18 Months & Updates

  

I can't believe it's here...my baby is officially one and a half. It just doesn't seem possible. Here are her 18 month check up stats:

Weight: 24 lbs, 14 ozs (60th percentile)

Height: 32.5 inches (80th percentile)

They measured her head but didn't write it down for me...bummer. 

She is doing everything just fine, Kate says she looks great. 

She has 14 teeth and is about to cut the top two canines. She's chewing on everything! I hope her amber teething necklace really works and gets us though this!

What she's wearing:

12-18 month clothes fit perfectly

We're buying 18-24 month for the fall/winter but they're a little big still

Size 4 disposable diapers, but we do cloth most of the time

Size 6 1/2 shoe!!

We went into Our Hearts and Sole, a kid's shoe store in Hickory, with Aspen wearing a size 5 in Stride Rite. We walked out in a 6 1/2. What a moment of mommy failure! I had no idea her shoes were so small! Mom of the Year. Right here.

What she's "saying"

Aspen can sign

help

outside

more

cup

water

milk

eat

all done

bear

dog

bird

duck

sleep

music

hat

yogurt

daddy

bath

diaper
airplane

She can actually say

mommy

daddy

baby

Every once in a while she tries to say

nana

dadaw

buhbuh (brother)

Overall she's still pretty quiet. She makes jibberish noises and acts like she's talking to herself alot. Kate said she scored a 25 on communication skills and she had to score a minimum of 15. They don't refer for speech until 2 1/2, but she said Aspen doesn't have a problem with speech. She has a problem with verbalizing, she can communicate fine. We're working with her to get her to speak more, but she just doesn't seem interested. She will not try to repeat what you say like Lincoln did. Lincoln made every sound you made, like a parrot. She doesn't have any desire to do that. So I hear mommy and baby about a million times every day!!

She LOVES music and makes the sign every time she hears it and starts dancing with a big smile on her face. She plants her feet apart and swings her hips. Precious! Her current favorite toy is her Cabbage Patch Aspen doll. Anna Fitzwater got it for her when she was born. It's a specially made doll named Aspen Ensley, so we call her Little Aspen! Aspen carries her everywhere she goes and always needs a baby. She also likes Lincoln's cars, trucks, and trains. The little house/door play center that Anna also gave to us is one of her favorite things to do in the house. She loves pushing the buttons and listening to the music. If I'm working on Thirty-One business at the table she wants to sit with me and draw. She loves making doodles on the paper. She's also the only one at the table when we eat out that colors. Lincoln only has eyes for his trucks! She can blow her nose, and tells us when her diaper is stinky. She's very interested in the potty and likes to sit on it. Let's hope potty training goes quickly!

What Lincoln is wearing

2T-3T shorts (3T only if they have adjustable waist, some are even 24 months!!)

3T-4T pants (adjustable waist, needs 4T for length this fall)

3T-4T shirts - we are buying 4T for fall/winter

Size 10 shoes

Lincoln is still very much in love with the Cars movies. He has all the cars at home and plays with them every day. He still loves music and dances all the time. You'll often hear him singing or humming to himself while he plays. He sings songs from Cars movies, Sunday School, Mickey's Sing Along, and the Disney Movies we watch all the time. Right now it appears that The Little Mermaid is his favorite. With Tarzan or The Little Engine that Could being very close runners up. We got him his very first "big boy bike" with training wheels last month. He LOVES it!! He would ride it all day, every day if we would let him!! It's a Schwinn, and very nice! I hope Aspen likes it, she'll probably be riding it too!

Lincoln started Pre-School this month!! He is on Bust'r Bus, a free mobile pre-k program for Burke County. He goes Tuesday and Thursday from 10:15-12. The first day he went he screamed the ENTIRE ride there, "I don't want to go to Bust'r Bus! I don't want to get on the bus!!" He screamed the entire way up the stairs of the bus and was still crying when I walked away. Aspen and I went to the Food Lion just around the corner so we'd be close if they  had to call us to come get him. Fortunately, he made it through with no problems! His teachers said he didn't cry for more than 5 minutes and then was just fine and played with everyone. Phew. We've been back twice now and he's seemed to enjoy it. No more crying or tears. Here is our first day...soo sad! Notice the tears on his shirt!

We visited with mamaw a few weeks ago, a BIG surprise for her as Mom didn't tell her we were coming! We played in the creek and everyone got deliciously dirty!

Anthony was in the Soldier's Reunion parade in Newton for Carolina Orthopaedic Sepcialists. I had the joy of wrangling both kids while we watched the LONGEST PARADE OF MY LIFE! 

On the kidney front there is no news. Just continuing to do dialysis manually 4 times a day, sucking away 2 hours of our lives. No one else has been tested as a living donor, all the others who turned in paperwork were refused for one reason or another. We don't know why, and wouldn't know they were refused without them telling us. Unfortunately, the living donor coordinator at Baptist has left and there is a new girl in her place. That means that poor girl is trying to catch up, figure things out, and take over. When Anthony called a few weeks ago to check up on his possible donors she seemed very frazzled and not entire sure she knew what she was doing. There is one woman from Anthony's mom's church who was a potential donor and was called in to be tested, the week before Thanksgiving. She declined that appointment because of the holiday. They took that as dismissal entirely and shelved her info and didn't call her for a repeat appointment. So she is now filling out paperwork again and hopefully she will be allowed to be tested this time. Everything just feels like "hurry up and wait."

As of August Anthony has officially been on the transplant list for a year. The average for Baptist's wait list is 2-3 years. Hopefully we're getting close. I'm not sure how ready I am to take care of a patient recovering from a kidney transplant, but I'm ready for Anthony to be back to his old self again without dialysis sucking away his time.

On a sadder note, my grandmother, Moppy, is at Hospice. She's been home with hospice care for several months now and she continues to go downhill. She is in congestive heart failure and every single breath is a struggle. She is swelling from the fluids and needs constant oxygen.  I went to visit her at Hospice House yesterday and it made me very sad. She was heavily drugged and couldn't even make it through a sentence without falling asleep. I took her SweetFrog yogurt as a treat, but she could only eat a few bites. After talking with Mom last night she told me they had given her a new antibiotic for her kidney infection and had reacted poorly, that's why she was so swollen and out of it when I visited yesterday. Hopefully she will be well enough to come home again, but I fear she won't be around to see another Christmas. 

VCUG

Today we drove to Charlotte to Levine Children's Hospital. Aspen was scheduled for her VCUG this morning at 9:00. Thankfully Lincoln spent the night with Nana so we didn't have to worry about getting him up and ready and out. No matter...we were late anyway. We never got very good directions so we just went by the GPS. Ugh...not always the best plan. Since I've been driving to Charlotte so often with Aspen's little helmet I could've gotten us to Morehead street a lot quicker and easier. Oh well. Once se got there we couldn't find parking...it was like a maze. Tons of buildings and lots of parking but so much of it was labeled as doctors only or staff only...

Once we got into Levine's I must say that our experience was amazing. From the front desk lady who checked us in and walked us all the way to our waiting area, to the sweetest nurse ever (except you, Tori :)) in the radiology department, everyone was so nice. We felt welcomed and taken care of. The nurse in radiology was cheery and talkative and really put us at ease as she talked us through the procedure. If you want to know more specific details about the VCUG go here. Basically they catheterized her to insert some contrast into her bladder. Then they wait and watch as she pees to see if there is any reflux out of her bladder back into her urethra and her kidneys. That could continually cause scar tissue and lead to renal failure...see past posts about Anthony. 

She screamed the whole time. The whole time. But I must admit that on the scale of Kyla.... I didn't even shed a tear. And I thought it was going to be awful! We laid her on the table, they did their thing and they put the x-ray machine over the top of her body. Anthony and I stood at the head of the table and cooed at her and loved on her and tried to soothe her. Nothing worked. But she didn't kick and wiggle and try to get away like I thought she would. She was very tame and just screamed. She actually peed very quickly and we were done very quickly. She was very ready for us to pick her up and she whimpered for a little while afterwards, but no lingering fussiness. She didn't seem to have any problems the rest of the day either. Our appointment was at 9 and even though we were just a tiny bit late we were walking out of the hospital by 9:45. We wouldn't even have gotten out that quickly if we had been at our doctor's office! Simply fabulous. 

Aspen slept all the way through the ride to Charlotte...waking her up at 7 am is definitely a far cry from her usual sleeping in until almost 9. She nursed before we left and then she actually snacked right before the procedure and we offered her milk cup during to see if it would calm her down. It didn't. On the ride home she just thoughtfully looked out the window until about Gastonia, then she knocked out again. Anthony had taken the morning off to go with us, thank goodness. Since we were finished and home so early we decided to have some lunch. So we grabbed Olive Garden as soon as they opened at 11. Hooray. 

All in all it wasn't nearly as scary as I had anticipated. I must say that I prayed all night last night while falling asleep, and when I woke up in the night to hear Aspen crying. Now we just wait until Tuesday for our follow up appointment for the results. Anthony said he watched the whole thing on the screen and didn't see any backflow. So we'll see what the doctor now has to say after they send him a report. We are praying that the test shows that all is absolutely normal and we can just get back to having two beautiful, happy, healthy kids. No more worrying about appointments and procedures. Well, except for the well checks in early April! 

Just a little photo to make you smile...

Sissy is learning to sit in a chair. In fact it's soo cute! She's learning to back up to sit down in your lap or to put her hiney in a chair. And she loves sitting in Lincoln's Thomas table like a big girl! 

She sat down with her book and just kicked her feet. It's precious!