Oh Hannah!

To start - I cannot [and can?] believe our nugget is about to turn TWO - what?! It seems I was just crying about the NICU, exclusive pumping and tube feeding!

I think I may have posted that we decided to stop her tube feedings the first week of July. She eats just fine - will eat most food - and is doing great. If you aren’t forced a load of pureed food in your stomach, you’d get hungry and eat, right? 

I was incredibly nervous with this experiment. I’m a rule follower. So this past month I’ve been a bit crazed making sure she’s getting as many calories as she can - especially since she’s even more active now [more about that later]. Butter, cheese, full fat yogurt, whole milk, you name it. 

As you all know, I think this whole thing is horse-hooey. If you’ve seen our family, we’re all long and lean. Just because Hannah has Ds does not mean she’ll be that different. And individuals with Ds swing towards being overweight so I am not about to get into bad habits that will stick. 

SO - yesterday was the big weigh-in. Last weigh-in was a two month gap and she gained nothing. Thank heavens she gained weight!! Not a lot, but enough to be satisfactory and no one chastised me for pulling the plug [Hey-Ohhh!] on the tube feedings. Hannah is 22lbs and 31.7". She averaged over 7g/gain a day which is close to what the team “wanted.”

So I am thrilled our peanut is close to getting off the tube. I’m more uncertain she’s getting enough fluids, but we force it on her a lot throughout the day. 

We see her GI specialist on Aug 31st, so I’ll be interested to see what he says. 

Biggie Girl sitting at the counter!

:: Hands in the air ::

Next, today Hannah had her eye follow-up. We’ve been patching for three long months. And well; over two hours a day which is minimum. 

Dr. Motley said to just keep going... sigh. For FOUR months. He doesn’t feel surgery is needed, but doesn’t see concern for Hannah’s left eye turning in. As if it’s just part of her far-sightedness. She *may* grow out of it? 

Blergh - it’s annoying but there are far worse things to deal with!

My preppy little cutie!

Finally - whoa Nelly, Hannah is itching to move. We’ve been off this week for “vacation” and the timing has been great - we’ve seen Hannah pulling to knees then stand, she’s attempting to start to stand and is crazily climbing the ottomans onto the couch/chair! 

We’ve even caught her actually crawling a bit on both knees instead of her unique scoot. 

I need to get a video of all this! If you have a typical kid, you just assume this will happen and wait for it. I am literally helping Hannah climb our staircase as physical therapy. I’m teaching our daughter all the “annoying” things so that she can reach her goals. It’s a new level of appreciation for those milestones!

I actually was afraid she wouldn’t be walking by preschool, but this past week has blown me away - get it Baby Girl and keep roaring!

I love how big the 2T clothes look on her : ) 

Lately

I guess less blogging is a good thing - life is fairly calm right now, just the way we like it.

Nora: just the usual... I’ve been worried about her learning to swim. We halted swim lessons right before Hannah was born. She has used a floaty vest and doesn’t want to get her head wet - afraid of water up her nose.

This past weekend we went to the Blue Ash Rec pool with some friends and I predicted what would happen [which did]: Nora would see her friend without floatation, diving and dunking under water which would influence her - and it did! Nora stripped her floaty vest [the water was under 2' deep] and began dunking under water and going down the kiddie slide by herself! :: fist pump :: So proud of her.

The sitter’s kids are also starting up lessons at the new swim facility down the road - all the kids had to go along and Nora now wants to start again. This is a good thing! After swim season, we’ll look into signing her up again.

Hannah: Signing just took off about two weeks ago! Hannah signs please, more, cracker, dog, sing, bath, sleepy. She tries to say “dog,” “this,” and “that.” Now that she has two front teeth [which we can never quite see under her lip], she’s trying new sounds. She’ll point and say “ths, ths” - good stuff!

We keep working on pulling to stand - it’s work. No crawling even though she gets on all fours. I’m being patient for now.

No update on eyes - follow up the first week of August - hoping these patches do the trick...

Nutrition - last week the sitter chose not to tube feed Hannah two times because she ate so well! We give her full freedom to make the call - she knows Hannah just as well as we do. I also talked to our Speech Therapist about the calories the Nutritionalist wants us to force into Hannah. She basically said stop tube feeding Hannah - ! We know her, how she eats. Hannah has no trouble eating. She may dip down a bit in weight or plateau, then will re-adjust herself and most likely gain weight. Our ST said she has another family who did just this and it played out well.

I’m a little nervous but Tim’s wanted to pull the trigger on this. If Hannah does drop drastically in weight, we can go back on as needed. The only hesitation is her fluid intake - at most she drinks 1c milk and 1c water a day. We still flush Pedialyte through her daily.

Once a kid is independent of their tube, the medical professionals wait at least 3-6 months before removing it to truly make sure they are independent.

Me: Starting up training for my fall half - the Queen Bee. My last larger race was the Heart 15K. I haven’t run past 6 miles since then. I should be okay - I really need to get a bit stricter on my food, sleep and strength training. I’ve slacked on my food a bit with summer indulgences. I need to get to bed earlier on Friday nights so I have a good Saturday long run.

I try to do a little yoga at least twice a week but need to incorporate more strength in my core and legs... I have a bunch of short workouts I just need to DO.

Tim and I also went to see Phish over a week ago with good friends - it was fun and strange to be gone for two nights from the girls! It takes me a few hours to shift my focus from the girls to myself. Two days gone was plenty - so ready to be home!

The regular Phish Crew!

Post storm - rained on us 2/3 of the show!

Our camping neighbors - ! Turns out they were older than us!

Extra Batty T-giving Photos

Thanksgiving Break: Friday

23 Months, Week 4

Friday of Thanksgiving is the Krons’ celebration - we had tried to get to Nana & Papa’s in time for Nora’s nap, but of course, she fell asleep 10 minutes before we arrived in the car and had a failed attempt after Nana tried to put Nora down. Oh well! Holiday party time. We had a great time and Nora enjoyed celebrating her second pre-birthday party!

Thank you Aunt Amy!

I Made The Cut

23 Months, Week 4

After weeks of blowing and swiping her hair out of the way, I finally took scissors to Nora’s bangs. I didn’t really want to because I loved the swoop of bangs, but she won’t keep barrettes in or any hair accessory. Darn. Either way, she’s still a cute stinker!

Thanksgiving Break: Thursday

23 Months, Week 4

Thanksgiving Day is typically at my parent’s house - thankfully this year we were in the new home, not the rental “cave” as we have the past two years [!]. Additionally, we had most of my Dad’s siblings there, which was fun and cozy. 

We sat in the sunroom overlooking the woods and river while eating with fantastic food. I’m pretty sure the amount of dining food was equal to the desserts - ! 

We also celebrated Nora’s birthday since it’s this Wednesday and I didn’t feel like making the families getting together again right after a major holiday - hey, I’m practical! 

She enjoyed her homemade cupcake and loved all her gifts; a hat, Slinky & coloring books from Aunt Suzanne and a rad wagon from Grammy & Grandpa! Our old Cabbage Patch dolls took a ride. 

Which, it’s impressive my Mom has kept a good amount of our old toys specifically for grandchild purposes. Glad we could deliver, Mom : )

+ skinny jeans and boots - Adorbs!

Aunt “Teffy” reading Nora a book

My Little Ponies & The Littlest Pet Shop

Happy 2nd Birthday Nora!

Let’s roll, Daddy

Cabbage Patch selfie!

Thanksgiving Break: Wednesday

23 Months, Week 4

Our sitter took off about 4 days for Thanksgiving, so between Nana, Tim and myself we covered the days to care for Nora. Nana rocked Friday AND Monday, Tim took off Tuesday and I had Wednesday. We were lucky to spend some time with Aunt Katherine [Kaffy] and her doggie, Cooper who got along pretty well with Ailo - thankfully those two wrestled about 3 hours straight, so Ailo was pooped the rest of the day. 

Aunt Katherine brought Nora a birthday gift - a recorder that you can construct - Nora loves it! And it’s not so annoying that Tim and I are driven crazy : ) 

Additionally, Nora napped three glorious hours so I could make all her birthday cupcakes and spend quality time with Katherine.

Nora kicked the soccer ball and said “football!” 1/8 English is there!

She ’s pretty darn smart with this vintage puzzle.

My Nora!

She loves it!

I made 48 [!] cupcakes during Nora’s nap.

Ailo & Cousin Cooper!

Cold Saturday

23 Months, Week 3

We had nothing on the books today and it was very cold so there was a lot of fun playing indoors - let the imagination run [and boy did it]!

Ailo loves the sleeping bag. Cushion and warmth I suppose. Nora had fun covering Ailo to sleep and putting a race medal around his neck, “Happy Birthday Ailo!” she told him. 

Exercise!

Castle fort!

Night, night Ailo

Happy Birthday Ailo