How Old is Hallie?

Lilypie Fifth Birthday tickers

How Old is Lea?

Lilypie Second Birthday tickers

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Bathing Beauty

Hallie loves her bath. She does a lot of pretend play in the bathtub these days: she washes her dolls and does a great Jackson Pollak painting imitation (I have yet to get this on camera, but will try: this involves having us squirt her with Sesame Street multicolored bathtub finger paints; I swear I poured about a half a bottle on her today, and she kept asking for more). She also does her best Jackie O impression:



The kid won't wear her shades outside in the sun, but loves to have us put them on her in the bathroom so that she can admire herself in the mirror. Very cute, though not terribly functional. Like getting her to wear hats, this is clearly a work in progress.

And speaking of works in progress, Hallie's tummy seems to be doing better today. She had a good day overall and ate a ton (for her, at least), including a lot (probably an ounce or two) of fresh goat cheese, 8 ounces of goat yogurt, upwards of 22 ounces of various 'safe' baby foods, about 14 ounces of milk, and some juice. She visited Cosi, Starbucks, the park, and played in the dirt outside. She used her words, among which are her current favorites: bubbles, go, diaper, ready (which she also uses for the color red), and oopsie. And she ended the day with a great big poop, a word which she just added to her vocabulary today. And she is signing 'want' and 'love.' Finally, no vomit. This makes it day 41 of the year so far. We're holding steady and not changing anything up food-wise tomorrow, though we'll probably add something to the mix to see what happens on Thursday.

Hallie does probably have a touch of seasonal allergies (I am really feeling their impact now) but as of this moment, unless things become difficult for her, we're going to avoid adding new meds (like zyrtec or claritin or whatever). We'd prefer to have her on as few meds as possible, for all of the obvious reasons.

Hallie's cousin, Megan, has a scope today to see if she has celiac disease or any other evidence of a wheat allergy. Megan, who is about to turn 13, is our family's sign language devoteƩ---she has probably learned more signs than Sharon, even---and she's doing a great job of teaching Adam, Hallie's youngest cousin, how to sign, too. We really love that about her. But she also has a raging case of eczema and tummy aches all the time. We hope the scope goes well and that the ENT or allergist or whoever is performing it gets some answers that provide Megan with relief. Between Megan, and cousins Sarah and Adam and Aunt Laura, who all have asthma, there's clear evidence that there's a significant allergy history in our family. As the lore goes, the only thing that Sharon and Laura's dad was not allergic to and could tolerate was bottled water. This, above everything else, is what has made it clear to me (at least) that what we're dealing with here is not necessarily a preemie-specific issue but something hereditary. Anyway, back to Megan: we wish her luck today and think she is very brave. We've watched scopes and they are no fun, but maybe whatever they discover will make Meg feel better, and that would be a good thing.

PS: Thanks, Elisabeth, for the great Passover pics! I promise to post them (belatedly) soon.

And, on the March of Dimes March for Babies front--we've raised even more money than we had at the time of the march---we're up to $2960...thanks Aunt Ellen and Marc and Jorge!

1 comment:

23 weekers said...

Kinnick's left vocal cord is paralyzed, the right is ok. She makes very little noise (very quiet). She does cry quietly and says some "ahs". We had her scoped and there was a lot of swelling due to acid reflux. She got a Fundo and went from being on 2 lt of O2 to being on no O2. This only lasted a day due to her catching Pseudo Monus. She is now on 1/4 lt of O2. They believe the vocal cord is paralyzed due to scar tissue from her PDA ligation. If this is the case, they believe she'll outgrow this by the time she is 2 years old. I am planning another appt to her ENT to discuss her progress. I heard of a procedure that has been done where they inject fat that moves things around to relieve any pressure on the vocal cord. I'm not sure if she would/could benefit from this or not. I'm not even sure if the scar tissue is what is causing her paralysis. She's probably due for another scope.