Updates and Milestones (just not the typical ones...)

Hi All,

I do promise to add in some pictures later---I realize that I am woefully remiss on uploading them to my computer and then downloading them to the blog. It's not like I haven't taken any lately; it's just that it's been a pretty exhausting few weeks.

Anyway, I wanted to update everyone on Hallie's tests results. When I spoke to the Pulmonologist on Tuesday, she said that, while they did culture a couple of different bacteria from her lung/bronch wash, a. both of the things that they cultured were resistant to Amoxycillin (the antibiotic Hallie was taking) and b. that it was awfully suspicious that these two (unspecified) bacteria were cultured from the same sample. Hence, she (the pulmo) felt that the sample itself was contaminated and didn't really tell us much of anything. If Hallie does get sick again (and we are crossing our fingers that she won't), the pulmonologist will prescribe a different antibiotic. I am sure that this will be fun to give to our little girl. Even the bubble-gum-flavored amoxycillin was sort of a nightmare; Hallie knows what a syringe looks like and her experience with syringes is not a terribly favorable one. I am sure that she still has the taste of the bicarbonate into which they suspend prilosec in her mouth. So we had to mix the amox. into vanilla pudding, yogurt, or at least give it to her by the spoonful to get it down. Fun, fun, fun.

Still, the pulmonologist was not so concerned as to order another bronchoscopy (thank goodness) and feels like Hallie's lungs sound clear; that most of the problems she is having are confined to the upper airway; and that Atrovent might be a nice substitute for Albuterol given that Hallie has laryngomalacia.

The GI samples were much more promising: Hallie shows no sign of damage to her esophagous from the refluxing acid nor any indication of having a milk intolerance or any other food-related allergic reaction. While she still might be aspirating a bit, no one is too concerned about this. Nor are they suggesting that Hallie have a G-tube placed. This is because she is growing so well.

Which brings me to her current stats: our very wiggly girl weighed in at 9,150 grams (give or take a few to account for the wiggling), which is equivalent to 19 pounds 9 ounces. This is phenomenal (and would still be were the scale a whole 100 grams off). Basically, Hallie is at the 50th percentile for her adjusted age in terms of both weight and length and at about the 10 per cent mark for her actual age. So her steep ascent continues.

This does not mean that the vomiting has stopped; indeed, we still have a hugely impressive record of one day of no vomiting in a row. But she is taking more in and keeping more down these days.

More important milestones, however, were attained by Hallie this week:

1. The putting-something-into-a-hole milestone. Hallie has long been resistant to the idea of putting things in things and instead has focused exclusively on taking things out of things. To help remedy her of this defect, Sharon and I bought her the Fisher Price gumball machine:



For the first few weeks that she owned this toy, Hallie could not be bothered to put the balls back into the machine. But yesterday (Thursday), she suddenly put it all together and now she is trying to put EVERYTHING into the gumball machine.

2. The pooping milestone. Hallie has now pooped on the floor to her bedroom (she was sans diaper at the time because Sharon was getting her bath together and had forgotten to fill up the tub so she placed Hallie on the floor in the nursery for a wee second. Which turned out to be just long enough to squeeze out a poop and begin to trail it all over the place. If that were not enough (and I assure you that it was), Hallie also decided to poop in her bathtub tonight. Clearly, she is living up to her nickname of Poopy Lou (which dates back to the NICU days when Hallie would poop 3-4 times a day; she still does!)

3. The first-word-that-suggests-that-the-kid-watches-too-much-Sesame-Street. The word? A highly predictable Elmo, used absolutely appropriately to signify red furry monsters with high pitched voices.

4. The first-attempt-to-let-go-and-walk-milestone. A big one, though still unsuccesful. And what, might you ask, motivated her? Paper, of course, which is the food of choice for Hallie since all that pooping requires a high fiber diet.

OK, that is all for now; I'll try for some real images in my next post.

Update on Hallie's tests

This is going to be brief because the last few days have been exhausting and this mama needs some sleep.

Anyway, we don't know everything yet, but we do know the following:

Hallie's left vocal cord is paralyzed, most likely due to iatrogenic causes, namely the ligation of her PDA. This seems like a small price to pay for life, but we cannot help but wonder what her voice will sound like. More importantly, i need to follow up with ENT to confirm that the paralysis is in the midline position.

Additionally, Hallie has laryngomalacia. This is the most common upper-airway issue that babies have and most often it self resolves by 18 months-2 years. This floppiness in her larynx may explain her speech delays and some of her eating issues. The is a very strong correlation between laryngomalacia and GERD.

We did, indeed, have a Modified Barium Swallow Study on Friday and, not terribly surprisingly, it showed aspiration on thin liquids. There was some pooling on thickened liquids (we have been using Simply Thick to thicken her feeds for the past month or so and this has seemed successful to me), but no aspiration. There may have been some penetration into the airway but Hallie managed to push it out. Purees were fine across the board.

Where do we go from here? Unclear to me and I really need Hallie's ped. to put it all together for me. We are still awaiting results to see whether the macrophages in her bronchial lavage fluids are lipid-laden, which would not be a good thing since that would suggest a lot of aspiration. Given how well Hallie is growing, doing developmentally, and the like, we'd like to resist any drastic surgical intervention. My hope is that the GERD and floppy airway will improve and that we can just start acting/being like parents, and not parents of micropreemies.

I don't mean to kvetch; in the larger scheme of things, Hallie is doing really well. I just wish that we could make her more comfrotable and get her over this hurdle.

Hallie at the Beach

Hallie finally made it down to the Shore this weekend. We'd be trying and trying, but our foray to the beach (which is a mere fifteen or so minutes from where Grammy and Aunt Laura live) has been sabotaged by bad weather or bad health or mommies' inability to make it out the door in time with all of our beach gear on various occasions this summer. We're happy to report that none of the above applied on Sunday.

Anyway, we're thrilled to report that Hallie has ocean in her blood and that she was not in the least freaked out by the sand and surf. Instead, she dug right in, so to speak.

Mommy held Hallie at the water's edge and they 'jumped' the waves together (Hallie was in mommy's lap the whole time). The water was impressively choppy since it was pretty windy and just about high tide. Hallie thought the whole experience was a blast.




Meanwhile, the two moms didn't exactly win any parenting awards when they totally forgot to put Hallie into a swim diaper before all of the aforementioned activity. In the past, they had put on the swim diaper too soon and ended up with a puddly mess. This time, they only managed to change Hallie into it after she had a huge blowout diaper that required two or three adults, several diapers, a chuck, and much distraction to be changed. Live and learn. Smile.

Here's Hallie enjoying her first ever ice cream sandwich. More wich than sand, fortunately, since Hallie decided that there IS a non-edible substance she's not terribly interested in putting in her mouth. We were happy to find that to be the case, though we'd like her to not put the seaweed schmutz and pieces of straw and rock that wash up on the shore in her mouth, either.



Late in the day, the sea air had gotten to Hallie and she began to settle in for a bottle and a nap. But before beginning to suck in earnest, Hallie teased mommy, and mama caught it on video:



A good day, indeed a lovely weekend, was had by all (---thanks Grammy for watching Hallie on Saturday night so that the moms could have an all-too-rare night out!), and Hallie wants to do it again, SOON.

Meanwhile, we're gearing up for Hallie's joint ENT/GI/PULMO scopes tomorrow. Everyone here is a bit nervous (well, Hallie doesn't really know what she's in for, thanks goodness, but the moms certainly do. We hate, hate, hate the idea of her quite likely being intubated and placed on the ventilator when we were fighting so hard to extubate her this time last year, and we're a bit concerned that none of this invasive and surgical procedure (complete with general anesthesia) will yield information that we can translate into a way of solving her congestion/reflux issues. But hopefully we'll know something more about the damage to her trachea, her vocal cords, and her GI tract and whether there is evidence of aspiration or allergies that aren't otherwise visible. We've been trying to treat Hallie with shots in the dark and that has obviously not been terribly productive. Hopefully this will help us do something to make her more comfortable.

Play Date with Benjamin

On Friday, Hallie had a play date with Benjamin, who is a fellow ICN graduate (he is a 28 weeker born a couple of days before Hallie).

Hallie thought Benjamin was super cute and was very excited by the idea of playing with him:



Benjamin and his mommy and daddy (Polly and Chris) just moved from Philadelphia to Park Slope, Brooklyn. But we'll be keeping in touch with them and seeing them (Polly's family lives in Philly) because of our special bond.

On The Charts!!!!

Hallie is ON THE CHARTS for her ACTUAL age. She weighed in at 8420 (up from 8150 on Friday--both on the scale she's normally weighed on at the pediatrician's office). That's 18 lbs. 9 ounces, and a 9 ounce gain, from last Friday.

In other words, our girl is HUGE. And has thighs to prove it (they aren't fat so much as strong...)

What's the trick that brought us here? I think that shifting her from prilosec in suspensions to prilosec capsules mixed in a bit of applesauce is really helping her eating a lot. The old method of giving it to her (mixed with enough formula to kill the taste of the bicarb), in tandem with the notoriously unstable and less long-lasting suspension meant that she was benefiting very little from the meds. With the shift, she's feeling much better and is eating better, too. The only thing keeping down her volume is her congestion, and hopefully we'll get that under control soon. Meanwhile, the second key has been increasing the amount of solid baby food (purees) that she's eating---she's now getting over 3 jars a day, which is a huge deal to us.

Still, we have the congestion that remains unimproved, and that may actually be turning into a full blown sinusitis. We're going to admit he voluntarily for a scope that will be watched and evaluated by GI, ENT, and Pulmonology. Hopefully they'll have more answers after that and hopefully we'll be able to get this under control at some point.

Meanwhile, we are thrilled with her size, her progress, and her overall liveliness. This liveliness is getting even cuter now that she is vocalizing all the time and even beginning to make some consonant sounds (g, k, r, and more recently, an attempt at an 'm' that sounds a lot like kissing). We're so proud of Hallie for how far she's come!

Hallie's Bathtime Antics...

Hallie loves bathtime; this is why:



Now, at long last, with sound...Enjoy!

Photo Thursday

I sort of fibbed last time when I said that we had no new pictures. The issue was that I had forgotten to upload the ones we do have...

So, for your visual pleasure, (and to spare you my verbose prose for a bit), I'll start this post with a long photo retrospective of the past week or so.

First, we decided that Hallie cannot possibly really have a 13 week long cold and that the issue must be something else. Since the quarantine hadn't really (who am I kidding...in the least is more like it) improved the congestion situation, we decided that for the sake of Hallie's development and her mommies' sanity, we'd lift it a bit and allow some interaction with friends and family. If things get better with our new regimen (more on this later), we'll lift the quarantine further. However, we're going to be vigilant about making sure we spray down toys, purell everything in sight, etc etc.

So about ten days ago, we brought Hallie over to see Karina. The kids obviously missed each other desperately and spent the first ten minutes hugging. No exaggeration on this, either. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to capture this session (the camera was over in our house, next door). But we did manage to get one cute shot of Karina doing Hallie's hair:



Hallie also enjoyed playing with Karina's toys, and especially with the excellent music table that Karina got from one of her Hong Kong relatives. Here's DJ Jazzy Hallie mixing it up:



And here's a great shot of Hallie's strong legs and lack of butt. Seriously, this kiddo has no hips and no tushy. Unless she gets a belly somehow, I think we're going to start looking for toddler suspenders for her (I am sure she'll enjoy chewing on them):



Then, last Saturday, despite the vomiting and congestion, Hallie and Mommy went off to the shore (I stayed home to get some stuff done) to visit Grammy, Aunt Laura and the cousins. Hallie loved playing in the pool (her favorite activities are water-related. She loves her floaty device, all wading pool experiences, and lots of splashing. In the bath at night these days, she likes to stand up and then let go and splash hard on her butt and then stick her face in the water and blow bubbles. She does this over and over and it's really cute, even if it is a bit odd. Alas, we haven't yet captured that on video but will try to do so before she gives up this practice for some other antic). Hallie was less sure of what to make of the carousel on the boardwalk at Ocean City:




She eventually settled in for the ride, which (along with the chock-full day, the sun, and all the activities with her cousins) began to put our little one to sleep:

Hallie had a great time as usual hanging out with the family. Here's a picture of Hallie smiling at Hannah, who is doing a very nice supermodel impression:



Hannah always makes Hallie smile!



And here's Hallie with Grammy, Aunt Laura, and the cousins:



Later on, Hallie was taken on a visit to all of the great food emporia on Ocean City's boardwalk and tasted many new things.

Here she's staring adoringly at Mack and Manco's pizza (like Mommy, like Hallie!):



And here she's tucking into a cone of soft ice cream. Yummy!


And here she's having her very first experience with cotton candy, which went quite well. What could be better: it's melt in your mouth and chock full of calories. Now if they could only make it loaded with vitamins and fat, we'd have the perfect food for her. Any budding culinary chemists out there, here's your challenge: come up with a healthy, fattening, avocado flavored spun food that melts in your mouth, and you will have hundreds of micropreemie mommies as your loyal customers!



Then, on Tuesday, Hallie got to spend time (FINALLY!) with her friend Maya (and Maya's lovely parents, Rachel and Dan). Loyal blog readers will remember that Maya and her sister Elana were 25 and a half weekers born at the same hospital as Hallie and Olivia a month earlier. They were the people we always looked for when we were in the hospital (which was pretty much always, and their family was pretty much there constantly too) and we've gotten to know them very well over the past year. Unfortunately, our concerns about Hallie's health have kept the girls apart much more than we would have liked, but we NEEDED to see them on Tuesday since they are leaving for California this weekend. So we bit the bullet, sprayed everything down very carefully and had them over to dinner. Karina and Vanessa (her mom) also joined us, and the three girls had a blast together.

Maya, you were supposed to call!




Kiddle conference around the coffee table:




Karina having a good time petting Maya:


Anyway, the kids had a great time together, the parents had fun, and we will miss Maya, Rachel, and Dan A LOT. We hope they'll be back on this coast soon to visit Rachel's family and that we can make play dates with them here or in NJ (since Rachel's family lives very close to Sharon's, that should be fairly easy to arrange). Maya is such a beautiful baby with such a winning personality and it's going to be fun watching our girls grow into toddlers together.

Very very briefly on the Feeding Clinic at St. Joseph's: we had a good day, even if it was a long one. First, it was nice to know that Hallie has put on weight in spite of the problems with food and vomiting---according to their scale, she was...get ready for this...18 lbs. 4.5 ounces. We don't know if the scale was accurate (it was one of those really old-fashioned ones; you can really tell the difference in funding between CHOP and St. Joe's, which is in a very depressed area of Northern New Jersey). Anyway, even if the scale is off by a bit, Hallie has still put on upwards of 3/4 of a pound in the past week and is now very VERY close to being on the actual chart for weight (in other words, for 13.5 months). She definitely has more leg chub and a few extra chins.

But more importantly, even if they don't have the high tech bells and whistles that they did at CHOP, we found that the Feeding and Swallowing Clinic at St. Joe's was much more thorough and much more sympathetic to what is going on with us and more willing to try to figure out how to solve it. They did a more thorough observation of Hallie's eating (instead of the 1.4 seconds of me shoving the bottle in the baby's mouth before the CHOP doc came back in and said, 'she's got an uncoordinated suck, is aspirating, and probably needs a G-Tube). In fact, the word 'G-Tube' NEVER came up today. Nonetheless, they noticed from Hallie's posture, the way she crawled, etc that she was uncomfortable, that the posture looked a lot like her compensating for reflux that is not really under control, and they raised the question of whether the vomiting and congestion could be related to a milk intolerance that isn't as horrible as some kids' but is still causing her a lot of discomfort. This might make some sense since this all began when Hallie came off of breast milk, which had been diluting her Enfamil AR, and began to drink AR straight and then the very hard to digest Pediasure. First, we're going to try a new regimen with Prilosec that helps her system use it more effectively (moving from the bicarb solution to capsules, the beads of which we will mix with a little applesauce and feed to her an hour before dinner to make sure that her stomach is a lot less full). If that doesn't help, we'll move from Pediasure to Peptamen. And if that doesn't work, we'll see. But it was heartening to hear someone say something other than "live with it" or "tube her." I know that our Ped. has been trying to help (and he got us to St. Joe's to begin with, which is very good), but it's been a very frustrating two-three months and the frustration has pretty much persisted unabated. The very idea of having a reasonable sounding treatment plan and sympathetic people who are trying to really help us is calming. Hopefully some of this will work, because if we can get this under control, we can begin to teach Hallie how to deal with textures, subdue her gag reflex a bit, etc. Without getting the congestion and the pain that she must be feeling under control (not to mention begin to heal some of the damage that is being done to her esophagous), we can't really deal with the behavioral issues. Anyway, I'll post updates on this as we progress; meanwhile, keep your fingers crossed for us!

ICN Follow Up--the nine month update

I've been kind of hesitant to post. First, we have virtually no new pictures and, second, Hallie has yet another one of her colds. It's the latter that really has us down (and is probably the reason for the former). We finally made it ten whole days without an upper respiratory infection and, Tuesday, we were in the throes of a new one. I know that we should be thankful that her lungs, as usual, sound clear and that it's not worse than it is, but honestly, when, precisely, do we catch a break around here? On Monday, we visited Hallie's accupressure/cranio-sacral specialist who has been doing massages to help her with her swallowing. I am not sure that this really will improve her swallowing, but am fairly certain that it helped delay the onset of her latest URI. Hallie sounded pretty clear and ate pretty well on Monday. She even went so far as to fool the unsuspecting potential childcare provider/nanny (since when did everyone become a nanny? I remember just babysitting) into believing that she was an easy to feed/easy to change baby. Needless to say, everyone out there who might take on this Tuesday or Thursday all-day position is forewarned that our princess can do a backflip on the changing table (maybe a triple axle? do they rate babies and not just olympic skaters for these antics?)

Tuesday, however, was another story. We were back to Hunger-Strike Hallie, who was super congested.

Wednesday was even worse. We were scheduled for her 9 month follow up at the ICN and, since she was not running a fever, we decided to keep that appointment. At least it would give us the opportunity to bounce some ideas off of the very wonderful neonatologist who handles developmental follow up.

In any event, with a bit of coaxing, Hallie did everything that (I think) she was supposed to do. This is a relief but not all that surprising. She does seem to us (untrained mommy types) to be right on target in terms of her gross motor skills, and pretty good (in that she has a rudimentary pincer grasp and the capacity to bang blocks together and the like) in terms of her fine motor skills. Her language skills seem to us to be lagging but, that said, over the past few weeks she has been vocalizing a whole lot more and doing some imitation and tonal vocal sounds. We do have some hope that at some point she'll begin to vocalize consonants.

The aforementioned excellent neonatologist said that it has only been recently that the field has been paying any attention to delayed language skills and that, surprise surprise, they are finding that this is more the rule than the exception where micropreemies are concerned. Certainly a large majority of the micropreemies out there who are otherwise typically developing seem to have delayed language skills. I am not sure why anyone finds this to be surprising---you try shoving a fairly rigid tube down my throat and I too would be averse to all things oral and have all sorts of motor problems when it comes to moving my lips and the like....

And that brings us to topic number two in the family (which is indeed topic number one around here): eating. Or not. Sharon and I are arguably too good at this skill (and lack time to exercise). Hallie, on the other hand, exercises to her heart's content and would prefer approximately zero time eating.

Hence, while she gained weight during the first part of this month (reaching a high of 17 lbs. 5 ounces, or about 25th percentile on the growth chart for her adjusted age; she is 72.5 cm or about 75th percentile in height for adjusted age and 43 cm head circumference, which is 25th percentile for adjusted age), it's our very strong suspicion (confirmed by unscientific lifting of the baby that involves little to no exertion) that she has lost weight over the past couple of weeks. Of course, this is related to her (most recent) cold and mucous build up, which no doubt makes it hard to eat (as in her nose is always stuffed) and easy to throw up (she has so much mucous in her system that she coughs it up, along with whatever paltry amount of food she has ingested. This makes a lot of sense, cognitively, since it's more important to be able to breathe than it is to eat). This is very good for her in terms that it protects her airway but very bad for her weight as it means that, once again, she is threatening to fall off of her adjusted growth chart.

We're not really sure what to do here. Hallie is most certainly not adjusting to the pediatrician's schedule (which consists of: she will eat when she is hungry). Our girl, simply put, has no idea what hunger is and, between all of the cold-related and reflux-related vomiting, I imagine she has come to think of food as evil. Who can blame her? Yet, without eating she cannot get better at eating, In any event, we're hoping that our consult at St. Joseph's hospital in Paterson, combined with the collective wisdom of many preemie parents, will help povide us with some answers about what is going on here. And hopefully we'll also locate a few strategies to help keep Hallie eating. We're already thickening her feeds with Simply Thick that has had minimal impact on her intake. In any event, we'll try to retain a grasp of whatever sanity we still have and forge forward on this because, after all, what else are micropreemie moms supposed to do?

One idea that we've had (but which her pediatrician does not favor) is introducing Periactin. Periactin is an antihistamine that also functions as an appetite stimulant and, while it doesn't work for all kiddos, it does seem to be useful to a whole bunch of them. It seems to me that it might also be helpful in terms of preventing her mucous buildup (since it is, after all, an anti histamine). Yet, from what I gather, it's not a good drug to prescribe to those with respiratory distress. Yet Hallie is prone to colds but not pneumonia or any knid of desaturation of oxygen; it's unclear to me wether she is in respiratory distress or whether she simply has a chronic but not terribly devestating form of reactive airway disease. Anyway, I will bring this up again with her ped. and GI specialists and see what they think...

Meanwhile, we'll just muddle through...

This is how Hallie sleeps...

with her butt up in the air.

Seriously, it's her favorite position.

No time now for a real post, but I promise to write more later.

One, Two, Three, Counting with Ease...the July 4th Post

I think that three posts in three days is some sort of record for me, but there's a lot of catching up to do. Also, excuse me if I'm a bit out of order here; this post actually should precede the story of Curious George and the Climbing Hallie.

Anyway, for a while now, Hallie has had quite a well-developed Sesame Street habit; we inherited the Sing Yourself Silly DVD from Aunt Laura (Hannah has outgrown it and Adam never liked it much) and have been playing it for Hallie daily, at the very least (who in the world am I kidding? The kid won't eat without a good dose of James Taylor and his little friends singing the tale of Jelly Man Kelly. This song gets repeated at least five times during any meal!) Hallie actually does seem to watch Sesame Street; she squeals when she sees Elmo, she loves the songs, and unless there's a lot of uninterrupted dialogue, she'll sit in one place and pay attention to the action. I am risking being called Abby Cadabby by my own daughter some day. Sigh.

In any event, our friends Ethan and Karina had been to Sesame Place one time each earlier this season and we were feeling a bit jealous and thinking about an outing there ourselves. Hence, we were thrilled when Billie, Holland and Eden's mommy, let us know that they were going to be going there for their vacation. We all decided to meet up on the 4th of July for a joint park experience.

Alas, the weather was uncharacteristically cold and cloudy (the whole rest of the week was lovely; now there's just unrelenting heat and humidity around here--good thing that we live near very tasty water ice emporia). So splashing in the lazy river was out of the question. Nevertheless, we had a great time. This may sound very sad, indeed, but it's wonderful to be with parents who take it completely in stride when your kid refuses to eat anything at all, throws up in her stroller, and only takes her bottle once she collapses from exhaustion. It's nice not to be dismissed as utterly insane when we explain that we feed our kid food that contains butter, sugar, cream, and avocado--all at the same time and that we know precisely (or very nearly) the number of ounces, calories, etc that she consumes in any 24 hour period and her weight down to the gram. But this isn't the only reason that meeting Holland, Eden, and Billie, and John was wonderful: they are a great family and the girls are even more amazing in person than they are on their blog. We were really honored to meet them because we admire them all so much. It's not just that they have this wonderful blog that so many of us micropreemie parents have pored over, consulted, taken solace in, etc. More importantly, I think that, on the blog, Billie and John have shown all of us how much fun they have as a family. This is something that is too easy to lose sight of when we're in the middle of crises and suffering from the post NICU PTSD. And that's tragic, really; remembering to have fun with our kiddies and enjoy them for who they are, regardless of the unexpected circumstances of their births, is one of the most important things that we can do as parents.

Anyway, at the risk of gushing, suffice it to say that Billie, John, Holland and Eden are great fun to be around. We hope that we can coax them back this way with offers of showing them all of the really fun stuff that is available for kids in the Philly area (from storytelling and kids' plays in front of the Betsy Ross house to the carousel and mini golf in Franklin Square to the Camden Aquarium and Philly and Elmwood Zoos, just to name a few. Oh yeah, and Sesame Place always beckons again!!!). Seriously, if any of you loyal readers (assuming that you are not already in Philly, of course) are in the area, please let us know...

Anyway, back to the day. We were greeted at the gate by none other than Super Grover on our way to rent a double stroller for Holland and Eden.


Alas, no one was in the mood to pose and smile because everyone (with the glaring exception of Hallie) was hungry. So we headed off to get a snack at Elmo's snack shack. We were very impressed by how much gusto Holland and Eden relished their meals and this also gave us hope that Hallie's appetite might some day kick in.

After a quick change (not only did we have to change Hallie out of her pukey outfit, but no sooner than we accomplished this feat---since changing our wriggly girl has become somewhat of a Herculean task)--did Hallie proceed to poop all over herself. It turns out that Pampers Baby Dry might protect kids from pee but definitely not from poop---the darned things leak like crazy, especially when your kid has no hips, no butt, and no belly to hold them up. So, two outfits later, we were ready to roll.

Hallie, Holland and Eden all loved the crawling around space for little ones:





Eden had a great time playing around on the foam blocks. We loved this ear-to-ear smile:



The only thing that deflected Hallie's attention from crawling, exploring, and eating pieces of schmutz on the gym mat (yes, we did have to check our germophobia at the door, and no, we are not happy about this, and yes it will probably be a long time before we do this again) was the bright orange neon band on Billie's arm. Hallie took an immediate fancy to this and kept trying to eat it. Eden tried to signal to Hallie that this was HER mother's arm, but Hallie was, as she often is in such things, positively unrelenting.





In this picture, I am crawling after (and over) Hallie to keep her from eating things:



After the kids were done crawling around, we all gathered to watch the 2pm parade down Sesame Street.



Holland not only had a ton of fun dancing to her favorite songs but also got to meet Elmo:



Hallie and Eden had the best seats in the house:



Lots of fun was had by all and the girls were all tuckered out. This was the first (and only) time Hallie deigned to nap all day. Needless to say, this was when we made up for all those missed bottles!



Later on, Holland and Eden enjoyed the water rides at Sesame Place and we headed off to Sears to pick up Hallie's first-year pictures. Here area a couple of our favorites, including some collages. We took so many good shots that it's hard to upload them all (it was also hard to decide which ones to get, so Sears ended up really benefiting from our visit).

Our Climbing Monkey

It is no mistake that Curious George appears to be the closest thing that Hallie has to a favorite security companion. And this is not only because he has a yellow shirt (Hallie has a definite preference for things yellow, and has for a long time now). As it turns out, Hallie has a lot in common with Curious. Not only is she inquisitive, but she also likes to climb.



One of Hallie's favorite things to do is the climb up the wall and then fling herself down onto the futon. We hope she doesn't try this with a table or the floor but are bracing for the day when she does.

Hallie also likes to use her Rainforest Jumperoo in a most unconventional way: she climbs up on the arm of the sofa, leans over it, reaches onto the jumperoo and climbs towards the toys it contains to play with them. I've tried to train this out of her, but alas, no going so far.

So, obviously, Hallie was quite thrilled when we blew up the new bathtub for her in the living room the other night. (For the record, it was me, the klutzy mama, and not Hallie-the-sharp-toothed-biter, who punctured her old Snug Tub Deluxe. We've now downgraded to the regular Snug Tub because it has fewer things on it that mama can possibly break).

Hallie very quickly assessed the new item in the living room and determined that it was perfect for practicing her climbing techniques:









And, apropos of Hallie climbing, I share with you the following video of Hallie climbing stairs at Auntie Neystice's and Auntie Kim's on the 4th of July:



Bear in mind that Sharon and her sister used to climb up onto their roof when they were kids (and later on practiced getting down by jumping onto their camper's roof) and that, four 4th of Julys ago, when I was off working in the Russian archives, Sharon climbed onto our roof to catch the fireworks, decided that the view was better from the flat roof next door (did I mention we have a dormer roof that is angled? I have visions of Sharon hanging on by her finger nails) and climbed up to their roof instead. The house was then being renovated, so there was a door on the roof that was open (covered by plastic sheeting I think) and Sharon had the bright idea that it would be easier to get down if she went through the house next door, out the front door, and into our house the conventional way (as opposed to through the window). So this is what she did. Or more correctly, tried to do. When she got to our front door, she realized that the only flaw in her plan was that she didn't have the keys to our house. So she ended up going back into the house next door, up the stairs, out the roof door, onto the roof, jumped onto our roof, and slithered in through the window.

I am glad that Hallie can't read yet, because I don't want her to try out this particular stunt. But suffice it to say, like mommy like Hallie. Oy vay.

(And, in re: 4th of July....I still have to post ANOTHER post about what else we did that day; this is coming soon...I promise!)

Tagged...We're It...The Crazy Eight Meme

Laura over at Adventures in juggling just taked us with a Crazy Eight Meme, so here goes:

I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog

EIGHT RANDOM FACTS ABOUT US:

1. We spend a lot of the day singing songs from Sesame Street to one another; we try to pretend that these are for Hallie's benefit, but let's face it, we really like these songs. Two of our faves, replete with You Tube Video links, are the following:

Ladybug's Picnic

Born to Add

I'd post a video of The Batty Bat (by the Count), but it's nowhere to be found on the 'net.


2. We (or more correctly, Sharon) took 42 rolls of film (literally!) during our vacation in Estonia (Tallinn), Latvia (Riga), Russia (St. Petersburg) and Finland (Helsinki), and most of the pictures were of buildings. I loved our trip, (except for the waiting to take photos) but have yet to look at the pictures. They are nestled among the onesies that are still too big in Hallie's closet (which is located in Sharon's erstwhile office). We waited about an hour and a half by Tchaikovsky's grave for the light to be just right and for the lines of school kids to pass by (no picture should have people marring it!). The scary guard with an AK 47 watching us with his beady eyes waited along with us and finally, when Sharon clicked the Nikon, the guard descended quickly to ask her if she had paid for the privilege of taking pictures (I think the cost was about 20 cents or so). Of course she had---she was with me and I suspected this would happen. They only posted the sign noting that you had to pay extra to take pictures in Russian and of course expected that they'd make a few rubles off of foreigners who had no idea that this was the system. Been there, done that. But now I speak fluent Russian (well, pretty good Russian in any event) and am aware of such schemes so it gave me great satisfaction to not pay the guard the money he wanted for vodka.

3. Sharon's biggest aspiration in life is to eventually work her way up to eating a whole, uncut pizza from Mack and Manco's in Ocean City, NJ. Plain, no toppings is how she insists we eat these pizzas, which are the best in the whole world according to her. Even though I am from Brooklyn, NY, one of the pizza capitals of the universe, I actually do agree. The recipe for a Mack and Manco's pizza is so secret that they swear their chefs to secrecy and make sure to vet the trash at night so that no one can sneak in and do a chemical composition of analysis and replicate their pies. No fooling.



4. Sharon and I have taken a few really nice vacations together---to date, we've been to Provincetown, MA; Napa Valley, CA; the Riviera Maya in Mexico (not to be confused with actually being in Mexico!); the aforementioned Baltics; Cape May, NJ; and Las Vegas. The last one doesn't really count. Sigh. Some day we'll take Hallie traveling with us.

5. While we've never taken Hallie anywhere exotic, we've always taken Fletcher. Fletcher is a stuffed (and now well flattened) dog that Sharon has had since she was four. Wither Sharon goes, goes Fletcher. One of our favorite things to do is to pose Fletcher in hotel rooms during our travels. Here's Fletcher on the bed in our B&B in Napa:


Here I'm consulting him about which vineyards to visit the next day:


And sometimes the housekeeping staff catch on to our ways quickly and position Fletcher for us. This is what happened on our Mexican jaunt:



Anyway, Sharon isn't sure what she's going to do when Hallie takes Fletcher away from her. Hallie's already made several moves in that direction and it ain't pretty.

6. Our house was built circa 1840 which is cool but being in a city it has a very small backyard. It is about 150 square feet which is around the size of an average bedroom. Nevertheless, we have the following growing in it:
2 rose bushes
2 tomato plants
2 blueberry bushes
1 bleeding heart
1 lilac bush
1 bitternut hickory tree
2 grape vines (very productive Concord grapes that we'll be selling to Manischewitz in the fall...just kidding...but they are really productive)
3 basil plants (one doing super duper well this year)
2 thyme plants (one of which overwintered, thanks to global warming)
2 sage plants (can anyone say Thanksgiving turkey stuffing? yum...I hope Hallie is eating mushy food that isn't quite pureed by then)
2 lavender plants
2 mint plants (slightly run down looking...sad, because life is better with mojitos)
1 oregano plant (also overwintered, and is VERY productive, threatening to crowd out one of our thyme plants)
1 hydrangea
several dozen impatiens in the shady parts
several marigolds and petunias and violas in the sunny parts
a couple of ferns
my orchid collection (just out for the summer)
2 clematis plants (they are lovely)
boston ivy all along the back and side walls
and a bunch of other things that I probably have forgotten about

On top of that we also have a table, four chairs, and 2 adirondack chairs.

And oddly enough, the garden would not be at all crowded if it were not for Hallie's play yard and wading pool.

It kind of amazes us what you can do in small spaces as long as you water and use insecticidal soap.

7. Sharon is a historic preservation architect who has worked on some very cool projects, including the State Capitol of Virginia (originally designed by Thomas Jefferson); her firm handled both restoring the old part of the capitol and adding on a spiffy new addition underground. Here's a cool link to an Interactive Tour of the Virginia State Capitol

With a prevoius firm, she was responsible for renovating the interior of Lucy the Elephant which is an elephant shaped building located in Margate, NJ. Follow this link to tour Lucy, see photos, and some of Sharon's drawings: Lucy the Elephant

8. Sharon was raised in PA for her first fifteen years but was actually born in Trenton, NJ which boasts the following bridge:



Anyway, she's always hated that she was born in Joisey and not in Pennsylvania, but it did facilitate the song to which we filed out during our commitment ceremony, which has always been one of my favorites, at least.

Jersey Girl

The only big problem is figuring out whether the Tom Waits or the Bruce Springsteen version is the better one!

When we first met, Sharon was living in NJ and I lived on South Street, above a store called Condom Kingdom. This was just way too weird on so many different levels. South Street is a loathsome place to live, in my estimation, because it is crowded (especially on summer weekend nights) and noisy and filled with teenagers from the Jersey suburbs. Not that there is anything wrong with the Jersey suburbs (see above!) But the apartment was cheap, large, clean, and eerily quiet (it was in the back). When Sharon told her friend Sheila where I lived, Sheila raised a proverbial eyebrow or two, but at least Sharon didn't hold it against me!

OK---now for the hard part---I need to tag eight of you unsuspecting bloggers, so here goes...

1. Jill Birtch, John Craig's mommy

2. Billie, Holland and Eden's mommy

3. Artsweet, mommy of Pepito

4. Laurie, Emma's mommy

5. Stephanie, Lauren, Lathan, and Logan's mommy

6. Josh and Nancie, Ethan's daddy and mommy

7. Anna, Henry and Willie's mommy

and

8. Kim, Ava and Jackson's mommy

Happy 9 Month Adjusted Birthday, Hallie!

I can't believe our little muffin is 9 months old adjusted. She's having a lovely time exploring the physical universe around her. She loves nothing more than cruising around the furniture, climbing in and out of her ball pit/playhut, and figuring out how to scale the furniture, her mommies, and the wall (I am not joking about the last one, either: the other morning, she was climbing up her shadow on the wall above the futon and throwing herself backwards to land on her back on the futon. She thought it was hilarious).

She also enjoys making a mad dash for it down the hall whenever we leave her bedroom door open. It's funny because she knows that we are right behind her so she speeds up her crawl. Happily, even in our dotage we're still a bit faster than her little legs are and manage to scoop her up and put her back where she started so that she can begin the process all over again.

Hallie has been having fun outside in the back play yard as long as we're all around and paying some attention to her (this is critical---she is very social and while she plays with toys happily she wants to know that we're at least watching her to see what she can do. If she doesn't have enough attention, she'll act out a bit---she might find some cords and wires or shoes she should not be playing with and go for them. A little scary).

Anyway, her eating is getting a bit better---as long as the texture is neither too thin nor too thick and has a nice apple saucy puree like quality to it, she seems fine. Her favorite foods are strongly flavored and a bit eccentric: a great meal consists of avocado (preferably guacamole from Whole Foods---mine is a bit too chunky), perhaps mixed with some chicken stock, and ricotta cheese. We also tried my new cheesy peas recipe--melt some spreadable cheddar in the microwave, add baby peas, chicken stock, and if you want, another veggie. Cool and serve. Very yummy. She can now take about 10-15 spoonfulls (gerber spoon size, not adult) of a food that she likes and, as long as she doesn't choke on something, she's been keeping it all down. Hallie does exhibit some ultimately good, but as of now, a bit counterproductive, toddler behaviors, like wanting to feed herself. This sometimes lands the food in her, but more often on her. She is also experimenting with her pincer grasp---she would love nothing more than a big pile of cheerios or Trader Joe's veggie stix to do this with, but this, alas, would be disastrous (as in, it would promote the refund of all that yummy avocado mush). So we give her broken up, tiny pieces of cheerios or gerber finger foods and she happily shoves them in her mouth, under her onesie, in the crevices of her high chair, and sticks them on her forehead. Quite the look.

Finally, Hallie has been 'talking' a bit more to us. Still no consonants, but definitely more noise. You will notice that Hallie's voice sounds a bit like a cross between Stevie Nick's post vocal cord polyps and Lauren Bacall's after twenty seven years of smoking:



(I'll try to add some pics later!)