Well, we've more than made our Labor Day goal of 100 days, so why not go for a bit more? (I feel a tiny bit like the overachieving Soviet Stakhanovites who over-fulfilled the plan about whom I shall be teaching in a few short days, but unlike the producers of bricks and steel in Stalinist Russia of the 1930s, we're actually investing in a one-of-a-kind genuine and above average and excellent little girl around here).
Hallie's had a great bunch of days, and had fun at Grammy's and with Aunt Laura and the kids this past weekend (two weekends in a row, soon to be three, as I toil away both in preparation for and on Labor Day once again this year). Hopefully Aunt Laura will take up the mantle of Guest Blogger soon! The little kids (her lovely cousins Hannah and Adam) tired her out, but not so much that she was unable to wake up this past morning at 6:00am and ask me to read to her. Sharon slept in until she needed to get to work, and Hallie and I had some quality time downstairs. She was in a great mood all day, fell asleep for our guest-nanny in the high chair at lunch, and went full steam ahead until 10:30pm tonight. Hopefully she'll stay asleep a bit longer tomorrow (or is that today?).
No pics tonight, but maybe Aunt Laura will post/send me some from Hal's time at the beach and pool soon!
That's all folks. This tired mama has got to get to bed!
How Old is Hallie?
How Old is Lea?
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Princess Hallie's Magical 100 DAYS!!!!
We just hit a major milestone---100 vomit free days this year. Woo-hoo!!! Since August 22 is the 234th day of the year, that makes it nearly half a year so far that is vomit free. And today was also three days in a row where Hallie didn't have an incident, so we are beginning to feel like we are back on track.
The zyrtec, we think, is really working and Hallie sounds a heck of a lot clearer and is much more comfortable. She played in the playground for over an hour this morning, and then in the backyard at the sand-and-water table (seems to like the sand more than she used to now that she visited the beach) and had an overall great day. She got to see Baby Taylor (Aunt Renee's and Aunt Kim's little girl, who inherited Hallie's vast collection of clothing and has yet to wear the same onesie twice in her short life of two months) and hung out with Ethan, Karina, and Cole this evening. So our girl had lots of fun, played hard, and kept her food down.
There may be some drop-off in terms of her appetite now that we pulled the periactin, but it's fairly minimal and given Hallie's robust size, we're not too concerned. We're just happy that Hallie (who woke up this morning even more cheerful than usual) is having a nice time and feeling good and that we moms don't have to clean up more than the usual toddler mess (which now includes some fetching artwork rendered in washable markers on our walls each evening).
And, on top of all of this good news, I located our camera, so here are the lovely Princess Hallie photos that I promised:
Here she is holding out her foot for the glass slipper (or at least glass croc):
And here's a lovely closeup of Hallie's pretty little face:
Friday, August 22, 2008
Captain Underpants
I think it's safe to say that Hallie is pretty into 'dress up' these days. She loves to try on our shoes (and even socks....she had me help her put on Sharon's socks today and thought that walking around in them was just grand. I must say that they went very well with her princess outfit, courtesy of Cousin Hannah, though I still think that the highish-heeled princess shoes that match the outfit do look a tad bit better with it).
Anyway, she's always into trying new looks, and this has got to be one of our recent favorites:
Yes, those are little panties on her head. She really did enjoy wearing these around for a while before getting ready for bed!
So, to indulge her new passion, I decided to order her an orange and black tutu for Hallowe'en (she'll pair it with something spooky, or just a bit crazy, I'm sure!). She is totally in love with Hallowe'en and everything related to it (she often asks to wear her various pairs of Hallowe'en socks and, quite literally, every book related to Hallowe'en that she owns (four or five, I believe) are in shreds because she needs them to be read to her, and must chew, pull on and rip them as often as possible). So, given that Hallowe'en is kind of a year-round holiday in these here parts, I thought a nice tutu would go over quite well.
Indeed, it appears to have done just that:
But far be it for our kid to wear a tutu only in a conventional way. It serves just as well as a wig, or even more fetchingly, as a boa.
Quite the diva, our girl is!
(And, Hannah, I promise that there are pictures of Hallie in the princess dress....they just haven't made it onto my computer yet since a certain toddler I know appears to have hidden the camera again).
Speaking of which, Hallie has expressed a heightened interest in looking at herself in the mirror (was always fun, but is now even more fun) and in pictures on the camera and my computer. And, now, instead of calling herself "Hallie" she says "Had-dee" which is totally cute. She still doesn't answer the question 'What is your name?" but that'll come soon enough.
And otherwise Hallie's language is getting better and better all the time. Her articulation is much clearer, she is using many many more words, and she's much more interactive with everyone. We're pretty darned pleased. On top of this, she is practicing signing the alphabet (and not just saying the letter names out loud) and has begun to trace the shape of english language letters in the air. Finally, she also knows most of the alphabet in lower case. I suspect we'll find out that she knows even more than this once she can communicate with us more fully but suffice it to say: we're very impressed.
We're also impressed that she's doing a bunch better this week relative to the last couple. The allergist put her on a pretty hefty dose of zyrtec (5 ml/day) instead of the periactin and it seems to be helping. She may or may not have a cold on top of this---hard to tell still---but we've been giving her the flovent and atrovent twice a day just in case. We're still off of bananas and taking it generally slow with the feeding, but she's now up to 99 days vomit free this year, and we're hoping that 100 is just around the corner.
So, in the spirit of Hallie reaching new heights, I'll end this post with this picture of Hallie climbing onto the arm of her chair (no doubt so that she could get at something forbidden that we'd hidden away in the pack-and play).
Anyway, she's always into trying new looks, and this has got to be one of our recent favorites:
Yes, those are little panties on her head. She really did enjoy wearing these around for a while before getting ready for bed!
So, to indulge her new passion, I decided to order her an orange and black tutu for Hallowe'en (she'll pair it with something spooky, or just a bit crazy, I'm sure!). She is totally in love with Hallowe'en and everything related to it (she often asks to wear her various pairs of Hallowe'en socks and, quite literally, every book related to Hallowe'en that she owns (four or five, I believe) are in shreds because she needs them to be read to her, and must chew, pull on and rip them as often as possible). So, given that Hallowe'en is kind of a year-round holiday in these here parts, I thought a nice tutu would go over quite well.
Indeed, it appears to have done just that:
But far be it for our kid to wear a tutu only in a conventional way. It serves just as well as a wig, or even more fetchingly, as a boa.
Quite the diva, our girl is!
(And, Hannah, I promise that there are pictures of Hallie in the princess dress....they just haven't made it onto my computer yet since a certain toddler I know appears to have hidden the camera again).
Speaking of which, Hallie has expressed a heightened interest in looking at herself in the mirror (was always fun, but is now even more fun) and in pictures on the camera and my computer. And, now, instead of calling herself "Hallie" she says "Had-dee" which is totally cute. She still doesn't answer the question 'What is your name?" but that'll come soon enough.
And otherwise Hallie's language is getting better and better all the time. Her articulation is much clearer, she is using many many more words, and she's much more interactive with everyone. We're pretty darned pleased. On top of this, she is practicing signing the alphabet (and not just saying the letter names out loud) and has begun to trace the shape of english language letters in the air. Finally, she also knows most of the alphabet in lower case. I suspect we'll find out that she knows even more than this once she can communicate with us more fully but suffice it to say: we're very impressed.
We're also impressed that she's doing a bunch better this week relative to the last couple. The allergist put her on a pretty hefty dose of zyrtec (5 ml/day) instead of the periactin and it seems to be helping. She may or may not have a cold on top of this---hard to tell still---but we've been giving her the flovent and atrovent twice a day just in case. We're still off of bananas and taking it generally slow with the feeding, but she's now up to 99 days vomit free this year, and we're hoping that 100 is just around the corner.
So, in the spirit of Hallie reaching new heights, I'll end this post with this picture of Hallie climbing onto the arm of her chair (no doubt so that she could get at something forbidden that we'd hidden away in the pack-and play).
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Seasonal Allergies????
Real quick update:
Sharon was talking to Laura (her sister, Hallie's aunt) yesterday about cousin Adam, who has a horrible case of the sniffles. They're keeping Adam away from Hallie in the meantime, just in case it's a cold, but in passing, Aunt Laura mentioned that Adam's issues were probably related to the recent onset of Ragweed season.
And that brings us to the following intriguing possibility: what food (among others) cross-reacts with Ragweed? Banana.
Fascinating. (I get a lot of this info from the fabulous boards over at POFAK---see link on the left if you have a food-allergic kid and are reading this and are not yet a member. The 25 dollar membership fee is TOTALLY worthwhile). Anyway, after doing a bit of research last night, I emailed our allergist at CHOP, who said that this would not surprise her in the least. Periactin, while a good appetitie stimulant (but one we're not sure is working) is not the best antihistamine out there. She'll email me back (I hope) with recommendations for a different drug or drugs (talk of some kind of nasal inhaler) and the appropriate dosage(s).
Before bed last night and upon waking, I began to think again about our past experiences with Hallie. We were pretty certain back in April/May of 2007 (when Hallie was still shy of one year old) that she was experiencing seasonal allergies, raised this with our pediatrician, and was told by him that this was not possible since she had never lived through an allergy season. Although I retorted that people---including us---probably brought pollen into the NICU on our clothing, this got me nowhere. Life was miserable from April/May until September/October (14 week cold, a couple of brief hospitalizations, a triple scope, failed attempts at antibiotics, three ear infections, then ear tubes). Things got much better when we pulled milk in November, and even better in December and January (when the kid lost weight but went two whole weeks without vomiting). Things remained fairly good unless Hallie was failing foods back in the winter and spring of this year, but there was a rough patch in January when there was unseasonably warm weather and hellishness again when things started growing in earnest in May. June was a bit better, with some rough patches related to her being out of doors and playing in fields (see our post about her vomiting in Olivia's grove, for example). And we were generally pretty okay in July but things got rough again in August, pretty much at the moment Ragweed season got underway here.
OK---so this is my sense of what's going on. The kid has food allergies to some significant things (positive on skin tests for egg, wheat, barley; unquestionable food reactions to cow milk, soy, buckwheat, and rice). She may or may not be allergic to peaches and blueberries (I'd guess not if I were a betting gal, and with Hallie as the subject, there's frankly too much risk involved!). Beef...who knows? But seasonal allergies...yeah, I think we've got those. So the question is what to do about them. Let's hope the allergist (who did after all email me at 7am on a Sunday morning) gets back to us soon. I suspect that we're going to put her on something stronger and my bet is that we end up with another allergy appointment (after allergy season ends, I hope!) that will involve us pulling Hallie off of antihistamines for a little bit and doing a few skin tests for seasonal stuff. I'm all for that. If we can figure out what's going on there, maybe we can figure out the food stuff. And down the road there are always allergy shots for the seasonal stuff should it become unbearable to her...
Alright, that's all for now. But I am relieved to once more be thinking that there are at least times of the year when our banana-loving kiddo can eat (bite small amounts off of) her beloved 'nanas'.
Sharon was talking to Laura (her sister, Hallie's aunt) yesterday about cousin Adam, who has a horrible case of the sniffles. They're keeping Adam away from Hallie in the meantime, just in case it's a cold, but in passing, Aunt Laura mentioned that Adam's issues were probably related to the recent onset of Ragweed season.
And that brings us to the following intriguing possibility: what food (among others) cross-reacts with Ragweed? Banana.
Fascinating. (I get a lot of this info from the fabulous boards over at POFAK---see link on the left if you have a food-allergic kid and are reading this and are not yet a member. The 25 dollar membership fee is TOTALLY worthwhile). Anyway, after doing a bit of research last night, I emailed our allergist at CHOP, who said that this would not surprise her in the least. Periactin, while a good appetitie stimulant (but one we're not sure is working) is not the best antihistamine out there. She'll email me back (I hope) with recommendations for a different drug or drugs (talk of some kind of nasal inhaler) and the appropriate dosage(s).
Before bed last night and upon waking, I began to think again about our past experiences with Hallie. We were pretty certain back in April/May of 2007 (when Hallie was still shy of one year old) that she was experiencing seasonal allergies, raised this with our pediatrician, and was told by him that this was not possible since she had never lived through an allergy season. Although I retorted that people---including us---probably brought pollen into the NICU on our clothing, this got me nowhere. Life was miserable from April/May until September/October (14 week cold, a couple of brief hospitalizations, a triple scope, failed attempts at antibiotics, three ear infections, then ear tubes). Things got much better when we pulled milk in November, and even better in December and January (when the kid lost weight but went two whole weeks without vomiting). Things remained fairly good unless Hallie was failing foods back in the winter and spring of this year, but there was a rough patch in January when there was unseasonably warm weather and hellishness again when things started growing in earnest in May. June was a bit better, with some rough patches related to her being out of doors and playing in fields (see our post about her vomiting in Olivia's grove, for example). And we were generally pretty okay in July but things got rough again in August, pretty much at the moment Ragweed season got underway here.
OK---so this is my sense of what's going on. The kid has food allergies to some significant things (positive on skin tests for egg, wheat, barley; unquestionable food reactions to cow milk, soy, buckwheat, and rice). She may or may not be allergic to peaches and blueberries (I'd guess not if I were a betting gal, and with Hallie as the subject, there's frankly too much risk involved!). Beef...who knows? But seasonal allergies...yeah, I think we've got those. So the question is what to do about them. Let's hope the allergist (who did after all email me at 7am on a Sunday morning) gets back to us soon. I suspect that we're going to put her on something stronger and my bet is that we end up with another allergy appointment (after allergy season ends, I hope!) that will involve us pulling Hallie off of antihistamines for a little bit and doing a few skin tests for seasonal stuff. I'm all for that. If we can figure out what's going on there, maybe we can figure out the food stuff. And down the road there are always allergy shots for the seasonal stuff should it become unbearable to her...
Alright, that's all for now. But I am relieved to once more be thinking that there are at least times of the year when our banana-loving kiddo can eat (bite small amounts off of) her beloved 'nanas'.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Re-Ducks
>
Hallie has always loved bath tubs and they don't really need to involve water, either (though she's a big fan of that too). Whenever we get a new tub (which has sadly been all too often because the inflatable tubs spring leaks really easily and no one can ever find the tiny little included patch kits when they do), she has to check it out by getting inside it, lifting it and throwing it in the monstrous clawfoot tub (the big reason we have her in a toddler tub at this point to begin with), etc.
Well, the ducky was an emergency purchase for us by Aunt Vanessa when our last tub not only sprung a leak but refused to stay inflated beyond pancake status. It was too small for Hallie from the outset, but it sure beat not having a tub for our nightly baths. So this week we replaced it with a Primo Eurobath (which is a great tub, though Hallie hates it...she wants to be able to kick at will and push forward so that she can reach the faucet, the soap dish, and anything else that might not be nailed down. The Eurobathhas positioners to prevent the baby or toddler from slipping forward that get in Hallie's way and as all of us who know Hallie know quite well, we should NEVER get in our girl's way when she wants something).
Anyway, we've left the ducky tub in the bathroom this week (mostly out of laziness) and Hallie's had a blast playing in it. Lately, she's loved mirrors even more than usual (she always has liked them, and needs to check out new accessories she's wearing in a mirror or mirror-like object like the TV or dishwasher front). And her favorite thing to do when looking in the mirror is to say "Hallie" and point at herself. Sometimes Hallie sounds like Hallie and sometimes it sounds like "Haddie" but we definitely know that she can recognize herself.
And she can totally recognize these kids, too:
She may not be able to jump yet, but she sure as heck had a great time in the trampoline with the little cousins last weekend.
Ever since we got home, we've been checking out photos of the cousins this past week and Hallie loves saying "Ah---dam" and "Han-nah" and made us very happy since she pointed at a picture of Aunt Laura and said "Laura" as clear as day.
Right now she's headed back down to the shore to see the cousins and Grammy and Aunt Laura and Uncle Bryan. I need to go to DC for work tomorrow so I can't join them (but I can blog about Hallie to stave off my loneliness and how much I'm missing my girls).
Anyway, speaking about blogging, blogging helps a lot when you need to reconstruct a timetable around things. Sadly, the things around which we need to reconstruct timetables mostly seem to be food-related, and once more we are dealing with a mystery as to what is going on with Hallie. Truth be told, after a fabulous last couple of weeks in June and most of July, she's been having a hard time in August. After failing beef, having a hard time for ten days to two weeks after we pulled the beef, and then failing blueberries last week, we decided to suspend any food trials for a while. So we didn't add in anything this week, and still things are rough. The blueberry fail seemed unclear at best, but we decided to pull them in case they were what was leading to increased hiccups and then once-daily vomiting. Given that the reaction for blueberries seemed comparatively mild, we were pretty sure she'd clear up fast. Not so much. The vomiting has continued, and if anything seemed to all of us (Sharon, Me, and Ami) to be correlated to banana consumption. So we decided after much soul searching and great grief (especially since Hallie now points to bananas, and reaches for them when she sees them, and wants to eat them) to pull bananas on Thursday. Friday, sadly, was only a little better than Monday-Thursday had been (one of those days were vomit free, inching us ever so closer to the 100 day mark...we're now standing firm at 97 days that are spew free this year). She apparently retched and heaved for no reason, and then today, did the same thing. Now, on the face of it, today's vomit was related to her crying when I left the car (she hates it when I get out of the back seat to do an errand and crying often leads to spewing) but I think the problem goes deeper than this: she had been gagging on apples at both breakfast and lunch. This concerns me A LOT: is she suddenly developing problems with the few foods (was six, now five, perhaps headed to 4) that she used to tolerate? We are having trouble ensuring that she take in a balanced diet as it is and were pretty certain that 6 foods as a long-term kind of thing wasn't such a good idea, so 4 foods are even a worse bet where sound nutrition is concerned. Is she still healing from the problems she had with beef (this seems WAY too long ago) or is the problem bananas and needs to heal from taking in so many of those? And is this a banana allergy or intolerance (like, can she handle them in small quantities but not big ones)? Cell-mediated, non-IgE allergies are really sneaky and weird. We probably won't have answers....ever....to most of these questions. And the older she gets, the more despondent I become about her growing out of this stuff. We have no idea how in the heck she keeps growing the way she does (what is in that goat milk formula, anyway?) but we are grateful that she does; now we just want to figure out what we can safely feed her so that she keeps more food in (we'd love 'all,' but will settle for 'more'). Hopefully we won't drive ourselves stark raving mad in our search to figure out this Hallie food puzzle. But if we do, I at least hope that we manage to help her in the process.
Hallie has always loved bath tubs and they don't really need to involve water, either (though she's a big fan of that too). Whenever we get a new tub (which has sadly been all too often because the inflatable tubs spring leaks really easily and no one can ever find the tiny little included patch kits when they do), she has to check it out by getting inside it, lifting it and throwing it in the monstrous clawfoot tub (the big reason we have her in a toddler tub at this point to begin with), etc.
Well, the ducky was an emergency purchase for us by Aunt Vanessa when our last tub not only sprung a leak but refused to stay inflated beyond pancake status. It was too small for Hallie from the outset, but it sure beat not having a tub for our nightly baths. So this week we replaced it with a Primo Eurobath (which is a great tub, though Hallie hates it...she wants to be able to kick at will and push forward so that she can reach the faucet, the soap dish, and anything else that might not be nailed down. The Eurobathhas positioners to prevent the baby or toddler from slipping forward that get in Hallie's way and as all of us who know Hallie know quite well, we should NEVER get in our girl's way when she wants something).
Anyway, we've left the ducky tub in the bathroom this week (mostly out of laziness) and Hallie's had a blast playing in it. Lately, she's loved mirrors even more than usual (she always has liked them, and needs to check out new accessories she's wearing in a mirror or mirror-like object like the TV or dishwasher front). And her favorite thing to do when looking in the mirror is to say "Hallie" and point at herself. Sometimes Hallie sounds like Hallie and sometimes it sounds like "Haddie" but we definitely know that she can recognize herself.
And she can totally recognize these kids, too:
She may not be able to jump yet, but she sure as heck had a great time in the trampoline with the little cousins last weekend.
Ever since we got home, we've been checking out photos of the cousins this past week and Hallie loves saying "Ah---dam" and "Han-nah" and made us very happy since she pointed at a picture of Aunt Laura and said "Laura" as clear as day.
Right now she's headed back down to the shore to see the cousins and Grammy and Aunt Laura and Uncle Bryan. I need to go to DC for work tomorrow so I can't join them (but I can blog about Hallie to stave off my loneliness and how much I'm missing my girls).
Anyway, speaking about blogging, blogging helps a lot when you need to reconstruct a timetable around things. Sadly, the things around which we need to reconstruct timetables mostly seem to be food-related, and once more we are dealing with a mystery as to what is going on with Hallie. Truth be told, after a fabulous last couple of weeks in June and most of July, she's been having a hard time in August. After failing beef, having a hard time for ten days to two weeks after we pulled the beef, and then failing blueberries last week, we decided to suspend any food trials for a while. So we didn't add in anything this week, and still things are rough. The blueberry fail seemed unclear at best, but we decided to pull them in case they were what was leading to increased hiccups and then once-daily vomiting. Given that the reaction for blueberries seemed comparatively mild, we were pretty sure she'd clear up fast. Not so much. The vomiting has continued, and if anything seemed to all of us (Sharon, Me, and Ami) to be correlated to banana consumption. So we decided after much soul searching and great grief (especially since Hallie now points to bananas, and reaches for them when she sees them, and wants to eat them) to pull bananas on Thursday. Friday, sadly, was only a little better than Monday-Thursday had been (one of those days were vomit free, inching us ever so closer to the 100 day mark...we're now standing firm at 97 days that are spew free this year). She apparently retched and heaved for no reason, and then today, did the same thing. Now, on the face of it, today's vomit was related to her crying when I left the car (she hates it when I get out of the back seat to do an errand and crying often leads to spewing) but I think the problem goes deeper than this: she had been gagging on apples at both breakfast and lunch. This concerns me A LOT: is she suddenly developing problems with the few foods (was six, now five, perhaps headed to 4) that she used to tolerate? We are having trouble ensuring that she take in a balanced diet as it is and were pretty certain that 6 foods as a long-term kind of thing wasn't such a good idea, so 4 foods are even a worse bet where sound nutrition is concerned. Is she still healing from the problems she had with beef (this seems WAY too long ago) or is the problem bananas and needs to heal from taking in so many of those? And is this a banana allergy or intolerance (like, can she handle them in small quantities but not big ones)? Cell-mediated, non-IgE allergies are really sneaky and weird. We probably won't have answers....ever....to most of these questions. And the older she gets, the more despondent I become about her growing out of this stuff. We have no idea how in the heck she keeps growing the way she does (what is in that goat milk formula, anyway?) but we are grateful that she does; now we just want to figure out what we can safely feed her so that she keeps more food in (we'd love 'all,' but will settle for 'more'). Hopefully we won't drive ourselves stark raving mad in our search to figure out this Hallie food puzzle. But if we do, I at least hope that we manage to help her in the process.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Little Drummer Girl
We are perhaps the only parents in the universe who are thrilled that our kid has a drumset. But when your kid has spent a lot of time in silence and has a paralyzed vocal cord, you do get kind of a thrill when you hear her make big noise.
Thank you Aunties Neystice and Kim for the lovely birthday present. Hallie loves it (and for some unknown reason is particularly fond of carrying around the snare's 'stand'. We'd love to know why, but this, like many things toddler, is a big, huge mystery to us).
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Friday Photos
These are just the ones we took earlier this week, but I figured that if I didn't upload them now, I never would.
Owing to the lighting and the water and such, most of the aquarium pictures came out 'artsy' but quite wobbly-looking. These were the best of the school:
Notice how Hallie is just as interested in the face painting on the nearby toddler as she is in the fish swimming around in the tank.
I do think that the aquarium did make an impression on our girl as she has been signing 'fish' (and saying FISHEEEEEE) furiously all weak during Dorothy-related segments on Sesame Street. She's also been obsessed with playing the Elmo world rhyming game on my computer (at PBSKIDS.ORG) and saying "Dorothy" (or her approximation thereof) over and over. Not that she really plays the game...she has yet to figure out the trackpad on my MacBook and just pounds its poor (and quickly disintegrating keys) furiously.
In the next pics, you see her eating a banana.
She ate perhaps another 1/16th of one again today. She does pretty well with it, but just doesn't eat much in any conventional sense of the word 'eat.' She prefers to slurp down her purees rather than chew solids. We're hoping the chewing of solids is a skill that kicks in at some point. She can do it...I just fear that she has little practice and is a bit lazy.
We're still not sure what to make of the blueberries. I gave her perhaps an ounce of blueberry/apple puree at lunch today, and she 'urped' (not a real vomit, just a few mouthfuls) after her nap today. "Nap" should be qualified here: she was down perhaps 45 minutes total. I am not sure if she woke up because she had a tummy ache (I do wish she could tell me) or if the phone ringing downstairs (it was a pesky robocall) disturbed her sleep. But it was a bit disheartening to watch her first get the hiccups (always a sign of reflux), then watch her reflux into her mouth, then watch it come up. She was on the stairs at the time and I grabbed the closest vessel (the kitchen sink of her play kitchen) but caught perhaps a third of the mess. It's clear her reflux is acting up (she's had the hiccups a bunch over the past few days) and that she is constipated, but it's not totally clear that this is an allergic reaction. I think we'll give the blueberries one more day and if we have a repeat performance (4/5 of the past days have been vomit-full days...just once a day, but still more than is typical of Hallie when she's not reacting to food), we'll pull the berries and maybe try them again in a few months. It's hard to believe that we've hit upon the only 6 foods this kid can handle, but that's the way it seems right now.
We're not sure where to go next in our food trials. I think we'll take a few weeks off to maybe get her over the teething we suspect she is doing (that always provokes a reflux flare) and to give the two people who will be filling in for Ami while she's on tour in Texas (she's a nanny by day and a musician by night) a bit of a break. Ami also needs a break (I hope she gets one in Texas!) and, like us, is disheartened by our latest bout of vomiting (it's been two- three weeks now that we are stuck in this cycle). And, like us, she pushes through because what else can we do? I suspect that Hallie feels the same way, but she just can't really articulate this to us at this stage of the game.
Anyway, off to bed since it's plenty late. Ami watched Hallie tonight while Sharon and I went to a Phillies game (we lost in extra innings...deeply tragic but alas it is the end of the summer and we need to head into a downswing if, as usual, the home team is to give up its first place position and manage to do in an otherwise stellar season). I think this is the final date night of the summer (very very tragic). The two of us have gotten used to hanging out again, but we're soon going back to the traditional schedule where we only have Ami while I am at work (AAAAAGGGGGHHH....I HATE THE END OF SUMMER). Sadly, while our budget sort of accommodates a nanny (do we have any other choice for our former micropreemie who has massive food allergies and doesn't eat in an age appropriate manner? Not really. We're just lucky we're able to afford to do this rather than send her to daycare), our budget doesn't really allow us the extra hours during the school year for babysitting at night on top of Ami's normal schedule. So we'll be looking forward to winter break for our next date. Hopefully Sharon will be in good health, big with child, and not on bedrest. Dates on bedrest are not precisely what we have in mind for December! But heck, that's a lot better than some of the alternatives we can think of and which we prefer not to mention!
Owing to the lighting and the water and such, most of the aquarium pictures came out 'artsy' but quite wobbly-looking. These were the best of the school:
Notice how Hallie is just as interested in the face painting on the nearby toddler as she is in the fish swimming around in the tank.
I do think that the aquarium did make an impression on our girl as she has been signing 'fish' (and saying FISHEEEEEE) furiously all weak during Dorothy-related segments on Sesame Street. She's also been obsessed with playing the Elmo world rhyming game on my computer (at PBSKIDS.ORG) and saying "Dorothy" (or her approximation thereof) over and over. Not that she really plays the game...she has yet to figure out the trackpad on my MacBook and just pounds its poor (and quickly disintegrating keys) furiously.
In the next pics, you see her eating a banana.
She ate perhaps another 1/16th of one again today. She does pretty well with it, but just doesn't eat much in any conventional sense of the word 'eat.' She prefers to slurp down her purees rather than chew solids. We're hoping the chewing of solids is a skill that kicks in at some point. She can do it...I just fear that she has little practice and is a bit lazy.
We're still not sure what to make of the blueberries. I gave her perhaps an ounce of blueberry/apple puree at lunch today, and she 'urped' (not a real vomit, just a few mouthfuls) after her nap today. "Nap" should be qualified here: she was down perhaps 45 minutes total. I am not sure if she woke up because she had a tummy ache (I do wish she could tell me) or if the phone ringing downstairs (it was a pesky robocall) disturbed her sleep. But it was a bit disheartening to watch her first get the hiccups (always a sign of reflux), then watch her reflux into her mouth, then watch it come up. She was on the stairs at the time and I grabbed the closest vessel (the kitchen sink of her play kitchen) but caught perhaps a third of the mess. It's clear her reflux is acting up (she's had the hiccups a bunch over the past few days) and that she is constipated, but it's not totally clear that this is an allergic reaction. I think we'll give the blueberries one more day and if we have a repeat performance (4/5 of the past days have been vomit-full days...just once a day, but still more than is typical of Hallie when she's not reacting to food), we'll pull the berries and maybe try them again in a few months. It's hard to believe that we've hit upon the only 6 foods this kid can handle, but that's the way it seems right now.
We're not sure where to go next in our food trials. I think we'll take a few weeks off to maybe get her over the teething we suspect she is doing (that always provokes a reflux flare) and to give the two people who will be filling in for Ami while she's on tour in Texas (she's a nanny by day and a musician by night) a bit of a break. Ami also needs a break (I hope she gets one in Texas!) and, like us, is disheartened by our latest bout of vomiting (it's been two- three weeks now that we are stuck in this cycle). And, like us, she pushes through because what else can we do? I suspect that Hallie feels the same way, but she just can't really articulate this to us at this stage of the game.
Anyway, off to bed since it's plenty late. Ami watched Hallie tonight while Sharon and I went to a Phillies game (we lost in extra innings...deeply tragic but alas it is the end of the summer and we need to head into a downswing if, as usual, the home team is to give up its first place position and manage to do in an otherwise stellar season). I think this is the final date night of the summer (very very tragic). The two of us have gotten used to hanging out again, but we're soon going back to the traditional schedule where we only have Ami while I am at work (AAAAAGGGGGHHH....I HATE THE END OF SUMMER). Sadly, while our budget sort of accommodates a nanny (do we have any other choice for our former micropreemie who has massive food allergies and doesn't eat in an age appropriate manner? Not really. We're just lucky we're able to afford to do this rather than send her to daycare), our budget doesn't really allow us the extra hours during the school year for babysitting at night on top of Ami's normal schedule. So we'll be looking forward to winter break for our next date. Hopefully Sharon will be in good health, big with child, and not on bedrest. Dates on bedrest are not precisely what we have in mind for December! But heck, that's a lot better than some of the alternatives we can think of and which we prefer not to mention!
Friday, August 8, 2008
Bad Mama
OK---I'll admit it. I am too lazy/too tired to upload some cute pictures of my kid eating 1/32 or perhaps 1/64 of a banana voluntarily. I am likewise too lazy to upload pictures of her at her first-ever aquarium visit this past Saturday (apparently, one of the few things worth visiting in Camden, NJ, where we proceeded to get lost in some pretty dodgy neighborhoods). (Note to others: even if your kid has a thing for Dorothy-the-goldfish on Sesame Street, if they are young-acting preemies, 2 may be a bit too young for them to be absolutely riveted by sharks. However, that does not mean that they won't be absolutely riveted by the face paintings worn by other kids slightly older than themselves whom they nonetheless call 'babies.').
Anyway, I am battling my laziness and fatigue and trying to produce a coherent update here, so bear with me!
Hallie has had an okay week. We're not sure that she's okay with the blueberries that we are food-challenging, but we're pushing forth nonetheless since it seems sad to be allergic to such an innocuous fruit and her vomiting of late may not really be related to this antioxidant rich bush grower. It's kind of too soon to tell, but she has had one good day out of the past four, and the three bad days were none too bad (no congestion, just weird and hard to explain vomits at various points). So we've hit 94 vomit-free days and we're hoping for 100 by Labor Day. Seems reasonable. Otherwise: she's been eating bits of banana, huge amounts of chevre-mixed-with-goat yogurt and...drumroll please...chunks of solid prunes (dried plums). Her dinner often begins with a Hallie-approved 'trail mix' (as Sharon termed it): chunks of prunes, strips of goat mozzarella and gerber baby dried apple pieces. It almost seems like it's approximating standard toddler fare, even if the assortment is a bit odd.
Otherwise, she's also doing great. We've confirmed that she can, indeed, count to 15 (I am trying to get her to internalize 16-20 now) and she's been talking up a storm. Her EI speech therapist (Jenny) was pleasantly floored by Hallie's major speech spurt this past month, and, after some initial shyness (Hallie will absolutely clam up when she is around new people, and Jenny has been away nearly a month), Hallie showed off all of her new skills to Jenny. Had I not forewarned Jenny of this spurt, I think she might have cried (as she did when Hallie finally signed 'book' correctly). Anyway, it was gratifying to hear it from a pro that Hallie's made a great deal of progress this month (even though we already knew this about her).
Not much else going around here. I do promise to try to get some pictures up soon!
Anyway, I am battling my laziness and fatigue and trying to produce a coherent update here, so bear with me!
Hallie has had an okay week. We're not sure that she's okay with the blueberries that we are food-challenging, but we're pushing forth nonetheless since it seems sad to be allergic to such an innocuous fruit and her vomiting of late may not really be related to this antioxidant rich bush grower. It's kind of too soon to tell, but she has had one good day out of the past four, and the three bad days were none too bad (no congestion, just weird and hard to explain vomits at various points). So we've hit 94 vomit-free days and we're hoping for 100 by Labor Day. Seems reasonable. Otherwise: she's been eating bits of banana, huge amounts of chevre-mixed-with-goat yogurt and...drumroll please...chunks of solid prunes (dried plums). Her dinner often begins with a Hallie-approved 'trail mix' (as Sharon termed it): chunks of prunes, strips of goat mozzarella and gerber baby dried apple pieces. It almost seems like it's approximating standard toddler fare, even if the assortment is a bit odd.
Otherwise, she's also doing great. We've confirmed that she can, indeed, count to 15 (I am trying to get her to internalize 16-20 now) and she's been talking up a storm. Her EI speech therapist (Jenny) was pleasantly floored by Hallie's major speech spurt this past month, and, after some initial shyness (Hallie will absolutely clam up when she is around new people, and Jenny has been away nearly a month), Hallie showed off all of her new skills to Jenny. Had I not forewarned Jenny of this spurt, I think she might have cried (as she did when Hallie finally signed 'book' correctly). Anyway, it was gratifying to hear it from a pro that Hallie's made a great deal of progress this month (even though we already knew this about her).
Not much else going around here. I do promise to try to get some pictures up soon!
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Hallie Haberdashery
Lately, Hallie's been into hats. Not just regular hats (she is especially fond of putting on Sharon's Grover baseball cap backwards), but special hats, like pots, and pails, and occasionally swim diapers. While we're not holding out much hope for her wanting to wear hats once the weather turns cold and nasty again, we do think it's awfully cute. She's also all about wearing her bicycle helmet (and has remarked to us that her favorite Sesame Street characters always have theirs on when engaging in wheeled sports), but unfortunately, she prefers to wear the strap around her neck and the helmet part draped behind her, cowboy hat style. We're not so into this and often have to chase her down to save her from a choking hazard in the making.
The other thing that Hallie has been into a lot lately are her animals. I bought her a set of animal magnets the other day and her favorite by far is the "raff", which is her word for giraffe. I am guessing that she takes after Aunt Laura who adores giraffes, too.
And speaking of adore, yesterday morning we were lolling around with Hallie in the living room when Hallie walked up to Sharon and said "Mommy, love you!!!". That was the sweetest thing ever. She's been saying "love you" for a while now, but only doing it prompted, either when we say or sign it. That time it was totally spontaneous and it made Sharon's heart melt.
Finally, the other thing we learned about Hallie this week is that she can count to 15. Ami has been counting with her constantly, and so have we, and so have Sesame Street and Rachel Coleman. And one of Hallie's favorite things to do is to count as she comes down the stairs from the second floor to the first. Not coincidentally, there just so happen to be fifteen of them.
Overall, Hallie had a pretty nice week. She was reacting to something on Monday and Tuesday (we think one of the foods that seemed safe for her was cross contaminated---my vote is for the pear butter, which should have contained only pears and pear juice but is made on the same lines as a lot of other products that are not safe or for the goat ricotta since the same creamery makes several flavored varieties of the cheese that would not work for Hallie). But by Wednesday, she was feeling much improved and Thursday and Friday were great days. So 92 days vomit free so far, and hopefully still counting!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Our Weekend
It's been a crazy week, so forgive me for being remiss about posting.
Hallie was reacting to beef until Friday, we think, and this made us all very very unhappy. My theory is that it takes her longest to clear protein from her system because it is denser and harder to break down (and obviously harder for her to digest). So this week was mostly devoted to cleaning up after the reflux-related, congested-related, allergy-originated mess and praying hard for her to get the awful stuff that was making all of us (but particularly her) unhappy out of her system.
Fortunately, by Saturday, things were a lot better and we could all go on with our lives. Hallie--with playing hard, and us mommy types with contemplating Hallie's future as a fruititarian. We are not sure that the word exists (blogger seems to be dubious on this count), but we're pretty sure that we're trying blueberries next and then grapes. We need to have a few good weeks under our belt before we attempt anything more challenging (perhaps black beans, which have iron and protein, but are not related to soybeans and peanuts. Alas, chickpeas, which might give us a flour and hummus and falafel, are). Anyway, we also need a few good weeks to help her work on her chewing and food acceptance skills. It's no wonder that she has food aversions: most of her life has been spent being sick because food was hurting her. We need a nice extended period of freedom from this to re-teach her that some foods can be her friends.
It's not that we had *no* fun this week...just less than we'd been having.
Here, Hallie is hanging out with Mommy in the wading pool:
And here she is singing "I Love Trash" with me: she is the puppeteer and I am the singer...she has yet to really sing along with anything, though she loves songs, particularly when sung by her favorite Sesame Street characters:
Anyway, this post isn't about food but about our weekend. Sharon and I started out the weekend in a nice way by going out to dinner and a movie on Friday night. Fabulous food at a local and relatively inexpensive Mexican place (I so hope that Hallie gets to enjoy guacamole and carnitas some day) followed by Wall-e, which was really good. It's totally not a kid's movie, but was a very good movie from the perspective of its underlying message (conservation of the planet Earth) and its fabulous Pixar animation. Nonetheless, I wondered if the message wouldn't end up being diluted by the fact that Disney (and Pixar by association and relationship) are marketing plastic thingamabobs that no one needs in the various merchandising campaigns underway for the film. It seems to me that we could all do more to conserve resources than end up with a million action figures no one truly needs that will end up in some future landfill should we not destroy ourselves by the time some robotic trash compactor of the future gets around to making the material with which to fill them...
OK, enough with my diatribe about our need to do something about our world's condition, and fast.
On Saturday, after another early awakening (7 am at the latest) and similarly early nap (1 pm), we headed down to Grammy's. We never arrive terribly early, and we are very apologetic about this, but let's face it, it's not easy for us to get out of the house and at least we sometimes do so. I was going to stay home to work this weekend but given that our house now seems to be the free residence of a colony of mice that we are picking off one by one (we'd like to evict them en masse but this is not going as planned), I decided that it would be far nicer to try to get some work done at Grammy's, spend time with the cousins and Aunt Laura, and do something other than wonder if it was safe to enter my kitchen.
I am very glad that I did. Hallie had a really lovely time and it's fabulous to see her have fun like this.
She spent the late afternoon at the wading pool with Adam and Hannah, whom she loves, and only part of the way through realized that there was a big grown up pool that we barred her from entering (she thinks she can swim but cannot, which presents all sorts of problems). She tried to find a way through the fence that separates the wading pool from the big person pool, but fortunately did not (it helps that we have neither taught her how to use wire cutters nor provided her with any!).
Saturday was vomit-free day number 88, and so this added to our collective parental happiness.
Today ended up being rather stormy, and Hallie took another early nap (again around 1pm) so we did not get out of the house until close to 4:30pm. We headed over to Aunt Laura's, met up with her and the little kids, and took off for Ocean City (which is about ten minutes from where they live).
Here she is in the lovely sweatshirt that Aunt Ellen got her for her birthday for hanging out on the Ocean City boardwalk:
First we had dinner at Mack and Manco's (Hallie had some potato sticks, milk and then a long walk up and down the boardwalk with me). Then it was off to take in the rides at Wonderland. The last time Hallie did this (the only time she did this!) was last summer, and she was far too small to enjoy the rides, and certainly too small to go on them unsupervised. This time, as always, we began with the Merry-go-round, and fortunately, the horsies did not frighten her.
Then, we sent her off with Adam (who is three and whom we put in charge) to enjoy the firetrucks. The kids had such a great time that they requested a second round. Hallie even enjoyed clanging the fire bell and steering a bit.
After that, we placed them on the boat ride. As I predicted, Hallie was very interested in the water---too interested, really. She had her hands in the water from the get-go (I was advised by Sharon, between her guffaws, that it was not, indeed, electrified). Then she threw her shoe into the water. Sharon retrieved that, and Hallie and I sat there wondering if they were going to post her mugshot and bar her from future rides.
They did not. So she went on later to take a boat ride with Hannah. Hannah is five and did her very best to try to restrain her youngest cousin, but to no avail. Hallie ended up trying to scoot out of Hannah's grasp to get back into the water. I banned her from that ride forthwith.
Before we left, Hallie took a ride on the flying dumbo with Mommy and after that we called it a night.
She slept in the car all the way home and I expect another early awakening from our girl, so I should call it a night, too.
But first, I just want to say that Hallie is not only speaking a lot more (she now regularly says "I" clauses...like "I sit", "I fly" and "I up" and "I down" but also sophisticated multisyllabic words like "upstairs" and "bathroom." I'm not sure that others can comprehend her speech, but we can most of the time. And on the bathroom front, it seems like Hallie is beginning to send out signals that we should, perhaps, begin that toilet training process we've been sort of dreading. Most of the time now when she needs to poop she seeks entry into a bathroom and does what she needs to do and tells us so by saying "Yes" (and signing it, too) when we ask her if she's pooped. She's done this about 85% of the time over the last four or five days. This is great. We're sort of terrified by the process, but Hallie is sending us signals, and we need to respect them. And of course I'll be thrilled to have her out of diapers soon...not only will it save us a few landfills, but a bunch of dollars each month, too. Not to mention help us deal with the squirming kiddo who hates having her diaper changed!
Finally, it will be very nice to just have one kid in diapers at a time...though I know that toddlers often do regress when their younger siblings arrive....
No, it's not Hallie who is expecting...she just plays a pregnant person in our house when she is being silly with Ami... Drumroll please: Sharon is 12 weeks, 2 days pregnant with our next, hopefully full term kiddo. We're doing everything we can to monitor this pregnancy as closely as humanly possible, and so far so good... It's quite a leap to take, and if you are the praying/contemplating/finger crossing type, please send your prayers, mantras, and good wishes our way. But I figured that, sooner or later we'd announce this to the blogosphere, and Hallie's pic gave me a great opportunity to do so. We are going into this armed with a lot of research and a bit of craziness, but hopefully, come February 7th, give or take just a week or two, Hallie will be a big sister and we'll be embarking on an even more exciting journey.
Hallie was reacting to beef until Friday, we think, and this made us all very very unhappy. My theory is that it takes her longest to clear protein from her system because it is denser and harder to break down (and obviously harder for her to digest). So this week was mostly devoted to cleaning up after the reflux-related, congested-related, allergy-originated mess and praying hard for her to get the awful stuff that was making all of us (but particularly her) unhappy out of her system.
Fortunately, by Saturday, things were a lot better and we could all go on with our lives. Hallie--with playing hard, and us mommy types with contemplating Hallie's future as a fruititarian. We are not sure that the word exists (blogger seems to be dubious on this count), but we're pretty sure that we're trying blueberries next and then grapes. We need to have a few good weeks under our belt before we attempt anything more challenging (perhaps black beans, which have iron and protein, but are not related to soybeans and peanuts. Alas, chickpeas, which might give us a flour and hummus and falafel, are). Anyway, we also need a few good weeks to help her work on her chewing and food acceptance skills. It's no wonder that she has food aversions: most of her life has been spent being sick because food was hurting her. We need a nice extended period of freedom from this to re-teach her that some foods can be her friends.
It's not that we had *no* fun this week...just less than we'd been having.
Here, Hallie is hanging out with Mommy in the wading pool:
And here she is singing "I Love Trash" with me: she is the puppeteer and I am the singer...she has yet to really sing along with anything, though she loves songs, particularly when sung by her favorite Sesame Street characters:
Anyway, this post isn't about food but about our weekend. Sharon and I started out the weekend in a nice way by going out to dinner and a movie on Friday night. Fabulous food at a local and relatively inexpensive Mexican place (I so hope that Hallie gets to enjoy guacamole and carnitas some day) followed by Wall-e, which was really good. It's totally not a kid's movie, but was a very good movie from the perspective of its underlying message (conservation of the planet Earth) and its fabulous Pixar animation. Nonetheless, I wondered if the message wouldn't end up being diluted by the fact that Disney (and Pixar by association and relationship) are marketing plastic thingamabobs that no one needs in the various merchandising campaigns underway for the film. It seems to me that we could all do more to conserve resources than end up with a million action figures no one truly needs that will end up in some future landfill should we not destroy ourselves by the time some robotic trash compactor of the future gets around to making the material with which to fill them...
OK, enough with my diatribe about our need to do something about our world's condition, and fast.
On Saturday, after another early awakening (7 am at the latest) and similarly early nap (1 pm), we headed down to Grammy's. We never arrive terribly early, and we are very apologetic about this, but let's face it, it's not easy for us to get out of the house and at least we sometimes do so. I was going to stay home to work this weekend but given that our house now seems to be the free residence of a colony of mice that we are picking off one by one (we'd like to evict them en masse but this is not going as planned), I decided that it would be far nicer to try to get some work done at Grammy's, spend time with the cousins and Aunt Laura, and do something other than wonder if it was safe to enter my kitchen.
I am very glad that I did. Hallie had a really lovely time and it's fabulous to see her have fun like this.
She spent the late afternoon at the wading pool with Adam and Hannah, whom she loves, and only part of the way through realized that there was a big grown up pool that we barred her from entering (she thinks she can swim but cannot, which presents all sorts of problems). She tried to find a way through the fence that separates the wading pool from the big person pool, but fortunately did not (it helps that we have neither taught her how to use wire cutters nor provided her with any!).
Saturday was vomit-free day number 88, and so this added to our collective parental happiness.
Today ended up being rather stormy, and Hallie took another early nap (again around 1pm) so we did not get out of the house until close to 4:30pm. We headed over to Aunt Laura's, met up with her and the little kids, and took off for Ocean City (which is about ten minutes from where they live).
Here she is in the lovely sweatshirt that Aunt Ellen got her for her birthday for hanging out on the Ocean City boardwalk:
First we had dinner at Mack and Manco's (Hallie had some potato sticks, milk and then a long walk up and down the boardwalk with me). Then it was off to take in the rides at Wonderland. The last time Hallie did this (the only time she did this!) was last summer, and she was far too small to enjoy the rides, and certainly too small to go on them unsupervised. This time, as always, we began with the Merry-go-round, and fortunately, the horsies did not frighten her.
Then, we sent her off with Adam (who is three and whom we put in charge) to enjoy the firetrucks. The kids had such a great time that they requested a second round. Hallie even enjoyed clanging the fire bell and steering a bit.
After that, we placed them on the boat ride. As I predicted, Hallie was very interested in the water---too interested, really. She had her hands in the water from the get-go (I was advised by Sharon, between her guffaws, that it was not, indeed, electrified). Then she threw her shoe into the water. Sharon retrieved that, and Hallie and I sat there wondering if they were going to post her mugshot and bar her from future rides.
They did not. So she went on later to take a boat ride with Hannah. Hannah is five and did her very best to try to restrain her youngest cousin, but to no avail. Hallie ended up trying to scoot out of Hannah's grasp to get back into the water. I banned her from that ride forthwith.
Before we left, Hallie took a ride on the flying dumbo with Mommy and after that we called it a night.
She slept in the car all the way home and I expect another early awakening from our girl, so I should call it a night, too.
But first, I just want to say that Hallie is not only speaking a lot more (she now regularly says "I" clauses...like "I sit", "I fly" and "I up" and "I down" but also sophisticated multisyllabic words like "upstairs" and "bathroom." I'm not sure that others can comprehend her speech, but we can most of the time. And on the bathroom front, it seems like Hallie is beginning to send out signals that we should, perhaps, begin that toilet training process we've been sort of dreading. Most of the time now when she needs to poop she seeks entry into a bathroom and does what she needs to do and tells us so by saying "Yes" (and signing it, too) when we ask her if she's pooped. She's done this about 85% of the time over the last four or five days. This is great. We're sort of terrified by the process, but Hallie is sending us signals, and we need to respect them. And of course I'll be thrilled to have her out of diapers soon...not only will it save us a few landfills, but a bunch of dollars each month, too. Not to mention help us deal with the squirming kiddo who hates having her diaper changed!
Finally, it will be very nice to just have one kid in diapers at a time...though I know that toddlers often do regress when their younger siblings arrive....
No, it's not Hallie who is expecting...she just plays a pregnant person in our house when she is being silly with Ami... Drumroll please: Sharon is 12 weeks, 2 days pregnant with our next, hopefully full term kiddo. We're doing everything we can to monitor this pregnancy as closely as humanly possible, and so far so good... It's quite a leap to take, and if you are the praying/contemplating/finger crossing type, please send your prayers, mantras, and good wishes our way. But I figured that, sooner or later we'd announce this to the blogosphere, and Hallie's pic gave me a great opportunity to do so. We are going into this armed with a lot of research and a bit of craziness, but hopefully, come February 7th, give or take just a week or two, Hallie will be a big sister and we'll be embarking on an even more exciting journey.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Beef Has Moved into the Failure Column
Well, after all that, it's pretty darned clear that Hallie failed her beef trial. Sharon was out with a client for dinner, and I was home giving Hallie her dinner. Lately, that's not been too traumatic, and Hallie and I were having a nice time watching Elmo & co. while she ate bananas and prunes. She was just about done with her six ounce serving when she gagged (not on anything...just gagged), coughed, and spewed. And spewed. And spewed. She was covered, her high chair was covered, the floor was covered, and it just kept coming up. This is the typical pattern with her food allergies: she has very delayed reactions to many foods, but when they come, they just keep coming.
I ran out of paper towels up here (there are lots more in the basement, but I won't leave her unattended to fetch them) so I resorted to wipes and napkins, and Hallie is generally well behaved in these situations and cooperates with shirt removal and cleanup. I got her relatively clean, gave her some drinkable Yo Goat (thank goodness that Whole Foods is carrying it again!), changed her into a clean diaper (it's rare that the outside is more soiled than the inside, but tonight was one of those nights) and gave her a bottle. She clearly felt better, drank some bottle for me as I cleaned up as much as I could up here, and then went upstairs for her bath. Sharon came home mid-bath (Hallie was thrilled to see her) and got Hallie settled down with more goat milk formula. We managed to get about 12 ounces of formula into the kiddo, so she's not in any danger of dehydration.
Meanwhile, my excellent mommy friends over at the Preemie Blog Moms were very supportive about my venting. A couple of them independently raised the question of whether Hallie has Eosinophilic Esophagitis and not just FPIES. This is a great question, and actually one that came up yesterday during our Pulmonology appointment. Liz asked whether Hallie might have EE, at which point I noted that her scope last August came up clean. Liz said that her sense is that this might be inconclusive because Hallie's gut might not yet have been mature enough to show Eosinophils (pronounces EE-OH-SIN-OH-FILS---I have trouble saying this word, too!). The vomiting plus dysphagia (inability to or difficulty swallowing) is a decent indicator that tis is what we may be facing. The only thing that suggests otherwise is Hallie's nearly-miraculous capacity to put on weight in the face of all of this. She has only really lost weight twice in her life, and that was back in April 2007 when we ran out of breast milk and January 2008 when we stopped adding all of the extra stuff to her goat milk (which also was, probably not coincidentally, the only two week period when she stopped vomiting entirely....I suspect that stripping away the Enfamil AR and possibly the Karo Syrup was responsible for her complete symptomatic resolution at that point).
So, given all of this, I quickly shot off an email to our team---our ped, our allergist, our GI, and Liz. I'm not sure what this will mean in terms of testing, but it will probably mean little in terms of treatment (a few hours of research on POFAK and other websites suggests this). It's clear that the safe foods are safe, and we probably risk very little trying new foods, except that we would need to avoid the top 8 (milk, soy, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, and wheat). We already know that she is not okay on milk, soy, eggs, and wheat, and we were avoiding peanuts and shellfish as well. The question is whether we can get another protein on board, and chicken/turkey/poultry were big no-nos for FPIES. Anyway, I suspect we may just try to add more fruit and rely on our nanny goat formula until who knows when. The big kicker for EE, though, is that there is a lot less of a chance that Hallie will outgrow things, and that would stink.
The upshot is that we're still on six foods and we still have a mystery on our hands and I still need to continue my training and research in the medical/pediatric field.
We did get one more vomit free day out of this week, though, so that makes it 86 for the year. But given tonight's happenings, I'm once more in that glass-is-half-full kind of place. I'm really tired of research, but more importantly, I'm real tired of Hallie having to experience so much pain. It seems so unfair that she has been through so much, and so amazing that, despite it all, she is such a sweet, good-natured, and wonderful little kid. Our OT, Jenine, who was here for the first time in a three weeks was utterly impressed by Hallie's growth and development over this period. Jenine noted that Hallie still has some low tone issues, but her stance (more close-legged) is much more stable and her speech development has been utterly phenomenal. It was nice to hear that a few hours ago, and is very good for me to think about this, right now, as I ponder the future and the things/conditions that Hallie has yet to face.
I ran out of paper towels up here (there are lots more in the basement, but I won't leave her unattended to fetch them) so I resorted to wipes and napkins, and Hallie is generally well behaved in these situations and cooperates with shirt removal and cleanup. I got her relatively clean, gave her some drinkable Yo Goat (thank goodness that Whole Foods is carrying it again!), changed her into a clean diaper (it's rare that the outside is more soiled than the inside, but tonight was one of those nights) and gave her a bottle. She clearly felt better, drank some bottle for me as I cleaned up as much as I could up here, and then went upstairs for her bath. Sharon came home mid-bath (Hallie was thrilled to see her) and got Hallie settled down with more goat milk formula. We managed to get about 12 ounces of formula into the kiddo, so she's not in any danger of dehydration.
Meanwhile, my excellent mommy friends over at the Preemie Blog Moms were very supportive about my venting. A couple of them independently raised the question of whether Hallie has Eosinophilic Esophagitis and not just FPIES. This is a great question, and actually one that came up yesterday during our Pulmonology appointment. Liz asked whether Hallie might have EE, at which point I noted that her scope last August came up clean. Liz said that her sense is that this might be inconclusive because Hallie's gut might not yet have been mature enough to show Eosinophils (pronounces EE-OH-SIN-OH-FILS---I have trouble saying this word, too!). The vomiting plus dysphagia (inability to or difficulty swallowing) is a decent indicator that tis is what we may be facing. The only thing that suggests otherwise is Hallie's nearly-miraculous capacity to put on weight in the face of all of this. She has only really lost weight twice in her life, and that was back in April 2007 when we ran out of breast milk and January 2008 when we stopped adding all of the extra stuff to her goat milk (which also was, probably not coincidentally, the only two week period when she stopped vomiting entirely....I suspect that stripping away the Enfamil AR and possibly the Karo Syrup was responsible for her complete symptomatic resolution at that point).
So, given all of this, I quickly shot off an email to our team---our ped, our allergist, our GI, and Liz. I'm not sure what this will mean in terms of testing, but it will probably mean little in terms of treatment (a few hours of research on POFAK and other websites suggests this). It's clear that the safe foods are safe, and we probably risk very little trying new foods, except that we would need to avoid the top 8 (milk, soy, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, and wheat). We already know that she is not okay on milk, soy, eggs, and wheat, and we were avoiding peanuts and shellfish as well. The question is whether we can get another protein on board, and chicken/turkey/poultry were big no-nos for FPIES. Anyway, I suspect we may just try to add more fruit and rely on our nanny goat formula until who knows when. The big kicker for EE, though, is that there is a lot less of a chance that Hallie will outgrow things, and that would stink.
The upshot is that we're still on six foods and we still have a mystery on our hands and I still need to continue my training and research in the medical/pediatric field.
We did get one more vomit free day out of this week, though, so that makes it 86 for the year. But given tonight's happenings, I'm once more in that glass-is-half-full kind of place. I'm really tired of research, but more importantly, I'm real tired of Hallie having to experience so much pain. It seems so unfair that she has been through so much, and so amazing that, despite it all, she is such a sweet, good-natured, and wonderful little kid. Our OT, Jenine, who was here for the first time in a three weeks was utterly impressed by Hallie's growth and development over this period. Jenine noted that Hallie still has some low tone issues, but her stance (more close-legged) is much more stable and her speech development has been utterly phenomenal. It was nice to hear that a few hours ago, and is very good for me to think about this, right now, as I ponder the future and the things/conditions that Hallie has yet to face.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Tipping the Scales At...
....a whopping 27 lbs, 8 ounces (12.5 kilos on the nose). That's what Hallie weighs as of today, and while I think the scale at the pulmonologist runs heavy, even if we subtract 8 ounces for that and the poop that she produced a few minutes after we got to the examination room, that's still phenomenal.
Turns out that french fries, supercharged goat milk, and a variety of fruits is NOT a good diet for a super model after all. Just a super toddler.
She is about 34 inches, so 40th percentile for height. This accounts for the recent chubbiness that we've perceived.
More importantly, her lungs so clear as a bell. Our excellent pulmo fellow agrees that the dietary changes are what have made all the difference in Hallie's case. She looked at the growth curve, which totally took off in December (our last visit) and listened to her lungs very carefully and heard nothing out of the ordinary, even when she squeezed them to try to elicit a wheeze. She and her attending did say that down the road, when Hallie starts cardiovascular sports, she may get winded more quickly than other kids, but that, right now it seems like we've skirted asthma and no longer even have a Reactive Airways Disease diagnosis. This is nothing short of miraculous.
We'll keep the flovent and atrovent on hand for now in case we need it if she gets sick or something, but we're continuining to tick off the things we don't need to worry about.
Hallie was very cute, after she got over her raging blood-pressure-cuff related meltdown (she hates those things with a passion). She had a lot of fun running around the exam room and even more fun once Liz (the fellow) arrived. She showed off for Liz by saying "Liz" (I'd been coaching her: it really helped this time to tell her that she had a doctor's visit today and that the doctor, who is named Liz, is very nice and loves her and likes playing with her) and signing "Doctor." She was extremely social, very well behaved, and other than the aforementioned meltdown, was a model patient. She offered her ear to Liz when Liz grabbed the otoscope and opened her mouth wide when asked and sat still for the stethescope (she loves these). She even let Liz use the portable pulse ox on her (they needed to repeat this since the first pulse ox, which immediately followed the blood pressure check, registered 83-88 but this was all meltdown related. Her real sats were at 97%; when Sharon heard this, she queried: "Why not 100%". Sheesh!!!!
Turns out that french fries, supercharged goat milk, and a variety of fruits is NOT a good diet for a super model after all. Just a super toddler.
She is about 34 inches, so 40th percentile for height. This accounts for the recent chubbiness that we've perceived.
More importantly, her lungs so clear as a bell. Our excellent pulmo fellow agrees that the dietary changes are what have made all the difference in Hallie's case. She looked at the growth curve, which totally took off in December (our last visit) and listened to her lungs very carefully and heard nothing out of the ordinary, even when she squeezed them to try to elicit a wheeze. She and her attending did say that down the road, when Hallie starts cardiovascular sports, she may get winded more quickly than other kids, but that, right now it seems like we've skirted asthma and no longer even have a Reactive Airways Disease diagnosis. This is nothing short of miraculous.
We'll keep the flovent and atrovent on hand for now in case we need it if she gets sick or something, but we're continuining to tick off the things we don't need to worry about.
Hallie was very cute, after she got over her raging blood-pressure-cuff related meltdown (she hates those things with a passion). She had a lot of fun running around the exam room and even more fun once Liz (the fellow) arrived. She showed off for Liz by saying "Liz" (I'd been coaching her: it really helped this time to tell her that she had a doctor's visit today and that the doctor, who is named Liz, is very nice and loves her and likes playing with her) and signing "Doctor." She was extremely social, very well behaved, and other than the aforementioned meltdown, was a model patient. She offered her ear to Liz when Liz grabbed the otoscope and opened her mouth wide when asked and sat still for the stethescope (she loves these). She even let Liz use the portable pulse ox on her (they needed to repeat this since the first pulse ox, which immediately followed the blood pressure check, registered 83-88 but this was all meltdown related. Her real sats were at 97%; when Sharon heard this, she queried: "Why not 100%". Sheesh!!!!
A Remembrance of Things (that you wish were in the) Past
So this evening, Hallie had another one of her famous cough-cough-bottle-vomit episodes. We were a bit out of practice so Sharon didn't have the famous bucket nearby (it's been a long time since one of these events) and consequently the mess (which included dinner) was fairly spectacular. I was also unprepared so I needed to call in the paper towel reinforcements from the basement (haven't been using many of these lately, so I didn't have my typical stash of two extra rolls upstairs). Hallie, of course, was asleep when all of this happened, but woke up from the coughing and vomiting and then had to be put back to bed.
This comes on the heels of her swallowing some water from the wading pool this afternoon and vomiting as a result of that. She still cannot handle thin liquids (we still thicken pretty much everything to a consistency that's between nectar and honey; she does take little sips of unthickened juice, but not much and not often). Clearly she isn't ready for thins, yet, but my sense (and my sense about things tends to be pretty good) is that this episode tonight was not about the pool water but something else.
Possible culprits?
1. Beef, after all (especially since I jinxed us with the last post).
2. Hot dogs, but not beef in particular. The ones we use are gluten and casein free, and the only ingredients listed are celery juice, paprika, onion and garlic powder, lactic acid from beets, and salt and pepper. Still, that does leave an awful lot beside beef.
3. The Gerber plums and apples she ate at dinner. A long shot, but Gerber is known for more cross-contamination problems than is Beech Nut (which she's been eating quite happily without incident and whose food contains some iron, as opposed to Earth's Best)
Of course I responded by googling and searching the POFAK site frantically and don't have any conclusive answers. I think we just have to wait and see. If the vomiting keeps up, we will know she is responding to something in the hot dogs (beef or something else). That's the typical pattern with Hallie. If it is a food allergy or intolerance, she's taken longer than average to respond (she responds very quickly to rice and other grains and milk but took a few days to respond to soy, for example). But a delay of four days is not unheard of, especially given the very small quantities of hot dogs she's eating (never more than a third to half a hot dog at any sitting, and more typically that's been over the course of a day). Today she only had a few bites of hot dog and mostly safe pureed foods so that makes the hot dogs a less likely culprit, but these food allergy things are so capricious and weird that it can make your head spin.
Anyway, that all means that we're still at 85 vomit free days and that we had 6 vomit free days this week. I was so hoping for seven, but that was not to be.
It's way late right now and I've just finished cleaning up for the cleaning folks coming tomorrow (let's hope that they do a better job than the ones we used to have come in twice a month) and making the kiddo's bottles. I am hoping that Hallie sleeps through the night---between the no naps (and no bottle) in the car home and the major vomit after eating a decent dinner and drinking over 6 ounces of her bottle, she's down in terms of quantity consumed today. When Sharon was finally able to settle Hallie down around 11:30, the girl only drank about 4.5 ounces of her milk, so she's had maybe a total of 10 ounces of milk today and perhaps as much as 600 calories, but certainly no more than that. I deeply hope that she sleeps through the night and that tomorrow ends up being a better day.
To end on a more upbeat note: it turns out that Hallie can not only identify most (over 20 for sure) letters of the alphabet (only upper case) when they are written/printed, but that she can identify all letters of the alphabet until "P" when they are signed to her. She was refusing to nap on the way home from our meetup with Eliza Grace and her mom in Princeton, so I was amusing her in the back seat of the car. I started to sign to see whether she could get my alphabet signs, and amazingly enough she did. She got bored at "P" so she may know Q through Z as well, but just suffers from a raging case of a toddler's limited attention span.
This comes on the heels of her swallowing some water from the wading pool this afternoon and vomiting as a result of that. She still cannot handle thin liquids (we still thicken pretty much everything to a consistency that's between nectar and honey; she does take little sips of unthickened juice, but not much and not often). Clearly she isn't ready for thins, yet, but my sense (and my sense about things tends to be pretty good) is that this episode tonight was not about the pool water but something else.
Possible culprits?
1. Beef, after all (especially since I jinxed us with the last post).
2. Hot dogs, but not beef in particular. The ones we use are gluten and casein free, and the only ingredients listed are celery juice, paprika, onion and garlic powder, lactic acid from beets, and salt and pepper. Still, that does leave an awful lot beside beef.
3. The Gerber plums and apples she ate at dinner. A long shot, but Gerber is known for more cross-contamination problems than is Beech Nut (which she's been eating quite happily without incident and whose food contains some iron, as opposed to Earth's Best)
Of course I responded by googling and searching the POFAK site frantically and don't have any conclusive answers. I think we just have to wait and see. If the vomiting keeps up, we will know she is responding to something in the hot dogs (beef or something else). That's the typical pattern with Hallie. If it is a food allergy or intolerance, she's taken longer than average to respond (she responds very quickly to rice and other grains and milk but took a few days to respond to soy, for example). But a delay of four days is not unheard of, especially given the very small quantities of hot dogs she's eating (never more than a third to half a hot dog at any sitting, and more typically that's been over the course of a day). Today she only had a few bites of hot dog and mostly safe pureed foods so that makes the hot dogs a less likely culprit, but these food allergy things are so capricious and weird that it can make your head spin.
Anyway, that all means that we're still at 85 vomit free days and that we had 6 vomit free days this week. I was so hoping for seven, but that was not to be.
It's way late right now and I've just finished cleaning up for the cleaning folks coming tomorrow (let's hope that they do a better job than the ones we used to have come in twice a month) and making the kiddo's bottles. I am hoping that Hallie sleeps through the night---between the no naps (and no bottle) in the car home and the major vomit after eating a decent dinner and drinking over 6 ounces of her bottle, she's down in terms of quantity consumed today. When Sharon was finally able to settle Hallie down around 11:30, the girl only drank about 4.5 ounces of her milk, so she's had maybe a total of 10 ounces of milk today and perhaps as much as 600 calories, but certainly no more than that. I deeply hope that she sleeps through the night and that tomorrow ends up being a better day.
To end on a more upbeat note: it turns out that Hallie can not only identify most (over 20 for sure) letters of the alphabet (only upper case) when they are written/printed, but that she can identify all letters of the alphabet until "P" when they are signed to her. She was refusing to nap on the way home from our meetup with Eliza Grace and her mom in Princeton, so I was amusing her in the back seat of the car. I started to sign to see whether she could get my alphabet signs, and amazingly enough she did. She got bored at "P" so she may know Q through Z as well, but just suffers from a raging case of a toddler's limited attention span.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The Pigeon Ate a Hotdog
So I'm pretty certain that Hallie is passing her beef challenge, which is great, since it turns out that she does love hot dogs. Maybe it's the power of Mo Willem's suggestion (in the fabulous and often-read The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog and maybe it is the sheer taste sensation, but the kid has been craving her beef lately, and, even more importantly, feeding it to herself. In the hierarchy of foods, there is no doubt that french fries win out, but tonight Hallie downed about a third to half a hotdog with gusto and relish (ok...no relish. We haven't conducted a pickle relish, or for that matter, mustard trial yet!).
Naturally, since it's so wonderful to chronicle good eating experiences, I pulled out the camera. Hallie can tell when the camera is being whipped out and hears the noise that it makes when it is turned on, so she looked up. I said "smile" to her as I got ready to snap a shot, and while she didn't quite smile (as is evident in the photo), she said "cheese" back to us. How cool!
The weather, alas, today, was anything but, so we stayed indoors (or, more correctly, she stayed indoors, while Sharon went to her final day of jury duty and I went in search of goat milk provisions and stuff for the moms to eat, too).
Then again, we were all probably too exhausted to play outside with her anyway because our kiddo decided that 3:40am Thursday-into-Friday morning was the perfect time to wake us up with a (for her) resounding "mama!" and "mommy!" and an effort to crawl off the bed to grab some books and a bit of playing. We were neither thrilled nor impressed, so I ran downstairs to grab a bottle. The bottle got her right back to sleep. Alas, it slipped from her lovely little mouth and proceeded to dribble all over the bed and I woke up in a soggy pool of goat milk. Yuck.
As promised, here's a couple of shots of Hallie's body art (a daily routine) from the other night. Note that in the second picture she is lying upside down watching TV. This is a new thing, and slightly odd. But she does seem to enjoy it, and she's a toddler, which is an odd stage of human development in any event.
Final note: five weekdays in a row of spew free existence. I think we're up to 84 days now, but honestly, I'm beginning to lose count. And this is a very good thing indeed.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Where's the Beef?
So we're doing a beef challenge this week with Hallie. It would be excellent to have an additional protein source (her only protein source thus far being goat milk products; she's great with these, but her diet doesn't afford her a lot of variety). She doesn't seem to like the taste of those little jars of beech nut baby beef terribly much (can you blame her?) but has done okay on the two ounces of it that she's had so far (one yesterday and the other today). So, after a bit of research on Applegate Farms (an organic brand carried by Whole Foods) that yielded information about a very good set of policies concerning their lack of use of gluten, their dedicated practices to avoid cross contamination with dairy products, and the like, I decided to pick up a package of their organic hot dogs tonight and try them out on Hallie. Worst comes to worst, I figured, we'd actually eat these (unlike the many jars of rejected baby food that we have stacked in our cabinet). We do like our hot dogs around here (pretty occasionally, but still) and I insist on organic ones, and since I do most of the shopping, Sharon has to put up with these (which actually are quite tasty) in lieu of her preferred Oscar Mayer ones (side note: Hallie's pulmonologist *is* actually Oscar Mayer...grandson, I think, of the lunch meat-hot dog guy, and a fabulous doctor all around. I'm not sure if we'll see him or someone else on Monday for our 6 month checkup that is about 3 months late, but we are looking forward to hanging out with the pulmo fellow, Liz, whom we actually miss. She loves Hallie, and the feeling is quite mutual. I am sure that Liz will be surprised at how big Hallie's gotten).
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: I brought them home, boiled up about a third of one, skinned it, let it cool, and chunked it up pretty small. We weren't sure what to expect because Hallie gave me the mother of all food averse I'm-not-eating-no-way-no-how-you-cannot-make-me-so-there tantrums last night. So much so that I gave up (trying not to show my exasperation) and handed over the feeding reins to Sharon, who managed somehow to get four 'sticks' of goat mozarella, two slices of banana cut up into sixths, and a few sticks of pear into the kid over the next hour and a half. It's very clear to us that our toddler knows how to chew and can chew and swallow safe foods, but that she is as stubborn as a mule and that food is her controlling mechanism of desire (or lack thereof), probably because of her long history of hating it and it hurting her. In any event, tonight she was pretty good and, once she deemed the hotdog both safe and tasty, chowed it down pretty nicely. A couple of chunks did end up in her high chair, but this appeared to be more related to toddler lack of eating coordination than to an effort to hide and bury them and fool us on her part. (It is pretty interesting that she inspects her food the way she does. Her initial response to chunks of food that do not appear to be french fries or potato sticks is to say 'all done' and swat at and clear them. But she stopped doing this with the hot dogs once she actually tasted their yummy salty goodness and realized that this was indeed what the famous pigeon was talking about when he found a hot dog and deemed it a taste sensation and splendor in a bun. Just hold the bun for Hallie, unless of course we can figure out how to make a bun from potato, goat milk, pears, apples, bananas and prunes or some subset thereof).
We'll see if Hallie's pro-hot dog stance continues tomorrow and how she fares with beef more generally. She usually begins reacting to a food to which she turns out to be non IgE allergic by the third or fourth day of a trial, and tomorrow is day three. We certainly are hopeful that she is not one of those rare FPIES kids who is so allergic to cow milk that they are also allergic to the cow that produces it.
In related news: today is day 82 of the year that is vomit free, and the only day in the past 10 that she did vomit was Sunday, when she hit her head on the wooden frame of the futon. This is spectacular (not the head hitting part) and gives us great hope.
Her language is also progressing nicely. Tonight she brought her Baby's First Colors book over to Sharon and both signed and said (quite clearly, to us, at least) "colors." She says "upstairs" when she wants to go up, and "outside" and a bunch of other multisyllabic words. And she is internalizing the need to be polite. Now she almost always says and signs "Please" (she says "Pleasy") if she wants something and without fail says and signs "thank you", which sounds much closer to how it is supposed to sound---it used to sound like 't---oo" and now sounds like "tank-ooo". She has also been saying "hello" quite clearly into phones---both real and perceived---and yesterday evening had her first real phone conversation with Grammy. She said "Hello", "Grammy", "Doggie" and "Bye Bye" pretty much in that order. Grammy was quite thrilled. She is still probably only 25% comprehensible (maybe a bit less) to others, but this is quite impressive progress given that Hallie hardly babbled at all until November/December, had nary a word back in January, and only about 40 words or so at the beginning of June. Now she has so many words or word attempts that we've kind of lost count.
Hallie has also refined her sense of style. I call the first picture "The girl with the go-go boots" (her favorite item of clothing). Note that she is only wearing a diaper since she has become quite adept at removing her pants.
The second picture is Hallie's updated Russian peasant girl look. She insisted on undoing one of the straps of her Elmo/Cookie overalls and walked around with them that way most of the day. The rest of the day she decided that overalls were too much to wear altogether so she stripped them off and just hung out in her t-shirt.
I have some pics on the camera of Hallie's impressive attempt tonight at body art (using washable markers; she's mastered taking off and replacing the flip top on her new ones, but still insists on using her teeth instead of her hands...does this count as fine motor skills?) but I am too tired and lazy to upload them right now, so these will have to wait until my next post.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand: I brought them home, boiled up about a third of one, skinned it, let it cool, and chunked it up pretty small. We weren't sure what to expect because Hallie gave me the mother of all food averse I'm-not-eating-no-way-no-how-you-cannot-make-me-so-there tantrums last night. So much so that I gave up (trying not to show my exasperation) and handed over the feeding reins to Sharon, who managed somehow to get four 'sticks' of goat mozarella, two slices of banana cut up into sixths, and a few sticks of pear into the kid over the next hour and a half. It's very clear to us that our toddler knows how to chew and can chew and swallow safe foods, but that she is as stubborn as a mule and that food is her controlling mechanism of desire (or lack thereof), probably because of her long history of hating it and it hurting her. In any event, tonight she was pretty good and, once she deemed the hotdog both safe and tasty, chowed it down pretty nicely. A couple of chunks did end up in her high chair, but this appeared to be more related to toddler lack of eating coordination than to an effort to hide and bury them and fool us on her part. (It is pretty interesting that she inspects her food the way she does. Her initial response to chunks of food that do not appear to be french fries or potato sticks is to say 'all done' and swat at and clear them. But she stopped doing this with the hot dogs once she actually tasted their yummy salty goodness and realized that this was indeed what the famous pigeon was talking about when he found a hot dog and deemed it a taste sensation and splendor in a bun. Just hold the bun for Hallie, unless of course we can figure out how to make a bun from potato, goat milk, pears, apples, bananas and prunes or some subset thereof).
We'll see if Hallie's pro-hot dog stance continues tomorrow and how she fares with beef more generally. She usually begins reacting to a food to which she turns out to be non IgE allergic by the third or fourth day of a trial, and tomorrow is day three. We certainly are hopeful that she is not one of those rare FPIES kids who is so allergic to cow milk that they are also allergic to the cow that produces it.
In related news: today is day 82 of the year that is vomit free, and the only day in the past 10 that she did vomit was Sunday, when she hit her head on the wooden frame of the futon. This is spectacular (not the head hitting part) and gives us great hope.
Her language is also progressing nicely. Tonight she brought her Baby's First Colors book over to Sharon and both signed and said (quite clearly, to us, at least) "colors." She says "upstairs" when she wants to go up, and "outside" and a bunch of other multisyllabic words. And she is internalizing the need to be polite. Now she almost always says and signs "Please" (she says "Pleasy") if she wants something and without fail says and signs "thank you", which sounds much closer to how it is supposed to sound---it used to sound like 't---oo" and now sounds like "tank-ooo". She has also been saying "hello" quite clearly into phones---both real and perceived---and yesterday evening had her first real phone conversation with Grammy. She said "Hello", "Grammy", "Doggie" and "Bye Bye" pretty much in that order. Grammy was quite thrilled. She is still probably only 25% comprehensible (maybe a bit less) to others, but this is quite impressive progress given that Hallie hardly babbled at all until November/December, had nary a word back in January, and only about 40 words or so at the beginning of June. Now she has so many words or word attempts that we've kind of lost count.
Hallie has also refined her sense of style. I call the first picture "The girl with the go-go boots" (her favorite item of clothing). Note that she is only wearing a diaper since she has become quite adept at removing her pants.
The second picture is Hallie's updated Russian peasant girl look. She insisted on undoing one of the straps of her Elmo/Cookie overalls and walked around with them that way most of the day. The rest of the day she decided that overalls were too much to wear altogether so she stripped them off and just hung out in her t-shirt.
I have some pics on the camera of Hallie's impressive attempt tonight at body art (using washable markers; she's mastered taking off and replacing the flip top on her new ones, but still insists on using her teeth instead of her hands...does this count as fine motor skills?) but I am too tired and lazy to upload them right now, so these will have to wait until my next post.
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