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

Rough night

Smiling during tummy time

Ceilidh is pretty good about her night time sleeping. Last night though she kept waking up quite frequently 12 am, 2, 3 and 4. Needless to say I was very tired by morning and looking forward to a relatively quiet day. The culprit I believe is her first tooth. I can see a little nuby sticking out of her bottom jaw on her gum line. She must not be comfortable and kept waking up to be soothed. While I can tell she is fussier during the day at least she has teething toys which she can stick in her mouth. At night she doesn't have this distraction so she must wake up more frequently due to the pain. I am glad they don't remember this later on. Ouch.

My Ceilidh Bear with her daddy

On other notes Ceilidh is hovering around 14 lbs. We are still trying to introduce her to the world of food not expecting her to eat anything but wanting her to get the feel of trying to put food in her mouth. So far she has managed to gum watermelon, peaches, and carrots. We are trying the approach of letting her have whole foods and feed herself and not puree everything. She isn't six months yet so we don't really expect too much. If nothing else she sits in her high chair and plays (sometimes with food) while we have supper. Her favourtie game is throwing her rings on the floor (that's what we give her to play with). She gums each one, and then they end up on the floor. She has enough to last her through supper so we don't have to collect them till the end. Image when she gets food, to bad the cat only likes cat food it would be helpful in cleaning up the mess.

Trying watermelon

Trying carrots

5 months

Everything in her mouth except for food

Today Ceilidh is 5 months and I don't know where the time went. She now weighs 13 lbs 13 oz so she has doubled her birth weight of 6 lbs 11 oz. She has come so far from the little wee thing and is on her way to learning new skills each day. Currently, she is mastering the art of sitting by herself and I notice each day she gets better at it, which means not tipping over as often and correcting her balance.

This morning I tried so see what she would do with some cereal as I had some extra milk left over. She clearly had no interest in food. This is what we have been seeing since we do offer her some food every so often and while she puts almost everything in her mouth when it comes to food she is not interested. She is still young to be eating solids, most start at 6 months so we won't push it. For now we make sure she is there to see us eat and give her a baby spoon to play with.

Playing with spoon and bowl

Not impressed with the cereal

For the fall we have her signed up for swimming lessons with her cousin Cameron, library time with Library Sue and we hope to do some singing classes (rhyme time). I also hope to spend more time at the park as now she has experienced the swing and loves it. Yeah my child can play at the park.
Looking forward to the fall.

Sitting and rolling

Ceilidh has started to roll from her tummy to her back. First time she did it I put her right back on her tummy again to make sure it wasn't random and she did it another time. Then I called Matt over and she rolled back yet another time. Then we immediately went out and bought those mats that look like big puzzle pieces so that when she rolls she doesn't hit her head hard on the ground.  Imagine when she starts crawling we will have to baby proof the house.

Enjoying her new toy courtesy of Vivi and Isabelle

The other milestone this week was Ceilidh sitting on her own. Don't get me wrong she has to be put in the sitting position and she still wobbles but she can sit. It was during our weekly visit to the library where I noticed it. She was so enthralled with the librarian that she stopped leaning on me (I had her sitting in front of me) and was sitting on her own. I cannot say enough wonderful things about Library Sue she makes our weekly visits to the library extraordinary. It takes a special person to be a children's librarian.

Round two vaccinations

For my birthday Ceilidh gave me the gift of sleeping till 7:30 usually she wakes up closer to six am. And sadly all I had to offer her was a trip to the doctors to get her second vaccinations. She did really well though. Of course she cried when she got poked but settled down as soon as I gave her a hug.

For her dad's birthday she got him a big balloon of his favourite beverage. Ironically she was wearing her I love milk sleeper. 
Miss C is now over 13 lbs and her hair is getting long and curly. She enjoys her trips to the library but try as her dad may she has no interest in tractors yet.

4 months

The Smith girls

I must say it is pretty cool to see where Ceilidh is at in terms of development and think back to where she started. Its amazing to witness her learning new things and mastering other things. We take it for granted that we always new how to control our fingers ie for typing or just simply standing up.
Ceilidh hasn't mastered standing up by herself but she likes to do so with help and will often fuss if you sit her down or put her on her back. Not that she can sit by herself either but she now gets more use of her bumbo chair and the tray is especially handy for putting toys in front of her. I think she is ready for an excersaucer or jolly jumper. She is also really into exploring things with her mouth, so much so that now I have to watch how I dress her because if it is a dress she puts the skirt part in her mouth. She can't do that with a onesie. I also now have to travel with toys so that she has some stimulation although she still likes to suck her wrists or fingers.

Showing that she can do tummy time

I had her weighed on Wednesday and she is now 12 lbs 13 oz. She is still on a pattern of sleeping 4-5 hours at night waking up and feeding and then going back to sleep. However, she seems to like a 6 am wake up time. I still wake up around 1am and have a hard time falling back to sleep. I keep thinking she will wake up any moment so I need to work on my sleep habits. 

Miss Ceilidh

Laughing away

All the pictures in today's entry are pictures that my friend Monica took for us . It was really hard deciding which pictures to post. Thanks Monica for the great pictures and thanks Caroline for the lovely pink outfit you gave Ceilidh which she is sporting in all but one shot.

We have hit 12 lbs

I got Ceilidh weighed today and she is now 12 lbs 3 oz. At this rate she will double her weight soon enough. I have to kick up my making of her quilt or she will out grow it before I finish it. She has come a long way. I can't get over how more alert she is in her 3rd month. She pays attention more when I am singing to her and she talks to her self in her baby language see video. She is also starting to grab even more now then my last post. On the flip side she gets fussier when she is traveling around I think she gets over stimulated more easily.

Still has blue eyes

Yummy wrists

She is also still fascinated with her wrists, she has not learned to suck her thumb so she sucks her wrists. See picture.

Tummy time and Grabbing

Ceilidh is on her way to reaching 12lbs. Last Wednesday she weighed in at 11lbs 10oz. I figure by the time she is weighed next week she will have hit the 12lbs on her way to doubling her birth weight. She has also had some more repeats of sleeping 5 hours stretches not quite a pattern yet but getting there I hope.

11 lbs 10 oz Sleeping pictures are still the easiest to take

She has also come a long way from face planting while on her tummy. We had the pleasure of having a friend take some pictures of her (which I will share a few at a later date) and before that she was lifting her head but not necessarily moving her neck but now she does it without a problem. She has also started to try to grab things. Her movements are still jerky but she is getting a purpose. I can't get over how much more alert and interactive she is now that she is in her third month. The cat will need to watch out for her tail. 

On her tummy time mat with a new friend

She is staring at her mirror hanging above.

Canada day and 3 months

2nd outfit for Canada day first one didn't make it out the door

Ceilidh turned 3 months on Canada day. I think at this stage I can stop counting how many weeks she is and start counting the months. It"s like being pregnant all over again people ask you how far along you are and you tell them in weeks and they give you a weird look and ask how many months that is. Then you try to figure out how many months that is because each month has 4 1/2 weeks. From now on lets just count in months. This month she is at 11lbs 3oz. A couple of more weeks and I figure she will be close to 12 lbs.

We took Ceilidh down to Toronto to visit family a couple of weeks ago. She handled the trip there okay but you could tell she got progressively crankier each day. Talk about over stimulation. All those new people, new houses, a lot of Spanish being spoken, and everyone holding her. Regardless it was nice to see family and introduce them to Ceilidh. It was really interesting to see how her cousins would greet her seeing that the one closest in age is 7 years her senior the oldest is 17 years her senior. I also got a chance to take her down to Guelph to visit my old work place U of Guelph. It was great to show Ceilidh the university and of course the library. Believe it or not our visit coincided with a special story time for a group of kids. So her first story time was at a university library, yes they actually do carry some children's books. Story time for the summer will start this week at our own public library. 

Loving eating those fingers

Serious look

In terms of Ceilidh's new discoveries since my last post, she really has a fascination with her hands. And they always seem to go into her mouth. This coincidentally leads to a lot more drooling. I have tried to replace them with a soother but she wants nothing to do with a soother. Her hands are yummier. And lastly last night she slept 5 hours straight 9pm to 2am. Of course go figure I was up at midnight and couldn't sleep. One day we will both sleep. Don't know if this will be a one off thing or the start of a pattern. Only time will tell.

Ceilidh sleeping at the hotel during our trip to Toronto

Sleeping in the night

Notice that I write sleeping in the night and not through the night. I laugh any time anyone asks if Miss C is sleeping through the night. Really who sleeps through the night anyways. I certainly don't...my cat who is a master of sleeping even wakes up in the middle of night, sometimes this coincides when I wake up, I think she is hoping for food.

No Miss C is not sleeping through the night but she has managed to sleep for 4 hours in the night...in a row. This is what I call her first shift usually from 9 to 1. Then she wakes up, eats and generally goes back down without even knowing that she even woke up. The second shift is trickier this usually happens around 3am, notice that while she can sleep 4 hours for the first shift the second is only 2 to 2 1/2 hours. This is where I try to sneak in a diaper change and this is inevitably where she pees mid-diaper change which then means outfit change. I am usually cursing at my self wondering how I could let this happen yet again, fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me, fool me for the 6 billion times...why don't I learn. There is no sleeper out there that is quick to change her out of so by the time we are done she might require more food. I have been known to crack during this feeding and if she does not want to go back to sleep this is where I sleep with her in the single bed in her nursery. Actually, she sleeps I wait till she falls asleep and wait for 30 mins or an hour and then try to put her back in her crib. Sometimes I fall asleep and wake up to her grunting and squirming. She isn't awake. Ceilidh suffers from morning gas and while she doesn't wake up you can tell she is trying to work through something "complicated". This can be from 5am till when ever I crack and pick her up third shift. I have tried several things to relieve pressure or move things along, rubbing back, warm blanket on her tummy, putting her on my lap on her tummy, vibrating chair. She isn't truly happy till a couple of diaper changes later. So that is our night. I must say it isn't bad and it's amazing what you get use to. The nurse this week mentioned that once they hit 12 pounds they are then capable of sleeping through the night which is 6 hours. Ceilidh is only 10 lbs 9 oz this week.

I don't think we will hit 12 for another 3 weeks. But nap time during the day is better I think she has 5 naps during the day, really her and the cat could be partners in crime. They need to combine their forces and nap together.