8 Months Old

Sophie Joy is 8 months old today. Wow. I feel like we're racing towards the one year mark and there's no stopping it. Eeek, my baby! Especially since this week she started playing a little game: I was changing her diaper and she was playing around with her paci. I bent over her and said, "Mummy's turn" and made kissing noises at her. And what do you know, she stuck that paci right in my mouth! And then giggled. Cutest thing ever! I was really taken aback at first, since I didn't expect her to be able to understand the concept yet. She's so small I forget how old she is!

She went for a post-pneumonia follow up today and weighed in at 12.14 lbs. She went down to 12.2 during the pneumonia, so in a month she's put on a decent amount. However, that still doesn't even get her on the growth curve. So, now that she can have pretty much any regular food, the doc told me to load her up with almond butter, yoghurt and cheese. So far she's only had cereal, veggies and a few fruits, so we'll see if we can fatten her up on some dairy!

As far as her health goes, her lungs sound nice and clear, but she is still having a lot of rapid breathing. Since they've ruled out heart and metabolic problems, they want to do a test to evaluate her swallowing. The test will show if she is aspirating milk into her lungs when she swallows. She also has a high white blood cell count in her urine so they sent off a sample to test for another UTI. Poor baby just can't get well. Please pray for her to recover fully, so she can just GROW!

She can now sit on her own and does well reaching for toys. Jack thinks it's funny to push her over, so we've had to have some pretty serious chats about being gentle and kind. Sophie loves him like crazy despite his rough-housing. She is getting more hair and her eyes are a greenish/grayish/bluish. Very indeterminate still. Two VERY tiny little teeth popped through today. I thought she was never going to get any!!! So the milestones are flying by. It is such a joy to watch her growing up and we are loving how her personality is emerging. Love you Baby Girl!

Olympic Fever...

Seeing as we're cheering for Russia, Kazakhstan, South Africa AND the USA, Sophie decided to dress in support of Great Britain...

Portraits

We left our camera battery charger at my parents house a month ago and so photos have been scarce around here the past few weeks. However, my sweet Mum posted it back to me so I was finally able to take photos of Sophie with her seven month sticker on. Now that she's almost 8 months. Ha!

And she just started sitting yesterday, on her own!

Since all the sickness that's been floating around at our house prohibited me from taking her to have her 6 month portraits done, we only just got around to that. Today was the day and she did really well. I had some specific shots in mind, to match ones taken of Jack at the same age and I was pretty pleased with how they turned out.

A comparison of Jack's 7 month portrait and now Sophie's

Sweet baby girl at 7 months old

Busted

These children of mine can't seem to stay out of health trouble from one week to the next at the moment! Today, while playing outside at a friend's garage sale, Jack connected quite badly with the concrete driveway and acquired a nice fat lip as a result. It bled badly at first but once we got it cleared up, I could see it was split on the inside and split quite deeply up near the gum. However, we didn't think it needed stitches so went home to clean and ice it. Jacko seems fine and is quite content to drink from a straw for the foreseeable future!

In other news, Sophie is still having her episodes of rapid breathing, although her pneumonia is clearing up nicely. She had an EKG and ECHO last week and her heart and lungs look perfect, praise the Lord! Since one of the only other causes of rapid breathing is acidosis (there are many, varied and complicated causes for this) she has had blood and urine tests done this week. The blood tests came back negative for blood acidosis which is really good news. Her initial urine tests showed a UTI so she's on antibiotics to get rid of that nastiness. We are still waiting on further results of the urine analysis, which may take a few weeks. I feel like we've been on a roller coaster ride with her health ever since she was tiny and although the tests are turning up nothing, there's SOMETHING going on and it's frustrating trying to figure it out. She continues to be our sweet happy Joy Baby though and she brings so much delight to every day. So there you have it, that's what's been going on at our house. Happy weekend!

Moo

Each year one of our favorite fast food chains, Chick-Fil-A, puts on a fun event called Cow Appreciation Day. If you come dressed up in cow attire, you get free food, all day!!! We have never participated but this year I was determined to get my cow spots together and do this! Jack was a little nonplussed by the whole thing but once he saw his cousins being cows too he played along nicely. And of course those chicken nuggets were a highlight!

Me and my little cows (side not: I drew a black nose on J and then added whiskers. What?! Not sure why I did that but he ended up looking like a black and white spotted cat more than a cow!!)

The cousins twins

Nessa's girls: three little brown cows!

Sophie girl

Emma girl

Thanks for the photos Ness!

Puny

Well, poor little Sophie has been very puny the past few days, as all you Facebook friends know. She's had a cough for a while, which got worse last week and then the fever started. On Friday morning, I took her in to the doctor, as the thought of waiting through the weekend was not appealing. After hearing crackling in her chest, the doc sent her for an x-ray which revealed pneumonia in her right lung. Poor baby! Antibiotics and nebulizer treatments continued all weekend and this morning she was declared "on the mend" at her follow-up. Hooray! And just in time for her seven month birthday today :)

One thing the doctor was not happy with was the episodes of rapid breathing Sophie has. So she wants her to have an echocardiogram just to make sure there is nothing going on with her heart (which looked a normal size on her chest x-ray, thankfully). So we will go for that test in the next week.

Thank you to all those who prayed for her. And happy seven months to our sweet girlie!

Boyo

He's two. And not terrible. Just terribly cute. And funny and suddenly very interesting to talk to. We are loving this stage with our boy! He only started saying words in October and could say about thirty by the time Christmas rolled around. And now, six months later, we are having full conversations, not just about what's happened today or what we're having for supper, but how he feels about all of it. And being greeted by "Mummy, I missed you!" is the best part of my day.

"Sophie, you CUTE" is his compliment of choice for the little sister. And he's desperate for her to "grow big girl" so she can "pfay me". Hopefully he still feels the same when she starts taking his toys! His newest obsession is "base-bat-ball". Yes, he has discovered the world of sports. A large soft toy baseball and a T-ball bat are his fondest possessions. I have had to scrape the bottom of the rather empty barrel that is my brain at the moment, trying to remember baseball terminology! Dear boy, he's just thrilled when I'm the "pitcher" and he gets to be the "base-bat-ball guy". Precious child.

You, Jack Boy, are quite my "favewit" boy around.