Looooonnnng overdue update

Here we are at 8 months with a little one who is actively discovering the world around her. Active seems to be the word around our house! She has mastered the art of "army crawling" and finds this to be a suitable way to get to the things she must get her hands on, including the dog. She has 2 teeth on the bottom and another making its way on the top which provide for a fairly painful experience if she happens to get any of your fingers in her mouth or your cheek for that matter. I personally experienced the cheek bite during a seemingly innocent kiss moment, she went in for the cheek kiss and ended up biting down on my cheek with her little chompers. Youch! Her curls continue on the top of her head and we're beginning to think they are here to stay which would be fabulous. In natural sunlight, her hair has quite the red tint and we've noticed that she has a bit of a mischievous look in her eyes when she smiles which means we are in TROUBLE. :-) Her little personality is truly shining these days and she is quick with a smile and so much fun.

Cheers,
Mic, Deb and Addison

Addie's 1st Easter

Addie's 1st easter started on Saturday, April 11th with her first easter egg hunt at Murphy Park. She was happy to sit in her bob stroller and watch all of the older kids scramble for eggs all the while planning her attack for next year when she's walking. She then went to her great aunt Jean's house in Guttenberg for more easter festivities and a second easter egg hunt. Here she tested out a walker and she's pretty sure the easter bunny is bringing her one, a horse that made horse like sounds, and had lots of pictures taken. Overall, she really is enjoying easter even though it's not actually until tomorrow!

Happy Easter everyone!

Love,

Mic, Deb and Addison

Just a few cute pictures to share. Addie decided she was in charge of Mommy's credit card on a recent shopping trip. She's also become a belly sleeper now that she can roll over.

Addison's 1st tooth, rolling over and chest x-rays

As you can see in the title, it's been a busy few weeks for Addison. Her first tooth is cutting through on the bottom. She had a week of absolute fussiness and screaming in the middle of the night and the little bugger is slowly making its way through her gumes. She loves to chomp on anything and everything including our hands and if you've ever felt a tooth as its coming through, you know how sharp the little bugger's are. It hasn't pushed all the way through yet, about a 1/4 of the way, and we're pretty sure her other bottom toothnext to it is right behind it. We excitedly anticipate it's full arrival so we can see how cute she is with a little chomper.

In addition to the tooth excitement, at 27 weeks we've finally mastered the art of rolling over from front to back and back to front. She is quite proud of herself and always has a "wow, how did I end up on my tummy and the world looks totally different from this perspective" look on her face. For us, this means no more leaving her on the middle of the bed and running to get something. Surely this also means she's one step closer to crawling so we should probably get going on installing the little drawer and cabinet locks and put the gate up at the top of the stairs.

Lastly, we had a very frightening experience at the doctor this week. Addison has had a cough for a couple of weeks now and on Monday she spiked a fever of 103.5. She was breathing as though she had just been running so I called the doctor and they told me to bring her in asap. We went in and they checked her out, ears looked excellent, throat looked a bit red and swollen, temp went down a bit after I had gave her a quick dose of motrin but was still fevering and her chest sounded okay. The Dr. decided to do a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia and a nose swab to rule of influenza b. So, Addie and I went down to x-ray where they placed her in the strangest contraption called a pigostat. She was in just her diaper and they place her legs on what looks like a little bike seat and then have the parent (who at this point is getting nervous) hold her arms straight up above her head while they enclose her in this plastic case thing that keeps her still. All the while she is screaming at the top of her lungs, bright red and tears are rolling down her cheeks. Did I mention that the parent stands directly in front of her to hold her arms up thereby forcing them to stare right at her and be of no help at all. It was downright awful. Not realizing they wanted her to continue to scream to get a good x-ray, this mom was singing the ABC's to her and the three little fishies song until the nurses told her to stop because they wanted Addie to cry. AHHHHHHH!!! In the end, she was red in the face and had tear stained cheeks and I was red in the eyes and had tear stained cheeks. The happy part of this story is that she doesn't have pneumonia. I can only hope we never have to do that again! There was however no clear cut reason for her cough and fever so they gave her amoxicillan in the hopes to curb any upcoming ear infection. She is back at daycare today with no temp and feeling quite better!

One week shy of 6 months

Life on Perry street has developed into a routine dictated by a 16 lb 11 oz almost 6 month old. This is totally fine with us as her presence in our lives is wonderful. I was talking to a colleague this week about her and I realized how excited I got talking about her and how every molecule in my body just seemed to become weightless. What I have come to know is that having a child is a natural upper! Even on the days when she's a bit fussy as the little hidden chompers debate whether or not they'll be maing an appearane this month, the days when her poopy diapers are so stinky you have to hold your breath, and on the days when she refuses to eat her bottle and instead sings you a little song with her new ability to make gurgling noises, she is a natural upper and it's impossible to be in a bad mood when she's around.

These days she loves green beans, squash and sweet potatoes. Fruit doesn't seem to be a favorite as she scarfs down the veggies and scrunches up her face when offered apple sauce and peaches. She seems to know when it's dinner time and gets excited flailing her arms and legs when you sit her in her high chair. We've also started giving her rice and a veggie in the mornings and she chows this down at daycare also.

She has yet to roll over and doesn't seem terribly interested in doing so. She pushes her upper body up when laying on her tummy and has pushed her bottom up in the air in a crawl like motion but hasn't made any further progress. After watching the mobile babies cruise around daycare getting into anything and everything, we're okay with the fact that she's taking her time. She is getting very good at sitting up on her own and just needs a few pillows around her for those times that she loses her balance and tips over. She's really started noticing Lucy, our yellow lab, and now smiles and laughs when she sees her.

We continue with the struggle to get her to take a bottle, regardless of whether it is breastmilk or formula, and took her back to the doctor a week ago to check her weight and have him look inside her mouth. She continues to gain weight and move up on the growth chart which is amazing to us because she was only eating between 3-4 ounces every 5-6 hours (generally, a baby her age should be eating 7-8 ounces ever 4-5 hours). Dr. Mullen checked out her mouth, looked at her weight growth chart and decided that she more than likely has reflux in her lower esophagus again and told us to start giving her the liquid Zantac (aka: dr. magilicuddy's) again.

We started giving it to her again and within days she has been much better with taking bottles. It's much easier to give it to her this time and one usually finds a situation that goes like this: One of us puts the syringe in her mouth towards the very back while the other one starts singing yum, yum, yummy,yum, yum, yummy. Apparently we are very convincing because it seems to work and she doesn't gag or cry like she used to. :-)

On the sleeping front she's fabulous. She goes to bed for the night around 6:30-7pm and sleeps until 6:30-7am. We're all feeling so much better as the days of little to no sleep are behind us.

Well, that's the great one week shy of 6 months update. It's spring break on campus and Deb is in Eagle River, WI visiting her parents for a couple of days. Addie and I are holding down the fort at home and hoping to get a shopping day in this weekend. The little weed is growing out of her clothes again and we certainly need to shop for summer clothes!

Addison Laughing

Addison's Pink Zone Women's basketball game