Catching up again

So, what's been happening for the last two months? More of the same, mostly, which is one of the reasons we haven't been posting much.

After another 2 rounds of antibiotics Eliza finally fought off her colds and ear infections for a while, getting a much-needed break from snotty noses, fitful sleeping, and general discomfort. Since she'd had such a rough time even so early in the fall cold and flu season, we decided to go ahead with getting ear tubes placed. It took a while to get an appointment for the surgery - she even came down with another new cold before then! - but she finally had the tubes placed two weeks ago. Seems to be healing fine so far and no more infections yet, so fingers crossed that the good health continues.

We took Eliza to the NC State Fair in mid October (just like last year) with mixed success. We went first thing in the morning to beat the crowds, but as a result it was still very chilly outside and Eliza was less than thrilled to be out and about in the cold and having to wear her warm coat. She liked seeing the animals inside the expo center, though, especially the goats and donkeys. We had the speedy tour of the fair since we were in and out after only 45 minutes, but we pretty much saw everything we wanted to see nonetheless!

Then and now!

The next weekend we took Eliza on the Bull City Coop Tour to visit different backyard chicken coops around Durham. Eliza liked the chickens a lot (which is a good thing since we're raising some birds of our own... but more on that in a separate post.) We even got interviewed and mentioned in a local newspaper article by name - Eliza's first taste of fame!

Also in October, Aunt Hannah and Uncle Bizzy brought Cousin Benjamin up to visit us and we all took Eliza and Benji to go "trunk-or-treating". Eliza was unsure at first, until she realized that the event was all about picking what she wanted out of a bucket, and then she quickly became a fan.

We also took her trick-or-treating on Halloween proper - though with Eliza's early bedtime, we had to go before the sun even set, so we were the first family out and about by a good margin!

Also of note: by the end of the month, Eliza's hair was getting long enough to pull up into a topknot or pigtails. Super cute!

Well, that's at least a start at getting caught back up on the blog. Future posts hopefully coming soon: the never-ending chicken coop and getting into the Christmas season.

Two-year-old's silhouette

Continuing a tradition we started last year, I made a silhouette of Eliza at age two. I think it's the best one I've done yet. I'm really happy with how her hair and eyelashes turned out.

For comparison, here's her previous two silhouettes:

How much she's changed in the past year is clear even in her silhouette. She's definitely a kid now, no longer a baby!

For anyone who cares about the nerdy details...

All three of these silhouettes were done with the GNU Image Manipulation Program (a free, open-source Photoshop clone). I started in each case with a profile photograph of Eliza against a high-contrast background (this year I got smart and had her pose in front of a white sheet of posterboard), then used a combination of the polygonal lasso selection tool, the pen tool, and image threshold/levels filters to create the silhouette. Of these three, threshold and levels is the fastest technique (but the least realistic as a silhouette, as it tends to make blurry or overly rough edges), the polygonal lasso tool produces good results very quickly but is hard to fine-tune afterwards, and the pen tool is more time-consuming but infinitely adjustable. (The pen tool is how I did Heather's veil in our wedding silhouette - couldn't have done that any other way.) My approach for this latest silhouette was to use the polygonal lasso tool for her face and the outline of her head, then use the pen tool for her hair since that required the most fiddling to get right. I think it was a very successful approach!

Eliza's Second Year

Eliza turned two years old yesterday! (It was a weird - but good - feeling, waking up this morning as the father of a two-year-old!) Here's a video slideshow of the last year:



After last year's debacle, I was determined to start early and use a different program from last year, so this time instead of Picasa or Windows Movie Maker, I used iMovie '09. While still not a perfect program by any means, it was a lot easier and less frustrating than the other programs, and we're very happy with the resulting video.

(Previously: Eliza's First Year)

Baby's got a new pair of shoes!

Those of you that see us often have probably noticed that Eliza is usually barefoot or just wearing socks. It's not (just!) that I am too cheap to buy shoes for a non-walker. It's actually (you guessed it) another micro preemie thing. She has extra small feet for her size but in addition to that she's always had very little movement in them. Typical children move their feet around a lot, figuring out how to make them work, putting pressure on them, and uncurling their toes (this all stimulates growth and change in feet too). Eliza has just started doing this in the last couple months...before that she always held them still and stiff (which is really bad for blood circulation too). Being barefoot encourages the movement in her feet so her Physical Therapist has always recommended to keep her barefoot as much as possible. But now we have a new pair of special shoes for Eliza from her PT! We call them her 'clod hoppers' cause they are extra wide and heavy to give her a bigger base to try standing. They are so cute on her and they really help with making her feel more relaxed while practicing standing. Eliza is doing an amazing job at pulling up to stand! As with all Eliza's motor skills we have to work on it over and over and over and over! But it sure pays off....

See!!!

Ellijay

Last month, we spent a week in north Georgia on vacation. Heather's parents rented a cabin in Ellijay and invited the whole family to come stay with them for the week.  It was a very relaxing week, with nothing on the agenda except good food, good company, playing with babies, playing board games, and occasionally tubing down the river that ran through the back yard. While we were there, we also got to celebrate her parents' 35th wedding anniversary! Here are a few pictures from the week.

Happy anniversary, Pops and Nana!

 

...So much baby love...

Eliza and her Uncle Bizzy

Cousins - you just KNOW these two will be causing trouble together soon!

 

 Baby Benjamin, relaxing with his parents

Glenn's parents were able to come visit for an afternoon

 Eliza showing off her "monkey face" - what more is there to say?

Feeding Tube Tribulations, Part 2

Continued from this post...

Everything went pretty smoothly that Friday night. Saturday morning we noticed that it was much more awkward to connect her extension tube to the button but we didn't really think too much about it. Saturday night Eliza started puking formula. If you've been paying attention you know that that's not supposed to happen while being fed through the J port because there shouldn't be anything in her stomach. Sunday too we could tell she was a little more uncomfortable during her feeds but since it was the weekend we just tried to hang tight until Monday.

After talking to the GI nurse on Monday she asked us to come in for an X-ray and possibly to have the tube replaced. She said that if Eliza was puking formula during J feeds then the J tube most likely had changed positions and was coiled in her stomach instead of feeding into her intestine like it should be. I asked if this was a common occurrence for G/J tubes and she said "It does happen, but never this quickly."

And exactly as predicted the tube was curled in her stomach, in the wrong place. Fortunately the re-placement of this tube went much smoother. I requested some lidocaine for her belly since she was already so sore. The resident was extremely quick, efficient and actually acknowledged Eliza and talked to her throughout the whole procedure which probably took 10 mins. After questioning the radiology folks about why this happened so fast they said we needed to make sure we weren't rotating the exterior "button" of the tube. This is fine with her old G tube, but not with a G/J tube because of the problems it can cause with the J tubing inside her, as we had discovered. It would have been nice if anyone had warned us about that, because when we'd had the button previously placed on Friday, they'd put it in "upside down" so that when we hooked the feeding tube up to it the tube was running up her body toward her face instead of down and out of the way. Naturally after a couple of rounds of that annoyance, Glenn had just turned it around right side up to fix the problem - whoops! Thankfully this time it was put in right side up from the start.

After all this chaos I talked to our Gastroenterologist and we discussed if there were any more problems with the G/J tube we would have to come up with a plan C or D since we weren't willing to continue subjecting Eliza to this. Fortunately we haven't had anything else this dramatic happen with her tube since then (knocking on wood here). She had several weeks of soreness and sensitivity that made everything a little tricky and I think it took her a while to get used to NOT having anything in her stomach at night.

All in all I think the G/J has helped us get a little closer to some of our original goals. The puking is a little better. The interest in eating was (yes, I said "was"!) better. Her comfort at night seems better.

But after a couple months I think we've realized that it's not going to be the only answer. The GERD and interest in eating aren't enough better. So we've continued looking into additional ideas, trials, medical professionals and approaches. We have also been advised to start considering an intense in-patient feeding clinic. There are a few around the country but none in North Carolina. We are looking at ones in Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey. I've heard and read that these can make a huge difference in a child with feeding issues so we are hoping to get on the waiting list for one in the not too distant future. A few of the negatives - questionable insurance coverage, 6 month waiting lists, 4-6 week stay at the clinic (for all of us- no idea how this would work for Glenn). So nothing definite so far, a lot to research and think about, but it's a next step we're considering.

Beach Trip

For Mother's Day weekend, we were invited to join Heather's parents on Hilton Head Island. Since Eliza's last beach trip, she's grown so much and made so much progress developmentally (even if my prediction that "next year, we'll be one of the families walking hand in hand with their toddlers" was a bit overly optimistic) that it's hard to believe it's been less than a year since then.

The beach in mid-May turns out to be a bit early in season for Eliza's liking - though she enjoyed sitting and playing in the sand, the chilly breeze and bright sun (hardly a cloud in the sky!) were more than she wanted to handle for an extended period of time. After a half hour at the beach, trying to eat handfuls of sand and rubbing her eyes against the brightness and wind, she was well and truly coated with sand, so that counts as a successful beach trip right there. Across the three days we were there, we probably only spent an hour total on the beach, but it was fun anyway and good for Eliza too.

We spent more time at the hotel pools than at the beach. I'm not sure Eliza even noticed how cool the water still was - we got her out when she started to turn blue but I think if it was up to her she would have stayed in longer. She really likes being in the water lately! Bath time is probably her favorite time of day at home, and in the pool, floating free in her ring (with us nearby of course) really made her happy. We're signed up for swim classes with her in June and are really looking forward to it!



Since the official reason for the beach trip was a Rotary Club district conference (for Heather's dad), we were also able to cross paths with my brother Paul and his wife Michele, who were there for the same reason. It was the first time we'd had a chance to see them since December, so it was a very welcome visit. Unfortunately I didn't think to take even a single picture with them and Eliza!

That's enough news for one post, I think. Hopefully another post soon!

Changes?

Apparently keeping this blog up-to-date has somehow fallen off of my to-do list. Along with grocery shopping. I don't think I have been in 3-4 weeks. Luckily, I had (HAD!) a decent stock of food and we get a weekly delivery from the farm so no real lack of food here.

I've been struggling with what's happening with this blog and that's been demotivating for doing any updating. Lately it's evolved into an irregular, sanitized, and general update to family, friends and whoever else wants to read. Ideally I would like to see it be more of an accurate, day-to-day view at Eliza's childhood. The ups and the downs and all the nitty gritty in between. I think we've tended lately to highlight just the positives and especially the "normal" child milestones. Probably cause it's easier, and we don't want to feel like we are complaining about any of the downs or the struggles that we go through....cause people definitely have it much worse.  But this is our story and I think we owe it to ourselves and to Eliza to document it completely and honestly.

Perhaps others are also interested in a closer view of one baby's (and her parents') journey through overcoming her much too early beginnings, and perhaps not. But even if not, this is Eliza's only baby book, so we need to at least keep it current for her! Poor kid, she doesn't get anything normal.

So we will see if we can manage to make changes around here... since living the nitty-gritty seems to take time away from writing about it. :)

And to make up for all that  philosophizing here are cute pictures of babies (from way back at Easter, woops!)

 

Plane Ride

Eliza took her very first plane ride over Easter weekend. We were super nervous since we decided to fly "Infant in Arms" instead of buying her own seat. (Cheapskates.) We had valid reasons for concern. Eliza likes to constantly move, my friends. Sitting contently on a lap? No. She is a wiggle worm; she pulls, yanks, tears, puts-in-mouth everything she can reach. We were also overwhelmed thinking about lugging a bunch of baby stuff, and a baby, around the airport. Plus, we didn't want to pay (cheapskates) to check any bags. Therefore due to some very creative (skimpy) packing and my mom having a well-stocked house, we ended up only taking 2 small rolling suitcases, a backpack, a diaper bag, and one large toddler car seat. This feat of minimalism would've been hard to accomplish if we were going anywhere other than Nana's house, but for this trip it worked!

After doing some research on traveling with a car seat I came across this little gadget: traveling toddler car seat strap. It was inexpensive (remember, cheapskates?) and a good solution! It basically turns one roller case and car seat into a stroller. It was pretty easy too. It took a little practice to get the tightness of the straps right but once at the airport things went fairly smoothly:

1. Take car seat out of car and decrease recline of seat. 

2. Use strap to attach seat to case with LATCH system. (A matter of click, click and tighten)

3. Unclick at security and put everything on conveyor for x-rays.

4. Reattach easily on the other side (while juggling baby and waiting for spouse to get the full-body pat-down by a TSA officer).

5. Nod and agree with strangers about what a good invention it is. (the strap, not the pat-down)

6. Planeside, detach and check car seat into baggage, and carry baby onto plane. 

Pretty painless! 

Riding the concourse train in ATL

As for baby wrangling while on the plane: It went pretty well too. I think it would have been impossible for one person to keep her contained for the whole flight, but with two of us, it went just fine! Eliza spent a lot of time climbing between Glenn and me, leaning backwards to check out the aisle and people, looking at books, listening to us sing at her, shaking rattles, slobbering on Delta cookies, and making friends with some of the flight attendants. She even got her picture with the pilot in the cockpit! (After we landed, of course!)

She looks a little freaked here but she gave him a shy smile right before this. :)

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!