Physical Therapy Appointment

 

 Well, Melanie is improving and can roll really well from her back onto her belly from the left side. Although at her appointment she just laid there on her back. Can't quite sit up yet, and so we need to work on rolling from belly to back and from back to belly on the right side, and sitting. And since she is still not eating, that correlates to low muscle tone. So eating is delayed, fine motor skills delayed, just all around slow. Makes me a little sad, but she is her own person and she will get it. We are going to be meeting with the physical therapist every two weeks now. Hopefully we can work hard with her and get her more caught up. She is 8 months old, but developmentally about a 5 1/2 month old. 

I think she is getting stranger anxiety, every time the therapist would take Melanie, she would cry, and then she would give her back to us and she would calm down.

And her two teeth on the side of her two front top teeth finally popped through, you could see them just hanging out up there, but they finally poked through, which could be why she didn't go down to sleep that well. 

She was really quite sober today, no one could really make her smile.

 Except for Julie, she can always seem to get Melanie to smile, and I love it!

 Since now rolling over, we no longer use the rice socks for positioning since she is strong enough scoot up and roll onto her belly. We lay her on her back and she instantly goes to her belly and that is how she sleeps.

So we might be using the program that the University does called "Up to 3", or something, they evaluate Melanie, and anything she is behind in, they come to our house and help her with for free. My friend told me about this program, and then our Physical Therapist mentioned it today. So Michelle, if you are reading this, I would love some more information.

Slow progress, but good progress!

Julie 33 Months

Julie: I love you Mommy.

Me: I love you, Julie.

Julie: Thank you for loving me, mommy!

Julie: "Oh, thank you for getting my bottom all clean, we're all done."

Right now she is into saying thank you for EVERYTHING, again. She did this a while ago and then stopped and now is into it again. Love it! So wish I didn't have to clean her bottom off, but some of the things she says are just so cute.

Went shopping for her Fall/Winter Wardrobe of jeans and long sleeve shirts. She is a 3T in pants right now and 4T in shirts(3T just are too short in the arms and in the length). I am loving jeans though, jeans go with everything and they are just so cute on her.

 Having fun playing in a box.

 "Mommy, where am I?"

 She has been cute with her babies lately.

 And she gives them kisses, she also gives us good kisses as well, and always gives Melanie a kiss after her nightly prayer. And she is starting to give us good hugs(where she will actually squeeze).

One of the ways she likes to watch her videos, she has been liking Toy Story lately, and has seen all three.  She mainly watches it while I get ready.

She is so into reading her books right now, we have two baskets in the front room with books, and then she has a basket in her bedroom. Well, when I lay Melanie in her crib for her nap, Julie wants to take one to, so she gets in her bed and I leave the door open and leave the room. She always ends up coming out sliding the basket along behind her, once she makes it to the door, I will pick the basket up and put it on the floor by the couch. She will then pick a book out, read through it(love listening to how she reads them), and then put it on the couch and get another one. She does this everyday, sometimes she will sit on the floor in her bedroom while Melanie is napping and read to, and she is really good at being quiet while she is in there. I can always find her at least once a day reading through her books.

Here she is reading in her bedroom while Melanie is sleeping.

Still loves her muslin blanket, and most of the time takes it with her everywhere. She will drape it over her head and walk around, or wrap herself up like a burrito, and she always has to have her feet covered when we put in over her.

Her hair is getting so long and she will let me put it in a ponytail sometimes, this day it didn't last too long before she wanted it out.

She wanted to feed Melanie the other day, so Rob helped her, she did pretty good. And Melanie seemed to enjoy it, even though she was being held awkward and kept having the bottle come out or not quite all the way in.

She is my helper.

She loves to dance and loves to make Melanie smile. Melanie and Julie are interacting together more and more.

 She has become an awful eater, she will eat bread, and string cheese and cheese in a tortilla, and bread, and cottage cheese, and bread and more bread. Maybe a banana. Need to figure out something for her to eat that adds some veggies.

One thing she is saying a lot right now is, "What" "Really" one after another, very enthusiastically. And I don't think she understands "Why Not?", because whenever I say this to her she always repeats it back. She is growing up so fast, we can have conversations with each other, she can answer my questions and so much more. My babe is growing up.

Brown Rice

Gave Melanie some brown rice yesterday(small amount), and she actually wasn't disgusted. She would bite the spoon, but she got some of it down, and then she slept for 9 hours straight, the longest she has slept. We gave her more today and we shall see how long she sleeps tonight.

8 Months

Wowza! Melanie is finally starting to look big to me, still skinny, but she is not little anymore. She is getting stronger every day. At her last physical therapy appointment, she was doing great, and now we are working at rolling over and sitting. She is rolling from her back to her left side onto her belly great. If we lay her on her back she will go straight to her belly. She can go the other way, but it is a little harder for her. We have been using the Bumbo a lot for sitting, she is doing better at that also. As you can see from the picture, she is not quite straight up.

She does this thing where I will lift her up to a sitting position after feeding her so that I can burp her, and she immediately falls backward, once down she will try pulling herself back up, I will help her and before we even get back into a sitting position, she falls backward again. This strengthens her ab muscles as well, she is just doing it for fun, but it helps.
I just love sleeping babies.

She is constantly looking at her hands, she will stick her hand out in front of her face and examine it.

Julie has started to play with Melanie a little, here she is sharing her blanket with Melanie.

And Melanie sure does enjoy Julie's company, usually Julie will get in Melanie's face and just giggle. Melanie gets the biggest smile on her face. She doesn't babble that much right now, but she does make noise.

Sometimes I will get excited when Melanie is doing so well at lifting her head up, that Julie will want some attention and she will get down on her belly and stick her head up like Melanie. Here she is showing how she can lift her head up to.

Loves to giggle with Daddy.

I have tried feeding her baby food, and we have not had any luck yet. It has all been homemade, which I thought would be more tasty, but she won't have it. All smiles at the beginning.

Then her slightly disgusted face.

And then out it comes, goodness. I so want her to get some food in her so that she will sleep through the night here SOON. I might have to just cave and buy some baby food from the store. We have tried zucchini, oatmeal, banana, avocado, peas, and yams. My next attempt is a squash. Julie wasn't too fond of baby food either, but she did love the sweet potatoes and squash. And she was eating food from her tray by this age too. My how each child is so different. One of these times she has got to get it.

Just chillin with Dad in the garage while he worked.

This is the picture that after I took it and I was looking at her, I was realizing that she was getting big, she fits into the stroller quite well now.

Another one where she is making Melanie happy.

What a sweetie she is. She only basically wakes up once to eat, but she has been waking up more lately.
We took her to the eye doctor about a month ago, because her left eye has always kind of wandered, unless she is focused on you. If she is just looking around or daydreaming, it will go outward, but she always brings it back. Looks weird sometimes, the doctor says it can only be corrected with surgery. Kind of like a lazy eye, we have another appointment in six months. As long as she can always bring it back after her eye wanders outward.
She is also not swaddled anymore, she is getting a lot stronger and getting her swaddled was kind of a joke, and then if we did get her swaddled she would wiggle her way out of it, so I just stopped.

A ride with Rob and Julie

Rob took Julie and I on a ride to one of his favorite riding spots. It was up immigration canyon. It took about an hour and ten minutes to get there. And it was still pretty chilly. We were pretty much the only ones there, besides some campers. It started out kind of overcast, but by the time we headed out, it was a beautiful clear day.

We got about 10 minutes into the ride, and we were going down a steep area that was slightly rocky, and Julie kept saying, "I want to go back to the trailer", so we just kept saying, it is all right, we are going to find a spot to eat lunch. And then after that, she kept saying, "I want some food" until we finally found a spot to pull off and eat lunch. She found a nice rock to sit on while she enjoyed her lunch.

The fall colors started out as mainly yellows, and then as we got further along they turned into more reds, and oranges, and it was just the perfect fall colors.

These next pictures(there are a ton and I included them all because it was GORGEOUS) are from one of Robs favorite trails called Ant Canyon, and I just kept clicking away. Wow, it was simply amazing! Rob wanted me to drive, but I am glad I didn't because I was happy just taking these pictures and looking around. There was one point where Julie kept saying something, so I told Rob to stop, and I hear her say, "Mommy, a grasshopper", over and over until I realize that she was looking at my knee. There was a grasshopper there and I kind of freaked out for a second and flicked the thing off. It was a little funny moment we had. This trail stretches on like this for quite a while and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. A good mixture of leaves on the ground and beautiful colors on the trees.

Enjoy!

I think we picked the perfect weekend to go! Wish you all could have been there! Then we started heading up some trail that was trees and bushes on each side, and the trail was super rocky. So, we were crawling up this, which seemed like FOREVER, and it wouldn't have been bad, but I was holding Julies head up the whole time. My left arm wrapped around her head, and then my right hand holding the right side of her face.

Why? Because she fell ASLEEP, on the bumpiest, rockiest part of the trail. So, the up hill slow crawl going over that river of rocks was long. I would have taken pictures, because it was beautiful also, but I had no use of my hands and I was getting tired in this position. I was so grateful once we were past that. Once we got on smoother terrain, guess what? She woke up, go figure. Then we just headed back so we could get home.
When we did get home, 10 minutes before getting home, Julie starts crying and we can't calm her down. When we got her out of the truck, she wouldn't straighten out her body, and when we touched her stomach(bladder), she would just scream. I changed her when we got back to the truck and she was dry, so her bladder was full. We sat her in the chair, and I went to get Melanie from my mom's, and by the time I got back, she had relaxed enough to let it all come out and she was a much happier girl, with a full wet diaper. Overall, it was a great ride, and I am so glad we went. I am not always into riding, but Rob LOVES it.
Here is a little video clip I took with my camera, not the greatest but it gives you a little taste of what it was like.