She Sits! And the other one wees!

Adele had her first visit with the physical therapist for early intervention this week, and by the next day she was sitting unassisted for much longer than ever before! The PT gave us some different techniques to help her practice sitting and tummy time, and it looks like they work!

She still has work to do, but this is huge progress for her! She is using her muscles to balance more and using her hands for support and to push herself more upright. She's a super star!

We're working on having more tummy time, which strengthens her muscles and helps her to sit and roll over from back to front. She is not a fan of tummy time and rolls over to her back immediately. One of the things the PT noticed was that she prefers to roll to the right (Zoolander, you are not alone!) and to prevent this, suggested that we lie her against the couch to either force her to practice rolling left, or just work on being on her tummy more... she's not super impressed with this, but it helps!

The variety of things that the therapists want to see her doing that she's not doing yet is kind of overwhelming, but I am so incredibly pleased that she's already making progress. In addition to this, she has also begun using the 'pincer grasp' to grab little pieces of food. She's been choking frequently on non-pureed food recently so the only tiny chewy foods I give her are puffs, which dissolve really fast, but as soon as she discovered them she was a big fan. Sometimes she even gets them into her mouth!

Fiona is going through a non-cooperative phase, so it's been really hard to get any good pictures of her. Her big news though is POTTY TRAINING!! She has been in underwear all day for a week now and has not had any accidents. The liquid kind anyway. We won't talk about her poo issues :-/ Still, despite needing to work on that a little, I am so proud of her! It's been a long process, but she has suddenly developed the self control of a camel, and can go for far longer than Ben without going to the bathroom. It's still terrifying to take her out in public, but she's doing great!

Also, I made her a hat :-)

They are such amazing little girls!

Haaaaaalloweeeeeeeen weeeek!

It has been a heck of a week. Here's a really long post about what we did... if you just want to see Fiona in her costume, feel free to skip to the end :-)

Monday: Awesome Fall/Halloween party with Mommy group friends. Fiona was Thomas the Tank Engine and Adele was a ladybug.

Tuesday: Adele began early intervention (EI) this week because she was boozing it up before lunch. Ok, no, not that kind of intervention. It's a system where the school sends out a team to assess her and make a plan to help her hit the milestones that she's a little behind on. Mostly she's behind on gross motor - she's not rolling over, and not sitting up yet. The big thing we'll be doing is just giving her more tummy time to strengthen her upper body, and people will come over every couple of weeks to check on her and suggest new exercises/activities, etc.

Also on Tuesday: Fiona moved into her very own big girl bed. Those of you who have been reading for a while may remember a previous attempt months ago to move Fiona out of her crib... it worked for a few days but then she really wanted to sleep in her crib again, so we switched back. This time instead of just a regular twin bed (that she kept falling out of) we tried a toddler bed with guard rails and she LOVES it. She just gets in, snuggles down and goes to sleep.

(That's the gorgeous quilt Grandma made for her when she was born)

Wednesday: I had a late night meeting at work and Ben took care of the girls. This is good because it reminds him of just how awesome I am. Unfortunately neither of them were in bed when I got home, but they were both still alive, so it was an overall success.

Thursday: EI follow up appointment. Playdate with friends. Flu shots for both girls in the afternoon.

Thursday night: Fallout from flu shots. Fiona cries whenever she sees her bandaid, but won't let me remove it. Adele is up all night miserable with a 103 fever.

Friday morning: Fiona doesn't want to take a bath in case her bandaid gets wet. Adele is crabby. She's had the cold and a cough for weeks and in combination with her flu shot ache and teething pain is in a baaaaaaad mood.

Friday afternoon: I make Adele an doctor appointment because she seems really sick. She's coughing endlessly, and frequently coughs so hard that she throws up all over whoever is holding her. Which is me 100% of the time. I am concerned that she's having some king of nasty flu shot reaction.

Saturday morning: As soon as Adele wakes up it's clear that she's really sick. She's wheezing - making this scary whistling noise - and coughing, coughing, coughing. I take her in for her appointment and it turns out she has bronchiolitis. This is when the tiny passages in your lungs get all full of crap causing coughing, wheezing, etc. She's more vulnerable to catching nasty viruses that cause things like this because her lungs are not as tough as those of a full term baby, and the worst part is that there's not much that that can be done, we just need to wait for it to run its course. Last night she was up for the majority of the night coughing and throwing up on me, and today the cough seems more infrequent, but more severe when she gets going. It's really awful, and exhausting for both of us, and it makes me nervous for what's in store for us over the next 5 months of winter.

Sunday: On a brighter note, today was Halloween! Fiona and I practiced how to trick or treat all day, and she was super excited to go out trick or treating with her cousins (and Daddy). Today is the day that having kids really pays off... she came back with a lot of candy!

(L-R Andrew - ninja, Fiona - Thomas, Emily - Cleopatra, Adele - Ladybug, Ryan - dementor)

Fiona loved her Thomas costume so much (thanks Aunty Cathy!) and had a wonderful time trick or treating. Adele and I were sad to miss it, but it was way too cold to take her out. Hopefully we'll all be able to go next year! Happy Halloween!