Genetics follow up

Her new friend

Last week Ceilidh had a follow up appointment with Genetics at CHEO. Basically Dr. G just wanted to follow up and see how she is progressing to rule out any syndrome that could not be diagnosed at birth, which is the last time she saw Ceilidh. I am happy to say that the Doctors think she does not have any syndromes which are often associated with Omphaloceles. She is meeting all important milestones thus far and is now 16 lbs.
Some of those milestones have only recently been displayed. Now that she can crawl fairly well she has moved on to lifting herself up using furniture or a my leg if available. However, she is not always sure how to get back down. She knows how to pivot from one piece of furniture to another if they are close but does not realize that she should be using her legs. If she sees me sitting by her she kind of throws herself in my arms I guess she knows I will catch her, so trusting.

Standing up and playing

The other cool things she is doing this week is waving goodbye and giving kisses. We have been trying to teach her how to wave good bye to Matt as he leaves for work every morning. We have not been certain that she understood. Matt was away last week so she hadn't practiced for a week. This morning Matt had put his jacket and shoes on to go to work and Ceilidh saw this as she was sitting in her highchair having breakfast, without any prompting Ceilidh started waving goodbye. So cool!

Enjoying blackberries

Lastly, she is really progressing in eating. She now has the capability of using her fingers and thumb in a pincer grasp to pick up food. This makes it so much easier for her to pick up small pieces of food such as cheerios. You can get a better sense of her enjoying food. But her mothers milk is still her favourite choice.

Visiting Santa

I wasn't sure if I was going to take Ceilidh to see Santa and take a picture but in the end I did. The result was a serious photo. She didn't laugh but didn't cry either. She didn't know what to think of the big guy and couldn't understand why we were all looking at her. Kind of like a deer caught in the head lights. But the Santa picture is captured. The people taking the picture were great and Santa had a real beard.

Deer outfit on she is at a salt lick (something to entice real deers)

Playing with my old cabbage patch Millie (they share brown hair blue eyes)

Almost 8 months

Bath time

Ceilidh will be 8 months next week. She is now weighing 15 lbs 10 ounces and is on the move. She started dragging herself along around Rememberance Day (Nov 11) and within a week she had got the hang of commando crawling. Now she is able to use her knees and does a combo of commando crawling and knee crawling. The cat is now weary of Ceilidh, I guess the cat (Trouble) knows Miss C is on the move. Ceilidh is a fan of the cat's water dish and the food dish (thankfully there is no food in said dish because Trouble is smart enough to finish all her food ASAP).  As I type she is after the water dish. Sneaky sneaky.

Going to the cat feeder

Well at least now when her crawling playmates come by and take her toys she can go after theirs. Basically when we have play group we bring out the toys and the kids just go around swapping toys. You just have to remember what you brought. The set of cups I picked up second hand seem to be a favourite for all the kiddies. In other accomplishment news, she has also learned to sit. She goes from crawling position to sitting position, and her balance has improved that face plants or falling back are rare. And as for sleeping she is currently down at 7 pm and wakes up once to feed and generally wakes up around 6 am. I look forward to seeing what the next month will bring.

The baby gate is up

7 months

Okay so technically Ceilidh is now 7 months and a week. But since I will be printing this into a baby book for her I thought better late then never. She is now weighing 15 lbs 5 oz and is on the verge of crawling. Lets see how long it actually takes her to actually crawl. She has bum scooted a few times but I do not think she realizes this is a form of transportation. We have also seen her dragging her self and pushing her self backwards. So hence why we feel she is on the verge. She is really good at turning around on her belly. We have started to baby proof the house in anticipation.
She has also started to sleep on her stomach during the night and naps. Even though I put her on her back she flips to her stomach but then when she wakes she is disoriented and wonders why she is on her stomach. She does not realize she put herself in that position. She gives me the accusing look, I explain to her that she did that to herself. She does not believe me, it is like explaining to my cat that she has already been fed.

Since she was such a cute pumpkin I have added a few more shots of her in her pumpkin patch. 

Halloween

Miss Pumpkin

Tis Halloween and this little pumpkin partook in the fun. Well not trick or treating because that is past her bedtime but she dressed up for the occasion for my strollercize group. All the kiddies in our group got dressed up and we had fun taking pictures of them. She seemed to tolerate the costume well and had fun playing with the other kids. Now when I say play I mean that the kids grab each others toys, as toys are always much more fun when they don't belong to you. I can hear my mother in my head freaking out as they are putting each others toys in their mouths. I figure its more important that they learn to play with one another and not sweat the other stuff.

Circle of critters

Growth spurt

She only bites meat

Ceilidh has managed to put on half a pound in a week. Something she has not done in two months. Wow it is amazing how these growth spurt works. She now weighs in at 15 lbs. She is still experimenting with food and trying to figure out how to get the cat to sit still while she pets her. She really likes meat be it beef, pork, chicken, turkey you name it she likes it. It's the only thing she attacks with gusto. For a girl who has no teeth she somehow manages to gnaw of pieces and swallow them. The cat is also enjoying Miss C's love of meat as she has learned to pounce on the pieces that Ceilidh drops on the floor. Great we finally managed to get the cat to lose 3 pounds in a year only have her possibly gain it back again. At least Miss C hasn't put it together that the cat is eating her meat otherwise I could see her purposefully dropping said meat. The other food Ceilidh has various degrees of success and has different levels of enjoyment. It is really funny to watch her try to eat the rice cereal as she is still working out how the spoon works. I just load it (both sides since she doesn't comprehend that only one side is suppose to go in) and she tries to maneuver it into her mouth.

Eating cereal

"Screw the ball I want the cat"

6 months

Six months and still loves the exersaucer

Cupcakes at the birthday party

I know it's cliche to say how time fast grows but here we are at six months and I can't believe it. I just look at the ultrasound picture at the top of the blog and can't believe we have this amazing little girl in our lives. We are truly blessed. It was around this time last year that we went for our first ultrasound and where they saw the Omphalocele, we didn't find out until a few weeks afterwards. And here she is now at six months. It can teach you to hope. I know things don't always turn out well for these diagnosis but if you are going through this don't give up hoping because they can turn out well.

Ceilidh trying to pet Trouble

But enough reminiscing, yesterday we celebrated with a first birthday for cousin Cam. It's cool to have them six months apart to the day. It gives us a glimpse of all the things to come. Ceilidh is weighing about 14 and a half pounds and she is going for her next set of vaccinations this week. She has been keeping herself busy with swimming lessons with cousin Cam and of course all the other play dates I take her on. She has also been doing a lot of bonding with her kitty Trouble. They both have discovered one another and her face just lights up when she sees the cat. She also loves it when the neighbours dog licks her. She really likes animals I guess.

Ceilidh trying some banana

Her bed time is earlier these days but she wakes up more frequently through out the night, that tooth still hasn't come through all the way and we believe that is the culprit. She is also being adventurous in eating more things and she did manage to swallow some carrot the other day (as the saying goes the proof was in the pudding). Tonight we also gave her some water in a sippy cup not expecting much and were shocked to see how much she really liked it. She still needs help managing the cup but loved the water.  Here we were for a long time trying to get her to take a bottle again with varying degrees of success and the sippy cup went of without a glitch. I should have tried putting breast milk in the sippy cup. But she is at least now taking the occasional bottle and had a night bonding with her daddy while I enjoying a night out with the ladies. I look forward to the next six months.

Drinking water out of the sippy cup