Sylvie is A-OK!

Thanks so much for all your concern and well wishes! Yesterday's procedure went very well. We got to the hospital around 6:30am for our 7am appointment so we had to wait a bit before things got going. Poor Sylvie was irked that we refused to give her her morning milk & CIB and kept very slowly and deliberately saying/signing: "I...want...milk." as if we were maybe just having trouble understanding her request. Considering we've spent a great deal of time and effort on helping her to gain good communication skills, I was doing my best to let her know that we did in fact hear what she was saying but that she just wasn't allowed to have anything to eat or drink before the procedure because the sedation would make her nauseous. Her response? "I...WANT...MILK!" 

So Theron and I just did our best to distract her until the nurse came to escort us back to what would be Sylvie's recovery room. Once there, the nurse went over the specifics of the procedure and what to expect afterwards and asked if we had any questions. Then another nurse, Steve, came in. He informed us that he would be the nurse in the room with Sylvie during the procedure and also asked if we had any questions. (You gotta appreciate the fact that the doctors and nurses at CHB like to keep the parents informed!) Steve took our cell phone numbers so he could keep us updated on the status of the procedure. Finally, Sylvie was given an oral sedative that she did not at all care for and after a bit she grew drowsy. When she finally succumbed to the soporific, Steve gathered her from my arms and took her off for prepping. Theron and I went down to the main floor to grab some much needed coffee and overpriced but delicious nibbles at Au Bon Pain. Since the cath lab waiting room had two big signs that stated NO FOOD or BEVERAGES, we hung out in the seating area by the big fish tank in the lobby to eat. 

To pass time and try and keep everyone updated on the situation we'd brought our laptops and made use of the hospital's wi-fi. Shortly thereafter we got a call from Steve saying that Sylvie was fully prepped and they were preparing to place the coil. Pretty fast work! We weren't sure if wi-fi was available in the cath lab waiting room so Theron remained in the lobby while I went back upstairs. About 30-40 minutes later, Sylvies cardiologist Dr. Lang came into the waiting room and told me everything had gone splendidly and that Sylvie would be able to see her shortly. I went back downstairs to fetch Theron and when we got back upstairs, Sylvie was in the recovery room, completely zonked. Steve informed us that they'd had to give her another dose of sedative right at the end because she'd started to come around while they were removing the catheter and as a result she'd most likely be out for a while. She did sleep a great deal waking up occasionally for longer and longer periods. We started giving her water which didn't want to stay down at first. Karen, the nurse who cared for her during the recovery phase, gave her some anti nausea meds in her IV which helped. 

 Around 4:30pm Sylvie had an xray to ensure that the coil hadn't migrated and was staying put (it was fine). Then Dr. Mazwi, the cardiologist who had assisted Dr. Lang, was kind enough to show us some images--both still and video!--of Sylvie's procedure which was pretty neat to see. He also told us the repairs from her surgery in '07 looked perfect and that she wase unlikely to require any further surgical interventions. Yay! Since both the xray and the puncture sites from the catheterization looked good we were free to take her home after a final dose of antibiotic and Tylenol. She got a little bit sick again in the car and after we got home. We were trying to gradually reintroduce her to just liquids but she began all but begging for real food: "Chip!"...Pizza? Pizza!"..."S'getti!"..."Lunch!"..."Chicken!" We started off giving her just some milk and CIB and she did throw it up after a bit but I think it was because she'd had a coughing fit and gagged more than because her stomach was still upset. We waited a little bit longer and gave her more milk. When that stayed down we gave her some goldfish crackers and then some beef broth and a little bit of white rice from the Chinese takeout we'd ordered for ourselves. Thankfully, there were no further upchucks and we all slept pretty well last night. Sylvie seems perfectly fine today but per doctor's orders we're keeping her home from school until Thursday. Right now she's chowing down on chicken nuggets, mixed veg and grapes while singing her own particular version of "I've Been Working on the Railroad." All is pretty right with the world if you ask me!

Second---and hopefully FINAL--heart procedure

Tomorrow morning, Sylvie will be having a follow up cardiac procedure to close off the PDA that was unsuccessfully ligated during her open heart surgery last year. Luckily, this procedure is much less invasive. A tiny stainless steel wire, or coil, will be placed in the PDA via a catheter threaded through the femoral artery and vein via a small incision in Sylvie's groin while she is under concious sedation instead of general anesthesia. We've been assured that Children's Hospital performs several of these procedures each day and that the risk associated is akin to having one's tonsils or appendix removed. In fact, it's considered an outpatient procedure in most cases and in all likelihood we'll be on our way home by late afternoon.

While we are not 100% relaxed and at ease with the situation by any means, we are far less freaked out than we were last time. However, any and all thoughts/prayers/healing energies etc you'd care to send our girl's way tomorrow are very much appreciated!

Long overdue post part 2: School is IN..and off to a bumpy start

Because of Sylvie's stomach bug, she unfortunately missed her last EI playgroup on Monday and what would have been her first day of school on Tuesday...so it wasn't until Wednesday that our girl began her student life. Theron and I took her into school so that we could meet the teacher and her aides and see what the classroom was like. It was quite spacious and had it's own bathroom--a side benefit of this school is that they help potty train! Sylvie seemed immediately to feel at home and wandered around the room looking at all the varied activities available to her. Once the other five kids arrived and the teacher got them all together for their morning circle, Theron and I snuck out marveling at how amazing it is that our daughter is in school!

I dropped Theron off at the T station so he could get to work and then I went home to our weirdly empty house. It was just a few hours later when I got a call for the school nurse; the teacher had concerns about Sylvie's hands being cold and bluish. I let her know that it wasn't an unusual occurrence for Sylvie and that I too had poor circulation in my extremities. I think they were being extra cautious because of her history of cardiac issues which I definitely appreciated. When the school bus (which is actually a van) dropped her off later that afternoon, she seemed very happy to be home but not especially tired from her first full day at school.

Each child in the class has a folder that comes home each day with daily status reports for us parents; if the child had a good day/tired day/hard day what activities they participated in how much (if any) of their snack or lunch they ate etc. There's also usually a personal note about any special accomplishments or troubles on that day. They kept things light on her first day and basically just let her explore the room on demand. According to the day's note, Sylvie especially loved the rice table and classroom computer!

Sylvie's second day was the bumpiest so far...literally. About an hour after we put her on the bus to school, I got another call from the nurse; this time because Sylvie had fallen and hit her head right after arriving at the school. Apparently, the teacher had taken her off the bus and was helping another kid off who decided to make a break for it in the direction of the street. In grabbing the runaway, Sylvie was accidentally knocked off balance and fell. The nurse said that Sylvie was fine but had a large goose egg on her forehead and that the teacher felt terrible. Of course I wasn't thrilled to hear that this had happened but I am aware that accidents do occur and there have been days when Sylvie sported two lumps on her forehead from tumbles she took at home so I assured the nurse that as long as Sylvie was ok then I was ok too.

Guess who called me AGAIN a few hours later?
Yup.
The school nurse.

Sylvie had bumped her head a second time, this time after tipping over backwards in her chair. The nurse assured me that she'd checked her out again and that Sylvie was fine...but that the poor teacher was practically in tears at this point!

Despite her bumpy second day at school, Sylvie came home in a fine mood. And though she was indeed sporting an enormous scraped knot on her forehead her 'voluminous' hair seemed to have provided enough cushioning to prevent a bump on the back of her head.

Sylvie has been a preschooler for almost a month now and seems to be enjoying it...and we've not had (and hopefully won't have) anymore calls from the school nurse!

Long overdue post part 1: Sylvie is THREE!!!

Sylvie's birthday fell on a Tuesday this year and since we wanted to have a party, we decided to celebrate a couple of days early on Sunday. We knew we'd have several small children ranging in age from 1-3.5 yrs, we wanted to make sure that they'd all be kept busy (and happy!) so we set up two play areas: one in Sylvie's room and one upstairs. The upstairs play area had a pop-up house/ball pit, tubes to crawl through and even butcher paper on the walls with a large can of crayons at hand for any aspiring muralists. Plenty of fine and gross motor therapy for all, heh.

All told we had about 25 people at the party and everyone seemed to have a great time. Sylvie enjoyed herself but seemed mostly oblivious to the fact that the party was for her. Still, she did run around saying "happy birthday! happy birthday!" at random intervals which was adorable. I managed to get a party hat on her (briefly) and she cracked up at her reflection and said "happy birthday!" a few more times because the pointy hat symbolizes birthdays to her ever since we attended baby B's 1st birthday in December where many of the guests wore the hats.

We had one minor upset during the cupcake eating when Sylvie gagged and threw up. The mess was mostly contained on her booster seat tray and we were able to whisk her off to the bathroom for cleanup and a change so quickly that almost no one knew what had happened. We kept an eye on her for a bit but after a while we thought (as it turns out, incorrectly) that it was just a case of 'too much birthday' as she went right back to being her smiley self. When it came time to open presents, Sylvie was pretty 'meh' about it but Sara's enthusiasm as our self-designated helper more than made up for her lack of interest. Sylvie received many fabulous gifts including cool clothes, fun books, art supplies, a scribbly spiral pen, a wooden sandwich set, character dress-up magnets featuring Elmo and Zoe, a bucket o' play-doh fun...(plus many other things that I hope the people who gave them will not be offended by my not listing!)

The party eventually wound down and everyone headed home. R and A stayed a bit longer and helped with the clean-up (thanks guys!) before they too departed. All was right with the world until later that night, about 2 hours after Sylvie had gone to bed, when suddenly we heard her coughing...followed by the unmistakable sound of her vomiting. Turns out the cupcake upchuck from earlier in the day was not an isolated incident as we'd hoped because the poor girl was unhappy-go-pukey all through the wee hours of the morning. This also alerted us that Sylvie's birthday soiree that day had been a possible disease vector because it was a little too coincidental that Theron had puked his guts out 2 nights prior and that he'd likely had a GI bug and not just food poisoning as we'd originally believed. (We learned later that only one party guest ended up being sick as well and her parents thought she could just as easily have gotten it from another friend she saw that same day.)

Sylvie stopped throwing up around dawn but was completely wiped the whole next day and developed a high but short lived fever of 102 that afternoon. I made sure to keep her hydrated and cooled her off with a damp cloth during the worst of the fever and after a good nights rest she was much better the following day.

Why living in Taxachusset is a GOOD thing aka the post with many abbreviations

Sorry for leaving it so long between updates, especially after the events of this past September. At least I'm sure you all know that no news is good news, right? Anyway, Sylvie is doing fantastically well and is pretty much fully recovered from her surgery. Most of the swelling is gone and the scar is healing nicely. We saw the pediatrician today and she recommended rubbing Mederma on the scar to help fade it. We saw the cardiologist last week and he had Sylvie's chest xrayed --which she hates with a PASSION--for the zillionth time. She fought so hard during the xrays that two adults (me and a tech) couldn't hold her still so they finally had to put her in a contraption that enclosed her torso and forced her arms up over her head. She was seriously pissed about that and I certainly didn't care for it but it was necessary to get clear xrays. Upon review of the films, the doctor said it appeared that although he couldn't hear it through the stethoscope, she still had some excess fluid in her lungs. Not a big deal but she has to continue taking the Lasix and we're to go back and see him in another month.

How many therapists?
Because of Sylvie's Noonan's diagnosis and because of the developmental delays that can be associated with such a diagnosis, Sylvie has been seeing an occupational therapist (OT) and a developmental specialist. She also recently started seeing a physical therapist (PT) ans a speech therapist (ST). Each of these therapists comes for one hour, one day a week. All of this is through Early Intervention (EI). EI services are only provided up til age 3 when the public school system takes over and Sylvie has been receiving them since she was about 10 months. Payment is based on income bracket and ours is a whopping $60 for the year. She also attends a 2.5 hr playgroup every Monday through EI...they even provide a bus service that takes her to and from the playgroup. Not bad, eh? We also have begun attending a free, once a week music and movement class through the Malden/Everett Family Network. The class is 1.5hrs and they give us lunch! And a new toy (so far a mini kickball and a cheapie electric drum) every week!

On the advise of EI, we also recently had Sylvie assessed by Building Blocks. If you click on the link you'll see that they specialize in kids who are on the autism spectrum. We decided to do the assessment because Sylvie seemed to be displaying a few of the red flags associated with autism; seeming to become less, rather than more, verbal and less willing to make eye contact. There was nothing terribly off, but we thought it would be better to get it checked. The lady who did the evaluation said that while Sylvie has many strong skills she would like to see her socializing better and engaging in more imaginative play. She says that while she does not think Sylvie is autistic, she believes that she has Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDDnos) A diagnosis which is often given when all the criteria for autism or Asperger's syndrome have not been met but the child's difficulties are of the kind found within the spectrum of autistic disorder. As a result, on top of the 4 EI therapists she sees weekly, Sylvie will now have a 5th therapist working with her 2hrs a day, 3 days a week! When I mentioned this new diagnosis to her pediatrician today the doctor was incredulous, saying that Sylvie does not seem at all like any of her other patients with PDDnos. She also said that she thinks PDDnos is often "diagnosed" just so a kid can get the services. All I know is that enough people who are experts on child development have suggested that Sylvie would benefit from such services, so since she's getting 'em, we're taking 'em!

As I stated earlier, these services will only continue until Sylvie turns 3 whereupon it becomes the public school system's responsibility to address any delays or difficulties she may still have. There is a practically brand new preschool just a little over a mile away from us that from all reports is excellent. It opened just 4 years ago and is solely a preschool. Apparently the waiting list to get into this place is huge but because of Sylvie's "special needs" she gets an automatic spot. We had a meeting with the school just last week so they could assess Sylvie and see just what kind of needs she might have that would need to be addressed and we're supposed to go back sometime next month to go over their findings and create an Indivual Education Plan (IEP) for when Sylvie turns 3 and begins to attend the school. Hard to believe, but she'll be 3 in just over 4 months!

All of this talk of Sylvie's delays/issues/special needs sounds a lot scarier and upsetting then it is. I believe that our girl is one smart cookie and I doubt very much that these "delays" will have any effect on Sylvie achieving whatever she sets out to do in life. Sylvie has actually been a lot better about making eye contact and she is FINALLY starting to put two words together, if only rarely: "sing me" "help me". Though she may not be making sentences yet, her vocabulary is really rather extensive. She doesn't shy away from multisylliballic words, thats for sure : Heh'copter! Ock'puss! 'Nocerous! and though I haven't heard it myself, Theron claims she's said Ridiculous! several times...probably quoting from her Teletubbies book that has been loved almost to shreds. She quotes from it constantly saying "jabberjabberjabber 'tubbies jabber jabber veh much. Bih' Hug!" (Translation: Teletubbies love each other, very much. Big Hug!) She's really into fish right now and when Theron took her to the aquarium this past weekend, she was ecstatic, pointing in the tank and saying, "shock! tuh'tul! FISH!" Theron even called and left me a message so I could hear her excitedly naming the various sea creatures but sadly there was too much background noise for me to make it out.

Watch the video below to see Sylvie naming her sea creature magnets!

Long overdue update

Hi all.
I know I've really not been great about keeping up with the blogging for several months now and when I have it's been mostly "hey look what I can do" type stuff when I know that all you really want to see is "hey look what Sylvie can do!"

The answer to that is A LOT.

She's like a little monkey these days, climbing on and off furniture and up and down stairs...with supervision of course. She loves running around in our back yard or taking a stroll around the block. Unfortunately, she also loves picking things up off the floor/ground: hair, rocks, dirt, sand, lint, paper...this kid will eat almost anything if I don't keep an eagle eye on her. Even if I do keep a close watch, she's so quick that I still have spent time scooping crud out of her mouth. GAH! I hope this phase ends soon. I understand that small children learn a great deal via sensations but I just wish our child didn't favor so many new 'taste sensations' of non-food items!

She has long been over her Elmo obsession and now prefers the Teletubbies. She'll drag me to the TV at various times of day demanding, "Tubbies! Tubbies!" and I have to explain to her again that we don't have Tivo or On Demand (or cable) like our friends so we can only see the Tubbies at their regularly scheduled time. I fear this mostly goes over her head at this point though, heh. She doesn't much care for when the Tubbie tummy TV segment happens, but she performs her signature dance move (spinning in a circle) when they do their little synchronized dance. She has a Po doll that she loves and calls "Tubbie" and a Teletubbie book that she never tires of having read to her.

When she sees her reflection she says "Sylvie!" and when she's in the mood, she loves to give kisses. She'll turn your face to hers and purse her lips while making an 'mmm' sound. After you kiss her, she'll push your face away, then turn it back to her and repeat the process, sometimes several times in a row.

Her two most favorite toys right now are Bruin Bear and her Touch and Teach Busy Books. She asks for--and will play with--these all day long if we let her. It was a little monotonous for me at first but now I can pretty much block them out. (They tend to make Theron a little crazy however.)


My least favorite subject that I can't stop talking about
Surgery day (Sept 24) fast approaches...too fast and yet not fast enough. I don't want it to happen at all, but since it has to I want it to be OVER. We got our "Congratulations! Your child will be having open heart surgery with us soon!" packet in the mail from the hospital recently. It contained several brochures on the various areas of the hospital that we'll be intimately acquainted with. Sylvie's pre-op appointment in Sept 21 and will last 6-8 hours as they do various tests which may include while not limited to: echocardiogram, EKG, chest x-ray, blood work, cardiac MRI and lung scan. We will also meet with members of the cardiovascular team (which may include): cardiologist, nurse practitioner, cardiac anesthesia, cardiac surgeon and child life specialist. If we so desire (which I think we will) we'll be able to tour the Cardiac ICU and Cardiac Step-Down Unit. Sounds like a fun-filled day doesn't it? Then we get to go home and spend the weekend trying not to lose our shit.

While we can't help but be freaked out about the upcoming surgery, we are comforted by the knowledge that Children's Hospital Boston is a leader in the field of cardiovascular surgery, and they have a site specifically to help children and their families cope. It also helps that I have friends whose children also had surgical procedures performed there who have shared their experiences with me and have told me that both the staff and the care that their kids received were exemplary.

You can help support Children's Hospital by donating here.

May update

We visited Boston Commons and the public Garden with pals S and P and us moms succumbed to a typical tourist photo op and snapped some shots of our offspring astride some of the duckling statues commemorating the classic children's book Make Way for Ducklings. I also got some cute photos of Sylvie and S sitting in the "picture spot" in S's house and some of Sylvie with P slip slidin' away at a local playground. The absolute best shots for May though are of Sylvie and P being VERY huggy while cooling off in P's back yard. They were just so friggin' cute! These two kids have always been physically affectionate, hugging and holding hands (without any prompting for K or I) but this time it was a marathon hugging session.

Medical Updates
Sylvie recently saw a neurologist because of concern that she'd possibly been experiencing absence seizures. On a few rare occasion, I had noticed Sylvie 'spacing out' for periods that seemed (to my admittedly untrained eye)to be longer than normal wool-gathering. My mother also noticed an episode while visiting a while back. Because of Sylvie's diagnosis, combined with a family history of epilepsy, it was recommended that she see a neurologist and have an EEG. My sister had had several EEGs because of her epilepsy (which she has since outgrown, which happens in some cases) and I had had one because of migraine headaches so i knew that the test wasn't painful or really a big deal. Sylvie was slightly fussy, but mostly cooperative while the technician applied the electrodes to her scalp. We'd been told to bring her in somewhat sleep deprived as part of the test needed to be conducted while she was asleep. Apparently we did a good job because she zonked before the tech was done applying the electrodes. After about 15 minutes or so they had to wake her up in order to get a wakeful reading as well and she was not happy about that at all. Despite Sylvie being cranky about her abbreviated nap, the test went smoothly and quickly and she even stayed fairly agreeable while the electrodes were removed. (The tech then did a partial hair wash to remove the goo that had held the electrodes in place but there was still alot left. In fact, it's been over a week now and despite sveral more washings, there is STILL some goo in her hair, but I have faith that it will all come out eventually!) We were told that the neurologist would examine the readout and get back to us in a week or so with the results, but he actually called the next day and said that the test was completely normal. Yay! While I know that the scan would only be indicative of epilepsy if she'd had a seizure recently and it's possible that she has had seizures, I'm not really going to worry about it. I've only noticed the 'space outs' a couple of times and I think if it was really a problem then they'd occur more frequently. And sometimes, a 'space out' is just a 'space out'!

Sylvie also saw her cardiologist recently and had an EKG and an echocardiogram. She'd had both of these tests before and (with the aid of a pinwheel and a sticky blue lizard toy and an Elmo DVD respectively) was pretty cooperative during them. When her cardiologist came to discuss the results with us he said everything looked the same as before which was what he expected. Then he said what I've been expecting/fearing he would say: there was no good reason delay surgery to repair the defects (which I previously discussed here). He also said it wasn't necessary to do it now either but that it would need to be done eventually, and kids Sylvie's age typically recovered quicker after surgery. Theron and I had discussed the future likelihood of Sylvie having heart surgery and we both agreed that we wanted it done while we were still in the Boston area since Children's Hospital has some of the best doctors in the world and also before we had another child. We both know that the surgery will be an extremely stressful event for us, but at least Sylvie should be mostly oblivious to what's happening because of her age. From what the cardiologist told me, one of the reasons he is encouraging the surgery now is because young children don't seem to have the same 'psychic' pain during recovery as older children or adults do because they don't realize that it's in any way strange to be up and playing the day after open heart surgery!

I know all about that 'psychic' pain because words like "open heart surgery" and "heart/lung machine" would frankly scare the shit out of me when used in relation to anyone I care about...but especially our tiny sweet child. I held it together at first while talking to the doctor, but while we were going over the step by step for the day of surgery I lost it for a bit. I'm sure these doctors are used to the reaction given their line of work and he was very compassionate and reassuring. He said that there were several surgeons at Children's that just did this kind of operation, that they were all topnotch and that Sylvie would most likely be out of the hospital less than a week after the surgery. I occasionally read a blog called Wonderbliss written by a woman whose son was born with a severe heart defect and has had a couple--and will require more--heart surgeries. I'm sure that Sylvie will make it through the surgery just fine but reading the stories this women posts as well as seeing photos of her healthy, thriving (and adorable!) son helps to ease the fear I can't help but feel.

We don't have an exact date yet, but the surgery will be sometime in September. I'll keep you posted.

On a brighter note...
Sylvie's first ever dance recital is this Saturday! They don't allow photos or video during the actual recital but the dress rehersal was on Monday and we got some photos and video then of Sylvie's group shaking their maracas (no really) to Jump in the Line. Sylvie did not seem the least bit fazed by being on stage under blinding lights and blaring music but neither did she seem to care to perform, preferring instead to watch the other girls in her troupe, but she still looked very cute in her costume! We'll have photos--and maybe even a bit of video!--posted soon.

Holycrap-olageeWOW! Sylvie's done gone and turned TWO!

While we kinda sorta went all out last year for Sylvie's birthday--lots-o balloons, first birthday themed napkins and tablecloth with color coordinated cups and plates and even a bunch of tulips--this year we kept it low key. So low key in fact that we did nothing, heh. Well, I did make some cupcakes but it wasn't until the Wednesday following her birthday on a Sunday.

As you can see from February's photos, Sylvie is doing fantastically well. She's finally topped 20lbs (and 2oz!) and is 31" long/tall. At a follow up visit last week with GI, the doctor was very pleased with Sylvie's growth and said that after one more follow up in 4-6 months, we would likely be able to drop her from our list of specialists! Yay! Now that she has some teeth (8) with 2 more soon to pop through, she's really enjoying foods with crunch, like apple or bell pepper strips.

Sylvie seems somewhat stuck at the single word stage of talking. I figure she thinks she's gotten by pretty well with one word/sign and pointing...why upgrade? Long strings of indecipherable jargon still spill from her mouth on a regular basis though so I have faith that one of these days soon the mommy/daddy translator node will kick on in her brain. She likes to use action words while doing the actions, or at least her version of the action. For example: "Kick! Kick!"--said while kicking a ball around the house or "Jump!"--said while throwing her arms up in the air and occasionally kicking one leg out simultaneously. She does the "Jump!" one a lot at dance class.

A new trick she has learned is to grab us by the hand and lead us to whatever snack/activity she is currently interested in. Or sometimes she'll just take us for walks around the house with no apparent destination. I think she just likes asserting her perceived (well ok, at least some of that perception is accurate) control over us. Another newish trick is that she can do all of the accompanying motions to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and she even says some of the lyrics while doing it! A sample:
Eesee beesee...raaaaain...dowwwwwn...suuun...eeseebeesee...all said in her most serious voice.

We have yet to start serious toilet training but we did buy her a new-fangled talking potty. She likes to play with all it's bells and whistles (and there are A LOT) and she even understands that she needs to lift the lid before sitting on the seat. She likes to go sit on it after she's pooped, but at least she seems to have the general idea. I'm planning to start training her once it's warmed up a little so that there will be less layers of clothes for her to have to struggle with.

Thank any-and-all-deities for the wonderful childproofing products available at Babies R Us! She's all about opening doors and drawers (while saying, "Opeeen...Shut!"), turning knobs and dials and pushing buttons. We've 'proofed the stove dials, all but one kitchen cabinet (which contains no toxic cleaners or easily breakable cookware), the entertainment center and the bathroom cupboard. Sadly, there are still many things that she attempts to get into or play with that have no such protective shields and so like the most parent's of toddlers, I spend the majority of my day following her around saying: No, no Sylvie...don't touch!...leave the kitty's tail alone...etc.

The cutest/scariest new development? Interest in boys. We had a couple of little male friends come play recently and Sylvie suddenly morphed into this super giggly, huggy girl. When her friend R came over, she was at first wary, as was he, but after about 10 minutes or so they were all over each other! Hugging, wrestling, tickling, even pushing each other around on a little car. Sylvie interacts a little with best pal S, but nothing like this! then when new friend P came for a playdate, she was instantly hugging on him which seemed to cause him some distress at first. Luckily, he warmed up to her and on subsequent playdates has hugs her, offers her snacks and even holds her hand. In fact, when P's mom K drove us all to the Science Museum (where we met up with M, S, C and S), Sylvie and P held hands in the car most of the way there and back. How cute is that?

19 months!

19 months old today! Today Sylvie is 19 months old and to celebrate, we took her to have a renal ultrasound...ok, the truth is she was due for a follow-up with her urologist and we just happened to get an appointment for today. She held quite still and didn't fuss once throughout the procedure. Even better, the ultrasound showed everything to be a-ok so we don't have to follow-up again for 2-3 years. Yay! She was weighed and measured as per usual and her stats were: weight 18lbs 10oz (she was clothed and wearing a possibly wet diaper, so she's probably more like 18lbs 5oz) length 28.5" (which is 1.5" less than we were told at her 18 month appointment so let's just say she's 29"+/- 1") Walkin' anduh talkin' She took her sweet time but at long last our wee one is walking! She's still pretty unsteady on her feet but she's taking more and more independent steps everyday. Sometimes she insists on wearing her little black mary janes before she'll walk...pointing at them insistently and saying "sooz! sooz!" She then very helpfully sticks a foot in the air to indicate where the shoe is to be placed. She is very particular to her black shoes which might be a problem soon because I don't think she'll fit into them much longer. Just another bridge to cross... Chompers Sylvie's teeth are also finally starting to fill out (fill in?) and we are now up to SIX with a couple more clearly on the way. we're doing our best to include more and more 'grown-up' food in her diet now that she can actually chew and she's eaten almost one whole chicken nugget cut up into small pieces! Other foods she likes include: spinach with cream cheese, corn, green beans, apple, pear, peach, banana, grapes, assorted cheeses, goldfish crackers, cheesy poofs (the organic 'healthy' kind...hey she needs the fat!), bits o' veggie burger, refried beans, ramen noodles and she just loooves guacamole. Oddly though she is only mildly interested in icecream and pudding! Go figure. Rainbow bright Since Sylvie sometimes eats better when she's distracted, we've done various things in the past to keep her entertained enough to keep on eating; blow bubbles or read stories, etc. We recently made some color flash cards (ie. squares of colored paper "laminated" with packing tape) to show her at mealtimes, along with signing and saying the colors. We'll ask her to identify the colors one by one and she gets 'em right about 80% of the time. (She seems to have the most trouble with orange and green.) Do we have another artist on our hands? Man, I hope not...hey kid, PLEASE don't follow in our footsteps! Be a lawyer or a doctor or...President! Uh...no pressure, Sylvie.

Independence Day

For several months now, Sylvie and I had been attending a local infant/parent playgroup coordinated with her Early Intervention therapy. Once a week, we'd ride the bus to meet with other parents and their babies and a "teacher" for an hour and a half. We'd sing songs and play little games during "circle time" and then the children would have lots of free time with toys, instruments, books and play equipment. A child attended this group up until 18months and the progressed to the toddler group which they attend sans parent. So today we put our darling girl on the bus to her toddler playgroup...ALONE. We were both excited and quite scared the whole time she was gone; afraid she'd act up/get hurt/get kidnapped...you know, the usual concerns of parents learning to let go.

All went well apparently as we never received a call demanding we remove her from the premises with strong urges to seek an exorcist immediately and when the bus driver dropped her off, she claimed that Sylvie had chatted happily both there and back. Parents? She don't need no steenkin' parents to go with her to playgroup!

I did attend her very first toddler group last week so as to be familiar with what Sylvie would be doing while there. It was very similar to the infant group but with more structure and more 'mature' (in a toddler sense of course) activities, like coloring. There is even a computer in the room with toddler appropriate games...which probably means that soon we'll have THREE people jockeying to use the computer at home. They do free play, then circle time, followed by gross motor skills play (in the same room where we had our infant group) and finally a snack of juice and kix/goldfish/ritz crackers. There are three teacher/therapists in the group of 8 children and at the end of the day a list of the days activities is sent home with each child so us parents can get an idea of what they did that day. And once she's done some, we'll also be getting Sylvie's art pieces! Pretty neat, huh?

18 months and counting

Has it REALLY been 18 months already? Sylvie had her 18 month appointment earlier ths week and her currents stats are as follows: weight 18lbs length 30" teeth 4 She's still a wee thing, (no surprise there), but she's following the growth curve and developmentally she's ahead of her age group in everything but gross motor skills. She has finally started to take a step or two every now and then though, so hopefully she'll catch up in the regard soon. 5 and a half hours with a toddler on one's lap is no easy thing So Sylvie and I are currently hanging out with Auntie M, Uncle T and cousin J in sunny Seattle, WA. Yes, I said sunny. (Contrary to popular opinion, it doesn't actually rain every day here, ya know.) We flew in late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning and boy, were my arms tired. It is not a picnic trying to contain a bouncing ball of toddlerness in one's lap for several hours and then when she finally zonked out, it was almost impossible for me to get into a comfortable position wihtout disturbing her. I spent almost the entire flight assuming various pretzel-like contortions at sloth-like speed, hoping in vain to find a position that wasn't going to give me back spasms. At loooooooong last, we finally made it back to terra firma without any whiny child induced air rage or permanent damage to me. The Chubaliciousness of baby J Let me just say right now that baby Jack is the cutest boy in the whole wide world. All big eyes and chubalicious thighs. It's funny how while he isn't really a chubby baby per se, he has Michelin Man-like thighs. His thighs are pure squishtastic, chewy, nummy goodness! Sylvie just loves her cousin J and we've already gotten some adorable photos of the two of them together. 

Update, including another ER visit

Signs, signs, everywhere signs Sylvie has added several more signs to her repetoire including: grapes potato grass laugh pear peach car strawberry walk carrot One morning recently she woke up around 6am, which is quite early for her (and us!) so I brought her to our bed and tried to coax her to go back to sleep for a little longer. I signed, sleep more please to which she responded, also in sign, milk please thirsty. How could I say no to that? In sickness and in health A little over 2 weeks ago, our girl woke up in the morning crying for no apparent reason and it took quite a while to console her. She felt hot but when I tried to get her temp, she was too fussy and wiggly for me to get an accurate reading and since she seemed to rally later that day, we put it off to teething. But that night she had a great deal of trouble sleeping, only nodding off for short periods of time before waking to cry fitfully for longer periods. I brought her to bed with us in hopes that she would be soothed to sleep more readily but it didn't help. Theron tried to help out with soothing her but she preferred to be glommed onto mommy 99% of time...which continued for the next few days. As did the whining, crying and fever. I managed to get a temp on Thursday morning and since it came up as 102.2F we called up her pediatrician who had us come in immediately. We'd given Sylvie baby Tylenol so by the time we got to the doctor it had kicked in and while she was still quite miserable, her temp was much lower. The doc checked her ears and throat which (at the time) looked fine and asked us to try and get a urine sample...no easy feat with a 17 month old girl. There we were in the examination room; me holding our miserable, crying naked child on my lap, atop a puppy pad to soak up any urine which might miss the specimen cup that Theron held to try and catch the flow...which didn't come and didn't come... About 40 minutes into this excruciating activity, the doctor told us that she wanted to get a blood sample (joy) from Sylvie and that we could try to get the urine sample again back at home. During our second attempt at pee-catching, we received a call from the doctor around 5:30pm saying that the test results were enough of a concern that (double-extra-super-happy-joy) we should take her to the ER for further tests. It wasn't an emergency per se, but we needed to get there sooner rather than later. To sum up our most recent oh-so-enjoyable- visit to the ER: It was almost a carbon copy of the first time we were there. Once again, they used a catheter to get a urine sample (during this lovely procedure, Sylvie's eyes got very big and she frantically signed ALL DONE , which was somehow, both horrifying and funny at the same time) and more blood drawn had to be drawn and she received, that's right folks, ANOTHER IV FOR DEHYDRATION. I'd been doing my best to get her to drink and I thought we were doing pretty well but I guess because of her fever she'd been sweating it out almost as soon as she took it in. She was only slightly dehydrated but since she's so small, it was judged best to get her fluids back up asap. The worst of it is that she'd been rallying up to the point when they came to do the needle pokes, and was acting quite like her usual self...but we were soon both bawling our eyes out as the needles were put in her tiny arm. HOW I HATE THAT! None of us had been getting much sleep for the past several days and Sylvie was doubly depleted of energy having just shrieked her lungs out so all three of us pretty much zonked out in the little room they'd put us in for her treatment; Sylvie and I on the bed and poor Theron in a less-than-comfy chair. The nurses came in to check on us periodically and finally after a few hours the doctor came in to say that all of the test results looked normal so far but that they would need to 'cook' for several more hours to be sure they were all clear. Since Sylvie was now rehydrated to the max and her fever was responding well to the Tylenol, we were finally sent home around 12:30 am with instructions to keep Sylvie hydrated and her fever down (well, duh), and to follow up with our pediatrician the next day. Upon examining Sylvie for the second time, the doc saw inflamation in her left ear and deduced that all of this grief and agony had been the result of a developing ear infection. I know it sounds as if she was a bit extreme in checking Sylvie for more serious problems but she told us that because of Sylvie's heart defects, she wanted to rule out an infection in her heart. I never thought I'd type this but, Hooray it was only an EAR infection! We were given a prescription for amoxicyllin and told to come back in a week to follow-up. But WAIT...there's MORE! Sylvie started acting more like herself after having been on the meds for a day and a half but we noticed that her skin seemed to be turning a blotchy, red color. It wasn't raised and didn't make her itch but we called the nurse help line and were told it was a fairly common non-allergic reaction to the medication and nothing to worry about. However, the next day I noticed Sylvie scratching at her thigh where a lovely, welty, hive had reared it's ugly head...and like magic several more popped up on her body. Once again I called the nurse help line and this time I was advised to stop the meds, give her some children's Benadryl and check in with her pediatrician when she was back in the office on Monday. Long story short (ha), the doc called in a new 'scrip to our local pharmacy, we dosed the kid up as per directions and today she appears to be fully recovered. Hurray! All's well that ends well, indeed. M is for MEL-MO During this time of illness, Sylvie was sorely lacking a 'wooby' or comfort object to cling to in her misery (well, other than me). This is not because we have no dolls or toys (ha!) but none that she has any particualar attachment to. BUT...she did request the presence of a certain red-furred, high-pitched-voiced monster who goes by the name of "MEL-MO" who you probably know as Elmo, a popular Sesame Street character, and yes they are one and the same. In fact, Sylvie met Elmo early in her life while visiting Sesame Street and stumbling into a fantastical place called, "Elmo's World," a place so amazing that it has it's very own theme song! That gets caught in your head and buzzes around and around inside ones noggin like a psychotic bee! Yes, Sylvie had fallen hard for MEL-MO and it was his sweet furry countenance gazing at her through the TV that helped to sooth her in her time of need. And when MEL-MO was not to be found on the TV, why, he was easily discovered on the internet! Sylvie would lean into the comfort of the chest of her father or I while happily murmuring, "Mel-mo...Mel-mo..." over and over again. Now that she is all better, her MEL-MO fixation continues. She has noticed that MEL-MO appears on her diapers and tells us so each time we change her. She asks for her MEL-MO bath toy when bathing and upon wakening each morning, points out her bedroom door towards the livingroom and the TV and says...what else?..."MEL-MO". I have it on pretty good authority that Santa is bringing her a MEL-MO doll for Xmas this year.

As promised...a nice, long update!

I apologize for my long absence. I know that I have let some of you down by not keeping you up to date with Miss Sylvie's progress and for that I am truly sorry. Now you can quit your yammering (mom) cuz here it is. Signing Time Sylvie's vocabulary continues to expand both in sign and in spoken word. As you may have seen from the June photos we are the type of parents who allow our child's brain to be corrupted and shriveled by regular tv watching. Well, regular dvd watching anyway. We are big fans of the Signing Time series and watch an episode almost daily. I'll ask Sylvie "What time is it?" and she gets very excited and signs time repeatedly then speed crawls to the tv where she signs time continuously until I start the show. As the signs are introduced, they are demonstrated very clearly by the host Rachel and then we're shown them being used by other adults, kids, toddlers and even infants. After a series of signs have been shown, there is usually a catchy song about using them. Theron and I watch it along with her and as a result we've all learned quite a few signs which we use with her throughout the day. I've been trying to jot down a list of signs she uses on a regular basis so that I can relate them all to you folks. The words that she also speaks, I'll put in parentheses her current spoken pronunciation. Here they are in no particular order: baby (baybee) time cracker (da-dur) cookie diaper (bi-pur) mom (mom/momma) dad (dah, dah-dah) more (mo) milk (mih) thirsty (tee) eat/food dog (dah-gee) cat (kih-tee) bird (bir)--funny story about this one. One day a few weeks ago, we were looking out the window during a torrential downpour when Sylvie started to sign bird. I looked and looked but didn't see any birds and thought it strange that one might have flown by in such heavy rain. Sylvie kept signing bird though and then I noticed that the postal truck was parked in view. Could it be that Sylvie recognized the highly abstracted eagle logo on the truck as a bird? There's no way I can know for sure but I'm just gonna say yes; our kid is a frickin' genius. bath (ba) ball (bah) cheese (teeze) apple (ba) banana (nanna) clean (kee) bear (buh) day sleep friend (Airwah)--well, Sara IS her best friend after all book (buh or booh)--Sylvie LOVES to be read to. Over and over and over again. Sometimes we even get to the end of the book but usually she'll bring us a book and we'll start to read it, but she'll crawl away to get another book for us to read. Rinse, repeat. hat cold strong--she only does this in response to us asking her "How strong is Sylvie?" Our follow up to "How big is Sylvie?" hot train all done/finished (done, done?) no (nonononono)--she is already showing signs of being a bit bossy (yeah, mom, just like I was) and will reprimand the dogs when she sees them doing something we've told them (or her) not to. shoes please (pee or eeze) thank you (chank chew, tank koo) boy--Once when Theron was playing with Sylvie, he said "oh boy!" trying to get her excited about a particular toy. She then signed boy for the first time. wash hands potty *poop--small confession...this one we actually learned from Meet the Fockers She's actually begun to string signs together in 2-4 word sentences like: more milk banana please and just this morning we got: more time banana thank you Koko the gorilla would be so proud! Click here for an excellent site that has short video clips demonstrating all of the above signs plus a gazillion more. I highly recommend signing with your babies. And why stop when they can talk? I think it would by nice to keep it up...it never hurts to be bilingual! Although technically since sign is not spoken maybe it should be biling/manual? G-tube? We don't need no steenkin' g-tube! When we last saw Sylvie's GI, we were given the great and glorious news that she no longer thought it necessary for Sylvie to get a g-tube--insert bells, whistles, air horns, trumpeting elephants of joy, etc here. The doctor had gotten a hold of a growth chart specific to Noonan Syndrome and while Sylvie is only in the 3rd percentile for weight on the general chart, she's actually 50th percentile on the more appropriate chart. I think this helped drive home the fact to the GI that kids with this syndrome are just smaller, but not necessarily in a bad way. Since Sylvie is length/weight proportionate and developmentally on track in everything except for gross motor skills (which she is quickly closing the gap on; more on that later), the doctor saw no need to resort to surgery to try and increase her caloric intake. Another thing that I've noticed, along with my friend Marla (Sara's mom) and many other parents of Noonies is that they are ALL small, no matter how good or bad their appetite or whether or not they have feeding issues. Case in point: Sylvie and Sara are a month apart in age, with Sylvie being the elder. Despite the fact that Sylvie has consistently taken in many more calories on a regular basis than Sara, they are only about 1lb. apart in weight with Sara being the scale tipper! I've said it before and I'll probably say it again (because I suck at coming up with new material) but I think that a lot of the calories Sylvie takes in goes to her hair. Well, it's the only explanation I can come up with as to how she stays such a skinny minnie when she eats like a horse most of the time. Bleedin' good news On advice from our pediatrician, we'd had a series of blood tests done to check Sylvie for bleeding disorders which are commonly associated with Noonan Syndrome. Our most recent trip to a doctor's office ( I say 'a' instead of 'the' since she's has so many different ones) was with the Hematology department at Children's Hospital for follow up blood work because of an abnormal result in a platelet aggregation test, (not excess platelets as I had originally thought). The doctor was very nice and explained that all of the other tests had looked fine but they wanted to recheck this one thing to be on the safe side. Long story short, (yeah I know, too late) the follow up test was a-ok! Woo hoo! We'll still have to have her rechecked before any surgery, but we don't have to worry about adding a hematologist to her list of regular specialists for the time being, thank goodness. Sylvie's most recent measurements were taken at this appointment and she weighed in at 17# 2oz and was 28" long. (Either she shrunk an inch and a half since her 15 month appointment with her pediatrician or the nurse who measured her then was just reeeeaaly sloppy when she did it.) Poop, here it is On three separate occasions now I've gone in to Sylvie's room, hearing she's awoken from her nap, to find that she's decided to do a little exploring. In her diaper. Which was FULL OF POOP. She'd be sitting in her crib, proud as can be, murmuring in her sweetest voice and holding out a stinky little butt nugget for me to see. I guess I'm lucky that each time she's done it the poops have been nuggety and not squishy since that would have made the experiences all the more disgusting. Hopefully there will be no more visits from Mr. Hanky. Fun and Games Sylvie has learned a new game from her Thursday playgroup called Where oh where has gone? (basically, it's Peekaboo!) At playgroup, this game involves sitting in a circle and taking turns putting part of a mini parachute over one of the kid's heads while saying the "Where oh where?" chant, followed by the chosen kid pulling the material down to reveal him/herself while everyone else (read: playgroup leader and parents) exclaims, "Peekaboo!" Sylvie will play the "standard" way at home, hiding behind her bib/shirt/skirt while saying "way oo way" and then grinning hugely when she reveals herself to our peekaboo! chorus, but she has also extended the game to objects, handing us a ball or toy while saying "way oo way", indicating that we are to hide it so she can find it. Last week, I heard her saying her "way oo way" to her EI therapist during a session and when they were looking at a book with characters hidden behind panels that opened up on each page. Standing up, falling down She's VERY close to walking and is standing independently of longer and longer lengths of time. Ok, so those 'lengths of time' are less than a minute...but she IS getting better at it. She's finally gotten big enough to ride her little car from G'ma & G'pa Johnson, although she has yet to master turning corners with it. She loves to climb up slides and stairs. She also thinks she can go down stairs head first...as I found out about a week ago much to my horror. Theron volunteered to look after our friend's Sean & Amanda's pets while they are away on their honeymoon. We've got Sadie the dog at our place but stop by S& A's house every other day to check on their cats and fish tanks. Sylvie started off after one of the cats who decided to flee up stairs. I allowed Sylvie to follow with me close behind, making sure she was safe. Ha. We'd reached the top and the cat had disappeared into a room and Sylvie was gesturing after it and signing/ saying kitty over and over. Thinking she wanted to continue the chase, I started after the cat saying the "Where oh where is the kitty?" chant...thus committing the ultimate act of stupidity by NO LONGER BEING BETWEEN SYLVIE AND THE STAIRS. Of course, Sylvie decided it would be much more fun to go back downstairs and I wasn't able to catch her before she fell. I cannot even begin to say how horrifying it is to see your tiny baby fall end over end down stairs. I shrieked something like, "SYLVIE! OHMYGOD!" and Sylvie just shrieked. I ran down to Sylvie and scooped her up in my arms and I just held her...too frozen with shock and terror and guilt to check her for injury. Theron had come running having heard the thuds and the shrieking seeing us rocking halfway down the stairs immediately knew what had happened and very gently took our crying baby from me to see if she was hurt since I was clearly not in the any state to do so. Nothing appeared to be broken. In fact, she had not one bump, bruise or scrape from the fall. She was fine. She was fine. She was fine. My self confidence as a parent, however, will probably be in a full body cast for quite some time. I know it's one of those things that can happen on occasion, even to good parents, but that doesn't make it ok that I was careless. Thank-any-and-all-deities she wasn't hurt. So there you have it folks I came, I blogged, I confessed. Hopefully you will have seen that aside from the horrible-falling-down-stairs incident, things have been going exceedingly well with our wee girl in every respect. She continues to be of angelic demeanor about 99% of the time with only rare and brief flare-ups of temper, mostly due to frustration. She does get a little grumpy when we tell her no sometimes but so far we've not had any real tantrums. I am under no delusions that we'll be able to avoid them completely...I'm sure Tantrum Sylvie is there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to go all Vesuvius on us in the middle of a restaurant or mall or--heaven forbid--an airplane. But I'm getting ahead of things. Right now she is our little curly-headed-sweetheart-genius-baby. July pictures coming soon!

15 Month check-up

Sylvie had her 15 month pediatric appointment today and --Huzzah!-- all we heard was good news. Her currents measurements are 29.5" long and 16#10oz. which puts her in the 15th and 3rd percentiles for height and weight respectively. Dr. G was very pleased with her growth and also with her language skills which, according to her, are rather above average. Dr. G was then moved almost to tears (I kid you not) when after having apologized in advance for having to give Sylvie two shots, Sylvie hugged her and gave her a comforting pat on the back. (We didn't tell her that Sylvie almost always pats a person on the back when they hold her). Of course, poor Sylvie still screamed her head off when she got the shots, but she recovered quickly. The doctor said that based on Sylvie's current rate of growth length-wise, she would quite likely reach a final height of between 5'-5'5". If this proves to be the case, then I guess she won't be so "wee" after all!

May Sylvie update

Our gal is doing very well, in every way these days. She's crawling like a pro now and almost ready to start walking. She conitnues to add new words to her vocabulary, both vocal and sign, and has developed some very cute habits, such as: "talking on the phone"-- said phone being her playphone, a spoon, a toy, a doll or even her own fist. She will jabber away, quite aggressively, in a language that sounds like a cross between Russian and Klingon until she very sweetly says, "bye!" Trying to get her to talk on an actual phone when someone is on the other end is another story however as she would rather just push the buttons. "ticky,ticky"-- whenever we tickle Sylvie we have taken to saying "ticky, ticky" while doing it. She has adopted our habit and loves to poke us in the ribs or belly while saying "ticky, ticky!" "good doggy...I mean daddy"--sometimes Sylvie decided that we have been especially good parents and favors us with head pats. She'll gesture for Theron to bend his head toward her and she will pat it. Then she will do the same to me, and the cycle repeats numerous times. All the while she murmurs approvingly because we are such good doggies...I mean parents. "feed the parents"-- this actually started a few months back but I don't believe I've written about it yet. Sylvie likes to pretend to pinch off our moles (and in Theron's case chest hair) and then pretend to feed them to us. Sometimes she "snacks" on them herself. Disgustingly cute or cutely disgusting? You decide. Speaking of feeding, Sylvie has begun to catch up some on her weight gain. At her last appointment with her nutritionist, we learned that she had gained 2lbs in two months (yay!) and is now back on a growth curve, if still below the 5th percentile. We also saw her cardiologist this past week and he said that things looked the same as before so no immediate steps needed to be taken to address her heart defects. We go back to see him in a year for another checkup and to discuss plans for her surgery, which will probably be done sometime before she turns 5. He has assured us that the surgery is quite common these days so, while we're not thrilled with the prospect, we know that she needs to have it. Next week, Sylvie sees her pediatrician for her 15 month checkup and a week later, she'll see her GI again. I'm hoping that the GI will no longer see the need fot a gtube once she's seen how well Sylvie's been gaining weight on her own. Keep your fingers, toes, eyes...whatever you can cross, crossed!

A tooth! A tooth! Finally a tooth!

Sylvie has experienced two breakthroughs this month: 1) she can pull herself into a standing position and 2) her lower left central incisor! Ladies and gentlemen...she FINALLY HAS A TOOTH! And it looks as the the lower right central incisor will be popping through the gum any day now as well. Luckily, she's had no obvious discomfort while teething and I'm hoping that holds true for all the rest of the pearly-whites-to-be. As for the weaning, it has gone extremely smoothly for both of us. I had the one bad day early on and I finally went ahead and boobed Sylvie to ease the pressure. Then we went another couple of days without and I developed a sore spot on one side, (presumably a blocked duct), that I again relieved with nursing Sylvie. I coud tell though that my milk was just about gone. At this point, I'm pretty sure that the dairy has closed down until future child(ren). Bye bye, boobs....Thaaaaanks foooor the maaaamarieeees...hyuck, hyuck.

March update

A lot happened with Sylvie this past month: She turned one, travelled to Savannah for the first time where she finally got to meet her Uncle T, attended her first bridal tea and (extra-utero) baby shower, had her hair cut, started bah-ing when shown pictures of sheep, learned how to sit-up all by herself AND...she's started talking to us in a second language--well third if you count baby jabber--by signing! So far she knows the signs for "more" and "milk". Sylvie and pal S also had their first visit to the Children's Museum.

Sylvie's first haircut!!! (Before and After)

The peer-pressure became too great so today we jumped on the haircut bandwagon. Here are the results.

Just a quickie...

Yes, yes, I KNOW I've become less than regular with my blogging but any of you who have or have had small children probably know why. I promise a much longer post about our trip to Savannah for M's baby shower and J's bridal tea v. soon but right now all I have time for is a little bit of bragging about our baby girl. New skills she has aquired recently include: *spreading arms wide (or sometimes just one) in response to the question, "How big is Sylvie?" *pointing at herself in response to the question "Where's the baby?" *self feeding with spoon (see photos in post below) *having her blood drawn in a much more nonchalant and mature way than her mother was able to do until she was in her late teens. (She had a blood draw yesterday that lasted for a couple of minutes because they needed to take quite a bit of blood. She never cried once but only fussed impatiently at being restrained during the procedure. If I didn't know better I'd wonder if she were really my child since I am and always have been a big whiner about needles.)

She got skillz