Choo-Choo Train

When I dropped Sophie off at the babysitter's house today, there were trains and a train track out on the floor. After giving her babysitter some love, Sophie crawled over to the trains to play. She picked one up from a box and (with the pacifier still in her mouth) exclaimed, "Choo-choo train!" Her babysitter and I were in shock. We both heard it and agreed that it was a very clear 'choo-choo train.'

Sophie never fails to impress me!

On the Mend

Sophie is feeling much better now. Friday she went back to the babysitter's for the first time all week. She ended up puking again on Thursday night while she was sleeping. I am so glad that I was upstairs and close by because she was on her back and struggling to sit up, so she was choking on her puke a little. Awful and scary. I was afraid that we would have to keep her home again, but she was fine the rest of the night and Friday morning. She did great at the babysitter's and was so happy to see all of her friends again. The babysitter and some of the other kids even greeted her at the door! They were happy to see her, too.

I am so glad that her medicine is helping her. She no longer has goopy eyes or a runny nose. Instead she has passed that torch on to me. Still, if I could take all of her sicknesses on myself so she was always healthy, I would.

18 Months

Showing off those pearly whites.

A year and a half has gone by since I was able to meet my baby girl for the first time. I still remember my first thought after seeing her face - "She kinda looks like an old man." That was quickly followed by a wave of overwhelming love that has never gone away.

Sophie's first picture and my first view of her - my sweet little "old man" (ignore the giant bump on her head from the internal monitoring device. If you look closely though, it looks as if there is a face on it. Creepy!)

These past 18 months have been the best of my life. There have been some very challenging times, but Sophie has made them all worth it. I can't imagine my life without her (this month especially, for many reasons). I remember people saying that they couldn't imagine their life without their kids and that their lives didn't really have a purpose before their children were born. I used to just politely smile and thought, "Surrrreee..." What a fool I was! I completely understand what they mean now. My life now has meaning and purpose. The life I had before was so insignificant compared to what I have now. Having kids isn't for everyone, so I am in no way saying that people who don't want kids won't ever live a meaningful life. For me though, I always knew I wanted kids and that my life was missing something without them. Sophie has brought so much to my life and I am forever grateful to her for that.
Ugh, I always seem to get sappy in these monthly posts. Enough!

Highlights from the month:

• SOPHIE CAN WALK!! Everyday she walks more and more. It is unbelievable. I am in awe every time I watch her walk around the room. She still crawls, but I think she is walking more than crawling now. Even while sick, she was walking a ton. I am so excited and relieved! - no PT in the near future! (I'm sure she will break some bones or something equally bad later in life that would make us take her to PT.)
• I am pretty sure our scale doesn't work properly. Sometimes it does, and other times it doesn't. Joe and I weighed her two weeks ago (before she was sick). It said that she was 15lb 3oz. Strange, because last month it said she was 15lb 9oz. I think we are just going to go by the doctor's scale now. (They did weigh her on Tuesday at her sick visit and she was 14lb 15oz! That makes sense though since she hadn't been eating or drinking. When the nurse was gone, I fed and reweighed her - 15lb 1oz. I like that one much better).
• Sophie is still in 6 month clothes. They fit well in the waist area, but most of the pants are too short and the sleeves on her long sleeved shirts are too long. I already had to put away many of her 6 month pajamas for being too short (and therefore too tight) for her. I know that I should bump her up to 9 month clothes, but I selfishly don't want to sew the waists of all of her pants for them to fit. Plus, I like so many of her 6 month winter outfits. It is probably time to at least add some 6-9 month clothes though.
• Sophie keeps adding words to her vocabulary. I can't even remember them all now. Some of her new favorites are "ball," "nana," and "diaper." She is also working on her color words like "yellow" and "purple." (She still can't point out which color is which though, but knowing the names is good enough for me.)
• Sophie loves brushing her teeth and cries when I take the toothbrush away.
• I can't get over how much Sophie understands now. I can ask her to go get something and she brings it to me. If I ask her to blow her nose, she blows her nose. If I ask if she wants a bath, she will say yes (or, very rarely, no). I will ask if she wants to read a book and she will go get me one to read to her. She even understands things like "take a sip" or "take one bite." It is amazing!
• Sophie had her first haircut. I still am sad that some of the hair is gone, but it looks so much better. You can see her eyes in all of her pictures now!
• Sophie loves music and even dances to it. Of course her dancing is either shaking her hands or bouncing up and down. It is pretty adorable though!
• Sophie keeps working on her fine motor skills. She still loves playing with zippers, and makes me laugh in the mornings when she has her zippered pajamas off and in her hands. She has perfected putting the coins in her piggy bank toy. She will even find the smallest little crumb on the floor and pick it up and give it to us.

• Sophie's two favorite games right now are Peek-a-Boo and Put and Take (you know, putting things in a basket or bag and taking them back out). Peek-a-Boo cracks her up, though she would rather hide from you than you from her. Put and Take will keep her occupied for quite some time. That has proven to be very helpful during those moments when I need to get something done.

• Sophie loves taking her clothes off and trying to put them back on. She has been able to put her legs back into her pajamas and pants, but not pull them up. She even tries to put her socks on.

Here are some photos from this month (just click the link below):

My little walker!

One of my students brought me this box of chocolate. It is almost as big as Sophie!

Sophie loves books, especially this one on cats. She will point to each cat on the pages and say, "Cat!"

Sophie loves playing with the railings. Hopefully her head is too big to get her head stuck in there. Eek!

Molly pushing Sophie around in a baby stroller. Perfect fit!

This kid didn't really walk at the beginning of the month and now she is walking on couches.

It is scary that she knows how to correctly use a remote.

Giving Lucy a hug good-bye.

Sophie in her pretty dress from Becki.

Sophie's signature grin

My little monkey climbs on everything.

Sophie won't drink her Pediasure out of a sippy cup. At least the bottle nipples will fit on the Pediasure bottles. No more washing bottles!

I remember taking her monthly pictures this way in her crib thinking that Sophie would never fill it out. Now look at her!

Sophie loves to try to get the cat to play with the cat toy.

She also likes trying to eat the toy.

So serious

Who Ordered a Double?

When Sophie woke up on Tuesday, I took her downstairs to try to get her to drink something. She took a few sips of Pediasure and then refused to drink anything else. I asked if she wanted some water and she pathetically shook her head no. More Pediasure? Another small shake of the head. Food? Nope. Then she whimpered, made a gagging noise and puked. I caught most of it in my hands, though it still got on the carpet, her clothes, and mine. Of course once she finished puking she cried and wanted to be held. I still had my hands full of puke, so I dumped it on a blanket (should have held the blanket out instead of my hands - hindsight!!) and scooped her up. Her pajamas were already covered in puke, so what was a little more? I called the doctor's office as soon as it opened and made an appointment. It turns out that she has yet another double ear infection. Poor kid!  We had no idea. I thought maybe it was just a stomach bug or a normal cold. She hasn't had a fever and she didn't tug on her ears at all. I hate that we missed the signs (if there were any) for the ear infections.

Since she hasn't felt well, Sophie hasn't been to the baby sitter's all week! We were off school on Monday, but I took Tuesday off to be with her. Joe took off yesterday, and my mom had her today. She will go back tomorrow, which I am sure will make her happy. I know she misses her friends. Still, I'm glad that we have kept her home these past few days. She was miserable. Most of the time she would lay on us or sleep in our arms. She would shake her head no to any food or drink we offered. I would have to tell her to take a sip of water to convince her to even do that. She really didn't eat or drink much at all these past few days. I would ask if she wanted to go play and she would pitifully nod her head yes. Smiles were rare even, which is very abnormal for Sophie. She ate and drank so much better today though, and was happier, too. Maybe that is just because she was with her Grandma!

The poor thing has stayed on the couch most of the time that she has been sick.

Sophie slept on me most of Tuesday

Hopefully the Amoxicillin helps Sophie feel better quickly. I love all of the snuggles that I have been getting, but I miss my silly, smiley Sophie.

Sick

This whole past week Sophie's nose has been running (clear at least) and she developed a gross cough. Nothing else seemed to bother her, though she was eating less food (this isn't really an indicator of anything for us though, as we are used to Sophie's eating habits). Saturday morning though I noticed that in addition to a runny nose, Sophie's right eye was getting watery. This seems to always happen to her right eye when she gets a bad cold, so I had a feeling that things were going to start getting worse.

Runny nose

Watery eyes

Sophie acted fine the rest of Saturday, but right around midnight she woke up puking. Sophie has never puked like this before. She has spit up and there were a few times that she puked from her overnight feeds from her feeding tube, but nothing like tonight (meaning actual food and such). She puked again around 3am. There was some dried puke on her cheek, which makes me think she must have gotten sick sometime between 12 and 3. I always put 3 crib sheets and sheet protectors on her mattress which normally would be more than enough for a nighttime accident, but not tonight. She went through all 3 of the crib sheets. After wiping her down, cleaning out her nose (there was puke in there...gross) and changing her pajamas, I brought her downstairs to sleep with me on the couch. Around 4am she sat up and started wimpering. I had a small blanket ready and she puked right on it when I held it out in front of her. Luckily that was the last time she puked.

Sunday morning Sophie acted fine. She still had a runny nose and watery eye, but she was happy as can be. She wasn't interested in eating (I don't blame her), but she drank a lot for me. She had a really messy diaper that got all over her pajamas though, so I called the doctor's office to get their opinion on things. Of course it was Sunday, so I had to leave a message (they finally called back Monday afternoon and weren't concerned at all). As the day progressed, Sophie's eye started to ooze a little and her appetite continued to decrease. I'm glad she at least likes water because she was not interested in her Pediasure or Pedialyte. Her eye started to ooze more as the night went on. She didn't puke or poop anymore though, so I consider it a win for the day.

Her right eye is a little red because we kept wiping the gunk away.

Monday morning she woke up and her right eye was basically glued shut from all the gunk that had oozed out. (I kept a wet washcloth with me most of the day so that I could keep wiping off her eye. The gunk just kept coming back.) She drank a few sips of Pediasure and a little bit of water, but didn't want anything to eat. After an hour of being awake, she ended up falling asleep on my should for an hour and a half. When she woke up she played and laughed and acted like herself. A few hours later though she was felt really warm and was becoming crabby. I gave her some Advil and put her down for a nap. She ended up sleeping for 4 hours! She wouldn't eat or drink after she woke up. She did have some ice chips though, so at least she had something in her system. Her eye and nose kept running the rest of the day, both yellow in color. We kept wiping both away, and it seems we rubbed the skin under her eye raw! Poor kid.

At the beginning of the day it looked like a bruise under her eye. By the end of the day it looked like this. I guess we rubbed her eye too much. :-(

The eye looked a little better after she got a bath. Still looks bad though. 

I hope this doesn't last much longer. I hate seeing Sophie not feel well!

All Clean

We brushed Sophie's teeth for the first time tonight. She has always enjoyed "helping me" brush my teeth (holding the toothbrush while I brushed) and playing with her gum massager (which looks kinda like a toothbrush), but we never ventured  into the actual brushing of her teeth. In the past instead of brushing her teeth, I've rubbed her teeth with a wet cloth (per the dentist's suggestion). Sophie has never been a fan of letting me stick my fingers in her mouth, so it didn't happen often. Plus, if you put your fingers in her mouth, she bites...hard! During bath time, Sophie always sucks on a washcloth, so I figured that she was helping to keep her teeth clean that way. Still, Grandma Z. decided it was time for us to start brushing those pearly whites for real, so she went out and bought Sophie some toothpaste and a toothbrush.

Sophie loved the toothbrush! Not necessarily the brushing aspect, just the toothbrush. She let me kinda brush for a minute before she clamped down on the toothbrush and giggled. Then she took over control of the brush. She had a lot of fun sucking the toothpaste off the brush and trying to brush her teeth herself. She also enjoyed watching the baby in the mirror brush her teeth. When I tried to take the toothbrush away so that we could put her to bed, she threw a fit! At least she enjoyed the "brushing" experience. Let's hope that she continues to enjoy good dental hygiene!

Cat Doors Aren't Just for Cats



Taking Off

It seems that as soon as Sara cut Sophie's hair, Sophie started walking. Maybe it was the hair in her eyes that was holding her back. Whatever it was, my girl has been walking up a storm this week! No more of the little one or two steps and then sitting down. Sophie will take about 7 steps before stumbling. Other times she will walk across the room! She will even stand around on her own, which she wasn't brave enough to do before. Today I even watched her go from a sitting to standing position, bend over, pick something up and stand back up again. Wow! Such a complete change from last week! I can't get over it!

I've decided that Sophie is too much like me for her own good. 18 months is coming quickly and that is when the doctors were going to suggest PT if she still wasn't walking a lot. That isn't a route we need to go down anymore (thank goodness). Seems to me that she is going to be a procrastinator, just like her Momma. Regardless, I am so proud of Sophie!

Standing around

Walking to the ottoman

Bend...

and snap! (I couldn't resist a Legally Blonde reference)