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