Keep the Change Rita's

Pete and I took Celia to out local Ritas Water ice on Thursday ( Audrey also had a few tastes). Afterward I sent this email to the company We visited the ritas water ice in downtown @@@@@@@ today and were surprised when my 4 year old found a penny at the bottom of her cup.  We notified one of the employees at the window who told us that it was a tip cup accidently used.  We did not want to cause an issue as their was a long line but really were a bit grossed out by it as money is full of germs. I heard from Ritas today that they were contacting the owner of our local Ritas to respond to me. Celia thankfully did not swallow the penny and so far has suffered no ill effects. Today, the first day of spring, marks free Ritas water ice day. The lines are usually too long however as I passed one I really had no desire to go back anytime soon!! I think we will take our treat business to our local froyo place in town.

Warmer weather

We are so happy that the weather is getting warmer and that means more days spent at Longwood!!  

bye bye

Audrey loves the iPad. She especially loves a sign language app in which a baby signs bye bye. She usually signs back. Tonight she signed back and then said "bye bye". First words melt Mommies.

Sisterly Love

Audrey news

I have not updated on Audrey's stats in awhile.  She has had her 15 month appointment and her first official GI appointment.  Audrey has had reflux since she was 2 months old and we are still not able to wean her from her medication.  She also continues to choke on water at times.  I have noticed that is significantly better in the past week so she is trying to prove us all wrong!!  The drs are actually more concerned over the choking on water then the reflux.  I was surprised but I understand that at 15 months she should likely be able to handle it.  In any case, on Thursday Audrey is scheduled for an Upper GI.  She has to fast for 4 hours prior to the test and then she needs to drink a small amount of barium.  She is not going to be happy at all.   Her test is at 8:00 and by that time of the morning Audrey has typically nursed 2x and had breakfast.  I plan to wake her around 3/3:30 to nurse so she is not so starving.  I really liked her GI dr and I honestly expected to have to argue with him over many things.  I have heard horror stories from Moms who nurse that GI drs tell them to stop, etc.  This dr. said that it was fantastic that she was still nursing, especially while taking the reflux meds.  He said that sadly the reflux meds that she is on can prevent absorption of some nutrients and that nursing certainly offsets that (except for vitamin d, but the girl loves her some whole milk yogurt so she gets above and beyond her vitamin d needs!)   He wants to get her off of the meds as soon as we can.  He thinks that we have actually been undertreating her reflux and have not fixed some irritation.   So we have upped to her meds to match her weight  and in 6 to 8 weeks we see him to start taking her off the medication.  I can try it in a month, depending on the results of her test.  There is still a chance that she will continue to need it for years to come, but he is very hopeful.
I trust the GI dr's weight stats rather then the pediatricians because she threw such a fit for them at the pediatricians office (I had to hold her on the scale and I was leaning on it!).  So she is 2 ft 6 inches tall and weighs about 20 1/2 lbs.  She is not a big girl at all.  She is around the 5% for weight, 25% for height and above the 95% for head.  She has Pete's head genes.  Pete thinks she falls sometimes because her head is so heavy.  Funny thing is that she looks so solid to me! She really can eat too.  On her hungry days she certainly eats more then me.  This morning she had 1/2 of a bagel, a bowl of yogurt, 1/2 a banana, 1/2 a pancake, and a bowl of scrambled eggs.  That was breakfast.  Actually, today she has not stopped eating so maybe she is going to bust out of the 25% in height!!

Teeth, well Audrey is hanging around with her 4 teeth and no real signs of any other ones coming in.  Not abnormal for my side of the family.  She has not gotten any new teeth since December.  She is talking more but we have no real words yet.  She is an amazing signer and can do quite a few signs, more so then Celia ever did.   She says "Da da da" but not really directed at Pete.  She says "Ma ma ma" however that means more or eat.  She makes a few more sounds and we are very glad to hear them!  I would say she is still delayed in speech and we are keeping a watchful eye but she really understands what we say so it is not very concerning at this point.   She can feed herself with a spoon, work the iPad, and continues to use the toilet.  I recently purchased a potty seat for her and she has infrequently been telling me when she has to poop now.  One or two times she has taken my hand to pull her in and handed me the potty seat.  So I am beginning to be a bit hopeful that maybe she will be an early potty trainer like her sister.  Amazingly, Celia started showing signs around 15 months too.  It is nice as I rarely have to deal with poopy diapers!  I have not dealt with many since she was 4 or 5 months old!  In the first picture, I love the little muscle tone on her leg!  She likes to read on the potty.

I think we are searching for Spring

Celia asked me early in the week if we could go to the park.  We have really not had a winter, it was in the 60s a few days this week.  The problem with asking me if we can just stop by the park is that unfortunately spontaneous actions do not necessarily go with my "schedule" as a Mom who works outside of the home.  Honestly.  When she asked me that I almost did, I was all set to go spend an hour running around the park.  Then I looked back and saw Audrey's arm waving up and down, signing nurse and I remembered about dinner, laundry, and the fact that it was bath night.  Ugh.  So I promised Celia that tomorrow we could go to the park.  That evening I did everything I could to prepare things for the next day so that we could go to the park and have a blast.  Of course that day I went on a field trip with my students and it was crazy with one in particular and I was beat.  But I still told Celia "guess what, we get to go to the park".  I expected her to say "Great" and for us to have a blast at the park.  Much to my surprise, she said "oh, I really am not interested in doing that today".  What????  So we didn't.  I drove past it on the way home and prompted her the whole time, at that point I had talked myself into some rides down the slide with Audrey and some swinging.  It did not happen.  Sigh.
The previous day we did get out side for about 15 minutes to ride bikes and scooters.  Audrey thinks that she can ride Celia's tricycle without help.  She pushes my hands off of her and becomes furious if she finds out that I am helping her.  A 15 month old can not ride a tricycle without help, let alone one that she can not reach the peddles.  She also believes that she can sit on the potty without my support and pushes my hands off too.  She has fallen in, it has not stopped her. There is something wrong with that.  Anyhow... It reminded me of our rides down the sidewalk on warm Spring days.  Celia wants to go out more and more and we have been to Longwood Gardens more frequently lately.  Spring typically does not really arrive with all of the warm days until late April, sometimes not until mid May in our area.  We have had a very mild winter and are expected to have a cooler then normal Spring so who knows.  I would not fight a March snow storm.  The school districts now are more than willing to close school with only a few inches of snow.  We have snow days built in and none were taken!!

Where did it go?

Where did it go?  I do not know if you can see the second picture but she has her hands up there.  Audrey is still not saying anything.  Okay, she is babbling a bit but no real words but she signs frequently.  I loved when Celia started doing the hands up in the air for "Where did it go?"

By the way the Where did it go was something she put in the trash can.  She has had some tantrums over the trashcan.