First night

We took sophie to see the kids fireworks for first night in Pittsburgh. We also took her on the incline for the first time.

Gone camping

For christmas, santa brought Sophie a tent in which to go camping. Tonight in her never ending quest to make us nervous, and have fun doing it, she brought it all down on it side, and laughed for 5 minutes straight.

Oh yeah

These puppies are ready to carry me my last 10 pounds :) that = 3500 miles @ 100 calories a mile. Better get running!

Middle class meets the titled class

I don't know if it is apparent from the picture, but soph has combined her middle class family dollhouse with her new princess castle. It is sort of too realistic in that the family dollhouse was obtained second hand. They have a baby and furniture is a bit dirty and has been chewed on by the dog. The mom looks like a mom and the dad looks like he worked all day. Meanwhile the princess looks rested and has a pony and a wasteline. Too funny and too real! At least the royals invited the smiths over for dinner.

Merry christmas!

We are starting to recover from our griswald style christmas. We hope yours was wonderful!

The pic show that one can make gnocchi out of leftover mashed potatoes. Yum!

Christmas baby

Sophie is getting into the christmas spirt.

Hot chocolate

After a buzy day of playing outside, I made hot chocolate. It is a bit messy but I am pretty sure she likes it.

Can't be all baby all the time

So after the past few months, I have been assembling a guitar in my (haha) free time. Last night I strung it up for the first time. I need to make a ton of adjustments, but here's a picture. I am very proud of it.

Sleigh ride

With all the snow outside, Sophie had a tantrum about wanting a sleigh ride. When we went outside, I gave her an improvised sleigh ride. She had a good time.

fun @ Auntie's house

I have a 2 hour conference call (YIKES!) today and auntie k is watching the babes. Apparently, they are having a good time with old Halloween costumes.

When I dropped her off, I told her that there would be no hitting or biting, only hugs and kisses. When I was getting her settled there were hugs and kisses all around. We'll see if that lasted...

play dough family

How cute is that?

Play-ta-to

Sophie got into the 10 lb bag of potatoes, running around doing all sorts of interesting things with them, as evidenced by the pics.

Erock made some great potato stamps, I think he could get a second job at a kids summer camp.

Yes, those are play-ta-toes (dan quayle, help me with the spelling on the plural) in the potty. Rest easy family, those won't be part of Christmas dinner.

Freezing rain

And a warm comfy couch. Zig is the biggest member of our clab, paws down.

Holiday fun

Things are returning to normal a week post op. We had a cookie bake a thon with auntie e on Friday. Sophie was very helpful sprinkling powdered sugar on the rum balls. Though the rumballs were made with a good pour, the adults managed to abstain from toasting early.

Nana nancy bought this elf for sophie, and it is her bff at the moment. It is cute, but makes me think I should try harder to find her a playmate!

The biggest change since the last operation is a strong anxious streak about being w/o mom. Even for 2 minutes. She is having sleep issues (wait, did she ever stop?) And is acting like a newborn in the middle of the night. This has been landing her in 'mamma's bed' and mamma landing on the futon in the spare room. Thankfully eric is a deep sleeper so he can rest with her in bed with him.

By the time we are 40 we'll have our bed back, right? Some new monkey jammies and slippers have been tried as bribes...

We're off to do the last of our shopping tomorrow! Yay for the holidays!

God bless the ever patient ziggy

Sophie tucked him in for a nap and counted to 8!

Dog food

As a parent you come up with a lot of tricks to get kids to eat. I remember when I was a kid, I would tell my pareant that there was too much food on my plate, they would then take all the food, put it on a smaller plate, and I would eat it all.

Taking this approach kind of, for lunch Sophie informed me she would like to eat dog food. I did the next best thing, and convinced her the couscous she didn't eat last night, was in fact, special dog food.

It was so special in fact, she ate it all.

one handed blogging

The fact that I am blogging one handed means sophie is holding my other hand, and we are on the way home!!

The forehead expander and port were replaced, an 48 mL of saline were added. No infections going in, let us hope it stays that way.

We are all pooped but together, ang nothing beats the feeling of taking your baby home.

Thanks to all for the prayers and good wishes, it helps to know we have support.  Now here is to an uneventful 86 days till these suckers come out.

Raining

Hopefully the rain will lull me to sleep. We leave at 5 am for cleveland.

The hilarious rediculousness of it all

While walking the dog today my mind started wandering down the dark tunnel of worry, self pity and what if's. Suddenly, I sort of sensed more than felt a splat on my head and chest. It couldn't be, but yes! A bird pooped on my head and chest. I started chuckling at the rediculousness of the situation.

In psych talk, laughing like this for no apparant reason is called 'reacting to internal stimulus'. Which what is the UPS driver and neighbors must have thought of me while I was walking zig.

My chuckling turned into laughter when zig started trying to board the UPS truck and make out with the driver. There is one guy on our route who gives out treats, but zig thinks it is EVERY large brown truck. I couldn't budge that dog for the life of me. Until the truck started to move. He dragged me after that truck for 4 blocks, stopping and sitting obediantly every time the truck stoped for a delivery.

So the picture...yeah, that's from the bird.

Confirmed for Thursday

She'll be having surgery this Thursday morning at the Mentor Surgery Center. Pray for no complications!

Complications

Unfortunately, the deflated basketball feeling in Sophie's forehead port was not my overactive imagination. She will have it replaced Thursday, if the OR and supplies are available. We'll find out later today for sure when surgery will be.

We've sprung a leak

Typically this is not so great. In a faucet, it is irritating. In a boat, a bit of a nuisance. In a tissue expander, probably bad. We'll see Monday morning.

Things that are sharp

Since we moved into the house, I made a 'Things that are sharp' drawer to keep things corralled on the baby's behalf. Now that baby is tall enough to reach into those drawers something had to be done.

So kalai suggested making a barrier to keep baby's fingers safe. She can only reach into the very front of the drawer so I cut an opening into a cereal box, and pointed the sharp ends inward. Yay, simple fix until she grows another few inches.

Drama

We just completed a fill at home. Unfortunately the port that is exposed is leaking a bit from where the needle went in. If this doesn't stop leaking in an hour or two, it looks like we may have to drive into Cleveland to get this addressed. Here's to hoping the leak will stop, and this port will make it through the rest of the expander process.

First sandwich

This should make life a whole lot easier, one more thing to add to the short list we hope. After all noodles and peas have to get boring day after day.

Chillaxing with the dog

I'm not sure the dog likes it so much though

I love ziggy!

Luckily he is gentle.

I love thrift shopping

Why not take a nap with the big kitty.

I am a decoration

holding steady

The port on Sophie's head is holding steady, thank goodness. It really eroded in the last week but is still within the non-surgery range.

In other toddler noise, grandma and grandpa got the xmas decorations up and she is wearing the carpet threadbare going between all of the animated singing snowmen and penguins. This will be the most fun holiday season yet, as her awareness is there to get pumped about every decoration and present.

Cracking up

Uncle dave cracks me up!

Smells a little crazy

Swissvale smells a little crazy today. Every third person seems 2 b talking 2 themselves. And there isn't a blue tooth in site!

Port update

We just got back from cleveland. The port is exposed however we are going to keep moving forward and hope it is stable. We'll just have to keep antibiotic cream on it 24/7 and hope the hole doesn't enlarge or become infected. The only option if they would do surgery on it would be to externalize the port, which carries as high of a risk of infection as the current situation does.

Bottom line, no operation before turkey day, thank God.

Puppet slippers and cuteness/prayer request

Sophie just had a playdate. What a weird word, I think it should be called a scheduled maelstrom. I love it cause she ends up sleeping well, but it tires the adults and dogs just as much. It is nice to hang out with auntie k too, who gamely ate my weird lunch of pasta a spaghetti squash.

Note sophie's feet, these are puppets that aunties k & e got for her to play with.

Prayer request. I am 99% certain she has a port eroding through her skin, and if that is the case, we will be looking at surgery Monday. I feel so bad I ever started this process on my poor baby.

Game on

A dear friend is in from out of town, on game day. E just made mozzerella for the first time, sophie is making dough. Let's home the game is as good as the pizza!

We are friends!

The kids were so cute at the park yesterday. This weather we have been having is so great, being able to play outside has made all aspects of toddler control easier.

The girls got over their collective case of the 'mines', held hands and had a great time. So did big mamma h and aunti k. :)

Tucking daddy in

Home today

Yay! We are NOT on our way to Cleveland. The infusion supplies should be here by noon and the nurse between 4-5pm.

The only thing I'll miss about the trip to Ohio is lunch in little Italy :)

Future track star

Man this kid can go! Which lead to a lovely 2 hour nap
:)

Zelda the duck

Friends of the family's pet,

Swing swing

Yay good weather! Thx 4 the pic auntie kalai.

update update

The home health care nurse is coming to our house every other week! Watch our carbon footprint shrink!

Medical Update

People have bucket lists. On them are things like: skydive, go to Australia, eat sushi at Nobu, make out with old flame, have a baby. All very normal. What I never had on mine, but now has been added inadvertently is: perform medical procedure on your baby's head using a butterfly needle. Wait a minute, didn't I choose a non-medical career for a reason?

With my partly shattered psyche I am trying to keep things in perspective. Sophie and I spend 6 hours in the car to Cleveland plus another hour or two in the hospital every Friday, my parents coming along for support and company (THANK YOU!). This is all very exhausting and we realized this is going to be going on for over a year and with winter heading to the Northeast any day now, I decided to learn to do the expansion procedure at home some of the time.

We may have found a home care nurse who would take this responsibility from me, but that is still up in the air. I am crossing my fingers for that option to work out.

Surgery for removal of the first round of expanders has been scheduled for March 8, 2010. We'll likely have a 2 month rest and the do it all again. Prayers for good health and job security (ie. medical benefit retention!) through this long period of medical treatment are appreciated.

Fwd: papa nick's lil angel

Octopus

'I hug him' , sophie.

Potty training.

Although I could do it, I will not post pictures for this one. Heather and I decided to try having Sophie go diper free today. Thus far the score card is 2 pees and 1 poop with 0 accidents. If anyone really wants pictures, I can provide them.
Is this the end of diapers(oh please oh please)

Happy birthday uncle matt

She has been practicing singing happy bday in honor of uncle matt's bday. This spontaneous singign has been going for days in 10 minute spurts.

Sophie craps out on the walk

Dress up

Why not wear every accessory in the closet?

Dog hug

Sophie loves Ziggy, and Ziggy doesn't mind Sophie too too much.

more Halloween pics

Halloween was super fun this year. It seems like we are able to stretch out holidays to 3 days each. This means Sophie starts to think that recieving gifts everyday is normal (per bday), that dressing as tigger and getting candy from every house you pass is normal (per halloween), or that sporting a handle bar mustache at 2 is ok. But that is what makes being a kid great.

Marker mayham - so pretty

Sophie has decided that markers are a great thing to put on her face. In the process of decorating her face, she said "So pretty".

Enjoy the pictures

Tigger

This is from trick or treating part one. Trick or treat part two is tonight.

Carving pumpkins

What a nice tradition to do with the kids, right? So where is sophie?

Well miss thing is too much of a princess this year to get her hands
dirty in the 'yucky' seeds .party popper.

Halloween fun

Sophie likes wax lips.

Oh baby showers...

'it is nougety'