Dear Penny who is 9 months

Dear Penny, I cannot believe you are already 9 months old. You are such a big girl and when I look at you I fall in love with you all over again each time. I call you my penny pooper because you like to poop. :) Right now you love it when someone sings the alphabet song to you. You always smile so big. You also love love love to play peek a boo. You are in love with your older brother Nathaniel and your daddy. It's ok that you look at me and still think of food. I still love you. I took photos of you today in a beautiful sage green dress with tole but you were more interested in eating the dress. That's ok. The physical therapist was so impressed with you on Wednesday afternoon. She loves that you play peek a boo and she still maintains that your muscle tone is top notch. I love that you eat anything I give you. You started to eat tilapia this week and you love it! Any day now you will start to sit on your own. I feel that is my job to teach you why that is so worth while. I love you!!! Audrey is with me and she loves you too.

Guess who is an M&M ??

When will you sit up?

Penny is still working hard on sitting on her own. I know that I am supposed to wait for her to be able to reach these milestones on her own time, but I know she can do it. I just feel that she is being lazy. Is this a horrible way to feel?? I'm ok that she is not crawling, she is no where close to that, but she is so so so close to sitting on her own that I just can't understand it. In other exciting news, I am convinced she is playing peek a boo with me! I was changing her into her pajamas last night and I put her night clothes on her face and said, "Where's Penny?" She pulled the pajamas off her face and smiled, then pulled them right back up ON HER OWN to cover her face again. We did this 4 more times and she really got a kick out of the game. :) She is just so stinking cute. I have to post more pictures of her when I have a chance.

Oh, and the mythical being post, I had Penny in mind when I answered the questions. She is the pegasus. lol!

I'm a mythical being!!

You Are a Pegasus

You are a perfectionist, with an eye for beauty. You know how to live a good life - and you rarely deviate from your good taste. While you aren't outgoing, you have excellent social skills. People both admire you - and feel very comfortable around you.

What Mythological Creature Are You?

Something Interesting did Happen

Nathaniel had a play date today. It was a first date for both him and me. His mother and I ended up having a lot to talk about. Her 3 year old just graduated from Birth to Three so we knew some of the same therapists. She believes that the vaccinations her son received before his 2nd year caused him to have a high level of mercury and lead in his body because his blood draws indicate high levels of these metals and she cannot think of any other way that he was exposed. So his symptons have lead his doctor to diagnose him with an autism spectrum disorder. Thanks to my mom, I have a wonderful link to a websit for Autism Awareness. Please take the time to watch it because "For charity specific donations , whatkindofworlddoyouwant.com will pay $1.00 per view of the designated charity’s videos - until the number of viewings equals the amount donated less .04 per view. The .04 expense is Revver.com's .03/view webhosting charge and California Community Foundation's (CCF) 1.25% administrative expense. OVER 95% of money donated goes directly to the chosen charity!"

Click here to see the video

Nothing to write about

Anyone ever see the movie Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead? All you Hamlet fans should definately pick it up and/or add it to the never ending "to-do" list. It has been quite awhile since I have seen this movie, but there is a pretty humorous part about having "nothing to write home about." That is kind of how I feel this week. Penny is still working hard at trying to sit up on her own. She pushes herself up with her arms so high and then I like to get in there and pull her butt up so that it forces her into a crawling position, but then she gets mad at me. She is eating like a champ though, so that is good news. We have even decreased the amount of rice cereal we add to her purees. Her food is no longer the consistency of peanut butter, more like yogurt. Which, by the way, I did try giving her some yogurt the other day. SHE HATED IT!! That's ok, it probably wasn't warm enough for her highness. She is very particular about the temperature of her food. She is still such a good baby. She sits there and babbles away. It is so cute. We have a video of it that I will need to add some day soon. She is just out of control when it comes to speaking her mind about something.

Oh, and Scott's boss gave him this electric piano that he no longer needed. It . . . was . . . still . . . in . . . the box!!!! We have been super excited about this all week. We put our Penny up to the keyboard all the time so she can bang away and make some music of her own. The sound quality is amazing, you can't even tell the differnce between this and a real piano. I'm even a little inspired to finally have Scott teach me somc chords. Plus, Scott is so HOT when he is playing the piano.

Am I doing this right? - You know, parenting?

So, on my long list of items to worry about with Penelope, I have had to add feeding skills. I have read that the low muscle tone thing typically makes it difficult for infants with T21 to eat. Appearantly, the low muscle tone, or hypotonia, makes it hard for Penny to coordinate the muscles in her mouth and therefore, it is hard for her to bring the food to the back of her mouth and swallow. There are a lot of muscles that need to work in concert to accomplish this seemingly simple feet. Alot of children with T21 also have an aversion to textures. Hard things like crakers can cause terror in some children. I don't think that is a problem with Penny. She likes to take carrots out of my hand and shove them into her mouth so she can teethe on the cold vegetable. I finally introduced puffed rice. I put it in front of her so she can decide whether or not she wants to try out a pincer grasp. She sitll rakes the puffed rice with her fingers and spreads them over the place. I know she is working things out though and she will get it -- sooner rather than later.

I just have concerns because when we give her pureed foods, the quasi-liquid seems to just slip out of her open mouth and drip all over the place. Then there are the much loved raspberries she blows in the air, spraying food all over the place. I love food showers!! However, when we add a bunch of rice cereal to the puree to give it an almost oatmeal consistency, she does really well it. I have concluded that it is because the texture just sticks to the inside of her mouth, so she has no choice really but to swallow it. I guess she doesn't like the sliminess, but then, can you blame her. My concern with adding the rice cereal just makes me wonder, am I cheating?

Check out new pictures of Georgia!!

This is Penelope's friend who had surgery the day after Penny when Penny was only 6 days old. Georgia was supposed to have surgery the day before, but Penny bumped her one day. If you have time, check out these beautiful pictures!

The Pictures I promised

Can you see who got some teeth?
And someone is sitting on her own. . . about 4 seconds before she fell on her face. :)

Cardiology appt today

Penelope had a follow up appointment with her cardiologist today. I was priveledged enough to see a picture of Katie's baby. She is very cute of course. Penelope's appointment, however, was not as I had hoped it would be. Her left branch pulmonary artery is stenotic. Her cardiologist told me that I shouldn't worry even though the artery is only 2/3 the width that it should be. I remember when the cardiologist came from surgery and told Scott and me that the surgery was a huge success; that they found that they were able to work with the existing left pulmonary artery instead of rebuilding that too. I guess I should have known that her surgery news was too good to be true. Ah well, everyone says she is doing remarkably well. She is only 6 weeks out of surgery. Well, hopefully her cardiologsit is right and there is nothing to worry about. Maybe the LPA will grow with her and eventually catch up to the right side. Right. . . On the positive side, my baby is 17 and 3/4 lbs!! She is also 28 and 3/4" That means that, per the CDC statistics, she is in the 95th percentile for height and 50th percentile for weight in the typical kid charts. She is over 95th percentile for both of these in the T21 growth charts. She is trying to learn new things like holding on the edge of a coffee table and sitting on her own.

Wow!!

Penny is sitting on her own for almost a minute at a time. I took a picture of it that I will have to post soon but I am too tired to do it now. It has been a busy weekend!