6 Months

Where has the time gone? My baby is turning into a bigger baby, one that can sit up by herself, is eating foods, and grabbing at one thing or another all the time. She's getting stronger every day, in body and spirit I think-I love to see personalities emerge.

Ainslee had her 6 months well check last Monday, and while it wasn't so "well" we did get some stats. She's 17 lbs, and 26 1/4" long; I'm not even sure where she falls in the percentiles-but I believe it's right around 50th for both. She's also meeting all her developmental milestones, it was so funny she couldn't sit alone last Monday-and now she's doing it, and reaching everywhere for items and balancing her weight.

She has had a hell of a first winter though, she's been plagued w/ ear infections since December-one after another. It made for many sleepless nights, and an unhappy baby most days. She was finally able to get into the ENT last Wed, and he put tubes in Thursday. They were certainly needed, it was a matter of a day and Ains was like a new girl. The doctor has said the stats are not on her side, she will probably have more sets given how she's had problems at such a young age. Now until 3 years old might be a little rough for us, but it did make me feel a little better knowing my two other kids dodged that bullet-1 out of 3 ain't bad!

The last few weeks have brought so many firsts: teeth, first full night of sleep, and now her tubes-being her first surgery. It prompted me to go buy her a baby book, cause GASP I hadn't bought one yet. I was even more heartbroken to find that Jason had tossed (on accident) the folder containing all of her hospital stuff: bracelets, pink slip w/ her name and doctor, footprints, YES, all the good stuff. Even her u/s photos. I felt like such a crappy parent knowing her book won't have in it what the other kids did. I was able to print off a scanned copy of the u/s photos, the rest I'll just have to explain to her some day.

So here's hoping for many wonderful days to come to you Ainslee, lord knows you deserve it for all the rough one's you've had in the last 3 months!

Spring, where are you?

So it's February, and our household is getting a serious itch for Spring to make its appearance early. Seems that I have been to the doctors office every week for the past two months-for one thing or another. First was Alex's finger, and then about a month and half of aftercare, then once that subsided all 3 of the kids had ear infections. I'm assuming the lovely amoxicillin didn't touch them, and 3 weeks later each one of them slowly trickled in, Ainslee first, then Laura had a sinus infection, then a lovely viral condition called astomatitis, and finally Alex went in last week. They've all tried a second round of antibiotics, so I'm hoping they work-and we're done w/ the sickies for a while. If there was one trait I didn't want to pass onto my children, it was ear infections. . . . Most of my childhood winter months were spent with monthly runs to the ENT, and usually resulted in a set of tubes for the year. I had in total probably 5-7 sets of tubes in my lifetime, the last set going in at 16 years old.

And I have to add-cause I started this 2 days ago, Ains has since been back to the ped for yet another ear infection-so as I suspected it's off to the ENT, and tubes more than likely. My ped has told me the stats aren't on our side at having 3 infections before 6 months of age-those kids typically have ear problems til they age and their estatuean tube has more of an angle. The ped said my history isn't on her side, and it appears she probably has my anatomy-guess I gave one of my kids something, huh?!

So I was going to add more to this, but due to my lack of sleep last night-I'm beat, off to bed I go. . .