Acrobat or Monkey? You decide.

As I mentioned in a previous post one of Emmy's new tricks is to push herself off your lap to flip herself over backwards and hang upside down. Here's a picture of her the other morning performing one of her tricks. Don't mind me in the background.


I know that we should let her watch TV yet, and usually we have the TV off. When it is on, it certainly does catch her attention, especially when there's music involved. Saturday morning Charles was looking at some clips on YouTube of musical groups, and she was fascinated!


Emmy is also fascinated with her hands lately. I'll often catch her looking at them. It was hard to snap a photo, but Charles did get one of her on her changing table the other day. I've also caught her looking at my mouth when I'm singing different songs and she'll move her mouth like she's trying to figure out how to form different words. So cute! Today I was sitting in front of her singing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" and she was entranced by the hand movements. It's so funny to see what catches her eye. Music is seeming to be one of her favorites lately and we'll have to see about starting Kindermusik in the Spring!

Here she is today so cute in her new "Baby Legs." I admit when I saw these before I was pregnant I thought "leg warmers for babies, what?" Now that I have a baby I think "these are brilliant." Emmy has some cute onesies (like the super cute fish one she's wearing here that Mary Ann gave her) that would be fun for her to wear but I worry about it being a bit cold. But, pants or tights are just a pain, especially when we're just hanging around the house. The Baby Legs are cute, and they don't have to come off for a diaper change. Woohoo! Now that I've tried one pair, I want more! I can see her wearing them instead of tights under casual dresses.

7th Months Old!

Emmy is 7 months old today! It's so hard for us to believe. She has come so far from the little peanut she was on May 8th!

I took Emmy to the doctor yesterday just to confirm if she had Hand, Foot and Mouth. Dr. J believed that yes, indeed she does, she just has atypical presentation of symptoms. Fortunately, today the bumps on her fanny are gone and the ones near her mouth are almost gone. When we went into the doctor's office yesterday one had appeared on her hand, but other than that, she's not showing any new symptoms. Her fever is gone, too, I think. She's continually been her usual happy self, so hopefully we evaded the worst of it this time.

She is so happy and smiley and when she laughs, you can't help but laugh with her. She loves music and she loves to be sung to. If she's getting fussy, usually a song will get her laughing again, if only for a minute. Of course it makes us happy that she likes music so much.

Her favorite new "trick" is trying to flip herself upside down while she's in your lap. Seriously, she likes to be upside down. She'll just hang there for a minute, and if you don't hold on, she'll push herself off your lap! Crazy girl.

Today she started moving backwards in her walker. She's moved around a tiny bit, but today was the first day she really covered some ground. Charles said she seemed frustrated she couldn't move forward, but she'll figure it out! The walker is just, great, though because she can sit up and see and play with her toys. Currently she enjoys pitching the pieces of her wooden nativity set on the floor. She also swings her rings back and forth. We wised up and attached them to the slide on the walker itself so they don't fall off.

She's just so much fun and we love watching her grow!

What's been goin' on

On Tuesday Emmy had her check-up with the developmental clinic at the hospital where she was born. We met with an occupational therapist and a speech therapist, and then their findings were given to a neonatologist who met with us. Essentially, they took a check list of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and social skills she should have at different ages and just played with her and marked them off. They were looking for her to meet all of the skills she should have for her adjusted age (they were using 4 1/2 months adjusted, 6 months actual although she's really more like 5 months adjusted 6 1/2 months actual). She is doing everything she should be doing for her adjusted age, and is doing somethings in the 5 and 6 month categories. Emmy is completely caught up in the social category (no surprise) as she is quite the happy, laughing, smiley, "talkative" baby and she follows objects, etc. so that's good. She's farthest "behind" her actual in gross motor skills. But they said that's always the last to catch up, and of course at this point there is no concern. They will have us come back in 8 months to evaluate her once more.

One of the items she was listed as just "emerging" in was rolling from her back to her front. She'd done it only once and when she was angry in her crib so they couldn't check it off, but they listed it as emerging. Well, the next day, it emerged. Charles went to get her about 7:15 when we heard her talking in her crib, and she was on her stomach. Later in the morning I put her down on the floor for tummy time and she rolled from her stomach to her back, and then to her stomach again, and she's just kept on! She's on the roll! You can tell she's quite proud of herself.

She's also pushing herself up completely on her arms (also something that was just emerging on Tuesday) and while tummy time was becoming better and better, now she's wanting to be there! This means she's also rolling over to sleep on her tummy, and that's created a bit of a problem. It must not be as comfy as she'd like because now she'll cry when she can't get comfy. We'd just gotten into this great routine where she didn't want to be rocked, really, so we'd put her down and she might fuss a bit, but she'd be asleep within 10 minutes. Now it's taking longer, she's waking up more, ugh. I hope this passes quickly!

Unfortunately the last week she's finally weaned herself from nursing. She was just getting too frustrated with nursing, I guess because she wasn't getting much, and she'd cry for the bottle after just a second. I know I have done the best I can and in some ways I'm relived, in others I'm sad. It just was never the great experience I'd dreamed of and I feel a bit guilty, but I don't regret pushing through to this point. I'm still trying to pump, but I'm getting less and less, so I don't know how long I can keep it up. I'd like to keep giving her that little bit of extra immune support, especially through this nasty cold and flu season, but that may not be in the cards. We'll see! I'm pleased we made it this far and certainly this summer I had my doubts!

Emmy's little friend Timothy has Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. No fun! Poor baby has had a nasty fever and been so miserable this week. Of course he probably picked it up at church, which has had me worried for Emmy. And then yesterday a low grade fever emerged. But, she has no other symptoms; she's eating fine, she's happy as usual and there don't appear to be any sores in her mouth and no rash on her hands or feet. She's got three little bumps by her mouth, though, and a rash on her bottom, so I'm worried she may have a case of it, too. I'm planning to take her to the doctor tomorrow if they can fit us in just to confirm either way. If it is indeed HFMD, there's nothing they can give her, just Tylenol or ibuprofen to help with the fever and any pain (the mouth sores are supposed to be painful). Of course I'm supposed to entertain spouses from Charles' unit on Tuesday night so I'm anxious to find out if it's a good idea for me to still have them over. Adults rarely get it, but they can carry it and I don't want to infect anyone else. Argh, miserable timing, but as Charles pointed out it's better this week than last week!

Here's Emmy "hanging" her "Emmy's 1st Christmas" ornament and a photo of her with a present from some friends at church for her baptism. It plays "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and she loves it

Emmy's Baptism

I know, I know, it's been a week and no post. But most of you who actually read this blog were here for her baptism, so I figured you weren't chomping at the bit for me to give you a run down of the weekend's activities. Plus, I was tired after Thanksgiving plus Baptism plus decorating the house and I concentrated my efforts on doing as little as possible and then doing a bunch of Christmas shopping that had been pushed to the back burner.

It was a good weekend! After an exhausting day of cooking Thursday after and exhausting day of cooking Wednesday we went to bed early on Thursday and woke up Friday morning and went and picked out our Christmas tree. I have never bought my tree that early and I think we may have been their first customer since the masses were all shopping for Black Friday sales. It was home and in the stand by lunchtime and falling out nicely awaiting lights and I was up to my neck in pulling out decorations when my parents arrived Friday afternoon. After a quick trip to church to drop off the cake, soups, poinsettias for the tables, and other essentials I wanted out of my dining room and kitchen, we spent the rest of the evening decorating, frying turkeys, and eating at Rhinehart's. Meredith got in just after we came home from dinner and in time to kiss Emmy goodnight before we put her to bed.

Saturday we got up and decorated the tree. Emmy loves the lights and we have had her walker positioned near the tree most of the time since we put it up so she can see it while she's playing. Charles' parents had gotten to their hotel late Friday so they came over around lunchtime Saturday. While Meredith and I did a last minute store run and picked up lunch, the rest of the family started arriving! Saturday afternoon was spent with family in and out, watching Clemson Carolina, attempting to get Emmy to nap with our loud families in the house, and doing last minute preparations for Sunday's lunch, like carving up turkeys and arranging food on platters.

Saturday night 20 of us had dinner at the French Market Grill as a group. It was good, just hard to visit with everyone. Of course, dinner time is way to close to bed time, so before we could even order dessert (you must have peanut butter pie at the French Market) it was evident it was time to go home, so Charles and I got our dessert to go and headed home to put Emmy to bed. Aunt Priscilla and my cousin Michael came back with my parents, sister, and grandmother so we could see Michael's wedding photos from earlier this fall and they visited while I finished putting family baby pictures in frames for the tables. Finally, it we bed time!

Sunday was a lovely day. In some ways it's a blur. There were so many people who came to the service and I feel like I didn't get to really visit enough with everyone! Emmy did so great during the service. She was just a cute little thing, though her hands were up in her mouth all the time, but then that's par for the course these days! Our pastor, Gary, is wonderful and we're so glad he baptized her. As I took her out to the nursery when the baptism was done, she sang a happy little high pitched "song" as we walked out the door, which made everyone giggle.

Lunch was delightful, thanks in large part to my dear friends who helped cook and make everything go so smoothly. There were I think 55 of us for lunch, so it was quite a crowd, but we had plenty of food. I mean, have you met my family? I don't know how to NOT have enough food!

We were just overwhelmed by the number of people who were able to travel to be with us to celebrate. It's been such a year for us and what a way to rejoice in how blessed we are, and how appropriate over Thanksgiving weekend and at the start of Advent.

I'm not going to even attempt to put up a representation of the weekend in photos here because it would take to many photos and that's more decision making than I can do right now! So, there's a family shot of the three of us and one of Emmy with Gary, and MANY more (273, I think) can be found in Picasa.

P.S. The cross she wore for her baptism was Emmy's great-great-grandmother's, my grandmother's mother. Grandma gave it to her the night before. What a special gift!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have a lot to be thankful for this year! We wish all our loved ones a wonderful Thanksgiving!


Emmy's baptism is this weekend and we're also planning to get all decorated for Christmas, so surely there will be lots of photos to post soon! Check out Picasa for a few random photos of the last couple of weeks. Sorry I've been absent from blogging, but we've been spending lots of time getting ready for this week. We had friends here this afternoon for Thanksgiving dinner and lots of family and friends are arriving for the baptism this weekend. (Of course the five of you who read this blog are among those arriving, so you know this already!)

Fight For Preemies

Last month I missed blogging on October 15th in honor of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness. This month I certainly don't want to miss mentioning that today, November 17th, is in honor of Prematurity Awareness.

I doubt I will ever be able to see a premature baby on TV or read another parent's story about their premature infant without getting tears in my eyes. I'm not sure six months later I can even put into words what it was like to see her hooked up to all those tubes. And we were so, so blessed that she did so well and never needed breathing support, never had any major complications. I cannot fathom the strength it takes a mother who has to watch her baby go through such ups and downs as some preemies do, to drive back and forth to the hospital for weeks and weeks and weeks.

But thanks to research and organizations like the March of Dimes these babies actually have a chance. When Emmy had her PICC line put in, someone (one of my nurses? Dr. L? I can't remember) noted how amazing it is that they can put PICC lines in such tiny babies. How far medicine has come that babies born so tiny and so sick can thrive!

I am still a bit sad about what I missed out on not giving birth to a full term baby. I missed out on bonding with her right away, we missed out on getting to breastfeed right away, which has contributed to all the difficulties, I missed out on those last few weeks of pregnancy and anticipation and preparation. I spent the last the last few weeks of my pregnancy in fear and frustration. But in the end I have this tiny, perfect miracle who is, so far as we know, completely complication free. How utterly amazing.

Premature birth rates continue to rise and we need to keep searching for answers and preventions. Today is dedicated to raising awareness about premature birth. Thank you, March of Dimes, for all you do to raise awareness and continue the search for answers.

6 month check up

Today was Emmy's 6 month check up. She is 11 lbs 7 oz and 22 inches long. She needed a nap so she was a little fussy, but when Dr. J came in to examine her she gave a few smiles for her. Dr. J was happy to see her smiling and "standing" and to hear that she's rolled over and is laughing, etc. All good things for her to be doing.

Unfortunately, Emmy fell off the growth curve this time. She did gain and grow longer, but she gained less than 2 lbs and grew only 1/2 an inch. The good news is that her head grew and is still in the 5%. I'm admittedly a little disappointed, but perhaps she just had a big growth spurt before our last visit and another one is on the way. Dr. J wasn't terribly concerned, but she does want us offering her a bottle after every feeding, which we are already doing. She does not want us starting any solid foods yet, which we're in agreement with, just a bit surprised with how emphatic she was about it. At her four month check up she said she prefer that we wait until she was at least six months old, but was pretty casual about it. This time I was really expecting her to say to start when we saw X,Y,Z signs and when we thought she was ready, but she wants us to wait until her next appointment at 9 months. She doesn't think she's ready developmentally, and we really don't think she's ready just yet now either, just surprised we may be waiting 3 more months. If we feel otherwise before 9 months, then we'll call her, but for now I'll keep nursing as much as I can and giving her formula. She's been getting very frustrated with nursing lately which is frustrating for me, but we keep plugging along. Until she's on solid foods I don't want to stop.

We did remember on the way home that we haven't been as good about giving her the vitamin supplement she's been on since birth. We were expecting to stop it by now, but we will keep giving it to her. I don't know that this has affected her weight gain, but it certainly can't hurt.

So, say a little prayer that Emmy keeps growing! She's done so well and hopefully she'll be back on track in March! Most of us gain a little weight during the holidays, so hopefully she will, too, she just won't be eating all the sweets and other delicious foods. Ha!