the end of an era

Well folks, I think this is it. For some people, blogging is a real outlet - and I'm realizing that I am not one of those people. Pre-facebook, it was my main way of sharing myself with others that weren't part of my daily life. But I was never the girl that kept a consistent diary (more apologies than anything - "Dear Diary, It's been soooooo long since I last wrote!"), and my blog is seeming to head along that same path. So for now, I'll see everyone on facebook - or even better, in person!!

testing, testing, 1 2 3...

So, I couldn't think of any clever or funny way at the moment to intro this bit of news, but I'd figure I'd let all 3 of you that read this in on the most recent developments in our quest to get Sophia to gain weight. Sophia is growing! Hooray, right? Sort of hooray. Apparently she's getting taller even faster than kids normally do at this age, so she's up to the 50th percentile in height. Hot dog! And she's gaining weight, but it's still on the same little curve that she's made below the chart (Is that a negative percentile? Is there such a thing as the zero-eth percentile? What's below that?) So while she's definitely growing, the height/weight ratio is getting bigger, which according to the gastroenterologist, means 'worse.' Her appetite is still fairly non-existent too. (You would not believe how many people have told me how much they would kill to have this problem, and I got to tell you, it's sort of a comfort to hear that...but...not really.)

She's still on meds to treat her reflux (we think it's working?), but the erythromycin never really made her hungry. And that's the best option to treat poor appetite, as far as side effects go. So...Sophia gets to have a sweat test and upper GI endoscopy w/biopsy to see if there are any underlying reasons for the DGE - food allergies, bacterial infections, or still-high acid levels etc.

The sweat test isn't a huge procedure, but the endoscopy does involve total anesthesia. :( Fortunately, she won't remember a bit of it, and she'll have little if any side effects from the procedures. The sweat test is tomorrow, and the endoscopy is Tuesday, so we'd love your prayers! Most of all, that God's will would be done in all this, but especially that we might get some answers, and that we would be calm and flexible while dealing with all the doctors and waiting rooms!

breakfast butz

Since northern Delaware in functionally considered a suburb of Philly, football season has brought new Eagles cereal to our local Acme grocery stores. Unfortunately the all-caps font they chose for the box makes the title a bit ambiguous looking. I couldn't help snickering to myself like a middle-schooler for a few minutes after I finally figured out that it was supposed to be "Breakfast Blitz." Finding a pic was more difficult than I had the time/energy for, so here's the Fox Philly news clip

Is it just me? ;) I think not.

still alive....

Yes, world, I'm still here! The busyness/travel/lack of routine of the summertime morphed into a molehill-turned-mountain of pictures and adventures, and the thought of blogging, even when the free time presented itself, felt overwhelming. Then I remembered....this is not graded. Ha! There still lurks a little bit of 'if you can't do it thoroughly and well, don't even attempt it' bit of twisted perfectionist in me that comes out in the strangest ways sometimes. So...pictures are on Facebook, traveling and visiting with dear friends and family was marvelous, and we are now back in the comfortable routine of fall - complete with cooler weather and much raking (stupid tree next door).

My friend Jennifer had a funny online experiment on her blog, and I've decided to give it a go. Here are her instructions: Go to Google, search for "(insert your name) needs," and then laugh at the hilarious things that come up. Read below to enjoy some of the things that I apparently need:

1. Erin needs another miracle.
2. Erin needs to wear shirts that have straps. (uhhh...think I got that one covered. (no pun intended!)
3. Erin needs another cable access show.
4. Erin needs a Harley.
5. Erin needs a friend.
6. Erin needs a liver transplant.
7. Erin needs advice.
8. Erin needs your prayers!
9. Erin needs to do the dishes.
10. Erin needs a place to live.
11. Erin needs a makeover.
11. Erin need help.
12. Erin needs some posse love and support.
13. Erin needs some of her own medicine.
14. Erin needs a nap. (always!)

Some of these are definitely true, others, thankfully not. Let me know what your name turns up!

fun recipes

In the neverending quest to find new things that Sophia will either eat or be entertained by (sometimes the two aren't so far apart!), I came across two great recipes in the last few days that were moderate successes - so here they are!

Play-Doh

2 c. flour
1 c. salt
4 tsp. cream of tartar
2 c. water
2 Tbsp. oil
food coloring

Mix dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and whisk until well blended. In a heavy skillet or saucepan, cook on med. low for 2-3 minutes until thick. Knead until smooth.

Mine needed exactly 13 minutes of cooking to get to play-doh consistency, so I'm not sure how 2-3 minutes is possible, but that's what the original calls for. I'm actually not sure where I got this recipe - I remember finding it online when I taught at Magnolia, and it was a big hit with the kiddos. I had forgotten about it until I made an awful play-doh recipe my pediatrician gave me the other day (half a cup of oil! you can imagine the mess...), and thankfully I still had a copy of the recipe for the good stuff. Of course, Sophia was totally sketched out by the feel of it, but I bet your little bitties (and you! you know you love the stuff. :) ) will have a grand ole time with it. She has been completely enamored with the plastic spoons and straws we dug out to use with the play-doh, so that's been a nice plus for this afternoon! :D

Loafer's Loaf

(from Feed Me, I'm Yours, a cookbook from the 70's lovingly passed along from Julia)

1 lb. ground beef
1 1/4 cup oatmeal, uncooked
1/2 tsp. celery salt
1 cup milk
2/3 cup chopped tomatoes
1/4 cup minced onion
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup grated American cheese

Combine all ingredients. Pack into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hr. 10 min.

I actually followed a suggestion the cookbook had on a different page - make mini-loaves in a muffin tin! I have no idea how long I baked them (20-30 min? It was a bit bonkers that particular night, and I was just peeking and checking til they looked done.) I also didn't have celery salt (who does?), so I just used regular old salt. Bonus? Josh loved these!! He spread ketchup on them and asked that they be added to our dinner rotation. :) Sophia liked the few bites she took (yes, only a few bites....the meds aren't doing jack at this point), but today she's rejected them outright. Ahh, toddlerhood.

I've been to Richmond and back since the last post, and I'll see if I can get some pictures up of Jonathan and Joel's graduation. (Mine came out sadly blurry.) I also had a fabulous, short, and slightly chaotic visit with Julia - needless to say, neither of us had any free hands for picture-taking! Other than that, our summer routine has been just that - fairly routine! We're in the midst of transitioning from two naps to one....whew! That's another post entirely - I'll probably wait til I can put a good positive "hindsight is 20/20" kind of slant on that. ;)

lifestyle changes

Well, after many months (almost 6!) of trying to figure out why our otherwise healthy toddler generally isn't interested in eating or gaining any kind of weight, we finally have some answers. Hallelujah! May 23rd was Sophia's gastric emptying scan, which we had been dreading/praying about for some months, mainly because it involved her drinking a couple ounces out of a sippy cup in 10 minutes (which she usually was not interested in) and lying totally still for an hour, unsedated (umm...is that even possible for anyone under the age of 12?).

But sure enough, she gulped the 3 oz. of milk mixed with something radioactive, so it must have been as tasteless as they promised. (It definitely helped that she hadn't had anything to eat or drink yet since she had gotten up a few hours earlier.) She was pretty upset at the nurse who taped her torso down to the scanning table, but after a few minutes, she was chill as could be. Know why? They dimmed the lights, rolled up a little TV cart, and popped in some Blue's Clues. Sophia was MESMERIZED. She's not really a TV watcher yet, and this must have been the coolest thing she'd ever seen. It was nice too - the scanning was being done from underneath her, so we could sit on either side of her, reach over top of her - whatever needed to be done. It was more painless than getting her weighed or measured at the pediatrician!! I mean, the child did not move a muscle for the straight hour. I think she might have twitched a finger in the last ten minutes, but that was it. The nurses were flabbergasted - they'd definitely never seen any kid her age be that still for the whole time. Miraculous!!

And...they called us a few days later (also miraculous) to let us know that she's got moderate reflux and delayed gastric emptying (which means food hangs out in her stomach too long making her not hungry). Some morning Prevacid for the reflux and 3x daily low dose erythromyacin to make her stomach empty out, and we might see some results in the nearish future! She ate like a horse the first night we started the meds, and I got all excited about it, but she hasn't done that since, so I think that was just a fluke. (Darn!) She doesn't love getting the meds squirted in her mouth, but we manage to get them down without too much drama. I'll keep you posted if she suddenly chunks up! :)

The other lifestyle change? Daily SPF 30 now goes on Josh's head. Yep, a visit to our dermatologist this morning confirmed that the two spots on his head that seemed like they were always in process of healing were actually precancerous! Whoa. Fortunately, Dr. Webster froze them off right then and there. So if you have any spots/moles/anything that make you nervous at all, don't hesitate to get them checked out! (PSA over now. :D )

not as rich as we'd hoped - ha!

yard sale profits: 12 dollars (oh well)

yard sale purchases from others in the community yard sale: 9 dollars (all things we needed! promise!)

going through every inch of our house and clearing out what we don't need/use, plus meeting many many more of our neighbors: priceless!!

and she speaks!

I just realized that it's been at least four weeks now since Sophia ventured into the realm of first words, and I had yet to post about it! *tsk tsk* Being a linguist and a former teacher of language-disordered kiddos, it's been such fun in a mama way and a nerdly way to watch the process unfold. :D She had never really imitated any sounds we had made - definitely babbled all kinds of strings of different sounds, but never in direct imitation of what we were doing. She could mimic intonation perfectly - 'jibberish' that sounded like adult conversations in some strange language, and strings of tones that sounded exactly like exaggerated things we said to her. ("mmmmm," tones going up then down when she ate something she liked, "mmhmmm?" when she picked up a toy phone, sounding just like when I answer the phone with, "Hello?" and so on)

Then....(April 4th to be exact)...Josh asked her, "Can you say 'Dada?' And out of her mouth came the sweetest little 'dada' that you have ever heard. Just like she had been doing it her whole short little life or something. Ha! "Can you say 'Mama?'" Sure enough...."Mama!" And then the best part...."Where's Dada?" She points...."Dada!" "Where's Mama?" She points again. "Mama!" Later that day, when we were out shopping as a family, she would point to whichever of us wasn't strolling/carrying her and 'label' us with a smile. I've never been so happy to be labeled! :D

Since then, she's added an occasional 'bye-bye' (more often than not, she blows a kiss), ball (baaaah or baaaaow), baby (behBEH), more (moe or meh meh MEH!), a whole host of animal sounds (including 'lalala' for pigs, thanks to the Sandra Boynton classic Moo Baa LaLaLa), and shaking her head yes and no. She's even doing "AH-hmm!" for 'open,' although I think she uses this for 'please,' 'yes,' 'more,' 'I want that," etc. We'll see what she comes up with next! No walking yet, but she does cruise the furniture like nobody's business, so I'll keep you posted. :)