off dairy again

I emailed B's homeopath a few days ago, since she wanted to hear from us about two weeks after I gave him the remedy. His eczema had cleared up some, but it came back, so she had me give him another dose and also suggested that I go off dairy again, this time for six weeks. Tim's high school reunion is in 4 weeks, so that weekend should be pretty interesting as far as meals go. I went through pretty severe withdrawals the first couple of days, but seem to be feeling a little better now. I'm a little nervous about getting all my calories, though, since dairy was a huge part of my diet. A lot of what I ate either was dairy itself or it had dairy in it. I picked up some almond milk and some soy ice cream. So far the almond milk seems fine (not sure if I like the unsweetened one or not, I may try coconut milk next time) but the soy ice cream made me feel a little nauseous afterward. I'm not holding out a ton of hope on dairy being his trigger since I did try it previously. He is showing some improvement, but that could just be the next dose of remedy doing its work, and not the dairy at all.

Not a whole lot else going on. I am finding it hard to keep on top of my chores, especially laundry. I keep saying that I will fold the clothes after "just one more load." But then while that load is washing and drying and being put away, another dirty load seems to just appear out of nowhere. Part of my problem is that I am still doing some transcription and have tried to do a little extra to help with B's medical bills from his recent tests, and for his visit to the homeopath. Plus, we need to gather together a few funds so that we have a small lump some so we can possibly go shopping for a large item next spring.

growing and playing

Benjamin is gaining weight appropriately. His doctor did end up sending him for some blood tests (slightly elevated liver enzymes) and a liver ultrasound (normal). The on-site lactation consultant also asked me if I was getting enough calories. I was not, and after a week of counting my calories, he gained nearly 6 ounces. He is still gaining and today is right at 15 pounds. I'll be going in for roughly biweekly weight checks until his 9-month appointment later this summer.

I am still practicing elimination communication with him, and it is going well. I still can't tell at all when he needs to go, so I've just been doing it on timing. We went through a couple of phases where our communication seemed to be off, so I took brief breaks here and there. But so far, this week has been pretty good. I've even had my first #2 catch(es) since he was an infant. I'm so glad I kept doing it and didn't just give up altogether.

His eczema, on the other hand, not so great. It's still just as bad as it's always been. And just when I think I've found out which food it was that was causing it, his face gets worse, even before I re-introduce the potentially offending food. We did go ahead and go see a homeopath on the 19th, and she sent us home w/ a remedy that I will give him on Monday, then give it several weeks to see what affect it'll have. Meanwhile, a friend gave us a referral to a pediatric allergist so I may make an appointment to get a blood test for him, just to see if he is allergic to something that I can control.

And now if you made it this far, here are a couple of videos for your enjoyment.

Lydia decided to dress Benjamin up in her princess outfit. He liked it.


Here she is, teaching him a Bible class song until she saw me filming her, lol.


And you know how those sauce packets from a particular fast-food Mexican restaurant have cute and corny sayings on them? Here she is, "reading" them.

trying to heal my baby

Hm. My "dashboard" on here says that I made a post on March 31, but I can't find it now, so I guess I'll just start from here and give an update.

Lydia is doing so great with her potty training. She's even dry most nights now, too, but does still have the occasional accident. She takes herself to the potty and wipes and everything (but of course still needs help w/ #2s). It'll be interesting to see how she does on a 6.5-hour road trip next week.

Tim's job is going awesome. He had enough sales to "qualify" his own route and finally got his raise. :D He is really doing awesome and totally loves his work.

My work is also going fine. I'm still transcribing and also still making play food every now and then. I had two orders this month, one from someone I did know, and one from a total stranger. I'm still in the middle of the order from the stranger, but between that and transcribing and the children and everything else, I am definitely keeping busy.

B had his 6-month appointment a couple of weeks ago, and he only gained two ounces since his 4-month appointment. I am not concerned about my supply and have sort of been suspicious of reflux all along, so he is now on some reflux medication, and has been for just over a week. It seems to be helping. I also took him to a chiropractor on Thursday, who looked at his head and noticed it was slightly crooked, so she loosened his skull so that he could grow into it evenly. She also showed me a massage for his belly to help pull his stomach down into his abdomen instead of letting it be stuck up under his ribs. I don't know if I'm doing it right, though, b/c I can't find the "gap" that is supposed to be there when his stomach is in the proper spot.

She gave me some probiotics to start taking, and also recommended that I go see a homeopath. She noticed his eczema and so we talked a lot about that, and she thinks that it is food-related, but she also thinks that the homeopath can help me with that. So I am going to call her next week and hopefully be able to see her shortly after I return to town.

Benjamin really is a happy baby overall, though. He can finally roll both ways, though like his sister, he did it from back to front first. He can babble the "B" sound. He is smiley and talkative and usually in a good mood (which is part of what makes me doubt that he has reflux, but he did have several other symptoms, like refusal to eat and sour-smelling spit-up). I just want him to be as healthy as he can be. I have been praying to God to heal his eczema and/or show me how to help Benjamin heal, and right now, I think that a visit to the homeopath is the answer that He is giving us right now. She is also a nutritionist so she might have some words to share with me in that regard as well. I know that I did say in an earlier post that the saga was ending, but the comments that people keep saying to me are painful (even when they say "oh it looks like his skin is clearing up." Because yeah, maybe it's clearing up right at that moment... but maybe an hour later it'll be flared up again). He needs more help than I can give him by myself right now.

the next big thing

My three big waits are over. Baby has arrived, hubby has a job, and Lydia is potty trained. I don't know what the "next big thing" is now. Just, life. Day-to-day stuff. Chores. There's nothing huge to wait for anymore. I am content.

For Lydia's potty training, I changed my approach at the end. I gave her tiny presents to unwrap if she did #2 in the potty. If she did #2 in her pants, I cleaned her up w/o any words at all (previously, I am embarrassed to say that I would sometimes lose it and yell in frustration). A few days of this, and she decided that #2s went in the potty. Then, one evening, she went to the potty all by herself, w/o me reminding her. And that was that. She's had a couple of accidents since then, but she is daytime trained, for naps and everything. Night-training could happen in a week or it could happen in a year or more. I'm not stressed about that at all.

Benjamin's "potty training" is going well, too. We have our phases that we go through were sometimes we're in tune with each other and other times we're not, but the past few days have been pretty good. It's a little easier overall now that he's bigger, and can sit by himself on the little potty w/ me helping him a little.

Tim's job is still going fine. There is someone up there who is leaving, and starting yesterday, that person took Tim out on his route so that he could introduce Tim to his customers... as his replacement. :) Yes, after over four months of "training," Tim is finally getting his own route. We are pretty excited about this.

My work is going fine, too. I'm still transcribing for two companies and love the flexible schedule. I also make play food and a few other crocheted items every now and then, when people want it, but it's not my "main thing" like I'd hoped it would be when I first started it.

I've gone through a partial purge here, w/ some clothes and toys and stuff. The half of the living room that doubles as Lydia's play area had previously been massively cluttered w/ random books and toys there. Nothing had a place of its own. I think that the purge has affected Lydia's attitude, for the better. She just seems "easier" seemingly overnight. It's hard to put the change into words, but it's there, definitely.

We had Benjamin's 4-month visit yesterday and he is 13 lbs 12 oz and 26" long and his head is 17" around. I did ask his doctor about his facial issues, and she thought it might be eczema. She said that, if I wanted, I could put straight Vaseline on it and also occasional hydrocortisone, but that she wouldn't do any more than that at this time. I also told her that I cut dairy out of my diet, and she said that I could continue that as well. The first time I cut it out, after about 11-12 days, he started to get better. Then I ate some cheese and sour cream, and he got worse again within hours. I'm now on day 10 of stopping dairy again and am seeing a very slight improvement.

Now I'm at the end of this post. I guess the next big thing will be home ownership, but that's too far away to even have a countdown for yet. Soon, though... soon. :)

the newborn acne saga ends here

No new pictures today. He looks about the same. Just some thoughts, instead. I'm probably a little crazy, but anyway here they are.

So, my peers have babies who have beautiful skin. I don't know a single other in-real-life baby (younger than 6 months old) who has even a little bit of redness. So my baby is red. Maybe it'll go away. Maybe it's eczema. Maybe it's yeast. Maybe the cause will never be known and he'll stay red indefinitely.

And? I'm okay with that. This is MY baby that God saw fit to bless me with. Benjamin is a smiley, happy baby. He doesn't have colic. He is (usually) easy to sooth. He's growing. I wouldn't think that his disposition would be so happy if the rash were bothersome to him.

He's already three months old. Three months! I don't know where the time went. Yes I do. It disappeared while I kept dwelling on his appearance instead of who he is. I don't want to let any more unnecessary time escape, time that I could instead spend watching him grow.

Sure, I'll mention it at his next doctor visit. And maybe he'll outgrow it. Maybe he won't. I'm not going to keep my life on "pause" any more. He and I are getting pictures made on Friday, a gift from Mom. Back when she and I were talking about it, I had the brief thought that his skin would be better come picture time. But I can't hit the "pause" button for life. He will only be three months old once, and then it's gone.

I don't want to miss the important things.

a new year with new challenges... and some old ones

One of my new challenges is to get in better shape. It's not really a "New Year's Resolution" per se, but since I just happen to be about 3 months postpartum and also still about 16 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight (I haven't lost any additional weight since the first two weeks), it's time to be a little more proactive. Our apartment remodeled the old laundry room into a workout room. I have been there twice so far... once to check it out, and once to actually do a session. I just did the treadmill and will probably stick with that for the forseeable future, unless it's busy, and then I will probably do the stepper. I've never really thought my diet was TOO terrible, but when I keep thinking about exercising, it's also making me think twice about what I eat, too, like for snacks and whatnot. I need to get more fruits and veggies and fewer chips and cookies. Or maybe I can put the fruits and veggies IN the chips and cookies, lol, like make dried veggie chips and then put carrots and zucchini in the cookies.

An always-ongoing challenge is finances, of course. We are very very blessed to have received an answer to our prayers for a good job for hubby, but after nearly four months on the job, he still does not have his own route yet and therefore is still making "training" pay. He tells me that he is next in line to get one, though, so hopefully any day now we will have some changes. Meanwhile, the training pay comes just slightly short of our monthly needs, so I have been continuing to work as well. I have narrowed down all my transcription things to just two companies, and between the two of them, it's a nice supplement to hubby's job. January is also a month where his job gets three checks, so there's that "extra" money, too, which will help keep us afloat.

Benjamin is growing like a weed. I weighed him today and he is 13 lbs 13 oz. Lydia didn't reach that weight until nearly 10 months. He has a double chin and is very smiley and loves to "talk" to people. I've gotten to where I can get him up on my back for grocery store trips, and it's SO much comfier than wearing him on my front. I am trying to branch out to a few different ways to wrap him up there, but am having a few failures intermixed with my successes. But at least I CAN get him there. We are still ECing with him as well, and that is also still having its hits and misses. He still has skin issues on his face. His dr said at his 2 month appointment that it was just acne and sensitive skin, but I'm starting to wonder if it's eczema and if he's sensitive to something in my diet. I tried to keep a food log b/c the redness does come and go (although it's heavier on the "come" side than the "go" side), but I really eat the exact same thing every day so that didn't help me any.

Lydia has entered the terrible threes in full force. Whenever I'm consistent with her discipline, she is a dream child, but if I slack even in the very slightest, she sees that as an opportunity to whine, cry, run away when I call her, etc. It is hard to be consistent w/ Benjamin around, since often times he is nursing or needing a diaper or whatever at the same time that she needs attention, but with prayers and with the grace of God, I will continue to try to be a better mother each day than I was the day before. And tomorrow it will be easy to do that, because today, I did not have a good day, mostly related to her potty training, or lack thereof. I got upset at a situation in the evening, and told her how I really felt. :(

But let me elaborate on the potty training and then you might be able to at least understand my frustrations. Last week, I set up a posterboard in the bathroom. On it, there are pictures of pee and poop in the potty (ok pictures of potties and then I colored some brown and yellow... I wanted it to be real but not TOO real, lol), pictures of wet and dirty diapers being put into the pail, a picture of Lydia "telling" me and hubby that she needs to go potty, and a picture of a dry diaper. She was with me while I was making it, and I talked it up, but it still took a few days or so for her to understand what it was for. But she seemed to like it. Oh and at the very bottom was a picture of her "prize"... some Dora panties.

She is still not catching on that she needs to (eventually) initiate her own trips to the potty. But she does things that get my hopes up, and then does other things that just make me really feel like she WILL be wearing diapers to college. On Sunday, she stayed dry (in a Pull-up) ALL DAY, including a #2 in the afternoon. Granted, I was taking her more often than I would have gone myself (and I initiated all the trips), but still, ALL DAY... including eating out after church and being out late like that (she went early at the restaurant and then not again until we got home). But then today, it was diaper after diaper. She did have one instance where I was in the bathroom, and she was in there too, w/ a wet diaper, so I took the old diaper off while I was sitting down and she was standing next to me. Then while her diaper was off and I finished up my business, she sat down UNPROMPTED on her little potty and went #1. Then she thought about it and said she had to go #2, and a few minutes later, she did that as well... also in her potty. We celebrated and got stickers and I started to put a diaper back on her (trying to save the $$$ Pull-ups for church) but she wanted a Pull-up. I told her that she needed to go to the potty on her own and if she peed or pooped in it, then she'd be getting a diaper. Not even FIVE minutes later... she did #2... IN the Pull-up. Yay. Then this evening right before bed, another #2, in her diaper. :( And it was one that was really hard to clean up, too.

So that is where we are with that. I don't want to close on that unhappy note, so I'll share a couple of recent pictures of Benjamin, since it's been a while since I shared.

"potty training" my son

Yes, my son, and no, I'm not talking about a future event. I hope nobody thinks I've gone completely off my rocker after reading this blog entry, lol. Anyway, it's not really potty training, but elimination communication. There are any number of sites and books out there that go into more detail on it, but the gist of it is that newborns and infants give off signals when they're about to go to the bathroom. Parents can pick up on these signals, even part time, and an infant can start to hold it until being held over the toilet or small potty bowl. Then the parent can start giving "cue sounds" to help the infant make an association between the sound and the going.

Anyway I had heard about this a long time ago, probably when I was pregnant with Lydia or even before that. I tried it with her, but didn't really start until she was 15 months or so, but that was too late already. If a baby's signals aren't being read by the parent, then the baby will eventually stop giving them as they continually "learn" to use their diaper instead. Then when the baby is a few years old, they have to "unlearn" how to use the diaper and how TO use the potty.

So far, I've been pretty much a failure at trying to potty train Lydia. I was also a failure when I tried to potty train our cats, back when we had them. (Don't laugh too hard, there's actually an entire Yahoo group dedicated to helping people learn how to toilet train their cats... TOILET train, not litter box train.) So when I wondered if I could do elimination communication (or EC for short) with Benjamin, I went into the adventure stresslessly, without any expectations. In fact, I was more thinking that I'd fail rather than have any success at it, since I can't seem to get Lydia potty trained properly. But I was pleased and surprised at the early results so far.

It sort of started subconsciously a few weeks ago, because I noticed that when he was nursing, he'd sometimes pop on and off for a few minutes, then do a #2, then be able to relax and nurse. So that was one clear signal that he gave. Another more subtle one is sometimes he will just seem to be staring off into space, and then a #2 comes out of nowhere. But yesterday, I started trying to take him to the potty. I had several "catches" (what EC-ers call it when the #1 and/or #2 goes into the potty) yesterday, including one after Tim got home from work late that night. That catch was about 10 seconds after Tim walked past the bathroom, and he was amused and curious as to why I was holding our baby over the toilet. Then today, I've had more #2 catches in the toilet than have been in the diaper. One of them was after he'd been napping for only about an hour. I heard him stirring in the other room and went to get him, undressed him, and found his diaper was dry and clean. I held him over the toilet, and within less than 2 minutes, the #2 came and he was much relieved. Once he was more comfortable, he nursed back to sleep and I expect the rest of his nap to last about 2.5 hours or so.

In other news, I'm looking forward to going out of town to see my family next week for the holiday. Lydia is finally getting her 2-year molars... all 4 of them at once. Tim is really loving his new job, but is in the middle of working 10 straight days, including Sunday, so that he will be off for Thursday and Friday and can come with me out of town (and that schedule was a company-wide thing rather than his choice to work those particular days).

adjusting slowly but surely

I'm not back to 100% yet, but getting there slowly. Some days I think that I can handle being a mom of two after all. But there are still those hours here and there where I still just wonder what I got myself into and lament the fact that it's too late to change my mind about being a parent even of one child, never mind two. I'm still sleep-deprived although I have started taking a short nap if both of them happen to be napping at the same time. And he is starting to sleep a little more at night, from about 11-6 with one brief waking, so that seems to help a little, too. But right now with him it's just eat, diaper, cry, diaper, eat, eat, cry, diaper, eat, cry, diaper, cry, sleep, sleep, diaper, eat, cry, sleep, diaper. And some of that crying is from me and not from Benjamin, lol.

Lydia continues to be a challenge and a joy at the same time. She continues to randomly get my hopes up for potty training. Like this evening in her bath, she randomly said that she went in the tub, and that she wanted out. I asked her if she wanted to go in her potty and get new bathwater and she said yes, and she went in her potty right away. But all day long, she never mentioned or noticed her diaper, and also said that there was no #2 in a particular diaper when I asked her, but really there was.

Benjamin is still "suffering" from some newborn acne. (It's just visually unappealing, but doesn't seem to bother him at all.) I am ready for it to go away. It had some improvement earlier this month but hasn't made any additional improvement since then, that I can tell. Other than that, though, he's doing well, growing and gaining. On Saturday he was 10 lbs even and 23.5" long. I had that one "awake" smile when he was about 3 weeks old but am still waiting for any more. In the meantime, though, I sure do love the cooing. I don't remember Lydia starting her cooing this early, but Benjamin's been doing it nearly since birth, it seems. Here's a short clip where he has a sound in the beginning and then a few more near the end.

two is hard, really hard

Several months ago, I posted about three big things that I was waiting on that were causing me a great deal of stress. Two of those waits (a job for hubby and the arrival of Benjamin) are now finished. I am thankful to God EVERY DAY for how those items ended up. Tim loves his job. It's an awesome fit for him. It's something that he can do for the rest of his life. It meets our needs. And as for Benjamin, we were able to have a successful homebirth which went very smoothly.

The third wait (Lydia's potty training) is once again at a standstill. She doesn't understand the process or notice her internal signals. At all. Her 3-year well-child visit is in about 6 weeks, and since I doubt that anything will change between now and then, I plan on asking her doctor about it. I have had other parents give me tips and stuff that worked for their children, but I don't know... maybe I'll just feel better if I hear from the doctor that she's still normal and not to worry about anything. And maybe she'll even have some suggestions that I haven't heard yet, and I could try those. There are a few things that I haven't tried (like having her run around in regular panties or w/o anything on her bottom at all)... but now that Benjamin's here, it would be hard to chase her around with a bottle of Resolve. We live in a tiny, yardless apartment where the only non-carpeted areas are the kitchen and the bathroom, and the latter might as well be carpeted b/c of all the bathmats that are in it. And the kitchen linoleum gets very slippery when wet, so I don't want her to fall and be afraid of the whole thing. But I am just waiting for now.

But aside from that, getting to the title of my post today... being a mom of two is hard, WAY WAY harder than being a mom of one. People have told me that going from one to two the hardest, harder even than going from two to three (maybe I need to hurry up and have #3 and that'll "cure" me, haha). But I had NO IDEA that it would be this difficult. My nearly 3 year old is becoming increasingly defiant, and I don't know if it's her age or if she's just testing me b/c of the new situation. I'm exhausted all the time and can't "sleep when the baby sleeps" like I could when I just had one, b/c otherwise my toddler would wreak havoc. Benjamin so far seems to be a more difficult baby than Lydia was, or maybe I'm just not remembering her early days very clearly. Stir in a significant helping of postpartum hormones and a mild to moderate case of the baby blues, and it's just not an appetizing mixture at all. I'm hoping to feel better in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, I am just taking one day at a time, one hour at a time. As hectic as this time is, I know that it'll pass way too soon, so I need to try to find the enjoyable moments and remember those.

And on that note, here's another few pictures from the past couple of weeks.

Hanging out in the living room.


Benjamin and his daddy.


A bad case of newborn acne... 19 days old is too young to be going through adolescence already.

baby has arrived and it's a....

boy!

I have a son now. Benjamin Luke was born at home on Saturday, October 10th at 2:08 a.m. He weighed 8 lbs 12 oz and was 22 inches long... with a 14.25" head! The birth was amazing and I'm so glad we chose to have him at home.

Lydia loves him so far and always wants to help me with him. She was even going to put him in his car seat for me the other day. So far, she doesn't do a lot of talking to him, but she does like to stand there and watch him and touch his hands and feet. Here she is holding him for the first time, when he was one day old.


And here's Benjamin at 7 days old, smiling in his sleep.


Tim's new job is going fine. He's still in training and is enjoying himself. He came home the other day with a HUGE box of uniforms. I am excited about that, because it means that I won't have to wash his work clothes every day like I did back when he was working at places where he only had 2 or so uniforms instead of 5-6.

My work is going fine as well. I got on with the third new transcription company but then had to turn around and request a leave of absence right away. I had Benjamin between the time I sent in my paperwork and when they wanted me to start work, and with the grandmas coming over and staying and just new-baby chaos in general, combined with the schedule they wanted me to work, adding in a few other things that I need to do before the end of the month... there was just no way I could do that transcription right now. I emailed them and asked if I could come back in January instead and they said that would be fine.

Tim's mom came down for a week before the baby was here and stayed for a few days afterwards, then the same day she left, my mom was able to come down and stay for a few days as well. Everyone is gone now, though, so when Tim goes back to work tomorrow, I will need to learn a new normal. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

I have a series of chiropractor appointments for the next few weeks, and also need to find some time to make our Halloween costumes. The four of us are dressing up as a theme this year, and I am so excited to see how it will come out.

banana drama (aka life as a toddler)

DD's going to be 18 months on Thursday. And she's entered the phase where if the teeniest little thing doesn't go as she expected, the WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!!! Take this, for instance. We usually have bananas in the house, and DD likes me to peel them and then hold them for her while she takes bites. Well we had this last remaining banana today, and it was VERY ripe. I didn't want to have a snafu with it where half of the banana fell completely off b/c it was too soft, so I decided to put it in a bowl and I'd spoon it to her. I told her we were going to do this. She saw me get the banana and got excited, and saw me doing "something" in the bowl with it. Then she saw the peel go into the trash and just completely lost it. She went right to the trash can and looked in and bawled her eyes out. She knows that empty peels go in the trash, so I took the peel out and let her see that it was empty, and at the same time showed her the bowl w/ the banana in it, told her that the peel was empty, and threw the peel away again. After all that, she sat right down, ready for her banana snack.

words, words, words

Here's the words that Lydia can say. Most of them are just in imitation of me saying them, but she does do a few of them spontaneously. Her cutesy pronunciations are listed where applicable. The others she says pretty clearly already.

cup
diaper
cheerios (she says like yo-ee-yo)
cheese (w/ a soft "s" at the end, rhymes w/ "peace")
mama
dada
bye-bye
hello
hi
shoes (again w/ a soft "s" at the end, rhymes w/ "loose")
toes
belly (but it comes out "baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"... not sure why she can't say this, but "hello" comes out clear w/ the L's and everything, lol)
no no (she tells herself this if I redirect her from something off-limits
bite (comes out "baah?")
night-night
doggy (sounds like "dah-dee")
kitty
banana (sounds like "na-nuh")
yogurt (sounds like "gert?")
soup

She may be saying a few more things, but I don't understand them yet. As for understanding stuff, here's what she understands consistently. When I say these things to her, she does them. :D

Go get your blanket.
Don't touch.
Give mama kiss.
Give mama hug.
Come see mama.
Can mama have (it)?

win a free ergo baby carrier

I want to spread the babywearing love, so here's a contest you can enter to win a free Ergo baby carrier from Along For The Ride. I think babywearing is great for babies and toddlers of all ages, and can't wait to start wearing a newborn again if hubby and I are blessed with another baby sometime.

http://www.alongfortheride.biz/contest-s/49.htm

random updates and a talking video

First update: Lydia's thumb. It's on the mend now. She's on the last few doses of her third antibiotic, and her thumb is finally looking like a thumb again. To keep her from sucking her thumb, I sewed a big sock into one of her short sleeve shirts, and she wears that at naptime and bedtime now. I can tell that sucking her thumb is just a habit w/ her and she doesn't "need" to suck it, b/c she doesn't try to suck it through the sock or act upset at all. If anything, she goes to sleep EASIER w/o her thumb. Weird little girl.

Second update: Tim's job. He's still at the car dealership, and we were blessed with 5 car deals last week, two of them just in time for tomorrow's payday, so we may be able to pay May rent after all. He is starting to feel like he likes the job again, like he did back when he first started, and not just b/c of the sales either. He's still keeping his eye out for something else, but for now it is suiting our needs again.

Lydia update: She starts her ECI therapy tomorrow morning, and we'll have it weekly. I'm looking forward to it. I've been trying to work with her, using the tips they gave me after the evaluation, but I don't know what to look for to tell if she's "getting it" or not. I did get her a small magnetic drawing thing, and she took the pen and just tapped on the pad with it. It made marks, but I don't think she was trying to make marks b/c of the way she was tapping it. She was just tapping to make noise. lol.

She's getting a lot faster at walking now, and hard to catch if she tries to get away. She's still not running, though, so she's easy to catch that way. She says diaper and daddy, but I can't really recognize anything else. I think she tries to say yogurt and Cheerios, but it could still be just noise at this point. Here's a video of her saying diaper, though.

eci evaluation today

The OT and the ST just left. During the evaluation, they kept going on and on about how cute Lydia is. I was originally concerned about speech, and she measured 13 months receptive and 14 months expressive on that... and those were her HIGHEST scores out of all the areas. I can't remember her score for the other areas, but it ranged from 7 to 12 months for cognition, social/emotional, physical and adaptive behavior. Lydia doesn't scribble w/ a writing instrument, and that's one of the things that held her back. Another is that she doesn't refuse certain foods (she eats everything, even things that _I_ don't like, lol). She was also held back b/c she doesn't prefer me over other people (i.e. no separation or stranger anxiety). One more is that if one of her toys is turned off (i.e. it won't make noise but usually does), she doesn't care and will just play with it as usual instead of bringing it to me to turn it on.) So because of the way the tool is designed, she may have been able to do some of the tasks further down the line, but b/c of too many zero scores in a row, they have to stop right there. But the OT said that even though Lydia qualifies for services, she can tell that L is smart. And she and the ST heard a ton of words that L was imitating, that I had no idea.

They said that Lydia is the type of child who people would fight each other to be able to come out and do therapy with. :giggle: Lydia kept making them laugh and then laughing herself and she was just her usual charming self. But she did qualify for services and so I went ahead and enrolled her. We're going to do once/week w/ the ST.

give mama kisses

more job woes and thumb woes and some happy pictures

This last weekend, a bunch of DH's family were in town, then all this week at church we've had services nightly, and it's been great and uplifting, but tiring keeping poor Lydia out past her bedtime nearly every night. :p Tonight's the last night though. I'm a little sad b/c the guest is such a great speaker and really makes his applications clear, but it'll be nice to get back to a normal routine.

Hubby is now looking for a new job. He's sold one car so far this month, and after insurance is taken out, his next check will be about $0 if he doesn't sell another car between now and the 15th. In addition, if he doesn't sell 10 cars for the whole month (or if anyone doesn't sell 10 cars for that matter), they told everyone that it would be grounds for termination. A few people from church have given him some leads, but nothing is a guaranteed job for him or anything. My store's just limping along and not helping us eat, either. Blasted media saying we're in a recession when we're not.

Lydia news... I think she can say diaper sometimes. lol. It comes out "bah-pwaw" more often than not, but it's a start. Her ECI eval is in just a few more days (Tuesday morning). The latest news with her is her thumb. On Sunday, I think she had been sucking it on the way to church, and we go over a few RR tracks, and one of them must have bumped hard enough to make her bite her thumb and break the skin a little. But I never saw any blood or anything. When we got her out of the car at the church building, her thumb looked like it had a hickey on it. Well by Sunday night, it had swollen up considerably. I took her in on Monday morning and her dr gave me a perscription for some antibiotics and just had me watch the thumb at first and not rush out and fill it. The next day, it wasn't any better, so I went and filled it. It was a 5-day course. Thursday morning, halfway through the course, her thumb was looking even worse, so I called her dr. They called in a stronger antibiotic and want to see her on Monday if it's not showing improvement. It's still hard to tell at this point if it's improving at all yet.

Here's a few recent pictures of her:

Happily walking and pointing, with big purple puffs in her hair:


Sleeping w/ her bootie in the air:


Poor sweetie... look how she got her leg stuck THIS time!


Is this wide enough, mama?


And this is how she smiles most of the time now:

15 month, ok 16 month stats

We had Lydia's 15-month WBV today, even though she'll be 16 months on Saturday. It went well. She was a hit with all of the staff. They'd talk about how cute she is, and she'd just grin and giggle. She has been walking (FINALLY!!!) for about 2 weeks now, and already walks about 95% of the time, so she got to walk in the exam room for the doctor.

Anyway as for her stats. Weight = 16 lbs 15 oz, length = 28.5 inches, head circ = 17.75 inches. Still itty bitty, but between last visit and this visit, she actually was parallel to the curve instead of growing further away from it. :D

she threw away some trash

I am so excited. You just don't understand how excited I am. :)

You may remember from my Big Organization pictures a while back that our bedroom has an extra sink, by the closet. It's about 10 feet away from the main bedroom door. I have a little trash can there. Lydia frequently likes to look in there and get stuff out of it. I stop her and tell her that it's trash and yucky and don't touch, etc. Here's a picture where you can kind of see the setup. You can see the light switch on the right, the main bedroom door is right next to that. The sink and trash can in question are in the background of the picture.



So yesterday, I'm getting ready at that sink for church in the morning, and Lydia is right there. She picks up a little piece of paper, and throws it into the trash. I said "Oh did you throw away the trash for me?" and went on.

About 5 minutes later, she's crawling around, and she gets to the bedroom door, and finds another piece of paper. I had also gone over to the bedroom door too, to make sure she didn't get into anything dangerous. She holds the paper up for me to see, and I say "Oh did you find another piece of trash? Can you throw it away like you did before with the other one?" That's all I said. I may have glanced in the direction of the trash can, but I sure didn't actively point at it or show it to her or anything. Then she brings it back down to her level, looks at it for half a second, and then she crawls RIGHT OVER to the trash can and throws it away! I was so excited. Hubby was in the shower and heard me squealing. LOL

Anyway I didn't know if this was normal/late/good/bad whatever, but it was exciting anyway. :)

she finally has independent steps

Today, Lydia finally started taking a series of independent steps. (Prior to today, she'd take about half a step before going back down to a crawl.) Also this morning, she figured out how to get to a stand just from the floor, w/o pulling up on anything. :) Here's a video of some steps. Look (and listen) to how proud of herself she is at the end.



Edited 3/17: here's a video taken today, during the daytime. (So you don't have to peer through the darkness to see it, lol.