March Update

So what's new with us? A veritable assortment of novelties!

We've decided to start a vegetable garden in our back yard using the square foot gardening method. Since neither of us have much gardening experience, we're starting small, with one 2 x 8 foot box and one 2 x 4 foot box - 24 square feet total, each with a different vegetable planted in it. The cool thing about square foot gardening is that you can fit a lot of veggies in a small space. We have cauliflower, broccoli, 2 kinds of cabbage, 2 kinds of carrots, radishes, 3 types of onions, spinach, several types of lettuce, sugar snap peas, and mustard greens in our 2 boxes. Hopefully we got the soil mix right and we manage to keep up with the watering so that we'll start having some yummy home-grown vegetables in a couple of months!

In the front yard, the flower beds that we put in last fall with the help of my parents are blooming nicely and looking great now that they've had a good weeding.

But enough about the yard - I'm sure what you're really wondering is "What about Eliza?" ☺ All in all she's doing great this month! She turned 18 months old a few days ago, which is a huge milestone in itself, but that's just the start. Thanks in large part to a sudden increase in her interest in moving around, and in part as well to some extra focused PT time and effort from our end, she's continued to make a ton of progress in her gross motor skills too. A month ago, she was rolling around on her own. Now she's getting really good at transitions - getting from prone to sitting and vice versa is still a little tricky for her but she's almost doing it entirely on her own with only a little prompting. When she's prone, she's figured out how to use her arms to turn herself left and right until she's oriented toward something of interest. And biggest of all, today she started to "army crawl" for the first time! She used her elbows and feet to push herself forward a couple of feet across the carpet to get to a toy. (It was actually one of Pasha's toys - funny how someone else's stuff is always more interesting...) Exciting times and no doubt a lot of babyproofing of the house are in store!

One year!

Eliza came home from the hospital on February 17 of last year so she's now officially been home for a whole year! I know I've said it before, but on the one hand it's hard to believe it's been that long already and on the other hand it feels like it's already been a lot longer!

She's grown and changed so much in a year - from less than 13 inches, under 7 pounds, barely able to even move her arms and legs under her own control, to almost 30 inches, 22 pounds, sitting pretty and rolling on her own, how far she's come!

Here's another set of "then and now" photos to compare:

Happy Valentine's Day!

This Valentine's Day is Eliza's last "first holiday at home", since February 17th will be her one-year anniversary of coming home from the hospital. What a milestone!

These portraits were taken by our friend Brea of Evanesce Photography. Thanks Brea!

Some February photos

Heather managed to find a hat that Eliza will actually wear. It's warm, fuzzy, and cute; you still have to distract her for a bit before she'll stop trying to take it off her head, but she will get used to it soon enough. Since winter has finally decided to make an appearance, it's good to be able to keep her warm!

Eliza's getting so big and so mobile! She enjoys sitting all on her own now and playing with her blocks, her "laptop", and her "fish bowl". If her toy is out of reach, she'll lean over to get it, or if it's too far she'll drop onto her tummy or side to reach it. When we put her in her crib for nap time, she'll roll all the way across the entire crib and back again before she falls asleep. She'll be all over the house in no time!

Eliza got a visit this weekend from her Pops and Nana. She was so happy to have visitors who love her so much! She got a head start at spreading Valentine's Day cheer to everyone!

Eliza's development

We haven't been posting much lately, have we? Daily life seems to be taking so much of our time lately that it's hard to make time to sit down and write a blog post. I guess it's been almost two months since the last post in which we talked at all about Eliza's development. So, since December, what's new with Eliza?

She's up to 10 teeth now - all eight of her incisors plus two upper molars that have just put in an appearance in the last couple of weeks. Guess we're gonna have to start learning to brush her teeth soon! (Since she doesn't really eat anything by mouth that would gunk up her teeth, that's been a lower priority than it might otherwise be...)

She weighs over 22 pounds now, and getting to be quite an armful to carry around. Eliza's continuing to move up the growth charts overall, and she'll have to graduate to a toddler car seat pretty soon!

Eliza has learned to clap and laugh. Both of these new skills put in an appearance at Christmas time - whenever a roomful of family members were talking and laughing together, Eliza would laugh along with them - it was super cute! She hasn't laughed much since we came home from the holidays (we're trying not to read too much into that...!) but she continues to clap a lot, especially when something is entertaining or pleasing to her. Yay communication skills!

She's gotten good enough at sitting now that she's comfortable leaning forward or sideways to reach for things. (When she first learned to sit on her own, Eliza was pretty much "locked down" and wouldn't move around at all if she could help it.) She's also much more comfortable prone (lying on her tummy or propped up on all fours by us) than she ever was before - she'll play with toys for several minutes before rolling back to her side, and doesn't seem at all fazed or stressed by being on her tummy any more.


We're working very hard in PT (and on our own between PT sessions) on teaching her the skills to transition between sitting, side-lying, and lying prone. All of this is especially challenging for her as a micropreemie, but she seems to be making good progress lately thanks to all the hard work. Just in the last few days, she's finally figured out how to repeatedly roll from her side to her tummy by herself, something that we've been watching for since last May. Hurray! She's clearly getting bored with staying in one place for a long time, so she's really motivated to get around now however she can - and rolling over seems to be a good starting point!

As far as the more long-term prognosis goes, we've been reminded that as a micropreemie who suffered a grade II IVH (brain bleed), Eliza continues to be at significantly elevated risk for conditions including cerebral palsy, learning disabilities, and ADHD. The intensive PT exercises we've been doing to help with her low tone and learn to get around on her own are also essential for minimizing the likelihood/severity of cerebral palsy, especially. Also, we've been grappling with the awareness that even as Eliza's been making progress, she's falling "further behind" compared to the expected development of a baby her age. (In other words, for every "month" of developmental progress she's achieved, it's taken her more than a month to get there.)

At least one of her therapists seems to think this is not uncommon for babies like her - they fall further behind before they start to catch up long-term. She says that developmental delays can tend to be more "fractional" than "relative". So it's not a matter of her being 3 months developmentally at age 6 months, 6 months developmentally at 9 months age, 9 months developmentally at 12 months age, etc. Instead, it's more likely (and matches with what we've experienced so far) that her development will continue more like 3 months developmentally at 6 months age, 6 months developmentally at 12 months age, 9 months developmentally at 18 months age, etc. At some point (I guess as "normal development" begins to slow down?) this trend will reverse - she will hopefully not be 9 years developmentally at 18 years age! - but it seems like it will be a long time before we're there. It's been a really sobering (and stressful) message, but all things considered I'd rather be informed and have realistic expectations. We really can't predict her actual long-term development until we actually get there, so we will just continue to remind ourselves to enjoy the journey, and celebrate each step she makes!

Homemade Christmas gifts are terrific!

Eliza received some wonderful homemade Christmas presents from her grandparents this year. Nana Cathy made Eliza her very own Raggedy Ann doll. It's really cute, and almost as big as Eliza herself! Eliza likes running her fingers through Raggedy Ann's hair.

Grandma Jan has made and decorated toy chests for each of her grandchildren, and this year she made one for Eliza. It's decorated in a traditional Scandinavian Rosemåling style that we think is absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately we weren't able to fit it in the (extremely full!) car to bring back from Georgia with us after Christmas, but it's safe at Grandma and Grandpa's house for now and we'll retrieve it as soon as we can!

Eliza's first Christmas (kinda)

While this wasn't Eliza's first Christmas, it was her first Christmas "at home". Which is definitely the best kind! Plus, since Eliza's original due date was December 27, this Christmas should have been her first - so we treated it as her first Christmas as much as we could.

Here's another "then and now" picture comparison - Eliza with the Christmas stocking her Nana made for her last year. Yes, that's really the same stocking (and the same Eliza) in both pictures!

 

Although Eliza isn't a huge fan of road trips so far, she was nonetheless very happy to be free to travel and visit her extended family instead of vice versa. We were able to get away to Georgia for several weeks which gave Eliza the chance to celebrate Christmas with each side of the family.

 

Of course, at 15 months old (almost a year adjusted) Eliza didn't really understand what the fuss was about. But she was happy to see her relatives, fascinated by all the decorations and excitement, and of course any opportunity to rip up some paper was an opportunity worth seizing!

All in all, it was a great "first" Christmas for Eliza and we couldn't have wished for a better one!