some pics and video

Sorry for the length of this post, but I have no idea when I'll get the time to post again!!



This is a video of Katie talking with Dan. He can get her really going! She loves her Daddy soooooo much! I never get much more than a goo from her ;)



Alex fell asleep on the couch one night, so we put Katie beside him and draped his arm over her. This is the only way I can get a pic of him holding her--he won't do it any other time!!




Me and the kiddos...Alex fell out of my lap just as Dan was taking the picture!






We had Dan's mom over for dinner, and we were trying out our Wii Fit for the first time....Alex was running around and then just curled up on the floor beside the balance board and went to sleep! It was only 5:30 at night too...




Alex LOVES the balance board for Wii Fit!










First time in a Bumbo...














Such a handsome boy!!!

Katherine is 2 months old!!

I know I'm a bit late, but you know....

Katie is now almost 2 1/2 months old...At her immunization appointment she was weighed and is already 11 lbs, 12 oz!! She loves her food....Actually, she doesn't like soothers, so she's always on the bottle. I hope she out grows that soon. We are still having a few night time troubles; as I type, it is 9pm and Katie is still awake. I'm letting her cry it out a little bit--she is more whining than anything. She tends to do that right before she drifts off, so we'll see how this goes! She is also having a bit of reflux issues, and I took her to the doctor. He suggested an anti-reflux formula, but I can't find it for sale in Canada, so I'm going to try one of the formulas for babies that spit up frequently. If that doesn't work, then I have to take her back and she'll need medication.

ALex is doing well. We went for his EEG on the 1st, and will get the results early next month. Infant development has said that no news is good news, so I'm optimistic that it is normal. We also took Alex for his final blood test, and we'll get those results soon as well. (side note: I just went and checked on Katie...She's talking away to her baby monitor!). He has picked up about 8 new words in the last 3 weeks, and has perfected a few he was already saying. For example--he knew how to say 'bye', but now he will wave and say it to kids when they're walking to school, or when people leave the house, or when I leave him at daycare.

We went to Osoyoos for thanksgiving since I haven't been up to see my Dad all year (we tried numerous times, but something always came up and we had to cancel). It was great to get away and to spend some time with family. We had a great weekend, but on our trip home Dan suddenly developed a Bell's Palsy, and so once you added the hospital visit into our travel time, it took us 9 hours to get home from osoyoos (normally a 4 hour drive). For those of you who don't know, Bell's Palsy is a sudden onset paralysis of one side of the face (in Dan's case, the left side). It can be caused by a virus, inflammation of the facial nerve, or from a stroke. Given Dan's cardiac history (he has very high cholesterol, and has had angina from time to time), we went to Chilliwack Hospital (we had stopped for a quick bite, and that's when we noticed it) just to make sure it wasn't a stroke.

So far, a CT scan has revealed no bleed (so stroke is unlikely) and his face is slowly starting to improve--probably due to the steroids and antivirals the ER Doc prescribed. Dan has to go back and see our family doctor next week just to see how things are going. He may need a follow up CT, but since there has been improvement, probably not. The doctor said the prognosis is divided into thirds--1/3 recover completely, 1/3 have some recover but not 100%, and 1/3 don't recover at all. We are just waiting to see which third Dan is a part of. Hopefully we'll no soon---Dan is very self conscious about how he looks, even though you can hardly notice it. It's just really hard to see him go through this. I think he's been through enough the last 18 months!!

I promise I will get some videos of Katie up when I can. I have to use Dan's computer and as you can guess he's usually using it!!

Wow, I need more time...

I realized today that I haven't posted about Katie being one month old, nor have I been able to give proper updates on a regular basis either....Ahhhhh, to have 2 small kids!!!

We'll start with Katie, she's the easiest! She will be two months old next week (my goodness, where does the time go???), and she goes for her first set of shots on Thursday...We'll see how much I cry this time! I think I may have cried more than Alex when he had his first set...We got through her first two illnesses--an eye infection, then a cold, which, of course, her and I got it the worst out of the whole family. She started smiling just after her six week 'birthday" but until a few days ago only had smiles for Dad. I only got smirks from her, and then one morning I went in to see her and got a huge grin from her--it was wonderful!! She also has started cooing, but she is much more reserved than Alex was. Alex was talking up a storm by 8 weeks old, while Katie tends to save her conversations for Dad, and the odd comment for Mom ;) She is also (finally) starting to have a regular schedule that I can predict. She wakes shortly after Alex, so around 7am, then is ready for a nap about 8:45 or 9am. She sleeps for an hour, then eats, is awake for a bit, then usually back asleep by 12 at the latest. On a good day, she sleeps until 3, eats, then goes back to sleep until 5, is up until 7 or 7:30pm, then sleeps for a good 5 or 6 hours before waking again. On a bad day, she sleeps until 1 or 1:30, eats, then sleeps again until 5 or 6, gets up for about an hour then is back in bed. On a really bad night, it's after midnight before she is asleep again. I've attached some pictures from her 6 week old shoot we did--they're fabulous!

Now onto Alex......Alex is doing really well in his speech development. He has about 55 words that he has said at least once, and almost 50 that he uses properly on a regular basis. 2 months ago he had 4 words only. He can also use sign language for 'more', and we're trying to teach him 'please' and 'open' as well as 'help' in sign language so that he can communicate better with us. Infant development was here on wed. last week, and the lady asked Alex to come and sit down beside her so they could play with a toy together. She said 'sit down' 2 or 3 times, then Alex looked at her and yelled "SIT DOWN!!!!" right at her! It was priceless! He then went and sat down beside her...

A lot of his speech is proper language (I believe), but I think he just says it unclearly, and so quiet that we can't understand him. I think this because so many times he will be saying something, and it almost sounds like a coherent sentence, but I can't quite make out what he's saying. Some of it is so clear that I wonder if it's just me not taking the time to listen, and that's why I don't understand. For example--Out of nowhere, Alex went into the kitchen and started banging the cupboard door right beside me at 6:30 in the morning. Katie was still sleeping, so I said "Alex, please don't bang the cupboard". He did it again, so of course I said ( a little more emphatically) "Alex, don't bang the cupboard!". Alex's response? "Mommy please?" very quiet and almost slurred together, but he said it, I heard it, and so did Dan. My response? "saying Mommy please does not make it ok to bang the cupboard!". Kids..................

Another quick story...Alex just learned to say 'bye', and not waving (he's been waving for 18 months now), but actually saying 'bye' to people. Today Dan was out mowing the lawn, and was going from the front yard to the side and back, then to the front and so on. Each time he disappeared from the front window and around the side of the house, Alex would say "bye" and wave to Daddy (although Dan didn't know this). Then, cars started driving by, and Alex started waving and saying bye to them too...So cute!!

Alex had his EEG on Thursday, and we'll get the results at our next pediatrician appt. in November. We were actually able to complete the test, so we don't have to go back and have it redone. I'm happy about this for a few reasons:

1. I hate driving in Vancouver, especially in the rain on a gray day in rush hour.
2. It was a pain in the ass keeping Alex up late, waking him up early, then making sure he didn't fall asleep in the car on the way out.
3. Just the simple fact we had to take one of our kids to Children's hospital for a test is not something I would like to repeat. Routine or not, healthy or not, it was very hard to go through that, and I don't want to do it again. EVER. and I think that even if I wasn't a super emotional person it still would have been hard to do it. Especially when the EEG lab is right across the hall from oncology.

So, now we just have one more set of labwork to do, and then all the test are done (I hope!!!). During my pregnancy with Katie, I kept saying that I thought she is going to be our difficult child because she gave me the most non-medical troubles...I was wrong--I think Alex is going to be! Although, the truth is Alex made me very sick medically during my pregnancy with him...

Hopefully I'll be able to keep up a little bit better with my posts now that things are starting to slow down....