Happy 6 Month Birthday Angel!

Can it really be?  I don't believe it is true, but supposedly Angel turned 6 months old today!  Where did the time go?

Angel is still more of a newborn than a toddler, but she is fast approaching the tipping point.  Here is a quick summary of what she is up to these days:

Stats:  Length: 26 1/2 in (75th percentile)
          Head circumference: 43 1/2 cm (75th - 90th percentile)
          Weight: 15 lbs 6 1/2 oz (50th percentile)


Quick video:


Sleeping: We put her down around 7pm and she tends to fall asleep around 7:30pm with some help from us.  She used to fall asleep on her own, but that isn't happening very much anymore.  As for her waking up...it depends on Sweet Pea.  We moved her into the same room as Sweet Pea on the 17th and I wish I could say it was going well, but it isn't.  The past two nights Sweet Pea has gotten up before 5am and so I finally resorted to putting her in the pack n play in our sunroom so that we could get a little more sleep and so she wouldn't wake up Angel.  Angel was quiet until after 6:30.  The days before she would be up at 5:30 with Sweet Pea.  They are both light sleepers and I wish I knew how to change that!  Naps aren't going well these days at all.  She is taking 3 a day, but they aren't consistent.  Angel falls asleep easily in the car, but as soon as we stop she wakes up so it makes getting a solid nap in difficult when we have to pick Sweet Pea up from school.  She also isn't sleeping for more than 30-45 minutes when she naps at home anymore.  She used to sleep for a good two hours!  I miss those days and hope to bring them back, but I don't know how.  I know she would do better if she had a consistent routine and was at home for most of her naps, but I've been working really hard at getting Sweet Pea out to the pool and play dates so Angel has had to adapt.  All things considered, she is doing pretty darn well.

Eating:  Angel is exclusively breastfed for her liquids although she can take a bottle so Mommy can be MIA when necessary.  She started rice cereal on July 10th and loved it immediately!  She is hilarious when she eats...maybe a little frustrating at times, but it really is funny...if you don't get the next bite to her fast enough she starts grunting impatiently.  By fast enough I mean that as soon as you take the spoon out of her mouth she is almost immediately ready for the next bite.  I think it is safe to say that she loves rice cereal!  Since she handled the cereal so well I decided to try sweet potatoes a week later.  The first bite I gave her was at the end of a feeding of cereal where she was pretty much full already.  The look on her face was funny because she was confused, but not upset.  She took another bite and then was done.  The next day she ate a good 1/3 of the jar.  Angel has also had peas and just today she had pears.  She ate the whole container in one sitting today!  Her technique is definitely improving and I'm hoping she continues liking everything we give her!

Gross Motor:  Angel rolled from her back to her stomach regularly before she was 4 months old, but she just started regularly rolling from her stomach to her back two weeks ago.  She tolerates being on her tummy much longer these days, but still doesn't prefer it...although you wouldn't know it since she is always rolling onto her tummy!  She is starting to bring her knees up under her belly and spins all around.  Her movements aren't very controlled yet, but she is making progress every day.  She still spits up every time we put her into sitting, but she is able to sit unsupported for a few seconds.

Teeth:  Her first tooth (bottom left front) broke through on the 23rd and it looks like she is about to get the other bottom front tooth.  I'm hoping we don't get two in one week, but I do believe we might!

Favorites:  Her sister, baths, her thumb, her toes, singing and "flying" through the air.

Personality:  She is very alert and aware of everything.  She rarely blinks as I believe she is afraid she will miss something.  Angel is easy going for the most part, but is picky about who holds her.  She will stare at a person for a little while before she either cries or breaks into a smile.  I often wonder what is going through her head!

Hair:  Her hair is starting to come in and it looks like we might have a blond toddler eventually.  Her dark baby hair is slowly being replaced and the bald spot on the back of her head is just barely starting to get some new hairs.

Happy Birthday Angel! We love you more than words can say.  Your bright blue eyes and sparkling smile make every day a wonderful day.  I can't wait to see what you do next!

Happy 18 Month Birthday!

Is it just me or can anyone else not believe that Sweet Pea is a year and a half old today! It seems like just a month or two ago that she was a newborn blob and now she is into everything, crawling everywhere and just a roaming disaster girl! Oh how I love her!!!! I was going through old photos today and I was amazed at her transformation! There were even some photos that I wasn't sure it was her or not because she has changed so much.

These past couple months have been amazing with Sweet Pea. She really is learning something new every day. I know that this explosion of new skills will eventually plateau, but boy am I enjoying every day of it while it lasts! The joy that emanates from her when she does something new is beyond words and her Mommy and Daddy are so very proud of every single accomplishment because we know how hard she has been working to achieve them! We love you Sweet Pea!!!!!

Gross Motor Milestones:
Crawling: Sweet Pea's crawling has definitely taken off. It's far from textbook, but she no longer uses her army crawl to get anywhere, it's all hands and knees...or in her case, hands, knee and foot. She uses her right foot to push off and then slides her left leg/knee forward and under her bum. It's an interesting technique, but it works to get her from point A to B to C to D. I love that she decides to go from one room to any other room whenever she feels like it. It's such huge progress!!!! It was just 2 months ago that we had to coax her into moving rooms and we were the only motivation that would make her do it. Now, we can be in one room and she will leave us to go play in another!

Standing: This is another area that has seen huge gains.  She pulls to stand on just about anything that she can grab onto...my legs, couches, tables, etc.  She is trying to do it against walls, but isn't quite there yet.  We definitely need to work on the endurance with her, but I have a few ideas of things to try (thanks to Pat Winders Gross Motor Skills in Children with Down Syndrome book) and will keep you all posted.

Cruising: For those that don't know, cruising is basically walking while holding on to furniture.  We didn't really plan to start working on this milestone, Sweet Pea just started to do it.  She only does it a tiny bit, but since she is doing it without any coaxing from me, I'm beyond thrilled!  On Sunday she stood up at the couch, cruised the 12 inches to my legs and then cruised another 12 inches from my legs to the coffee table where the computer was.  It was slow going, but she did it!  One foot after the other and eventually she got to the computer keyboard which, unfortunately, I had to reward her and let her play with for a few seconds (this is a very dangerous thing as Sweet Pea finds keyboard combinations that we often don't know how to undo).  Since she started to do this on her own I guess I will add it to the list of skills to work on.

Climbing: We live in a one story home with just one 6 inch step separating a room.  Sweet Pea mastered that step all on her own.  We have tried stairs on a play structure at a local park and I think they will work okay, not great because they are hard on the knees, but it is better than nothing.  At home we used the couch to practice climbing and as you saw in this post, she has almost mastered it.  She still doesn't always go far enough forward before trying to sit, but we will continue to work on that with her.  She has also learned how to climb down!  She doesn't always do it, but a couple different times I can tell her to come down and she will go from sitting down to her belly and scoot backwards off the couch!  This little girl really picks things up quickly...when she wants to!

Walking: We have a stroller that we have weighed down and she is using that to take one or two steps.  I am not focusing on this until we get a little better at the standing and cruising, but thought I would include it so we have a starting point.

Language: I don't want to sound like a broken record, but language is another area that she has really been growing quickly in.  While her vocal expressive language isn't doing a lot (only new sound that I can think of is "va"), her signing is making some good strides.  Just yesterday she started to do "more" with her fingers instead of just clapping.  Sometimes it takes a little prompting, but it is so cute to see her do it because she looks at her hands and you can see the wheels turning in her head as she does it.  And the smile that she gives when she does it and we are so proud of her...well that smile just melts my heart!  We are also working on getting her "dog" sign to be down on her thigh instead of on her belly.  She is getting better, but I think it will take a little longer as the practice sessions are much shorter for dog.  The signs that she knows now are: more, all done, eat, please, thank you, bye, dog, book, and she is starting to do baby, up and open.  She can identify her head and can get her mouth about half the time.  In terms of receptive language, she continues to amaze us by what she understands.  It's always amazing to see her comprehend something that we say and actually do what we say.  Doesn't always happen since she can be stubborn, but that is okay.

Eating:  This continues to be a challenging area for us as it seems to be for many parents.  Sweet Pea REALLY wants to be eating what we are eating, but her chewing and swallowing aren't up to par yet.  We have found that ground meat is definitely the easiest for her to manage so we can get enough quantity into her before she is too tired or bored.  Noodles, breads, pancakes, waffles, chips...basically anything carbohydrate related...are huge successes.  Soy yogurt is a fairly consistent hit.  Bananas are hit or miss and we need to find more fruit that she will eat.  Baby food is rarely successful for us, but daycare has pretty good luck so we can at least sneak in her fruit and veggies at daycare.  We have recently brought back in cream cheese, pudding and cottage cheese in small quantities and those are working well so far.  The biggest issue that we are afraid of is an increase in her reflux. 

Weight: 22lbs 2.5oz

Height: 30.5 inches

Therapy:  We are certainly in a transitional period in regards to her therapies.  She started the center based therapy classes last week and will be attending them Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.  Speech will remain on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as we don't have any choices for that.  We have cut PT and OT to once a week for the next couple of weeks and for right now, PT will be Tuesday afternoon and OT will be Thursday morning.  We aren't ready to make a decision on asking for her services to be reduced to once a week for both PT and OT since we don't know how the center based therapy is going to work out yet.

Toys:  The seahorse is still her favorite, but she also loves a book that has buttons that play sounds.  It's a Thomas the Tank Engine book, but I think I will need to get a few more of these as she absolutely loves it!

Sweat Pea-isms:  Her latest adorable trait is her little cackle that she does instead of a full laugh.  She doesn't always do it, but it's becoming more common.  I do love her regular laugh though so I hope that it doesn't disappear, but the cackle is pretty funny.

Sleep:  Knock on wood...this area has improved again.  She has started to sleep through the night again and will often not even wake up for her twilight feedings.  Daddy and Mommy are very, VERY, happy about this change and we hope that it continues!  Mommy will take Sweet Pea for a sleep study in a couple of weeks to try to get an explanation for how restless she is when she sleeps.  Let's hope it isn't anything to worry about.

Overall Health: She has had a cold or allergies or something since Labor Day weekend.  She wakes up extremely congested and does not clear up completely throughout the day.  She has even been coughing up phlegm (TMI...sorry) the past few days which is just lovely.  Hopefully she will get over this soon.  Daddy thinks it is from our mountain trip over Labor Day, but I think it is just coincidence and refuse to blame the gorgeous mountains for these many weeks of aggravation. The heat wave that we had this week (105 when the average temperature for this time of year is 76) gave Sweet Pea heat rash, but it is dissipating as the temperature drops. She isn't letting anything slow her down though!

Happy 10 Month Birthday!

Sweet Pea is 10 months old today!

Hard to believe that it was only 10 months ago when we were told that she has DS.  The rug was pulled out from under our feet, but we have learned how to regain our balance for the most part.  We might be described as drunk...but we are at least standing again.

Here are a few of Sweet Pea's milestones that she is doing at 10 months old:

• Rolling around to get to toys (including her doggy)
• Can get down from sitting by bending her legs and lowering herself on her arms to the side
• Scoots backwards (not a ton, but a fair amount)
• Loves to receive lots of zerberts from Mommy and Daddy
• Likes listening to songs...even though Mommy can't sing well
• Still enjoys blowing raspberries (even though Ms. Sara and the rest of us wish she wouldn't) but definitely not as much as she did a month ago
• Enjoys laughing with Mommy and Daddy and showing us her big smile
• Favorite toy is still the light up musical star by Baby Einstein (This toy has gotten us through so many therapy sessions!)
• Enjoys rolling onto her belly when she sleeps
• Still sleeps on an incline and winds up at the bottom of the crib many mornings
• Goes to bed by 7:30pm and normally gets up once for another bottle and then gets up around 6am
• Favorite food is still cereal (both rice and oatmeal) and enjoys watered down juice, but not a big fan of water yet
• Still only has one bottom tooth, but the other one should appear any day now

• Sitting is her favorite position
• Pulling down her glasses might be her favorite hobby and she gets extra joy out of the frustration it causes Mommy and Daddy
• Weighs 17lbs 3oz and has lots of rolls still

All in all, she is doing really well and Daddy and I are very proud of our little Sweet Pea!

We love you Sweet Pea!  Happy 10 month Birthday!