Cute post

Ok I admit it. I am a computer dummy. Our old computer, the one with all the pics on its hard drive, has died. Of course I have taken lots more pics recently but I have not been trained on how to upload them to this new computer (yes I need training, hence the dummy comment). So I have no pics to attach to this post. Too bad because there are good ones.

There are some super cute pics of Evy and her NICU buddy Edna. Edna is a 27 weeker born one week after Evelyn. This is Edna's first Christmas out of the hospital. In celebration we dressed the girls up in matching BFF shirts and took their picture sitting amongst the presents under the Christmas tree. They are truly precious gifts. Truly cute.

Another great gift is chocolate and there is a yummy picture of Evy helping mommy make peanut clusters for the family Christmas party. Evy was not sure she liked dipping chocolate when I put a dallop of it on her high chair tray. It was sticky and she tried to shake it off her fingers. But then she tasted it and... the picture says it all. Super cute.

Well I will end this post by not describing more pics but by inviting you to watch the funny video Nate posted. In it Evy chases her own image around the room. Very cute.

Lastly, to all the followers of Extreme Evy. We wish you blessed with health and happiness, as we have been. Merry Christmas.

Leading the pack

As you can see from the pic, Evy lives in a house with four dogs, also one cat (not pictured). She calls all the dogs iggie, and the cat kia.

A typical morning starts with her sucking loudly on her thumb. Then comes, "mom...mom...mom...". I get her from the crib and she looks around for the shepard whom has taken Nate's spot on the bed. She waves her hands and says, "Hi Iggie, Hi Iggie!". We go out to the living room where she finds the husky and kitty, usually sleeping side by side. She waves her hands and says, "Hi Iggie, Hi Kia. Hi Kia, Hi Iggie". Then we go into the kitchen for breakfast. She see the rottie, "Hi Iggie, Hi Iggie!". Evy drops food as she eats. With each piece she stares at the floor. Soon the wienie dog comes to clean up. "Hi Iggie, Hi Iggie!" she says waving her hands about. Grandma appears. Evy may give her a smile between bites, but not always. When Evy and the wienie dog have finished her breakfast she will bang on her try and say "mom...mom...mom...". This is a typical start to the day.



Evy loves her pets. She looks for them in every room. She is always excited to see them. They have been her motivation, her passion, her muse. Because of them she has learned how to lick, crawl, stand, share, and how to pet, not pull, soft fur. The dogs know that she is the boss. But they are always free to leave when they tire of her attention. This has led to another lesson. Evelyn has not quit figured why the dogs sometimes flee in mass when she crawls in their direction. She turns to me with a long face as if to say, "Why?". I shrug and tell her that they will come around when they want their ears pulled. And indeed they do. By not pushing the relationships, just letting them develop (with supervision and rules) each and every pet comes to Evy to get their needs met. The wienie dog relies on the food she drops. The shepard knows she is always interested in playing with his ball. The husky and cat each know Evy will always pay attention, and the good ol' rottie is full of kisses to share. Evy never turns them away.

So this Thanksgiving I am giving thanks to my pack. To the big grumpy one I send to work with a sandwich and a handful of nicotine gum. To the littlest one; whom calls me mom. To the wise ones; who give me help and advise. And especially to the furry ones; the devoted ones. Thank You.

What a weekend...what a year.

Boy what a crappy weekend for the sports teams we root for. The Utes were trounced by TCU. Also, the Arizona Wildcats, Pittsburgh Steelers, Oakland Raiders, and New England Patriots all had a chance to win but lost their games over the weekend. It is the kind of time you'd like to forget. But this weekend will be remembered. This weekend was our anniversary, not the wedding anniversary, but our family anniversary. One year ago Sunday we brought Evelyn home from the hospital. And what a year it has been. Evelyn has grown from not-quit-a-newborn into not-quit-a toddler. Nate has stopped smoking. The dogs and cat have survived with all their tails and ears intact. And I, well I am loving being a mom. Below are some pics from the previous year. Enjoy.

Let's hope year #2 is as grand.

Taking a stand

First of all Evy and I went on our first road trip last week. My sister Sandy came into town from Texas and she took my mom, our other three sisters, myself, and Evy on a day trip to Moab. Yes we drove four hours each way to spend a few hours visiting with friends and family there. Overall Evy did well and it made me hopeful that she will be ready for a family vacation next summer. Evy was somewhat unimpressed with the natural beauty Moab has to offer, but she did have a great time hearing how cute she is. Also, she loved Berdine's famous pinto beans. Yummy!


Evy sits on the trail up the the King and Queen thrones.
A great place from my childhood.


The view of Moab from our resting place on the trail.



Evy sits in her great-grandpa Day's wheel barrel.

Evy also has exciting news to share. She now has enough hair to fashion into a do. See the pic below.


Really this bow is clipped to hair.

Lastly, Evelyn has taken a stand against the need to crawl. Let me update you to the fact that Evy can crawl. She will go hand-knee, hand-knee accross the floor. But there are just four things that motivate her to do this. Dog ears, dog toys, cat's tail, and the remote. Unless you dangle one of these things in front of her she will not crawl. What she does do is skooch backwards until she can prop herself into a downward-dog, or stink bug position. Hands planted in front, legs straight, butt in the air. She has done this ever since she played with Shayla and saw her do it to stand and walk away. Evy really wants to walk. So much so this is how we found her on Sunday after her nap.


"See Shayla, I can do it too!"

Lightning in a bottle

Let me start by saying that having a mobile baby keeps you busy. I turn my back and she is rolling in the garbage and chewing on shoes. I am not even going to mention the dog toys. Yuck! But this is not what has stopped me from posting. I have not posted because I need to amend the last one, and I have not wanted to do so.

Evelyn has caught lightning in a bottle several times in her short life. She will do something once, or for a short time and then not do it again. In fact sometimes she really struggles to repeat the action. For example, when she was in the NICU she could mimic the facial expression for and say the sound oooooo.



Yet soon after she started, she stopped and to this day she has not said it again. In fact, she only sings the EIEI part of EIEIO.

And so it is no big surprised that Evelyn has not crawled again. Not a surprised, but a bit of a disappointment. Of course not crawling has not stopped from getting around. She rolls, turns, and stretches herself into lots of trouble. In fact right now she has found a dog toy and is waving it around trying to catch the dogs attention. Oh yeah I was not going to mention the dog toys. Sorry.

Her not crawling is not for lack of trying. She has all the movements but not the coordination. It is as if she is on a sheet of ice. Her attempts always end with her crashing and bumping her head. Because of this I have put away all her hard toys until she gets stable on her knees. I just don't know what else to do. I have tried everything I can think of to help and I have done everything her developmental specialist has suggested. I just want to do it for her, but of course I can't. The only thing I can do is try not to worry and believe that someday soon she will crawl. I have to remember that in order for her to coordinate all the movements needed to crawl she has to make new neural pathways in her damaged cerebellum. But she is feisty, and she keeps getting up on her knees and reaching out for what she wants. That is my Evy!

Stay tuned the next crawl alert will be coming soon.

CRAWL ALERT

We interrupt the regularly scheduled blog post to announce that a crawler has been sighted in the Forrester household. We now go to Nate for details;

Uh... well Evelyn was sitting in the front room when she spotted the green ring. She leaned forward, she got on all fours, moved her right hand, then her left leg, then her left hand, then her right leg. Finally she reached out for the ring and fell to the floor.


There you have it. Evy is crawling. I think it is fair to say our lives will never be the same again.

Evelyn Meets Sofia

Evelyn met her cousin, Sofia, today. She was interested in the little babe but not jealous when I held her. Funny girls.

Pool party pics

Evelyn hosted her first pool party. Shayla and Alice came with moms (and grandma) in tow.
Needless to say Evy loved having friends over and she learned a lot from them. Her favorite toy is now the lid to a cookie jar that she and Shayla fought over.

Here are some pics of the party.



The girls havin' fun



Shayla tries to climb into the ducky pool


Alice hangs out with the "big girls" while the babies splash in the pool

One year ago...

I hope you guys are not tired of the whole "One year ago" thing. I learned with the lose of Leo that one year milestones are very important. It is as if healing can not begin until you reach the "One year ago" mark. These anniversaries force you to remember, the memory releases the pressure of your grief. Without this pressure you can look toward the future for a brief second and you begin to heal.

And so with Evelyn I am doing it again. One year ago we were in the middle of a birth crisis. We were the parents of an extreme preemie. Early on in Evy life I found a website which sales clothes for micro preemies. I could not resist. I bought a dress and hat. I took them to the hospital and there they sat. Weeks went by but her health was not good enough to allow dressing her. She was so fragile she would crash getting her diaper changed. All the other babies in her room were bigger and stronger. They were dressed. In my mind the dress came to represent all my hopes and wishes for Evelyn and our future together. Plus it was really cute.

So one year ago yeasterday I went to the NICU and asked the nurse if Evy was ready. She said yes and I dressed her.



This is one of my favorite memories. But looking at the picture now it is hard not to cry. Even on the best of days having a baby in the NICU is tough.

Yesterday I marked the anniversary by taking the dress out of storage and putting it on one of Evelyn's dolls. It was a important ritual. Someday I will show Evelyn the dress and try to explain to her how small she was and how hard she had to fight to be able to wear it. I want that day to be all about Evy and her tremendous spirit, not about old ghosts in my head. I needed to demystify the dress. For it is just a dress.

To that end I dressed dolly and I dressed Evy and got some great pics of them together.




This is my favorite.

Yeaterday I remembered, released the pressure of grief, and looked toward the future. Today the healing begins.

Finger Food

Evy chews on a cleaned chicken bone

Evelyn is now old enough to want to eat all her meals by herself. Thanks but I will take that spoon mom. Problem is she does not get all the food from her tray into her mouth. A lot ends up on the bib, chair and floor (the floor for only a few seconds as the wienie dog cleans it up prompt!). So we compromise. She gets what we eat, chopped into bits on her tray with her own spoon, and I get to feed her from a jar. It is all good.

The secret to feeding a babe without teeth a "grown-up meal" is to overcook it so everything is mushy; meat, veggies, everything. As I hate mushy I usually cook the adult food to al dente, and then microwave Evy's portion for a minute or so. Another way to get mushy is to make it into a casserole, these are by nature mushy. For example, Cook pasta and brown meat. Mix in casserole dish with favorite pasta sauce, garlic and other spices to taste. Cook at 400 degrees for 30 mins. If not mushy enough, microwave for a minute or so.

I also cook just for her. Here are two of her favorite recipes:

Babies Tuna Casserole

Cook 1/8 cup macaroni until soft. Drain. Mix with

1 tbs tuna
1/2 stick of string cheese cut into small pieces
dab of butter or splash of olive oil
sminch of lemon pepper

Serve with 1 jar peas baby food and two spoons

Babies Broccoli Beef

Cook 1/8 cup rice until soft.

Steam broccoli and carrots until soft. Cut into small pieces.

Mix rice and veggies with a splash of olive oil and a sminch of lemon pepper.

Serve with a jar of beef baby food and two spoons

Enjoying the summer

Well I have to say this post has been a long time coming. My only excuse is that it is summer and Evy and I are finally in good enough health to get out and enjoy it. Our favorite spot is the Murray Pool. It is great. But on lazy days we head to the back yard to have fun eating Popsicles and splashing in the kiddie pool.



Boy it is good to relax and enjoy being Evy's mom. It seems we have been struggling so hard for so long. It is nice to just sit in the sun and have fun with my little one.

As for an update on her eye. We go see the doc later this week. I do know that she survived the surgery even though she had a bad reaction to the morphine and had to be put on a ventilator. Also, she did not get an infection. Now we just have to wait and see. The doctor might want us to patch the good eye again. More in this later.


Evy two days after eye muscle surgery.

Update on Evy

Just a short note to let you know Evy made it through the surgery ok. We will know in 6 weeks if it straightens her vision.

I'll write more on this later.

So many things...

I am sorry I have been long in blogging. So many things...

First, my recovery is going well. And thanks to physical therapy Evy is getting a taste of being cared for by babysitters. For now just Grandmas Clausen and Foote as well as Aunt Kristi.

Second, Evelyn has had a birthday. One year! Boy, we made it! I am crying now at the thought of what we've been through. Well, you can see from the following pics how far she has come. They are taken one year apart.



Then



and now.

It was a great day. So many people were able to gather in celebration of Evy's life and birth. Unlike we were unable too do one year ago. It was as if we had all been holding our breath for a year, hoping for the best. Then we beheld the cherub reaching out for more, and we all sighed. It was summed up best in a card we received from Evy's primary nurse Natalee:

"Dearest little one-year-old,
you're sweet as can "bee"
and what a "buzzy" year you've had-
so much to do and see.

You always keep life humming with discovery and fun...

...and what a world of happiness you bring to everyone!"

I guess a loose interpretation of the word buzzy can describe the year. Thanks to all of you who came. It was a great day.


Natilee holds Evy for the first time since we left the NICU.

Third, Grandpa Forrester came up for the party. We took him to the zoo. Here is a pic of the "Three Smiling Forresters".



Lastly, Evelyn is going in for eye surgery on 7/15. You may have noticed in some of her pictures that she is cross-eyed. This is common in preemies. The brain makes the wrong connections to one or both eyes. In Evy's case, her left eye. They correct this by moving the muscle so that the wrong connection makes the eye go straight. It has a 80% chance of sucess, and this is made better by patching the good eye before surgery. Evelyn is now wearing a patch for four hours a day until the surgery.



I will update on this later...