Lately, many people have been asking me how she has adjusted in the year that we have had her. I haven't really written about her growth lately, so I thought I would take a little time this morning and share how she is doing.
As of 2 weeks ago, she weighed 25.2 pounds. I tried to measure her at the doctors and she appeared to measure 33 inches tall. But when I measured her at home, she only measured 32 inches, so I am not completely sure. (Ri weighs 22.2 pounds and is 31 1/2 inches tall) Since we have been home from China, she has had 3 episodes of pneumonia. It seems that as soon as she has a runny nose, the next day she is beginning to settle into pneumonia. I am not a doctor, but I will not be surprised if she has some problems with her lungs. I can not believe how quickly a cold goes into pneumonia for her. During her last episode of pneumonia, one doctor diagnosed her with bronchial asthma instead of pneumonia. The next day, her regular doctor diagnosed her with pneumonia. I was told that the doctor does not want to diagnos her with having asthma, but that he suspects that she does.
She has seizured twice, both times it was just before finding out she had pneumonia. The siezures are related to high fevers. They are called feveral siezures. After calling the squad twice, we are told that as long as we are comfortable, we can just ride it out at home and not call the squad. She will be fine, it is me who might not be! It is terrifying to see her go into them. The first one, she literally stopped breathing for a few seconds (though I felt like it was hours!). The second siezure, I was home alone. I felt fine through it, though my husband assures me that I did not sound fine on the phone. Looking back, I think I will have to agree.
Other then the pneumonia and the siezures, she is in great health! As for speaking? Well, I think she is catching up with her peers. I haven't sat down and thought of all the words she can clearly say without any prompting or needing to repeat after me, but I will try right now: Mom, Dad, Em, Erin, Ty, bye, hello, cat, cow, row, shoe, dog, Elmo, Mamaw, Uncle Paul, God, bath, bottle, drink, please, towel, no, yes, shhhh, me ... and I am sure that there are dozens of others. She can repeat just about anything I ask her to and it is somewhat clear. She goes on and on and on with sentences that she thinks makes complete sense. She will tell me a whole story, with a very serious face, but I have absolutely no idea what she just told me. I finally am feeling comfortable about her speech.
She loves to sing songs. Whenever she is fussy in the van, all we usually have to do is start singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Bingo, Old MacDonald, or The Ants Go Marching and she will stop being fussy and start singing with us. It is very cute. Sometimes she will be sitting in her carseat and out of the blue yell one of our names and say "Row,row,row". I have caught her trying to sing the hymns in church. She points to the words and starts singing something right along with us.
Her favorite thing is Elmo. She can watch Elmo over and over. She also loves Barney and Clifford. She loves being read to and will finally sit through most of the books. She can stack blocks, color, put hardwood puzzles pieces in the right spots. She can match pictures that are identical together. She can even take puzzle pieces that have pictures on them, but when you remove them from the puzzle, there is no picture to match it up... she can actually put them where they belong now. I think she has an excellent memory and simply remembers where it goes. I don't believe she is matching the shapes yet.
She enjoys playing with babydolls, though I think she enjoys the stroller much more then the baby. She loves pushing her toy stroller around and around. She loads up anything she can into the stroller, walks around the house and then unloads it wherever she feels like at the moment. She loves taking a step stool and pulling it up to my drawers and stand there for 10-15 minutes at a time going through everything in it. She loves sitting on the bar stool at the counter just like the big kids. She loves playdoh and anything else that her hands can "mold".
I finally have broken her of her bottle at bedtime, though she still takes one in the morning when she wakes up. She won't drink milk out of ANYTHING other then a bottle, so I am really struggling getting rid of it completely... but my goal is to have her off it and drinking milk out of a cup by our trip to China. She loves a certain blanket, but does not have to have it to go to sleep. What she does have to have to go to sleep at night is ME. I hope to have her broke of that by our trip too. One thing at a time, I guess. She is finally sleeping completely through the night!
If I have her without a diaper and pants, she will almost always remember to go to the potty.... but as soon as I put underwear, pants or a diaper on.... I can just about forget it. We are working on that one! Again, my goal is to have her trained by our trip to China.
Well, I think that is enough for now. FOr those of you who were interested, I hope taht covers what you were wondering.
All in all... to sum it all up... we have an incredible wonderful, beautiful, exciting, fun little daughter! She is one of our true joys.
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