Partying with Hallie

First off, let me just say that we did not forget to celebrate Hallie's birthday. We are merely running a bit behind where blogging about it is concerned. I'd like to think that this is solely because life got in the way of blogging again (and it has; between preparing for Hallie's party, actually celebrating the big day, and then following it up with a stellar little sleepover by our friends Anne and Eliza Grace, who beat us to the blogging punch and already have an update out about this, it's been quite busy around here. But the other, less fun reason for our conspicuous lack of birthday blogging has to do with Hallie's latest eating strike, which has, until today, had us adults (me, Sharon, and the fearless Nadia) feeding Hallie for way too much of the day, which leaves far too little of the day (or night) left for blogging. Hopefully we have put an end to this, at least for the meanwhile, by putting Hallie back on periactin (an antihistamine which also happens to be an appetite stimulant), so we've been granted some reprieve. At least for now. (And for those of you still keeping count, we're now up to 112 spew-free days).

Birthday festivities got off to an early start when Hallie's first friend and NICU primary nurse, Ellen, popped by with three balloon--one in honor of Hallie's birthday, a second in memory of Olivia, and a third for Lea--and some cool gifts for our girl, including a DVD of Mary Poppins, which I am sure Hallie will really enjoy.

The kids really enjoyed the balloons and Hallie even let Lea play with hers for some time:

 

Of course, Hallie quickly commandeered all three of the balloons (and hence deprived Lea of her balloon-gazing; I am sure that the day is not far off when Lea defends herself from toy-and-amusement-snatching perpetrated by her older sister, but right now Hallie definitely has the upper hand in things). We did little on the actual day of Hallie and Olivia's birth, but we did have a grand time on the weekend. Hallie's party was held at a local kids' gym and most of her favorite people were able to make it to the festivities (even us, but just barely: while the car was all packed up with sodas and goodie bags by ten o'clock, it took longer than average to feed Hallie her breakfast. On top of this, Whole Foods' pizza chef forgot to make her the goat mozzarella pizza that I had commissioned, so all of us just barely made it to our kid's event. Alas, this is par for the course around here, but happily, it wasn't a big deal and everything else went off without a hitch).

The unfortunate thing about gym parties, however, and particularly those involving trampolines, is that the subjects which us parental types are trying to capture on digital media, are constantly in motion. So many of the shots I got with our camera (which doesn't handle indoor photography as well as I'd like it to even under the best circumstances) were none too fabulous.

Happily, Anne did get in some good shots. I managed to figure out how to copy the entire album into blogging from her Shutterfly account, but not individual pictures. If anyone remotely more tech-savvy than I am cares to guide me through this process, I'd love to hear how this can be done.

Click here to view these pictures larger

Eliza Grace was one of five micropreemies in attendance that day. Look closely at the slide show and you'll see several pictures of lovely Nina Fox. We were also lucky to have among us three other 23 weekers, Elizabeth and our friends Sydney and Payton, whom we know from the ICN at Pennsylvania Hospital. They were born about five weeks before Hallie and Olivia and their mom, Madaline, helped guide us through the NICU experience back in the old days. Suffice it to say that the micropreemie cohort was decidedly over-represented at our little shin dig, and with good reason.

We were also lucky to have lots of family at the event. Grammy, Aunt Laura, and cousins Sarah, Hannah, and Adam came down to help Hallie celebrate and big brother, Jake, helped introduce Hallie to the mysteries and wonders of being three. Finally, our event was made extra special by our friends: Charlie and Aaron's mom, Sara, who is very very creative, volunteered to make Hallie a lovely giraffe birthday cake that was also allergen-free (and burned herself quite badly in the process). The cake came out great, but Sara's arm is worse for the wear and we hope that it's feeling better now. And we were thrilled that Alex's mom and dad, Sheila and Brett; Sam's mom and dad, Elisabeth and TJ; and Taylor's two moms, Renee and Kim, were there to help Hallie usher in her big-kid status. (Hopefully I've not succumbed to horrible mommy-brain and left anyone out!)

Anyway, like I said, none of the pictures we took are much to write home about but we did get some quasi decent shots.

Here's one of Hallie, Hannah, and Adam on the trampoline:

 

Hannah and Hallie are doing ring-around the rosy with Eliza Grace in the background:

 

And here Alex is getting in on the ring-around-the-rosy action:

 

Basically, Hallie would do ring-around-the-rosy forever if she could. She's really into kids' dance and music routines generally right now (no doubt this is Barney's influence) and I suspect that she'd do pretty well at a dance class (were her schedule to permit this).

No birthday party would be complete without a blowing-out-the-candle event, and we did that twice at Hallie's party last Saturday (mostly because we were too daft to have cameras prepared to capture the event the first time around).

 

Hallie loved the singing and even managed to help blow out the candles. The practicing we did earlier in the week really helped her understand what was happening and what was expected of her. Of course, she needed no prompting or practicing when the time came to open her numerous presents!

Even Lea got in on the party action: she had a grand time being held by her big little cousins:

 

 

Anyway, a grand time was had by all and we continued our celebration with Anne and Eliza Grace, who spent the night. Eliza feasted on the tops of many Whole Food chocolate cupcakes and we had surf and turf, courtesy of our grill. The next day the girls woke up and had a nice bath together and we all headed out to the Please Touch Museum, where the kids ran around, played, and had a great carousel ride.

 

 

There's a lot of good stuff happening in Lea's life, too, and she is the subject of my next post (hopefully to be composed some time really soon!)

The Mother of All Posts...Part Two: Visiting with Friends and Having Fun

Just in case my last post transmitted the impression that it was all surgery and eating (neither of which are particularly fun activities where Hallie is concerned) around here, allow me to correct that post haste. We've also had our fair share of fun play dates and outings around here lately.

In addition to her regularly scheduled gym class, which Hallie loves (and which has given Hallie a sense of structure, circle time, cleaning up, etc as well as a lot of physical strength that is beginning to show---she is now getting more comfortable walking up stairs with support both from us and the banister and has learned to climb on the monkey bar structure that is giving her access to the long slide in the playground down the block and my heart is no longer always in my mouth when she attempts this feat), we've also been doing a bunch of other fun stuff.

First, two weekends ago we had a very nice playdate over at Elizabeth's house with Elizabeth and Eliza Grace. I got a couple of nice shots of two of our moving targets who did, actually, play a bit with one another.

 

 

Sadly, I did not get a picture of Elizabeth, yet again!

We also had a fun play date with Jake and Gina who came to visit us for dinner that same weekend. Jake is an amazing kid and the resemblance between him and Hallie are remarkable and more than just skin deep. Both kids are into numbers and letters and Jake is able to not only write his name but also a lot of other words. He is a beginning reader at the ripe old age of three and very, very clever (Hallie is showing signs in this direction, too. This morning she took out these sign language flash cards I bought way back when that we never actually used and not only focused on the pictures and signs but also on the letters, spelling out each word and pointing to them with her fingers in the way that an early reader would). Both Hallie and Jake are into puzzles and Jake acquainted us with these very cool multilayer puzzles (of course, I ran out--or surfed over--and bought one of an egg turning into a tadpole and then a frog that is now on its way to our house).

Like Hallie, Jake is also a sensory kid. Perversely, this makes us very happy (I am not sure it makes his mom so happy, though!) since it's clear that Jake is not only typically developing but a gifted little boy.

Jake also made me happy by eating seven (!!!) of my fish sticks. I hope that one day he serves as a model for Hallie in this respect.

Here's a lovely shot of all the kids and Gina:

 

And here's Jake playing dress up. Of all the options, he picked Miss USA. Silly boy!

 

We've also managed to get to the Please Touch Museum twice in the last week. On our first visit, which took place on a Saturday, it was enormously crowded, but Hallie mostly took things in stride and did not get overloaded or melt down (until we got to the carousel line, but even then pretty much did okay even with the fifteen minute wait).

As predicted, Hallie loved the room full of shoes (a pretend shoe store) and was particularly attracted to a pair of black patent leather tap shoes that were way too big for her. We almost had to do an intervention to get them back!

Here she is planting flowers in the flower garden:

 

Here she is oggling herself in the Alice in Wonderland exhibit:

 

And here she is looking like a giant in that same exhibit:

 

Honestly, I found the whole Alice in Wonderland thing just a bit freaky. Oddly enough, I've never been a big fan of the book (I also don't really like that other classic, Wizard of Oz, terribly much. I find both fairly frightening and always have).

Of course, Hallie was particularly interested in sensory experiences at the Please Touch. During our Saturday visit, she grooved on racing through and spending time in the section where they had what I think was a simulated rain storm using these plastic sheets cut into ribbons that hung down all around (kind of like the things that wash off the water at a car wash). She would have spent all day in there. The picture does not do justice either to the exhibit or Hallie's joy at spending time in it:

 

And speaking of sensory experiences, Hallie LOVED the water table area. She gleefully played with the ducks and water wheel toys and boats on both of our visits.




Of course, some of this play involved considerably rearranging.

Where do you think all of the ducks from the duck pond went?



Why, here they are!



And no sensory experience is complete without sticking one's hands into the hand dryer:



Hallie also had a lot of fun playing in the three-and-under indoor playground area and loved how fast she could go on the indoor slide:



(She also just mastered what I call the 'curly slide' at our local playground. Way back when, she had a bad flipping incident on one of these and we've been too chicken to have her try again. Piece of cake now)

And she loved jumping on the lily pads and even managed to get both feet off the ground roughly at the same time once or twice:



Hallie also had a great time in the arts and crafts room. She seemed to know exactly what to do in terms of painting at the easel (though to my knowledge she has no actual experience doing this). She picked up the brush like a pro, happily dipped it in paint and used the paper (rather than her body) as a canvas. She ended up having a marked preference for green, but the finished work of art is quite lovely and Hallie seems very proud of it:







And here's Hallie playing dress up with some wild stuff in that same room.





All in all, she had tons of fun at the Please Touch and we're hoping that we get to go back soon and that some of our friends, preemie and full-term alike, join us there!

Just one last note: we did, at last, manage to interview a single decent nanny candidate (out of a field of about a dozen, and many dozens of emails from others we did not bring in) and, thankfully, she accepted the position when we offered it to her. Our new nanny, who will start on the 16th, when Sharon needs to return to work, has some personal experience with feeding issues and aversions and kids on the spectrum; her nephew, who grew up with her, has both and so N. has an idea of what she is getting into here (which is always useful) and was even here for a feeding therapy appointment that exhibited Hallie's averse and sensory tendencies around food. We try to be up front about Hallie's issues without detracting from her excellent points, though it nearly always feels like we are making excuses for her ('she has all these needs, but she is the sweetest girl in the world' starts to ring hollow for me). Thankfully N. was not put off by this and seems up to the challenge. So at least that's off our plate.

Still on our plate: testing (for the 3-5 early intervention ("Intermediate Unit") placement); preschool visits (more on this in the next post); and fighting the system. Also on our plate: two batteries of tests--one administered by the Center for Autism and the other by the annoying agency that administers IU in Philadelphia County. Makes ear tubes seem like a walk in the park.

Whew...two posts down and one more to go, but no promises that I'll get to finish, or even start it, before the dawn of March.