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.

12 Hours and an update on Melanie!!

Melanie slept for 12 hours Tuesday night, 7:30-7:30. It was amazing, the day before she only had a morning nap, and then just cried through her other naps and so by the time it was 7:00p.m. she was so tired and so we got her in her jammies and fed her and put her to bed about 7:30, and Julie woke up at 6:00, and I realized that I had not gotten up to feed Melanie. So, hopefully by putting her down sooner, she will sleep like this again. The only problem is she still is not eating solids, and this means she only gets 4 feedings in during the day, and she only drinks about 5 oz. at each feeding. 20ounces a day for a 8 1/2 month old is not enough. She was getting an average of 30 ounces before, which includes her night feeding. So, I need to figure out how to get this girl to drink more, and eat too. 

She has started gritting her teeth, she will grit her bottom teeth on her top side teeth. She gives us this side grin that is so cute. Rob was holding her and she was facing outward, she would arch her back and turn her head to look at Rob, give him the biggest grin, and then look forward and then she would turn around and do it again, over and over.

And she is still not eating solids, she doesn't get the disgusted look on her face while feeding her, but she doesn't swallow the food. We still try though! She is starting to get interested in what we are eating though, so maybe she will want to eat what we are giving her soon.

Getting stronger in the shoulders. 

 Just my happy babe, playing and being content on the floor.

She has been getting stronger lately, she lifts her legs up when on her back, she has been doing this for awhile, she lifts them way up and then slams them into the ground. Oh, and she constantly has her tongue sticking out of her mouth, and it is very pointed.

And when lying on her tummy she will get her belly off the ground. So, she definitely is getting stronger. And as of today she has been rolling to both sides and also rolling from belly to back. She was having fun on the floor also, usually she doesn't last very long, but I think she has realized that she can move and reach out for things now and really is just having fun.
Still not sitting, she will sit in the sitting position but will fall if you are not right there beside her.
Likes to sleep on her belly, now that she is not swaddled and can roll over.

Can you guess what broke at my house?

 Our dishwasher has been sounding weird for at least a year now and we have just been waiting for it to kick the bucket. It is so NOISY, and this last little while has been really screaching and making the worst noises. So, when I loaded up the dishwasher tonight and went to start it, it was filling with water but there was no other noise, it was just dead. So, I got to wash all the dishes by hand after getting the kids to bed. And I am not done yet, I still have yet to wash all the cups. But, they will have to wait.

Monday we are headed to find a new dishwasher, and we will use paper plates until then. Oh how I love my dishwasher.

Raking

When the leaves started falling off the trees, Julie would say, "Mom, we need to put the leaves back on the tree". So funny. Anyway, she was so excited to help rake leaves and she was always asking me that she wanted to go out and rake the leaves. And it was so nice to be able to work out in the yard, while the weather was warm. We were able to get our yard all raked and mowed before it got cold. I took advantage of Melanie's naps, and Julie had so much fun out there with me. I trimmed the bushes, edged the lawn, swept the gutters, I think our yard looked better than all summer. And we were able to dump all the leaves from our trees in our gardens in the back. Although we were not able to till them in, just need to remember to put some nitrogen on them so that they will break down over the winter.

 She was having the greatest time using that rake.

 Making sure all the leaves were off of the rake.

 Such a great helper she was.

We used a big tarp to haul the leaves to the gardens and Julie loved to sit on the tarp and go for a ride. Every time I would move the tarp to another pile of leaves, she would hop on, even if there was hardly any room, she would sit on the edge. It made raking that much more fun with a little helper beside me.

Johny Jump Up

Melanie loves the Johny Jump Up, doesn't really jump a whole lot, but she spins around in it and loves it. The only molding we have in our house to hang the thing on is in the hallway, so Rob and Julie sat in the hallway and kept themselves entertained as well, while watching Melanie.

Bounce away, babe!

Together in the same room

Well, I finally put them together, even though Melanie is still not sleeping through the night. They will eventually have to sleep together, and since I am not ready to move Julie downstairs, and I don't think she is ready either.
It just so happens that the first night together, Julie got a cold and Melanie was teething(we think), Melanie didn't really wake up Julie with her crying but Julie woke Melanie up once, although she went right back to sleep, and then Melanie woke up later and just cried and cried no matter what I did until finally falling asleep on my shoulder, and with an hour before time to get up, I just kind of sat with her on the couch until morning. Julie also ended up with a fever during the night that lasted about two days. Then the next night, Melanie did okay, and Julie woke up at 4:00 and was in that not tired state, so I sat with her on the couch for an hour before needing and wanting to go to sleep myself so I just stuck Toy Story on for her and let her watch it while I went back to bed, then she came in and woke me up. I went back in and turned Pooh Bear on for her and again went back to bed, she was asleep when we got up and slept until about 9:00a.m., I think it had something to do with her cold. And then last night Melanie got the cold, but slept rather well. She did cry for a bit, but Julie stayed asleep through it all. She is a sound sleeper. But then in the morning she was stuffed up and runny nose and just wanted me to hold her on my shoulder, which meant I wasn't ready until around noon. After giving her some medicine at 11:00, she took a nap from 12:00-2:30p.m., and finally drank her first milk for the day at 2:30, and then went back down at 4, sleeping until 5:50. She had some more milk at 7:00, and we got her ready for bed and she was in bed before 8:00. It is just weird that they both went down for bed without any symptoms of colds and then woke up a few hours later with a full blown cold. And we totally know who gave this cold to Julie, sharing a pretzel at church, and realized that Julie might end up with a cold after seeing the mom wipe her child's nose. Darn, I hate colds.
Here's to hoping that tonight will be better.

Loves to Read

Did I mention this kid loves to read!!

The book she has in this picture is probably the most used book, it has a part that you turn on each page, and she sits there and turns it forever.

 I hate it when pictures don't rotate the way I uploaded them.

We went outside to do some more raking today and she wanted to bring her book out there, I told her no. But then, after Rob got home and I was mowing, she was sitting on the top of the picnic table reading her books that she brought out! Love it!

-She can count to 20, and then with help can count higher, I will just say a number and then wait for her to say the next.

-I do not know where she picked up these words, but she says these all the time, and usually all of them one after another, holy cow, holy moley, shoot, and dang it. All of a sudden one day she was doing this, and I can't even think of where she would have heard all of them.