babyfoxblog

I'm about 8 weeks along.
Last week we had a little bit of a scare.  I did not feel well and had some cramping with a little bit of bleeding.  So I went to see the doctor and everything is fine.  I was relieved to see the heartbeat.  Still not feeling that great but at least we know everything is okay.  I have my official first doctors appointment of Friday so I guess we will find out if I'm considered high risk and figure out any precautions I may or may not need to take.

Well, for those who don't know yet, I'm pregnant with #2. The spare. The monkey. The baby.  ;)

The estimated due date is May 22, 2010. Who knows when the kid will actually be born, though.
So far, this pregnancy feels a little different. I don't feel pregnant and I'm in a bit of disbelief. Probably my negative affect.
I have random touches of nausea. My lower abdomen just feels like there's something there. It's strange and hard to explain.

I had my first appointment today, which was just to meet with a nurse and answer oodles of questions and make appointments. Looks like I'll have the same primary OB, plus a nurse I'm familiar with, so that's good. It seems that Kaiser has re-vamped a lot of their policies. That, plus the newly opened hospital, makes me a bit more hopeful/optimistic. *fingers crossed*
Then, I had some lab tests done. Damn, they took a lot of blood! Blech. And, my aim is getting better for peeing in a cup...TMI...
Oh, and I've decided to stay on meds this pregnancy. I hope that's the best choice!

How is #1 doing? Oh, she's enjoying her terrible 2s. She's a blast (truly and sarcastically). I have to admit I'm a bit concerned because I do know that her life is about to turn upside down for a little while. Must remember---there are many many older siblings who do just fine. Right?

I'm feeling my preference would be for another girl, but I'm fine with a boy, of course. I really can't think if any boy names that I like. Well, there's one but I already have/had people in my life named this and I wouldn't want people to think he'd be named after them. We have a girl's first name picked.

Quick update...
Rachel had an audiology followup yesterday and passed with flying colors, although she apparently cried at the elephant during the sound field testing. Not sure why that cracks me up...

Today, she had a followup developmental eval. She's within normal limits for a 12 month old, so, that's great. She participated well. She received a standard score of 89 on the Bayley, which surprised me---I thought' she'd score better. But, I can't complain about WNL. Next eval is when she's 2 and they won't go by her adjusted age.

Random aside---I've been waiting for this to happen--I walked into the waiting room and 2 of my students were there for a doctor appointment. Funny!

I need to be more on top of documenting her words she's using. I think she's got 10 now, plus many signs. yes, i do plan on taking language samples and using her as my own longitudinal study...:)

Well, she's sick. She had a fever of 103 andJohn took her to the doctor. Shes actually doing quite well. I don't think anyone would know she's sick by looking at her. she did toss and turn all night and was very hot to the touch.
She weighs 21.2 lbs. now.

Shes almost walking. She has taken a few steps by herself, but mostly holds onto tables, walls, fingers, etc. Lots of words--hat, Papoo, mama has been more consistent. She still enjoys books and will fill in predictable parts-- pointing to her toes, etc.
Tooth #7 has cut and I think there are more about to pop.

Her favorite words of the day:
blickam blickam blickam
ngam ngam ngam
bocka bocka bocka

she cracks me up.

We trucked down for Rachel's 12 month appointment today. All went fairly well.
She weighs 19 lbs (25%ile) and is 27 inches (75%ile).
She got 4 shots and mommy and daddy nearly cried because she was crying so much. Poor baby.
I did delay the MMR, although the doctor didn't seem to see any need to. But, I feel better with waiting.

Over the weekend she learned how to point to her nose and to imitate "uh-oh"

...and 3 days

Pretty trippy that it's been a year! For the few days before her birthday, I was going through the whole "one year ago today I was doing XYZ" (having pains, working, on self-imposed bed rest, etc), I'm trying not to do that anymore because it brings up the anxiety of hospital trips, pumping schedules, bad nurses, etc.

Anyway, my mom came in for the festivities on Friday (the 4th) and we spent the day with her doting on her granddaughter. I'm so happy that Rachel didn't have any "stranger" anxiety and actually seemed to bond well, and quickly, with her Nana. We ended up not doing anything for the 4th. Except sleep. I also worked on a photo album for Rachel with pictures of her first year. Saturday evening, we met up with John's parents, sister and nephew for dinner and then wandered around Shoreline Village (?) for a while.



So, my kid is one! Crazy!
And, monkey brains was had for several days! MMMMMM!!

Sadly, Nana went home yesterday.

john took rachel in today for an updated eye exam.
Sounds like her vision is fine. They even did more assessments than they usually do because apparently,
they had time. Sounds like her visual acuity is actually above what is expected for her actual age. yay!
We go again for one more check up in one year, then it'll be as needed, if needed.

It's amazing how she changes everyday. She loves playing with some of her toys, opening stuff, banging,
etc. She sits there (with W sitting...oy) playing, enjoying herself, exploring. It's crazy. She's a little human ;P
She has been climbing lately. She'll be in her play yard and will stand on a toy. heh. I think she's graduated from
baby to toddler!
Still co-sleeping. Lately, I've been getting her to go to sleep by rubbing her forehead and singing Twinkle
Twinkle Little Star. Last night, she fell asleep with her head resting on my arm :D So goddamn cute!
She's been rubbing her head along the wall, (and biting) when she's tired, so, as far as the head rubbing goes,
I just figured she needed sensory input, so I give it to her.

Oh, and screaming is back. yay......

I've been thinking back to a year ago. It was around this time when I was working and just not feeling well. Cramps,
spotting. I went on self-imposed bed rest and watched a Dead Like Me-athon. Crazy!! Life is getting back into perspective
,though.

I've really enjoyed having the time off from work to spend with Rachel! I think she's enjoying it too...perhaps a little too much as it seems she doesn't really want to be held by anyone except me. I'm partly amazingly thrilled by that, but also feeling kinda...guilty ?.  It also makes me more fearful for the day I'm not #1    XP

Let's see...oh, the other day, she fucking cracked me up! she was just sitting there with an empty water bottle, hitting herself in the head, and laughing. Hilarious!
Lots more sounds coming more consistently /b, p, n, m/ She's said /n^n^/ /m^m^m^/, /^p/, . She's very consistently waving hi and bye, imitating the bull, she;s starting to do "give me 5" Her receptive language is really coming along. I'm still trying to be consistent with the signs-- milk (for formula), book, up, eat, more, water. The only sort of imitation (?) I"ve seen is when she is drinking formula, she looks like she may be signing milk.
We started Gymboree this week. We first went to a baby sign language class. Even though I'm using some signs with her, I wanted an organized, fun way to do it, plus it's good for her to see other people signing. It's also a nice way for both she and I to be social and be around other babies and mommies. She loved being around the other kidlets. It cracks me up how social she seems to be. She was giggling when adults were laughing and just got excited to see other little humans. It was funny...at one point, another kid tried to take her flashlight away and she fought to keep it. Good girl! Now, I do want her to learn to share, but I'm also glad she's not a pushover. Anyway, this week's theme was bed time, so we learned sleep, light, stars, moon, book. It was cute.
Then, there was a free class (I think they were previewing  a new time for a class) for the regular play class, so we hung around for that. It was fun, but a bit long for Rachel, I think. But, she enjoyed interacting with the other kids and crawling/climbing around. There were a couple of activities that she didnt' seem to want to do, but I motored her through just to give her the experience.
I do hope to enroll in more classes to keep us busy and social.

Anyway, this kid cracks me up! She's moving and dancing and whatnot. We really really need to babyproof this place, especially so she's not confined to just her play yard area, which she doesnt' always like because she'd prefer to be with us, but we can't just let her crawl around freely because of all the crap and clutter and wires, etc that are all over.
her eye color is very interesting...sometimes the look blue, but other times, they look like blue and brown all at the same time. It's weird. i do wonder what they will end up being.

holy crap, time flies by! It's been a crazy 9 months.

Let's see...the early intervention people (Regional Center) came out for an updated eval. We'll get the report and we'll get age equivelencies , etc, but, they are very happy with how she's doing. yay! And, they thought she was cute :D

No new sounds, really. She is elevating her tongue and lateralizing to the right. She's completely mastered rolling both ways and wants to crawl so badly!!! She's still drooling like a fool, but no teeth. Her sleep has been absolute shit, though, lately. She has been getting to sleep at friggin 11:00pm. She's also been crying when put into her crib, so i've been letting her sleep with me. i don't mind the co-sleeping...it's the timing.
oh, and we went to baby's first ren faire. i bought her garb...pictures to come.  She did great, of course! She enjoyed all the attention, I think...and everyone telling her how cute she is :D. I kinda enjoyed that too...lol. i brought her in a carrier called an Ergo. I really liked it and enjoy the concept of babywearing, but, it really really hurt my back. now, it could be that my back would've hurt anyway after walking around and with me gaining so much weight, but  maybe carrying an 18 lb. kid didn't help. anyway, then, we went over to Claudia's for a little while, which was fun.


So, yay!

This struck me as kinda funny...

Well, on Thursday afternoon, the lady from Regional Center (an early intervention program) came to the house for a sort of check up on Rachel's development. All is going well! In the next few weeks, they are going to do a complete developmental eval as well. They say that they will keep an eye on her overall development until age 1, then will watch her language development. We both thought that was amusing.

She's been so grumpy and fussy lately! Earlier in the week I was so excited because when I was getting home from work, she was SO very excited to see me, smiling, squealing and moving her arms and legs. It was wonderful. But, starting Thursday, when I picked her up from John's folk's house, she has been so very grumpy. She's crying when I put her down. I pick her up and try to move her to different places in the house or give her new toys because I'm thinking she's bored. But, it's  not helping. I just don't know. I think I'll leave it at that for now and write my grumpy post in my blog.

We took Rachel in today for a developmental eval. I've said it before, but I am so impressed with Kaiser in that they consider preemies high-risk and automatically provide so many services. Anyway, aside from my sunglasses being run over by the stroller, all went very well. She looked at her cognitive and motor skills, primarily. Of course, we're looking at her as a 5 month, 22 day year old. She's right where she should be.   We'll see her again in about 6 months and then one or two times before Rachel turns 2.
Of course, I've been monitoring her speech and language development skills.

Speaking of-- we have reduplicated babbling! woohoo! i noticed it yesterday-- bababa. yay!
She's also rolling from front to back AND back to front quite well!  I think she'll be sitting unsupported sometime soon.

We're also fading the use of the swaddling blanket.

She's just so goddamn cute!

Actually, 8 months and 1 day.
It's been a crazy 8  months!

She's become so much more aware of her environment! She wants to grab everything--and put it in her mouth. She's just about mastered rolling from tummy to back and is  getting better with back to tummy. She's been going through a little bit of separation anxiety (?)-- when we leave the room sometimes, she'll start  crying. She seems to be a pretty social kid! Pretty happy, overall. She has her moments! She's also getting better with getting the pacifier to her mouth.
We're still swaddling her, but i think we're slowly fading it. Last night I left one arm out...maybe i'll leave both out tonight. She's been turning around 180 degrees in the crib, turning on her side and even got over onto her stomach one night!
Oh, and she's still playing with her voice-- and screaming. I'm trying to encourage her to babble and get some /p, b, m and d/s in there as well as modeling different vowels. She occasionally produces /k/ or /g/. (those last lines there reminded me of writing a report...).

She went to the audiologist today to get her hearing tested. I know many people complain about Kaiser but the way they approach preemies has been great! They've automatically referred her to the audiologist as well as for developmental evals. She'll have her hearing tested every 6 months until she's 2. It was fun! I did a lot of audiology work in undergrad and grad school (hell, my major in undergrad was speech pathology and audiology). He did a tympanogram, measured otoacoustic emissions and then measured her hearing thresholds in the sound field. It was fun for me because I went into the sound booth with her. The reinforcements he had were much cuter than the ones I had in clinic :). I enjoyed it!! Anyway, she passed and has normal hearing. yay!

cold :(

I''m feeling like a deer caught in the headlights (yes, it's a very minor cold, but I freak out WAY to easily). So, please, any advice is wonderful!!
I did take her to the doctor yesterday and he suggested saline drops and suctioning her nose. anything else?

Well, the girl is 7 months old (has been for a few days now). She's trying so hard to sit up and roll from back to front. She's really exploring things with her hands. It's kinda magical. I've gotten a few more giggles, so I hope they come more frequently because they really make me happy. We're also waiting for those teeth! She's drooling like crazy and gnawing on anything she can get into her mouth.

I started her on solids this week. Just a little bit of rice cereal. She seems to be tolerating it well. I've been slowly making it a thicker consistency. she has, though, been pooping more. 3 times today!! I think that may be a record.
So, that was a segue to the subject of this post. She was in her Jumperoo, which she thoroughly enjoys and I noticed she was thinking really hard, so I figured she must be pooping. I tend to give her a little while before I change her just in case she's not actually done yet. So, I go to change her and there is poop smeared all over the back of her diaper. Apparently all the jumping caused the poo to smush out. It was charming!
I'm just glad this didn't happen, say, 5 months ago. It would've only added to my mental breakdown. today, it was just amusing. Disgusting but amusing.

Another 'random stuff that only I care about' tidbit... Rachel is 30 weeks old, which is significant (to me) because she was born at 30 weeks. Well, Im not sure of the significance, but I find it interesting.

My little doggie likes to lick condensation off of cups...

I got another giggle today!! Yay! If I knew it'd work, I'd jiggle a giraffe rattle all day.

her sleep is off, which makes my sleep off. Last night she woke up pretty much every hour. She did her weird legs-up-in-the-air-and-kick-them-down thing. I read somewhere that when kids are about to meet a milestone or do something new, they may have weird sleep/wake up. I don't know if the leg thing had to do with it. I think she'll be ready to sit up soon. She's been wanting to roll from front to back a lot lately...maybe she's getting ready to go from back to front. She sure is cranky lately... She goes from happy to bitch in no time flat.

I feel like there were other things i wanted to write about. Oh well.

We took Rachel to her 6 month appointment today. I felt guilty about not being there, so I skipped out of work early, which is a bit unfortunate because we had a full day meeting where we met up at an autism focus teacher's classroom to show us all her neatness. I missed that. But, Rachel is most important.

The stats: she is now 14 lbs 10 oz and 25.25 inches
She's doing well. the doc seems pleased.
He has apparently never heard of the whole "open gut" thing either. I guess we'll start to introduce foods pretty soon then.

She is still drooling up a storm and everything is aimed at her getting it to her mouth. But, no teeth yet. I think she may have had a cold a week or so ago. She sounded like she lost her voice.

She's been sleeping in her crib lately. It's been a slow transition, mostly from me being an overprotective mommy and not wanting her to be alone.

Her Nana came for a visit last week which was nice!

No recent giggles, which is a bummer. She is still rolling from tummy to back and has rolled from back to tummy a couple of times. yay!