It's a girl!

We had our second ultrasound today. Here are a few of the pictures.

At this point in my pregnancy with Annabella, she was measuring at least 10 days behind. This baby girl is measuring 4 days behind, which is considered to be within normal range. I'm honestly still a little concerned; so I'm hoping for another ultrasound at 28 weeks. One of the doctors I saw said that this is what he would recommend, given my history; so I'm hoping the next couple of doctors I see agree with him. I just don't want to take any chances.

For right now though, everything looks to be going perfectly with this baby girl.

Thank God for Kielbasa

I don't think I've kept it a secret that Annabella is small. We've pretty much constantly worried about her size. She looks and acts like she's healthy, but it's hard not to compare her size to other kids her age. And sometimes (ok, often) those other kids tower over her.

Well, before Easter, Jason was really hopeful that Annabella had finally hit the 20 pound mark. This is an especially important milestone because it means that we could turn her around to a forward-facing car seat. And there's just not a whole lot of room in either of our cars...so a forward-facing car seat would mean that my knees wouldn't have to be up against the dash whenever I sit in the front seat.

So one day he steps on a scale, then picks her up and steps back on and declares that the scale said 20.5 pounds. And we're hopeful. So I make her an appointment to get weighed at my work's health care office. She weighed 19lb 8oz. This was on the Wednesday before Easter, for those of you keeping track.

Then came Easter weekend. And she was spoiled rotten. She ate donuts and chocolate, and pretty much anything else the grandparents gave her. And on Easter day, Annabella discovered Kielbasa. And the Polish in her came out as she kept asking for more. When she was done eating she'd take a break and then signal she wanted more food and more Kielbasa. We would normally try to give her more variety and not let her eat so much of 1 food in a day, but we estimate that Annabella must have eaten close to a pound of Kielbasa that day! We couldn't believe it.

This past Thursday we had Annabella's 18-month checkup. At her 15-month checkup, she weight 18lb 14oz. So she'd only gained 10oz from her 15-month appointment all the way up to the Wednesday before Easter. Well, on Thursday, she weighed 20lb 5oz! 13 ounces in a week! You go girl! (Full disclosure: they weighed her with a diaper on for the first time, which probably helped her weight by 2 or 3 ounces. And it was a different type of scale between the 2 weigh-ins. But still!)

So her newest stats are: 20lb 5oz (4th percentile), 30inches (9th percentile), and 48th percentile for head circumference. So she's still my little, adorable bobble-head. But we're thrilled :)

Daycare woes

Jason and I don't keep Annabella from falling. Of course we don't like it when she falls, but we figure that running around and falling down is part of learning. And if she can crawl up onto something, we figure she can learn how to get down. If she cries out for help, we'll help her...but we really don't want it to turn into a game where she climbs up a billion times just to have us help her down every time. And sometimes she falls pretty hard. Over Easter she fell into some cinder on the street going pretty darn fast.

So given all this, I really don't understand why she gets very few scratches and bruises at home but seems to come home with new boo boos daily after daycare. Right now, she's got a big bruise on her cheek, a bite mark on her shoulder, a bite mark on her wrist, scratches all over her knees, a scratch on her face, and a small bruise on her arm. Of all those, the small bruise on her arm is the only one she got at home (and it wasn't even from falling...Jas accidentally caught some of her skin when he was putting her high chair tray on).

I understand stuff happens. As much as it pains me, I understand that she's going to fall and get hurt. But lately it just seems like it's happening a whole lot, and not on our watch.

What I find especially troubling though is the bite marks. We got incident reports about 3 bite marks, one of which we never saw, one of which was pretty light, and one of which left a pretty nasty mark. None of these broke the skin. We did NOT get an incident report about the fourth bite we found on her shoulder, the one that clearly broke the skin. When we asked her teachers about it, they were puzzled, saying they didn't even remember Annabella crying like she'd been bitten. But the mark was clearly a bite (our pediatrician agreed).

And all of this has been in about the last 2 weeks. I about lost my mind because 3 of the bites happened over 2 days (by at least 2 different kids, although they won't tell us which kids.)

I have to believe that this is just an anomaly and that I need to be patient. We haven't really had these issues before, and some of this is probably due to the changing season and the short sleeves and shorts she's now wearing. And I need to keep a cool head. Annabella loves her classroom, her friends, and her teachers. I don't want to take that away from her.

But right now I mostly want to go scream at somebody.

The totem pole

Based on the number of kisses Annabella's willing to dole out, here's where I lie on the totem pole:

1) Ceiling fans

2) Dogs and cats

3) Stuffed animals

4) Most other animals

5) Most of her toys

Somewhere far below: Mommy

Spinning around and slowing down at the turn of a switch = win.

Growing her in my body for 9 months = sorta win, just not as much of a win as being a ceiling fan.

Proud Momma Moment

This morning, at daycare:

Me: Annabella, stay right there while Mommy puts your carseat up.

Annabella stands in place, waiting.

Me: Annabella, come on. Let's go to your classroom. (Puts out finger.)

Annabella grabs my finger and walks down the hall and into her room with me.

Me: Annabella, wait! Mommy needs to take your coat off and wash your hands before you go play.

Annabella starts to take her coat off and waits for me to help.

Me: Annabella, go to the sink.

Annabella walks over to the stink and steps up on the step, waiting for me to wash her hands.

I can't believe how much my little munchkin understands and how well she follows instructions. (And also how much she blatantly ignores me other times!)

1.5 years

Annabella turned 1.5 today. I can't believe it's been so long since the magical day she came into my life. She has gotten so big, and I'm just so proud of her. Every day she does something that makes my heart swell. She follows simple directions. She asks for cheese (chizz). She squeals for her shoes (sooz). She signals for more (and says moh). She climbs the chairs and walks across the table...ok; so this one isn't actually allowed, but watching her learn to climb and take risks still makes me proud.

We've had a pretty busy weekend. Yesterday we took her to an Easter egg hunt/extravaganza. We were 1o minutes late, which means we missed the hunt. But there was a big bunny for her to get pictures with; so we waited in line for him. Well, she HATED the bunny. Would not touch. And then we saw that there was food; so we went and got her a cookie. No surprise here, she LOVED the cookie. While she ate the cookie, we waited in a long line for pony rides. Her reaction to the pony made her reaction to the bunny seem downright heartwarming. She clung to me and wouldn't even get near the pony. She normally likes animals...so we weren't expecting that. I didn't think she'd actually ride the pony. But I thought she'd at least pet the pony. So the highlight of the extravaganza was clearly the cookie. Which means we could have saved ourselves some stress and effort. Oh well.

Later in the day we had an experience that was more traumatizing to Momma than to Annabella. You see, Annabella's hair has been constantly in her face. She refuses to wear bows, and won't sit still for me to tie her hair back. So we took her in for her first haircut.

Here's a before picture that shows why we really needed to get the haircut.

And here's a couple pictures that show that Annabella did NOT like getting her haircut one bit. (Although I still maintain that I am more traumatized, at least long term.)

And here's the best post haircut picture we have right now. I'll try to get some better ones soon.

The woman cut her bangs much shorter than I would have liked, and I'm really not sure I like the haircut at all to be honest. But I'm not sure she could have had a haircut that I would actually like. And they gave us a certificate that says "For meeting all the requirements of a first haircut with courage and bravery". (Yes, the certificate made me tear up. I blame the pregnancy hormones...)

Today a couple of friends watched Annabella for a few hours so that Jason and I could go on a date (gasp!). Our friends have 2 small dogs, and Annabella love love loved the dogs. I think she's going to start asking for a dog as soon as she figures out that it's a possibility. It's always a little nerve-wracking leaving your kid with somebody new, even somebody you trust. But at the end of the day, everybody had a smile on their face. We really should take advantage of our babysitting friends more often. Getting a couple hours out is nice, and I think they spoil Annabella rotten. For instance, where Mommy and Daddy are too mean to chase her up and down the stairs over and over again, the babysitters think it's cute and put up with it for much longer than we do :) So it's really a win-win.

I still can't believe my little girl is 1.5. It seems like just yesterday she was a tiny little ball curled up asleep on my chest, head buried straight into my skin. I remember staring at her for hours just falling more and more in love with her, wondering how this perfect little creature could be mine. I can't imagine loving her more, but my heart just explodes in new ways for her every day. And now my precious, tiny, sweet baby isn't so tiny, and she's not much of a baby anymore. She is still the most precious, sweetest thing I've ever had the pleasure of seeing though. And I love her so much it hurts.

Sometimes life just doesn't make sense

In my mind, people get sick, act sickly/have symptoms, and then we find out they're sick. The bigger the disease, the more obvious it is that something's wrong. I mean, that's the way it's supposed to work, right?

Apparently this just isn't the way it works with cancer.

For those of you who don't know my Grandpa, he is strong, vibrant, full-of-life. He's 70+ years old and still works 70 hour weeks. He puts in hundreds of tomato plants every year, along with peppers, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, corn, and so many more. His garden is always immaculate, and his vegetables are always tasty. And out of nowhere he has stage-4 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

And last night we found out that Jason's Aunt Cindy has acute leukemia. Her symptoms? Nonexistent. She found out because of a routine blood test. Aunt Cyn is strong and passionate and charismatic and not at all sickly.

So how does this even make sense? It just doesn't.