And...

she's off!

You'll have to excuse the diaper attire.  We had watermelon for dinner, and if you've seen the pictures below, you'll understand why her clothes are missing!

And one more -

Watermelon

It's still a favorite!

"Really?  I can have the whole slice?"

Starting to give her bigger pieces of food to learn how to bite and chew.  She has one molar in the back where the corners have broken through.

Getting some help...

"Hands off my watermelon, Dad..."

Daycare

Emily started daycare today, without any tears (her OR me)!  In the five and a half hours she was there, she slept 4 of them, ate really well at lunch, and explored every single toy she could.  I am really happy with the place we chose, an in home situation where our provider once was a pediatric nurse.  She commented that if she didn't know anything about Emily's history, she would never believe there were any ever problems.  She also thinks that Emily is ahead of her adjusted age... and there are a couple other kiddos there just at that adjusted age, so Emily will have ones that will interact with her.  Emily has won her over with her animated smiles and facial expressions!

The Fair

Yesterday Emily had her monthly therapy appointment in Twin Falls.  I had a good conversation with the therapist about the fact that the Infant Toddler Program, the in home state program that Emily sees, put Emily in the 2 percentile for her communication skills.  I haven't had a great experience with Infant Toddler, and truly feel for those less educated people that have only them to deal with in this area (to give them some credit, our friends in Boise have had a great experience with them...)  Infant Toddler only adjusted for Emily's prematurity through a year, Primary Therapy in Twin will adjust until Emily is 18 months.  Things that Infant Toddler were marking Emily low on were items such as pointing to or grabbing items that you name (ie, Get your bottle)  and the fact that she isn't using a lot of words.  Primary Therapy reminded me that these things aren't considered lacking until Emily hits 18 months.  Phew.

So, our homework for the month from Primary Therapy is to work on putting objects into a bucket etc., strengthening her standing skills, and walking.  We'll go back in mid September.

After therapy, Emily and I went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch.  It was just after opening, and there were 20 wait staff surrounding our table enjoying Emily hamming it up for the crowd...  The balloon that  they gave her was of course a big hit all day long.

Notice the Radio Flyer Scoot About that she's on... Emily has figured out how to get on and off of it all by herself this week.  I don't care what the therapist say, we think she's pretty smart.  And she's becoming quite the climber.  You have to pay attention, she'll climb up and into anything - the dishwasher, the refrigerator, the futon.  Her other new trick is to share.  She's into independent eating these days, loves to pick things up off her tray and feed herself.  But she'll take a bite and then offer you some of her food. Nothing better than a soggy waffle!

She loves to go to the sliding glass door and look outside.

Jimmy's Garden

Today we met friends at Jimmy's Garden, a little water fountain park in Hailey, for a picnic lunch and a little splash time.  Fun times!

11 months adjusted

At "11 months" Emily is -
quickly growing out of size 12 months and wears mostly 12-18 month clothing and size three shoes
wearing size 4 diapers
saying mama and dada, and a lot of babbling
standing up, sometimes by herself, but usually pulling up
has taken a couple steps, but isn't walking
can finally clap and hold her own bottle
working on a sippy cup
eating only table foods and uses her fingers, thinks the spoon is for chewing
still has only 8 teeth
sleeping almost 12 hours a night
loves riding her scooter and playing in her water table, looking at books, cell phone holsters, strolling with mom in the afternoons, and taking apart puzzles
still happy, still smiling, still ooohing...

These photos were sent to me from Kara, our ultrasound tech, from our Ketchum park play date we had at the end of July.  Too good not to share!

We're working on getting Emily to wave.  She does it really well for Aaron!  Her version is sticking out a straight arm, with a fist, and it almost looks like she's flicking a wand.

We didn't do daycare yesterday.   Our provider had something come up and with Emily sick earlier this week (she's doing MUCH better, but still a runny nose) I wasn't heartbroken that it was cancelled.  Our plan is that since Aaron's workday starts a little later than mine, he'll do drop off.  Which means we needed a second carseat.  Here's Emily trying out her new convertible seat for Aaron's truck (notice the gender neutral pattern, I just couldn't see Aaron agreeing to a girly pattern).

Typical Toddler

Doesn't every toddler have a kitchen cabinet they're allowed into?  This is Emily's...

She's becoming quite the helper... tossing folded laundry out of the basket, taking dishes out of the dishwasher.  Not sure that's helping... but she's always right there to lend a hand!

Emily is enchanted by cell phones.  This morning she was playing with Aaron's and she managed to unlock the keypad and call 911!  Aaron disconnected before it was answered, however dispatch called Aaron back just to make sure everything was alright.  At least we didn't have an officer show up at our door.  

Feeling Better

She's better today... but not 100% just yet.  Napping lots, but playing as well.  Darn colds!

Read to Me

So, that fever from a couple days ago, thought it was teeth.  But, now it seems to be her first head cold -  runny nose, cough, watery eyes.  Poor thing!  Colds are always so miserable.

Luckily, she's still in a fairly good mood through it all.  I dusted of the humidifier and the nebulizer machine and gave her a couple breathing treatments to help open her up.  She's supposed to do her first day at daycare on Friday, but now I'm not so sure.

Justin's Wedding

Today Aaron was a groomsman in his friend, Justin's wedding.  Emily made it until the vows, and then she had had enough, so the two of us waited outside.

Justin serves in the Army, and just returned from Afghanistan about a month ago.

The NICU picnic and other Boise happenings

Just got back from 3 days in Boise and I am so exhausted.  It seemed like a good idea to plan Faryn's cataract surgery to go along with Emily's summer NICU graduate picnic, but single parenting a toddler and a sick dog wasn't such a great idea!

Playing in the hotel room -

and our Baja Fresh picnic

and napping peacefully -

But the picnic was lovely.  Our two favorite nurses, Molly and Merri, were there, along with the doctors and respiratory therapists, and our favorite preemie roommate Eisley and family.  I really didn't know what to expect, but there was a huge turnout, and like my friend Lonnie commented, the kids look so healthy!  It was a pirate theme, so for the older kids there were plenty of games and activities for them.  For Emily, it just meant a lot of nurse lovin' from Molly!

And Merri -

Merri's husband, Dane, dressed as a pirate... Emily wasn't thrilled about the idea of a photo op!

Even with all of us -

Molly is holding Emily, Nurse Pam is holding Kean, from our playdate at the park last week.  Kean's sister told their mom, Lonnie, that it was okay for Emily to be Kean's girlfriend after our park date, and they were pretty excited to see Emily again.  We had Nurse Pam a few times, too, and she was great.  But she played a part in naming Kean, so he has a special place in her heart, and her in Kean's family.

Faryn's cataract surgery went well by the way.  Well, almost, that is.  The knot on the stitch keeping the artificial lense on broke, so she was sedated again today so that could be fixed.  6 medications every 6 hours given 5 minutes apart.  Anymore, I feel like whatever medical issue comes our way I have prepared for it.  After Aaron's accident in 2003, I was prepared to sit bedside for the girls in the NICU, prepared for the ups and downs and two steps forward and two steps back.  Emily's needs for medications and food and breathing treatments every three hours when she came home a preemie prepared me for things like our RSV hospital stay.  So, Faryn needs drops every 6 hours and it takes me about a half hour to do it, like Aaron said, I have to rally!

The before picture of her cataracts -

 The lamp shade she has to wear for three weeks -

But is it really necessary that my child now has a fever of 101?

Flashback

Sometimes I need to look back at the blog to see where we were where a year ago... did so this morning, and this was the post from August 3, 2009...

Another bump in the road...
Didn't post yesterday because we were waiting to see what happened. Emily had a pretty fussy weekend. Initially, it was blamed on her acid reflux, and the doctors did everything they could to help her out. Then it seemed like she was congested, so she was given nasal drops to see if that helped. Throughout the weekend, she was having increasingly frequent spells where her oxygen levels in her blood were dropping. Yesterday around 6, she started vomiting and her abdomen became distended. At this point it was determined that Emily has NEC (Necrotizing Enterocolitis). NEC is an infection of the intestines that causes inflammation, interior abdominal damage, and tissue death. Lucky for Emily, the doctors caught this at the beginning and so far she hasn't shown any symptoms of her having a severe case. They put an IV in her scalp of all places and started administering 3 varieties of antibiotics. She's also getting repetitive Xrays of her abdomen to make sure it isn't getting worse (so far Xrays have showed that she's stable, if not showing slight, improvement). She'll have to continue the antibiotics for about a week after her first normal Xray, so we're just waiting for a normal Xray. The surgeon is also keeping an eye on her now, if this does get worse it will mean another surgery, but one on her intestines this time. But, being sick has made her tired, too tired to continue breathing on her own, so she was put back on the ventilator this morning. Disappointing, yes, but the doctors want to wean her off of it as soon as possible. Last time it was a week, let's hope this time doesn't take as long. You can tell she's not feeling well, she hasn't been awake all morning. Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in, she'll start feeling more like herself, and within days she's back on the cpap then back to the cannula. FIngers crossed.

Emily was SICK!!!

So hard to believe that this morning she is busy zooming around the house, a happy, healthy toddler...