Nine Month Old Lorelai

Lorelai is pictured here in the same outfit Abby's 9 month photo was taken in. Lorelai weighs almost 17 pounds & has two teeth now (bottom center). She mostly wears 6-9 month clothes. She laughs a lot, claps a lot, waves and says three words: "Mama", "Dada" & "Hi!" She is a proficient crawler, pulls to a stand, cruises along furniture, and can climb up stairs. She can stand alone for a few seconds at a time. She still has to put everything in her mouth. This past month she has exhibited stranger anxiety.

She is eating three meals of solids per day for the most part. She added broccoli, chicken, watermelon, beets, cauliflower, applesauce, beef, and onions to her diet in the ninth month. The meats are carefully chosen to be from grass-fed, antiobiotic-free, hormone-free, pasture raised, cage free chickens and cows (all I need are images from Food Inc. to remind me it is worth the added cost!). Since we are delaying grains until after Lorelai turns one, we introduced meats now to ensure she is getting enough iron. Lorelai got to sample the delicious goodness of organic strawberries as well this month when we ventured to Jen Ehr Farms on Father's Day to pick strawberries. Lorelai is still nursing and taking pumped milk in my absence. Her intake of Mommy's Milk has decreased as solids have increased. She takes about 12 oz of pumped milk in my absence on workdays. She nurses about five times a day when I am home.

We have not discovered any allergies as of yet, thankfully. She may be sensitive to egg yolks, or maybe was not ready for them yet, as she seemed to spit up a little more when she got them...so I am treading lightly with egg yolks.

Lorelai has been a healthy little peanut. She barely has had a cold in her nine months of life. We are really really fortunate.

Lorelai seems to have turned a corner with her night-time sleeping. She has slept through the night (8 PM to 6:30 AM for her best) without her usual 1 AM or 3 AM waking more consistently recently. She naps twice a day, usually for 1-2 hours at a time. Often her morning nap is taken on the go. I can usually lay her down drowsy, but still awake, and she will not fuss. She usually sleeps in a sleeveless sleepsack and drifts off with a lullaby music CD in her room. She hasn't used a pacifier in months and does not suck her thumb. Her bedtime and naptimes have not been all that consistent since our schedules are often dictated by whatever activities Ben and Abby are occupied with and Lorelai has been pretty flexible and adaptable with this. We are very lucky!

Ben and Abby sure enjoy her. Although not encouraged, Ben will be caught picking Lorelai up and carrying her to another location. He's not just trying to keep her out of his toys- he does not want her to get anything she could choke on! Lorelai will laugh on cue when Ben and Abby dance for her, make silly faces, or just smile at her. She loves them to pieces. And we all sure love her!

Eight Month Old Lorelai

Lorelai hit the eight month mark this past week. She weighed in at the pediatrician's office the week before (since we were there for Ben & Abby's annual check ups) at 15 lbs, 13.5 oz. She is long, though we did not take measurements. Still a little peanut!

Development-wise, she is a more proficient crawler. She pulls up to a stand. She has even stood alone for a few seconds before falling. She claps a lot. She continues to try and explore everything with her mouth.

Her appetite has grown. She added carrots, peaches, mango, zucchini, plain whole milk yogurt, pears, parsnips, apricots, asparagus to her diet in her eighth month. Yogurt and carrots seem to stand out as favorites (besides Mommy's Milk). She seems to prefer to feed herself with her fingers than be spoon fed. She nurses about 5-6 times in a 24 hr period. She continues to take about 14-15 oz of pumped milk during the workday in my absence. Still no visible tooth!

Her sleep patterns are pretty consistent. She typically takes two naps a day and sleeps about 11-12 hours at night, with bedtime anywhere between 6:30 PM and 8:00 PM (inconsistent due to our other activities with the kids, Wednesday night softball, etc.). She adjusts/adapts fine. She is a content little baby. Very easy going. Very happy!

She loves to follow her siblings around and adores their attention- offering many squeels of delight and giggles in response to their attention. She is willing to play in her pack n play outside while I supervise Ben and Abby playing with our neighbors. Lorelai is such fun!

Seven Month Old Lorelai

Another month has flown by. Our little sweetie pie is now crawling!!! It is amazing to witness the progression. She was sitting well and then began to lunge forward to reach a desired object. And then she was up on all fours. Next, she mastered her coordination to move forward on all fours. She finds her way back to the seated position periodically.

Lorelai has gone from smiling 24/7 to having this determined look in her face 24/7. She is so busy. She won't sit still!!! Lorelai is definitely keeping us on our toes!

According to our home scale, Lorelai weighs about 15.5 pounds. She weighed the same one month ago, according to my last post; however, at her recent pediatrician appointment (at 6.5 months), she weighed 14 pounds, 8.5 ounces...so we might be off a bit.
Lorelai has tasted hard cooked egg yolk, sweet potatoes, bananas, avocado, green peas, butter, green beans and squash in her seventh month. Egg yolks do not agree with her. She does not eat very much so far, about 1-2 Tablespoons per day between 1-2 meals. She nurses 5-6 times per day. She takes about 15 oz of pumped milk between two bottles on the days I work.

Lorelai usually takes 2 naps per day, from 1-3 hours at a time. She has fallen into a much better rhythm in her sleep patterns. She goes to bed around 7 PM and rises at 6 PM, with 1-2 wakings per night most nights.

I can feel the bottom of some teeth- up top and center; however, still no visible tooth!

Ben and Abby can make her laugh and squeel with joy so easily. Lorelai loves to be tickled and snuggled and sung to. She appears to mimic us when we clap. On a few occasions, I thought she repeated "mama" and maybe even "dada" tonight. She is really fun and sweet!

Introducing Solids

We celebrated Lorelai's 6 month birthday and then introduced her to her first solid food the next day: mashed hard cooked egg yolk.

If you ask her pediatrician, egg yolks are not a good choice to introduce at her age, due to the fact that eggs are a common allergen. While I appreciated his perspective and acknowledge that fact, neither Kurt nor I (nor Ben or Abby) have any known allergies and since egg yolks have a lot to offer nutritionally, we went for it.

I cannot say how much of the yolk actually went into her mouth, as the novelty of the spoon was more interesting to her. She mostly played around with the bowl and spoon. As expected, it was pretty messy. Day 2 on egg yolks has come and gone and so far no reactions.

Next week, we will probably try sweet potatoes and then bananas.

Six Month Old Lorelai

The first half of Lorelai's first year has flown by! I can still recall my impatience waiting for this little miracle to happen (in mid to late 2008) and the thrill of discovering we were pregnant with her in January of 2009....Then the fear of losing her. And finally the joy of meeting her face to face for the first time in October of 2009.

Here we are, six months later, and she has almost doubled in size. On our home scale, she weighed 15.5 pounds on her six month birthday. Her 6 month well-check appointment is not for another week and a half because I was not on the ball with scheduling it. I did not try to measure her length, so we will get her stats at the 6.5 month mark.

Sleepwise, this past month was not the best... Lorelai falls asleep nursing and does not want to part with her latch on Mommy. She does not take a pacifier but essentially Mom is her favorite pacifier. So we are working on finding a different comfort measure for her. She sleeps well on her own for several hours after retiring in her crib around 7 PM. She will nurse around 2 PM and sometimes does not make it back to her crib. Her Mom and Dad could do better with this; we have been pretty lax. Lorelai naps 2-3 times per day, with one of those naps being a good one, for about 2-3 hours. The transition from the swaddle to sleep sack has been a struggle.

Lorelai is a happy baby. She rarely cries. When she does, it is because she is in her crib and does not want to be. Lorelai laughs a lot, especially when watching her big brother and sister. She is completely engaged when she has their attention.

For her first six months, she has been exclusively breastfed. She loves to nurse. We began to introduce her first solid food this week.

Developmentally, she is on track. She sits well independently and she enjoys her view from the sitting position the best. She rolls both ways, but being on her tummy is still not a position she enjoys being in very long. She does a strong push up. Lorelai manages to move around to reach a desired object, but does not actually crawl yet. She babbles and screeches. Everything she reaches for and grabs goes in her mouth.

Still no visible tooth. She has been teething since the beginning of January, yet no tooth to be seen. Her outfits are continually soaked with drool, as her Mama is too lazy to keep her in a bib. She's had a rash from the drool for the past month.

Healthwise, we continue to be blessed. She had the one day fever over a month ago, mentioned earlier, and nothing since.

In this picture, Lorelai is six months to the day.

"C" is for Celiac

Our dear sweet Abby has experienced months of GI issues. We have finally found the "culprit": Celiac Disease.

Celiac Disease is an autoimmune disorder. It is a permanent sensitivity to gluten (gluten is found in wheat, oats, barley and rye). Unlike an allergy, you cannot outgrow it.

Up until the end of last summer, Abby had no symptoms. She was growing well and we never noticed a reaction to any foods we introduced. She had her first solid foods at five and a half months of age. I made her Super Porridge from whole grains like brown rice and millet from the Super Baby Foods book by Ruth Yaron. Her baby food was all homemade organic fruits, veggies, beans and meat, with the exception of store-bought jarred organic prunes. We did not notice any reactions to any of the foods. Her growth always hovered around the 70% for height and 20% for weight.

Sometime in late summer 2009, when Abby was at least 2 1/2, her bowels became loose. At first, we dismissed it as a little virus. We were not concerned because she was otherwise healthy. When it continued to persist, we took her to the pediatrician. He weighed her and examined her. She appeared healthy and growing normally. He was unconcerned. I called when we continued to see no improvement and he suggested taking her off dairy and any supplements (she took fish oil and probiotics). We tried that for a month, but I was not satisfied.

We took Abby to a chiropractor who does food sensitivity testing. She suggested that Abby is sensitive to dairy, egg yolks and fish (including fish oil). So we continued to keep her off dairy and fish oil, stopped feeding her egg yolks, and gave her a rice protein vitamin shake (as we were concerned about her calcium intake since she wasn't consuming dairy), probiotics and flax oil. We did this for a month and felt there was some improvement; however, she continued to have GI issues.

I called her pediatrician's office again. I requested that Abby be tested. The nurse asked if we wanted to schedule an appointment. I said "no" as I knew he would just weigh her and tell me what I already knew: she was not losing weight. I was concerned that she was not absorbing the nutrients from her food as I often could see whole food pieces that she never digested. We also could see that she was distended. I called again a few days later, spoke to another nurse, who was more sympathetic and who was able to get the doctor to write the order for bloodwork (CBC and celiac panel among others) and stool samples (to test for parasites).

A few days later, our pediatrician called with the results: it looks like she has celiac disease.

The good news was the CBC was fine. She was not anemic yet. Also she had not lost weight (May 2009: 26.5 lbs, December 2009: 29 lbs, March 2010: 29 lbs). He recommended us to see a GI specialist at Childrens.

I was frustrated at that time, because I felt that he had originally minimized my concerns and only tested her after I was persistent and pushed him to do so. I was frustrated because, in addition, he advised us to put her on a gluten-free diet right away. This advice was wrong. Luckily, my good friend has a background as a PA in a pediatric GI clinic and explained that we should not change her diet until she has an endoscopy, or it will affect the accuracy of the results.

Another friend responded to my Facebook inquiry for a recommendation on a peds GI specialist at Childrens. She recommended Dr. Josh Noe and was able to get us in sooner that the scheduling department at Childrens was booking (5 days vs 1 month).

The same night we learned the results of Abby's bloodwork, I had already ordered two books off Amazon. Luckily, they arrived in time for us to read most of them before our appointment with Dr. Noe.

We have learned that celiac disease is relatively common: 1-2% of the population have it. It is terribly underdiagnosed/misdiagnosed. According to many sources, about 97% of those who have it are unaware of it.

Dr. Noe strongly encouraged the endoscopy to confirm the blood test results. While the blood test results are 98-99% in terms of accuracy and specificity, the only confirmation of celiac is the biopsy of the small intestine. It is a 10 minute procedure and would require that she go under anesthesia....but because the impact of the celiac diagnosis is so great, requiring a lifelong change in diet, a definite diagnosis is highly recommended.

We are blessed that this disease is treatable with a change in diet. We are blessed that it was caught relatively early. We are blessed that we can afford the alternative food choices. We are blessed that we have access to so much information, resources and food choices/substitutes and that awareness of celiac disease is so much greater than in the past. We are blessed to have a store like Good Harvest Market nearby, with its great gluten free selection and labeling. We have the tools to heal Abby.

We are so especially blessed to have our little girl, Abby!!!

Five Month Old Lorelai

Weighing in at approximately 13.5 pounds, Lorelai hit the 5 month mark this past Sunday! She is a sweet, smiley baby.

Her siblings have a ball with her, as Lorelai is such an attentive and responsive audience for them. Ben loves to make Lorelai laugh... he tickles her, he makes faces, dances and sings for her...these efforts are often rewarded with Lorelai's smiles and giggles which continue to encourage him! Abby loves to hug and kiss Lorelai.

Lorelai is an easy napper (for her mother anyway). She will sleep about 2 hours in the am and 2-3 hours in the afternoon on the days I am home with her. Nighttime lately has been a different story. She will go to bed rather easily around 7:30 PM. The early part of the evenings is easy/smooth...then around 11 PM or so, when Mom is ready for bed, she often makes her first plea for attention. The night is a bit of a blur and morning usually finds Lorelai in bed next to Mom. We wake between 6 and 7 AM. At least Lorelai starts out in the crib...it is improvement over her carseat! She did sleep better in the carseat.

We have tried to put her to bed in her sleep sack, without being swaddled, several times so far. It has not been very successful yet. She still sleeps better swaddled.

She does not care much for the pacifier...Mommy is a better pacifier these days.

She gets a bath before bed every three days or so. She has a good time in the bathtub now, kicking with excitement as soon as she realizes she is in the water.

Lorelai is still exclusively breastfed or offered pumped milk. We will start her on solids at 6 months old. She feeds about every three hours during the day (on demand). When I am at work, she usually takes about 15 oz between three bottles.

Lorelai continues to roll from front to back. She still is not very interested in being on her tummy. She rolls to both sides and grabs her feet to stick in her mouth, but won't make the conscious choice to roll from back to tummy.

Her spit up is minimal, but the drool is constant! We change Lorelai's outfit 2-3 times a day, basically because Mommy is too lazy to put a bib on her. She loves to be held, sung to, and tickled. She puts everything in her mouth and reaches for Mom's food.

Lorelai had her first fever on March 1st (100.1), but fortunately, it lasted less than a day and did not require treatment. We are thankful that Lorelai has been blessed with good health these past five months.