Slipped again...

ahh... I don't know if we'll ever get passed this.

Arianna's latest weigh in, at 28 months actual, 25 adjusted ... 24 lbs. 2 oz. or 10th percentile for her adjusted age. She hasn't been on the weight charts for her actual age since 12 months.

She eats really well but is having some behavioral problems at meal times and its a hard line to walk regarding teaching her proper meal time behavior vs. getting her to eat. Since I've been on bedrest hubby has been doing all the cooking and I'll be honest - we're eating badly. He just doesn't think of wholesome and nutritious foods for meals. He thinks of ease and meat... that's it. So when I get out of bed to get to the table I have to remind him to get things for her to eat but at the same time our nutritionist says she should eat what we eat. Then comes the temper tantrums - she'll start playing with her food (usually squishing it in her hands) and we'll remind her that food is for eating not playing and then she'll start throwing food and yelling. So then its time out (again) and then she won't eat anything else for the rest of the night "NO! I don't like food!" (Well, duh, I know that!)

So we try to make up with it at breakfast by giving her high fat foods for breakfast (waffle COVERED in butter, yogurt and milk) and she'll eat all of it and then some. She continues to eat well at daycare but dinner time is really hard. She's also really active and running all over the place now - so that's hard too.

But I look at it this way, she looks healthy and no one is overly concerned because this has been her path for over a year now. She's a very happy toddler (despite her spending the majority of her day at home in timeout...seriously) and very active... we'll start adding in more fats again and hope it makes a difference at her next weigh in.

Oh ya, and on the potty training front - she's a super start. More accident free days than not! I may actually get my dream of having only one kid in diapers soon enough!

Conversations with a 2 year old

Arianna: Daddy, I've got a boo boo!!!
Dad: You got a boo boo honey?
Arianna: Ya, it really sucks Daddy


Lovely... Almost as good as "I don't like it!!" Or the new answer to "did you wet your pants?... "I don't know...". um, ya.

I thought this was cute...

Most of the comments I hear from people when we talk about homeschooling involve socialization. It seems everyone knows 'someone' who is or was homeschooled and they are social misfits and don't fit in etc. People hold onto this one person as the shining example of the result of homeschooling. Have you ever met a public/private schooled person who would fit that same description of social misfit who doesn't fit it. I've met many more of them than the homeschooling kind.

Truth of it is that socialization and outreach to the community needs to be a priority of the homeschooling parent and its not as hard as you think it is...

As a homeschooling parent you need to be prepared for the critisism and understand that the majority of it comes from ignorance. Don't let anyone else's ignorance dictate how you choose to raise your kids - stand tall and stand up for your kids :)

2 years later...

... and it still bothers me when Arianna does cool stuff at daycare and I'm not there to see it.

I'm very grateful for the home based daycare that Arianna goes to. Its wonderful and Arianna has really blossomed since attending. It's really amazing what being around other kids can do for ones development!

Today she's going strawberry picking for the first time. When I heard this all I could picture were the really cool photos I could take and fun scrapbooking layouts I could make. Only I'm not going to be there to take the pictures because I'm working. Its great that she gets to go but I'm so sad I can't be there.

2 years of someone else watching her grow and experience new things - 2 years of someone else broadening her horizons and exposing her to great news things...

I can't wait for the fall to come...

Dodged a bullet!

We picked up Arianna's new glasses today and I think we're going to have a hard time getting them off her face - a good problem to have. She loves everything about her new glasses, including the funky pink case that comes with them. She even took them off and put them on correctly afterwards - which amazed me. Boy did we dodge a bullet with this one - I think she'll do just fine with them!

Waiting patiently with Dad for her new glasses (but she has the case so she's happy!)

Trying them on for the first time - no tears or even blinking!

Doesn't she look totally adorable?!

She is definitely seeing things differently now - she was walking more cautiously and on the drive to daycare she was pointing out everything in the car that she's never noticed before. I think she'll do great and it was a great move for her!

It was inevitable

Yesterday Arianna had her 2 year appointment with the ophthalmologist and her vision is still 4.5+ in both eyes. She can't see very far away and when she tries her eyes cross, severely. So it's time...

Her doctor told me that girls handle glasses better (personally I loved my glasses as a little kid) and after about 3 days its no longer a struggle to get them to wear them because they'll see so much better! I hope this is true for Arianna also.

I have some research to do to see which glasses would work best for her. I'd love some words of wisdom from any parents who have helped a toddler adjust to glasses. My parents were spoiled when I was young and my Dad's vision plan included unlimited glasses - with me making the transition to 'stay at home' mom this fall we won't have ANY extra money and I need to make sure we don't go through glasses like water!

Any advice is surely appreciated! I bet she'll look totally adorable in them!

Special preemie

I wanted to take a moment to tell everyone about Landon, an preemie that I 'met' on the internet shortly after Arianna was born. He was born at 30 weeks and had a very rough road - as it turned out he had a rare mitochondrial disorder that is incurable.

His family lives in Missouri and is trying to move to Houston to be closer to the only doctors that have been able to help him. Please check out his website and consider making a donation to help their move. His mom is an amazingly strong woman that I can only hope to emulate.

Success!

This weekend, as beautiful as it was, we locked ourselves in the house. A few months ago Arianna's daycare teacher was potty training her son and Arianna showed interest, so she started potty training her too. She was successful there! At home it was a different story - she wouldn't sit on the potty and was wetting herself often. So we took a break. This past weekend we decided to try again.

I picked up this book at amazon.com and both Shawn and I read it cover to cover - its only about 50 pages and most of it is real common sense stuff. It advocates a very positive reinforcement to potty training over the course of 3 days.

I'm happy to say that by the end of the second day Arianna had gone both pee and poop in the potty and by the end of the 4th day was more successful using the potty than not. This morning marked day 5 and she started the day with no accidents (a first!).

We threw away her diapers as was advocated by this book - she doesn't even wear them to bed. She still has accidents in the middle of the night, but with time it will get better, and we've already noticed a big difference. She will nap during the day and stay dry! We're having such good success with this book that I wanted to make a post to tell others about it. We were really clueless about where to start and this book laid a good foundation. I can't say we follow it word for word but instead have adapted it to our needs and its worked well.

Our reward system includes candy corn, jelly beans and stickers - she is very proud of herself when she goes pee and poop and is giving us many good signs. Her daycare teacher is continuing the great work we are doing and Arianna does great in her care during the day. I couldn't be happier with how well she is doing.

My mom tells me I was 4 before I was potty trained and it looks like by the time baby #2 arrives we'll have only one in diapers - that's amazing to me!

...2 now...

Today was Arianna's due date. May 28th, in 2006, fell on Memorial Day weekend - would have been nice to make it that far. We ask Arianna (or awinanna as she calls herself) how old she is and she always replies with "I'm 2 now!".

We met with her nutritionist yesterday and it looks like we may be saying goodbye to her soon. Arianna weighed in at 24 lbs. 4 oz. I trust this scale because we've been using it for months. I don't trust the GI docs scale - how can she gain 2 whole lbs. in 3 weeks when we haven't seen any change in her eating? She couldn't have. I'll stick to the nutritionists scale.

As of right now she's back to where she was at a year old - 15th percentile for BOTH height (33") and weight. It took us 15 months to get back there, but we did it - and she looks FABULOUS for it!

Milestone #1

Did you notice?

I made it to 24 weeks today... not something to celebrate, for me, because it was never my goal - but I made it! Since everyone always says that everything happens faster with subsequent pregnancies I was worried about delivering even earlier (and still am) but I've made it to 24. Here's to another 11 without complications!

What do you mean there's none left??!

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone had a fabulous Mother's Day! I thought I'd post some pictures of how we spent ours:

Arianna and Mom in the backyard (she's practicing for new brother/sister with her baby doll)

Arianna enjoying her new slide!

Checking out her new Elmo picnic table set!

Arriving home after dinner with grandma and grandpa (isn't she adorable?!)



Her first night in her new toddler bed, and she did great!

Arianna Update

I've been negligent about posting here and I'm sorry for that.

Yesterday Arianna was released by another specialist - Gastroenterology. She hasn't been on Prevacid since just before March and at this appointment, although she hadn't put on any weight (still just under 23 lbs.), she grew 3" in height! Wow! Her feet grew 3 sizes in that time too, so we're finally doing some growing. I have noticed that her pants no longer drag on the ground, which is good!

We've become much more lax with her lack of weight gain lately. She eats really well - almost anything you put in front of her. I'm very guilty of not making enough veggies for her to eat during dinners - but I'm such the anti-stereotypical pregnant woman right now - housecleaning and cooking are the FURTHEST things from my mind... I could totally care less about that stuff. But she's also very active and spends a large part of her days outside at the home-daycare and at home. We've been slowly accumulating more and more outdoor items for her to play with/on. So even though she's still in the 1-2% on her actual chart for weight, we're not too concerned because she still looks good and eats fine. There has been some research pointing to problems with glucose regulation in preemies that put on a large majority of weight in their 2nd year, so I won't push calorie intake any more than she wants. Even her nutritionist tells us to take cues from her - she's doing really well otherwise so don't push it or she'll develop bad habits.

Tomorrow EI comes back to the house for another PT evaluation. Arianna is doing much much better with her gross motor but is obviously very behind other kids her age. She's very clumsy running and very slow doing anything that requires a lot of muscle coordination (walking up stairs for example). But she'll climb up the metal slide at daycare and climb up the little plastic obstacle course they have there - things she would never do without the intervention of other children. I doubt she'll qualify for extra services but I seriously doubt that she will be dismissed from EI either. We're getting a lot of help from nutrition and its obvious she's still gross motor delayed.

On other fronts her fine motor skills are really coming along great! We've been working on coloring much more the past few weeks and she's come very far - she'll actually color in the general area of a picture that I direct her to color (color Big Bird's beak) and pretty much stay in that area. We're still working on colors right now - this week is the color red which she has yet to identify when I ask her what color the crayon/marker/object is etc. She's counting really well now. We work on counting nearly every day and she's doing wonderfully with that - counts up to 20 with help but to 13 without any help at all. She actually corrects the other kids at daycare when they get it wrong. She knows all her letters in uppercase and we're working on lower case letters too - she's so cute when I ask her what the letters are too "oh, that's Big A and lil' A Mama!". She'll even sing the "ABCs song" all the way through now! She's got a wierd love of nursery rhymes right now and asks us to sing them all the time - so we finally got some CDs from the library because we got sick of singing them all the time. A car ride without one of these CDs is NOT fun! "TD (aka CD) Mama. Three Blind Mice peeze! Bus... Mama... play bus peeze!" (Bus is "The wheels on the bus" song).

She's unbelievable fun now and its making my pregnancy really fun. Sounds odd huh? If Arianna was still in her 'whiny, annoying, sick baby' phase I would be dreading a lot of my pregnancy and the pending 'bundle of joy'. But she is really an amazing joy to be around now - she's so smart and funny. She makes me laugh every day. Although the memories of her early days haunt me I am very encouraged by the amazing, fun little lady she has become. I'm very excited for the fall when I'm home with her because of all the bonding experiences we can have. She's a giggle machine right now and its the one thing that is sure to bring a smile to my face during the day!

Preemies in school

I have been doing more reading in the preemie internet community and have seen alot more talk about 'wait until your preemie gets to school to see the problems s/he has'.

This got me wondering. Why does that matter? Why does it matter that s/he is not on equal footing with peers of their age range? Why does it matter that s/he has many disabilities that could be a part of their early birth?

It matters because we are trying to fit our children into a pre-determined mold. We are trying to make them like everyone else instead of tailoring their learning experience to their individuality.

This is something I have struggled with lately - mainly because I've watched how much faster Arianna is picking up her preschool curriculum than the older children at her home-daycare. I'm very worried that when she starts school she will be smaller than all the other kids yet be more advanced academically and as a result will waste time in school where she could be learning more rather than waiting for everyone else to catch up to her.

She will be 2 years adjusted at the end of the month yet knows all her letters and counts to 20 on a regular basis - she actually corrects the other children when they get it wrong. She knows many nursery rhymes and will sing them (or demand we sign them to her: "Mama, sing Three Blind Mice peeze"). This is wonderful - I'm so glad she is learning so well and loves it! But at the same times its not wonderful - she is not at a maturity level for that type of learning environment. Much like myself. I was always academically on par with my peers but socially immature and I suffered for it.

I already know Arianna and I are very different people personality wise - she won't be a push-over like I was. She is very much a girl in a number of ways but she won't be a blubbering mess if someone says something mean to her - she'll usually be mean right back, which is great. But I don't want her academics to become stale because everyone else has to 'catch up' to her.

What's the solution? Not enrolling her in preschool for starters.

I will be leaving my job when the new baby arrives to stay home and will work on all the typical preschool requirements with Arianna on my own. She will do great with one-on-one learning, that much I know. But what happens when I have to release her to strangers who won't show the same love/enthusiasm/dedication to her learning that I do?

I don't know, but as each day goes by homeschooling looks better and better. There are many obstacles to overcome (social stigma for one, there are very few homeschoolers in my area) and my own personal apprehensions to work through but it does seem like an ideal solution to a problem that many parents face - prematurity or not.

Tailor the environment to your child rather than forcing them into a mold that they will never fit.

I don't like babies...

Yesterday I was on the phone with my best friend and we were talking about our kids - as usual. I could hear her little guy making all kinds of baby racket in the back groun - so much better than the usual screaming and crying I hear.

We got to talking about the problems I've been having in my pregnancy and about babies and we both came to the same conclusion.

We don't like the 'baby stage'.

Arianna's reflux, failure to thrive, failure to breastfeed, developmental delays and constant illness for her first 16 months were very draining on me. I dreaded having to stay home with her when she was sick because I knew what the day was going to consist of - her throwing up and screaming the majority of the day. It was very stressful and I hated that I had no control - I couldn't make it better.

Kathy's little guy had severe food allergies and reflux and was colicky for 12 months. What was worse for her is that she was a stay at home mom with no car during the day the entire time.

I want nothing more than a perfectly boring pregnancy but I'm not getting it. I want nothing more than a kid that doesn't require NICU time and will actually breastfeed... and I want nothing more than to be able to keep this one out of daycare. We're working on the last one but the other 2 are out of my control - and I hate that.

When you have something special...

Today I went to a scrapbooking crop - the last one I have scheduled for the year due to my pregnancy. I sat with my friends Becca, Jean and Melissa and we had a lot of fun chatting and enjoying each others company.

I'm home now, working on cleaning up my scraproom and taking pictures off my camera and I feel compelled to make this post about friends.

I am very lucky that I'm at a point in my life where I feel pretty content in my friendships - I know which ones are keepers and which ones are worth my time. My friend Becca will help out in a moments notice - I can call her just to talk and we meet up for coffee after work a lot. I feel lucky to have found her through scrapbooking.

My friend Karen recently got married and moved to Boston yet we make it a point to get together at least once a month for a girls afternoon. We email and talk often and it makes me feel really loved to know that she, despite working as a busy attorney and living in Boston, makes time for all her friendships (she has tons of friends too, so this is quite an achievement!). Heck, she's even babysit for me for an entire day once! I don't think she knew what she was walking into! haha

My friend Brenda and I email constantly throughout the day and get together every few weeks - I was just at her house last weekend. My friend Kathy and I got together with her to catch a movie and do lunch. Her husband just got into photography so I went over with my 'bag of tricks' to show him what I had and we played. I've known Brenda for a few years and its refreshing to STILL keep in contact and still have that friendship.

The friendship that means the most to me is my friend Kathy though. I've known Kathy for 21 years now - I can't believe how fast time has gone by. She's moved back to our home town and is a stay home mom to her adorable 13 month old little boy. They only have one car so getting together with her isn't easy but we still manage to get together often and talk a lot. Today I'm downloading pictures off my camera that I took at her little boys first birthday party last month - Kathy will come by the house tomorrow to pick up the CD. I just finished making her a birthday card - a belated birthday card because I was a tool and forgot her birthday was this last Friday. We both chuckled about that on the phone today - we prefer to start forgetting them now that we're approaching 30. But I still felt bad because she's my best friend - I should know better, especially when I have a stack of ready-made birthday cards right here at my desk.

I saw Kathy last weekend and next weekend we're getting together again. I am so lucky that I have the opportunity to do this with her because I know its not easy, being new moms, to do that - especially when she has only 1 car and lives 20 minutes away (in the northeast that's a pretty good distance) - but we both realize that we need to keep in contact so each other knows we can count on each other.

I feel very lucky that I have these friends to count on. What's even better is knowing how supportive they are of me and everything I do. I hope in the coming weeks I won't have to ask for their help because I'm on bed rest, but I know they'll do it if I ask. I'm lucky in that aspect and I hope I do enough to tell all of them how much I appreciate them.

Fire tips for children

This is an alarming video and important for parents to watch.



I'm hoping Arianna proves true to a previous smoke alarm 'test'(mommy has alot to learn about cooking) and wakes up for us...

I've been productive!

You'll remember from this post that I had my weekend retreat this past weekend.

I had an OB appointment to get my first 17P shot in the morning but then I drove home and my friend Becca picked me up and we started our trek up to Madison, NH to Purity Springs Resort.

Its not surprising to me how much stuff I had to bring but it would be surprising to some people to see that the two of us packed Becca's Civic to the hilt - she could barely see out her back windows with all our bags!

We stopped somewhere off the highway for lunch and arrived at the resort for 2 PM. We checked in and immediately drove over to the hall where we would do our cropping. I was really amazed at the number of people you can cram into a hall this size. There were at least 80 people in our room and there were another 2 halls of smaller size with another 45 people - amazing!

We each had 12 sq. ft. of space to work on at brand new solid wood tables - I hope they get better chairs for next year. There were also several local vendors there selling stuff to those of us that can't resist new papers or stickers (like me...).

The retreat was all inclusive and the food was awesome - I really have to stop stuffing my face. Vacation is OVER! Yikes. I was good, at least, and enjoyed lots of salad (in addition to the yummy blueberry pie :( ).

Our room was nice but sleeping was a little rough. I opted for the bed closest to the bathroom but it was a bunk bed and I've started getting bad leg cramps at night so I was jumping out of bed real quick to get out the cramp and I hit my head on the top bunk twice... ouch!

Otherwise I was very productive - I completed 50 pages! I have enough pictures, however, for an additional 200 pages! I hope to have them done before the end of the summer - I think this is very wishful thinking though.

On the bright side Becca and I both put down deposits for next April's retreat - I'll need it when I'm home with 2 kids!

She likes vacations...

We met with Arianna's nutritionist last week and found that, since the day before we left on the cruise, Arianna had put on 14 oz.! Wow!

She's back on the chart for her adjusted age - 5%! WOo HoO! She's not on the chart for her actual age but she looks good, so I won't complain.

She has another cold this week but seems to be eating ok so I hope this weight gain trend continues!

Potty Time!

I was surprised last Tuesday when I picked up Arianna at daycare.

She didn't have any pants on. Actually neither did the other 2 boys there. They were all wearing underwear!

Karah, the teacher has been working on potty training the older boys (3 and close to 3) and has started with her son who is a few months older than Arianna. She had no intention of working with Arianna until she found she was really interested in what the boys were doing.

Now she uses the potty at daycare!

So I broke down and went to Target and bought her 13 pairs of underwear - Dora the Explorer (who she's never seen before but know who she is??!), Minnie Mouse and, of course, Elmo and Zoe.

We locked ourselves in the house this weekend and kept her in underwear almost all day (except nap time). Karah is using the 'timer system' at daycare - putting the kids on the potty every 30 minutes. Friday night I started with Ari and found 30 minutes was too long - so I shortened it to 20 minutes and Saturday she was dry most of the morning. She wouldn't go 'pee pee' in the potty at all. She doesn't mind sitting on the potty though!

She's kinda cute when she has an accident. The underwear are still a bit big on her (the smallest size they had was 2T, which is still too big for her) and they hold nothing and would immediatley end up on the floor when she wet herself. She stands there, looking at it, yelling "OH NO! Oh NO! I made a mess! OH NO! OH NO!". Its incredibly cute, the first few times.

We were vindicated though. Sunday I was visiting with my parents so we could go to the wake of an extended family member and Arianna did #2 in the potty!! I was so excited for her and she was too! I got her an Elmo sticker and she was so proud of herself!

I hope today marks another good potty day at daycare and that she'll soon transfer that to home. I'm still in awe that she JUST turned 2 and is getting this already - she continues to amaze me!