So Big!

Kalista always seems to surprise everyday with her new talents. Over the weekend, she decided to show us her bubble blowing abilities (a.k.a."motorboat", according to our neurologist) and standing up on her own with a little help of course. It's pretty cool to see her learning all these new skills. She is getting so BIG!

BLOWING BUBBLES
(Starring Kalista and her mouth)

LOOK.....I CAN DO IT!
(Starring Kalista, Joey and Bella)

Birthday In Da House

We are alive!!!! The blog stopped for a while there as we have been recuperating.

Good gracious that cold took the house by storm. Kalista is completely over her cold bug, but Jen and Matt are still fighting the tail end of it. Luckily, it didn't stop any of us from celebrating Matt's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATT (DADDY/HUBBY)!!!

We have plenty to talk about since we have had some appointments and revelations.

* Kalista had her first babysitting experience last weekend. Our awesome friend, Bev, came by and spent the morning with Kalista since Jen had work and Matt had a training session to go to for work. Bev took some pictures of Kalista and her beautiful hairdo. Sounds like they had some good girl bonding time.





** Kalista saw Dr. Dohil, her GI specialist, this past week and they changed out her g-tube. It looks so white and pretty again. YAY! We were told that we really need to get her eating by mouth sooner than later. It is so much easier to say than to do. We must say that she has come a long way since she has been home. She now takes in about two spoons of baby food twice a day and will tolerate the spout of her sippy cup in her mouth. She even does this gumming motion when she drinks from it. From our appointment, we decided to try weaning her off of Prilosec since we are not seeing any benefits. We are actually seeing that she may be retching less now that we took away one of the doses during the day. We are also due for our next swallow study since Dr. Dohil wants to figure out why Kalista continues to retch and why she may still be resistant to eating.

** Speaking of eating, we are about to start our individual occupational therapy/feeding sessions with Adriana in two weeks. Goodbye Ann and Lil' Steps for Little Feeders! We really hope Kalista will get that lightbulb moment where everything just clicks and she is able to take her daily milk volumes by sippy cup. Meanwhile, we will keep working on textures, taste and fun with Marshallows. They are so FLUFFY!!!

My marshmallow mole keeps moving!

** Kalista also saw her physical therapist, Tami, this week. We are meeting milestones!!! She is doing so good with her crawling stance and may skip crawling altogether since her belly gets in the way. We are working on sitting to stand, kneeling and standing with support. We better start baby proofing the house since it may not be too long before she starts walking and running. The dogs are going to get picked on for sure, especially Bella, Kalista's favorite one.

Kalista: "Bella....get off mom and dad's bed!!!"

Almost Better!

Kalista is almost back to her normal self again. Her cough is mild and she has been much more active today. She has been smiling and being her good 'ol happy self. Now that she is feeling better, her top three " fun" activities to do now are (1) hanging out in her oasis of plastic balls with her stuffed animal friends (2) trying to close our laptop whenever we are working on it and (3) getting a hold of our mobile phones and pressing all the buttons in search for her Mickey Mouse Clubhouse video.


New milestones:

1. Jen swears that Kalista said "Mama" last night, but that may be up for interpretation.

2. Matt was feeding Kalista and she drank water through her Tommee Tippee bottle. Good job baby! Never did we think she would like the bottle again.

Relief In The Sauna

We saw Kalista's pediatrician yesterday for her follow-up visit from our trip to the ER. Her lungs sound clear and her oxygen saturation is good, so there is no need to admit her to Children's at this point. From talking to Dr. Berent, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) is a one of those illnesses that vary so greatly in how it affects kids. Some kids kick it in one day, some a week, and some get admitted to the hospital. We asked some questions and found out there is no vaccine/immunization shot yet, but there is a shot of antibodies called Synagis to prevent RSV and it is a mighty expensive one at that...something like $1000 per a vial. Ouch! So if you are reading this and want to retire early....develop that vaccine!

Kalista is doing much better today, but her cough is still a little chunky sounding. We added in some sauna treatments in our bathroom yesterday and it made a world of difference. So... we hope this helps get rid of all the junk that is stuck in her chest today. Kalista got the deluxe spa treatment while she sat in her tub and we steamed up the room. She even got bubble blowing and a massage...what a lucky gal!

Darn Those Sniffles!!!

Kalista's sniffles took a turn for the worst last night. She went to bed around 10 pm and woke up at midnight struggling to breathe. She was wheezing and working really hard to get a breath. Jen called the triage nurse at our pediatrician's office and they suggested that we call 911. What?!?!?? 911? We made the executive decision to drive to Children's ER ourselves with Kalista's medical binder in tow. We hopped in the car and we were at Rady Children's ER in 5 minutes. Thank goodness we live so close!

Kalista was seen within five minutes of checking in. She was suctioned and then deep suctioned because of her severe chest congestion. They ordered chest x-rays and a nose swab to see if she had RSV, which evidently is at an epidemic peak. It was good to see Kalista get some relief after they cleared all the mucous from her airways. By 3:30 am, we were discharged and Kalista was diagnosed with bronchiolitis from RSV....not pneumonia...whew! We were given an inhaler and nebulizer to help relieve her breathing issues and sent home to rest.

She is doing much better today and looks like she has a bit more energy. She is still rosy and not the same 'ol energetic gal...but we are on the mend.

The Case of the Sniffles

We figured out why Kalista has been so moody...she has the sniffles. Poor thing! Her nose has been running and she has a gross phlegmy cough. It doesn't help that she retches so much more frequently now to clear her throat. She is definitely under the weather and the only thing that has made her smile is Bella. Go figure it would be our dog that lightens up her day.


We're not sure when it all started, but for the past two days the cold symptoms have reared its ugly head. We can't believe how useful the nasal aspirator is that we got as a baby shower gift. Thank you snot gun (that's what Jen calls it)! If we had a fairy godmother...we would make two wishes for Kalista: (1) we hope that it doesn't spread around in our household and (2) we hope she gets over it quickly (she looks so miserable).

Grumpy Day

Boy oh boy....did Matt have a rough night last night! So...we are in the process of transitioning Kali into her crib and she is just not having it. She loves to be in the same room as us at night and it doesn't really help that she is beginning the stage of separation anxiety. She is a cute clingy little monkey who loves to be held morning, noon and night. She was up crying and being super fussy. Matt got stuck with baby duty since Jen had to wake up early for work. What a good husband and dad!!!

The rest of today was not any better. Kalista was in a grumpy mood all day and drove Matt nuts since he was beyond sleep deprived. Poor baby (Matt...not Kalista)! By the time Jen got home from work, Kalista seemed to have calmed down a bit and ended the evening with some messy high-chair time. We are working with textures and food this week..so whip cream was the item of the day. She mushed and gushed that cream all over the place...MESSY!!!

Whip cream and orange = Orange Julius (Yum for mommy!)

That's a whip cream moustache!!!

Kalista must have worked herself up all day since she zonked out within three seconds of hitting the pillow and is now in her crib. Cross our fingers that we don't have a repeat episode of last night's ordeal!

I'm Eight Months Old!!!

Yup...you got that right! Kalista is officially 8 months old today.

Here's our latest adventures:

1. We saw our nutritionist on Tuesday. She says that Kalista is on the growth curve and that we are doing well with weight gain and height. Kalista is now 15 lbs, 15 oz now and 26 inches. We are adding one ounce to her total feedings to account for her age bracket. That makes it 810 mL (27 ounces) a day. Other than that...no other nutrition concerns.


2. We are coming up soon in saying goodbye to our "Lil Steps for Feeders" group and heading into individual occupational therapy since Kalista has progressed so well. We need to emphasize more of the feedings issues and less on the fine motor skills. Today, Kalista got to play with large marshmallows (sticky!), Slim Jim beef jerky, and we almost got gummy worms...but we ran out of time in our OT session. For homework, it looks like we are to encourage Kalista's food exploration one step further and let her touch the food, talk to the food, play with the food and smell the food that we may be eating. Our mantra for the week will be: "Kiss the food Kalista, the food loves to kiss you".

Mmm...pickle lover like mama?

3. Our Gymboree class is fueling Kalista's motivation to get moving. She is starting to think that it is pretty cool to be able to crawl and get around. She stares at all the other little ones in her class as they interact with each other while crawling from one side of the room to the other. This week, she has learned how to pivot herself in a circle while sitting on her bottom. We found out this morning when she was trying to escape from our occupational therapist. Crawling is still a challenge, but she is slowly getting there. She loves to plunge forward into your arms from sitting and has taken a few face plants in the last day or two. Poor baby!!!


4. Balls. What can we say....she loves them as much as our dogs do.

Come and play with me!

5. Our days of continuous sleep are over as we know it. Kalista is going through some crazy stage that makes her wake up at midnight and won't go back to bed until 1:30 am. She cries and tosses and turns like she can't find a comfy position to sleep in. Ugh!

Hey...I'm a baby. What do you expect?

6. Lastly, Kalista has a new expression.

The STINK face!

So....that sums up all the new things that have been going on. Stay tuned for more exciting news!

New Beginnings

Hello everyone!!! Happy NEW Year! We have been very busy getting the new year under way and our schedules are more packed than ever with Kalista's therapies, doctor appointments, playdates and more. We have officially started Gymboree on Wednesday afternoons and she loves hanging out with a dozen other babies. We think it may have started her interest in crawling. Kalista has been trying to leap out of our arms and getting on those hands and knees. Our physical therapist will be so happy to hear this.

Kalista and her funny face

Her hair is long enough for pigtails now

Hanging out around the house

Jen's childhood piano is making its rounds again

A future Bach? Mozart? Beethoven?
Lady Gaga? (hee hee...had to throw that in there)

Kalista attended her first two birthday parties this past weekend. She had a great time and enjoyed all the festivities.

Today is the first night putting Kalista in the big girl crib in her room to sleep through the night. She has been sleeping in our room since she came home and now that she has officially outgrown the co-sleeper, we needed to take the next step and get her used to being in her own room. So far, she has done a great job transitioning. It's only day one...hopefully, we didn't just jinx ourselves there.

Better Late Than Never

We did not have a chance to send out baby announcements to everyone since Kalista came home much later than we expected.
So better late than never, we decided that we would share it digitally.