Birthday Pictures

The weather held up. I was afraid that there would be more rain, but it all worked out. It only rained for about 90 seconds or so. :) And, even though her teeth were bothering her. Penny made it through the day. I hope she had a good time because I sure did.


Here she is eating peanut butter and jelly for the first time. I gave her a 1/4 piece and she scarfed it. I had to give her another piece. I am so proud of my little 1 year old.
I finally got a quasi smile out of this kid. She really makes me work for it.
PLEASE DON'T TAKE THIS TOY AWAY FROM ME. I WANT TO PLAY MOMMY!
Here is Penny with Nathaniel of course, and her friend Dillon that came to play! She was so happy to meet him finally. Can you see that this girl is giving me attitude already because she does not want her picture taken again.
Typical!! She is trying to have a meaningful conversation with her companion and I bet he isn't even listening. MEN!

What a busy Weekend

Pictures from the Little Hearts picnic!
My little girl was quite happy to be held by her mommy. Even though she was teething something terrible!

Yesterday we went to the Little Hearts picnic and we had a fabulous time. We ran into some familiar faces from the Pediatric Cardiology Group right here in Hartford. The boys played. Penny just enjoyed the sun and the wind and the walks. We had such a good time, we cannot wait to go next year.

This was a great opportunity to meet other parents and children with congenital heart defects. There is just so much support out there you know! I saw many many children with HLHS, which still blows my mind considering what a tough road that journey must be. We ran into quite a few children with TOF as well and I got to speak with a few mothers.

Have a Good Night's sleep

Penelope had her Birthday on Thursday. She finally made it to 1 year! Unfortunately though, her teeth are making her miserable. I swear she is cutting six at once. Poor baby. So it seems that she has had a fever since Thursday afternoon that we have been treating with Tylenol. She has no other symptons and her 12 month check up is this Tuesday so I am not that worried. Her last dose today was at 11:30 and she still seems fine.

She had her first Birthday party today and we worked hard to over stimulate her. :) She also had her first taste of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She is so good at chewing that I thought I would see what she would make of it and she did wonderful! She liked it so much I gave her 2 pieces. The rest of the meal was a juice box and strawberries, followed by a pint sized birthday cake for the birthday princess. She went to town on the frosting. Her lips were stained blue for quite a while. She also did very well unwrapping her gifts. Thank you to all that came and shared our good time. Thank you all too for the gifts. She has a lot of new stuff to explore and clothes to keep her looking on the edge of high fashion.

I'll be posting pictures soon.

Tomorrow, we are off to the Little Hearts Picnic!

Penny Photo Shoot

I Consider Myself Very Blessed

So I traveled to Walmart on Saturday, with both the children, to pick up some things for her party next week and I had an interesting experience. I am quite used to receiving compliments on how cute Penny is and Saturday was no different. By the time I got to the check out line, we had received our fourth compliment by the cashier. She first asked how old Penny is and I replied that she was turning 1 next week. Then of course she told me how beautiful she is. In the year that I have had Penny I have NEVER returned a compliment with "You know, she has Down syndrome." I always smile and thank the person and move on. I mean, what's the point and who cares, right? For some reason, though, this exact statement came out of my mouth this time. I didn't even know where it came from. The cashier looked at me with sad eyes and said, "I know, I had a daughter with Down syndrome." Then, this woman that was not even older than myself told me that she had a daughter with Down syndrome who had stenosis of (not the trachea) some component of the airway and it was not repairable. When she was only 11 months she passed away because she could not get air into her lungs. We agreed our children had strong but sweet personalities, then the woman stated that God has blessed her. We then commanded each other to have a great holiday weekend and I left feeling a little melancholy.

Truly, Penny, CONGRATULATIONS on turning 1 year!

Penny is almost 1 year!!

I apologize for not posting in a while. I really wanted to get on there on Mother's day to wish all the wonderful mothers out there a spectacular day, but that didn't happen. There is a lot to tell. On May 9, Penny had a check up with the cardiologist. She was 20 and 1/2 lbs! Unbelievable right? The best news we got was during the ultrasound. You may recall that her last echo cardiogram revealed that her left branch pulmonary artery was very narrow. If it did not get better then some sort of surgical intervention would have been necessary. However, on her check up it was discovered that her left grew to be almost the same size as her right artery. Yay!!!! I was so elated to get such good news as was my mother who went with us and my husband. He was so worried that the doctor was going to find something wrong with her and have her whisked back to the hospital! I am so happy. We don't have to go back to see her until November. Another concern I had was that if Penny would need to be scheduled sooner than 5 years old for her next surgery since clearly, she has been growing so quickly. Well, that does not seem to be a concern for Penelope's cardiologist. She said that if Penny is growing well we should take that as a good sign. Also, the conduit (donor artery) that was placed in Penny's chest is so big that the cardiologist suspects it will last her until she is 6 maybe even 8. This is of course as long as she does not lay down a lot of calcium as the years go on.

Another thing that has been going on is our transition to different foods. I really wanted to keep her off wheat until she was a year, but I figured we are close enough. I gave her buckwheat pancakes this weekend and a graham cracker. She loved it. She also tried strawberries. Yum-O!

Lastly, the thing that has kept us most busy, is that I went up to visit my good friend on May 10 who just had a baby on April 27, and my car broke down in MA en route. Luckily, I was able to get a rental car fairly quickly and I resumed my trip. But my car is still in Tewksbury. I need to really make a decision on what I will do with it was recommended that we didn't fix it. I loved that car. It was an AWD 98 Subaru. I see other cars just like it all around and it makes me a tiny bit sad. Scott and I purchased another vehicle this weekend so it is all working out, but it just was unexpected, you know?

Well, I wish I could say that I plan to post again before Penny's big day, but I don't know that I will realistically be able to. Oh, in case I haven't mentioned it before, Penny is getting her 2 top center teeth right now, they are pretty established, but then tonight I found that she is getting 2 top bicuspid (maybe?) teeth as well. She is a teething monster! Good night!

Thank you for being a baby!

"So Much Time and So little to Do. . . "

Penelope will be 11 months old tomorrow. Sheesh how this year has raced by. I know that I may be little biased because she is my daughter, but she is the cutest, smartest baby I know! I am still in awe at how well she drinks from a straw. Scott went out and bought her sippy cups last week, but I explained how the speech therapist would disapprove and that she needs a cup with a straw to work those oral muscles. So, the great man that he is, he went back to the store undeterred and bought her a sippy cup that has a stiff straw that goes right to the bottom of the cup. Mind you, this is not a bendy straw. It is completely vertical. She took one excitable look at it and placed her mouth around the straw and began to drink. I admit, sometimes she drops the cup and then tries to drink out of the handle, or the bottom, or the rim, but mostly, she gets right on the straw on her own and goes to town. I think sooner rather than later I would like to cut her down to 2 bottles a day, one at bedtime and one when she wakes up and is the most hungry. But for now, my 20 lb, 11 month old monster can eat or drink as she pleases.

We have also been experimenting with the kind of food that she eats. She loves baby Gershwin pickles of all things. She also loved the vegetable beef that I made for her in batches to freeze. I am debating whether or not to make more, we are giving her table scraps more and more. . .

Her last PT visit on Thursday went super as well like usual. We are working on her stepping by guiding her to walk all over the place. She does seem a little more interested in cruising, but she forgets a lot that she has a left foot! Her right foot goes up and down like a reflex, but her left leg likes to stay put. She flat out refuses to be put in any position that would coax her into crawling. She is very happy rolling around "thank you very much"

Oh and Scott is convinced she says "Mama." I'd like to say I believe him. She is so cute with the "dada" and the "Baba" it is about time I get some play too!

I am sure this looks familiar to some

I will never understand, but appearantly this is comfortable for Penny, so this is how she sleeps! Oh, and it looks like she is getting her top two teeth. Her right one has just cut the surface and the left one is very white under her gums.

Penny's 1st day at the Park

We took Penny to the park when her big brother was going to meet his friend last Saturday. We put her on this rocking dinosaur. I wonder if she thought I was going to let go!
Smile!! It is beautiful out and she is having fun with the family!
"OK, why did they leave me on this blue thing anyway!"

In her big girl Highchair

Penny has learned how to use her pincer grasp!! She doesn't use it often, I don't know if she has realized that it is much more effective than raking, but maybe she is thinking about it here in this photo!

Penny is a Big Girl Now!

Penny has definately gotten into the posing for camera mood! She is such a little ham.
"Look at how well I can sit up Mommy!"
"Look Ma! No hands!"

Easter Pictures

She is our little princess. We love her so much!!!

Penny won something!

Penny has a new friend! I have wondered over to read about Braksa previously and when I found out she was having a Baby Legs contest I signed right up. Anyway, we won a pair! I am so excited for her. Maybe she will be more motivated to crawl :)

OMG 10 months is huge for you!

Penny did something else new today! I sometimes will give Penny the rest of Nathaniel's juice box if he doesn't finish it just to see what she will do with the straw. This is not very often, however. But today, the box was half full. I squeezed once, and Penny actually drank it, which is a step up, usually she spits the juice back out or it falls out of her mouth. THEN SHE SUCKED MORE JUICE THROUGH THE STRAW AND DRANK IT. She repeated this several times. I even put the juice box down on the table and let her drink it that way in case I was squeezing the box without realizing it. Penelope then proceeded to take the box in her hand and she continued to drink out of the box like she had been doing it for months. I still cannot get over this!!! No sippy cups for Penny.

Pictures for the Masses

"Go ahead, make my day!!!"
Nathaniel and Penny at the East Hartford Bunny Breakfast, Penny is sporting the new poncho I made her.
Penny is digging the big girl high chair that she just graduated into 2 weeks ago. She tries so hard to self-feed.
The Easter Bunny came for both Nathaniel and Penny. All right!!!
Penny saved all her chocolate for her momma and was only interested in eating the basket. :)

Wow it has been awhile!

Penny is 10 months old today! I can't believe I have gone all month. It was kind of a crazy month. Penny was stuffy and feverish for 5 days, then Nathaniel had a fever. Then I was sick and Scott was sick. It just kept going around. Then we had a Easter Candy hunt at my mom's house like I do every year. It was decided last minute, with Easter so early this year, I wanted to make sure it would be a decent day out. But that is kind of an excuse becaue I think except for the first year, it has always been pretty much last minute. Good thing Nathaniel has so many friends!
I think all the kids had a really good time. I am pretty proud of myself that I didn't go overboard with the candy this year.

Not too much to report on Penny. She doesn't see her Cardiologist until May 9 and her pediatrician in May as well, maybe even June since her birthday is May 29. We missed two weeks with the physical therapist because first Penelope had a fever and then she was on vacation. We saw her on Thurday and boy! was she impressed. Penny waved goodbye to her and I think she teared up a little bit. Dr. Yvette could not say enough great things about how well Penny is doing, "for her to know that there is a social implication behind waiving, to have that comprehension is a huge thing at 10 months!" I felt like such a proud Momma! Then later I had her on the floor to play while I was reading and we looked up at each other. She smiled and waved at me! Up until that point I thought she was only copying, but she did it this time on her own. Also, the big milestone for the week is that she is doing a great job of sitting on her own now. At least five minutes at a time she can keep herself balanced. This was brand new this week so I will have to get a picture of her when she is in a good mood and post it. I also need to get the pictures of her in her beautiful Easter dress and get those posted as well.

I hope everyone else out there had a great Easter, I know it was hard on Scott and his family to have this first Easter without their mother. I miss her a lot and Nathaniel still talks about her a lot.

Right now I am trying to get her to go down for a nap. She must be taking "no sleeping" lessons from Nathaniel or something.

DR.'s Appt 3/04

Penny had her 9 month well baby check up on Tuesday. She is a whopping 18 lbs 12 oz at only 9 months!! She is still around 27 and 1/2 inches, and her head circumfrence grew to 40 cm. (4% on the typical chart). Scott is convinced that she says "dada" for him. I have not heard it yet, but she really loves her daddy, so I believe him. She is quite a smart baby. For her 1 year check up we will be having her thyroid checked and we are thinking about doing the check for Ciliac disease at the same time. The recommended screening tests list says that ciliac should be done at 2 years, but I though, why not? Then I started to think about how hard it is to draw blood from her and maybe that is why it is suggested to wait until 2 years. Then. . . I started to think about how ciliac is tested and if she has not been introduced to wheat, will the results be acurate. I mean, doesn't the test just confirm the presence of the body's defense to gluten and if she hasn't had gluten to date, there should be no defenses right? Does anybody know for sure? I have it on the list to call the pedi before the blood draw, but seeing as how I have 2 months, it is not on my priority list.

Right now she has one of those unexplained fevers. She has had it since Wed. morning. We took her back to the doctor on Wednesday afternoon, but all of her glands and canals are clear. Then today I noticed a stinky urine diaper. I'm sure her discomfort is from teething, but what if it is a UTI. Pretty uncommom, but I would hate to have her suffer through something so treatable. We know which antibiotics to put her on, and which ones she is sensative to.

I just want my little Penny pooper to feel better.

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My Little Princess

"Someone sent me a Valentine? THANKS PAPA MATT!! It sure tastes good!" "oh, I am supposed to read it. This makes more sense." "Why did mommy put me in this dress? Wow it is so shiney!"
"Who is ready to take me to the baby Prom?"