Recent Favorite Things

1.  Frozen banana bites.  Oh. my. word.  I ran across the simple recipe for these delightful little treats, and I'm declaring right here and now that I am in love.  So is my hubby.  They only have four ingredients: banana, peanut butter, chocolate chips, and coconut (but I used slivered almonds b/c I didn't have coconut).  Try them!  Photo and recipe are both from (never home)maker.  They are the perfect thing when you feel like you must have a sugary treat because they are so small and mostly just banana. Win!

2.  Baby kicks and squirms from inside my belly.  That is my favorite part of whole pregnancy gig, and it is beginning to happen more regularly and noticeably.  Magical.

3.  Princess asking Smooch if she'd like to play with her, and Smooch always replying with an enthusiastic "Yea!" or "Okaaaay!"  Annnnd that it gets me off the hook so I don't have to play princesses constantly each day.  Only sometimes now. :-)

4.  Smooch's new skills...just as I was beginning to wonder if she was EVER going to make up her mind and just do it!  (Ignore my evil laugh at the end of this video.)

By the way, I bribed her with chocolate a few days ago, and that was the first time she took some steps and seemed pleased about it, wasn't tricked into it (bribery is not the same as trickery - ha ha), and she's been getting her confidence up little by little ever since that day.  Today, I have coaxed her across the room again and again. This means so many wonderful things for this pregnant momma whom has been growing physically weary of toting this toddler around.  And the look on Smoochie's face is a sight to behold- she's so proud of herself and no longer so paranoid of falling!  Before, confidence and will were the only two ingredients that were missing from her recipe.

5.  The temperatures in our neck of the woods are no longer flirting with the 100s.  Is anyone besides me just craving Fall already?  I don't like to jump the gun, but it happens to be my favorite season of all time.

6.  My Stud is turning 31 this week, and I'm still in my 20s.  ;-)  I'm just saying...

7.  After almost a year of hit-and-miss nap taking, most recently falling asleep only one out of every ten or so days, Princess has started to nap like a champ again!  She's five for five, and I think it may have something to do with the fact that I've been (very intentionally) physically wearing her out before nap time with trip to the park, children's museum, pool, or just initiating some climbing and running at our own house.  Nevermind that when she takes a good nap, she lays awake until at least 10 p.m. :-(  She inherited that from her mother.  Oops.  Sorry for passing that on, Princess girl!

For People Who Like to Read about Physical Therapy & "Morning" Sickness

I have a few things to share, and I'm feeling quite a bit better so far today than most days, and the little ones are napping like champs, so I figure better go for it while I can!

First of all, Miss Smooch had her usual Tuesday morning physical therapy today.  It took half of the session to get her to show off her newest skills, but she finally warmed up and went to work.  I'm so proud of her.  She's cruising on everything - furniture, my legs, the wall.  I have believed for almost a week now that Smooch is ready to take off walking...just as soon as she's ready.   As in, she has to gather up her courage and let go. ;-)  Other than that, she's ready.

She's 17 months today by the way.

And after her p.t. session today, her therapist said that she didn't think Smooch needs therapy anymore.  (Also something I had been thinking for a few weeks, but haven't said out loud to them.  I just felt badly saying, "no thank you" to their services right before those first steps.  Talk about robbing them of one of the biggest rewards of their job.) Sooo...they will check in on Smooch once a month - which will probably only be one more time - until she meets her p.t. goal (walking).

And for the record, even though the therapy has been wonderful in getting Smooch motivated, and in teaching me some strategies to use between therapy sessions, I still firmly believe that the chiropractic care in correcting her pelvic alignment was the big turning point for her.  After that (crawling within days), Smooch began to progress in her other gross motor skills and a normal/rapid pace. 

I'm pleased as punch that my 17-month-old, who was not even rolling or scooting at 13 months old, is now about to take off walking.  Of course I'll be plastering that news all over the internet once it happens.   It's a momma's job to be excited about her babies successes you know.

The next thing I would like to say is that I have been feeling quite a bit better than my little "I'm pregnant" post.  I think the kicker was that I started taking vitamin B6.  Thinking back, I took that per my doctor's recommendation for the nausea I faced when I was pregnant with Princess.  Then with Smooch, I felt pretty darn good, so I never even tried to do anything for nausea with her.  So this time around, feeling much like I felt with Princess, I couldn't remember any of those good ole tricks from before - it has been something like 4 years since then.  Well thanks to my also-pregnant-sister-in-law B., I am reminded of how wonderful vitamin B6 is for the sickies.  

At 2 days shy of 8 weeks along, today has been my best day since the sickies set in.  The strange thing is that when I wake up each morning, I feel pretty good (assuming I got adequate sleep).  I can even brush my teeth first thing without gagging or dry heaving.  (Aren't you glad you're reading this?)  Then I eat breakfast and I usually go downhill from there, feeling pretty gnarly right up until bed time.  Off and on, but mostly on.  But not nearly as bad as before the B6 mind you. Well today I feel pretty good.  In fact, I did (yesterday's  :-/ )dishes, a couple loads of laundry, and bathed the girls all before noon.  I'm a tad woozy at the moment, but it's 2 p.m. where I live so this is actually great! 

So you know when your kids are taking great naps and the UPS man does that ridiculous, simultaneous knock and ring thing and you just pray that your kids stay asleep?  Well that just happened a few minutes ago, so I have a beautiful, red bridesmaid dress begging me to try it on for size.  My kids are still asleep. :-)

Smooch - 16 months - Annnnd One More "Plug" for Chiropractic Care

It's been awhile since I've had a smooch update. In fact, I haven't even recorded all of the benefits of her chiropractic care.  Here is a testimonial I wrote for our chiropractor, Dr. E. (w/ names omitted):

My daughter N’s first birthday came and went, and still she was not even close to crawling. She also wasn’t scooting, rolling, or going from laying to sitting without assistance. She was “stuck” and growing increasingly upset about it. Additionally - seemingly unrelated - N constantly struggled with constipation.

We sought physical therapy for our daughter, who showed no signs of delay in any other area besides gross motor skills. She began therapy around 14 months of age. N did well, and began to make steady progress, sitting up from the floor on her own, and getting extremely close to crawling. However, she seemed to strongly dislike being in the crawling position, and she had “hit a wall” in her progress. With incessant coaxing, N would move her arms and her right leg, but she would not move her left leg.

As I began to observe her movements more closely, I became suspicious about that left leg. I took her to see Dr. E at S Chiropractic, and she was able to observe that N’s pelvis was out of alignment to the point that it was limiting the movement of her left hip and leg. After her first adjustment, N moved her left leg in the crawling position on her own for the first time that day. She never again fussed about being in that previously uncomfortable position. N began to crawl independently three days later, and has been happily into everything ever since.

Also, she no longer struggles with constipation. At all. Looking back, I suspect that she may have been out of alignment since birth as she experienced an unusually quick descent down the birth canal, and had always been somewhat constipated (even when exclusively breastfed) something that never concerned her pediatrician. Bottom line: I just can’t believe we didn’t take her to the chiropractor sooner!

And I thought of one thing that I forgot to mention in my testimonial:  Smooch, who had been under close watch by her pediatrician because of her lower-than-average weight gain, is now officially back on the charts.  She had a well-check today and weighed in at 20 lbs. 6.5 oz. which puts her in the 5th-10th percentile for weight, and makes her growth curve spike.  I can't remember if she was 17 or 18 lbs at 14 months, but either way, that is excellent weight-gain for this age, especially for being newly mobile (when  many babies level-off for a time).   For my record, she's 30.5 inches, in the 25th - 50th percentile for height.  And by the way, I don't put a lot of weight in percentiles, but it is interesting information nonetheless.

Smooch noticeably put on weight the week following her first chiropractic adjustment.  A friend of mine even commented on her increased chub-a-chub.  It seems that the digestive issues that were tied her to constipation may have also been the cause of her mediocre weight gain to some extent.  Part of it could be genetic - I was a tiny little thing myself until I reached toddlerhood.  However, the timing and rapid increase of her weight leads me to believe that it was an issue that, once again, her chiropractic care has solved.

I'm pretty sure the pediatrician thought I was a crazy hippie mom when I explained the whole story of her success with chiropractic care to him.  Someone please remind me why I even bother with traditional "well child" visits in the first place.  I guess I figure it doesn't hurt a thing since it is 100% covered by our insurance without even a co-pay required from us.  However, I find it annoying that all they have really done for us is make note of Smooch's challenges without offering a solution.  For example, Smoochie's constipation was terrible for her, but her doctor didn't find it concerning (and didn't do anything for it  - which was better than shoving some med at us for sure). 

I, however, am a firm believer that the "small" things are all too often indications of a possible greater issue.  In our case, it was that her pelvis was out of alignment.  In my niece's case it was food allergies.  It seems that traditional medicine does not care to discover the root of an issue and truly solve it, rather just alleviate symptoms.  I think doctors mean well, but they are just trained that way.  In many cases, it is all the patient really wants - immediate relief from an uncomfortable symptom.  Well not me.  I'm glad that the Lord has given me the ability to analyze and persist in discovering root causes because it has paid off with our children time and time again. 

Okay.  End of rant.

I'll end this little Smooch update post by saying that the girl is getting mighty close to walking accept that she's too chicken.  She's pulling up on everything now (whereas last week she was very picky about what she was willing to allow to support her weight).  And if she doesn't realize she's doing it, she will let go of whatever she is holding onto and stand independently for a few seconds.  I wouldn't be surprised if she held out another month or even two, but if our Smooch-a-roo would put on her brave face, I bet she could do it next week.

Things That Rock About Smooch Crawling

*This is another one of those "for my records" posts.*

1.  She is sleeping through the night.  After months of off and on sickness followed by breaking through her first molars, suffice it so say that Smooch stopped sleeping through night sometime in November.  I have been haggard ever since. ;-)  Then we removed her from the church nursery, and she has not even had a runny nose after that.  But she's still right in the thick of the long process of getting those first two molars in.  They bother her quite a bit during the day, so it made sense to me that Smooch was still waking a couple times at night each day even though she was finally healthy.  All I would do when she woke up was pick her up, hold her for a few seconds and lay her back down.  Then she'd go right back to sleep.  We'd do this 2 or 3 times a night. So imagine my surprise when on Saturday, for the first time in months, she slept through the night.  Then again on Sunday, and again last night.  What is going on? Her teeth are bothering her so this didn't  make sense.  I have a theory: I wonder if before Smooch was mobile, she would wake up and not be able to move into a more comfortable position in order to resettle herself.  Now she is moving freely.  I hear her wake up occasionally, and then she moves and goes back to sleep.  Or maybe crawling is getting more of her energy out so she is more tired?  Hmm...

2.  She is no longer such a clingy baby.  Before, as of about 11 months old, I couldn't go to the bathroom without her crying.

3.  She's not "mad" at the physical therapist anymore.   When she first met therapist R., Smooch thought she was great.  Once R. started making her do things she didn't want to do, she became resistant to and suspicious of her.  Annnd she wanted me to keep me near her at every moment.  Well not today.  Today Smooch forged a new friendship, and she might have acted a little like a show off. ;-)

4.  She's signing a bunch of words all of a sudden.   They say crawling helps to make connections in your brain allowing the two sides of your body to work together well.  Though Smooch's fine motor skills have always been excellent, she has never been big on two-handed signs.  All of sudden, she is signing everything that I have been teaching her for months that was previously "hit and miss."  Ha!

5. She moves with more fluidity.  Since first crawling six days ago, all of Smooch's movements have notably improved.  Therapist R was so impressed with her on many levels today (which felt awesome by the way).  While sitting, she rotates 360 degrees quickly and with ease.  Her range of motion while sitting is much better, and she doesn't act like every movement outside of sitting nicely is outside of her comfort zone. She pulls to her knees like a pro.  She is beginning to pull to standing without assistance.  She is rolling and flopping around when she's in a silly mood without hesitation.  I just love seeing her so...free.

6. She is so much HAPPIER.  I said it in a previous post, and I will say it again.  Little Miss Sunshine is back. :-)

7. It is just so darn cute when she crawls.  Especially when she looks at me like, "Look at me! See what I can do!?  Aren't you proud?"  I also love when she crawls to me because she wants me to pick her up.  It is so much nicer than screaming and whining at me to come and get her.

8.  Princess thinks her little sister is so much more fun and interesting now.  Our daughters are finally, consistently playing together.  It is wonderful, even if it is not always peaceful.
Thank God...on all accounts.


I think, in our little mobility journey, it's all downhill from here.

Goodbye to the Perpetual 7-month-old. This One's Going in the Book!

14 months, 1 week, and 6 days.

Ever since Smooch's chiropractic appointment, she has been using her left leg successfully while on all fours. In fact, she showed such improvement (immediately) that I have to wonder if the misalignment of her pelvis had been causing her discomfort all of this time, affecting her desire to do x y and z.

I feel like a big jerk for waiting all this time to take her.

Here we are five days and one physical therapy session later (which was yesterday), and BOOM! She's got it! See for yourself. (Sorry about the lousy quality of the phone video.)



Yup, I am a proud momma.

This video of course isn't the first moment she crawled. It happened immediately after breakfast this morning. I was sitting at the dining table playing "Kitty blocks" with Princess (Duplos for girls - it has a cat character), and I sat Smooch down on the floor next to me with some toys spread about. I looked down because, unlike every previous day, I did not hear incessant fussing about the fact that she couldn't effortlessly reach the toys. She had pulled herself onto all fours and was crawling toward...a piece of food. Ha ha. She likes to find crumbs and give them to me while she says "denk youuuu!" I tell you the truth that I got choked up and nearly burst into tears. Can I just say FINALLY!?

And for all the people in the world who keep telling me stories about how this and that child didn't crawl until such and such age, and so-and-so never crawled (all very sweet and intended to make me feel good), please let me just make a clarifying point.  Smooch wasn't crawling. Okay. No big deal. Except that she wasn't doing anything except sitting. No scooting, rolling from point A to point B, creeping, nothing. It was that issue, rather than so much the lack of crawling, that made her qualify so readily to receive physical therapy services. That being the case, my happy-go-lucky baby was turning into a clingy, angry little thing. Literally her personality was beginning to change as she grew more and more frustrated about how "stuck" she was. Unless she was being held. I could not walk more than 10 feet from her without her crying out for me. She was dependant on us for mobility like a 6-month-old but had the mental capacity and every other skill of a 14-month old. Of course, we didn't carry her around all the time, and we made her practice her budding skills each day. This made her very angry and made our house a few decibels louder than we prefer. Quite frankly, I felt that she was hitting a wall with her progress in the area of crawling. Enter Dr. E the chiropractor and the rest is history.

Glorious SUCCESS!

And do you know what? Little Miss Sunshine has returned today. I am telling you, she is back to her old self just like that! I took a shower without a fuss out of her, thank you Jesus. Yesterday, she would have let me hear it the entire...5 minutes. (Yes, you just learn to be fast.)  Today, my shower was 10 minutes. 

Oh shoot. I just realized where all these newly sprouted gray hairs came from.

And are you ready for this? Today, for the first time ever, Princess gave Smooch a good, sisterly shove. Suddenly, little sis isn't so safe to play near. She is a threat to Princess's things (and her orderly little world). Smooch is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing threat. Let the sibling wars begin! I am READY...just as soon as I finish baby-proofing.

Physical Therapy & Doctor Appointments: 14 Months

*This post might be boring to you as it is full of mundane medical and developmental details.  It is mostly for my own records. :-)*

As I've briefly mentioned before, Smooch (14 months) is not crawling or pulling up or anything like that.  So at her doctor's recommendation, we made an appointment to see a developmental group through the state that offers (free) services for children who are developmentally delayed in one way or another.  Smooch had her initial evaluation about a month ago, and she tested average or above average in every area (verbal, fine motor, social, etc.) except for gross motor.  At 13 months, her gross motor skills were equivalent to those of a 7-month-old.  Depending on which chart they referred to (the new one or the old one apparently), that made her 25 - 40% delayed in her gross motor skills.

Ever since then, Smooch has had two new friends, Miss R (the physical therapist) and Miss L (the I-forget-her-title), who come over every Tuesday morning to play.  She really hates therapy.  She doesn't like being pushed outside of her comfort zone...and her comfort zone is very small.  She is actually a different child during therapy.  Friendly, but clingy and fussy.  As mom, I get to be her bait.  "Come on, crawl to Mommy."  All the while she's angrily crying.  I can honestly say that I surprise myself with how little her "therapy session fussing" bothers me.  At 14 months it is a little ridiculous that she can't, in some form or another, move from point A to point B.  Miss R (the therapist), stated that this was her primary concern with her gross motor delay during the initial eval.

So, here we are, one month into it.  I want to record - largely for my own record - where we were then and where we are today:

Before therapy Smooch...

*sat up when placed in a sitting position
*rolled from back to tummy and tummy to back, but not for locomotion purposes
*"sat" in a crawling position when placed in that position.
            ~would not move arms or legs to move forward w/o assistance
*occasionally goes from a laying on tummy to a crawling position w/o assistance
*stood with assistance but for a very short period of time

After one month of therapy Smooch...

*sits up from a laying position w/o assistance (in fact, this new skill is messing with her naps on occasion. Ha!)
*occasionally goes from a sitting position to a crawling position w/o assistance, mostly to reach something she wants
*crawls 1 - 2 feet with minimal assistance moving her legs (she will move her right leg but not her left) - she really hates practicing this skill btw
*pulls up to knees while holding on to Mom
*stands while holding onto furniture w/o assistance (moderate assistance getting into standing position) for extended periods of time - she often leans forward and sticks out her bottom while standing rather than standing up straight.
*takes steps while holding onto Mom's hands - awkward steps, both giant and small ones

So, as you can see, she's making excellent, steady progress these first few weeks!  It is exciting to work with her everyday and witness her constant improvements.  It is also frustrating that she's not just taking off crawling like I had hoped now that she gets the general concept.  Having a child who needs a little extra encouragement in an area makes me extra thankful that I have the time as a stay-at-home mom to work with her on these things.

It bothers me a little that she seems to move the left leg fine while practicing her crawling but she cannot seem to get the left one going without help.  So...today I took her to my chiropractor and oh boy!  With just a visual exam (no x-rays), Dr. E was able to see that the movement in her left leg was restricted b/c her pelvis was out of alignment.  When she rolled her hips from side to side, it as like that joint was stuck and couldn't rotate past a certain point.  After a couple little adjustments, she had full range of motion just like that.  It was very interesting to see!  As soon as we got home, Smooch was more than ready for her morning nap, so I haven't been able to see the impact of her adjustment yet, but I am pretty excited to see if this makes crawling (and standing) more feasible and comfortable for her.   I sure hope so.  As with all chiropractic care, she will be seen often for the next few weeks as that pelvis learns how to stay in place - muscles and tendons have to adjust to new positions too - as it will likely revert easily and often at first.  (Dr E wonders if this new proper alignment will also help with the chronic constipation that we have been successfully treating with digestive enzymes at every meal.)

In addition to a chiro appointment, Smooch had her 15-month well-check a month early today because her pediatrician likes to keep an eye on her weight gain since she is such a petite thing.  Typical with Smooch's previous growth curve, she is up almost a pound since her 12-month appointment, weighing in at 17 lbs. 14 oz.  She also grew an inch and is 29.5 inches.  Well that inch makes a big difference on such a little body, because this last week we finally had to promote her from the infant car seat we were still using because she had outgrown it height-wise.  I am always amazing at how tiny Smooch is because she is an indiscriminate consumer of calories.  She easily out-eats her (32 pound) sister at almost every meal, and drinks plenty of raw, whole, A2 cow's milk as well and breastfeeds once in the morning and before bed.  (She sounds like her mother.  I out-eat my husband daily and am practically half of his size.  Metabolism, may you never let me down!)  

Smooch also got her first blood draw (routine iron level check) since her newborn screenings, and knowing how dramatic she is about minor injuries at home, I just knew she was going to scream her head off like someone was trying to kill her.  Well I learned something about Smooch today:  those dramatic "I'm injured and dying" cries are special for just Mommy.  Wouldn't you know she didn't shed one tear over that needle and vile of blood!?  She was more unhappy that I was restraining her than anything.  Ha!  Sanguines.  I feel like such a sucker now. ;-)  Funny thing is, I don't think I'd have it any other way.

Okay, one last boring detail.  On Tuesday, while getting Smooch dressed, I discovered something.  A molar!!!  Since then, she has gotten the matching one on the other side.  Ohmygoodness, in that moment of discovery, the last two weeks of my life suddenly made perfect sense.  And I felt a little like a bad mom for being totally clueless to the cause of Smooch's anguish.   Thankfully she forgave me.  Whew!

This has been boring medical updates by Amelia.  Tune in next time for the 3-year-old version in which I discuss that Princess is allergic to every antibiotic she's ever been prescribed and how I hate antibiotics to begin with, so I really need to find some sort of alternative as she is prone to a condition similar to chronic bladder infections.  Annnd I will try to refrain from run-on sentences. 

Have a good weekend. :-)