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.

Yucky Cold

Hannah has a yucky cold at the moment and it's making her really cranky. Last night she just did not want to go to bed :( Bad timing since Kyle's PE exam is today! Eventually she did go to bed, but she was up early this morning and was of course cranky by 9:00am. Other than this recent cold, Hannah's sleep has been much better lately. She's been going down without a fight and even taking some longer naps!

She continues to love her table food, especially watermelon, and is really scarfing it down. The saga of the sippy cup continues. You will be happy to know that I have not completely turned Hannah away from her sippy cup. She will again gladly drink water from it just like before, but she is pretty hesitant about anything else. I did manage to get her to drink some extremely diluted juice from it two different times, but still no formula :( It's like she has this little rule in her mind that says that formula is for bottles and mommies hold bottles and water is for sippy cups and babies hold sippy cups. I'm going to try some formula in the sippy cup again today and see how it goes. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

As far as her language development goes, she's started to catch on to the sign for dog and likes saying the word cat which comes out at tat. She's also decided that she loves to have books read to her and she will actually bring me a book and sign more and then climb in my lap for me to read it to her! This just melts my heart :) I have always dreamed about snuggling up to read a good book with Hannah and now it's reality. Sometimes she'll even be on her play mat and sign more and I'll ask her what she wants more of and she'll look towards her book shelf. When I say, go pick a book and mommy will read it to you, she crawls over to her shelf, rummages through to find the book she wants and brings it right over and hands it to me. Then she crawls in my lap and makes the more sign to tell me I haven't started reading fast enough! I'm working on teaching her the sign for book so that she can be more specific, but so far she hasn't caught on to that one yet. Another cute thing she has been doing lately is saying hi anytime someone walks into the room or anytime someone says hello to her. It makes me smile so much to hear her say it because she sounds all sweet and innocent when she does it. We tried to get a video of it, but she was more interested in the camera than talking. I'll post it anyway as soon as I can get it uploaded as it is quite funny.

Other news in the physical development department is that Hannah has another tooth. It's her top left one. I think I can see her top right just under the skin, but so far it hasn't popped through. Pulling up in now old hat for Hannah and she does it left and right on everything she can. Yesterday I caught her standing up holding onto the seat of the bar stool at the breakfast bar with her knee up on the bottom rung. She was trying to get it stable enough to bring her other knee up and climb! UGH! I am not ready for that! Hannah's hand eye coordination is also getting better. She can now easily put the rings on her rock and stack (all except the orange and red ones because the holes are really small) and is starting to try to put the shapes through the holes on her shape sorter.

Just a side story for you, for Easter Pap (Kyle's dad) and Mindy gave Hannah this pink fuzzy bunny that sings "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands." while it's ears go up and down to the beat. We thought she might be afraid of it because it's loud and I think a little scary, but Hannah absolutely LOVES it. She will crawl over to her toy box and make the more sign (she does that when she wants anything these days it seems!). I'll ask her what she wants more of and she'll get this shy look and reach in and swipe at the bunny and smile then make the more sign again. I tell her, well then get him out. Usually she tries to pull him out, but he's kind of heavy and she can't usually get him. After I make her try for awhile I ask her if she needs help and get the bunny out for her. She then makes the more sign and smiles so I turn the bunny on and let him sing. She gets really quiet while he sings and watches it intently. Then, as soon as the music stops she makes the more sign to start it up again. Usually we have to eventually tell her all done, otherwise she would listen to that bunny all night and drive us absolutely crazy! I dread the day when she has the coordination to actually make it sing on her own! We may have to make the batteries disappear when that day comes!

Stranger Anxiety

Hannah has a BAD case of stranger anxiety at the moment. She absolutely does not want anyone besides me, Kyle, Grandpa, or Sarah to hold her or really even look at her. She's even been giving her friend Evelyn the cold shoulder :( My books say that this is normal and even a healthy display of her attachment to us, but it worries me. It seems like overnight she went from a social, happy little girl to a terrified baby who clings desperately to me any time she thinks I might leave or someone else might touch her. I'm at a loss for what to do. Do I comfort her and hold her until she warms up to people or do I make her tough it out and leave her at the nursery at church. It's so hard to decide and I've found literature supporting both approaches. I don't want to prolong this stage or keep her from learning how to branch out on her own, but it hurts me to see her so unhappy when someone else reaches for her. It really does break my heart when she clings onto me for dear life.

Hannah's skill in pulling up and standing is getting quite good. She really does not need anything to grab ahold of now to stand up. She just needs something like a wall to brace herself against. She's even started cruising a bit on the furniture, but I'm not sure she really gets that she can travel around that way yet.

Hannah had her 9 month check up on Monday and she passed with flying colors. She now weighs 21 lbs and is 29 inches long. She's in the 90th percentile for height and the 85th for weight. Her growth has slowed down a bit although her weight did take a major setback when she got sick since she lost an entire pound in 5 days from the diarrhea! Speaking of her weight, she's getting so heavy that it's really starting to get difficult for me to pick her up and carry her around. My hands and wrists are starting to get sore from the repetitive motion of it all. Even Kyle says he's starting to get sore from hauling her around. She had better learn to walk and travel around by herself pretty soon if she plans on getting any heavier.

Hannah continues to plow right through her food and seems to be hungry ALL the time. She makes the sign for food about every 1 1/2 hours! Consequently she's been eating more table food because of that and she LOVES it. In the past week she's had watermelon, apples, honeydew, lasagna, cheese cubes, and toast. That's in addition to her baby food, formula, and of course her wagon wheels, veggie puffs, cheerios, and zweibeck toast!

Books continue to be one of Hannah's favorite things to play with. She will sit in her tunnel for sometimes 15 or 20 minutes and just intently look at her books. She flips the pages one by one slowly as if she's actually reading them! Of course we know she's just looking at the pictures, but it's still very cute!

Ok, so it's been almost a week since I started this post and I have a few new things to add. First, Hannah has started saying the word "hi" when she sees someone (even herself in the mirror!). Today she was with me at the grocery store and twice when she caught people looking at her she said "Hi!" in a very sweet voice. Of course when they tried to talk back to her she got scared and ducked her head, but at least it's a start. She also says "hi" to Kyle everyday when he gets home from work.

The next news is a little weird. You see, Hannah has this purple caterpillar that has 26 legs with a letter of the alphabet on each leg. Well, the caterpillar does many things like say colors, letters, letter sounds, and play music. It also would make this creepy little laugh every so often. That laugh really wigged me out, but I could never figure out what button needed to be pushed in order to make it laugh and I never actually saw what Hannah did each time that it laughed. I was starting to be convinced that the caterpillar was possessed or something. Anyway, today it made that laugh again and Kyle happened to see part of what Hannah was doing just before it went off. I had thought I had pushed every button and combination of buttons on that darn bug to try to get it to laugh, but apparently not because Kyle was able to figure out the secret combination of buttons to make the caterpillar laugh. Not only did it laugh, but it also said, "That tickles!" So, the verdict is that the caterpillar has to be in the letter sounds mode and you have to push the "A" leg and then immediately push the "Z" leg in order for it to laugh. It's kinda like an Easter Egg on a DVD or video game or those hidden warp levels in Mario Brothers! I wonder how many more secret combinations of legs there are that will eventually weird me out even more about that darn caterpillar?!?

Ok, on to more news, yesterday Hannah had a surprise visitor. Her birthfather, Mike, stopped by to visit her! He was in Lafayette on business and was trying to get to Crawfordsville and got lost. He called me up for directions and it turned out that he was less than a mile from the house! So, he came on over and got to see Hannah for the first time since October and I wrote him out directions to get him where he needed to go. We are also going to get to see both he and Tiffany and the twins tomorrow after church since they will be bringing the pictures that we got taken of all the kids in their Easter outfits. I can't wait to see them again and actually have some time to sit down and visit without being rushed.

Hannah continues to use both her signs and words to express her feelings. Besides using hi she also uses mom mom and dada quite often along with Ella. I'm pretty sure she thinks that all dogs are called Ella since she says that every time she sees a dog or hears one barking, but we are working on that. I'm making a special effort to call the pets dogs and cats when she sees them and I've introduced the signs for dog and cat too. It seems like Hannah is a little sponge just soaking up information and trying to copy everything we do so I've really stepped up the signing and she really seems to be enjoying it. She's now proficient at using eat, drink, and more in the correct situations. She understands the signs for no, don't touch, and gentle touch and I've introduced dog, cat, help, mother, father, brush your teeth, brush your hair, and bed.

After talking to Hannah's doctor at her 9 month appointment I decided it was time to start slowly weaning Hannah off of her bottle and transitioning her to drinking her formula and eventually milk out of her sippy cup. Unfortunately Hannah is not too keen on that idea. Putting formula in her sippy cup caused huge tantrums! So we decided that we need to get her used to having other things besides water in her sippy cup. Today we gave her some diluted juice in it and after two tastes of it she refused to drink from the cup. She actually covered up her mouth and pushed my hand with the cup away to protest the juice instead of just not picking up the cup to drink! It looks like it's going to be a long road ahead teaching her that more than just water can be in a sippy cup.

ER and Pneumonia Take 2

We had a very scary Saturday night and Sunday with Hannah. Hannah spent most of Saturday with Mamaw and Papaw and had a great day. She had a blast playing with them while Mommy and Daddy and Aunt Heather worked on Grandpa's house. We took her home and she was happy as a clam. When it came time for her last bottle and bed she was still in a great mood and laughing and giggling. I fed her and she drank all, but an ounce of her bottle. This hadn't happened since we cut her formula back down an ounce per bottle, but it wasn't totally unusual fer her not to take all of her last bottle. We just assumed she was tired and she was certainly acting tired. Kyle took her to her room to read her a story and sing to her before bed and no sooner had he sat down in the rocker than he hollered for me to come quick. Hannah had just projectile vomited pretty much her entire bottle all over Kyle, the chair, and the floor. The puke shot almost 3 feet! Kyle said it was like a scene from the Exorcist! I quickly cleaned up Hannah and got her changed. We took her temperature and it was 99.8. That wasn't a huge fever so Kyle picked her back up and started her bedtime routine again while I tried to clean up the floor a little bit. She threw up again almost immediately and it was projectile again and I got to witness it first hand this time. Kyle got a lot more of it on him this time so he gave her to me and went to change clothes. I got her new outfit off and was about to wash her off when I heard her having diarrhea. When I opened up her diaper there was the most foul smelling and liquidy poop I had ever seen. I changed her diaper and then took her temperature again, this time rectally which she normally hates. While taking her temp she actually fell asleep and was VERY lethargic. Like I said she really doesn't care for having her temp taking so her falling asleep was a huge red flag for us. This time the thermometer was 101.8 corrected for the rectal reading. We got her dressed and started thinking about if we should take her to the ER. Kyle decided to take her temp again under her arm after a few minutes had passed and while he was taking it she threw up again. The thermometer was reading 102 and still climbing when she threw up and the session was aborted. We cleaned her up and high tailed it to the ER. While I was checking her in and Kyle was parking the van Hannah threw up on me and my coat, but that was the last time she would vomit that night (and actually we haven't had anymore up to this post yet so keep your fingers crossed for us). By the time we actually got out of the ER waiting room and saw a doctor Hannah was burning up, but shivering since they had us take off all of her clothes. They took her temp rectally again and it was 104.5! They gave her Tylenol and Motrin and then started to do a bunch of tests to see what was causing the fever. They catheterized her to test her urine, did another awful chest x-ray on her, and then attempted to take blood for some blood tests. There we ran into a road block. Two different ER nurses couldn't get Hannah's veins so they called for the pediatric nurses to come down. Two of those nurses couldn't get her veins either so they then called in the elite special forces from the NICU to try. They ended up getting a bit of blood from Hannah's arm, but it immediately clotted from the damage to her veins and wasn't any good for the blood tests. Eventually they got a tiny bit of blood (they had to prioritize what tests to run because there wasn't enough to run them all!) from a vein in her forehead and started her IV in that same place in order to rehydrate her since she was very dehydrated from the fever and her vomiting and diarrhea. Eventually they came and told us that Hannah had pneumonia and said that that was what was causing the fever and vomiting. They sent us home around 3am Sunday with a prescription for a very nasty antibiotic cocktail and an extremely tired baby. Kyle and I took 2 hour shifts throughout the rest of the night and day giving Hannah her Tylenol and Motrin every 2 hours and Pedialyte every 20 minutes. It was exhausting, but Hannah's fever started to stay down around 8:00pm Sunday without any fever reducer and she started keeping down some formula.

Today her fever stayed down until about 10:00am and then spiked back up to 101 degrees so I had to start giving her fever reducer again because they said to not let her temp start to climb at all. She started back on her normal bottle schedule and has so far kept everything down. The antibiotic has started diarrhea very badly and Hannah's soaked through more onesies and sleepers than I can count. She's been averaging at least 1 diarrhea soaked diaper every half hour! All that pooping has really been wearing her out so she's slept a restless sleep on and off all day. I took her to see her doctor (we LOVE Dr. Hendrick) as a follow up today. The first thing he said was, "Tell me the whole story from the beginning because no offense, but I don't trust ER docs with my babies." After reviewing the ER notes and the x-ray tech's notes he severely questioned the decision made to put Hannah on the strong antibiotic. He wasn't even sure if he thought it was pneumonia given her other symptoms and if it was pneumonia he thought what the report described sounded like viral pneumonia and not bacterial which would mean that the antibiotics would do Hannah absolutely no good and only serve to keep her dehydrated. So, he ordered yet another chest x-ray and said he wanted to personally speak with the technician that read it to see if it was really pneumonia and if so what kind it was. So far the techs haven't sent him the results so we are still having to give Hannah the nasty medicine and change the diarrhea diapers, but if he gets confirmation that it's not bacterial pneumonia or even pneumonia at all he will call us tomorrow so that we can take her off the meds.

As for other Hannah updates, she has managed a few one and two step crawls since her first try, but so far she's not really figured out that she can indeed use it as a means of transportation. Today she did crawl backwards for 5 steps, on accident I think, when she was trying to sit up on her new play mat. It's a bit slippery with her sleepers on and she couldn't quite get the traction she needed and she kept sliding back on her knees. Before getting sick Hannah sampled many more table foods. She's tried chunks of softly cooked carrots, potatoes, and green beans as well as pancakes and whole wheat toast. Hannah got a new rocking chair the other day and she really seems to like it. She moves her upper body back and forth to make herself rock and she thinks that's pretty cool. She used to like doing that in our rocker and my little rocker from when I was a girl, but neither of those chairs were safe to let her sit in without being closely monitored. This new chair has a harness that keeps her safely inside the chair and specially designed rockers that keep her from tipping it over. It even has a vibrating seat which is pretty cool and we can attach a toy bar to it if she wants to play.

Moving Right Along

Hannah has been a very busy baby since my last post. She is currently hosting her Grandpa at the house because he is not feeling well. She went to pick him up at the hospital on the 10th and he's been with us ever since. Hannah loves having Grandpa here and they are getting lots of bonding time. She is also enjoying Grandpa's dog, My, because she has a long furry tail that is oh so fun to grab!

As for Hannah's newest accomplishments there are many! She's now eating 3rd stage baby foods that are very chunky. She likes them quite a bit and as always never bats an eye at new foods. She's been eating so much solid food lately that we actually cut back her formula an ounce on each bottle! She really does like her food :)

The most exciting update is that Hannah can now sit herself up from either her belly or her back with no trouble at all. She really surprised her grandpa and I one night by starting out across the room from me sitting up and then all of sudden I felt a tug at my leg and Hannah was sitting at my feet yanking on my pant leg! We thought, "How on earth did she get over here!" Until then we did not realize she could sit herself up.

Ok, it's been a few days since I started this post and I have a new and exciting announcement, Hannah crawled for the first time!!!!!!!!!!!!! She has not really duplicated this amazing feat yet, but we have her first time on video as proof! She's working really hard at it every chance she gets and the pets are a huge incentive for her. She can now get into sitting and crawling position quite easily and goes absolutely everywhere she wants to go quite quickly. Once she really gets the hang of this crawling there will be no stopping her!

She's also into absolutely EVERYTHING! Nothing is safe anymore as she pulls things off of tables, opens doors and cabinets that aren't locked, pushes things out of the way and tries to pull herself up on shelves to get coveted objects. It's amazing how much progress she's made in just a few days. She seems more and more like a toddler every day. She even had her first table food yesterday. She ate some pieces of a biscuit and some mashed up banana. She LOVED the biscuits. She kept giving us the look like she thought she was hot stuff for feeding herself the biscuit like she was getting away with something she shouldn't be doing! :)

Hannah is such a joy in my life. I can't imagine what I ever did without her. Every day I thank my lucky stars that God blessed me with such an amazing little girl. She's growing so fast. I wish she would slow down, but it is amazing to watch her grow and develop into a beautiful little girl on the inside and out.

Oh, here's an update on the cutest baby contest. The voting starts tomorrow and you are able to vote online as well as through the paper ballots in the newspaper, but there is a catch. All votes (except for one vote per person per day using the newspaper paper ballot) are by donation only. It's $0.25 per vote and the minimum online donation is $5.00 (20 votes). The money all goes to fund the newspapers in education fund, but still I think it's a bit fishy that the voting actually costs money. Instead of the cutest baby winning it's going to turn into who's family and friends have the most money to spend on the voting :( I thought the donations were just the entry fees, but I was mistaken. I'll post the website where you can vote on here, although I don't expect anyone to feel like voting since it costs money. Looking at all the cute babies might be fun though, so take a peak and enjoy all those smiling faces since there were over 700 babies entered! http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage

I have many more updates to post, but I want to be sure that I post this blog tonight so that people can see the baby contest tomorrow when voting starts. I'll try to get back to this sometime later in the week.

PS. Here are the before and after pics for my hair (finally!)