Clean Up Time!

You may have noticed some craziness going on if you read my blog from the direct URL.

I'e changed the layout, deleted a lot of personal information- changed the name of the blog itself! what's going on here??

Since my online consulting gig is gone until further notice, I'm trying to make up that money through my blog here.  To do that however, is to allow, nay, ENCOURAGE strangers to come to my blog and read about my family, my thoughts, reviews (like the one below) and what have you. Jake and I decided that to do that- we're removing any and all personal information- including our real names, locations etc. etc. <- that sentence was an example of that change. I'll have a "Who is Who" posted in the sidebar soon, so you will be able to follow along at home! (Edit: it's up in the left hand sidebar now, go enjoy!)

Now I have the daunting task of going through each and every one of my 200+ blog posts and changing the names, generalizing locations and removing some pictures (and boring posts. some of them were HORRIBLE)

and to my family: oh yes,you will just love the nicknames I've come up for you all. mwhahahaha!!

Animal Sounds according to Chucky-Sue

Chucky-Sue is one of the most vocal toddlers I've met, she babbles all the time, even in her sleep! We've been working on the fun fun game of "What does _____ say?" Here are her answers:

Monkey: Ooh Aah.

Sheep: Aah Aah.

Duck: Waa Waa

Cat: Ow Ow

Dog: Aah. Aah.

Cow: Ooh Ooh

She is basically latching on to the main sound, and skipping over the beginning or ending of the word. Some other words that we've translated:

More: Or

No: Nonononononononononono! (add in some hand signs of pinching and hitting and you're getting close to a true Charlie No.)

Ow: Ow (She also says this for no if she's unsuccessful with her nonononononono rant)

Yes: Yah or Uh-uh

Food/Snack: Num Num

Mother: Mama

Father: Dada (more like DahDUH or DAHdee)

She signs Thank You, Eat, Me and More with accuracy, she understands Banana, Mama, Dada, Share, Sit and Down but hasn't signed those that I've noticed.

She's adorable,  she grabs a stack of her books and starts rapid-fire babbling. She then climbs on one of our laps and demands we listen to her read the books. If we don't respond with "oh really?" or "good job" she gets this look on her face that I swear she learned from Nonie and points emphatically to the page and re-babbles the whole thing.

Chucky-Sue Update

again, for the grandmothers:

Chucky-Sue's stats!

She's probably 19lbs now, eating more and more "table" food everyday, but she still prefers her "baby" foods. I'm hoping that in 3 weeks at her check up we'll finally be over 20lbs! You'll have to wait till after that appointment for her height and head percentiles.

She correctly says "mama" and "dada" to the right parent now! For a while, we were both mama and dada. among her vocabulary: hi, bye, no, and one. She has her signs for food, more, and up. We are still working on thank you, yes, no and toilet.

She is on 90% sippy cup, 10% bottle, and 100% whole milk. (Which may change at her next doctor appointment, if he nixes my unauthorized switch to cow's milk, but her constipation problem is completely gone now- proving to me it was the formula the whole time.)

She has stood unassisted for maybe 2 whole seconds, and it freaked her out! I don't think she'll be doing that, or walking, for a few months. But she can crawl fast! We play tag up and down our hallway all the time. Though, i have learned that climbing CAN happen before walking, she climbs up onto our couch, up our bookshelves, and I'm waiting for the day she climbs out of her crib.

Her favorite pastime? emptying shelves, boxes, drawers and cupboards of their contents and throwing them around. She loves her leap frog bilingual bongo, her green purse, and the picnic set she got for her birthday. But her favorite toy is whatever mommy and daddy have in their hands.

So, there you go loved ones, Chucky-Sue is alive, well and developing right on track :)

A Year on Sunday

Chucky-Sue has been HOME for a year this sunday!

first "photos" of the Girls

When she came home she was 5lbs 11oz,  a touch over 18 inches long, and sleeping almost 22 hours a day, but never longer than 3 hours at a time! Now she's 18lbs 2oz, 26 inches long and sleeping a straight 12 hours each night, plus a wonderful 3 hour nap in the afternoon.

12 months of ups and downs.(Mostly ups!)

12 months of dirty diapers.

12 months of cleaning bottles.

12 months of doctor appointments.

12 months of kisses and hugs.

12 months of formula scoops.

Soon there will be no more bottles, no more formula, less doctor appointments and a lot later, but in the horizon, no diapers! She has grown so fast these past few months, she's almost completely bottle-free, she's on her last can of formula, she's thiiiis close to standing on her own and, dare I say it, walking!?

I love you so much Chucky baby!!

Mobile!

Oh Boy.

Remember back when I was wishing Chucky-Sue would just crawl already?

I take back those wishes!! I'm not ready for a child that moves from the spot I put her! Chucky-Sue learns so quickly, she moved maybe an inch or two with the army crawl two days ago, and now? Now no part of my house is safe from her tiny fingers.

I've tried to capture her "army crawl" on video, unlike a true army crawl, she does not use her arms to pull her forward, but rather she spreads her legs out straight behind her, and rotates her feet to push her along. This is efficient for her as it keeps her hands free to grab anything and everything she goes by. We've had to have the "people don't eat paper" conversation several times, but she doesn't seem to quite grasp the concept. My trash is filled with spitballs and we've had two scary gagging incidents. Also, her foot crawl thing doesn't lend itself direction very well, she basically launches herself and hopes she doesn't land on anything hard.

That's my baby folks, never does anything the easy way!

Update on Ms. Sassafras!

Sassafras is a current nickname for our darling girl- she has definitely grown into her personality. She talks back just as well as any two year old and lets her opinion known LOUDLY. We had her 4-month check up today and her are her stats (Michael likes to say that like a sports announcer talking about LeBron...)


Height: 25 1/4 inches, the 50% for an average 4 month old
Weight: 13 lbs 9 oz, that's the 25-30% for an average 4 month old


Considering that she is not an average 4 month old, the doctors are very pleased with her growth. It's looking like she's just going to be a lean baby, as long as she doesn't plateau or lose weight they're happy. They've taken her off Neosure and on to a sensitive formula (poor girl gets awful constipation and tummyaches!)  The doctor did confirm our fears: she is beginning to teeth! As if the drool and random outbursts of crying weren't clues enough...She also had to suffer through another round of shots but this time she had her daddy to comfort her afterwards.


She is SUCH a daddy's girl and I love it! When he walks in a room or  speaks up in a conversation her eyes whip over to him and gives him such a goofy drool-filled grin! My favorite thing to do in the morning is to listen to Jake sing to her as he feeds her (Yes, he is still the one to get up in the morning, my mom-mode doesn't turn on til 9am.) and then he brings her into bed with us and we just cuddle and talk till breakfast. I know us being unemployed is generally a bad thing, and it's stressful but I am loving that we do get so much family time... Is that wrong of me? or am I just looking at the silver lining in our rain cloud?


Back to the doctor's appointment, the doctor has instructed us to have even more playtime with her. We mentioned that she doesn't seem interested in toys, she'll look at them some times; if something makes an interesting noise her eyes light up but she doesn't try to find where the noise is coming from. So we're going to try to use our voices which she WILL turn to to get her to turn from side to side and get her looking at different toys and objects. Hopefully we'll find a toy here soon she'll actually want bad enough to reach for!

Two Months

So little miss is now two months (adjusted age 12 days) and we had her check-up yesterday! :) The doctor was very impressed with her head control and muscle tone, she's doing very well despite her preemieness!

Weight: 9lbs 13oz, she's two ounces away from being double her birth weight! After her next doctor appointment she gets switched to normal formula. The only plus of neosure is her gaining weight so fast, but it makes her so gassy and uncomfortable. I'm sure if she was aware, she'd be looking forward to the switch too!

Length: 21.75 inches, she grew 1.75 inches in about a month. I could have told you that without the check up as she is a very long girl, must take after her Pahpaw!!

Sassiness: 100%

She slept AWESOMELY two nights ago, from 10:30pm to 4:30am! I don't know what made her change from her normal 2am wake up, but I'm not complaining. Sadly, she got shots at her appointment, so she was (is) cranky so it didn't happen again...

Graduation

This update is about Miss Chucky-Sue

I walked into the NICU this morning and had a heart attack, Chucky-Sue's isolette spot was empty. The monitors were off, there was no nurse. Cue freaking out like MAD. I ran to Angelina's nurse and asked where she was. Thankfully, she had just been graduated to a more stable "pod" of babies!

She's off all her IV fluids! The only wires on her now are the heart/lung/temp monitors and a feeding tube through her nose. Her job right now is to learn to take either my breast or bottle without getting tired, gain weight and control her temperature a little better.

I was able to snuggle with her for a few hours before coming back to the RMH for lunch and rest. (I did spend some time with Angelina too- her situation is generally the same.) We attempted to feed again. She latches somewhat (She seems to understand the idea behind it at least), but she gets tired after a few tries and falls asleep.

She sleeps like her mommy though, with her hands above her head. It's weird to see what little mannerisms she already has at such a young age!

I cannot believe these little ones are four days old. The days and hours have seemed to blend together, I could swear up and down that it's only Tuesday. I've noticed a strange blessing through this trial, I'm less afraid to talk to strangers, whether it be nurses, or other mothers in the milk lounge. I've met two other mothers who've been very nice to me, Nikkita showed me how the milk lounge was set up, what I'd need to bring etc. and Now, Chucky-Sue is near her little girl Regina. There was another family from RMH that have been very nice- I ate lunch with them and we compared how hard it's been (They have a little girl who was born at the same gestational age as ours.). I think finding these small blessings have helped tremendously, otherwise I'd be drowning in the horribleness.