What I did on my summer vacation......

Hey everyone!

We had a great summer and Sophie did so much growing and changing....she is getting so big and she learns something new every day.

In July she started to get up on her hands and knees and loved to play on her tummy...around this time we got her into a little kiddie pool at her grandma and Jiji's house.....she absolutely loved it. I watched her dip her face into the water and come up with a look of surprise on her face....then I was surprised to watch her do it again....and again....without fear. She's so crazy sometimes how she will just do something she's never done before and not be afraid. She inspires me to try to be more brave.

In August, we went to a cottage up north and spent a whole week relaxing and playing with lots of Sophie's cousins. She loves to watch kids play. She gets so excited - it's like you can see the fire in her that makes her want to get up and run and join in the games. Sophie loved relaxing and having afternoon naps in the hammock under the tree. It was the first time I traveled with a baby...difficult, but fun. Daddy had to stay behind to work so it was really hard for him to have his first week away from his girls.

I've been counting the days down to getting back to work, not gleefully, but with some hope that I can regain some of my spirit from being able to do more creative work all day. It has been hard to draw or paint or design much with a busy girl in the house. She wasn't doing great napping, either...until this month. Suddenly it's like she is on a perfect nap schedule and I have some time in the day to myself that I can count on. I'm really glad for this, because she needs the rest to grow, and because when she goes to her Grandma's (who is THANK GOD taking care of her for us when I go back to work) she will be on a pretty good schedule.

Sophie loves to pet the kitty...and to our amazement, Ophie (the cat) takes what she can get. So, ear pulling, eye poking and even spitting up on the fur has become tolerable to our kitty.

We haven't been to the doctor for a long time...mostly because everything is perfectly normal and she is doing so well. I think she must weigh about 12 pounds or so, and she has doubled her intake of solid food in the past week! She loves her peas, squash and yams....not so much my homemade applesauce (reacted with a choking sound and then spit it out and stuck her tongue out) but we try lots of new things all the time. She loved the avocado/banana concoction I gave her for lunch the other day, and I've never seen anyone gobble up swiss chard faster than her. She finally learned (thanks to Grandma R) to open her mouth for the spoon, so feeding her has become much easier and cleaner...no more fighting for the spoon. She does, however, try to drink her food from the bowl.

Last week, Sophie's rocking and backwards push style crawl was replaced with an honest to goodness, hands and knees coordinated - I'm going over there and you can't stop me - crawl. She hasn't stopped since. We knew this was going to happen but I still get a little pang in my heart when I see how quickly she is growing up and moving and getting more and more independant.

I am so proud of her. She is just such a force. One day Kie and I watched her reaching for something that seemed impossibly out of reach for her little arms...she didn't give up and just kept grabbing and grabbing until finally she managed to graze it with her fingers. This determination and strength is probably what kept her alive and fighting through the pregnancy and her extremely early beginning. I told Kie that we should have named her Will.

I am greeted every morning by her gigantic smile and big dimples (like daddy's). She has even (please knock on wood for me) started to sleep 12 hours lately. She's leaping and bounding right to her first birthday....less than one month away.

On Solid Ground!

It's hard to find toys that both entertain and fit an eight month old baby who has the capabilities of a five month old baby, but is the size of a newborn baby....

we adapt. we make do......

But FINALLY........


Sophie has grown so much so quickly and is constantly making sounds.... She loves her activity centre and is now tall enough to use it without the phone book!

I used to hate it when my parents' friends would look at me and sigh, "they grow up so fast...."

now I understand what they mean.

Sophie is almost 10 pounds. She is starting to eat solids and is teething like crazy (although no protruders as of yet). Her hair seems to grow by the minute and she is getting a temper that shows itself like a cross between me on a bad day and a land bound shark who is trying fervently to shimmy himself back into the water. We love every ounce of everything she is doing, and we are trying so desperately to drink it in...but it all seems to be with a sense of foreboding......am I really seeing RED hair on her head? is she ALREADY making growling sounds when she's angry and grimacing at me? Did she really just try to stand up on her own?

tonight she grabbed my glass off of the living room table and tried to drink out of it.

I think we're in for it.

we can't wait.

Milestones

wow....

6 months have gone by since the terrifying and amazing day when our Sophie was born. In six months, I don't think a single day has passed without us realizing how incredibly lucky we are to have gone through it all relatively unscathed. When I am feeding her and I happen to catch a glimpse of the little scars on her hands from her IV, or when she stretches a certain way and looks like a giant version of her formerly tiny self that we used to stare at for hours...we are so grateful.

This month, Sophie hit the 8lb mark! She is fitting into her 1 month clothes and her little toes reach all the way to the ends of her sleepers. We moved out of newborn sized diapers and into the stage 1 size, and she finally got to wear the sleeper that my mom bought for her before she was born - when she found out I was pregnant. I used to stare at that sleeper and think that I couldn't imagine the GIGANTIC creature that would fill it out, and I surely couldn't imagine snapping those little snaps all the way up to MY baby's chin. It was moment for me. I have them every day. I think that probably every mom does.

Sophie met with some play therapists whose job it is to gauge her development and suggest play activities for us to try together. They were really impressed with her muscle strength and focus...she follows objects all around the room and looks for where sounds are coming from -- exactly the things she is "supposed" to be doing. They judge her by her due date - January 4 - so they tell me that she should be doing the things a 3 month old should be doing - and she is. More that this, though, she is doing things that WAY bigger babies do, and it looks so crazy, because she is the size of a newborn but has the ability to sit up with support and she holds her head so steady. She loves to play with her floor gym and hit the things to make them play music.


Earlier this month, I put her down for a nap on her tummy (I KNOW -- not the recommended position but she was hospital trained and is on a monitor so it's OK with her doctor) anyway, I put her down for a nap on her tummy and came in later to look in the crib at her giant grin smiling up at me. She rolled over.



Every day she changes so much and brings so much joy to my life. She makes me want to be a better person. She makes me want to do the things I need to do to be a happier person. She makes me feel like all of these things are possible. All in all...she is the best thing that ever happened to me. I just hope that I can in some small way repay her the favour.

Out of the cold......

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!!

First of all, so sorry for the incredibly long delay in posting, but every minute of my life has been consumed with diapers, bottles, playtime and listening to a baby monitor for any signs of unhappiness. Life has been pretty sweet for the past few months since our girl came home.

We've been trapped in the the house all winter, avoiding RSV ( a virus that can make preemies really really sick) which means the only places Sophie was allowed to go were to her medical appointments and to grandmas houses. It's been tough not going anywhere, but so nice to be able to spend so much time with our beautiful girl.

For Easter, I made her a little fuzzy chicken sweater and some little felt shoes to wear to the party at Grandma's.

She looked so cute. She always looks so cute to us. We are absolutely in love with her.

She is doing so well health wise. At her last doctor's appointment she weighed in at 7lbs 3.5oz, but I'm pretty sure she has hit the 8lb mark now. She eats really well and sleeps so good....we are so fortunate. She has been sleeping from about 8 at night to 3 in the morning and then a bottle and back to bed till 8 in the morning. It took some time to get into a routine but now we all operate like a well oiled Sophie care machine.

Once Sophie came home we realized how many people were so truly touched by our experience. Sophie's (second) cousin in T.O even wrote her school speech about her! She got an A+! Way to go Madeline! I am so touched that her young cousins think she's pretty special.

Life is so busy now, but I'm going to make more of an effort to update more often...so keep checking up. I really find that the writing is therapeutic, and I love to hear from everyone. Thanks!

she's home!

she's home. we are loving it and going crazy and pinching ourselves.

I'm exhausted and I'm going to try to catch a nap between feedings while Kie stays up and peeks through her door.

The big news.....

Sophie has been doing so well, getting bigger and stronger every day. She eats really well from a bottle and is slowly learning to breastfeed - though she needs to get bigger to get the endurance to keep going. With all of the progress she has made, and the amount of time she has been in hospital, we finally heard the news we wanted to hear.

Sophie is coming home tomorrow.

(let me say that again so it sounds real to me)

Sophie is coming home tomorrow.

I keep trying to not get too excited, because after everything I've seen and felt and all of the ups and downs --I just don't want to add any disappointment if anything doesn't pan out. But she only needs her car seat test and an apnea monitor in order to be discharged tomorrow - her original due date.

I keep trying to imagine what it would have been like if none of this had happened and if I had gone full term and she was actually born now. I wonder if I would be as incredibly ecstatic to bring her home. I wonder if I would appreciate our amazing families as much as I do now. I wonder if I would have chosen the same colour for her bedroom and I wonder if I would appreciate what a miraculous gift she is as much as I do now.

Being at the end of the NICU road and at the beginning of a whole new one, I can't help but take a minute to look back at the craggy pass we just got through and wonder how it all happened. I didn't know that I had the strength to do what needed to be done and to see the things that I saw. I didn't know that I had the patience to wait...and wait......wait......wait. I didn't know that I would be able to appreciate this experience and see it for the good it has made in my life.

We all would like to thank every single person who has shared their love and support for us over this past 3 months. We (Kie, Sophie and I) are stronger only because you all shared your strength with us. We couldn't have done this without you guys. Thank you all so very very much.

I don't know what to expect with a newborn in the house. I mostly just think that I have absolutely no idea what it will actually be like. I just know that this is the beginning of something really amazing. I am sure I will keep writing, and I hope you will all keep reading, and keep sharing in our girl, our Sophie Sunshine.