Saturday, February 21, 2009

2 Year Checkup

We had to take Adelae to the doctor yesterday for her 2 year checkup. After the last appointment when she screamed the whole time, I thought I'd better prepare her. So, I spent the last few days showing her how to open her mouth wide and say "AHHHH" and pretend checking her ears, eyes, nose and reflexes. We pretended so much that she was ready to rock the doctor's appointment. She told Ben and I in the car "Adele's turn doctor. Say "AHHH," check your ears, check your eyes." I was excited! I thought "This is going to be a breeze!" Well, as with so many things, I was wrong. Not just a little wrong, but absolutely dead wrong.
She was fine when the nurse came in and I was chatting about Adelae's various ailments (possible extra tooth and chronic constipation). Then it came time to lay her down on the bed to check her height. (In case you're not familiar with this, it's simple. They lay the child down, make marks on the paper at the top of the head and the bottom of the feet. Then measure it with a tape measure.) Adelae started SCREAMING! Not crying, not protesting, but shrieking at the top of her lungs. Her little eyes immediately filled with tears, she started kicking, swinging her arms and thrashing her head around. I thought "This is NOT going to go well." As you can guess, the rest of the appointment went pretty much the same way. The poor doctor was barely able to even look in Adelae's ears, nose or mouth. We're pretty much going on the assumption that if she can scream that loud for that long, nothing is wrong!
The best part of the visit? She had to get a shot. Oh boy...that was NOT fun! Thank goodness the staff is very quick at giving shots. It seemed that they were a little hesitant to schedule Adelae's 3 year check up! Hmm....wonder why......
On the bright side, Adelae has gained about 4 pounds in the last year and is finally above the 10th percentile in weight. We've been trying to bulk her up! She stands roughly 34 inches tall, about the 50th percentile for her age. The doctor does think that Adelae has an extra tooth, but was unable to get a really good look at it. Apparently, extra teeth are very common in children with cleft pallets (Adelae's was fused a birth, so we're not sure what the actual side effects will be. Apparently it's extremely rare, so we're just all playing it by ear.) The doctor referred us to a pediatric dentist and encouraged us to make an appointment as soon as we can. We're going to try some natural remedies for Adelae's chronic constipation before we resort to seeing a specialist or medicines. Right now she is very limited on the amount of dairy she can have and is to get prune juice at least once a day. If that doesn't work, we're to eliminate dairy completely. If THAT doesn't work, we have to call the doctor and get a referral for a specialist. Luckily Adelae likes prune juice. She actually asks for it!
If there is anyone that would like to volunteer to take Adelae to her first dentist appointment, let me know! I'm betting that will be a lot of fun! ;-)

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

My baby's 2!!!

I honestly can't believe that Adelae is 2!! She is growing so fast! I keep telling her that she can stay at this age for a year if she wants. I'm pretty sure she has other ideas though! We had her party on Feb 14, her actual birthday. We had a nice turnout of friends and family. Adelae is currently obsessed with anything Cinderella, so that was our theme this year. She had a great time and enjoyed all of her presents. Of course, now she thinks every day is her birthday and wants presents every single morning! Silly girl! I'm putting a few pictures on here, but you can find all of them at http://ftwaynecollinses.shutterfly.com.

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Videos

Thursday, February 12, 2009

17 errrr, I mean 15 weeks!

I thought for sure I had this pregnancy thing figured out! Well, I was wrong! I was so excited to get my ultrasound on Monday. I was really thinking that I was far enough along to find out the gender of the baby. But, the little bean had other plans! Turns out, the baby was only measuring about 15 weeks 2 days instead of 17 weeks 4 days. So, we weren't able to find out the gender. Everything else looked great though!!! The ultrasound technician did tell us that if she HAD to guess, she'd say a girl, but she wasn't very comfortable even telling us that. My doctor said he doubts that we'll get another ultrasound unless they missed something on this one. So, it looks like this little bean is going to be a surprise!!! (If you know me at all, you know I HATE surprises!) My new official due date is August 1. I'm also not very excited about being 9 months pregnant in July! Especially in a house with no air conditioning! YIKES!!! On the bright side, I do have the option of trying for a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean section).

Here are the ultrasound pictures of our little bean. My favorites are the last two. I love the last one the most. It looks like the baby is saying "I'm Number One!" (or picking it's nose.)

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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

When You Have No Sled

Ben has some great memories of sledding at the Paulding Reservoir when he was a kid. He remembers him and his siblings loading up in the car and sledding for hours. He was so excited to take Adelae sledding this year. We were all set to go, till we realized that we didn't have a sled! Ben's spirits were crushed! If you know Ben at all, you know he is great at improvising. After the last big snow fall we had, my Dad came and plowed our driveway. Ben decided to take advantage of the big piles of snow and make some slides for Adelae. I'm not sure the process that went into it, but knowing Ben it was elaborate. Of course, he couldn't just stop at one slide! He made her three! A little one, a medium one and a big one. Needless to say, she had an absolute blast playing on them. On the days that these videos were taken the temperature was hovering at about 20* and it was very windy. Ben's plan was to take her out for about 10 minutes, I think it turned into at least 30! I was assured that they had a blast and got very warm immediately after coming inside.