Friday, February 22, 2013

February 15-22

February 15 - My Mom went back home for a few days. She will be coming back on Monday for Shayleigh's doctor appointment. Shayleigh wore me out today. She wanted to be held and didn't want to do much of anything. I think we were both exhausted from a busy week of therapy. We only have so much to do in the house that she can actually do that it is hard to be creative and think of things to do. So sometimes the walls just feel like they are closing in on us. The nasty yucky winter weather doesn't help us either. Needless to say, we were both super excited for Daddy to get home!


February 16 - For the first time since we have been home, Shayleigh slept all night by herself! Yay for Mommy! When she got up, we went to a little restaurant in town for a pancake breakfast to benefit the local dance studio. Shayleigh ate at least 3 pancakes!! She was the life of the restaurant. She smiled and grinned and babbled. Apparently, she was a huge hit and everyone was talking about her after we left! As long as that brings awareness to her situation and causes people to pray for her we don't care!! She took 4 steps by herself today! She threw a ball with her right hand! She gave mommy kisses- mainly open mouthed, but I don't care!


February 17 - Shayleigh went to sleep by herself without anyone laying in the bed with her and she slept all night!  We had to get out of the house so we went and grabbed some food. Shayleigh told her Daddy "no." We normally wouldn't allow that, but at this point any talk is good talk. We are going to have some serious problems fixing all these bad habits. LOL One of my old coworkers and her daughter came by for a playdate. After they left, her cousin also came over for a playdate. Shayleigh had a good time. She was tired after all the excitement from the day! She has learned how to crawl in and out of her big girl bed by herself! She is also much more interested in playing with things. She is rocking her baby doll. She goes and sits at her desk, opens it and will get stuff out, but can't quite remember how to do anything with the colors or coloring books. Of course, Miss Independent doesn't let mommy help her often, but when she lets me she will color with help for a few minutes.


February 18-  Shayleigh had a restless night. I ended up in the bed with her around 0200 and she woke up around 0630. My mom came in today to go to her doctors appointment and to stay the week and help me with therapy and everything else. Have I mentioned how amazing my Mom is?!?! We had our two week check up with our pediatricain today. Dr A was very pleased with Shayleigh's progress! She continues to maintain her weight at 25 pounds! She is a little string bean! She smiled and babbled for Dr. A so we were excited about that. Dr A agreed that we could discontinue home health! YAY! Another step in the right direction! I only really wanted home health just in case her NG tube came out. I was NOT putting it back in! We are going to have check ups with Dr A every 2 weeks. Hopefully by her next 2 week appointment we will be walking. After our appointment we went to Chick-Fil-A (her favorite restaurant). I wanted to try it again and see how she would do. She had a BLAST! She was sooo cute! She hollared happily at the top of her lungs. LOL. We had to keep trying to shush her (although we really wanted to cheer)! She hasn't wanted to do much walking today, until Daddy came home! She walked between us for about 10 minutes. Most of the time she did it by herself with hardly any assistance. Everytime she walked without us we cheered. So she smiled and grinned and giggled and tried again! She is so incredibly cute!! She ate a ton today! We have been having to put miralax in her cup to help her go to the bathroom. She has never been on formula before, so these past few months of being on formula messed up her stomach soooo bad. Hence all the medicines she was on for her belly (which we were able to discontinue once we stopped the formula). She didn't really want to drink much today, but she had a good dirty diaper! YAY for dirty diapers! We are hoping this means that her digestive system is getting back to normal after all that yucky formula! Hopefully, we can discontinue the miralax, but only time will tell.


February 19- Shayleigh gave Mommy zerberts today (some people call them raspberries)!! We were sooo excited because we have been worried that she isn't able to blow.Her balance is getting much better. We still have a way to go, but it is so wonderful to see progress!! She was able to spin around by herself with no help! AND she also marched by herself!! Her legs came up real high too!  We just cheer and cheer when she does stuff and she grins and does it again! It is absolutely adorable!! She went to bed by herself, which is a big deal! We are so proud of our little trooper!!


February 20 -  Shayleigh had another great day in therapy!  We keep getting wonderful updates from all the therapists! She is pointing out pictures in her book for speech therapy. Occupational therapy came out today for our update and was super excited about how well she did today!! Although she performs better for us at home, she has at least started performing for them at therapy! Poor baby, therapy really does wipe her out! Playing is hard work!! She has really seemed to bond to her therapists. Especially speech. We think she is really close to having a major breakthrough!! I can't wait until it happens! We finally had Christmas with Nick's parents tonight (nothing like Christmas in February). I am so greatful that everyone was ready and willing to wait on us to get home and get settled. For some reason, Mommy and Daddy had to open most of her gifts. She wasn't interested in opening them which is crazy because once we got home we started opening presents we received before we left home and she went to town!! Anyway, her favorite present was a "real" vacuum cleaner. She vacuumed and vacuumed. It was so cute! AND not only that she was able to use just the vacuum cleaner to help her move around the house. Just goes to show how close we are to a major breakthrough!! Yall please, please keep praying!!


February 21 - Shayleigh went to bed all by herself last night. I was able to actually lay her in the bed and walk out of the room with no screaming and crying. YAY!! Therapy went well today! Everyday is so encouraging for us and for the therapists. She is doing so well!! After therapy, we had to hit Krogers for groceries and couponing. Shayleigh did great while we shopped- she loves being out and doing "normal" things. In order for me to be able to stay home more and not stretch our budget, I coupon, so before all this started we would coupon once a week. We would hit Walgreens, Krogers and CVS. She loved helping Mommy coupon!! After Kroger, we came home for a nap before heading to my OB appointment. While we were laying down for a nap, Shayleigh said Mama, Nonnie, and Nikki. She knows how to try to get out of naptime. HAHA She also "hollared". It is super cute when she hollars! I am not looking forward to giving up our naptime aka mommy's snuggle time. It is my favorite time of the day!!  We went to my 32 week check up and Shayleigh got to "see" baby brother in Mommy's belly. We were finally able to get a really good "boy" shot of baby brother!! YAY! Shayleigh fell asleep by herself again tonight! Our routine before surgery was to rock and sing 5 songs. Goodness forbid mommy mess up the song line up too! We have to sing Amazing Grace, The Old Rugged Cross, Twinkle Twinkle, Jingle Bells and Jesus Loves Shayleigh. I sang her line up to her tonight and just kept rocking and when I went to lay her in her bed and she didn't even wake up! I know I keep mentioning this, but it really is a big deal. Shayleigh has always been pretty good about going to sleep so this screaming and crying and someone having to sleep with her isn't normal for her at all. Just one more step in the right direction!!


February 22 -  Shayleigh got on the floor this morning and "beat up" PawPaw. It was hilarious! Mainly because it wasn't me-- like it was the other day! My parents took us out to eat pizza for lunch today per Shayleigh's request (apparently she was super excited when pizza was mentioned. I was busy trying to figure out what to cook for lunch).  We were sitting at the table and PawPaw was feeding Shayleigh some dessert pizza and apparently wasn't going fast enough for her liking so she said "a bite."!! It was loud and she also threw her hands up to get his attention. She also saw my dad take a bite of the dessert pizza and so she scooted closer to him in her high chair and made a loud noise and threw her hands up in the air again! It was super cute and soooooo like our sassy girl!! She danced today for the first time since surgery! She swayed her hips and moved her arms and did some kind of "windmill" thing. She was able to pick the things we asked for out of her lentils and hand them to us. She wasn't doing that at Baylor. I actually have tried not to use the lentils at home because they are so messy, but she found them and wanted them. Shayleigh played with her baby dolls today. She drew a ton of pictures on her etch a sketch and she even erased them herself without me helping her!! Although she is using her hands to eat, I have still been putting silverware on the table with hopes that she will pick it up and use it. I haven't pushed the issue, I just put it there hoping seeing it will jog her memory. Tonight, while we were sitting down eating dinner she picked up her spoon with her right hand and used it!! We were so excited!! We cheered and cheered! I wish ya'll could see her face when we cheer for her! I am going to try to get it on video!!

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