Annie is here! She was officially placed with us on Tuesday night, and life has been nonstop crazy since then. Since she doesn’t eat table food, the traditional birthday celebrations were a bit tricky. We made pancakes and bacon for her birthday breakfast, but she just tossed hers off the tray. We didn’t know until Tuesday afternoon that she would be coming home with us that night, so her birthday present from us hadn’t come in the mail before we had to leave for the day (pediatrician appointment, flu shot, bio family visits, small group in the evening–super busy birthday!). We’re going to have a calmer day tomorrow, so we’ll be stretching the birthday celebrations into the weekend.
Life with this cutey pie is not dull. Her eating issues are challenging, and the driving for all the therapies is going to be intense, but she is WORTH it. She usually sleeps for about 11-12 hours at night and naps 2-3 hours if she’s home in her crib. If she falls asleep in the car (as she did today when we came back from Simi to pick up the rest of the family for our afternoon activities), she will not transfer and will not go down for another nap later. She does have a lot of delays, but she’s starting to babble and repeat words to her. She tells us “out” when she wants to get out of her high chair or when she has pulled a toy out of another toy. She says “Row Row” when she wants us to sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” her favorite song. If we sing most of the line and leave off the last word, she will fill in “Boat!” “Seem!” “Deem!” She can repeat our names and pretty much any word we say to her over and over. We started teaching her the “My God is so great, so strong and so mighty!” song when she started visiting us, and now as soon as we start singing it, she starts waving her pointer finger for the “there’s nothing my God cannot do” part. She loves to clap her hands and have us sing songs that involve clapping. She loves music in general. She likes sitting on Tommy’s lap and playing the piano or pulling herself up to hit the keys while the girls are practicing. Music calms her down when she gets too wild and helps her focus.
She is starting to take steps with the walker, and hopefully our birthday present of new shoes that zip around and fit over her orthotics will help make walking even easier. She has even stood on her own for a split second when she’s holding onto something and lets go to grab something else, but she freaks out as soon as she realizes what has happened and sits down at once. She crawls everywhere and cruises along any place where there are people to see. She is definitely an outgoing extrovert. She met a bunch of new people at small group tonight, and she just got right into it, playing at the play kitchen along with the two other two year olds. Karen, her PT, is thrilled with how much progress she’s made since she started staying with us part of the week, and I’m excited to see how well her physical development goes now that she’s with four big siblings all day, every day!
Annie’s Two Year Stats (not adjusted for gestational age–we’ll have to get her measurements in another 15 weeks for another comparison):
Height: 30 1/4 in (1%) (Janie and Susie were 34 1/2 inches, Elizabeth and Tommy were both 35 inches)
Weight: 18.9 lbs (1%) (Janie was 24 lbs 8 oz, Susie was 25 lbs, Elizabeth was 28 lbs 10 oz; Tommy was 33 lbs 6 oz