Eight Months

Janie is now eight months old!

 And... this is the best one I got with her sticker!

My sweet baby girl has been doing lots of growing up. One month ago, she couldn't crawl, sit up on her own, or pull herself to stand. Now she does all of those things! One month ago, she didn't have any teeth and now she has two! One month ago, she wasn't really talking, just voicing vowel sounds, and now she uses quite a few different babbles. It is crazy how fast it changes. It seems like every day that passes, she gets bigger & faster. In fact, she's not much for staying still these days and my little photo session with her will reflect that. I took about 100 pictures and maybe 10 of them weren't blurry.

But, she's happy! All the time!

We struggled a bit this month with Janie's diet. Janie had some ugly diapers right after she started back at school (second week in August) and so I figured she had picked up a little virus. After waiting a bit and seeing the doctor, we used soy formula since it's easier on her tummy until her diapers were back to normal. Well, they got better and we went back to her regular formula after about a week or week and a half. Shortly after that, she started to have more issues, so we began to wonder if she was having issues with her formula as opposed to a virus. The doctor agreed and thinks Janie probably has a lactose intolerance (that hopefully she will outgrow) and to keep her on soy formula until she's a bit older. So, hopefully it's not a big deal later, but for now Janie is dairy-free until further notice!

Other updates since month seven:

Takes four 7-ounce bottles each day We've kept the size of the bottles the same, though now are on soy, as mentioned above. We will see what Dr. B. has to say when we go back for Janie's 9 month visit in October. Janie has gotten very good at holding her bottle on her own. We sometimes give her the freedom to feed herself when we are busy with other things, like packing the girls up to go to school or making a meal for the family.

Eats pureed veggies & fruits Janie's solid food diet was kind of stalled when we had diaper issues this month. I didn't want to introduce any new foods until she was back to normal and so for a few weeks, she hasn't gotten anything other than what we already had prepared. Since I am feeling more comfortable with her diet now, I am starting some new foods! We will try oatmeal, peaches, plums, and zucchini before next month, hopefully! And Primrose has said we can bring our own food in from home so we will start to do that next week for breakfast & lunch. 

Hopefully one of the last batches of purees! 

I'm hoping Janie will be able to eat soft pieces in the next  month or two.

Drinks water from a sippy cup (kind of) Janie isn't great about drinking from her cup still, but we will continue to try it! I must admit I haven't been consistent about giving her the opportunity to drink from one, but we're going to be more adamant beginning NOW.

Sleeps about 12 hours each night Janie is still sleeping very well at night. She sleeps on her tummy (always) and under a blanket. She likes to be a cozy little thing.

Takes three ~1 1/2 hour naps a day I keep waiting for Janie to drop a nap. Since starting back at Primrose, she doesn't take consistent naps each day so it's hard to figure out where she is going with her naps. Then, on the weekends, she wakes up at different times of day and if her morning nap is especially long, it throws us all off schedule. So basically, she is not on any kind of consistent nap schedule these days. When home all day, I hope to get her to take 2 good naps: a morning and an early afternoon; and then maybe a cat nap before dinner if she needs it. 

Sucks her thumb to self-soothe Janie will still do this, only when she knows it is time to sleep. It's funny to see her throw that thumb in her mouth the second you turn off the lights and on the sound machine and sit in the rocking chair. She just knows. Occasionally when she is really tired, she will suck on her thumb on her own, outside of her bedroom. Since Nora dropped her pacifier and never sucked on her thumb, I am curious to see how this plays out. I know she's still young and she only really does it at nap time, but ya know... I still wonder.

This is how I sleep.

Pulls herself around using arms This is still Janie's preferred method of getting around. I have seen her use her knees to crawl, but she knows she is faster when she uses her arms and pulls her weight behind her. And man, is she fast when she wants to be! We really have to make sure things aren't left out that she could choke on and be mindful of where she is now since she will get herself anywhere she wants now!

Crawling!

Sits alone Janie can now sit up on her own when she wants to. So she will go from crawling to sitting, back to crawling, and then sitting, over and over until she wants to be picked up. Or fed. Or put to sleep. And she's been pulling herself up to standing on her own for a week or two. Just this morning, she pulled herself up to standing in her crib for the first time so now we have the lowest setting on the mattress in her crib!

I sit up by myself!

Moves toys from hand to hand Janie will carry toys with her around the house now that she can crawl. She will find something she likes and bring it over to show you in the next room. Or carry it with her to a diaper change. 

I brought this toy with me!

Drops toys on purpose This is still a favorite game of Janie's. And now, Nora likes to play along. Of course, she thinks it is hilarious when Janie drops a toy, she gives it back to her, and then Janie drops it again but little does she know that Janie is doing it on purpose and she is just feeding into her little plan! It's fun to see them play and laugh together, though.

We love watching them play together!

No teeth yet! Janie cut her first tooth and the second one came shortly after so she now has TWO teeth. She's begun drooling a bit more this past week, so there may be more coming, but who knows when!

Talks, but no babbling yet We hear "da" and "ba" and sometimes "ma" out of Janie's mouth lately, along with lots of screeches and squeals, much to Nora's delight. Justin and I have been working on "dada" and "mama" but she hasn't committed to a first word quite yet.

Talking to mommy.

Plays with her mouth & lips Razzing is by far one of Janie's favorite things to do. She makes a big slobbery mess when she does it. We're trying with all our might to keep Nora from mimicking her, but we will see what happens! That and splashing in the bath tub. It's funny & cute when Janie does it but again, we don't want Nora to start making big splashes for fun in the tub! 

Wears size 3 diapers Size three it is for now!

Wears 6-12 month clothing I don't anticipate her growing out of her 6-12 month clothing until closer to her birthday. I will need to look into holiday outfits for Janie since Nora's first Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas were all before she was 4 months old, meaning NOTHING will fit Janie on her first go-around. Yay shopping!

Playing.

This month:

Drinks four soy bottles each day

Eats pureed veggies & fruits

Drinks water from a sippy cup (kind of)

Takes two or three naps a day

Sucks her thumb before sleeping

Can crawl but chooses army crawling

Sits up on her own

Pulls herself to standing

Carries toys around with her

Has two teeth

Babbles

Wears size 3 diapers

Wears 6-12 month clothing

One other thing... I posted about her helmet journey when she was dismissed from physical therapy this past month, but I thought it was worth mentioning that the one other big change for Janie this month was that she is officially done with her therapies for plagiocephaly & torticollis! Yay Janie!

My sweet baby girl.

Back To School

This past week we were officially back to school for the year! Although it still feels like summer in Texas (and probably will through October) I had a sweet new group of students walk through the door on Monday. It's been a busy, long week. I can't believe it was just one, really.

When Monday morning finally rolled around, Nora was entirely uncooperative. She didn't want to put on her clothes. She didn't want to brush her teeth. Or let me do her hair. So, when I wanted to take a picture for the first day of school, I got this:

Trust me Nora: I feel the same way.

I mean, it does stink to have to wake up a baby that looks like this:

They were both sleeping like rocks...

Of course, Janie was just fine. When I told Nora we were going to school in daddy's car, things turned around for her. I didn't get a smile, but at least a better "first day of school" picture of Nora.

Cute enough for mommy!

I had every intention of getting them both in a picture, but it just wasn't meant to be. Nora wasn't in much of a cooperative mood. And I was on my own with both babes. Also, I thought Janie would wear this outfit since Nora wore it last year on her first day. Well, it must have been big on Nora last year because there was NO way it would fit Janie this year and turns out, it still kind of fits Nora! 

...Oh, well.

The important thing is Nora had a great day at Primrose in her Early Pre-School Class and brought home this cute little magnet for our refrigerator...

That's my sweet girl!

Here's to hoping that the second week isn't quite so hard on any of us!

Summer Week Ten

This has been the final official week of summer! I cannot believe it!

It has been a bit of an abnormal yet transitional week. It hasn't been a whole lot of fun, actually.

I started taking the girls to Primrose full time on Monday so that I could get into my classroom for a few days and start to put my room together. One work day is never long enough to really get things in order! I worked for three full days and although the room was put together quickly, I didn't have quite enough time to go through piles and cabinets the way that I always wish to, yet somehow never quite get to. Some areas are cleaner than they were in years past but others remain the same, messy, untouched (yet hidden - that's good...) piles. I just know that once our "real" days begin, I won't have the time to get to the poster cabinet or the craft closet. One of these years I will get to it!!

Spirit Day at Primrose - their first week back!

We all sported burnt orange, of course!

I only had three days to get the room together because I had my wisdom teeth taken out on Thursday of this week! I must admit that I was very nervous about the procedure, but mostly the anesthesia. I have never had a surgery or even been put "under" so it was a little scary for me. I like to be in control and well, you can't be in that circumstance. I don't really remember falling asleep, just talking to the doctor and the nurses about Nora's name and other things about the kids. Then, I remember {kind of} walking with the nurse to the recovery chair and talking with my mom and the nurse about how it went. Apparently it went well because I was done in 30 minutes.

Icing the jaw - HA!

The recovery has not been bad at all. I made myself take the pain meds through the second day because I figured I would end up regretting it if I didn't take them, but I haven't been on even Tylenol since then and have felt mostly fine. I was lucky enough to only have the top two teeth and they had already descended so it was a relatively easy extraction. I'm being careful now about not eating anything too chewy or crunchy but other than that, things are pretty normal.

I did insist that we go to Babe's the day before my surgery.

SOOO good!

Our last weekend before school was a busy one. We went to Harper's 2nd birthday party and had our fantasy football draft! I have tried to clean the house as much as possible because I know that I won't get to it much in the next few weeks. It is now 8:00 pm on Sunday night and I think I have done just about as much as can be done, or that I can stand I should say.

Nora sporting her rain boots. 

Tomorrow starts Day One of Year Seven in Kindergarten and although I am sad to see summer end I am excited to see what this year has in store for me! Wish us all luck as these long days in August & September are quite the adjustment on the whole family!

Family Photos

We had a family photo session a few weeks ago with our dear friend Leslie {www.leslieeure.com} as a combination documentation of six months for Janie and two years for Nora. 

I put the girls in their cute Matilda Jane outfits and hoped that they would both cooperate! We are so pleased {of course} with how they turned out and have to share the pics of our sweet family! 

All of the pictures were seriously SO cute. I picked less than 20 to put on here but you can see the full gallery on Leslie's website here. 

Helmet Free

This post has been a long time coming. What can I say... I've been so busy enjoying Janie's helmet-free head that I haven't had time! Actually the reason for the delay was that I wanted to take the time to really reflect on her little journey from start to finish.

"I'm helmet free!!"

Janie's journey began about a month after she was born, when we first noticed a little flat spot forming on the back of her head. We did the right thing by taking her to the doctor... three times... but I still think back and wonder if I should have noticed it earlier. There are just so many things that happen in the first few months with a newborn baby and lots to keep track of - When did she last eat? When did she last poop? When did she wake up from her last nap? How much sleep will I get this stretch? - that I didn't really start to notice her preference to the right until I really started paying attention to that little detail. But nonetheless, it was there; and it started to become prominent enough for her flat spot to get flatter and our worries to get... worrier.

Looking back, she definitely had a moderate case of plagiocephaly and so I don't feel quite as bad. I feel like we knocked out what could have been a bigger problem while it was still a little problem.  About two months after our initial visit with our pediatrician, we got imaging done at Cranial Technologies, where they fit babies with these little helmets called DocBands. They reviewed her images with us and told us that she was a good candidate. Of course, they told us all the things that could go wrong if you don't go through with the helmet (terrifying) but we were already decided on moving forward with it, so that wasn't really a factor one way or the other.

Look at that pretty head.

On May 2nd - another two weeks-ish - Janie was getting fit for her DocBand. I must admit that I had never seen a baby wearing one of these helmets so despite the fact that everyone told me how common they were and how many times they had seen babies wearing them, I still felt like Janie was going to be stared at in public places - for the wrong reasons. I know, I know - it doesn't matter what other people think - but I really was down about her wearing this "thing" on her head and people not seeing her for the beautiful baby that she is. It was probably a good thing that Justin took her to the first appointment so that I didn't become an emotional train wreck. She was only 3 months old... I was still nursing and seriously horomonal. I cried a little when I first saw her in person and then on occasion after that but that lasted only for a day or two because like all things that are new and different, you just seem to adjust and then it becomes a new normal.

So we followed doctor's orders to a T and kept the helmet on 23 hours a day and cleaned both her head and the helmet every day. That thing smells like a stinky foot and it gets that way like 10 minutes after you clean it. Thankfully, we never seemed to deter people in the grocery store line with a foul smelling baby so I guess we did a good enough job with the cleaning. We checked her for red areas and took her in for fittings (one of the most important parts) every week. We were pleasantly surprised to notice a change not even two weeks after she had on the DocBand. Her doctors were happy with her progress as well! She must have hit a growth spurt at just the right time.

That's right! I did awesome!

We waited and waited for another growth spurt, which was all they thought she would need to be finished with her helmet treatment. We continued to go back for her weekly fittings and progress monitoring and right after I got out of school for the summer (second or third week in June) we were told that she was about done! Her second-to-last appointment at Cranial Technologies I was told that her end date would be the next appointment because she was growing out of her helmet anyways.

We decided to take off the helmet for good when we were giving her the hour long break she got every day and we could see the indentations of the helmet gaps on her head from across the table. Her therapist had mentioned that we may see this happen and once I saw it, I knew that was exactly what she meant. We had her final imaging done on June 25th and we have been loving on her helmet-free head ever since!

I had to include some of her before and after images in this post. Let me first preface these pictures by telling you that to capture the images, they put this little nylon beanie thing on baby's head. Like they are a baby gangster. I guess it makes it smooth and all so they can see all the curves on their head.

Top of Janie's head.

On the left you can see that the right side of her head had the flat spot forming.

Also, her forehead on the right side of her head was protruding slightly.

Both of these issues were addressed in the wearing of the helmet.

On the right you can see that the flattening evened out and her forehead aligned.

Way to go Janie belle!

Side of Janie's head.

On the left you can see that she was flat along the back and 

had a hook-like head shape above her neck. 

Also, the slope up her head from her forehead was more flat than round.

On the right you can see the rounded out back of the head as well as the top of the head,

a more even, rounded head shape!

I included this one for pure entertainment.

This is Janie's "WOAH. What's that sparkly toy?" face. 

They had this magic toy that captured Janie's attention to keep her focused on one spot for the pictures.

They did tell us something about her eyes being sunken in, maybe the one on the right? 

I didn't notice that as much but the baby beanies are pretty entertaining...

Janie wore her DocBand for a total of nine weeks. In two weeks it will have been just as long since she got it off. I can't believe how quickly it went by! We are so happy with her progress in the helmet and feel very grateful that it is not something we have to worry about anymore, or question ourselves about not doing. Now all we have to worry about is what on earth to do with Janie's head mold on a stick that they let us take home!!

It's framed in her nursery.

Okay, not really.

Along with Janie's DocBand treatment came physical therapy, which turned out to be more of a challenge than we expected. Again, we were going weekly to 30 minute sessions. We started by working on loosening up the tightness she had in her neck and increasing her range of motion. This required doing some stretches both at home and at daycare every day. Janie didn't seem to have much of a problem working through her tightness.

When the focus shifted to her neck and core strength we began to have some difficulty with her progressing as quickly. I think our therapist probably thought we weren't doing what she suggested at home! We were instructed to first work on exercises to help with her neck muscle strength. When that wasn't working, we began using that fancy tape that athletes wear on her neck as a sort of reminder to keep her head upright and use those muscles. When we finally saw improvements in her muscle strength, we started to focus on creating a good balance on the right and left sides of her body. By now, her "center" was a little off. Remember, we were working on a head tilt. Her "comfy-spot" was having her head tilt a little to the right. I also had to remind myself that she was going through a lot of changes developmentally during this time - holding up her own head, rolling from tummy to back, rolling from back to tummy, learning how to sit on her own, bearing weight on her arms, and even beginning to crawl.

Finally after exercising and taping not only her neck but her back & core muscles, we got Janie to decrease her head tilt gradually until we felt comfortable with her not needing therapy every week. We let her go two weeks between appointments and then a month. Janie was in physical therapy for a total of about 4 months: 10-12 weeks of weekly appointments, a biweekly appointment, and a monthly appointment.

So today we went to our very last appointment. I am so glad that Janie has made all the progress that she has and that she seems to be developing normally and evenly. When it all is said and done, we spent 6-7 months keeping up with her plagiocephaly & torticollis, and 3-4 months of treatment time to resolve those issues. I know that I will forever remember this time since it was emotional for me, but I know that looking back it will be such a little thing compared to all the things that she CAN do and WILL do!

Look at that cute face!

I love my sweet baby Janie soooo much!!

Summer Week Nine

I still cannot believe how quickly the summer goes by but it just continues to do so. Looking back we have really done a lot! My to do list was not hardly touched but as far as just doing things with the girls, as a family, and with other friends... We did a lot. 

For our last full week at home of summer {tear!} we did quite a few fun things with the girls. I learned that Nora does not like the great little splash pad Grapevine has a few weeks ago. She doesn't like the water spraying in her face. So, we decided to try the pool and she did enjoy that. So we went twice! Janie loved splashing and just standing and watching the kids play. Nora liked to play with some of the water table-like toys and go in the "deep end" {two feet, maybe} for some "swimming" time. 

Playing at the water table!

Mommy & the girls

While leaving the pool, Nora discovered her shadow. She was walking with her daddy, hand in hand, and all of a sudden started to run instead of walk. For Nora, running is more like just quickly moving her legs and making them go up and down a little higher. I wish I had this on video, but I do not. We figured out after watching her do this down the sidewalk that she was trying to chase her shadow down. One of the funniest things I have ever seen her do!

Shadow!

We also went to the aquarium one more time with Mimi to see the fishies! Nora again loved watching the sting rays and the sea horses and all the fish swimming around. She enjoyed showing Mimi all the tanks and went in a few of the peep bubbles by herself! Progress! 

Showing Mimi the fish tanks

Watching the sea turtles

Under the fish tank!

Feeling a star fish

Since daddy was home we ended up going on a few walks in the wagon! Janie is finally sitting up quite well on her own and we were pleasantly surprised at how she could sit into the other side of the wagon with only a little bobbling. She was also strapped in very well so she was secure... So, we took the girls and the dog on a walk around the block! Nora loved sitting with Janie and was talking with her about the walk in the wagon the whole time. 

Strapped in and ready to go!

Janie's first wagon ride!

Nora thinks she's going to pull this time...

"Bye!" she says...

Next week the girls will be back at Primrose full time while I get my room in order and have my wisdom teeth taken out. It will be an adjustment for all but a good one as when I go back for real it will be an even bigger one. Wish us all luck!!