Sweet Ladybug!

Eliza enjoyed Halloween. We did not go trick-or-treating, but we did visit Daddy at work. Her costume was a gift from mom's closest friend, Regina. Very sweet!


Fall is a wonderful time of year. Eliza is reluctantly getting used to wearing hats and hoods. The next step is mittens (yikes! It's kind of hard to suck on your fingers when they're stuffed into a ball of yarn).

Eliza is struggling with separation anxiety. She is clearly curious and wants to explore, but struggles with getting too far away from Mom or Dad. As she gets more proficient with crawling, we hope she gains more confidence in herself and us.

She has 14 teeth and will most likely have 16 by Thanksgiving. It looks like her two year molars are on the way. Maybe we'll just power through this teething business and be finished soon. Turns out, teething hurts.

Communication is getting much easier these days. Eliza is vocalizing and using a couple of baby signs. The best sign is all done accompanied with Eliza's sweet voice saying "Ahh duh".

Crawling!!

We are having a great time! Eliza is sleeping better, crawling, and close to pulling up to stand. Her little ankle braces are working well. She is fantastic.

We spend our days going to the park, taking walks, playing, and exploring. Eliza is crazy about being outside and loves to experience nature. She is quite the treasure hunter...picking up rocks, twigs, leaves, and crab apples.

Her language skills are improving rapidly. She babbles constantly and parrots all kinds of words. Her word list includes: apple, slide, rock, night, hi, mama, daddy, fish, outside, up, yum, and there are several more in the works.

She enjoys books, toys that make a lot of noise, and being tickled. Her favorite activity right now is standing. The braces make her feel secure and she is quite proud of her new found ability.

Life is Good!

Eliza has grown beautifully over the past months. She is developing a very fun personality. When Mom and Dad do a good job at managing teething and sleeping, Eliza seems to be in a natural state of happiness. Lots of smiles, giggles, and contentment. The amount of affection she craves and shares is growing as well. The jury is still out on whiskery dad kisses.

Eliza's physical development is racing forward as well. She was accepted into the early childhood intervention program here in Colorado. She now has a home health physical therapist twice a month in addition to her weekly physical and occupational therapy at Children's hospital. We signed her up at My Gym too (it's good fun and a chance to interact with other kids her age while working on strength and mobility).

To help with her weak and flexible legs, she was casted for ankle braces. We picked them up last week. Though they are covered with brightly colored butterflies, she's not that fond of them yet. They help her stand, but she prefers to sit and bang the heels on the hard wood floors (really cracks her up).

Eliza is standing with assistance and getting better at it every day. It's fun to see her progress.
She's still not crawling on all fours, but is regularly getting up on her hands and knees and trying.

With only a few breaks over the past months, she has been marathon teething and having a tough time sleeping. We were awake anywhere from 4 to 7 times a night when she started getting her molars in early July, and it just didn't get much better. Needless to say, it's been tough on all of us. She got used to Mama coming in all night long and decided she liked it. We are trying to help her learn to soothe herself better, but it's taking time. She's a smart girl, I'm sure she'll figure it out. In the mean time, Mama will learn to nap in the afternoon.

We took our first trip to Texas to see family and friends. She did great on the plane ride both directions. It was wonderful to spend time with people we don't get to see enough. Eliza met some cousins, aunts and uncles, her great grandmother, and lots of friends and extended family. It was hard to come home after getting so much love, attention, and support.

According to her pediatrician, Eliza is doing well. She still has very weak muscles, but we are confident she will catch up with mobility tasks. She is in the 50th percentile with her height and head circumference, and the 25th percentile with her weight. She certainly doesn't look underweight...she just doesn't have the lean body mass typical of children her age. She is fun, delightful, exhausting, and the absolute best. We adore her.

Kisses are Sweet!

Eliza, or "Eye-Za" as she refers to herself (and everyone and everything else) is giving sweet kisses these days. She started with hugging and kissing a little stuffed frog, and has progressed to kissing herself in the mirror "Eye-Za!" [kiss, kiss, kiss...]

She is pulling herself around on her stomach and is trying to get up on all fours. She is starting to push up with her legs and will stand with assistance, but she is not pulling up to stand on her own. She has been growing quite the little garden of teeth...she now has all four of her first set of molars and looks like she'll be cutting her K-9's early too. She has 12 teeth...and we are sleep deprived to prove it.

We took her to Santa Fe, New Mexico the weekend of August 4th for a good friend's wedding. She did great on the six hour drive both directions. It took her about three days to unwind once we got home, but now we are back in our routine and moving right along.

She is scheduled to get her little ankle braces molded on August 22nd. The orthotist will cast her legs so she can make custom braces for Eliza. Once the braces are made, Eliza will wear them to support her hyper-mobile ankle joints when she is learning to stand and weight bear through her legs. We hope that the extra support will help Eliza learn to stand and walk sooner. Once she is walking well, she will no longer use the braces.

I started work on Saturday, August 11th. I will work two Saturdays a month until the first of the year and then we will re-evaluate. That means...Jane will be working more than two Saturdays a month, but how much more is not yet determined.

Viruses, Ear Infections and Molars...Oh My!

We had a wonderful birthday party at the CCAI annual reunion on June 16th. It was great to see families from our travel group. We had the opportunity to see Marie (our CCAI representative in Chongqing). It was wonderfully emotional and sweet. Marie was absolutely fabulous while we were in Chongqing. She is a very patient and caring person.

Eliza was baptised on June 17th. Both sets of grandparents, several aunts and uncles, cousins and lots of friends and loved ones were present. It was very memorable and special.

My mom spent a week with us after Eliza's birthday...what a gift.

Eliza continues making progress...eating only table food and whole milk now, pushing herself into sitting and lying back down on the floor, scooting backward on the wood floors and forward on the carpet, resting her head on our shoulders, babbling more...you name it! We will schedule a visit with an orthotist soon to have little braces made for her little legs. She has too much mobility in her joints and needs a little more stability to be able to weight bear safely.

We went to the mountains for the fourth of July and had a great couple of days. When we returned home, Eliza had trouble sleeping. She was awake most of the night for four nights. July 7th Eliza started running a low grade fever, throwing up at night, not eating during the day, and digging in her ears like she was mining for gold. Monday, July 9th, her fever peaked at 103.4! We took her to the doctor...she had a virus (causing fever, vomiting and diarrhea, and a crazy red rash), both of her ears were infected, and she cut both bottom molars. Of all of those things, the molars were by far the worst and caused pain for 6 days. She's sleeping through the night now, we're finished with yet another course of antibiotics, and she's starting to roll around and sit up again (she pretty much didn't move for 7 days).

She's playing peek-a-boo (little fists in front of her nose equals "you can't see me"). It's very sweet! We think she's saying "Hi", "Dada" and "Mama"(and what we think matters). She Loves the water now. Bath time is fun, little swimming pools are fun, and big swimming pools are the best.

She cut an upper incisor this week and it looks like she'll be getting an upper molar soon. Yippee?!?

Day 359

Eliza will be one year old on June 16th. She has been with us 9 weeks and 4 days. It's incredible to watch her grow, learn and change. We reminisced recently about our trip to China. It often seems ages ago. Day-to-day life has a way of distracting us.

We have a pretty smooth routine during the day: Get up, bottle, play, sleep, bottle, play, eat solids, play, more solids, bottle...and then it's bed time. Bed time is less smooth these days then when we got home. As Eliza's awareness of us increases, so does her need to be with us. She struggles with the separation that happens at night time. It is taking about 30-45 minutes for her to calm down and go to sleep. All in all, it's not that bad. Last night she actually went to sleep on her own after I went in two times to help her relax (and she slept through the night without us).

She has been particularly happy despite teething. We are sure having a great time playing!

This is a birthday candle we purchased in Chongqing for our friends. It is a lotus flower that opens after it is lit. It plays happy birthday too (forever!!! We left the party 45 minutes after cake time and the candle was still going).

Spoon! Glorious Spoon!

We had a picnic at the park this evening, and Eliza ate her dinner from a spoon. Yippee!!!

Time Flies!

Things are going well these days! Eliza seems to have kicked her ear infection habit. She wakes up once or twice during the night, but is quick to soothe and returns to peaceful resting. She's beautiful all the time, but there is something very very sweet about a sleeping baby. We don't mind the few minutes of holding her during the night...so we can enjoy her serene little face.

She is eating better every day, and beginning to manage a few finger foods. She is showing great interest in table food and I think she will progress quickly. We have been able to feed her with a spoon a couple of times. Hopefully she will decide to take a spoon more frequently...it might make for less time devoted to clean up after she eats.


Her therapy is going well. She makes gains every week. She is using both hands to grasp and hold toys. She is reaching for objects on her left with her right hand (crossing midline). She hates being forced to support herself on both arms, but is getting stronger and better at it. We aren't spending too much time with putting weight through her legs yet. We are hoping she progresses with crawling first.

We enjoy our sweet girl. We're getting ready to welcome grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins for her first birthday and baptism the weekend of June 16th. We can't wait for the family to meet her. She will enjoy it...she's very social and really responds well to new people, new environments, and new situations.

Progress

As soon as I published the information about a clean bill of health, Eliza started pulling on her ears again. I was up with her until 2 am on Mother's Day. We started another antibiotic on Tuesday. I certainly hope this is the last of the ear infections, but our history with Eliza doesn't leave much room for optimism.

Eliza has embarked on another journey with solids. Oatmeal until Thursday when we figured out it was making her tummy upset (and interrupting everyone's sleep). We introduced sweet potatoes and re-introduced rice. She seems much better, and has been consistently eating. She has even let me put a spoon in her mouth a couple of times, but she's still not sure she likes the idea.

On Sunday morning we had a super happy kiddo. She laughed spontaneously and grinned for at least an hour. Good thing the camera was handy (it has become attached to one hand...I'm like Inspector Gadget)!

Kyle took this while we watched Eliza eat solids for the first time in almost three weeks. Pretty sweet! Have a good week!

Every Day is Mother's Day!

Early this week Eliza started holding toys...she then proceeded to stuff them into her mouth and chew! Two great achievements! We are working now on getting her to eat solid food. After her two day adventure with oatmeal two weeks ago, she quit cold turkey and hasn't eaten any more oatmeal or rice.

The doctor gave her a clean bill of health on Tuesday. She still has fluid in her ears, but the infections are gone. We take her back in 5 weeks for round two of vaccinations and an ear check up. For now, she's eating and sleeping and smiling and giggling (every once in a while), and teething like crazy!

Today Eliza woke up at 5:30 am. She couldn't wait to tell me "Happy Mother's Day". She was quite a good sport...she allowed us to dress her up pretty and take lots of pictures.

We are loving every second of this. She's amazing and an absolute blessing. Today in church she rested her head on Kyle's chest for a minute. We both cried. She doesn't get close very often, but when she does it's great. She's relaxing more and showing signs that her trust in us is increasing. We are looking forward to hugs in the near future!