Birthday Countdown....4 More Days

4 more days until the BIG ONE !

Not too many new things have happened in the past week. No new doctor visits. No new therapies.

Kalista dropped in on a Gymboree music class this pass Wednesday and had a blast with all the music instruments and songs. The big drum was her favorite and she was not shy beating it loudly. We admit that she gets a lot of practice at home..all she needs is a wooden spoon and away she goes. So this week's theme was Salsa. We learned "Where is Thumbkin?" in Spanish and we frolicked around the room to some salsa mix.

She even met some new friends while playing in the band and luckily, missed a near disaster. Since we have been working so diligently on the feeding thing, we have been role reversing and having Kalista feed us and put things in our mouths when we open it. Well, she took it upon her self to try to feed one little boy in the class a drumstick since he opened his mouth while sitting next to her. Oh Kalista! Luckily, we caught that before an eye was poked out.

We are wrapping again!!! Our compression wrapping took a little bit of a hiatus for the pass two days. Kalista developed a severe case of dry skin on her belly and it became red, inflamed and crusty, so we opted to wait on the wrap until it calmed down. It looked so much better today so we decided to try the bandage wrap that Dr. Gosman gave us when we saw her for our surgery consult. It feels more cloth-like and self adheres with velcro (such a plus over those gnarly metal hooks). We have added a "Compression Wrapping" page on the blog so we can see if any progress is made in the next few months.

Crawling Around

Yahoo...it's BIRTHDAY month for Kalista! (and Jen too)

We have been planning and cleaning the house like tazmanian devils. We can't wait to see Kalista demolish her cake with her hands and maybe if we are lucky...her face. (Other parents probably discourage messy faces...but we are on the other extreme...messy face...bring it on! It means we did something right.)

Kalista is crawling up a storm and cruising around the house. She has also been testing out those balance skills too. Here's a mini sequence of her abilities:

Check that balance out...no hands!

Now that she is more mobile, she is doing a lot more exploring. She discovered a view from her bedroom window and decided to crawl over there to check it out.



She banged loudly on the window and probably scared all our neighbors. How often do you see a toddler banging on windows like the house was on fire? We nipped that in the bud quickly. She definitely was not too happy about that!

No Surgery Planned

We saw Dr. Gosman, our plastic surgeon, this morning and she told us that Kalista is still a little too petite to have the tissue expansion surgery at this point in time. We will see what the verdict is in October, when Dr. Gosman is back from maternity leave.


Meanwhile, we are going to start compression wrapping her "O" to see if we can inversely expand her abdomen by putting a small amount of pressure on her belly. She doesn't seem to mind unless she is eating and then she gets a bit fussy. We were told to take it off for mealtime, but to have it on pretty much the rest of the time.


Here are a few success stories from compression wrapping:

Blair's story

Zack's story

Caitlyn's story

We hope we can add "Kalista's story" up there one day.

Tooth Number Two

Kalista holding her toothette brush

Kalista's other tooth decided to make its debut today. It must have felt peer pressured by the other tooth. She will have two pearly whites by the time her first birthday comes. We have been trying to use the toothettes that we got from our days in the NICU, but she fights us when we get it in her mouth. She loves holding the darn thing though...like a lollipop.

Chompers!!!

Guess who has her first tooth?!?

Kalista had two little teeth forming under her bottom gums and one of them finally sprouted through yesterday. Now when our fingers go in her mouth, we feel those tooth ridges. You would have never known she was teething except for the occasional drool and her desire to gnaw on our furniture. Glad we didn't get the teething pains you hear about because we didn't have the Orajel ready.

Chomp! Chomp!

Cardiology and Physical Therapy Updates

Cardiology Update:
We saw our cardiologist on Monday and he said Kalista's echocardiogram looks fine. He had no concerns, so we won't have to see him again until October.

Getting ready for bed

Physical Therapy Update:
We had a fantastic physical therapy session today. Kalista showed off all her skills and Ms. Tami was totally excited of all the new things she could do. Crawling still seems to be our biggest goal, but we have been encouraged to move on to one handed assisted walking. Woo hoo....one step closer towards running! We asked about what we should do about Kali's belly when she does start becoming more mobile and Tami told us to wrap her belly with an Ace bandage to give her more support if she falls.

Ironically, Ace bandage "compression wrapping" was one of our after-dinner family conversations as a way to shrink Kali's belly bump. We follow the blog of a family whose little girl has a giant omphalocele too and shares many of the same doctors as Kalista. They recently saw the same plastic surgeon we go to (Dr. Gosman) and compression wrapping was suggested as they await surgery. We also found out that she is preggos and due in July...congratulations Dr. Gosman! How will this affect any surgical decisions about Kalista? We're not sure...but we will keep you posted after our appointment with her next week.

Kalista proudly showing off her mode of transportation

*The Gift of Life*

If you know someone walking in a future March of Dimes walk, please support them and donate. Millions of babies born prematurely and/or with birth defects benefit greatly from the support of the March of Dimes. We will be missing our walk in San Diego because Jen is working and Matt will be getting off from his shift early that morning. The only person available is Kalista....and she can't walk by herself! Please put your feet in her shoes and pay it forward!

Standing By Ourselves???

Can you believe it? Kalista standing up without holding on to anything. She has made some huge strides in the past two weeks. We saw her teacher today and she said the same thing. It's cute since some poses she squats like a sumo wrestler and other times it's so grown up like. Our baby is turning into a little girl!


What have we been up to since our last post? Hmmm....plenty of doctor appointments. We spent the past three days visiting Rady Children's for all of Kalista's appointments. It kinda felt like the movie "Groundhog Day"....we wake up...get ready....head to Rady's...come home...feed Kalista a few times...go to bed and then it starts all over again. So here are the latest specialist/doctor updates:

Nutrition:
Yahoo...we got samples. We are about to start Peptamen Junior as her new meal mixed with breastmilk this weekend. That means Jen still needs to pump for another few more months ("Maybe"....says Jen). The great part about all this is that we don't have to feed Kalista as often since it packs in a whopping 30 calories per an ounce (compared to breastmilk of 20 calories). This means we can spread out our meal times farther apart to encourage Kali to get hungry enough to try new things by mouth. We'll see how it goes as we do a trial run.

Cardiology:
Kalista made it through her sedated echocardiogram yesterday and she did fabulous for the hour long procedure (...and she did look like Sleeping Beauty by the way). The echo technician said that everything looked great, but we get the final results from Dr. Perry on Monday. Kalista was not a happy camper since the sedative weakened all her muscle tone. She ended up being one floppy gal for about four hours after we got home. You can tell that she wanted to play and stand...but her legs kept giving out on her. Poor thing!!!

Occupational therapy/Feeding therapy:
Um yah...not much there to update all of you on.....fresh fruit smoothies and keep working on what we have been doing. We got the suggestion to try seaweed since Kalista likes the texture of paper. How Asian is that? Too bad she can't have rice and raw fish with it...mmmm...Sushi.

It has been a truly busy week and we still have Friday to go. We are so glad this is going to be a low key weekend. We are in the midst of planning a big birthday party for some little person we know and would love to finish tying up all the loose ends this coming weekend. Whew!

I'm Eleven Months Old!!!

YOU ARE RIGHT.....I'M ELEVEN MONTHS OLD NOW!

"Hi baby friends, family and mom & dad's friends,

I got to spend my 11 month birthday with my dietitian, Rayna, today. She's really nice and gave me some samples of my new food. If I like it, then I will be able to order more. Mom and dad are supposed to start me on it on Thursday. I have a very important appointment tomorrow, so I shouldn't start until after I have my echocardiogram...to be on the safe side. They are supposed to look at my heart and make sure there are no defects since other babies like me sometimes have issues like that. They are also looking at my funny fast heartbeat and double checking to make sure it's not anything to worry about. My mom said that I have to be sedated, just like Sleeping Beauty. I hope it doesn't hurt."

"My mom says that I look like daddy in these pictures when he's riding his motorcycle. I like my rocking horse since I can sit and move at the same time. This used to belong to my cousin Alyson, but she is too big now to use it. I even got her hippo-mobile...yay me!"



"Everyone keeps telling me that I have a lot of hair. I don't know what they are talking about. I watched the movie "Tangled" and my hair isn't as long as Rapunzel's. Someone also asked my mom if it was a wig...uh...no....this is the hair I was born with. What were they thinking?!?"

Thanks for reading my blog!


With love,

Kalista

Bounce House

Tis the season for the spring babies and their birthday bashes. We had an amazing time yesterday at Lyla's 1st birthday party. We can't believe our lil miss thing will be turning ONE soon too. Kalista met some new friends and caught up with some old friends.


As we arrived, we noticed a huge pink princess castle bounce house. It was a cute Candyland themed party so they had a cotton candy machine and snow cone maker along with a fantastic spread of desserts. It was pretty much a big cavity in disguise...but oh so yummy! Since Kalista couldn't partake in the sweets, she took her turn in the bounce house with dad.

Bounce.....bounce...bounce??
It was more like stand....stand....stand.

Kalista finally warmed up to the bouncing

Not sure if this was a plea to get out or an invitation to come in

HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY LYLA!!!

Now it is time to start planning for Kalista's birthday party next month. Oh Boy!!!!

Back From the Bay (updated*)

We are officially back in San Diego after our mini trip to the San Francisco/ Bay Area.

It was a pleasant, yet non-stop family and friends filled five days. It seems like we need a vacation from our vacation. Maybe it is because we took the road trip route instead of flying.

I'm home everyone!

We made it in a record time of 7 1/2 hours (which included our 45 minute gas and rest stop break). Matt did all the driving since Jen was sandwiched between Bella and Kalista in the middle row. Poor Jo-Jo had to ride in the back of the car in his crate with all our luggage. Let's just say it was a well packed car.

We stayed the first few days at Matt's parents' house and spent time visiting friends and family. The remainder of our trip, we stayed at Jen's parents' house and enjoyed some down time. Kalista got to meet up with her baby friends while she was up there and even met some new ones.

Kalista and Beya had their first playdate

Spending time with Beya and her mommy

Kalista likes touching (more like poking) eyes and mouths now.
Watch out!!!

No tears for Tyler this time around

Kalista with Kylah's mommy

Kalista and Kylah also had their first playdate together

On our trip, Kalista got a chance to catch up with her cousins and play with them since they had the week off for spring break. Cousin Alex has a way of getting Kalista to smile when no one else can....he must have the magic touch! She has a natural migration towards him when he's in the same room as her.


Even Joey and Bella took some time to absorb the Northern California fresh air.

Joey sun-tanning again

Bella snoozing mid-morning

Kalista found one of her favorite items...the remote control

She even decided to do some yoga

We had many large dinners....three to be exact. We got to see pretty much everyone on both sides of the family. Jen's mom also celebrated a milestone birthday and turned 20 again for the third time. Kalista finally got to meet her aunt Dorothy and second cousins "once removed (???)", Naomi, Ethan and Ryan. This whole "once removed" family tree labeling is mighty confusing and ended up being one of the table topics ironically.

Grandma Susan's birthday banquet

The Lam Family banquet

Kalista with Grandma Susan and Great-Grandma Tam

As timing would have it...we were up in the Bay Area in time for a Chinese tradition similar to "Dia de los muertos (Day of the Dead)" called Qingming. This is the day where you tend to the graves of those who have departed and pay homage to their spirits. We took most of Monday on our trip to visit our loved ones who have passed; Matt's step-grandmother, maternal grandparents, Jen's paternal grandfather and maternal great grandparents. We burned incense, gave our respected bows, brought flowers and food (oranges, in our case) as part of the Chinese tradition. We even went to the temple in San Francisco Chinatown to pay respect to Matt's great relatives. At the end of the day, never did we imagine how tiring it was traveling to every resting place. We are trying to show Kalista the various Chinese traditions our family has followed in hope that they do not get abandoned as we move on from generation to generation.


On a different note...we have some medical and milestone updates for Kalista:

1. This IS the month of doctor appointments. Our visit to the dietitian is next week and we will be starting a new formula pretty soon instead of breastmilk and milk-based formula. Now that Kalista is getting older, we have been recommended to change her over to a higher calorie packed formula/nutritional drink called Peptamen. It looks like an expensive form of Pediasure, but is more easily digestible. We'll let you know how it goes in the next few weeks. As you may know...the ultimate goal is to end the gagging/retching and get Kali to eat and drink by mouth. Kalista has been more willing to put things is her mouth since we can see two little bottom teeth sprouting and the gum massages have been well received.

2. Our appointment with Dr. Gosman, our plastic surgeon, got pushed back another week, so we will have to wait until the very end of April to see if we are ready for tissue expanders as a precursor to Kalista's final stomach flattening closure surgery.

3. We have a sedated echocardiogram and cardiology appointment also planned to make sure her little heart can handle another surgery because of the WPW arrythmia.

4. Kalista can also show off her standing and partial crawling skills at our next physical therapy session in two weeks. She can pretty much scoot herself to any piece of furniture now and pull herself up to standing without any help. Ms. Tami is going to be so proud!

Standing next to the sofa after pulling herself up

Whew...that was our trip in a nutshell!