Putting up Christmas

 Thanksgiving was early this year, so putting up the tree so early was kind of weird. We got the tree out and the middle section of lights were burnt out, and so it took a few days before we decorated it, because I wanted to get the lights working. We rearranged bulbs until we found the one causing the problem and they were all on. Then, the next morning we turned them on and they were out again, I didn't want to bother, so we decorated the tree anyway. It is a homemade tree and I keep bugging Robert that I want to buy one that is prelit, but this will work for now. Julie had fun decorating, talking while she was putting ornaments on.

 Family picture after decorating the tree.

 Now that Christmas is over, I can say that it was a long month. And we kept having to tell Julie that if she wasn't a good girl she wouldn't get any presents since it seemed like she was a pill all month long.

Julie

Wow, I haven't done a post on Julie lately! She is a character, and she amazes me with her vocabulary and just how she talks in complete sentences. The things she has been loving lately is watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse(every morning while I get ready), she also likes Toy Story 1, 2, and 3, Snow White, Finding Nemo, Cars, Tangled, and Pooh Bear(although not so much anymore). She is always singing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse songs and repeating whole phrases from the shows. She was pumping up a flat tire, after watching one of the shows. She will be doing something and say, "Oh Tootles"(with hand cupped over mouth), and then she will wait for a minute to see if he shows up. Or she will say, "We need a mouseketool". She is just so much fun, and also such a stinker, I swear December is "Act Totally Not Like Yourself" month. She has been ornery, throwing tantrums, super whiny, cries over anything that doesn't go her way, must be Christmas time. 

-Poops ALL Day Long(don't even want to talk about this one right now) Oh boy!

Here she is saying "Oh Tootles"

Gives herself a nap every once in a while.

 Julie definitely has more of Robs features, like her nose. She has more of a square shaped face. I think Melanie got my long face and my eyes, although after having kids my eyes changed(I have never had an eye crease and now I do), they changed to just being tired looking.

 She is quite handy with Robs tablet, it has books, puzzles, matching games, and a lot more and she loves it. "Where's my tablet?"

 Found her like this the other morning, with her sippy suctioned to her lip, just letting it hang.

Super tantrum phase right now, I swear December just makes her more naughty, something doesn't go her way or she doesn't get something, full out sprawl on the floor and wailing. I have learned to ignore her, and also sit her somewhere where she can calm herself down.
Julie playing with Melanie.

Here she is playing with my ravioli from the cupboard. She is into play food and giving us food to eat.

 Julie was not picking up toys, and so we warned her that her toys would be taken away. Well, they dissapeared one night while she was asleep(haha), and the room was so much cleaner in the morning.

It has been about a week and they are still put away, and she hasn't noticed to much

Her bangs were getting long, so I stuck her in front of my computer and turned on a movie and cut her bangs. So cute!

She loves containers and will rearrange her toys all the time. Here is an example. I got these little ornaments last year as a gift from a neighbor, and she loves them. They end up all over the place, and in this picture they are in my baby bullet freezer tray along with a golf ball.

Got to keep on updates with her, this really is already old news.

10 Months and Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

-She is rolling everywhere, she would roll before, but not to get somewhere and not all the time. Now, she rolls and gets herself across the room. 

-She also had another evaluation with the Up to 3 program with the Occupational Therapist today. We found out that she is chewing her food side to side like she should be doing. She is just having a problem with what goes in. She said she will qualify her for Therapy. She isn't eating potatoes anymore and after eating the potatoes she got rather firm poops, she would get all red in the face and give the classic "pushing" face, but nothing would come. She finally got something out after 4 days, and it made her bum bleed. Poor girl, then the next day she got more out and even more the next day. I think it was the breastmilk poop pushing everything out. We will see on Monday what she qualifies for in other areas.

-Holds onto a toy and clenches her jaw and fists. Or while playing with Robs hair she gritz her teeth and clenches her fists like she is going to rip his hair out. It is so funny. Rubbing her head just changes her mood.

Rob also gets a nice little head massage in the process.

She also loves to hang upside down.

 She is now really interested in toys, and loves this squishy water toy.

 Occasionally will sleep on her hand.

-New tooth, bottom left beside her two bottom teeth, all of a sudden there it was. And I can feel two on top coming in next on each side of her 4 front teeth.
-More involved with her surroundings, she is starting to whine when she can't see me or wants me. I will come into the room and she gets all smiles to see me. She rolls pretty good now, but not really to get anywhere. Her left arm is weaker than her right, she will get up onto her knees and her left elbow and right hand, with her head resting on her forearm of her left arm, and she will rock back and forth. She does this a lot in her bed and on our bed.
-Update: She is qualified for the "Up to 3" program. Our goal right now is for her to be sitting for 3-5 minutes unassisted. We love, love her physical therapist Curt, he is awesome. He came for the IFSP and immediately asked if he could wash his hands and just laid right down on the floor to play with Melanie.  He is so cute with her and is so good at what he does. He is just great and Melanie loves him, he says 90% of the kids he sees cry when he is there, so he was loving Melanie. Melanie will also get some Occupational Therapy(eating), she has the chewing down and moves food in her mouth like an adult would, she just won't let us put anything in. She will eat bread, puffs, and she was loving green beans off my plate today, and ate quite a bit. I really think we will totally skip baby food all together with her. So, we are excited to work with Up to 3.
-The last few nights she has been hard to get to sleep, we basically just have to let her cry it out, she usually will go down just fine and she does during naps, but at night time, she cries and cries until she falls asleep. I will pick her up for a minute and then lay her back down, hopefully this won't last long, she also still wakes up at least once during the night for a bottle. And she is now drinking about 6 ounces at each feeding. 
So much fun!

Loves Potatoes

Well, I know she loves potatoes, she is really starting to want to eat now, which is awesome, and she loves mashed potatoes. Today she had some for lunch and dinner and ate a TON, so surprised how much she ate. She even ate some green beans that I mashed slightly. So exciting!

Mouth Practice

This girl loves her puffs! She will not eat baby food, and it might just be too liquidy, low muscle tone kids do better with thicker foods, but I think this child will completely bypass baby food all together. She has teeth, so even though they are saying to still start out with the first foods, I don't think it will be purreed or from a jar, it will be in soft cubes. She smiles and opens up every time a puff is coming her way, and she will turn her head when we offer her the spoon with baby food. She is also a little more interested in water. If puffs is all she will eat right now, that is a HUGE start, and is definitely getting her used to eating.

She is also getting super wiggley where it is a struggle to get her diaper changed and clothes changed. It just makes me smile.

9 Month appointment

We had Melanie's 9 month appointment and here are her measurements:

Weight: 15lb 20oz     (below 5%)

Height: 29 inches     (90%)

Head: 17 1/4 inches     (45%)

So, her weight is really low. Our physical therapist wrote a letter to the doctor saying she is concerned that there is some underlying cause to her low muscle tone, but other than low muscle tone, we don't know what. The doctor is concerned but wants to give it another 3 months to see how she is doing, if she is pulling up to furniture and cruising. He says we could see a geneticist, but that doesn't always show anything. It is one of those things where you are trying to find a diagnosis, but you might not. She is progressing, and has gained two pounds since her 6 months and is growing lengthwise just fine, and she is making progress with her gross motor skills, so right now, I am really not worried. It kind of scares me to even think there is something else, in my mind I just don't want to know, she is smiley, happy, and making progress. Our doctor did mention one diagnosis, he gave us the name of it so we could look it up online, and although there are some similarities like the low muscle tone, she doesn't have most of the other symptoms, so I don't know. I am going to give it some time, and really work hard with her.
She got two shots, one was a flu shot, and she cried for like a second and was fine, and we never did give her any tylenol. Julie got her flu shot and cried for a minute or so, and had a slight fever before bed.

She ate some leftover thanksgiving potatoes with gravy and butter yesterday and some roll, and then some more today, so I am hoping she is finally getting interested in eating and this will help increase her weight. 

 The nurse from the Up to 3 program came today and she thought having someone from there program to come check her eyes, would help us know whether to see her ophthalmologist sooner than our 6 month scheduled appointment, since your eyes are controlled by muscles, and we didn't mention that she has low muscle tone. 

Whatever the doctors say, she is progressing and right now that is all that matters. She is my sweet girl!

Melanie - 9 Months(on the 20th)

Melanie is getting more and more active, which is a wonderful thing. She can roll pretty well now, and she is getting up onto her elbows and knees, shoulders still are not strong enough, but she is getting there. I wouldn't be surprised if she was army crawling before she was sitting. And yah, still not sitting, but getting closer, she likes to fling herself backwards, but at least she is not folding in half, she is holding her body up a lot better. 

Still no babbling, she does this high squeal/yell, that is fun. When people hear her do it, they are like, "Is that Melanie?", it got my brother out of his room and into the family room inspecting what the noise was coming from. 

And I have been reading online about low muscle tone babies, and some were not walking at 26 months or saying any words yet. Kind of a downer, but I am so glad that "low muscle tone" is all we are dealing with right now, usually there are other medical problems from having low muscle tone. For now, that is all that we know of that she has and we are helping her get stronger. We are now working with a program called "Up to 3", it is a University early intervention program. They come to our house for all the therapy that Melanie will need, which is awesome, the one meeting we had with the service coordinators so far was awesome. She just played like normal on the floor while they tested her. And she was happy as could be. I already love the program and we are only in the testing phase.

Getting a picture with Melanie and Julie together is kind of fun.

 Julie is playing a lot more with Melanie lately.

 Love Julie's smile in this one, and then Melanie looked away.

 And I think my camera is in need of replacing, these pictures are so grainy, I hate to use the flash, so this is what I get.

 Sunday afternoon in a cute dress my mom found at a garage sale, with a cardigan I got a while ago on sale that was a little big, but fit so well with the dress.

 She gives the best smiles, she can be sober, but she is a lot easier at getting a smile out of her than Julie was. She has a straight mouth smile.

She is loving books, if slobbering all over them is loving them. While we are practicing her sitting, I read books to her and she reaches her hands out to grab at the books. Sits for much longer doing this.

 You can see from this picture her up on her knees and arms, and then inspecting her hands in the picture below. She loves to lay on her Daddy's belly, always get the biggest smiles from her.

What a little cutie she is, oh and for my reference, she still wakes up once, sometimes twice to eat, still no solids although she is eyeing our food now, and has started to eat some bread.

New Dishwasher

 Loving our new dishwasher, got an ASKO(last years model), and it is so quiet. I can start it when the kids are asleep. There was no way I would have started our old dishwasher after the kids were asleep. It was so LOUD. Heats up the water fast and efficiently. Just AWESOME!

We had it installed and I am so glad we did, it took the guy 3 hours to install it, and he had to cut our old dishwasher out, he said he has never had to do that in 7 or 8 years, so we were pretty special. The front is so easy to clean, no edges that will collect dirt, we love it!

Time to Baby Proof

She is still working on sitting, she leans forward or falls backward. You can tell she is kind of hunched forward in the picture above.

But, so happy to say that we need to baby proof, Melanie is getting around, not crawling, but she is definitely getting there. She is not sitting yet, I think we still have to work with her on that one. She was working on her back end today just lifting it up and down while on her tummy.

 Julie likes to get on the floor and play with her, or play the tablet like she is doing here. 

 She is becoming more and more content to play on the floor for long periods of time, and she is even happier when Julie is right down there with her.

 This is Julie's thing lately, reading books and educational stuff on Robs tablet.

 She loves to suck on her sleeve while on her tummy, these next pictures are where she is getting her butt and back legs off the ground. She was just rocking them up and down.

 This one kind of shows how high she was getting them.

 And then some video of her playing.

And when I went to get her from her nap she was facing the other direction, she usually starts screaming from getting stuck in her rotation around the crib with her head up against the rail and her feet at the bars on the other side. But today she made it. She is getting there
And we discovered from her last physical therapy appointment that she likes texture, like a ball that is bumpy, she likes to have us rub her hand over Robs head, and she just smiles and loves to scratch at different surfaces.