14 Month Birthday

Happy 14th Month Birthday Sweet Pea!  My how the time flies.  It seems like yesterday I was writing the 13th month accomplishments...oh wait...that was because I was so late with that one!  He he he

This past month has been pretty good overall.  She has been the healthiest she has been in MONTHS!  Not even congestion for a week or two!  Well, at least until this past week when she got sicker than she has ever been.  The current illness is her first stomach virus and boy was it a doosey!  She has lost at least a pound and probably more, but I'm afraid to even put her on the scale because I really don't want to know since there isn't anything that I can do.  She is only drinking formula in two ounce increments and today she ate pears and carrots too so that is a step in the right direction.  I really hope we can get her healthy soon and get the weight back on.  You can feel the lightness when you pick her up and when you look at her you can see the rolls disappearing.  That is so hard to watch when we have fought so hard to get those pounds on.  I know that many people have a harder time than us, but we are still struggling with all this in our own way.

Feeding: She is expanding her diet to include small amounts of tomato and apple again.  Hopefully we can bring them in more in the future, but the current illness put that on hold for obvious reasons.  Sweet Pea also started to eat more textures (pieces of chicken breast, turkey lunch meat, pasta), but after our meeting with Sara Rosenfeld-Johnson we won't be continuing that until she actually starts to chew.  It's frustrating because I thought we were closer to getting her to table food and away from those purees, but we aren't.  We will be, but we aren't there yet.  Sweet Pea also started to self feed a little more, but we will be delaying that as well since purees really aren't very easy to attempt that with.

Accomplishments: Sweet Pea is beginning to put objects into buckets.  It's not smooth, but she is getting better all the time.  She is also giving objects to people and when I do songs that have hand movements like clapping (Pat a Cake) or pushing/pulling (Row Row Row Your Boat) she will put her hands on mine to do them with me.  She is also starting to get into what is called quadruped (all fours).  She does it mostly in her crib, but has done it once for me.  I hope to see it more often when she is healthy again.  She certainly isn't doing anything productive while she is sick!  Combat crawling is coming along very well.  She is starting to use her legs more when she is combat crawling and her right foot is helping her push forward.

Vocalizations:  She is also learning how to protest without just crying.  Her vocalizing is getting better and more varied even though it is still mainly da da, ma ma, and raspberries.  The ma ma and da da's are still non-specific.  Every once in a while a la will come out.  The speech pathologist said she heard a couple different vowels so I will try to get more details the next time we see her and share that.  The whale calls have virtually disappeared, but still make an appearance every once in a while. 

Weight: Was up to 19lbs 3oz, but was down to 18lbs 9oz on Thursday at the doctor and probably down to 18lbs now.

Favorite Toy: Paper, phones and computers

Favorite Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider, but likes all songs especially ones with hand movements that go with them.

Sweet Pea-isms: Fish lips!  Too adorable when she does them.  She also does a lot of lip smacking and will play back and forth with me when I do it back to her.

Sleep: No change from last month. Still goes to bed by 7pm and doesn't wake us up until 6am.  She typically has only two naps a day and one of them is often over 1 hour.  An improvement over the 45 minutes that are still her norm.

We haven't taken many photos the past few days because of her illness, but here is a video that we captured on Wednesday.  Take a look at the happy feet at the beginning!  It gets sadder as you watch as you see that she isn't healthy.  Just listen to her at the end!  Poor girl!





Poor poor Sweet Pea. Not the way we hoped you would spend your 14th month birthday, but I hope you continue to get better each day. We love you with all our hearts and it completely breaks our heart to see you so sick and unhappy. We want our happy little angel back, but I bet you want that even more than we do! Happy Birthday and may next month be even better than this last one!