She's Walking!

I have several updates for you, but first I must get to the important news. Hannah is walking! Yesterday she was trying to climb into her rocking chair, but the chair kept moving on her. Then she got the bright idea to push it in front of her like a sled and walk behind it. So, we immediately got her walker out (not like the old ones where the baby sits in side, this one is like an old person's walker only with wheels) that Tiffany gave her for Christmas. Up until this point all Hannah was interested in doing with the walker was playing with the toys on it, but last night she used it to help her walk the entire length of the living room more than once! She's done it several times already today and is really excited about it. She can't move quite as quick as when she crawls because if she tries to go too fast she falls on her face, but already her speed is increasing. It was so awesome to see her traveling along by herself and completely upright. I guess now we need to have a pool going to guess when she will actually be walking on her own with no support from the walker, furniture, or mom's hands.

Ok, now for the updates. We've been working on getting Hannah to drink her formula from her sippy cup and I stumbled upon a good strategy the other day. I put some of the formula in the sippy cup and some in the bottle and started to alternate them with each sip before she could realize what I had done I'd quickly switch her back to the other. I started with only an ounce or two in the sippy cup and only one sip at a time in the cup, but now we are up to 4.5 oz in the sippy cup and only 2.5 oz in the bottle and she will take 5 or 6 big gulps out of the sippy cup before she wants her bottle back. I really think we are making progress here. I've got 2.5 more months (give or take some) to get her weaned completely over so hopefully things will continue to go well.

Hannah is continuing to love table food, but she definitely has her own likes and dislikes. She absolutely hates applesauce. She likes apples, but must hate the texture of applesauce. She makes the most horrible face I have ever seen, gags, and twists her tongue out of her mouth. Well, she's also been doing this same thing with some of her jarred baby food meals and last night she did the exact same thing with some homemade baby food peaches that my friend Sarah gave me. They had that same texture as applesauce and Hannah just hated it. She was gagging and trying to spit it out and at times she would refuse to even shut her mouth if she had some in there! Kyle got a video of her doing it and it's pretty funny.

Here's an updated that I forgot to tell you all about a long time ago. Back when Hannah got sick and we had to take her to the ER I called the hospital afterwards to complain about Hannah's misdiagnosis and the choice of meds she was given. I didn't want them to do anything per say, I just wanted them to be aware of what had happened so that it wouldn't happen again to another baby. Anyway, I eventually got a call back from the head of medicine from the hospital. He had reviewed Hannah's case and agreed that some serious errors were made and that we were all lucky that Hannah only had a nasty bout of diarrhea and diaper rash to show for it all. He said that the ER doctor (who we NEVER saw) and the PA (physician's assistant) who handled Hannah's treatment really dropped the ball. He said that the PA should have been more aware of the side effects of the medicine she chose to prescribe and more careful in evaluating the results of the chest x-ray in lieu of her other symptoms. He agreed that Hannah did not have pneumonia and even if she had it would most likely have been viral (so no antibiotic) and even if it had been bacterial, she should have never been given the antibiotic that was prescribed. So, basically the PA's treatment was wrong on more levels than we could count. Also the ER doctor that should have been supervising her dropped the ball because he did not carefully check the PA recommendations for Hannah's diagnosis and treatment. Ultimately he is the one that was responsible and he did not do his job properly. So, they both have to go through this big peer review of Hannah's case and basically explain how they messed up and why in front of everyone and then the entire staff trouble shoots on how to keep the situation from happening again and how they need to improve for next time! So, even though my call didn't help Hannah, at least it sounds like it might help someone down the road.

Ok, this blog has taken me almost a week to write and I have more updates. Hannah is now waving good-bye when asked and can now do the sign for dog and say dog whenever she sees a dog. Occasionally she still relapses into all dogs are named Ella, but she's used the word dog spontaneously enough in the correct situation that I think she knows it. Yesterday we even thought that she tried to call Evelyn by name. Sarah and I are not sure, but it was so close that it makes us wonder.

There are many more updates to add to this post since it's taken me another entire week to get back to it, but I'm going to post it anyway and try to get the new stuff on another post.