Thursday, May 3, 2012

Update on the kids and fam

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I last posted, and I *STILL* have yet to finish the birth story. UGH.

Emily is now 4 1/2 months old! (I've lost count of the number of weeks!) She is doing amazingly! She is talking non-stop, all kinds of sounds, big cheesy smiles, coos, giggles, chuckles... She is IN LOVE with Noah (and vice versa) and she watches his every move.

She is growing well, and we've developed a pretty consistent feeding routine, with her usually waking around 6am to eat, and then I try to feed her before I leave for work (between 8 and 9), and then she'll eat at 12, 3, 6, 9 and then she's out for the night! At her 4 month appt, she was in the 80's (percentile) for height, 60's for length, and her head was at 99, just like her brother. We will be seeing our neurosurgeon, Dr Tomita at Children's with Emily after we get an ultrasound of her head at CDH. I haven't moved on that yet, because honestly, I've yet to have my follow up with my OB (went to the two week post-op, but the 6 week got cancelled by him and then by me when I had the flu) and I cancelled my rheumatologist appt last month. And that's not to mention the fact that we have piles of medical bills, and I don't really feel like adding to them right now when the fact of the matter is I feel incredibly confident that Emily's large nog is genetics, and nothing more.

Anywho, we did go back to Children's for follow up with our hemotologist, Dr Liem. Everything is looking good. Her hemoglobin has continued to go up - was in the 8's in January, 9's in March, and over 10 in April. They want us back in 3 months and then they will do the osmotic fragility test to confirm the hereditary spherocytosis (HS) diagnosis, which we are assuming she has given her jaundice at birth and lowish hemoglobin since birth.

Emily is really inconsistent with rolling, but I've seen her roll both ways. She's a rock star on her tummy, and really does great in tummy time especially when she has Noah to watch.

She has two teeth already! I'm pretty sure Noah didn't have his first tooth until 6 months. They came through in just about a two week period. I first noticed them that there was clearly something just under the surface on a Saturday. By the following Wednesday (April 25th), the bottom left one popped through, followed by the bottom right on Saturday (April 28th).

Emily started rice cereal a few nights ago. She seems to be enjoying it, but hasn't quite figured out to open her mouth for the spoon. She tries to suck on it like she's nursing! Occasionally, her mouth opens wide, I pop the spoon in, and she gets a big bite. When that happens, the look on her face says "oh my, this stuff is GOOD!"

Noah has continued to do so well with using the potty. A few weeks ago, we finally convinced him to stand up to pee, and there's not a lot cuter than Noah, pants around his ankles, hands on his hips, leaning back just a bit, peeing in the toilet. And then there's the little pelvic thrust to "shake it off". Cracks me up everytime!!

Just today, Noah went to the Dentist for the second time. The first time (back in January), the hygienist basically just counted his teeth and the dentist took a look to make sure we were brushing well enough. THIS time, he got a full on cleaning, polish and floss. Wish I would have been there, but Ben said he did amazingly. So proud of him!

We took the kids to Cubs opening day. It was cold and they lost, but it was fun nonetheless. Noah actually sat in his seat and was relaxed for most of the game. Toward the end, both kids were kind of over it, so we left a little early.... on our way back to the car, a random guy gave Noah a baseball which he though was awesome. Great souvenir for the day!

Ben and I went to the Bulls playoff game two night ago. They lost. :( Noah is *very* into the Bulls this year, and we've agreed that we need to take him to a game next year! We did get tickets to see "The Fresh Beat Band" in October with the kids. Ha, we're officially those parents!

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