day for what I've been given (and that includes all of you)!

And on that note, here are the pics I promised yesterday. I hope the slideshow embeds properly. Let me know if you want a link to the actual album so you can print any of the pics. (Grandmas? I'm talking to you!) There are videos at the end, too. Nothing exciting. :)

Edited to add: There are videos in the slideshow (the pics that look grainier than the others are video stills), but they're not playing in the slideshow. So here's a link to the actual album so you can play the videos (if you want). http://picasaweb.google.com/Adelevision/AdeleS2ndBirthday?feat=directlink Just click on the button with the little green arrow labeled "Slideshow" and the videos will play IN the slideshow.

Happy Birthday!

2009-05-07T19:40:00.009-05:00

Happy 2nd birthday, Adele!

Today has been a great day. Adele went to daycare for the first half of the day--Renee was closing early today and all day tomorrow because of a family obligation, so I took this afternoon and all day tomorrow off. Anyway, after a nap (which allowed me just enough time to make a cake), we played outside in the new-to-us playhouse! She loves the one at daycare so I thought it would be a good gift for this birthday. However, I about fell over when I saw how much new ones cost. Luckily, we found someone at church who wanted to get rid of their playhouse, and we jumped on the opportunity to get one for free.

Anyway, after Steve got home from work, we opened gifts! She got something from of all the official gift groups--toys, clothes/pjs, books, money, gift cards--and I know more is on the way. Nope, she's not spoiled. ;) So far, her favorite gift has been the "magic" baby bottles, and naturally, they were also the cheapest gift. Well, aside from the free playhouse!

We topped off the day with homemade birthday cake! Yum! The candles and/or our singing (ha) scared her, so she wanted nothing to do with blowing out candles, but she did enjoy eating the cake.

Like I said, it was a good day. Had a different feel from last year, though. This year was so much more, well, normal. No anxiety. No bittersweet feelings. No overwhelming urge to finally exhale. I don't want to take anything away from today or imply that it wasn't an important day...and definitely not to say last year was a bad day (far from it!!). Just like last year was awesome because it was so significant, today was awesome because it was so NORMAL. Just a regular ol' kid celebrating a regular ol' birthday. Here's to many more like THIS.

Tomorrow we go see Dr. Murphy for the 2-year checkup, and it should be pretty easy. No shots, and since I don't have any concerns about Adele's development, I hope it will be all good news. I'm hoping Adele is officially, 100% "caught up" and that we can be done with Tiny-k. No more monthly questionaires, please! Unfortunately, we do have to make one last trip to CMH for a final neurodevelopmental screening. I had no idea we'd need to do this, but whatever. It's always nice to have the "experts" check her over. I'll report with stats after both appointments.

I'd planned on linking to an album of extra photos from today, but it's taking far too long to upload. I'll try to get that linked tomorrow sometime!

No words

2009-05-01T15:27:00.003-05:00

Today is not a day for eloquence. The most I can muster is "Thank you." "I'm so grateful." "I can't imagine." "I hope to God I never have to."

In December, I asked you to pray for Kayleigh Freeman. She recovered from that particular terrible moment and seemed to do much better for a while. She survived surgeries and overcame more hurdles. She came close to coming home a few times. Unfortunately, little Kayleigh is failing, and there's little to no hope for recovery. A large portion of her brain has ceased functioning and her parents are faced with the most difficult decision that any parent could ever have to make. My heart is breaking for them.

My heart breaks for another family who lost their dear Maddie unexpectedly. She was born premature too, but she was 17 months old when she passed.

I've tried writing the rest of this post several times and I keep erasing it. Words escape me.

Some days I love the internet--the days when I find an old friend on Facebook or when one of the parents on my Preemie Parenting board shows off the newest picture of their thriving child. There are other days when I curse how connected we all are, because if we weren't connected I wouldn't be crying about the losses of children I never met.

Adele turns 2 next week. May I never take our good fortune for granted.

Easter 2009

2009-04-12T21:56:00.004-05:00

Happy Easter to everyone! Our day--well, weekend, actually--was great. My folks were here, I took Friday off, weather was fairly nice, and we had a great visit. Church services were good, too. This was the first year I'd really participated in Holy Week services. I know I'd gone to Good Friday services as a child, but I don't think I did much beyond that. This year I went to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil AND Easter Sunday. Whew. Mom joined me for Good Friday and Easter Vigil services, both of which were excellent. We decided that the Easter Vigil service is by far the BEST church service of the whole church year. (Yes, better than Christmas Eve!)

We have a few events and get-togethers coming up that we're looking forward to. Headed to Beloit next weekend for Jeremy's birthday--it will be the first time since Thanksgiving, I believe, that my whole family will be together. Can't wait to see my nieces and nephew, and let the little kids go crazy in the Grandparents' house. Ha! It should be fun! Next thing we know, it will be May, which brings Adele's 2nd birthday! Yipes. Then in early June, we're headed to BOSTON for a week! Whee! Got a line on a free place to stay and we found some decently priced flights and thought we may not get a better opportunity to go. You only live once, right? Besides, our friends Ben & Lindi, Carina and Izzy live there and have for, what 9 years?, and we've never visited! Izzy is Adele's age--more or less--so she'll have a playmate, we'll have someone to borrow kid gear from, access to a full kitchen/home, and better yet, a friend to hang out with and help us navigate the city.

Adele is doing fine, as usual. We're working on counting and letters. She's able to count to three on occasion, but isn't very consistent. She's got one and two down, though. One, two socks! One, two, toes! One, two, Elmo! She surprised us when she recoginzed A and B. They must be working on letters at daycare more than we are at home. C is still hit and miss--most of the time she says "A, B, moon!" Even her mistakes are adorable! ;) Still haven't received our 22-month eval for Ages & Stages (Tiny-k). Would like to receive that so we can see where she's charting.

Speaking of her birthday (I was while ago, anyway), we're thinking about getting her a twin bed. We still co-sleep, and she's gotten big enough now that she's the only one getting a good night's sleep. Most of the night she's spinning or kicking or flailing or talking and keeping Steve and I awake. Besides, it's time. She's almost 2, and that's old enough to be in her own bed. We contemplated getting a toddler bed, because at least we could use the mattress and bedding from her crib, but I think it may be helpful to have a bed an adult can lie in, in case one of needs to cuddle her to sleep. So, a twin bed makes more sense there. Besides she can use it far longer than she could a toddler bed. And of course, since it's me and I'm a big Mushy McMushersons, I'm already getting sad thinking about taking down her crib. Waaaaah! I don't know why I get emotional about something she's not even using! Sheesh.

Anyway, on to pictures...

Easter 2009. I had a better pic of her in her dress, but the computer ate it. :(

G-ma and Papa P.

For Grandma V.H.: Adele loves her new book!

Her hair is finally long enough for tiny, tiny, pigtails.

Don't know how well this photo will translate, but I was trying to show you how curly her hair is when it gets wet. This is her typical post-bath hair!

You say strawberry, I say bay-ya-ya

2009-03-24T15:07:00.008-05:00

Ahhh, decoding toddler language can be so frustrating--for all parties involved. It took Steve and I forever to understand that "bay-ya-ya" was Adele-speak for "strawberry." The only way we even figured it out was when she pointed to a strawberry in a book and said "bay-ya-ya." Eureka! It seems for each word we decode, another unintelligible one is there to take it's place.

So, Adele is 22.5 months old now. I can't believe we're closing in on the 2-year mark! Since we don't see Early Intervention anymore, I have no gauge for where she is on the adjusted/actual age spectrum. We are still doing mail-in evals with EI, and the letter we got after we turned in her 18-month sheet (they have been going by her adjusted age) said she was doing well enough they'd start evaluating her based on her actual age. We'll get the 22-month in April and the 24-month in May. I'm anxious for those to see if she's getting close to being officially "caught up."

The weather has been beautiful (although we've had some terribly windy days), and we've been spending as much time as possible outside. Adele loves her tree swing and we broke out the sidewalk chalk and bubbles this past weekend. We've also been exploring some neighborhood playgrounds and parks. Our favorite so far is the Ryan Gray Playground for All Children. Since it's a fully accessible playground, there are ramps and walkways everywhere. Perfect for the toddler who wants to go everywhere! My only complaint are the slides. They have only metal or rollers (like a conveyor belt), and Adele seems to be scared of both kinds. She seems to like the plastic ones at other parks just fine. Ah, well. At least it's one less thing I have to drag her away from, right? She does seem to like the swings a great deal. (More pics after the video!)

From last Saturday, one of our gorgeous, wind-less, spring days.

Sunday's goin'-to-church outfit.
We don't do dresses very often, so I thought it was an event worth documenting.

We've been working with Adele on colors. She'll get 'em eventually.

Adelevideo: Dancing Queen

2009-02-16T18:34:00.004-06:00

Who doesn't love video of a little kid dancing? Leave it to a toddler to figure out how to dance to ambient music. Does that type even have a beat?

(She gets her dancing skillz from Steve...)

Plugging along...

2009-02-03T15:28:00.004-06:00

Sorry that my posts have become virtually non-existent. Not much to say these days, I guess. We were all sick for a while last month, so that knocked us out of commission for a while. Adele had pink eye in both eyes and a never-ending cold, and Steve and I both got hit with The Colds From Hell. It was a rough 2-3 weeks, there. But we're on the mend now and doing fine. And even with the bad cold that she suffered, Adele still seems really healthy for a preemie that goes to daycare. Well, maybe it's not that she's really healthy, it's that she's not any more or less UNhealthy than any normal kid. I hope that makes sense. She doesn't get Synagis shots this year, so I did have a few moments of panic when I thought about what COULD go wrong. But then, she's always defied the odds and done better than anyone expected she would.

I'm really enjoying the stage and age Adele is in, for the most part. I love her little personality and it's simply amazing to me how she seems to learn something new every day. I hear her attempting sentences, or at least phrases, which is so cool. Some of the middle words are pretty garbled, but I can tell she's trying to repeat what I'm saying. "Daddy's at work" becomes "Daddy bljkjdajd wok." You get the gist.

She is becoming very proficient with her table utensils and can easily stab with a fork and scoop with her spoon. (She's not perfect, by any means, and still uses her fingers quite a bit.) She can eat rice and not make a complete mess of things, which is a big improvement! (Much to Skeeter's disappointment, as that means his Hoovering services aren't as badly needed.) Her latest accomplishment and joy is eating a bowl of cereal all by herself. Steve and I were pretty amazed when she dug right in and ate it all without any help from us. Someone (ahemSTEVEahem) also taught her how to drink milk from the bowl. She's definitely her father's daughter! Dinner time has become somewhat of a challenge, however, because she seems to be in a finicky phase. Foods that used to be favorites, like scrambled eggs, are pushed away uneaten. One day she'll eat a HUGE serving of green beans (and then eat Steve and my portions, too) and turn her nose up at them the next day. Not much you can do when they won't eat anything and they don't seem to care, so we just let it go.

One issue that might be contributing to the mealtime problem is that she finally seems to be getting some of her molars! And poor kid, all four (top and bottom first molars) seem to be coming in at the same time. But really, it's about time, I say! I'm surprised she doesn't have more by now, quite frankly.

Unfortunately, Adele is still in a major tantrum phase. I suppose I should get used to it, as it's unlikely to go away for a while. The hitting tendencies have been curbed, thankfully, but she's still prone to the "drop and flail" at any given moment when she doesn't get her way. We're also dealing with a bit of separation anxiety in the mornings when I drop her off at daycare. That's a new one, since she's never, ever had issues with daycare and loves Renee and all the kids there. Hopefully that is a short-lived phase.

So, I suppose she sounds like your average 21-month-old, eh?

Anyway, on to photos!

Adele got these boots as hand-me-downs from Steve's step-sister's daughter (Adele's step-cousin??). She looooves to wear them around the house. Steve always sticks his tongue out when he's concentrating or working hard, and someone else has picked up the habit, too.

The next two were taken when she was really sick, hence the puffy red eyes and runny nose.

She's thinking up her next moment of mayhem.

"Hello, SRS?"
The next two photos are part of a likely-ongoing series called, "Please Don't Judge Me as a Mother by What You See My Child Eating in Photos."

She is clearly enjoying her hambuger (from our trip to Beloit last month).

"Oh, cereal. How I love thee!" At least that's what it sounded like to me...

Ka-ching!

2009-01-14T14:42:00.002-06:00

Children's Mercy Hospital (Adele's NICU hospital) sends a periodical "wish list" brochure to my office. I guess at one point someone here made a donation or volunteered and we were put on the mailing list. I always look at the brochure because they include stories from kids who were treated there. I don't expect to see anyone I know, but I still like reading the stories. Anyway, their wish list is a list of items, big and small, that are needed throughout the hospital. Some are every day items like toys and journals and backpacks for kids. The items I find most interesting are the high-dollar items, because it really drives home how much intervention is needed for preemies like Adele. Here's a rundown of the costs, according to the wish list, of the items that assisted Adele at some point during her stay.

Breast pump -- $1,200 (there were three on the NICU floor for 96(?) babies/nursing moms, and now I feel guilty for complaining that there weren't more available)
Infantometer -- $1498 (a combination scale/height measuring device)
Infusion pump -- $3,213 (delivers medication, fluids or food over several minutes or hours)
Cribs -- $3,405 (they didn't seem THAT fancy, but whatever...)
Transport monitor -- $5,400 (allows nurses to take patients to other areas of the hospital while still monitoring vitals)
Infant CPAP machine -- $9,500 (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure is the step between the ventilator and nasal cannuula)
Incubator -- $33,655 (!!!)
Critical care ventilator -- $40,000 (The machine that breathes for babies who can't do it themselves. Adele was on and off the vent for the first 2-3 weeks of her life.)

TOTAL -- $97,871

Of course, we were just "renting" the machines for a period of time, but still. It gives you a better idea of WHY it's so expensive it is to care for these little babies and how easy it is to rack up a million-dollar hospital bill in the blink of an eye. There was plenty of other equipment (not to mention medications, supplies, etc.) used during her three-month stay that I can't even begin to estimate the cost of. I wonder what the final bill was for her stay? Hmmm....maybe I should call to see if I can get an itemized record for her file.

Not sure what the point of this post is (ha ha), only that I thought this information was interesting!

On a completely unrelated note, I have an extra-long weekend starting tomorrow. Adele's daycare is closed Thur and Fri and then I have Monday off for MLK day. Adele and I decided to go visit G-ma and Papa Pontow for a few days. We'll come back Saturday morning and spend the rest of the weekend with Daddy since he also has a long weekend. Yay! Maybe if Gma and Papa are lucky, Adele will show off her new tantrum throwing skills! Ooooo...fun!

To all those who are experiencing this deep-freeze, stay warm! I'm ready for spring. :)

Happy 2009!

2009-01-01T18:30:00.004-06:00

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope your holidays were happy. Our Christmas was fantastic and a whirlwind of grandparents and cousins and traveling, but we wouldn't have it any other way. Adele made out like a bandit despite the fact that she didn't really seem to care or understand what all the fuss was about. She's set in the toy and clothes departments for a long time, that's for sure. And, thanks to a couple of Christmas gifts, a new word has been added to her vocabulary: Elmo.

Speaking of vocabulary, it seems to me as though she tripled her word bank overnight. I doubt it's THAT many words, but it's enough now that I can't count them easily or even remember most of them when I do try to count them. Unfortunately, she didn't learn how to say "Gam-ma" (grandma) until after our last grandparent visit. In fact, I think she said it for the first time just as we were leaving Wichita after our lunch with Steve's family. Good timing, kid!

I know I said a while back that I'd quit with the "this time last year" comments, but it really is so odd to think back to this time last year and realize how much Adele has changed. I think last holiday time we were still fighting reflux and begging her to drink just a few more ounces of (ridiculously expensive) formula. I know we were thickening every bottle and had tried baby cereal once or twice, maybe. And I think she was just starting to sit up on her own. Man, looking back at my post from this time last year, I can definitely see how much things have changed, especially in Adele's language skills. It will be fun to see what changes this year brings!

Today I noticed what appears to be a new tooth sprouting on the bottom. If you're keeping track, this will be tooth number seven. Yes, she's almost 20 months old (okay, 17 on the low end) and still only six teeth! Since there is a new one coming up, I hope that means the rest are on their way shortly. Now if only toothbrushing time could be more fun for everyone involved.

Well, Adele is handing me her broom, so I guess that means I've got to wrap it up. I'll leave you with a few pictures and our wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009!

The day after Christmas playing with her pound-a-peg toy (and wearing her new penguin slippers!) She looks like such a big kid here!

Cars for Christmas

All snuggled into her Sesame Street/Elmo kiddie couch/fold-out bed.

If you're the praying type...

2008-12-17T14:49:00.003-06:00

...I know a family that can use them.

Kayleigh Freeman was born June 23 weighing 1 pound. She's been in the NICU since then (177 days, I believe), fighting hard to stay alive. She's endured more than any child should have to, and unfortunately, it seems she's losing her battle. Please offer up your prayers, thoughts, vibes, whatever your "thing" is, to this family that they may find comfort, strength and peace during this difficult time. http://kayleighannefreeman.blogspot.com/

I don't want to this post to become about Adele and our journey, but I will say that it is days like this that I hug Adele a little tighter, give her just one more kiss at night, and thank God that our story had a happy ending.

Count your blessings, folks.

Sure is quiet around here...

2008-12-10T18:18:00.007-06:00

No new posts in almost three weeks?? Woo! I rock! Bless you, dear reader, if you are still out there!

Things are going swimmingly here. Adele is adorable as ever, and getting smarter by the minute. Well, maybe she's not any smarter, but she seems to learn something new every minute. Her vocabulary is expanding, and she's signing more too. She can sign "milk" and "eat," and she must get it from daycare, because we've been terrible about teaching them at home. We are working on "please" and "thank you" now.

She is quite the helper, which is so cute! She loves to clean and wipe things up, and this is another thing she gets from daycare (because she certainly doesn't get it from us). The other day, Steve left a damp paper towel on a table in the living room. She proceeded to wipe up the table (nothing was spilled on it) and next thing we know, she'd taken the towel to the trash can and thrown it away. Nice! Fast-forward 15 or 20 minutes to when she spilled a few drops of milk on the coffee table. Off she goes, to the trash can, to retrieve the paper towel from before! Clever little thing. She comes back, wipes up her droplets of spilt milk and off to throw the paper towel away. Awesome! She likes to "sweep" too. Man--this child-labor stuff is great! No one told me about this parenting perk! I'm sure it will be short-lived, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

I really wish there was more exciting news to share! She's pretty much a regular old toddler these days, and that doesn't make for blog-worthy reporting. But hey, I'd gladly take that over the alternative.

Oh! I guess the other small news is that she got her first shiner the other day. She was protesting her morning diaper/clothes change, as is the routine these days, and flopped forward right onto the little knobby thing at the corner of her changing table. Ouchie! It was already bright red and swollen by the time we left for daycare, but it actually looked better by the end of the day. Now it's just a little bit red with a bit of a purple undertone. The best part was that happened on the day when I had to take her to the doctor for her flu shot. Luckily our usual nurse was there, so there were no suspicious looks.

One last thing that I remembered: we finally finished our kitchen!! You may remember that earlier this year we put in a new floor, which improved the look immensely. Well, we finally painted (spiced butternut) and got our new dishwasher (yes!) and a light fixture to replace the 90s era track lighting that was over the counter when we moved in. The difference is like night and day. We love it! It makes the dining room and hallway look even dingier now, so I guess that's next on the list...a long time from now.

Okay, now for pics!

Adele and her fresh shiner. You should have seen the other guy!
Our beautiful new kitchen!

I tried to add a video of Adele "sweeping" but it was taking forever to load. I'll have to try that again when I have more time!

Have a good week, everyone!

Happy Friday from Adele

2008-11-21T13:32:00.004-06:00

It's cold here now, so we had to break out the winter-weather gear. Love these hats! (Sorry about the photo quality--I took it with Steve's camera phone!)

Okay, I have a question for all you tech-savvy readers. I really need to back up the photos on my computer, but I'm not sure how. I have several questions.

What's the best way to backup the photos? CD? External hard drive? Something else? Is there a particular brand or style I should look for in either case?
Should I also save a copy on a web-based photo site (Picasa, for instance)?
Ideally I'd like to dump some of them off the computer because they eat up so much memory, but I don't know if that's the smartest idea. Should I dump them once I have them backed up? (Ideally twice, which is why I was considering an external backup source (CD or drive) AND the web-based site.) Or should I leave them on my computer, dump all the terrible photos I know I don't want (because they exist--oh, yes, they do), and just buy more memory for my computer and hope THAT speeds it up?
Anything else I should know/do/use?

Feel free to email me directly if you can't fit your reply in comments. My email address is dburen @ gmail.com. (Without spaces, of course.)

Thanks, and Happy Friday!

18 months

2008-11-12T16:49:00.005-06:00

Adele turned 18 months old on Friday, Nov 7. I know I say this everytime she hits a major birthday milestone, but GEEZ! How did this happen? EIGHTEEN MONTHS? Criminy.

She had her check-up that day (Nov 7) and the stats are

Height: 31.75 inches

Weight: 20 lbs, 9 ounces

Head: 18-something inches (I don't pay too much attention to this stat anymore.)

Her height is now in the 50th percentile for her ACTUAL AGE. That means she is perfectly average height for normal, full-term 18-month-old!! Holy cow. If we adjust that for her gestational age it's somewhere in the 90th percentile (I think--I don't have the chart with me now). Her weight is still on the low side, coming in around the 5th percentile for her actual age. The doctor looked back at Adele's charts and noticed the highest percentile she hit was 25th right around when she was 5 or 6 months old. The doctor isn't concerned, really, since developmentally she's fine. She doesn't think it's a nutritional deficiency or any sort of metabolic issue, so that's good. It's probably a combination of genetics, catch-up growth, and the fact that she's an on-the-go toddler. She looks healthy, though, so I'm not going to worry about it too much.

She finally sprouted her two top eye teeth, so that makes a grand total of six. Sigh. Poor kid. Someday she'll catch up in the dental department.

Here are the most recent pictures:

Because I am THE cheapest and laziest mom on the planet, Adele's "moose" Halloween costume consisted of her brown pants, inside out brown sweatshirt and "antlers" from Target. Next year I'll do better. I promise. Hey, she still looks cute, right?

Skeeter wanted in on the action.Her "Mummy Loves Me" Halloween shirt. And I posted this pic mostly because of her sweet, sweet face.
A few weeks ago, my friend Joanne and her daughter, Maggie, came over for lunch. Maggie was born 2.5 weeks before Adele. Maybe she can loan Adele some hair.
Adele and Daddy enjoy one of the last nice fall days.
The Foot Book is always a favorite.
We made a trip to Wichita last weekend to help Steve's mom with some work around the house. Here she is with Adele during our Pei Wei lunch. Mmmm!

For the Grandmas

2008-10-19T17:02:00.009-05:00

I've been thoroughly scolded by Grandma Van Horn for not having posted anything since late September, and probably more importantly, no PICTURES since Sept. 16. Bad Mommy! Bad! So, with my tail between my legs I humbly beg your forgiveness. I come bearing gifts--LOTS of new photos!

But first, just a quick catch-up on what she's up to these days.

Walking everywhere--not quite running yet, but I'M not complaining!
New words: "no," "bye-bye/bye," "hi," "shoe" (although sometimes it's more just shhhhhh), "gimme" (lovely), "more". She also signs "more" and "all done." She has been saying "uh-oh" and "mommy" and "daddy" for a while now. If your remember pictures of her nursery, I put little dot applique thingies all over and some are right by her changing table. We've been using them as distractions during diaper changes and once in a while we hear her say something that sounds like a garbled version of "circle." Probably only recognizable to us, but since she only says it in relation to the dots, we're sure that's what she's talking about. We're trying to teach her "drink" and/or "milk" in both words and sign language. Hope she picks that up soon, as the "gimme" has got to go, and she says "gimme" most often when she wants her cup.
She's really good at following directions and understanding what we're saying. The other day she was on her way to the living room and I said, "let's change your diaper first," and she turned around and walked straight to her changing table! Just now, Steve told her she needed socks and she found her socks lying on the footstool and picked them up and tried to put them on her feet! She'll also get her shoes if I ask her to find them, or bring a book if I ask, etc.
Speaking of books...she loooooooooves books. We read probably 10 books a day (sometimes it's the same book 10 times). We're also trying to teach her how to say "book" but no luck so far. You'd think she'd have picked it up by now, as often as she hears us say "do you want to read that book?"
One slightly disturbing trend is that in the past week or so, if she is scolded or is told "no" she'll start hitting herself in the head and repeating "no, no, no". It's really sad and very upsetting to us. She doesn't cry or anything, but I'm wondering why she's doing it! We certainly don't hit her and I'm 100% confident in her daycare situation, so I really don't know what's going on. It might just be her way of venting her frustration, but still...we have to get that one to stop.
We finally got her report from CMH after her developmental screen. Her scores/ranges were 8-10 months for language (which is low, I think, but we knew they'd score her low since she didn't talk much at the appt); 11-12 months for motor skills and 14 months for cognitive development. She was around 16 months actual/13 months adjusted at the time, she's right on par for her adjusted age!

I know you're really here for pics, so I won't make you wait any longer!

From mid-September, KU Band Day, Adele devours a good book ("Pat the Bunny," I believe). This is one of the few photos of Adele where I think she actually looks like me!

October 5, we all went to the pumpkin patch!

No one we know in the photo below, I just thought it was a nice picture of a beautiful Kansas farm!

*Here is where I add my political disclaimer. I'm usually not one to vocalize my political views, although if you really know me, you probably know which way I lean (and after this post, you'll definitely know). If you want to discuss politics or express your views, please email me. If you're looking to debate or argue, you can skip it entirely, as I don't find that to be fruitful at all, and I like to stay on good terms with my friends and family. :) *

Having said THAT... Saturday, Oct 18, Adele and I joined 75,000 of our closest friends and went to see Barack Obama speak at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City. It was an awesome day (although my legs and back were killing me after standing for 4 hours) and we had great weather. Adele was a trooper and charmed everyone around us. She fell asleep just before Obama took the stage, though. Oh well! At least she could nap in the stroller and I could enjoy the speech without having to hold her the whole time. We weren't terribly close to the stage, but not way in the back either. Thank goodness for zoom lenses!

For a while our line butted up to a grassy knoll, so I let Adele wander around and play in the grass.

The view from our spot in line. The entrance is past that building at the top of the photo and around the corner. When we first arrived it was half as long as it is here, but foolishly we decided to go get lunch thinking it wouldn't grow TOO much in an hour. Sigh...
The line continued behind us, around the corner, to the end of the next intersection and halfway up THAT street. CRAZY.
Obama 08 sign
We played several rounds of "Spot the Secret Service"

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius:
Finally, the main event, Barack Obama! (This is with quite a zoom effect on, and unfortunately things get rather blurry when I'm using the super zoom.)

El fin

2008-09-29T10:16:00.002-05:00

Today we had what turned out to be our LAST Tiny-K visit! WOOOOOOOOOO!!! We're so very happy because it means Adele is a-ok. Steve and I already knew that, but it's nice to be released from the program and have it be official. The OT is going to speak with Adele's doctor about whether or not we NEED to have another swallow study done. Staci, the OT, and Steve and I are all on the same page that we don't feel it's necessary. Adele has been on all unthickened liquids for more than a month, and is doing just fine. I hate to expose her to more radiation for something that isn't a "must" and we all agreed that kids tend not to perform as well in these tests since they're anxious about being in a new place, different environment, etc. We'd hate to have her "fail" simply because of the surroundings, when we're fairly certain she's fine. Make sense?

Anyway, it's alllll good news. We're going to transition over to their Ages and Stages program insstead. They'll mail us a sheet every so often that we'll use to mark her development, and if they see any red flags they'll schedule something.

Even though she's still not technically "caught up" to her actual age, there are absolutely no concerns about her catching up eventually. So, no more Tiny-k, no more Children's Mercy, no more thickener. It's all "normal" kid stuff from here on out! YAY!

Sentimental Fool

2008-09-20T09:36:00.003-05:00

As fall quickly approaches, and as Adele quickly outgrows all her clothes, it's become apparent we're overdue for a clothing purge. Every day is a struggle to find something that fits her AND is weather appropriate. (When it's 50-something in the morning and 80-something in the afternoon, it's very difficult to know how to dress your kid for the day.) Adele has two drawers and a closet full of clothes, but only 25% of it fits right now. This morning, I got sick of the digging and finally pulled everything that was too small or too summery.

A few weeks ago, my friend at Goddess in Progress blogged about packing up her twins' clothes, and how she didn't feel much of a desire to keep anything. She wrote, "I don’t find myself with any real pull to keep any of it. Maybe it’s because we’re most likely done having kids..." The opposite is true for me. I got misty a few times as I was packing up the last of the onesies today. Part of the sadness/wistfulness is knowing that Adele isn't a baby anymore, the other part is knowing that there likely won't be another baby later that would make it necessary to keep anything. It's hard for me to let go of the one and only baby experience I'll have.

I am sentimental by nature, no doubt, but I'm sure my sadness is magnified by how I still feel like I was cheated out of the Full Pregnancy Experience. Everything ended too soon--it all went too fast. While I know being a one-kid family is the right choice for us, I still can't help but wish I could do it one more time, just to prove I CAN. Just to experience those things I didn't get to the first time (like the third trimester). Just to have, maybe, a normal labor and delivery. Just to know what it's like to be discharged from the hospital WITH your baby. But Steve and I are no spring chickens, and soon I'll be in Advanced Maternal Age territory. AMA means higher risk pregnancies, and I just can't take that chance again. So, one kid it is. At least we hit the jackpot the first time! AND I get to live vicariously through my fellow Preemie Moms who are brave enough to try again, like my friend Jessica (mom to a 25-weeker), who is almost 35 weeks along in her current pregnancy and cruising toward her Oct. 21 c-section date. Or my friend Jen (mom to a 30(?) weeker), who bed-rested her way through most of her second pregnancy, but was rewarded with a gorgeous, healthy, Take-Home Baby, Caleb.

Back to clothes: I did keep most of her first outfits, the tiny preemie onesies that she wore in the NICU, and the outfit she wore home from the hospital. And I kept certain items that were meaningful in some other way (her first Easter dress; the little red hooded sweater she wore in her first professional photo; favorite shirts and receiving blankets). But everything else is boxed up, ready to be passed on to someone else who can actually use it.

Now, I just need to find homes for the baby carseat, baby bathtub, Bumbo tray, Boppy, mobile...

Baby steps

2008-09-16T22:49:00.005-05:00

Sorry that I haven't posted much lately! We've been very busy lately, and you can always assume no news is good news.

Adele is absolutely fabulous in every way. And, get this--she's WALKING. Yipes. She started taking steps around Steve's birthday in late August, and over the course of the next few weeks she's progressed by leaps and bounds. (Ha! Punny!) She can walk across a room without falling once, but it might take her all day. Slow and steady wins the race, I guess! She still chooses to crawl most of the time, but I have noticed that she's attempting to walk first before giving in to the faster, more efficient mode. This weekend we're off to KC to get her some real shoes, just in time for cooler weather. Robeez just won't cut it in the cold, wet Kansas winters, no matter how cute they are.

She had a developmental follow-up at Children's Mercy last week and that went fine. We're still waiting on the final report, so I don't have anything "official" to share. But no major concerns were mentioned to us, so one can assume all is well! The psychologist did say that Adele was "smart but intense" (after witnessing a major meltdown when I wouldn't let Adele keep climbing the PT stairs). Ah yes..."intense"...guess we will need to learn how to keep that attitude of hers focused in the right direction. And I have NO idea who she gets it from...(ahem).

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to share the video montage I made. Enjoy watching Adele progress from unsteady stumbler to sure-footed walker! (Okay, maybe that last part is a stretch, but she's getting close!)

(Filmed Sept. 9-15)

Is it November 5th yet?

2008-09-04T12:36:00.003-05:00

I will not give myself an ulcer this election cycle.
I will not give myself an ulcer this election cycle.
I will not give myself an ulcer this election cycle.

Deep breaths in...deep breaths out...

Weekend in Wichita

2008-08-25T21:27:00.005-05:00

We took a quick trip to Wichita this weekend to see the family down there and had a blast. But before I talk about THAT, I need to mention that Grandparents Pontow were here Friday and Saturday and REALLY helped us out by babysitting for several hours on Saturday so I could attend a church meeting (while Steve worked) and so Steve and I could go see Batman on Imax. Steve and I rarely get to do anything together without the baby (not that we mind), and we really appreciated that G-ma and Papa were willing to watch Adele for a few hours! Thank you! (By the way, the movie is AWESOME. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it, and seeing it on Imax is worth the extra bucks!)

Anyway, Sunday we headed to Wichita to see family there and take a much-needed mini-break. Most of Steve's family lives there (his Dad and Raylene live in OKC), which includes his mom and Ted, his triplet siblings and all their kids. It's quite a group when everyone gets together! Unfortunately, Theresa's girls were sick, so they couldn't come over. But Jason and Angie (the other two of the triplets) and their significant others and kids all made it over. YAY!

We spent a few hours in Grandma and Grandpa VanHorn's pool and enjoyed a delicious supper complete with an early birthday cake for Steve! Monday was Steve's birthday and we went to the Sedgewick County Zoo and spent half the day there. I'd never been and the last time Steve was there was at least 25 years ago. It was a really nice zoo! Great exhibits, very clean and well-kept and CHEAP (thanks especially too some 1/2 price admission tix we got from the VanHorns). And since it was a Monday morning, it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. Adele seemed to enjoy the animals, although she did konk out about halfway through the morning. After the zoo we hit Pei Wei for birthday lunch with Steve's mom and were on the road back home.

Since we weren't able to take a real vacation this year, we've been relying on occasional long weekends to break up the summer. We camped earlier in the season and now we're wrapping up the summer with the zoo trip. Fun! I even remembered to take some photos during the weekend.

Oh! The other fun thing that happened was that Adele came THISCLOSE to walking! She's standing up on her own more and more now and occasionally she'll take a step (although sometimes she does more of a pivot move). I'm sure it's only a matter of weeks before she figures it all out. Eek! So, there's a short video of some small steps after the photos. Enjoy! Also, I put an album online in case you want to see more of the weekend. Click here for those.

(That's cousin McKenzi in the background...)

I can't believe I missed it!

2008-08-14T14:51:00.005-05:00

I can't believe I forgot to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of Adele's release from the NICU! August 11 (Monday) is the anniversary date, and we spent it at home because Adele had a fever and couldn't to to daycare. I'm kind of sad that I let the big day slip by unnoticed. But maybe that's a GOOD sign--we've obviously moved past those days and are too busy with fun stuff to think about the NICU.

It seems like only yesterday, and yet it seems like YEARS ago. How is that possible? Either way, I'm glad it's only a memory now.

Anyway, because it's appropriate...

Then:

The last night in the NICU crib!

Getting ready to go!

Riding home...getting closer!

Home sweet home, crib sweet crib.
So tiny--I forgot how she used to sleep short-wise in the crib!

Now:

I thought this outfit was super-cute!

What she looks like in her crib these days...

For cuteness' sake.

Standing like a big girl. We're in trouble, aren't we?

15-month stats

2008-08-14T12:30:00.005-05:00

Adele had her 15-month well-baby check up yesterday and the stats are as follows:

Weight: 19 pounds, 8 ounces (5-10 percentile)
Length: 30 inches (25-50 percentile)
Head circ: 17.25 inches (25-50 percentile)
Weight to length: 10-25 percentile

She's still pretty small for a 15-month-old, but she's stayed on the curves she's always been on, and that's really what the docs are looking at. If she stays put, it looks as though she'll end up being tall and thin. The tall doesn't surprise me one bit! Of course, I always like to look at the chart using her adjusted age, so in that regard...

Weight: 10-25 percentile
Length: 75-90 percentile (not surprising)
Head: 50-70 percentile

The bottom line is that she's growing appropriately and is healthy! That's all anyone cares about. :)

The best news from the appointment is that we can now treat Adele like a "normal" baby! No one has used the phrase "caught up" yet, but most preemies don't technically catch up to their actual age until around 2. Dr. Murphy gave us the OK to stop Early Intervention (aside from the monthly feeding therapy appointment), and once Adele has finished up the frozen breastmilk, we're done with bottles and on to cups and cow's milk full-time! Also, once we finish up this last batch of Prevacid, we're dropping that from the regimen. Her language is fine, her gross and fine motor skills are fine, her growth is fine... Have I mentioned that she's fine? ;) The only special thing we have to continue is thickening her liquids. We reguarly give her unthickened cow's milk in a sippy cup, and she manages that perfectly, but she will still sputter on unthickened water. It's a minor annoyance, though, and one I can live with considering how few other precauctions we have to take.

Somewhat off-topic, I have to apologize for the lack of photos lately. I haven't been taking many (too busy chasing after a certain busy baby!), and the ones I HAVE taken haven't turned out too well. I will do my best to rectify that, though! And in the meantime, you can enjoy this short video of Adele and Daddy playing Adele's new favorite game, "Talk into the Can." This game is right up there with her other favorite games, "Bang on the Can" and "Throw All My Toys into the Can and Then Pull Them All Back Out Again." I swear, that $3 can of hot chocolate was the best money we ever spent.

One year adjusted!

2008-08-08T13:34:00.003-05:00

Today Adele is one-year-old adjusted (15 months actual, as of yesterday!). She had her Early Intervention assessment today and scored right on for her adjusted age (which is all anyone cares about). She's right on track as far as doing what "normal" 12-month-olds should do! She says a few words, points, knows who Mommy and Daddy are, plays appropriately with toys, cruises well (and has even stood alone for a few seconds a couple of times), is great at feeding herself, etc. She's absolutely perfect those areas. In fact, there wasn't anything they told us we should be concerned about, which is great. We'll see how she does at the "official" screening in September (at Children's Mercy), but honestly, I'm totally not worried. She has a doc appt in town next week, and I'm hoping that with this assessment in hand, we can stop Early Intervention altogether. We might end up doing a program called Ages and Stages, which is a little less intensive and requires meetings only once every three months. I really look forward to not having these twice-monthly appointments!

We'll finish off what we're hoping is her last can of formula today, as we expect to transition her milk fully after next week's doc appt. In the meantime, we're giving her the non-expired breastmilk and that is going really well. She's been eating it exclusively at daycare for about two weeks, and I gave her an 8oz bottle today (I'm home with her since daycare is closed) and she ate it like a champ! Of course, we also plan to drop the bottle soon, but we might have to keep one or two a day until the breastmilk is gone. Still not sure how one goes about weaning off the bottle--if it's gradual or cold-turkey--but I don't have many concerns about it being too difficult. She's never been that attached to her bottles (and there were plenty of times when she could take or leave them!) so I hope we can just let them go and never look back! It's weird to think about suddenly NOT making bottles 3-4 times a day, and we'll have to figure out new ways to get our snuggle times in. I also worry about her getting enough regular milk in during the day, but I'm sure that will come with time. I am NOT worried about her getting enough calories, however, as the girl will eat ANYTHING. Any fruit, veggie, bean, grain, pasta, cheese, meat (well, all she's had is chicken, but she liked it) is a hit with her. Thank goodness for that!

So, I guess you could say things are going really well! I'll know more after next week's appointment, but again, I'm so not worried about anything that I'm sure it will all go fine!

In unrelated news, I am SO excited for the Olympics to start tonight! I have the DVR set to record the opening ceremonies in case we're busy with dinner or bedtime when everything starts. I need to get on NBC's website and check out the schedule so I don't miss anything major.

I guess that's about it from here!

Spilt Milk

2008-07-25T10:26:00.004-05:00

Remember this?

Unfortunately, most of that milk is STILL in that freezer, and I've made the heartbreaking decision that it's time to dump it. Some of it is more than a year old, and 12 months is the longest the experts recommend keeping frozen milk. Sad times for sure. Here's what I'll be dumping once it all thaws.

I did a very rough calculation and figured there's about 400 oz, which equals about 66 six-ounce bottles or 15 days' worth. Ugh, ugh, ugh. And if wasting breastmilk isn't heartbreaking enough, I noticed the time on one of the bottles was 5:30 am--all that time and energy down the drain, too! The good thing is that considering I have about that much still in the freezer that hasn't expired, I'm on a mission to use it before it spoils!

Knock on Wood

2008-07-24T14:13:00.003-05:00

I know I'm jinxing things by posting this, but last night marks three nights in a row that Adele has slept through the night. To my knowledge, that has never happened before! For the longest time, we were waking once or twice for a feeding. Then she just woke up on her own to eat. After we determined she was gaining fine and didn't need that nighttime bottle, she still would wake up, but we could get her back down with a snuggle in the rocking chair. However, for the past few months S and I got lazy and started bringing her to bed with us at the first sign of crying. Path of least resistance, I suppose. And that was fine for a while, until it became obvious that she preferred to sleep sideways and Steve and I were slowly forced to the very edges of our respective sides of the bed.

So, we'd decided we needed to take control of the situation. Neither of us are fans of "cry it out," and the times we did try it--out of desperation or frustration--were met with complete and utter failure. Adele pukes when she gets worked up, it seems. What we did do, however, is modify our evening/bedtime routine just enough to make it clear that it's time for sleeping--in one's own bed! She still may fuss a bit when you lay her down (we still rock her to sleep/drowsy, and that's not going to change anytime soon), but a few pats on the bottom and sneaking out usually does the trick. She may even fuss a bit once you leave, but I can tell when she's fussing in her sleep (or on her way to sleep) and when she's crying wide-awake. In the case of the latter, we go in and start over and that's usually enough. And overnight, the biggest change we've made is that we're no longer turning the volume up on the monitor speaker in our room. It's sort of cheating, I realize, but I know that if she's REALLY upset we'll hear her anyway (our house isn't that big and she's a loud girl), but we're also not waking up at the first peep she makes. So far, she's not made enough of a fuss to rouse us, and this morning she was still sound asleep at 6:00! (Yes, I know 6:00 seems awfully early, but I'll take an early morning after a night of solid sleep over a late morning after a night interrupted sleeep any day!)

One side effect I had not anticipated, though, was the fact that I'm more tired now than I was when she was waking up in the night. I don't quite get that. I think I'm still EXPECTING her to wake up at any moment, so I don't really get into that deep sleep that I used to. Hopefully, if this is a permanent trend, I'll relax enough to get a restful night's sleep.

And if I haven't yet ensured our failure by posting this, surely our upcoming weekend of travel will do the trick! Ah, but it will be worth it: We travel to beautiful Iowa, my home state, to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary! Surely a disruption is a small price to pay for such a lovely, happy occasion.

Ow.

2008-07-13T13:38:00.003-05:00

Well, it was bound to happen eventually, I suppose: Adele suffered her first daycare bang-up on Friday. She was crawling after some of the bigger kids, who were running around, and there was a collision that resulted in Adele banging her chin on the floor and biting her tongue. She's got a nice scrape on the underside of her chin and a slice on the front of her tongue. Those two little baby teeth she has are razor-sharp! By the time I picked her up, she was doing okay--they'd given her some Tylenol--but the tongue looked terrible, and I could tell she wasn't her usual happy self. Now, a few days later, she's just fine and the gash is much improved. It looks more like a canker sore now. Thank goodness the tongue heals so quickly! The chin scrape looks worse than it did on Friday, as it's scabbed over a bit, but it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

Oddly, there was a bit of fun news that came out of her mouth injury. G-Ma (she and Papa were here visiting for the weekend) and I spent a lot of time peeking into Adele's mouth so we could gauge how well the injury was healing, and all that peeking resulted in spying the next tooth that's about to sprout! It's a top tooth--her top right, to be exact--and you can just barely see the tip starting to poke through. I'm happy to see it because A) it's been a long time (late March) since her last tooth came in and I was starting to wonder when she'd get more and B) it explains why she's been SO FUSSY all week. I suspected teeth, but without visual proof it was mostly just me HOPING that was the cause of her fussiness.

In other news, we've begun the transition from bottle to cup and from formula to milk. I'm hoping that at her 15-month-actual/1-year-adjusted check-up next month we'll get the OK to drop formula and just stick with milk. We're still mixing her formula to 24 calories, but I hope we won't have to fortify her milk. We'll just have to see how much she weighs, I guess! She's eating well enough, I think, and she certainly feels heavy enough! I do admit to being nervous about trying to get a minimum of 16 oz milk in her via cup only. Yikes. Not sure how that will work, but I guess we'll get there eventually! Any tips from other moms out there?

Whoooosh

2008-07-01T16:08:00.027-05:00

That is the sound of Summer 2008 whizzing past me. How did it get to be JULY already?? Sheesh.

It's been a fun summer, though. Last year I didn't get outside except to walk from home to car to work to car to home to car to hospital. Rinse. Repeat. Eight hundred times. I tanned with Adele under the bilirubin lights. ;) This summer is a VAST improvement, let me tell you. And in looking for the appropriate "this time last year" photo, I see that LAST July 1 we were celebrating coming off all oxygen! Oh, God bless the small victories. I still can't believe how small she looks there (compared to my giant man-hand), and I remember thinking at the time how BIG she was. Memories...

Last weekend I met a couple Mom-friends and their kids at the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead in OP, KS. It is SUCH a cool place, and the best part is it's FREE. You can pay for extras, such as pony rides, hay-rack rides, milk to feed the baby goats (awww), but the main "park" is free admission. Sweet! It's sort of a glorified petting zoo meets nature park meets living history center (sans dorky reenactors).

Plenty of places to roam and it never got too crowded or jumbled with people (and it seemed like there were plenty of people there). Nice playgrounds spread out over the grounds, and plenty of things to keep school-age kids entertained. All our kids were too young for much hands-on activity, aside from petting the gigantic dairy cow, but it's still a fun way to spend a few hours. And I know as Adele gets older she'll really enjoy the exhibits. If you're a gardener/plant fan, the grounds are beautifully kept and there are different gardening areas to enjoy (kitchen garden with herbs and vegetables, all kinds of flowers and plants, a butterfly garden and wooded nature trail and bird-watching area). Another thing I noticed, and appreciated, because apparently I am an old lady now, was the wealth of seating areas. Benches and low rock walls were abundant, and there were nice wooden bench swings and things to rest on. It was a totally enjoyable day! AND I was happy to get out and spend some time with some other moms and kids. Good times! (P.S. Check out the photo captions at the end of the blog.)

After a few hours there, there was only one thing left to do: GO SHOE SHOPPING! Right? Right. I'm attending my dear friend Michelle's wedding in August, and I NEEDED new shoes. (New dress requires new shoes, people!) DSW was having a sale, and since there was a store just up the road... Joanne joined me and gave me great advice, and I managed to find the perfect pair! All-in-all a successful Saturday, I must say.

This weekend promises to be fantasic as well, and thankfully it's a short work-week too! Anyway, my dear friend Lindi and her family (which includes 3-year-old Carina and soon-to-be-1-year-old Izzy) will be in town!!!! The last time they were in the state was back in December. We were going to get the babies together, but illness conspired against us and we were forced to cancel. Lindi and I were pregnant at the same time, so we've been looking forward to getting "our girls" together for the past year. Looks like we'll FINALLY get to do so!

We're going to meet in Kansas City, at her cousin's house, which will allow me to finally meet them (the cousin and his wife and their kids). Brian and Jen and I started emailing shortly after Adele was born. You see, their oldest, Lucas, was a preemie too (he's 4 now!), and they lent their prayers and support when we were going through those tough times. I'm really looking forward to meeting them, and meeting their full-term, take home baby, Caleb! No one appreciates a full term baby more than a preemie parent, that's for sure!

I hope your summers are being enjoyed to the fullest!

Photos: 1. Maggie, Adele and Sam (don't mind the Moms behind the curtain!) 2. Joanne (ex-coworker) and Maggie 3. The kitchen/practical gardens. It was hard to resist eating some of those fresh goodies!! 4. Adele and Sam (Adele looks pretty bored here!) 5. An iconic piece of prairie landscape: The Windmill. This one was framed by a beautiful summer sky!

They'll give a license to anyone these days

2008-06-24T18:24:00.003-05:00

(Commentary provided by Steve.)

The Dog Days of Summer

2008-06-12T10:21:00.002-05:00

Even though it's not officially the dog days of summer yet, Dog Days have started here in Lawrence. Our town's version is a free to all, community exercise program that is now in its 25th year. It's a mixture of shapes, sizes, ages and activity levels. There are little kids (several in strollers), grandmothers and everything in between. High school athletes and middle-aged couch potatoes. You go at your own pace, and one of the main rules is that no one laughs (unless you're laughing WITH someone) and you must always be encouraging of others. I've gone a handful of times in the past, and always came away with my behind thoroughly kicked. My friend Kris goes regularly every summer (along with her 60+-year-old father, who can run laps around me), and goes so often each year that she earns her free t-shirt (you have to come to 25 sessions to get the shirt). Adele has been going with me to the 6:00 pm session, and she's great. She just hangs in the stroller, watching for the first 15 minutes, which is usually stretching/calisthenics, and then she usually falls asleep when I start with the laps around the track. The best part about having her there is that I get out of running the KU stadium steps! I don't know what I'll do when July comes and it's too hot to take her...what will my excuse be then?

In other news...

I'm home with Adele the next two days while daycare is closed for vacation. I've had a super busy two weeks at work, and I more than welcomed the time off. I will probably put in a little work from home (or bring A with me to the office for a few hours), but nothing too much. So far all we've done is taken a few cat naps (Adele) and watched last night's Top Chef finale (me). Yay Stephanie! I plan on making a visit to my old workplace in Topeka tomorrow to say hi to the folks over there.

We've got a busy weekend of birthdays and holidays to look forward to, too. Tomorrow is Papa's (my dad's) birthday, Saturday is Madeline's (my niece) and Sunday is Father's Day! Not sure what Steve's F.D. request will be yet, but I'm sure he'll chose something very Steve-like (probably involving at least one of the following: meatloaf or sloppy Joes, chocolate chip cookies or comic books). I told him we could do whatever he wanted, so we'll see what he comes up with!

As far as Adele, she's doing great (and is sleeping on my shoulder as I type). Pulling up on EVERYTHING and starting to cruise around tables/furniture. If you hold her hands and walk, she'll actually walk now, instead of before when her legs would just sort of stay put until you helped her swing them around. I keep forgetting that for her adjusted age (10.5 months), that's not too bad! It will be interesting to see if she's walking by her adjusted first birthday. Eating is going well, and she's graduated from thick purees to soft cubes (bananas, avocados, cooked veggies) and any "meltable" crackers or foods (graham, Ritz/club). She's also FINALLY getting the hang of using a cup. We ditched the no-spill sippys with valves, which usually require actual sucking, and went straight for the little plastic cups with lids that just have a spout with a slit. They work best with her thickened liquids and she can just tilt and drink. And, naturally, the cups were the cheapest available at 3 for $1.99, but too bad we'd already spent 6 times that on OTHER cups. Sigh... But hey, she likes them, she is getting the hang of tipping the cup and moving it away when her mouth is full and she's NOT choking. That's the important stuff! It gives me hope that the bottle-weaning that's supposed to happen in 2-ish months might actually occur!

That's about it from here. Hope everyone's summers are going well so far!

The Great Outdoors

2008-06-08T18:04:00.004-05:00

We had our first family camping trip this weekend, and things went surprisingly well! It all started because I'd had a hectic week at work and I really needed a getaway. We didn't have the time, finances or dog-sitter to do anything that required a hotel stay and/or long drive, so we opted for a camping trip close to home. We managed to throw everything in the truck and get Steve out and on his way before 7:00 pm, and A and I made a quick run to the grocery at the same time for our supplies. Steve had base camp and tent set up by the time we got out there, so all we had to do was arrange the food and we were good to go.

I was apprehensive about taking a baby on a camping trip, especially one who wants to be crawling and exploring ALL THE TIME. I was worried about making bottles and washing dirty ones, I worried about ticks and too much sun, I wondered if she'd be entertained enough all weekend. I guess I needn't have worried because, really, everything was fine! We had a dishtub, and we had fires most of the time and could heat water for washing. We kept her in the shade as much as possible and we brought plenty of toys. I discovered that her stroller works just fine as a highchair (it even has a small tray perfect for holding Cheerios) and that a pack n play is absolutely necessary. She wasn't always happy to be confined, but at least we could do whatever stuff we needed to do (make food, clean up, tend fires) and know that she was safe and not getting TOTALLY dirty. We did try some time on a blanket, but every time I looked down, I saw a tick on the blanket, so that was a short-lived experiment.

We didn't do much--mostly eating and then napping and reading books until it was time to eat again--so I had plenty of time to take pictures. I think I got some really good ones! Here are my favorites, and you can see the entire album here (the rest of the photos aren't very exciting unless you like plenty of photos of plates of bacon and babies).

In the shot below, the look on Adele's face is pretty silly, but I like the shot because of the overall look/composition.

She's not unhappy, this is just one of her faces...

Just because

2008-05-28T21:03:00.005-05:00

The cuteness should not be withheld from the public...

Tibits

2008-05-26T21:37:00.006-05:00

It feels like forever since I've posted, but it's only been 2 weeks. We've been busier than usual, so maybe that's why it seems like more time has elapsed. Here's what's new and exciting in our world.

Our friends Kelly and Joelle came over last weekend (the 17th) and helped Steve install our new kitchen floor! It looks amazing, and so much better than the terrible floor that was there before. Steve and Kelly managed to get it all finished in one day, and then Steve and I spent one more day installing trim and quarter-round to finish off. We also got a new stove (nothing exciting, but better than the old one), and now we just need a new dishwasher to be done with the big stuff. We'll repaint in a few months (have to give the foundation work time to "settle" in case we need to do any patching) and finally be DONE with that room. Woo!

Memorial Day weekend I went to Beloit for a double-duty trip: I attended my 15-year (gasp!) class reunion and it was Mom/G-ma's birthday! Saturday was the main day for reunion activities, which consisted of a parade (complete with Class of '93 float) followed by a family picnic. The night's festivities included an adults-only dinner and barn party (complete with DJ and karaoke). It's a little hard for me to say this, but I actually had fun. We moved to Kansas when I was a sophomore, so I didn't bond with a ton of classmates (despite there being only 58 in our graduating class). I made some good friends and was friendly with about everyone, but it wasn't a"Remember back in Mrs. S0-and-so's first grade class?" sort of event for me. I must admit to a fair share of eye-rolling and cynicism prior to the first event, but I'm here to say I was wrong and that it was actually much more enjoyable than I'd thought it would be. I guess 15 years is just the right amount of time to want to see everyone again. My friend Julie, whom I've stayed in close contact with over the years, was there, and so were most of my other good friends, and that made it a good time. Anyway, I'm glad I went after all. Oh, and getting to show off Adele was worth the trip, if nothing else! Mom's birthday was Sunday, so after church we went to lunch and then A and I stayed and visited for a few hours. The plan was to leave mid-afternoon and make it back home around supper time. But the threat of bad weather and the fact that I was dog-tired enticed me to stay another night, and I'm glad I did. I don't get to Beloit often enough, and I was glad to have another evening to visit and relax.

As for Adele...she is unstoppable these days. She's crawling so fast now, and her new favorite game is when we act like we're chasing her, which prompts her to crawl as fast as she can, giggling and squealing the whole way. She'll do the same thing when she's chasing after the cat or dog, or making a beeline for the dog's water dish. We're forever trying to keep her out of that! She's also perfected the feat of pulling up to standing. She can now reach up to turn her crib mobile on and off, and will pull herself to standing using my legs when I'm standing up. I have a feeling cruising isn't too far off!

She's been eating well, and we've been implementing some of the feeding therapy plans we've received. Mostly they include providing plenty of stuff for her to chew on all the time and especially prior to feedings to help wake up her mouth before she eats. Did you know Slim Jims were considered a good food for therapy? Hm, yeah. Not sure that will be on our grocery list soon, but it was on the list of "good" foods. (Something to do with the flavor and saltiness helping to stimulate the nerves/palate.) We were notified that our insurance will cover some of the costs of Simply Thick, a gel thickener (and better than the powder we've always used). It will be better to use that kind when we start giving her more water and juices and things that need a more refined thickener. The gel won't be grainy and icky like the powdered stuff is. I'm sure SHE wouldn't care either way, but I couldn't stand to look at it using the powdered thickener. Yuck. I'm having enough trouble already thinking about thickened water without having it be cloudy and grainy too!

I guess that's about it for now. Here are a few photos!

Her new favorite toy, because she can stand up and play with it! (Check out the "Jolly Jill" Baby Legs legwarmers, a gift from Lindi!)
Kitchen before 1 (the strip of concrete is a result of the foundation work--it hasn't always been there!)
Kitchen before 2
Kitchen after 1: AAAAAHHHHH! So much better!
Kitchen after 2

Another Mother's Day

2008-05-11T21:21:00.002-05:00

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!

A good day

2008-05-07T20:43:00.004-05:00

Today was a good day. Lots to celebrate, lots to be thankful for. I won't lie--the day wasn't without some bittersweet feelings, and even a bit of anxiety thinking about last year at this time. I spent most of those first few weeks after Adele's birth in shock, I realize now, and I think it's finally wearing off. It's amazing how I can still feel that same tightness in my chest, the sadness and worry and dread, even with her sleeping in the next room. I'm sure it will be a long time before those feelings settle down.

It's been a long year, and yet at the same time it feels like only yesterday that we were scrubbing into the NICU and checking into the Ron McD's house. Getting up in the night to pump. Holding our breaths each time the phone rang. Rushing over to catch rounds. Endlessly watching monitors. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But we made it though--all of us!

I created a couple of slideshows commemorating Adele's first year. I hadn't planned on doing two shows, but apparently you can only do 30 images in a slideshow, and I couldn't narrow things down that much!

Anyway, without further ado, I present

Adele's First Year: The NICU Days

Adele's First Year: At Home

Fun weekend

2008-05-06T20:55:00.006-05:00

Whew! What a weekend! It was fun, definitely, but exhausting. We lucked out with great weather, and everything else went off without a hitch. Adele got way too much stuff, of course, but I guess that's what birthday parties are all about. We were so thankful to all our friends and family who came to help us celebrate Adele's first year of life!

Unfortunately, I was busy playing hostess and didn't get a ton of pics, but I'm hoping some folks will send me copies of theirs. I did manage to get a photo of the main cake before we cut into it (Adele's "smash" cake was decorated the same). For those of you who haven't been to the house, I had the store decorate it to match the nursery theme.

Adele and her cousin Edie share a ride on the stuffed duck rocking toy Adele received from the Fitznos.
Cake smooshery:

And this video is totally random, not birthday related, but it shows Adele's favorite new thing to do:

Did you like the wipeout at the end? Don't worry--no babies were harmed in the making of this film!

Sorry this post is pretty light on details. It was a long weekend, and tomorrow is a big day! I'll try to upload a link to an album with more photos soon, and there will be a post tomorrow.

Gulp

2008-05-02T11:34:00.002-05:00

Things I should be doing

Cleaning the house in preparation for a houseful of guests
Grocery shopping for the party tomorrow
Preparing food for tomorrow
Laundry

Things I should not be doing

Blogging
Watching Game Show Network
Any other form of procrastinating

Tomorrow is the big birthday party, and I'm VERY excited. Sounds like we should have a good turnout (at least 30, is my guess), however tomorrow is supposed to be the coldest day ever in the history of May weather (okay, maybe not that extreme), topping out in the upper 50s. Bah humbug. I figure as long as it's not raining and isn't too windy, maybe some folks can mingle outside. Oh well...not the end of the world, I suppose. But I still have all the shopping, housecleaning, food prep to do. I took today off work to finish everything up, and yet here I am blogging instead of working. I did have to have a nap, to make up for being up ALL NIGHT LONG because of a squirmy, fussy baby and some scary spring weather. But SOON, I promise you, I will get to attacking my monstrous to-do list. At least we went with a grilling-theme, so none of the food should be too hard, and I copped out with a store-bought cake (since I can't bake for 3, let alone 30). God put Hy-Vee bakeries on this earth for a reason, people!!

And just so the title of this post makes some sense, I wanted to update everyone on the swallow study Adele had this week. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as we hoped. They didn't even ATTEMPT unthickened liquids, as she showed problems with even some of the nectar-consistency stuff. So for those of you interested in the short version, we will have to continue to thicken all liquids (formula for now and any juice, water, cow's milk, soup, etc. when she gets there) to syrup consistency for the next 9-12 MONTHS, the soonest they'll do another swallow study (because of the radiation exposure). Bummer. The good news is that she can have any baby foods above Stage 2 (as they're usually thicker already) and any table foods that are age-appropriate. And since it's very necessary she has the thickeners, we'll get our Letter of Medical Necessity from someone with a bunch of letters after their name, which should be enough to get insurance to cover a portion of the cost of the thickener. AND we'll request the kind that works for breastmilk, so maybe we can finally use that up. I'd like my freezer space back now, please!

For those interested in the long story, or if you just like knowing about anatomy and the "whys" of things, keep reading.

So some of you may wonder "Why thicker? Wouldn't that make her more apt to choke?" Logical question, and one I had to ask the OT myself. They explained it this way: Think of the liquid going into Adele's throat as a waterfall, one that is constantly flowing because the liquid just keeps coming in via bottle or cup, etc.. At the bottom of the waterfall (which is sort of in the middle of the throat, near the Adam's apple) is a dam caused by the natural make-up of the throat/neck bones and muscles. In normal swallowing, the waterfall liquid collects and pools for very smallest amount of time (we're talking miliseconds) before the swallowing reflex kicks in and the liquid is forced into the esophagus. Adele's swallowing reflex is delayed (she gets the lazy reflex gene from me, I'm sure), which means that the liquid collects TOO much (because it's still flowing in, remember) and it actually runs over that "dam". There are only two places the over flow can go: into her esophagus or into her windpipe. Unfortunately, too often it is going into the windpipe, which is what they call penetration. (I could actually SEE this happening during the study. It was pretty hard to miss.) As you can imagine, this is very dangerous. The OT said that when she reviewed the film in slow-mo, she actually saw the liquid touch the vocal cords. The point where penetration becomes aspiration (when the liquid actually goes INTO the lungs) is when it goes past the vocal cords, so Adele missed aspirating by thismuch. Needless to say, that's not a chance we can take. So, basically, by thickening the liquid we slow it down just enough to give her reflex time to catch up and swallow before it overflows.

You may be asking yourself, "Self, is this a muscle tone/strength issue? Is it just a matter of her building up the tone in that area?" Well, not exactly. Since it's a reflex, it's a brain, or more precisely, spinal cord, issue. The neurons just aren't firing fast enough to send the message to swallow sooner. Could it be a lingering side-effect of her prematurity? Possibly. Probably. Is there a chance that reflex will quicken over time? Probably. Possibly. Since she doesn't have any other spinal issues, such as cerebral palsy, it's quite possible she'll just outgrow it. But there's also the possibility that she won't, and this is just the way she's made. That's kind of a yucky thought, but definitely not the end of the world. And since all of her motor skills/development are completely on track, we have no reason to believe this condition should linger. Still, I say, if this is the worst prematurity side-effect we have to deal with, well, then we have it pretty dang easy.

So that's the story. More than you ever wanted to know, probably! On the bright side, Adele was good as gold the whole day, she ate when she needed to, even the nasty barium, didn't fuss or fight--she was her usual charming, smiley self. She's learned to wave, so she was more than happy to show off her new skill to anyone who spoke to her. Such a sweetie! Can't ask for a better kid, that's for sure!

Okay, now for REAL I'm off to clean and prep. Enough fiddling around! I will be sure to take lots of pictures, so look for those next week.

March for Babies recap

2008-04-29T15:41:00.002-05:00

So, the March for Babies walk was this past Saturday and it was, well, underwhelming. Not sure if I built it up too much in my mind ahead of time or if I had unreasonable expectations, but in any event, I came away feeling disappointed by the whole experience. I don't want to go into too much detail and take the focus away from the great work the organization does, so I'll just leave it at that. I do plan on giving my feedback and suggestions to my local chapter, however, so hopefully next year will be better.

BUT I cannot stress enough how thankful and grateful I am to each and every one of you who donated to the cause. I don't regret for one minute participating and helping raise funds for such a worthy cause. I think when all was said and done, including matching donations from my company, the team (consisting of Mom, Adele and me) turned in a little more than $700! Considering my first goal was $96, I'd say that's not too shabby. Again, thank you for helping the March of Dimes continue their important mission: helping to ensure that ALL babies are born healthy!

Graduation Day

2008-04-15T16:47:00.004-05:00

Today, Adele had a routine pediatrician appt at the Neonatal Special Care Clinic at CMH, which turned out to be her LAST APPOINTMENT AT THAT CLINIC! Wooo! The doc released her from any more follow-up visits, so she's an official special care clinic graduate! We still have a few appointments at the hospital in other departments, but after those we are done for good! Adele has certainly come a long way from her NICU days, that's for sure.

It's strange to think about not having to back there for check-ups. For so long everything has been "special" with her--from her food, to her monthly RSV shots (which are also done for good), to her many doctor's appointments--and now that everything is relatively "normal" it feels so strange. I'm happy, obviously, that our little girl is so very healthy and adjusted, especially considering that so many preemies aren't as lucky, but I just don't know how to wrap my head around this new normal! I feel like Steve and I are finally starting to exhale a bit after this long, stressful year. As she got older and stronger and healthier, and major concerns dropped by the wayside (losing the monitor, seeing her develop on track, giving special formula the heave-ho), we felt like things WERE going to be okay, they really were. Obviously she's still not technically caught up to her actual age and there could always be issues that arise as she gets older, things we have no way of knowing about right now (language, learning, long-term physical issues), but honestly, those aren't things that keep me awake at night. There are plenty of full-term kids out there with issues and there's no reason to believe she'll have any of those problems. And if she does? Oh well...she's cleared much bigger hurdles (oh, you know, like learning to breathe and eat at the same time) and can surely face any other challenges that might arise. Anyway, long story short, I've stopped waiting for that other shoe to drop, and I feel like we're ready to move on to the next chapter of our lives.

After our appointment, we went to the third floor to visit the NICU. I hadn't been back since the day Adele was released. It felt odd, and yet strangely familiar, to be there again. It was the same waiting room, with the same teal and pink chairs, and I hit the same button on the door to be allowed access into the actual NICU. But this time I was HOLDING my baby, not going to visit her. I visited with the receptionists while they oohed and aahed over Adele, and luckily Nurse Lauren was working so we got to say hi to her too. They even took our photo to add to the graduates wall. As Lauren and I chatted in the hallway, a few parents and grandparents walked by us on their way in to see their babies. I wanted to stop each one, with their worried faces and eyes that said they haven't slept soundly for far too long, and say to them "Look, eventually it WILL be okay. Here's my daughter to prove it." And I hoped that when they looked at Adele and smiled a little, maybe they knew she was once in their child/grandchild's shoes (or isolette, as the case may be) and they hoped their story would have a good outcome too. But I also know that if someone had said "it WILL be okay, someday" to me at that point, I certainly wouldn't have believed them. So, instead, I say little prayers for all those little babies and for their worried, sleepless families, that they, too, might see a Graduation Day.

Ok, ok, enough rambling and getting philosophical (and a little weepy)...

As I type, my little one is rolling around on the floor, gnawing on a stuffed bird. In the few weeks since I posted Adelevideo II, she's learned to army crawl and is lighting-fast. I can't take my eye off her for a minute, or else I find her playing with the space heater (turned off, thankfully) or chewing on the bottom of the exersaucer. Remember how I've mentioned the need to babyproof? Yeah, still a need--must remember to do that soon. She's also begun taking actual CRAWL "cycles" (as Tiny-K calls them) on her hands and knees, but can only go one or two small steps before she belly flops. She enjoys standing while holding onto something, but can't quite get to a standing position on her own (thank GOODNESS, or we'd be in big trouble). Not for lack of trying, however, as she really WANTS to pull herself up on something, anything.

Feeding is going well, too. She really enjoys the new formula and seems to like eating solids a whole lot more than she did a few months ago. We're working on more finger foods and will begin incorporating more table foods, especially once the swallow study is complete and we get the all-clear there.

I guess that's it from here. I feel like I should have more exciting things to report, but maybe boring is now exciting? :)

Oh, in the next few weeks, be on the lookout for

March of Dimes walk photos (walk is April 26)
Birthday party photos
Baptism photos/report
An Adele first-year retrospective
More Adelevideo!

CHAMPIONS!

2008-04-08T13:07:00.004-05:00

Ahhhh....what a great day to be a Jayhawk. Man, that was such a phenomenal game. I'll be honest--I'd written them off late in the second half and had gone to the computer to kill time (I couldn't bear to watch!). I was so used to coming THISCLOSE and losing and thought I could see the writing on the wall. But luckily I got back to the TV in time to see Mario's game-tieing 3-pointer. It was freakin' amazing! At that point, I knew mojomentum* was on our side going into OT. As the minutes ticked away, I was holding my breath, and then Steve and I both erupted into screams and shouts of joy. We both ran around the house like crazy people, calling family and friends to share in the jubilation. After the game, Steve stayed home with the baby (who, miraculously, slept through the whole thing!) and I walked downtown to join the crowds celebrating on Mass. St. I met my friend Kris at Liberty Hall and we made our way south and high-fived and hooted and hollered and celebrated. What fun! This morning I picked up three copies of the Lawrence Journal-World (one for us, two for the DeLorios) and spent a little time online looking at photos of the celebration. It just doesn't get any better than this, folks!

Now, we just have to concern ourselves with whether or not Coach Self will stay at KU or take the OSU coaching job. I can't imagine AD Perkins wouldn't give him whatever salary he asked for, so hopefully he'll be our coach for a long time and bring us many more championship trophies.

Tonight we'll probably watch bits of the game and the post-game stuff that we DVRd last night. I just can't get enough! Rock Chalk Jayhawk, go KU!

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*I invented a new word last night: mojomentum. It's when a team has both mojo AND momentum on their side. KU definitely had the mojomentum last night!

You're Watching Adelevideo II

2008-04-03T20:36:00.003-05:00

Here's the next installment of Adelevideo--enjoy!

He'll keep his eye out for ya

2008-03-28T15:30:00.003-05:00

Skeeter had his eye surgery yesterday, and all went well. He's home now, resting comfortably on the bed. I'm happy to report that the tumor was completely contained within the eye and hadn't spread outside of that area at all. Whew! Unfortunately, he didn't come home wearing a cone/plastic colloar--I was really hoping for that! But there's still a chance we'll get him an eye patch, once the incision has healed. ;) Speaking of, the incision doesn't look as icky as I was imagining--the area is shaved so that's more odd-looking than anything else. Ah well...in time I won't even notice, I'm sure!

Anyway, since this is supposed to be a BABY blog, I won't bore you with doggy updates much longer, especially since I HOPE this chapter is finished.

Speaking of the baby...we had good news yesterday: Her blood tests came back NEGATIVE for milk protein allergy! Ya-hoo! We got the go-ahead to switch her over to regular Enfamil formula--no more Neocate! It felt so odd to be at the normal store buying normal formula like a normal person. Of course, I still have a freezer full of expressed milk and I will plan to use that at some point, probably once we get the thickener situation figured out.

Remember a few days ago when I mentioned how Adele seemed to have no interest in crawling? Oh yeah, um, well, lately she's been getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth. I guess we'd better start babyproofing the house before too much longer! She's also getting into the plank position, as if she's going to do push-ups. I have NO idea where she gets that! Maybe she's taking baby bootcamp classes during the day? Next thing you know I'll find her doing pull-ups on the edge of her crib.

I guess that's about it from here. Oh, one last thing...

Rock Chalk, Jayhawk! Go KU!

A quick pupdate

2008-03-24T17:32:00.003-05:00

Good news: The scans and x-rays all came back clear! YAY! The evil eye (ha) will be removed on Thursday, and hopefully that will be the end of it!

Happy Easter!

2008-03-23T21:36:00.006-05:00

I realize this is a ridiculous amount of photos to post, especially when they're all basically the same pose, but I honestly could NOT narrow it down. She's just too darned cute in her new Easter dress!

Easter 2008

(OK, so maybe letting her hold the blue Easter egg was a bad idea... Luckily, the dress escaped harm!)

And because I am always behind the camera and never have pictures of Adele and I together...

Two updates in one!

2008-03-21T08:58:00.003-05:00

Thought I'd give you the latest on Adele and Skeeter in one shot. We'll start with the good one...

Adele had her monthly check-up yesterday and she's doing just fine. Still hugging the 25% for her age (actual), but the doc says that's fine. That's just her trend right now. The doc is sort of surprised she's so small considering that Steve and I aren't small people, but she says she won't make any final predictions until she's at least a year old, adjusted. Even then I won't take it as Gospel--I can't help but think of Steve's "little" brother, Jason, who was a preemie and the smallest of the triplets for many years, until he hit those last two years of high school. He's now 6'4". And then on the other hand, I have a couple aunts on my mom's side who are petite, so she could take after them. The doc is happy with her muscle tone and strength and is not concerned in the LEAST that Adele shows no interest in scooting or crawling or movement of any sort. I guess she got MY lazy gene. The doctor said that Adele is just so relaxed and laid-back (true) that she just doesn't have the motivation. She can't be bothered to go get something--yep, that's my daughter! The yucky part of the visit was that she had to have a vial of blood drawn so we could test her for milk protein allergy and finally answer that question once and for all. It was hard, as you can probably imagine, finding a vein in her tiny arm, but they did eventually. She cried, of course, but otherwise handled it well. Such a trooper!

Some fun new tricks she's learned:

Clapping! Sometimes she forgets to open one hand and claps with a fist, but you can tell she's SO proud of herself when she does it!
We're working on "uh-oh." She can get the rhythm/inflection, but sometimes not the right sound. And sometimes when I say "uh-oh" she gives me her fake cough instead, but in the "uh-oh" inflection. Tee hee!
She's really good at "dada" and I think is even starting to use it discriminately. She's finally added "mama" although it's more "mamamamamamama" and seems to use it more with me than anyone/thing else.
I swear, SWEAR, she is trying to say "good doggie." She definitely makes a sound like "goggie" or "gog" when the pup is anywhere near, and if we say "good doggie" she'll use the right inflection/rhythm and end it on a "goggie." I don't know...seems too coincidental NOT to be that, right??
She's great at sitting on her own (when she feels like bending in the middle, of course) and one of our "exercises" for Tiny-K this week is to get her to start bearing weight on one arm at a time so she can learn to get from a sit to the ground without a complete toppling. That one is still a challenge. She CAN do it, it's just an issue of getting her to do it.
I can't remember if I mentioned this, but her second bottom tooth FINALLY came in! No more snaggle tooth!

I think that's about it for her. I know I'm overdue on photos, but I plan to post some after this weekend. :)

Now for the Pupdate...

We went to our local vet Wedesday for a recheck and things hadn't improved at all. Unfortunately, the vet saw something in the eye that concerned him and he sent us to the specialist in KC. They were able to get us in yesterday, thankfully. The vet there confirmed what the vet here suspected--there is a tumor of some sort in that eye, and that's the cause of the glaucoma. Right now there's no way to tell if it's cancerous or benign, and the only option is to remove the eye. However, we have to first determine if he's a candidate for surgery. Monday, I will take him to the vet here (we don't need to go back to KC again as all the remaining procedures can be done here in town) and they'll give him a chest x-ray and abdominal scan to check if he has any growths elsewhere. If all is clear then the eye will be removed ASAP and sent off to be biopsied. A week or two later we'll know the results of that and will deal with whatever news that brings us. If the x-ray/scans show other tumors...well, I don't know. It will all depend on how significant they are and what the timeframe looks like. Obviously our goal at that point would be to keep him as comfortable as possible for as long as possible, with as conservative treatments as possible. There are a lot of scenarios that could happen there, none of which we like to think about at this point.

Steve and I have a lot of guilt because we both realize we will eventually have to put a price cap on things, and we both feel terrible about that. I hate saying "it's just a DOG" but when it comes down to it, that's the truth. We love him terribly, and he's a fantastic pet and friend, but we always knew we'd outlive him so we have to be prepared to draw the line, especially when we now have a child who requires signficant care herself.

Anyway, it all just sucks (pardon the vulgarity).

Our other baby

2008-03-14T14:13:00.004-05:00

Before there was Adele, there was Skeeter. He's our shelter-rescue beagle-mix and the cutest darn thing you ever did see. He's a great dog and friendly to all (except squirrels!). At around 8 years old, his biggest health concern has never been anything more than his preference for pudginess.

Until today.

A few days ago, Steve and I noticed he was having difficulty keeping his right eye open. It was as if he was constantly winking at us. Cute, yes, but not normal. Tuesday we thought it looked better so we cancelled the vet appointment we'd made. Wednesday he began the winking/blinking and the eye had taken on a cloudy, foggy appearance. Thinking it was nothing more than a scratch or minor infection, we made an appt for this morning figuring we'd spend $100 on an office exam and come home with a tube of ointment.

Well, the news today wasn't as simple. It turns out he has glaucoma. After a few tests, it was determined that pressures in his right eye (the affected eye) were in the 40-50 range. Normal is anything below 25. His left eye was at 11. Luckily he still has vision in his right eye, and the vet told me that we caught it just in time. There's still a chance we can save vision in that eye. Normal treatment is eye drops to relieve the pressure, hopefully saving the retina. However, the vet said that the drops aren't cheap, and if they don't work (or don't work well enough) we may have to consider other alternatives. Worst-case scenario, he has to have that eye removed.

The main question right now is whether the glaucoma is caused by genetics or injury. If it's the result of injury, we hope that a treatment of steroids and the pressure-reducing drops will solve the problem. If it's genetics...well, then we run the risk of the other eye being affected at some point or another. I learned that beagles are predisposed to glaucoma, and the kind that generally affects that breed usually affects both eyes with in 6-12 months of the initial diagnosis.

Unfortunately, everything I've read is telling me that treatment is usually just a "time-buyer" and or pain reliever (since the pressure can cause severe headaches), and that eventually the animal would need surgery to fix the glaucoma, or at worst, remove the eye.

I'll pick up the prescription drops after work tonight (and I'm bracing myself for a huge tab), and we'll take Skeeter back to the vet on Wednesday for a recheck of his eyes. We'll also be heading to KC at some point to visit a Veterinary Opthamologist, as s/he is the only one who can diagnose what the cause of the glaucoma is.

Of course, the decision we will eventually have to face is how much we are willing to spend to save his eye(s). I hope that decision is many, many years away.

I couldn't have said it better myself

2008-03-11T12:17:00.002-05:00

I've added a few new links to preemie blogs I read. My newest obsession is Flotsam. I haven't been reading it long, but I'm already hooked, and when there are no updates in a few days I begin to worry. Anyway, Alexa (Flotsam's main contributor) is a wonderful writer--the kind of writer I wish I could be. She makes it sound effortless, and when I read her NICU updates I think "That's EXACTLY how I felt!" I don't know...maybe all preemie moms feel the same way, but somehow she mangaes to articulate the unarticulatable (is that a word?).

Anyway, after a few days of no updates there was finally a new post. I can't do the post justice by trying to describe it--you'll just have to read it yourself here.

She took the words right out of my mouth.

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P.S. I don't know if there is a special blog-ettiquitte that requires I notify her that I've linked to her blog. If anyone knows if there's protocol here, please let me know. I don't want to break the blog-rules!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-03-06T18:14:00.005-06:00

That is the sound of panicking you hear, the sound I make when I realize Adele will be 10. Months. Old. TOMORROW. Holy cow, where does the time go?? This means I really must start making First Birthday plans. If you're within eyeshot of this blog, you're officially invited to the big bash. All I know so far is that it will be the second weekend in May, probably Saturday the 10th (since Mother's Day is the 11th). Subject to change, of course, but just know it's coming and soon.

We've all battled the sickies here. Some of us (me) had it easier than others (Steve) and yet others (Adele) are still working through stuff. She had a cold last week and it's finally on its way out, but one lovely side effect has lingered: massive amounts of spitting up after every meal. Oh joy. At least we've found a new use for all of those nice hooded bath towels she outgrew. We noticed they make lovely, gigantic burp cloths. We made a trip to the doctor just to be safe, and she's fine. We hope this is just a fast phase she'll be out of soon. In fact, I thought today we were finally in the clear because we got through a feeding and all the way to KC (see below) without a spit-up. I should have known not to get too cocky, though, and she threw up just as the doctors were walking into the exam room. Sigh...

Today, Adele and I made a trip to CMH for an eye appointment. It was just a 6-month follow-up after she was cleared of ROP back in October(?). The good news is her eyes are PERFECT and she requires no follow-up until she's 3.5 (such a random age, but whatever). All the doctors and nurses we saw mentioned they couldn't believe she was born so early because she looked so good and is obviously developing so well. Yay! It's such a relief to be able to check the "typical preemie issues" off our "wait and see" list.

We finally have a OPM/swallow study scheduled for April 30. We're hoping at that appointment she can finally be taken off thickeners and will be allowed to move up to Stage 2 baby foods.

She still has just the one tooth. It's slowly getting taller and taller, and she looks SO funny/cute as a snaggletooth. I can see the one next to it right under the gum's surface, so I'm sure it will pop through any day now.

That's about it from here. Just a few photos to finish up!

Adele and I made a trip to Lincoln last week to visit Jeremy & Jill and the kiddos. A couple of the photos are from that trip.

Adele (9.5 months) & Edie (8.5 months):

Adele & Madeline:

Adele got sick on her coat just as we were leaving for daycare the other morning, and we ended up using this cape/poncho instead. Too cute! (I tried to get one of her with Skeeter for a "Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf" set-up, but he wouldn't oblige.)

I am desperately trying to get a good photo of her tooth. The following are the best I could do!

You're Watching Adelevideo

2008-02-28T11:02:00.004-06:00

That was my first attempt at using the video function on my new camera, so pardon the quality (or lack thereof). But at least now I know how to work it and upload videos, so watch for more!

Things are going well here in Adelevision-land. We had a weight check on Monday when she went in for her monthly shot and Adele was 17 pounds, 3 ounces! That's almost a full pound heavier than her weight the Monday prior. During that past week she suddenly decided to eat much more at eat feeding, and we've managed to get her up to 6 ounces (from 4), which pleases us immensely.

We decided to forgo the intensive sleep training, but we did manage to wean her off her overnight feeding without much fuss at all. It's quite amazing, actually. The first night of the weaning, we gave her only 2 ounces (instead of her full 4). The night after that we didn't give her anything, we just cuddled her back to sleep. The next night she didn't wake up at all until 5:00 (which isn't bad considering). Lately, she's been sleeping until closer to 6:00, which also pleases us immensely. And even when she does wake up, all she does is chatter--she doesn't fuss or cry. We usually make sure to feed her right before WE go to bed around 11:00 pm, usually 4 hours after her previous feeding, before SHE went to bed. It seems to be working so far!

Solids are another story. We rearranged feeding so we were giving her full formula bottles first (instead of solids first) and so now she fills up on formula (which is good) and isn't hungry for any sort of solid food. Maybe we can get in a bite or two before her mouth clamps completely shut. Ah, well. Solids aren't a priority for me at this point. I'm happy to see her weight gain back on track and that she's eating a good amount each day, and the solids can wait.

Adele is getting close to cutting her second bottom tooth. She's drooling like CRAZY, so I'm going to assume it will pop through any day now. We shall see!

Well, I said this was a mini-update, so I'd better wrap up.

Bottom left

2008-02-14T13:30:00.002-06:00

That is the location of Adele's first tooth, the one that (finally) broke through last night! (Photographic proof to follow once said tooth is a bit more visible.)

The teething process has been relatively uneventful as she hasn't ever seemed in pain or feverish or otherwise unusually fussy. Yes, we're lucky. She did go through a period this weekend of not wanting to stay asleep once she was laid down, but that could be caused by anything. Yesterday at daycare she ate more than usual and then slept for 3 hours straight, but maybe it was coincidence. She's been gnawing on everything she can get near her mouth (including the bars of her crib), but again, not unusual for a baby. Maybe we'll break out the mesh feeder and fill it with an apple slice or something to see if that satisfies her chewing urges.

Is it silly of me to be a little sad about this new development? I'll miss her gummy, toothless smile! Ah, they grow up so fast, don't they?

March for Babies

2008-02-12T14:19:00.000-06:00

You'll notice a new banner at the top of the blog, advertising for this year's March for Babies (formerly Walk America) to benefit the March of Dimes. For many years the MOD has been at the forefront of research and support for families touched by prematurity, birth defects and infant mortality. Given what our own family has been through this past year, I decided it was time I gave back to a cause that gave us so much. We never came in direct contact with any MOD representatives or benefits while Adele was in the hospital, and yet I know that indirectly their cause helped our situation in ways I'll never truly realize. Funds that were raised YEARS ago, by folks just like you and me, resulted in medical breakthroughs and technology that allowed our daughter to survive and thrive. Without financial support and fundraising efforts such as March for Babies, our story could have had a very different ending.

So with that, I am happy to announce that I will be accepting donations for the 2008 March for Babies that will take place April 26 in Lawrence. Any donation is welcome. I have created a team (The A-Team) so if anyone would like to join me in fundraising and walking, I would love to have company (Mom! Are you reading??). To join the team, go to the March for Babies website, https://www.marchforbabies.org/, and click on "Join a Team." Search for "The A-Team" on the next page and click on the team in Lawrence, Kansas. From there you can decide your personal goal, which is entirely up to you. I set the team goal as $250, which I thought was reachable even if it ends up just being me. ;)

I have a modest yet meaningful personal goal: $96. It represents $1 for each day Adele spent in the NICU. I hope to raise much more than that, but I figure it's a start and it's a number that will stay in my mind. And $250 for a team goal can also represent Adele's birthweight in some fashion, I suppose (2 pounds 5.0 ounces). And I'm thrilled that this year's walk is so close to Adele's birthday. What a way to celebrate the miracle of the first year of her life!

If you're interested in donating, please click the banner ad at the top of this page or email me or leave a comment below. I'm not one for high-pressure donation tactics so I probably won't contact anyone personally (no need to screen your calls!). But remember: It's for a good cause, it's for families like ours and children like Adele, it's to help babies who deserve a fighting chance and the best medicine and technology we can give them. As someone once told me, these babies didn't ask to be born this early. The least we can do is give them a chance.

Love and thanks!

Another CMH day

2008-02-11T17:35:00.000-06:00

We spent the day at CMH for some follow-up appointments. First, they were giving away books in the waiting room, so that was fun. I got the impression they do it regularly, but that was the first time we happened to be there on give-away day. It was just like RIF from my elementary school days! Yeah for free books!

Our first appointment was with the psychologist as part of the developmental screen. The appointment consisted of the doctor giving Adele different toys and items to see how she'd play with them or react to them (nothing scary, of course!). There were blocks, rubber ducks, bells, a hoop on a string, etc. Then they moved to the floor to check out Adele's sitting and rolling skills (she's got mad skillz, yo!). Long story short, she is "lovely" and is absolutely appropriate for her adjusted age. No worries whatsoever. The only thing she said is that she would have liked Adele to be a little more vocal, but we assured her that usually wasn't a problem. I invited her to come to the house around 5:30 am when she's happily jabbering and screaming in her crib. ;) She also would have liked a little quicker response on some of the hearing tests on the left side (not formal tests like before, just ringing a bell and making other noises on that side to see how Adele would react). Adele DID react, just not quickly and not consistently. We mentioned the hearing tests we had earlier in the month and the doc said we could answer the question definitively and have a hearing test at CMH, but she didn't think it was immediately necessary. So, we'll play that by ear (yuk yuk) and think about it for later. We're at CMH often enough it's not like we'd have to make a special trip just for that should we decide we want to go that route.

We saw her pediatrician, Dr. Harvingson, after and that was a good appointment too. I think the main reason for this visit was to see how Adele was doing after going back on Prevacid. Thankfully, Adele gained weight well over the past month and is a full pound heavier than she was last visit. The doc wanted to see a 15-gram-a-day gain and Adele averaged 18 grams.

Some other highlights/points of interest:

Our insurance reauthorized Adele's Neocate until her first birthday, 5/7/08 (which is rapidly approaching--eek!). Both doctors (Dr. H at CMH and Dr. Murphy at LFP) want her on formula/breastmilk until she's 15 months actual/12 adjusted. However, the insurance said they rarely authorize payment of formula past 1-year actual, AND they want her to try another form of food (breastmilk or other formula) before 5/7. If she tolerates it they won't renew her authorization. If she doesn't tolerate it then...??? The insurance company's recommendation was to put her on cow's milk at 1 year, but no way in heck that is happening. Introducing cow's milk will happen slowly and not for a long, long time.
Because of the point above, we asked Dr. H. what she'd recommend we transition Adele to or try in the meantime. We decided that we'd start with breastmilk and fortify it with Neocate (since breastmilk is only 20 cals and we want her to still be on 24-cal liquid) and see how that goes. She also said we could try a standard Enfamil-type formula if we were feeling particularly frisky. Buying formula at the store like regular people?? I never thought that could happen. Of course there's no telling if our experiments will work, but I have faith!
Because of the point above, we have to explore other thickening options. We can't take her off thickener entirely until she has another swallow study, and we still haven't made that appointment. (Dr. H. promised she would have them call us right away.) Unfortunately, the thickener we currently use for her formula doesn't work on breastmilk. The only kind that does is available only by mail-order or through home-health companies by prescription. (And of course it's twice as expensive as the stuff we currently use, that's available at our local Walgreen's.) So, Dr. H. is starting the process to see if we can get insurance to cover the thickener we need. They should be happy to do so since it would mean NOT having to pay for formula anymore, right? So, we'll see. If they don't cover it we'll just buy it ourselves--no biggie--but it would be nice to have that covered too. (I know, I know--I'm so greedy!)
We're starting the first steps of "sleep training" for Adele. The psychologist mentioned that developmentally Adele should not still be waking up during the night. However since weight gain/formula volume intake is still a concern for her, we're not sure that we should encourage her to drop that overnight feeding. The hope, though, is that if we do drop the night feeding she'll make up for it during the day. Since she doesn't ever eat more than 4 ounces at night (or ever, for that matter), IN THEORY it shouldn't be too difficult to make up that 4 ounces elsewhere. Of course, we're talking about Adele and food and we know how she likes to defy all logic and common sense. ;) So, we may try to drop that feeding and see if she does okay without it. Of course, that means somehow getting her back to sleep in the night, which will be a struggle. Everyone is telling us that we should start putting her to bed drowsy and to let her soothe herself to sleep, even if that means a bit of crying. Unfortunately that "bit" of crying has been as much as 30 minutes the few times we've tried it. I'm still not sold on the idea, but the thought of a full, uninterrupted night's sleep is so very, very tempting. They assure me that letting her "cry it out" won't be psychologically damaging, but it's still hard to hear her be so sad when I KNOW picking her up would soothe her instantly. But that's the problem--she needs to soothe HERSELF, not rely on me or Steve to do it for her. So, the more I think about this, maybe the training is for the parents, and not so much for the kid? Anyway, I know the Goddess in Progress family is attempting this very thing in the near future, so maybe I'll let them do their experiment first and before I decide whether to jump in or not.
We're slowly going to try to increase her feeds by a bit at a time to see if she'll take more than 4 ounces if it's there. The times when I'm CERTAIN she'll eat 5 ounces, she ends up leaving 2 ounces behind. The times when I don't think she's very hungry and only pour 4, she drains the bottle in no time flat and probably would have taken 5. I just can't win!

So yeah...lots of changes in store, some not so fun. I know if we can get over those first few days and weeks of resistance things should be better.

And for the fun stuff... We finally got a real highchair for Adele! Well, it's a space-saving highchair so it straps to one of our kitchen chairs, but it's better than the Bumbo. And so far, the difference in feedings in the two chairs is like night and day. In the Bumbo, Adele would twist and buck and practically rotate Linda Blair-style to get away from whatever we were feeding her. Now, in the proper highchair, she's comfortable and secure and so much more receptive to whatever is on the spoon. And she looks like such a BIG GIRL in her new chair. I think she ate twice as much fruit today than any of her other feedings prior. Woo! The doc said we could add in a third solid-food feeding now, but with all the other feeding changes in store for her, I think we're good with two for now. Don't want to rock her world TOO much.

Just a few highchair photos for your enjoyment:

It's a good thing I'm finally getting over my "babies with food on their faces" phobia, huh? Now I just need to work on my "babies spitting wet food into my hand" phobia. Ewwww....

Snow day!

2008-02-06T11:20:00.001-06:00

Lawrence got about 6 inches of snow last night, and since I didn't bring my laptop home last night I decided to take today as a vacation day. I didn't feel like dealing with snowy roads with her in the car. I've managed to be a little productive today, finishing our tax prep (we're FINALLY getting a refund this year after 6 years of owing) and getting this photo stuff set up. Sorry it's taken so long to get the photos up!

Just a few other notes and miscellaneous:

We love, love, LOVE our new daycare. Renee is awesome and I can tell Adele really likes going there. She's always excited to see Renee and the other kids and vice versa. She's still eating well while she's there, which is a bonus.

Adele is working through a small cold, mostly a runny nose and a terrible cough. She's never had a fever or any breathing issues so I never called the doc. Not much they can do for her anyway. I am not surprised she's come down with something--I expected it since she's been exposed to a whole set of new germs at her new daycare. As long as it doesn't get any worse, it's all good.

We head to CMH on Monday for a round of appts, including a follow-up with the pediatrician there (I think a glorified weight check and to see if the Prevacid is helping her eating). Not sure how much she weighs now, but she's been eating well enough I expect it to have increased some. The other appointment that day is with the Developmental Clinic. Not sure exactly what that entails, but we're told she'll meet with a Psychologist, Physical Therapist, Speech/Language Therapist and an Early Childhood Educator. I'm looking forward to this appointment because I like hearing about all those areas of her development. I'm not worried about anything in particular, thankfully.

That's about it, so onto photos. Oh, and I've come to the realization that it's time to upgrade the ol' digital camera. I'm always disappointed in the shots I get, and I know it's not ALWAYS my fault. I think we'll use some of our tax return and get a new one. Also, some of these are dark because I have to turn the flash off if I ever want to have any photos where her eyes are open. Anyhoo...

Finally a decent smile caught on film! And no, those aren't teeth down there, just spit bubbles.

The expression on her face here always makes me laugh.

Practice sitting up.

Smiling. That is all.

Smiling at Daddy.

She likes her feet.

A lot.She also has a fondness for blankets...

And now for something different, a slideshow!

A very late update

2008-01-27T13:10:00.000-06:00

Sorry it has taken me so long to report on Adele's appointment-filled day the other day. It was quite a busy day, but it was good to be able to just wipe out a ton of errands on one day.

Stats:
15 pounds, 7 ounces (one week later she was back up to 16 pounds even)
26.5 inches long

Both pediatric appointments were pretty much the same. Overall Adele is doing fine, but both docs are hoping to see Adele start gaining significantly again. Nothing that's of major concern now, but both docs plan to watch her closely to see how she's going to trend. We decided to put her back on Prevacid, since the times she was on it were the times she ate and gained the most. We were okay with that since we thought the same thing. We'll start with that change for now, and if we don't see improvement after a month or so, we'll try a different route. I'm not terribly concerned since she has done a LOT better in the week since she's been back on it. (And then of course I feel a little terrible about taking her off in the first place--I guess she really did need it!) Developmentally she's absolutely great and is right on track. As usual, the eating issue is our only concern, and even it's minimal.

She also had a cardiology appointment to check her PFO murmur, and she was given a clean bill of health and was completely released from any other follow up care there!

Next month we'll head back up to CMH for three appointments, two on 2/11 (another special care clinic appt to see if she's gaining weight again and one in their developmental clinic) and on 2/14 (a short eye exam). We weren't able to get all three on one day, unfortunately. Then we'll have to go back up in March, most likely, for her swallow study to see if she can finally get off thickener.

Fun milestones and other tidbits:

Babbling, babbling, babbling: Da-da-da, ma-ma-ma, ba-ba-ba, and sometimes, I swear, "blah, blah, blah." Ah, the attitude, it begins so young these days.
Solids are going better. Peas are still a favorite, but this morning we mixed cereal (oatmeal) and pears together and she tolerated both much better than when they're separate. We'll try that with other fruits later, if the first go doesn't work out. We also have a better plan of attack as to how and when she gets them. Mornings will be cereal and/or fruit and evenings will be a veggie before bed. Ultimately she'll drop her two bottle feedings at those times, but for now we're keeping them in, just feeding her less if she's had a good amount of solids to eat. Since all her nutrients and calories come from her formula, we want that to be the majority of her food.
Her "going" problem seems to have resolved itself. Prunes really seemed to help. I also noticed that the problem went away when we started Prevacid again. Coincidence?
She's had a few bottles of breastmilk and so far so good! No adverse side effects that I can see. There's hope yet!
We're working on sitting up. She's very good on laps or with minimal support, but she just doesn't want to stay upright on her own. That's okay--she's doing fine for her adjusted age.
Lots of laughs, giggles, big smiles--those are the best!
We're trying to get a more established, consistent routine in place as far as naps and feedings go. Feedings usually aren't a problem, since we never usually let her go more then 4 hours without eating (except at night), but naptimes have always been helter skelter. I think we'll all do better with a bit of routine, especially now that we have to fit in another task (solids). Also, she still needs rocking or holding to get her to sleep for naps, and something tells me that won't always fly at daycare. I'm hoping a consistent nap routine will help her learn what naptime means and then maybe she'll eventually be able to get herself to sleep without as much soothing on anyone's part. Night bedtimes will always be a special time for cuddling, though. :)
Still no teeth, although I expect them any day based on the amount of slobbering and chewing she does.
We're both enjoying our weekly water class, even if the drying off and redressing does take longer than the class itself. Still it's a great workout for me and Adele really enjoys the splashing! I also enjoy the interaction with the fellow moms, especially since I don't know a lot of moms here who have kids Adele's age.
We found a great daycare, and she starts tomorrow (Jan 28). She'll go full time, which will give Steve a day off at home to run errands and clean house (YES!) and I'll be back in the office on Fridays. Every other Monday she'll go in late so we can have Tiny-K at home. We're very happy with our new provider, and are confident that it will be a good, stable environment for Adele. Thanks to Grandma Pontow who watched Adele all last week to cover the gap between sitters. We were grateful for the help, and I think Adele enjoyed having all the attention for a few days.

Well, that's it from here, I guess. She's doing well, just the usual things to keep an eye on. But if this past week is any indication, I'd say we're on the right track again. I have some new photos to share, but it's feeding time at the zoo and someone is ready for her peas! I'll try to post those within the next day or so.

Name Game

2008-01-22T16:22:00.000-06:00

ETownDZ over at Goddess in Progress recently blogged about how she and her husband decided on the names of their twins, and she challenged other bloggers to share their stories. Ours isn't very thrilling, but here it is anyway.

Early on in the pregnancy, Steve and I had decided we wouldn't find out ahead of time if the baby was a boy or a girl. While the naming process would be much easier--we could eliminate a whole category!--we felt it took away from the mystique by knowing ahead of time. Plus if it was a girl, we didn't want to end up with a carload of pink or blue items at the shower. ;)

In her post, ETownDZ mentions some of her name-choosing criteria, several of which Steve and I tried to follow, too. Specifically, "Nothing in the top 10 for popularity the previous year," "Nothing that felt too 'trendy'" and "Straightforward spelling and pronunciation." We both preferred "old-fashioned" names, something that would carry a person from infancy to adulthood without ever seeming inappropriate. Steve works in retail, managing a toy store, and hears children's names all day long, so he had some pretty specific ideas of what he did and didn't want. (No Wolfgangs or Cheneys, thankyouverymuch. And yes, those are names of actual children, sadly enough.) And for Steve, a big one is that there would not, under any circumstances, be an SRB III.

Unfortunately, with us coming into parenthood late in the game, many of the names we did like had been used by family or were so popular (or variations thereof were so popular) we had to cross them off our list. Also, names I loved he disliked (August, for instance) and vice versa.

Some folks have issues with not wanting names that can be made into nicknames (Alexander becoming Alex), but that wasn't a problem for us. Some parents eliminate names because they think it will be a source of teasing for the child. Personally, I figure kids will always find something to tease other kids about, and their name is the least of my worries. Some parents worry about pronounciation and spelling and whether a name is TOO unique. While I'm not one for making up a funky name just because I can, I also don't think a name should be eliminated simply because someone else can't take the time to learn how to spell or pronounce it correctly. (And I say this as someone who's had to spell and repronounce their name their entire life. Whatever. Big whoop.)

So, that left us with about two names to choose from. Ha. Kidding.

We got the books from the library and perused name websites. I asked about names of relatives as far back as our moms and dads could remember. I thought about favorite books, TV shows and other pop culture references. Pretty much anything was a source of inspiration.

It was easy to find girls' names we liked, and eventually we settled on Alice. We were both happy with it and it met all of our completely ridiculous criteria. If I remember correctly, we'd chosen Anne for a middle name since it went well with Alice, and it's my middle name. Boys names were a different story, however. We just couldn't think of anything both of us were truly happy with. We tentatively decided on Jack Hilland (both are family names), which is a nice, sturdy boys name, even if Jack is a little overused these days. (And secretly, I was hoping for a girl because I liked Alice better than Jack!)

Then, one day, we were throwing out names just to be sure, and I mentioned Adeline. Steve wasn't too fond of it and suggested a shortened version, Adele. I loved it right away and it seemed like THE most beautiful name in the whole world. Somehow, Irene seemed to fit just perfectly with Adele and we had a middle name. (Irene was my Grandma Pontow's middle name, so we had a family connection which was something I liked too.) Both names were simply perfect in all ways: unique but not weird, interesting but not wacky, timeless and suitable for a girl of all ages.

And then Adele came too early. After she was born, when the room was full of activity and the doctors and nurses were all tending to her, I finally thought to ask if we'd had a boy or a girl. When I heard it was a girl, I thought "It's an Adele," and it seemed as if it was always meant to be that way.

Gag her with a spoon

2008-01-16T16:48:00.000-06:00

Adele seems to be riding the spit-up train again. Sigh... It began last week sometime, when we noticed she was spitting up more than usual. Over the weekend, at G-ma & Papa Pontow's she had several projectile episodes after eating. She also had a few before she ate, which is a new and exciting development.

In addition to that, she seems to be having trouble, well, you know, going number 2. That IS very unusual for her, as she's always been a regular goer. Since it's been awhile now (probably a good week or so) since she's had a nice, um, movement, I called the doctor today. Her advice was to introduce fruits into Adele's diet. We haven't done a whole lot with solid foods so far (just some cereal and bananas), but I did happen to have some pears in the pantry for when we did decide to move on to fruits. So, this afternoon I put the spoon to her mouth and shoveled some in... Adele got a very peculiar look on her face (not unusual since this was her first taste of pears) and promptly projectile vomited her formula all over herself, the Bumbo and the dining room table. (And this was the second shirt of the day, since she'd already puked all over herself once today.) I get her cleaned up, and even give her a bath since she's awfully sticky. Figure I'll give it another shot (yes, I am officially nuts or hopelessly optimistic) and get her all loaded into the Bumbo again. Get another spoonful into her mouth and we get a repeat projectile performance. Sigh...

So there we are. Poor baby can't go to the bathroom and yet I can't get anything in her that will help her go. She's not drinking as much formula and when she does drink, she ends up throwing half of it up again. I have a theory that the lack of movement is making her tummy upset and/or she's so backed up there's no where for it to go. Makes sense to me anyway. But how are we supposed to give her any relief in the meantime? And then I worry that she'll get dehydrated or lose weight again. Yuck.

My other theory is that she's teething. Mom remembers me going through a huge spitting-up spurt when I teethed, so maybe she's going through the same thing? I can feel a hard ridge under her bottom gums, but nothing that would indicate teeth are ready to burst through.

Luckily Friday brings our day of doc appointments so we can get some input on everything. OH! Speaking of doc appointments, Monday was her audiology appointment (because of her failed hearing screen) and she's just fine. Both ears passed with flying colors.

Today and tomorrow we're heading out to interview some potential daycares. One of them comes highly recommended from two folks, so I have high hopes. Keep your fingers crossed!

In other developmental news, she's mastered the fine art of rolling both ways. She's never in the same position we lay her down in. We've also heard some "ma-ma-ma" and "na-na-na" sounds. She's not real consistent with her "talking" but now that we know she can hear, we're not too worried. (I know what you're thinking: She probably can't get a word in edgewise.)

So, all in all, she's doing fine and seems to be happy and healthy. We're very lucky that this digestive stuff is the worst of our problems, it seems.

Hokey pokey

2008-01-11T15:19:00.000-06:00

You put your left leg out, and you shake it all about...

And just because...

Who can resist that face? (Sorry for the blinding reflection off the crib bar!)

News, and a photo

2008-01-07T18:08:00.000-06:00

Good news:
Found out today that Medicaid will completely cover the unpaid (by insurance) portion of Adele's hospital stay, which means ZERO out-of-pockets costs for us! That is a HUGE relief. Our portion was only (only!) $4,000, which isn't huge compared to how much her total bill was, but still. That's a decent chunk o' change. It's nice to know she's ours, free and clear. ;)

Had a quick weight check today and she was 16 pounds on the nose! Finally!

So-so news:
She's failed the hearing screen twice in her left ear. We're now onto a referral to an audiologist and will go from there. I'm not terribly concerned, but just wondering what, if anything, is going on.

The fun news:
We had our first water class on Saturday. It was fun but a LOT of work for me. I am terribly out of shape and it was hard work holding her and doing modified water aerobics for 30 minutes. But it's a great group of moms and babies and I think it'll end up being a good workout. Adele seemed to have fun too!

A photo:

The next Esther Williams

That's just how she rolls

2008-01-04T17:14:00.000-06:00

She made the flip from back to tummy! I was washing bottles and making formula and she was on the floor playing with her feet. Last I saw her she was on her side, when I walked by again she was fully on her stomach! I didn't witness the actual rollover, but since no one else was here (and I doubt the dog gave her a helpful nudge) it's pretty evident she did it all by herself. Woo!

********************

And in other news, we got word today that our daycare provider is reducing her hours and the number of kids she's watching and Adele is being downsized. The daycare provider said we could keep her there until we found someone else, but I'm sure we need to be out by the end of the month. We're paid through next week and we gave a two week deposit, so I guess 3 weeks is the cut-off. Ugggggh. I really, really HATED the daycare search the first time and I'm really not looking forward to it this time. Bah humbug. Keep your fingers crossed that we'll find a great place within our budget that has immediate availability. Ha ha ha.

The Jayhawks gave me an Orange Bowl victory as an early birthday present, so there's something good! Finally a team I'm rooting for wins the big one!

For Uncle Blur

2008-01-03T19:07:00.000-06:00

The only KU-gear-sporting Adele photo I have, taken a few months ago:

RCJH

2008-01-03T16:36:00.001-06:00

Beak 'em, Hawks!

P.S.

2008-01-01T19:57:00.000-06:00

She had her last dose of Prevacid the Thursday before Christmas, and so far so good! We haven't noticed any 'flux related pain/discomfort and the spitting up hasn't resurfaced. I hope this means we're good to go! It's definitely saving us a boatload of money ($62 every two weeks--ouch). Of course, it does make me wonder how necessary it was in the first place. Water under the bridge, water under the bridge...

Holiday wrap-up

2007-12-26T12:23:00.000-06:00

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.

7-month update

2007-12-16T18:13:00.000-06:00

I'm in disbelief that Adele is 7 months old and the end of 2008 is upon us. Where did the year go?? Adele is growing and learning and doing like crazy these days, seems like I've neglected to tell you about it.

First, the stats from her appointment last Friday:
Weight: 15 pounds, 12 ounces (25% actual age/90% adjusted)
Length: 25 3/4 inches (25%/95%)

Things she's doing:

Attempting to hold her bottle during feedings. She doesn't always do it very well or for very long, but she tries. It's especially cute to see her get excited when she sees it and grab it and cram it into her mouth. That's my girl!
Passing toys one from hand to the other
Playing with her feet. This is BEYOND cute, except at diaper changing times, and then it's just sort of cute, and mildly frustrating.
Laughing--a lot. She likes it when you "gobble" her belly, but I don't know if it's the sensation on her belly that's amusing or your hair tickling her face. We don't care--we just like making her laugh.
Rolling over a little. If she's on her tummy, she can get on her back after a while. She usually squirms her legs under her stomach and gets on her side that way or if she's propped up on her elbows, she'll lay down on one arm and let gravity do the rest of the work. Still not rolling from back to front, but she does kick her feet up to grab them and then uses that as leverage to get onto her side.
She's very squirmy at night, we've learned, since whenever we go get her in the morning she's never in the same place/position we left her in the night before. I've found her with her head wedged into the corner of the crib, up against the short side of the crib, with her back against the short side of the crib, flipped over on her back all the way against the side of the crib (she's a tummy sleeper, yes I'm aware of SIDS, thankyouverymuch, but on her tummy is the only way she'll sleep for any extended period of time) and the best one yet, on her back with her feet sticking out between the rails of the crib. Zoinks!
We're using the Bumbo a bit more nowadays, trying to get her muscles worked up for sitting up on her own. She still gets a bit slumpy after a while, but she's getting better.
She enjoys standing up, and can bear all her weight on her own for a quite a while. All she requires from us is a bit of support for balance. She's doing all the hard work herself.
She's eating a lot better, and is back up to where she was before her hunger strike. She even finished a full bottle at daycare the other day--that was a first!

Dr. Murphy said her fine motor skills and social development are all in line with a 6-month-old. Her gross motor are more in line with her adjusted age, which is fine. No cause for concern at all. We'll just continue to work on tummy time and those things that will help in that area and she'll catch up in no time. Overall it was a great appointment and Dr. Murphy said she was extremely pleased with how well Adele is doing. Yay! It seems to me that over the past month or so, she went from being a "passive" infant to a more interactive, playful person. She's so much fun, and it's so interesting to me to see her learn. I love watching her as she's trying to figure something out or as she's working SO hard to get to something or flip over or whatever the task. I wonder what she's thinking sometimes! Oh, we were given the go-ahead to give Adele cereal if we want. I have spoons, I have cereal, I just haven't gotten around to doing it yet. Part of me wants to try it, the other part wants to wait a few more months, maybe until she's 5 months adjusted. No sense in rushing into it, right? Also, we might try taking her off Prevacid for her reflux to see how she does. Since she rarely spits up these days (knock wood) and because the medicine is super expensive and a pain to get, it would be fantastic if we could drop it altogether. So we'll give that a shot next week and see how it goes.

I owe you lots of photos, so without further ado...(ignore the date on most of these--my camera got messed up and I didn't realize it.)

Feet are fun!

In November, we went to Kansas City to visit Adele's NICU podmate, Alton (Ali) and his family. Hard to believe both of these babies were preemies! Alton was born at 24 weeks, which is about as early as you can get and still survive. Miracle babies!!

Steve, Adele, Alton, Lemond

Candice, Alton, Adele, Darrah

Say "E Pod!"

Rockin' the Bumbo

Adding the finishing touch to the Christmas tree. I think Adele wants to eat it. Steve, too, possibly.Oh yeah...we had an ice storm! We didn't lose many limbs because of the ice, although power company did have to trim some from our crabapple tree in order to fix some outages. We lost power for a few hours overnight, but nothing crazy.
The view from our driveway.

Our neighbors' back yard.Our side yard (including crabapple tree pre-delimbing).

Answering the age-old question

2007-12-03T17:30:00.000-06:00

“How old is she?” has always been a difficult question to answer when it comes to Adele.

Whenever anyone asks, my internal dialogue goes something like this:

“How much time do you think they have?”

“Oh, just give them the short version.”

“But she’s too small/not doing enough for [actual age] they might wonder what’s wrong with her.”

“Well, then just tell them [adjusted age]!”

“But that’s a LIE! She’s NOT [adjusted age]. Do you think they really want the whole story?”

“I don’t know, but this is getting ridiculous. Just tell them something already! Sheesh…” [stomps off to think about something much more interesting, such as what’s for dinner]

After all that, my answer depends on who is doing the asking. If it’s some random stranger on the street, who is obviously asking only to be polite, I give them the short version: actual age. Adele’s big enough now and charting appropriately for her actual age, so I figure no one should really think twice. [This is a relatively new change in my way of thinking. When she first came home from the hospital, she was significantly smaller than a “normal” 3-month-old, and I felt the “actual/adjusted” spiel was necessary.] If they make a comment about her not doing this or that, or outright ask about her development (i.e. “Is she sitting up yet?”), then I give the explanation of her prematurity. Those who know us already know her story so I can give the short, no-further-explanation-necessary, “X actual/X adjusted” line. I make exceptions for mothers with similar-in-age babies because I know they’re doing the same thing I’m doing—silently, discreetly comparing—and I feel I need to explain. Not to say I think she needs an excuse, but I know those moms are also reading “What to Expect the First Year” and are mentally checking off the milestones for each month for each baby.

“You say your baby hasn’t rolled over yet?* Oh….” (Which could mean “Oh, you poor thing, I hope she learns to walk before she goes to kindergarten!” or “Thank GOD it’s not just my child!”)

The adjusted/actual issue causes a lot of hiccups in a lot of areas. For instance, whenever we make her monthly well-baby appointments, the nurse always has to ask which month/age it’s for. Um, good question! Take your pick! Inevitably, they give me the info sheet for her actual age, which is good for future planning but not so helpful now. Then there’s the starting solids debate. From a digestive standpoint she’s almost 7 months old, but she’s got the motor skills of a 4-month-old. There’s a huge difference between the two ages when it comes to solid food readiness. Just the other day I came across a whole new kind of age conundrum. I found a class through our local Parks & Rec department called “Aqua Mom & Me.” It’s a water resistance class where you use baby’s weight in the water as added resistance. The class is for moms (or dads, I assume) with babies older than 6 months. Is that 6 months ACTUAL or 6 months ADJUSTED? Sigh…here we go again. Is the age requirement some randomly-chosen number, or was it selected based on the physical control that “normal” 6-month-olds exhibit? If we enroll, will I find it difficult to complete the exercises because I have to work harder at keeping her supported? Will I put her in danger because of it? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? When is it okay to stop obsessing about the difference between her actual/adjusted ages?

The good news is that with time the age difference will become less and less of an issue, and eventually she’ll catch up to (and hopefully surpass, in some areas) those children who are the same actual age she is. In the meantime, though, if you ask me how old she is and I get a far-away look in my eyes, bear with me as I try to formulate just the right answer.

*Disclaimer: She gets a lot of leeway in the development department to account for her prematurity, so it’s perfectly acceptable if she’s doing only 4-month-old things and hasn't accomplished older-kid tasks, such as rolling over. However, she’s accomplished most (if not all) of the “should be doing” 4-month-old things, and a few things a couple months beyond. So there.

Time to do the happy dance!

2007-11-16T13:42:00.001-06:00

I just heard from Apria, and our insurance has authorized coverage of Adele's formula! Oh, happy day! We'll get 9 cans, delivered directly to our door, at the low out-of-pocket cost of $24. Yay!

In other news, we had our well-baby check-up yesterday and all was, uh, well! This was our third trip to the doc this week, unfortunately. The one on Monday was a weight check, Wednesday was because A had spiked a fever the day before and today's was her regularly scheduled appointment. Anyway, she's 15 pounds on the nose, 25.5 inches long (weight puts her at 25% for full term 6 month olds, and 85% for 3 month olds--not bad, I say!). Doc wants to see a bit more tummy time to encourage her neck/arm strength, but overall she's doing fine. Poor baby had 3 vaccinations, and then her first flu vaccination at the Health Department later that afternoon. They tried giving her the oral Rotavirus vax, but after a few drops she promptly threw up her last meal all over the exam table, so they decided to delay this one for a few weeks, and she'll get it when she gets her RSV shot on the 26th.

And YES, I still owe you pictures. They are coming, I promise.

A positive post, for once

2007-11-13T16:37:00.000-06:00

I realized that I've been posting so much negative, whiney stuff lately, and really aside from the food stuff, things are going really well with Miss Chubby Cheeks. So, this post is about that.

Everything she's doing is normal baby stuff, but it's so much more exciting when it's your own baby. She's been smiling for a long time now, but lately she's been chuckling too. I expected a more outright laugh, but I suppose it's still early for that. What we do get is a "heh-heh-heh," which is very cute too. Maybe we're not nearly as entertaining as we imagine ourselves to be? ;) She's got great head/neck control and can pretty much sit upright on her own if you hold her hips or she's sitting in your arm while you're standing. Unfortunately she's in the stage where she's prone to random flops forward or backward so we do have to keep our eyes on her. On her tummy she can push her chest up off the surface while on her elbows, but only for a little bit. She's rolled over from back to tummy just once (witnessed only by Steve), so we're still working on that. She can put her full weight on her legs and stand upright while you hold her, and sometimes even tries to push herself up by stiffening her legs. She loves reaching out to grab faces/noses/clothes--anything within arm's reach. Her eye/hand control is better too--she's moved beyond batting toys in her bouncy chair to being able to grab them and hold them for a second or two.

I do owe you an overdue update on her weight. When we took her in after my last post, she was back up over 14 pounds, which was odd since she'd been eating so little. We're not sure, but we think that the nurse who weighed her and got the 13-pound weight (the .5 pound loss) may have weighed her incorrectly, because there's just no other way to explain how she could have gained it all back in less than a week. Anyway, we had another check yesterday and she's 14 pounds, 14 ounces, which is just fine. Her regular well-baby/check-up is Friday, so I'll have more info then.

We're still wrangling with insurance on getting her formula paid for. We've turned in a letter of medical necessity, a prescription and yesterday a record of all the food she's tried and what reactions she had. The Caring Bridge site came in handy for that, as I was able to look at all my old journal entries for exact dates and reactions. Now we're just waiting to hear if we have more hoops to jump through and whether they'll accept or deny her claim. I'm sure they make the process difficult in the hopes you'll just give up!

Today we were supposed to have gone to CMH South to their OT/ST clinic (we were able to get in there sooner than at the regular CMH), but Adele woke up with a fever and was obviously not her happy self, so we had to reschedule for next week. She's been sleeping all day, and is pretty cranky and tired, but her fever seems to have subsided, so that's good. We'll see how she does overnight.

I owe you a new round of photos, so watch for those!

Food Fight

2007-11-05T23:01:00.000-06:00

Who would have thought that any daughter of MINE would be stubborn? Pshaw. It'll never happen.

We're still working with (and by "working with" I mean pulling our hair out in frustration) Adele and her feeding issues. She did OK over the weekend, but not stellar. Some meals she'd eat 4 or more ounces, other times we struggled to get 2 in . Doc Murphy decided after all to refer A for more testing, so we'll be heading up to CMH again to visit their Occupational/Speech Therapy clinic. The appointment isn't until December 6, so good thing this isn't, like, a really important deal or anything. Sigh. Anyway, we hope they can tell us if her suck is OK, and if not how we can improve it. Also, I'm starting to think Adele is developing some serious oral aversion issues (actually pretty common in preemies, I'm finding out, especially those who spent a lot of time on tube feeds AND had eating difficulties with the bottle. Hmmm...sound like anyone we know??), and that would explain the sudden refusal, disinterest, etc. The Tiny-K folks worked with her a little bit today and gave us a few suggestions for holds/positions, techniques that may help, although when I tried them this evening Adele was having none of it. Sigh. My main concern at this point is daycare. We've been able to average about 20 ounces a day (still well below her recommended minimum), but that's with either Steve or I feeding her, and giving her all our time and attention. I just don't know how things are going to go tomorrow, and I'm really concerned. I just hope she'll eat.

We have a weight check Wednesday morning, so I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, I'm going to eat the calories she should be eating, but only in the form of Fun Size Baby Ruth bars. It's a sacrifice, but I'll manage somehow.

Better

2007-11-02T11:50:00.000-05:00

Things are better here. Adele ate 19.25 ounces in a 24-hour period (from 5:00 pm Wed to 4:15 Thur), which is almost double what she ate the previous day. She's doing okay so far today too. She's still under her max of 4 ounces from the end of September, but she's averaging around 3 ounces per feed every 3-4 hours and that's better than nothing. I think she should be somewhere closer to the 5-6 ounce range, but she is getting a higher calorie formula mixture so that helps too. I just did the math and if you go by the 2.5 ounces per pound of weight rule she should be eating 33.75 ounces per day. We're no where near that, unfortunately.

I'll call the doc at 1:00 today and give them another report. We have an appt for middle of the week next week so we'll check her weight then. In the meantime, I'm in the middle of a conversation with the sitter to help determine ways to make mealtimes there more productive. Hopefully we can get that figured out, or I'll just go over a few times a day and feed her myself.

So, we're getting there. The situation still isn't perfect, but it's better and better is okay too.

Another update

2007-10-31T20:27:00.000-05:00

Adele lost about a half a pound in less than a week (Fri to Wed), which is not good. :( The doc couldn't find anything obvious (no illness, stomach looked/felt normal) to explain the eating problems. I'm staying home with her tomorrow to see if she'll eat better for me (since she barely eats at daycare), and I'm to keep a log of how much she eats when. If she does better then we'll let it be and weigh her again in a week. If not, then we'll start with bloodtests tomorrow and go from there.

We're dropping breastmilk AGAIN and we have to take her back to the 24-cal formula recipe. The doc wants to take her back to when she was doing her best gaining and see if that makes a difference. Also, if she's going to skip so many meals, we need to cram as many calories as possible into the meals she DOES eat. The downside to this is that we think the higher-calorie recipe is what was making her spit up, since that completely stopped once we made that change.

We gave her a bottle at the doctor's office and, thankfully, she ate it all! (One time I was happy to be proven wrong!) However, the doc was able to see something that I had commented on during the appt--Adele seems to have adopted a "non-productive" suck instead of the one she normally used to eat. Think sucking on a pacifier versus sucking long draws to actually get food. So, she thinks Adele may need to see an occupational/speech therapist at CMH to have that addressed, assuming it doesn't get better. I think we have access to OTs/STs through Tiny-K, so I think I'll call them and find out if one can attend our meeting on Monday. Maybe they can watch her suck and see if they see the same thing.

I'd like to say HI to Steve's dad, Pa Buren, and let him know we're thinking of him and keeping him in our prayers as he recovers from his recent surgery. Get better soon!

Just a few photos for fun!

I think it's time to start drug-testing the PJ designers...

Cute little pumpkin:

She's discovered her tongue, and she really likes sticking it out, especially when you mimic her!

Appointment today

2007-10-31T15:50:00.000-05:00

The nurse called me back this morning and we're going in at 4:30 today. She said she didn't feel comfortable waiting until next week to see Adele, especially since she's eating only about 10 ounces a day. Keep your fingers crossed that we're on the road to figuring out this problem!

Oh, and Happy Halloween!

Doc update

2007-10-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay in posting a post-doc update. I guess you could say that no news is good news whenever we go to Children's Mercy! It was a good visit overall. I love Dr. Hartvingsen, and not only because she talks as rapid-fire as I do. Like Dr. Murphy (our Lawrence doc), she's not an alarmist when it comes to any issues we bring up. She's happy to hand out the facts and numbers, but it's not worst-case scenario first with her. Anyway, Adele checked out just fine and is just under 14 pounds and 24 inches. Developmentally everything seems to be on track, at least there's nothing that's making them worried thus far. Adele is doing most of what a "normal" 2.5 month old should do and a few things beyond that. She almost rolled from her back to her tummy on the exam table! She still has her hands clenched in a fist a lot of the time (when she's not relaxed), so we're going to work on encouraging her to open those up, but I don't think that's a HUGE deal. Overall, things look good!

I did manage to speak to her about everything on the list. Here's a recap:

Iron--She's off the iron for now. They took a blood draw (and baby didn't even flinch when they poked her heel!) to check her hemoglobin and will let us know ONLY if she needs to go back on.

Solids--Looks like she'll start around her adjusted 6-month age, so 9 months actual. No one is in a particular hurry to start, especially considering her senstive tummy issues.

Swallow study--She is on thickener until she gets another swallow study, which usually aren't given until 6 months after the last one. Since that one was right before her hospital discharge, we have another 3 months or so before they'd even bother with a new one. Our next CMH appt isn't until January, so the doc suggested we plan a feeding around her appt and maybe they can get an OT up to feed her and see how things are checking out. Although by then she'll be ready to start solids and may not need as much formula anyway. Oh well...it's status quo for now.

Fireplace--Yes, the fireplace is okay to use. Woo!

Reflux/Prevacid--The doc did increase her dose from 1 ml to 1.7 ml. I think it's helping a little bit!

Speaking of food refusal--No magic answer to this problem, unfortunately. She ruled out an ear infection and a few other things and said she couldn't really come up with anything to explain it. As she put it, the bad news is she doesn't have an answer, but the good news is she's not concerned about it at all. I, on the other hand, am becoming increasingly concerned because things have not improved. We're almost a full month into her eating half (at the most) of what she was eating before, and that's just not good. I know the docs keep saying her weight is fine, but at some point it WON'T be fine and I'd rather fix the problem now and not wait until it gets so bad that she's losing. I have an appt for next week to see our doctor here, but I also left a message with the nurse to find out if they want us in sooner. They're out of the office today (Tuesday) so I likely won't hear back until tomorrow. I'm about ready to ask to see a specialist of some sort. Not that I don't trust Dr. Murphy, but she can't know everything about everything and maybe a GI specialist would be able to pinpoint a cause for her problem.

Teething--There's no answer to the teething question either. Teething age is mostly genetic depending on when Steve and I each started teething. It can happen anywhere from 6-12 months, sounds like.

She finally got her Synagis (RSV) shot last Friday, which was a relief. Only 5 more to go... November will be a particularly heinous month for her since she'll need to get 4 or 5 shots that month. Poor kid.

Otherwise, we're all doing fine. Adele seems happy and "normal" aside from the eating issue, and hopefully we'll figure that problem out soon. We'll keep you posted!

Iron-y

2007-10-18T18:14:00.000-05:00

I bought a package of socks for Adele today and these are the care instructions: Wash before wear. Machine wash warm with like colors. Use only non-chlorine bleach when needed. Tumble dry medium. Use warm iron if needed. [emphasis mine]

Who in their right mind actually irons baby socks?? Who actually irons, period? Who has the time? Who has the inclination?? As if.

And in other news....

Tomorrow we head to KC for a Children's Mercy Special Care Clinic follow-up. I'm looking forward to the appointment because I'm hoping they have an explanation for Adele's sudden fussiness and food intake reduction. I have a few theories (ear infection, early teething, colic, reflux flare-up, a "phase"), but none of the symptoms of any of those problems match her exactly. So we'll see. Hopefully it's something that's easy to diagnose and fix. I don't want another answer like "oh, well, just wait and see if she gets better."

Other things on the agenda:

Iron--how much longer does she need to take it (the only time she spits up nowadays is when she takes this)
Solids--what schedule is she on for starting, adjusted or actual (age)? I'm in no hurry to start, but I want to know ahead of time so we can be ready
Swallow study--Does she get another one? If so, when? If not, will she ever get off thickener? Does she need one before she can start solids?
Fireplace--Is it safe to use the woodstove this winter, or are we risking future lung issues for her if we fire it up?
Reflux/Prevacid--Is her medicine dose strong enough given the weight gain between when she was diagnosed and now? Could that account for her sudden fussiness/food refusal?
Speaking of food refusal--What the heck is going on here?? Fix her!
Teething--Could she be teething already? When will she teethe, adjusted or actual?

I think that pretty much covers it. Hopefully we'll get lots of answers tomorrow!

The Eyes Have It

2007-10-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

Adele's eyes are starting to change color from Generic Baby Blue to sort of a greenish-brown. Right now the greenish-brown is primarily on the inside, closest to the pupil, but the remainder is getting lighter. The doctor said they could continue to change until the first year, so the jury's still out on what the final color will be. Any guesses? I have golden-brown eyes and Steve has dark brown eyes, so I'm taking a WILD guess that it will be somewhere in the brown family. ;) According to this site Adele has a 75% chance of having brown eyes and a 12% chance of having either blue or green eyes, so really anything is possible. It's interesting to watch them change a little bit here and there, though!

Picture Pages, Picture Pages

2007-10-08T19:16:00.000-05:00

Does anyone else remember Picture Pages with Bill Cosby? I think they used to show it between The Electric Company and Sesame Street or Mr. Rogers. I loved how Bill Cosby's magic marker made noise when it drew--it really WAS a magic marker! Anyway...I'm digressing, but I do have a lot of photos to share! (Was that a forced segue or what?) But first, I'll make you sit through an update.

Yes, we all survived the first week of daycare. The first day was hard for Steve and I, but I resisted the urge to visit at lunch, thinking it would just upend the daycare's routine. Buffy (the daycare provider) was really great about emailing updates throughout the day so I felt like I had a handle on things. By the end of the week, we had our morning routine down and it was easy to drop her off each day. I worked from home on Friday for the first time, and that worked well too. I had to put her in the sling at one point, but she fell right asleep and I was able to get some work done.

Last week we reintroduced breastmilk to see how that would go this time around. It went pretty well--no immediate reaction like last time. However, by the end of the week I was noticing some "changes" and she was acting a lot fussier and just different overall and I thought we'd better pull the plug on the experiment. She's started completely refusing bottles after about 2 ounces (she gets 4 total), even going so far as to push the bottle out with her hands. She doesn't even know she has hands most of the time and yet she knows how to push a bottle away. She's also started urping a lot more again, which is frustrating because she'd had a good week for the most part. Uggggh. So, because of all three factors (diapers, spit-up and bottle refusal) we thought we'd call the doc and bring her in for a quick check. The good news is she seems fine when she's not eating, and isn't lethargic or running a fever or anything. She weighed in well, too--13.5 pounds (a 1 pound gain in 2 weeks)--and seems plenty hydrated (which was a concern because of the diaper issue). The doc thinks she might have a very mild stomach bug and to give it a few days to see if things clear up. If they do, we'll try breastmilk again and cross our fingers.

The supergreat news for the week is that I found out that my insurance will cover her formula at 90%!! Woot! Woot! I'm trying to arrange home delivery service through a medical supply company and have them take care of the insurance billing instead of paying for it out-of-pocket and getting reimbursed. But even if we do have to go the out-of-pocket route at least it'll still be mostly covered. Oh happy day!

Adele is growing like a weed, and is even more alert and active these days. She's batting at the hanging toys on her bouncy chair and is doing better at holding her head/chest up during tummy time. Lots of smiles and cooing, too. She turned 5 months old on Sunday--where has the time gone!

Anyway, enough words...on to photos! As always, the full album is available here, for those of you who like to purchase them (ahem, G-ma). And, lo and behold, I figured out how to upload a video there! It doesn't have sound (because my camera is low-rent) and it's really dark (because I'm a bad videographer), but you can get the gist. The legs are the important parts, and you can see those fairly well. Hopefully I can get more videos taken now that I know what I'm doing. It may take a minute or two to load, so be patient. I hope it works!

The outfit she wore for our meet-up with nurse Lauren! Love the baby jeans (a gift from the Lincoln Pontows)!

A close-up on the cutest shoes EVER! (Thanks, Joanne!)

Just a little tummy time...

More interested in the swing's warning label than the mobileFinally, a smile caught on film!The bee makes her smile.
See??
Cutest. Baby. Ever.

Care-ful

2007-10-02T09:12:00.000-05:00

Adele started daycare today! She seemed fine when I dropped her off. I wish I could say the same for Steve and I.

An update, list style

2007-09-25T15:05:00.000-05:00

I'm so behind with my posting! I actually started this post a week ago and never got around to finishing it up, so now the news feels old and outdated. Maybe I'll just make a list and summarize the past week's info.

Last weekend Adele took her first road trip, riding in style to Auntie M and Uncle Dan's beautiful home north of Des Moines for a Darrah family gathering. She did a fine job on the 3.5 hour drive, and woke up only once there and back. After a quick snack, she was happy again and slept the rest of the way. Adele finally got to meet her aunts, uncles and cousins, including her "little" cousin Edie who is a month younger than Adele but was supposed to have been two months older (oh, this math gets so confusing!).
Adele had a well-baby check-up on Monday, and what a great one it was! Doc Murphy is completely pleased and amazed by Adele's growth and progress. Our little baby was 12.5 pounds at 6 weeks adjusted. Unbelievable. She gained 1.5 pounds in 2 weeks, and she's now in the 15th percentile for weight for full-term 4.5-month-olds. Her other stats are 23.25 for length (8th percentile) and 15.25 head circumference (not quite 3rd percentile). She's got a teeeny little noggin and is fat everywhere else. She's doing just great otherwise, though. Doc says she seems right on target for her adjusted age developmentally and physically. Her neck strength is getting better and she's starting to take more interest in the world around her, especially toys and fun things like that.
We're slowly leaving the days of the NICU behind us. First, because she's gained weight so well, we've been given the go ahead to take her formula down from the 24-cal recipe to the 22-cal recipe. The other bit of news from the appointment is that we got the go-ahead to take her off the monitor! We'd pretty much stopped using it during the days, for the most part, and Friday night marked the first night we went all night without it. Such a big step. She's a 100% wireless baby now!! We'll wait until her next CMH appt next month to turn it back into the monitor company, just to be on the safe side though. (One side benefit of being monitor-free is that now we can finally use all the PJs we had for her that zip! It opens up a whole new world of cute clothing options.)
Adele starts daycare on Tuesday. I have full confidence in our sitter, but of course I'm sad she has to go at all. My main concern is her health, and I KNOW she's going to get sick. Hopefully it will be limited to small colds and nothing more. Luckily her doc receives the shipment of the RSV vaccination this week, so we'll take her in for that as soon as they call.
She is smiling a TON now. Still no laughs yet, but it won't be long now as both Steve and I heard her do it in her sleep the other day. I'm still having trouble catching her smile on film, but I'm going to keep trying.
Saturday (Sept 29) we went to KC and met Nurse Lauren for dinner. It was so good to see her again! She's become a true friend, and I know we'll stay in touch. We can tell she really loves Adele and wants to be a part of her life.
I packed up her old 0-3 month clothes today. She's fully in 3 month/3-6 month clothes. She's growing so fast! :*(

I guess that's about for the overdue recap. Here are a few photos for your enjoyment! Follow this link for more.

Adele Hitchcock:

Edie and Adele, having a gossip session:

A good fall weekend (and a really long update!)

2007-09-11T12:57:00.000-05:00

The first signs of fall are starting to appear in our neck of the woods, and I couldn't be happier. Fall is my favorite season, but unfortunately in Kansas it's far too short. Like spring, it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it period of what seems like a month and half, despite what the official start/end dates are. So, when we get that first cool day in September (and hopefully it doesn't wait until October!), I've got a uncontrollable urge to slip into jeans and long-sleeved shirts, eat something that involves the Crock-Pot and a spoon, and sleep with the windows open. I accomplished most of those over the past few days! YAY! The weather is verging on perfect, with highs in the upper 70s and overnight lows in the 50s. Now I just hope it stays this way well into October, although it could get a little cooler to allow for a jacket now and then.

One of the most obvious fall signs is the beginning of football season. I'm not as big of a football fan as I am a basketball fan (and I'm considering renouncing my Chiefs affiliation if things don't improve), but I do enjoy a good game now and then. However, the thing about football season that I DO love is that it brings with it MARCHING BAND season. I enjoyed marching band when I was in jr. high/high school in Iowa, and I still love watching marching bands now. I think a lot of the fun of a college football game is the halftime show!

One of the many reasons I love living in Lawrence is the annual Band Day Parade. It's usually on the second weekend in September (it was Sept. 8 this year), and high school bands large and small from around the area (and some as far away as near Wichita) travel to march in the parade and perform in the halftime show during the KU football game. The KU Marching Band always opens the parade, and it always ends with the local U.S. Army division's band. However, I think the day's biggest round of applause went to the Greensburg, Kansas, school band and their example of triumph over tragedy. In years past, Papa and G-ma Pontow have traveled here to watch the parade, but they were unable to attend this year's festitivies. We missed having them, but it was still a special day since we introduced Adele to her first marching band experience. The day was lovely--sunny and warm--and the bands were great, and a good time was had by all. Adele slept through the whole parade (maybe she found the cadences comforting), and woke up only after it was over. I met friends Rob & Kris and honorary grandparents Dick and Edie (Rob's parents, who have known Steve longer than I have!) downtown, so we didn't have to watch alone. I wish every day was Band Day!

Sunday brought more fun fall activities. South Park was the site of the annual Fall Arts & Crafts Festival, so we loaded up Adele and Skeeter and headed downtown for the morning. We spent a few hours checking out the booths (although Skeeter was a little too excited to be with all those people, so we avoided the major walkways) and, of course, had to indulge in some festival food. Steve had a brat, I had a steakburger, and we shared the Big Basket O'Curly Fries, a lemonade and a funnel cake. Ugh and yum all at the same time! We bought a few things--towels and scrubbies and a spiffy new dog collar for Mr. McWheeter--but we mostly just enjoyed being outside on a cool fall morning and spending time together as a family. If only every weekend could be like that weekend!

And now for the real reason you're here, an Adele update:
She had a quick weigh-in on Monday and tipped the scales at 11 pounds on the nose! She gained 17 ounces in just about as many days. We're happy about her weight gain for many reasons, but one of them is that this means that her urping isn't affecting her growth. It's unfortunate that she's still having spitting problems, but at least we know she's still thriving. She also got a round of vaccinations during the visit. I had to work, so Steve got to witness the event. He said she did fine for the most part. There was some screaming, which was to be expected, but I think overall she handled it well. Sadly, she's been poked so often in her young life, she's probably used to it by now. :( She did seem a bit fussier than usual that evening, and slept quite a bit more than normal. We also discovered she was running a slight fever, so we bought our first bottle of Infant Tylenol, which really seemed to help. We even managed to coax a few smiles out of her by the end of the night. Starting next month, she'll get her first RSV shot and will continue to get one a month through March. Thankfully my new insurance will cover all (or a good portion) of it. Right now Adele is covered by Medicaid, which might pick up any costs my insurance won't cover. However, we're not entirely sure how long she's covered by Medicaid, so I'm not planning to rely on that for much longer.

Yesterday we also met with the Early Intervention folks and set up Adele's case plan and determined what our goals are. Mainly, we want to be able to encourage her development in any way we can, and we also want to improve her feeding issues. I think Tiny K is going to be a great resource, and I look forward to working with them to make Adele the best Adele she can be! For the next month or so, we'll meet with our case manager every week (probably on Monday, since that's Steve's day off) and go over any concerns we have and identify ways we can accomplish our goals. I learned that we should be working with Adele to increase her wake times each day, since those are the times she's actually learning. I asked how you play with a baby who isn't really interactive yet, and they asked if she had a favorite toy, rattle, etc. I was embarrassed to admit that she has a Dad who works in a toy store and we don't have any toys! The horror! But we figured out a few ways we can entertain her when she's awake, and hopefully stimulate her learning/development at the same time. I think Steve and I will be learning just as much as Adele will be!

The only concerning thing that came out of the meeting was when the case manager asked if Adele had been diagnosed with any neurological problems in the hospital. Uh....not that I'm aware of. Well, I and a few others have noticed that every once in a while Adele's leg will twitch a little bit (sort of like when you scratch a dog in just the right place and their leg has a spasm). I notice it mostly when she stretches, and a lot of times during diaper changes. The case manager said it's probably just her immature nervous system, but I plan on asking the CMH doctors about it at our next appointment. I'm sure she's fine though. She never had any brain bleeds or any other issues that would be an obvious source for neurological problems. Still...can't help but be a little concerned until we get everything ruled out.

So, that's about it from our neck of the woods. Hope fall is creeping into your world and you're enjoying it as much as we are! In the meantime, here are some photos for your enjoyment. Additional photos can be found here! (My next photo goal is to capture her adorable smile!)

Hanging out at band day:

Naptime with Daddy:

She's a baby, and she has problems

2007-09-06T21:33:00.000-05:00

Poor G-ma Pontow. Adele chose this week to become the Projectile Vomiting Queen of Douglas County (she gets a sash and everything). My mom is here watching Adele, and she's been spat upon every day this week, sometimes twice in one day. I think she'll bring extra clothes for her visit next week.

We're trying a few new things to hopefully tame the spitting. Today the doctor switched her from Zantac to Prevacid. We're trying our third type of bottle (Bottle 1 was the NICU bottle; Bottle 2 was the Playtex Ventaire; Bottle 3 is Dr. Brown's) and we have our fingers crossed. If you've been anywhere near a baby or pregnant woman in the past two years you've probably heard about Dr. Brown's bottles. Supposedly they contain magic fairy dust that instantly cures all babies of colic and reflux. And naturally they're about twice as expensive as any regular bottle you can buy, and of course we need special fast-flow nipples to accomodate Adele's thicker formula and they have to be purchased separately. THANKFULLY a coworker had four of the bottles she didn't need anymore and generously donated them to the cause. We're trying them for the first time tonight. Also, we realized that the formula that Hy-Vee has been ordering for us is slightly different from the formula the NICU gave us. The new formula has DHA & ARA additives, and the NICU formula doesn't. In doing some quickie Google searches, I found a few instances of babies having reactions to the additives, including spitting up. Thinking back, we decided that her barfing coincided with us getting formula from the store instead of the NICU. It's probably wishful thinking on my part that switching back to the additive-free version would suddenly cure what ails her. But you never know--sometimes things do work out that way! But in classic Buren-luck fashion, we have 4 unopened, unreturnable cans of the "bad" formula. Wonder if I could sell them on the black market? Maybe there's an underground baby formula network... In any case, she seems fine otherwise and we think she's still gaining weight fine. She has her next weight check on Monday, so we'll find out then.

In the meantime, we're practicing all the anti-reflux tricks we can think of: Keeping her upright during feeding and for 20-30 minutes after; burping often during feedings; smaller, more frequent meals; doing the hokey pokey and turning ourselves around... I'm sure by the time we find the magic combination of devices and methods, she'll outgrow this phase anyway.

Figures.

How do you spell relief?

2007-08-29T20:29:00.000-05:00

Adele spells it "Z-A-N-T-A-C."

At our doctor's appointment at CMH Monday, Adele was diagnosed with acid reflux. Apparently this is a pretty common condition in babies, both full-term and preterm. I'm not totally surprised at the diagnosis since I thought she exhibited many of the symptoms (high-volume spit-ups; back arching and crying mid-bottle; coughing/gagging and then spitting up stomach fluid hours after meals). So she's now on 1ml of Zantac twice a day. Hopefully it does the trick. The medicine is peppermint flavored so it gives her nice, minty-fresh breath! She always seems a little shocked by the flavor whenever we give her the medicine--her eyes get big and wide and stay that way for a while. It's awfully cute. Her CMH appointment went well otherwise, and the doctor there was pleased by her growth. We must be doing something right!

Weather here was nice today and we had a break in the really high temperatures. I strapped on the sling and secured the baby and we took the dog on a walk. It felt good to get out and get some fresh air and feel the breeze. Adele slept the whole time, of course, but she made her "mmmm" noises with each step I took which was highly amusing. The girl's a talker, that's for sure (and I have NO idea where she gets it).

Today's my last week at home with the baby before I start my new job. I'm looking forward to getting back to work, especially at a job in town. I really liked my old job and definitely loved the folks I worked with, but it will be so nice not to have to commute every day! All those great benefits don't hurt either. ;) G-ma Pontow is coming on Monday to look after Adele for two weeks, then Steve will take a week's vacation and then Grandma Van Horn (Steve's mom) is taking the last week in September. It's so nice to have family who are willing to come and help out.

Catching up

2007-08-27T17:16:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted an update of any sort. We're all settling in nicely, and are starting to get a bit of a routine, or at least Steve and I are beginning to anticipate Adele's needs instead of just reacting to her cries. Can't say we're experts at this whole parenting thing yet but we're learning!

Adele's health and progress is great so far. She's had a few weight checks, today's being the most recent. She's just under the 10 pound mark at 9 pounds, 15 ounces (and 22 inches long). Dr. Murphy is pretty shocked (in a happy way) by how well Adele is growing. She's now hugging the 3% percentile for weight and height for "normal" 3 month olds which is awesome. She's quite a chunk, too, with her chubby arms and legs. But of course it just makes her all the more adorable! She's outgrown many of her newborn onesies and fits better into the 0-3 month sizes. She inherited Steve's long torso so everything fits perfectly lengthwise, even if it's a bit loose around the middle. She had an eye exam at CMH last week and everything checked out perfectly. She doesn't need to have another exam for 6 more months! And luckily for Mom, Adele behaved herself in the rides to and from KC and in the waiting room. As with most kiddos, she zonks out as soon as she gets in the car. Tomorrow we travel to CMH for a check-up in the Special Care clinic. I'm assuming it's a regular doc appt where they'll check the usual stuff--weight, length, how much she's eating, etc. We're hoping that we'll get some news on when we can finally be rid of her monitor!

Homelife is going well too. She's a pretty easy baby and we're learning that she much prefers to be held with her tummy up on your shoulder (as if you're burping her) and not so much in a cradle hold. She's okay in the bouncy chair for awhile, but if you let her sit too long and she gets too upset, she has a tendency to urp her last meal. Yuck. Our main issue right now is that she wakes us up about every half-hour between the hours of 4:00 and 7:00 a.m. Ugh. She'll eat well at her 3:30 feeding and fall asleep just fine. Then, after about half an hour or so, she'll start grunting and creaking and squeaking and whimpering--just loud enough to wake us up--but when we go in to check on her she's sound asleep. So we head back to bed only to repeat the process in 20 or 30 minutes. Repeat for the next 2-3 hours. Yawn. The doctor's suggestion is to keep her awake in the late afternoons as much as possible and try to reset her internal clock. Any suggestions on how to keep a VERY tired newborn awake for more than 20 minutes when you can't really play with them?

We've enjoyed a few outings the past few weeks: We visited Topeka to see some my former coworkers; we visited CMP in Lawrence to see my soon-to-be coworkers; we've traveled downtown to see Dad at the Toy Store (and to bring him Happy Birthday cookies and milk on Saturday); we've made a few fast shopping trips downtown (so I could buy a sling--so handy for the baby who loves being held all the time!); and on Saturday evening we attended our first party at the Fitzno house. It was Adele's first friend outing, and we finally got to introduce her to all our friends. A good time was had by all and she was quite the star of the evening.

Oh, and the breastmilk reintroduction was a total failure. Two big thumbs DOWN. So my pumping days are over. I'm relieved and sad all at the same time. But I have a nice stash frozen in case she outgrows this allergy problem. We're going to try again in a month, hopefully with better results.

So that's the news from here! I'll leave you with a few photos:

The fruits of my labors (notice how there's no room for food in the freezer):

Chubby baby:

Her enthusiasm for tummy time is contagious:

Is this thing on?

2007-08-24T22:26:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the new home of all things Adele! We decided to move the blog operation to a new location since we have a bit more functionality here. Caring Bridge was a great information hub while Adele was in the hospital, but it is a bit limited in options, and was rather cumbersome at times. We hope you enjoy the updates here, too. Can't say they'll be as frequent or as informative as they were on CB, but we'll keep you as updated as two busy parents can.

Now fix yourself a nice TV dinner and enjoy the show!