Unringing the Bell

Nine Months

In a couple days, Rainer will be nine months old. Like many other parents who get through these first months, it seems unfathomable when you reach this milestone (same number of months out as in), that it could have sped by so quickly.

And it has.

Except of course when it didn't.

It is true what they say about the days and hours lasting forever, but the years (or months in this case) passing in the time it takes to sneeze. Not all our hours are great ones. We deal with poopy diapers and resistance at bedtime like the best of them. Occasionally still, we have some middle of the night feedings (though, thank you Rainer, for mostly forgoing them lately). There are teeth (four now!) that irk and bother--everyone it seems.

I don't want to focus on the drudgery of it all. We've come a long way since those first twelve weeks of colic and upset (when I FINALLY figured it out that it was the MILK!!! Duh, Mommy!) and I want to list a few things I just don't want to forget.

Rainer:

1. You love to pucker your lips and sniff and exhale repeatedly. It's a joke I started with you one day and now your greet us like that. You make piggy faces and snort. And it delights you (and me).
2. Your first two teeth were the bottom two middle. You are now working on the top two middle. You make some seriously funny faces with your big ol' mouth and your big ol' teeth.
3. Long ago we started playing a game where we bicycle your legs and say "Fat, fat feet!" This is because your feet are HUGE. Like little hams at the end of your legs. Unlike G and her dainty ankles, you have cankles. And I love them.
4. If you fall forward in any startling way you let out a shriek of epic (and girly) proportions.
5. You have started to do "so big" and you think you are pretty cool.
6. Your sister can hit you over the head a hundred times a day and you still seek her out like she is sugar on snow.
7. One of your favortie things to do is stand under the dining room table up against a chair and SHRIEK in delight. This is also one of your sister's favorite things for you to do and she will often beckon you over by laying down on the floor near the table as if to say, "Come on over here. Do that funny screaming thing."The two of you laugh and laugh together.
8. You LOVE to eat, but you've been tapering off the last week or so. I think we have finally convinced you that there IS more food. You don't have to cram it all into your maw at once.
9. You love just about every food item we have given you, but you particularly like bananas, mandarin oranges, and grapes (diced tiny, don't worry). You also LOVE graham crackers, anything your sister is eating, and yogurt smoothies. You can suck am entire smoothie through a straw in 5 seconds flat.
10. When Georgia is at preschool you and I get 90 minutes to play alone together two times a week. I think you like that attention.
11. I nurse you to bed every night and we listen to Renee & Jeremy. Some nights you try to convince me you are not tired even though I know you are, but we sit and rock and you giggle and stare at me.
12. You wake up at about 6:30 almost every morning lately (I WILL remind you of this in high school.)
13. You would rather be outside. Always.
14. Car rides are not your favorite. Short ones are ok. Long ones are NOT ok. You are some kind of independent!
15. You crawl with your right leg extended (just like your sister did) more often than not.
16. You can't quite clap yet, but you get an A for effort and enthusiasm.
17. You cry if I catch your eye before I leave the room. (That is why you often see the tail end of me darting over the threshold into the kitchen when I need to dash off to get something done.)
18. You love to make noises with your finger and lip.

I am sure I couldlist a million other things that I don't want to forget, but that is all for tonight. Except this video. Rainer taught himself to "walk".

Edited to add: I just had a visceral reaction to watching the first few steps Rainer takes in this video because it dawned on me that the literal course of his first few "steps" are the same path Georgia took just last May (2008) when she scoot/crawled for the first time. Seen here. It's so hard to believe, watching that video how far she has come and I can only imagine where Rainer will be this time next year. Also, seeing both of my kids make their first forays into independent mobility along the same path? I guess this really is home!

Welcome to Charm City, USA

Did you know Baltimore is also known as the Charm City?

Georgia was eating a rice cake and acting silly this afternoon.

Rice cake on cheek.

Georgia was posing for this next one. She stayed like this until I snapped the shutter. That ham.

But then she gave me attitude.

And animated again.

One of Georgia's fake smiles.

Sign 'cheese'.

Sign 'drink'.

Silly G.

Rainer had a run in with a blueberry pancake.

Peek-a-boo

Yesterday Georgia began playing peek-a-boo with us and thought it was HILARIOUS. This morning, I caught her entertaining her brother with the same trick.

Hey, Rainer. Luke Perry called...

He wants his hair back.

Cavity Myth & Food Question

The talk about whether or not it is true that people with DS have fewer cavities recently surfaced on the CT DS Congress Board that I am a member of and this email came through this morning.  Thought it was interesting, so I am passing it along:

There are still a lot of myths out there surrounding our children, and unfortunately, the medical profession is not immune.  The myth that kids with Ds don't get cavities is based on data collected on  people who were institutionalized through the 1970s.  Institutions did not feed people food that would typically be seen in the community at large, therefore, cavities were more rare in the institutionalized population.  Since we raise our kids in the community, the incidence of cavities are the same.  The CDSC has partnered with the St Raphael's Hospital and runs an Adult Assessment Clinic for persons with Ds.  Dr. Kerins heads the clinic and has spoken at the CDSC about these types of myths that continue to hang on.  Cavities seem to be one of these.

It may help your dentist to know this so that his treatment of L. is not unintentionally short changed due to the cavity myth.

This email was in response to a food discussion that has been going on and something I have been wanting to ask you folks about. What do your kids eat? And do they have any oral sensory issues? Georgia does fine with toothbrushing, seems to actually enjoy it. She definitely needs a lot of oral stimulation (as evidenced by all the chewy tubes in a lot of our pictures of her). She has 7 chewy tubes and we are always frantically looking for one because if she doesn't have one when she has the urge to chew, she will chew other inappropriate things (i.e. we just had to put a protective plastic edge over the corner of our TV hutch because she's been gnawing away it). 

While she is not the sort (nor has she ever been) to pick little things up off the floor and eat them (like her infant brother will), she'll try chewing on almost any toy or larger object. Lately, too, she has been licking. I call them taste-tests because she doesn't continue to lick anything, she'll just "try" it once or twice. A window, the mirror, the refirgerator door, and lately, she has been coming up behind me while I am sitting on the floor, wrapping her arms around me and licking my back! (I'll admit, it's kind of cute.)

She will taste test almost anything, anything non-edible that is. Georgia is almost 32 months old and while she will eat (readily) things like crackers and veggie sticks or pirate booty she is still MOSTLY eating soft foods and purees. We still use a lot of baby food in this house and almost NONE of it goes to Rainer who is still under 9 months.

Georgia's regular diet, I think, is rather healthy. This is in large part because she will not eat cakey or bready foods. Her diet consists of a lot of soups, well-cooked pastas and grains, pureed vegetables and fruits, yogurt, applesauce,eggs, and the like. Oh, and she will eagerly sign ice cream and eat that up no problem. Or pudding.

As you can see it's almost all soft stuff. If there are TINY bits of chicken or meat mixed in with her soups we can get them in her, but she is still spitting out anything with bready textures other than her crackers and the other items I listed above.

She has really gotten away from finger feeding at the table (not that she was ever all that willing to do it because hse is a MAJOR food thrower) and she is still not self-feeding with a spoon. Though she has proven she CAN do it, again, the throwing makes it almost impossible.

She drinks with an open-mouthed cup (or nosy cup) assisted (because of the throwing). She has not figured out sippy cups or straws. Every meal, every sip of a beverage is administered by Alex or I. Thankfully her brother is self-feeding or it would make meal times pretty difficult!

We are going to see a sensory OT at Kennedy Krieger in August. Hopefully that will help. But I wonder, what are your kids doing with food these days?

Just thinkin'....

Rainer is cruising all around this week. He's walking with G's shopping cart toy and it's a good thing we got the retract-a-gate up on the stairs when we did. (By the way, I FULLY recommend the retract-a-gate. Fully!) And he is standing up in the middle of the room all on his own for several seconds at a time. In fact, he just stood up much in the way Georgia used to just pop up in the middle of the room (only without the flourish and speed Georgia had). What I mean is he just went from sitting, to squatting, to standing, without holding onto anything! How the heck do these babies do that??!!

We are keeping busy with a bit of travel and a lot of house projects. I was diagnosed with a heel spur yesterday so I got a shot of cortisone and a foot brace thing-y and hope that helps with the pain I have been having (and don't think I ever discussed anyway, come to think of it).

Plans are moving forward on our basement with a few changes. Now we decide how much we do ourselves and how much we hire out. We're waiting on estimates.

I'm going back and forth and back again on deciding colors for our master bedroom, but the good thing through all the house stuff is that it makes me excited about staying in this house for awhile. I was getting all realtor.com happy when I saw how much home prices have dropped, thinking that perhaps we could get into a single family home for a good price. But I think we have realized that getting OUT of our house for wait we paid for it would be possible, but not quickly. Also, we like it here. We like our neighborhood, we like how close we are to SO many things. Our yard is small, but it's really all we have the time to manage right now. There is plenty I want to do with our little postage stamp, but I am learning patience (if nothing else) these days.

Essentially, what I am trying to say is that we are trying to make our home our haven. Going away this weekend helped drive that home. Coming home is a blessing. We go on walks and we run into neighbors who are eager to chat with us about their dogs or hometowns or the kids. And though I never wrote my one-year-anniversary in our first home post (back in April), being somewhere FINALLY for a full year and then some feels good.

Alex and I will be married four years at the end of summer and we have already lived in 4 houses and 3 states. I like seeing what happens in the garden year to year. What changes the neighbors make. What the village association does for follow-up yearly picnics. Going to the same DS picnic each year.

So many things.

I think it's a good thing to have a library. YOUR library. And here, we actually have quite a few to choose from! There are things around that I don't love. The retail and strip malls, the traffic, and yes, the crime (which thankfully is generalized a few miles out from our home), but the longer we're here, the easier it feels to get around. Streets feel familiar, I don't take the GPS everytime I leave the house (and I don't need it). We've found that some absolutely beautiful country is at our fingertips. I am looking forward to the fall and our trip to Weber's (and beyond) for pumpkins. I am eager for the fall, the takes it's time in coming, and better yet, going.

For some reason, in July, I am anticipating the upcoming seasons. Fall, and winter, the holiday season which will never be the same what with Rainer's birthday kicking it all off on Halloween and Georgy's birthday two weeks before Christmas.

Even the heat is tolerable because we are lucky enough to have our home (and the AC if we need it).

We are lucky. I'll be 33 in August. Our wedding anniversary 9 short days prior. We are going back to the town we honeymooned in a couple weeks and up north to New England.

And our basement is going to be a playroom, true, but it is also going to be a guest room! Certifiable!

Who wants to visit? We got a cruising, 20lbs, 8-month-old trouble-maker....


Who would love to entertain you with his funny faces.

(This is a hand-me-down table from my sister and her family, note my nephew's "signature" on the underside!)

And did you know we have an artiste in the house?

Georgia is going to early intervention preschool two days a week and this is her very first school art project! (She can both sign and say what it is! Why, it's an 'isssssh!

And this is G visiting with her cousin, Julia last week. (J is 6 years old, and suddenly looks HUGE to G's 2 1/2 little body!)

Voice Revealed

Georgia was rolling around on the floor this afternoon clearly bored after her nap so I started filming her because it reminded me SO much of what it felt like to be a kid and bored--but not necessarily unhappy about it--on a Sunday summer afternoon before dinner. Then I remembered what the SLP said about filming some of G's signs (since she never "performs" when the teachers/therapists are around) so I caught her doing some of them.

We usually go through her signs about once a day (at least) just so they stay fresh. Since she is adding new ones all the time we need to keep adding them into the routine. Of course today while filming I was drawing a blank on what signs she knows so these are but a few. Her sign list is now up to about 80 words! (Actually, I am totally surprised by that because I just did a count and could not believe how many there are.)

I can hardly believe, but since surgery (less than two weeks ago) she is starting to say more words as well. I don't know if it is the surgery or just that she was about to make this break-through anyway, but we'll take it however it comes. I don't have all her spoken words written down, but she actually says a couple things in this video. Mostly just names of letters, but I think she also says 'hi'. As far as the letters go, it's fun to watch her pointing out and saying letters in her day to day world (on t-shirts and boxes and toys, etc...). Also, she will randomly say "moo" or "baa" when we talk about animals and she knows more than half the signs in her Oh My, Oh My Oh Dinosaur book without our even prompting. Some of the signs are "made up" for instance she plumps out her cheeks for the "Dinosaurs plump" page, but she'll flip through the pages on her own making the signs. To me, this is early literacy. LOVE it! If you know me, you know books and reading are important to me, so this just makes me so happy.

Anyhow, here's a video if you care to watch it. It's kind of long, about 8 minutes, but I think it's a good one if only because you can SEE Georgia's thoughts processing right on her face as she recalls signs and there is an ultra-cute sigh thrown in there at one point, too.

Glad to See Ya'

The only Glad who decided to come to the garden party this year.

Basement Re-do

We can't afford to do what we really want to do to the basement, but we're finally getting off our butts and trying to make the basement work. We had French drains installed in early spring and since then it has been in shambles. Concrete dust and filth and STUFF everywhere. We tore out the ceiling tile because it had started falling and admittedly this was a sort of dumb move because now instead of just trying to fix the messed up areas we have to figure out an entire solution (let me remind you, we have no money).

We looked through tons of options and ultimately if money were no issue we'd probably have chosen something else, but because it is, and because we want to do this ourselves, we've decided we are going to paint the ceiling. It's low so putting in new tiles would sacrifice almost an inch of head space and we just DON'T have an inch to spare. The tiles that WERE up there were CRAP and old (and probably full of asbestos which is not fun at all) and so...yeah.

It might sound funny to paint a basement ceiling. I mean, we have wall joists and ductwork and all sorts of stuff up there, but we've been investigating it and we've seen it done pretty well. (see example) It will be a bit of an industrial look, but we're hoping that we can soften that when we fill it with furniture and toys.

Ultimately it will be the playroom/guest room (and possibly I will finally have a craft corner, but I will need to gate that area off from the ruffians of course). Honestly, my first priority is play/guest room. We have to play musical beds when we have guests which is fine, but I'd like to have a designated area for people to stay. Also, I am SO SICK OF TOYS ALL OVER THE UPSTAIRS!!! (You should see it now, it looks like a bomb went off.)

Honestly, we're not going to probably want to play down there ALL the time, and we'll have to get a space heater b/c even though their are vents down there the winters are still cold, but we have a small tv, we'll get a dvd player, a new cover for the futon and some HUGE soft pillows, some storage for all the toys and I think it will work out ok. Not perfect (I mean, I DO still want to turn our outhouse down there into a certifiable bathroom), but at least usable space. Right now it is storage. And not well though out storage at that.

Alex and I just spent two hours moving everything out of the big room (our basement is split between the finished and un-finished sides) and tomorrow we even hired a babysitter to come stay with the kids for three hours before naptime so we can tear the rest of the crud out of the ceiling and start getting it ready for paint!

THEN, we'll see if we want to paint the wide-board pine walls. It's paneling, but real wood paneling. I originally liked it, but now I think it is WAY too dark (we only have three basment sized windows down there and while it DOES let light in, I think light colored walls would make all the difference. We're doing the ceiling white, I am thinking a pale apply green on the walls. But that'll probably be down the line so I can't begin to fret over colors right now.

And there you have it, a positively boring post about our basement.

But first, a question. What do you love/hate about your playrooms? What do we NEED?

(Gratuitous pics follow.)

Just a Fine and Fancy Ramble to the Zoo

Alex took the day off of work. He took it off last week in preparation for Georgia's recovery, but since she had a truncated operation and she's doing really well we decided to go ahead and keep his vacation day and go to the zoo. We have a membership (sent to us from an anonymous benefactor, though we have our suspicions) that expires at the end of the month so we figured we'd get at least another use out of it. If the weather is as nice as it has been, chances are we'll go a couple more times before the end of the month, too.

Georgia didn't have any pain meds today and though she did seem a littler more tired than usual she wasn't overly cranky. In fact, most the day she was just great!

We just went to the zoo a week or so ago when my MIL was visiting, so we only went to our favorite exhibits (the chimps, the polar bear, the rhinos), but we walked by a bunch of others--some we didn't even realize were there and missed the last few times.

Rainer was pretty tired, but he managed to stay awake for the whole outing. He's determined, that one!

It's been hard to get good pictures of him with my point and shoot lately because he is always on the move, but here is is looking like he is about to back hand me. Apropos that his shirt says "Don't Bug Me!" Of course, he's generally a pretty happy little guy.*

We ate a picnic lunch for the second day in a row. I can't believe how grown up Georgia looks sitting at the picnic table eating her lunch. Here she is signing "Mom" while I take her picture.

She was really happy to be allowed crackers again. She wasn't allowed any for a few days after surgery for fear of bleeding, but she never stopped signing for them!

Cracker crumb face while we await the tram.

And on the way home, she fell asleep...

... while sucking on her bib. Such an oral fixation that girl! Although her brother, at this stage, is into sucking/chewing on anything he can get his hands on, too. At one point the car was quiet except for the sound of the kids chewing. I asked Alex, "Imagine if you and I always had to be chewing on something, too???" We'd never be invited to dinner parties. (Because, you know, we GO to so MANY dinner parties."

*Rainer, I don't know WHY we didn't get many good pics of you this time. You were just mellow and relaxed and hanging back, so I guess I thought there would be a zillion of the same picture. Not that I don't have a zillion of OTHER similar pics of you. But the ones I got in these bunch were mostly blurry. You know we love you. (Mom guilt rares her ugly head.)

(Edit to add: I just have to mention, too, that is G's first skinned knee (in the last picture). She did it yesterday when we were walking to the park. Funny, she's been holding my hand while walking lately (suddenly/out of the blue), and she was holding my hand when she fell. She still randomly goes limp noodle. What is UP with that?)