Let Her Eat Cake!

My little birthday girl, surveying her party, asking "Whatsth thisth?"

A rite of passage into toddlerhood is getting to eat cake at your 1st birthday party. Emma, of course, did not miss out on this rite of passage. She really had her first little taste at the beach which she didn't really like, but at her birthday party, she had her very own cake. I thought about being a conscientious mother and making her the carrot cake recipe from What to Expect in the Toddler Years. Then I thought, why shouldn't she have a little taste of the 'good' stuff? I don't let her eat junk on a regular basis so I didn't feel bad giving her white cake with sugary icing. Being presented with her own little white cake decorated with her name, pink and green flowers and polka dots lovingly piped onto it was a little overwhelming for her I think. She wasn't sure what to make of it or if it was even food. It took a little coaxing from two grandmas and a couple more experienced little girls to get her to really dive in. I'm not sure how much cake she really ate, but she sure did love the icing.

Emma's a 'pink and green' girl, so, of course, we had a pink and green theme.

I thought about baking a cake and covering it with fondant and ribbons, but in the end, I ordered it from the grocery store. Doesn't everyone like grocery store cakes better anyway? I have to say though, not as good as a 'Giant Eagle' cake. Pittsburghers will know what I'm talking about.

I did make Emma's 'smash cake', but it was from a box. (She didn't actually have any of the big cake.) She wasn't sure why there was a flaming '1' on her cake as you can see from the look on her face.

I have a truly girly girl. There was no diving into the cake. Grandma had to take one of Emma's dainty little fingers and dip it into the icing. Emma took a tentative lick and ...

... decided she liked it!!!

Diving in eventually ensued. When the cake was taken away, after she tried to push it onto the floor, she looked a bit guilty about the mess on her face.

I felt a bit like we were cheating since her party was on the 11th, four days before her actual birthday. There I go again, worrying about breaking the rules! Oh well. She survived and she still got to turn 1 on the 15th. Aside from crying at the sights and sounds of 30 people surrounding her high chair, singing 'Happy Birthday' in unison, Emma had a great time at her party.

After the cake, she opened her presents. She got lots of wonderful gifts, but seems most attached to her new baby. She loved it from the moment she pulled it out of the box.

After the party and a nap, she ditched her tutu and the real fun began - playing with all the bags, wrapping paper and tissue paper.

It really was a super day. We are so grateful that so many family members and friends made the long trip to celebrate with us. We had guests from Connecticut, Rhode Island, Boston, Western Mass, New Hampshire and my parents came ALL THE WAY from Pittsburgh, PA. Thank you to everyone who joined us for making it such a special day for all of us!

From Infant to Toddler

Emma, post-cake, at her 1st Birthday party! No longer an infant, now a toddler who is allowed, at least on her birthday, to eat cake!

A funny thing happens on a baby's 1st birthday. As if by magic, they go from infant to toddler. The rules change all of a sudden. I, as many of you know, am a rule follower. I don't like not having a clear set of rules to abide by. If the rule is that you don't take the baby off hospital property, and the yellow line denotes hospital property, then you don't take the baby past the yellow line. If the rule is that your baby shouldn't start solids until they are 6 months, then you don't start until 6 months. If the rule is that babies should sleep on their backs even if they would sleep better on their stomachs, then baby sleeps on her back. (Although, now I can't control it and she does, in fact, sleep on her belly.) All of these are rules that I followed. I'm just too afraid of dealing with the consequences even if, in some cases, there really aren't any.

So as Emma's first birthday approached, I researched all of the impending rule changes so that I would be prepared.

Rule 1) She can now drink cow's milk instead of formula.

Rule 2) She only needs 16 oz of milk now instead of the 27 oz she has been consuming.

Rule 3) She should be feeding herself table foods instead of purees. There are many other 'rules', but I'm not going to list them all here.

Yes, I do know that all of the ones I have chosen to list are food related. (As I said to my mom the other day, food is ALWAYS an issue!) Rule 1 - I followed that one. She didn't have any cow's milk until the day after her first birthday once we got doctor's permission. Rule 2- Well I haven't really followed that one because her new doctor said she should be taking as much milk as she did formula. Hmmm ... that doesn't match the rule. Rule 3 - I also tried switching her to table food, but she wasn't eating enough. She can easily get it in her mouth, but then it falls out and ends up in a pile on her bib.

Grilled cheese, broccoli bits and an over turned bowl - This is what happens when Emma has free reign over her meals.

She's not one to tell us that she's hungry until she is REALLY hungry, so I assumed - because I was following a baby/toddler rule 'a healthy child won't strave themselves' - that she was eathing enough to satisfy her. All of sudden, though, after sleeping through the night from 7 pm to 6 or 7 am for the last 7 months, she started waking up every night at 10 or 10:30 screaming. What's a mommy to do? I want to follow the sleep rules (a whole seperate issue) so that I don't start new bad sleeping habits, but giving her a bottle did calm her down, and after sucking it down without stopping, she fell right back to sleep. I finally realized that bad habits or not, my skinny little thing wasn't eating enough during the day to get her through the night. Why else would she wake up the same time each night, 3 hours or so after her last bottle? By the way, 3 hours or so just happens to be as long as the can go during the day without eating before she starts to whine.

So I, self-proclaimed rule follower, am throwing the rules out the window! (Have I said that before? Maybe. Sometimes it takes more than once for it to stick.) Emma is now having some milk, but we're finishing the can of formula we have before I make her switch completely. She is also drinking just as much as she was before. I just don't worry as much if she doesn't finish a bottle. When the time is right, we'll get her down to fewer ounces a day. She is, in fact, only 11 months 'gestationally'. She may not be ready to give up those extra ounces until she reaches her original due date of August 17th.

Purees have made their way back into her diet as the focus of each meal. I still give her food that she can feed herself, but only for practice. She needs to fill up on the gooey stuff so she can get a good night sleep. I think it's time to follow my mommy gut instead of all the 'rules' which, by the way, vary from resource to resource so clearly there is no 'right' way. Yesterday, I made a concerted effort to fill her up on pureed fruits, veggies and protein, as well as giving her a few extra snacks in between. 10:30 pm rolled around without so much as a peep from Emma. I guess my theory was right. She did wake up at 5:30 this morning, but I gave her a bottle and put her right back to bed and she slept until 8. Still not perfect, but an improvement for sure, and I certainly didn't mind sleeping in until 8 with only the brief interruption of giving her a bottle.

So now I can focus on the important changes that happen around the time of a baby's 1st birthday. Her new skills and interests. She loves to play. She asks me what this is and that is .... CONSTANTLY! Okay, labeling everying repeatedly for her is getting old, but that's how she learns so I'll just keep smiling and labeling. At least she's curious! She is now showing her independence -wanting to do things by herself, wanting to be free to roam on her own, not confined to my lap - even if she does from time to time want to revert to her baby ways - taking a bottle instead of a sippy or sucking her binky at times other than when she's in her crib.

Going from infant to toddler is quite a milestone. One that is a bit bittersweet for me. I'm starting to miss that newborn phase. The time when she would just lay on my chest or in my arms and just sleep for hours. The time when I had to be ever so delicate and careful when picking her up because she couldn't hold herself up at all. Although I was eager to start solids, I now REALLY miss just giving her bottles all day. I miss the times when we were trying to figure out if a smile was real or just gas. I really miss long naps through out the day.

On the other hand, she is so full of personality these days. She has interests and desires. Taking a bath being one of her strongest desires. She asks me constantly to take a bath - 'Bath, bath" she says as she either points to the bathroom or rubs her hands or belly as if she's washing them. She has opinions that sometimes are very strong while other times she's pretty easy going and adapts well. She plays well on her own, but LOVES being with other kids.

Now that she has gone from infant to toddler, we can now do more as a family. Today we drew a picture for Daddy. Well, I scribbled a little to show her what to do and she tried to eat her new crayons, but she did manage to make a few marks on the paper in the process. Last weekend, we took her to the zoo for the first time which we all loved doing.

Emma and I with at the zoo. Emma was curious but cautious which was a good thing because the deer came under the fence, onto the sidewalk shortly after this picutre was taken.

Emma and I also made our first trip to the local library and checked out a few books which I've now had to read about 30 times each because she loves them so much.

Emma, in her Fraggle Rock pigtails, displaying her love of books.

I don't have to be so delicate with her anymore. I can squueze her tight when I want a hug. She pulls herself up on the couch and then plops down on her bum saying, 'Boom!' She pretends to answer the phone, 'Hello! Whosth thisth?' Sometimes with her toy phone, other times it's another object she is pretending is a phone.

She crawls over and under everything. She is a girl on the go.

Yes, I miss the baby phase, but not enough to give up this new phase of growth and discovery. I'm enjoying thinking of all the new things we could try together - swimming lessons, a return trip to the zoo, regular visits to the library, playgroups, mommy and me classes - the list goes on and on. The transition from infant to toddler is magical change. A chance for mommy and baby to foster a new type of relationship and a chance for the rule following mom to throw the rules out the window, go with her gut, trust that her baby - once a delicate infant- is now a strong, sturdy toddler on her way to being a big kid. It's a time to follow her new toddler's lead, learn right along with her and watch the magic happen!

Dance!

I just found this short video of Emma and thought I should share. The girl loves to dance and can even say the word. (Oh, she also signs 'milk 'while dancing.) I think the video was taken on July 5th - Jeremy's birthday.

What a Difference a Year Makes!

One day at the beach, while floating Emma around in her baby float, my mom and I were in the pool enjoying another relaxing day. Emma was loving every second of her pool time, dipping her tiny fingers in the water and sucking the little droplets off her hands. My mom looked at Emma, then at me and said, "Last summer, did you ever think that you would be doing this with her one day?" My answer was a resounding NO!

A year ago, I really couldn't imagine being in a place where we would be doing nothing but enjoying the simple pleasures of soaking up the sun and feeling the cool water against our skin. Just watching our little one experience these joys for the first time. I honestly thought that we were going to be in that hospital room in the NICU forever, watching other babies move into the next bed space and the move out a week or two later to go home to their families.

Even on the days I could imagine a life outside of the 9th floor of Beth Isreal Deaconess Medical Center, I didn't think it would be the life that my other new-mommy friends would be experiece. And, truth be told, when we did come home, it wasn't the same. All of our doctors appointments, surgeries, and constant worry about the continuously growing pocket of fluid on her head, separated our life from the life I expected and the lives that my friends were experiencing.

In that pool in Hilton Head, 11 months after her birth, we were experiencing life as it is supposed to be. My mom pointed out that no one in the pool, or on the beach, had any idea of what Emma had been through. Now that her hair has grown in, there's no sign of what once was an obvious indicator that something about Emma's body wasn't quite right. Notice I said, Emma's body and not Emma. There is nothing wrong with Emma. There never has been. Emma, is perfect (in my completely, unbiased opinion, of course). It's Emma's body that is slightly less than perfect. It's her body that needs a little help, not her. A year later, that is more apparent than ever!

Yesterday we went to see her neurologist for a routine follow-up. I realized that it was, I think, exactly a year from the date that the same doctor came to see her in the NICU. He was the first neurologist to look at her head ultrasound, and though he didn't have another rotation during her NICU stay, he ended up being her neurologist on our first visit to Children's Hospital. When he first saw her, she was a very ill newborn whose full diagnosis was unknown. At that point, she weighed only 6 1/2 pounds,after losing a pound from her birth weight, and a little over 20 inches long. She slept, ate and cried.

Now she is 18 lbs 5 oz and 31 inches long! She does much more than eat, sleep and cry. She talks, crawls, pulls her self up, feeds herself, makes us laugh, pretends to yawn and chew, points out hats whenever she sees one, says hi to EVERYONE, and loves books, ducks and hugging her baby dolls.

Last year, the neurologist wasn't sure yet if it was really meningitis. Hydrocephalus wasn't quite a part of the equation. Her ventricles were slightly enlarged, but it wasn't clear yet that there were going to continue to grow. We only knew that if meninigitis and/or hydrochephalus were the culprit of her illness, that we might have to begin changing our ideas about how Emma would grow.

A year later, Emma has shown us that meningitis and hydrocephalus were no match for her. Despite some intense 'white coat syndrome', which resulted in Emma trembling and quivering in fear as well as some even more intense screaming, the doctor was able to see how well our little Emma Bean is doing. Although she didn't perform any of the tasks he asked her to perform, all of which she could have done with FLYING COLORS, he could still see that there have been no ill effects on the function of her brain. After she calmed down, while the doctor showed us the images from her MRI in February, she began pointing to everything in the office and asking in her sweet baby voice, 'What'sth thisth? What'sth thisth?' Thank goodness she decided to show a little piece of who she really is - a vivacious, bright, larger than life 1 year old, not a trembling, shy, little wallflower.

He said she was clearly doing very well. According to him, she looks fantastic and is talking like an 18-month-old. He asked if she was getting Early Intervention services, but when I explained that she had been until we moved, but that we hadn't pursued it here, he said, 'Honestly, I don't even think she would qualify because she is doing so well.' Music to a mommy's ears! So he wants to see her to have another MRI in February and see her in March with a Neuropyschologist and Phsyical Therapist to get a baseline evaluation of her congnitive and phyiscal development. All standard procedure in managing her care. I'm so grateful that he is the one caring for her through these important developmental years. I'm also so grateful that he is the one who know how far she has come in the last year. Seriously .... what a difference a year makes!

Happy Birhday, Emma Bean!

Although I'm quite tired after a day of taking of a one year old, I couldn't let the day end without at least a brief post. I will update another day on the words my little munchkin has mastered, the commands she follows, the questions she responds to and all the other good stuff she has been learning, but for now, I will just say this:

Happy 1st Birthday Little Love Bug! You are an amazing wonder! You are the constant bright spot in my day. I don't know where this last year and 11 hours have gone, but you've taken me on the most important journey of my life! I love you more everyday and can't wait to see what you have in store for this upcoming year!