Catching Up

It's been so long since we've been in a good blog groove. Hopefully we will not let that happen again! Imogene is really changing these days. She's doing her version of waving, clapping, shaking her head as if to say 'no,' and playing peek-a-boo! The head shaking is humorous because she knows it's going to make us laugh, so she gets a big grin on her face and laughs when she does it. The clapping is so endearing because usually she keeps her right hand fisted when she claps. And the waving, sometimes it's just waving her arm, but a waitress waved at her tonight and she 'waved' (translate threw her arm around) back! The peek-a-boo makes me the happiest though! You put a blanket or a lovey on your head, and she takes it off and then hands it back to you. Sometimes she seems like such a little baby, and not really an almost 10 month-old. All these little milestones are reminders that she is developing right on track in so many ways. She's been reaching out her right arm a lot more lately, which for us is such a good measure of her progress. The fact that she never reached out with her right is how we first started to notice the hemiparesis. And then there's the scooting! Her own little Imogene "crawl" - she scoots her left arm forward, pulls the legs up a little bit and then just goes where she can. The distance is not far; she certainly can't get across a room, but she can get somewhere, which is fun for her. She appears to be a little frustrated being in one place!

All Imogene's bloodwork for the clotting disorders has come back. Three of the four tests came back negative, which is wonderful news. Only the C protein test came back abnormal. At first Dr. Baldrate thought she would be considered 'deficient.' She consulted a pediatric hematologist and he said that while her number is low, it is not cause for concern at this time. We'll run the test again when she turns two and take it from there. Whew! Escaped adding another tab to the ever-growing medical notebook!

We finally have an appointment with the physiatrist. January 26 at 9 a.m. It seems like a long time from now, but with the holidays, I'm sure it will be here before we know it. We see Dr. Madigan, the opthamologist, the week before. Combine that with her one year!! check-up, and January will be a busy month of doctor's visits.

Imogene is scheduled to get her booster seasonal flu shot and her first H1N1 shot next week, and hopefully Lily will be able to get the seasonal and her first H1N1 as well. (Children have to get the H1N1 in two shots.) It has taken me all fall to get the shot for the girls. There has been so much debate in the 'parent circles' here about whether or not to get the shot for children. Our pediatrician told us to get it, and so we're getting it. Maybe we should have debated it more, but she has two kids very close to our girls' ages, so I feel like she'd only advise us to do what she'd do.

Lily has strung together a few great days this week, which is a relief for both Mommy and Daddy. Sometimes we wonder where our sweet Lily went. Several times this week she has entertained Imogene in the playroom while lunch or supper is fixed. And then she will report "I'm doing a good job listening to you." Or, "I was a good babysitter for Imogene."

A big event for Lily this weekend is that her Whitney (pronounced Whitnnnaaayyy) is here. Lily met Whitney at Naney's house back in the summer. At first we thought she might be a little jealous that Ryan had girl that wasn't her with him, but she warmed up to Whitney in about oh, 10 minutes. The way you know that Lily likes you is that she starts making you do everything for her that she'd normally make Mommy do. Well Whitney fits that description exactly. Only Whitney can get Lily in and out of the car, only Whitney can put her to bed, help her basically with everything. She's so in love, and it's so dear! And not that we blame her. Even Imogene, who is pretty wary around strangers, seems to have fallen under the spell as well. We'll all be sad to see her go!

Still Here!

Several people have checked in to see if all is okay here. Thank you to our loyal readers! :) Things are okay here. We've just been a little crazed lately. Bill flew to London last Saturday night for a week's business trip. Fortunately he didn't miss any of the fun we had on Halloween. Imogene and Lily both had a blast, and I'll post pictures with more details soon. Bill's trip to London went very well and he even got to see a soccer game while he was there, as well as spend time with my friend from growing up, Andrew. We really missed Daddy but were well taken care of during the week with visits from Grunny and then from Naney, and our friend Erin Campbell spent last Sunday with us, thank goodness for these wonderful women! Lily must have told me 100 times "I still miss Daddy in England."
Imogene's sleeping is not going so well. For over a week she was waking up every two hours through the night. Thinking she might have an ear infection, she saw the pediatrician, but she was fine. Last night she only woke up twice, but we're still trying to figure out what is going on there. She had been making a little bit of progress.
Stay tuned for pictures from Halloween and more ... thanks for checking in on the Siglers!

Fall Fun

We participated in the Del Ray Halloween Parade on Sunday and went to a pumpkin patch on Monday. Thanks to Naney for making the trip this weekend, again, to be with us and help out. Mommy and Daddy got a whole extra hour of sleep on Sunday thanks to her! We're gearing up for Halloween. Lily has her school party tomorrow, and we have a neighborhood party Saturday afternoon before trick-or-treating, rain rain stay away! Imogene is still on the new medicines from last week, but they certainly aren't making her nights any better. It's not really clear that they are making her stomach feel any better either. She's such a sweet, happy baby during the day. Makes the night wakings and inconsolable screaming so much harder to figure out.

Lily and Mommy took Imogene to get her blood drawn to run the tests from last week again. Poor Imogene had to get both arms stuck before it would work, and poor Lily was so not enjoying listening to her sister that upset. What a day.
Therapy is on Wednesday this week. Since it's at 8 a.m., Bill can take her and not miss too much work. This is great for mommy to get a little break, and for daddy to get to participate, which he misses. It's also good because it allows a set of 'fresh' eyes and ears to learn about what we should be doing.
Click this link for pictures from this past weekend. We'll update them after Saturday as well.

Friday Zoo Day

Last Friday we had plans to go to the zoo with our friends Catherine and Noah, but it was pouring down rain. Thank goodness no rain today - we went to the zoo and had a great time! The weather was cloudy and cool, which is usually a perfect day to see the animals. Here are a few pictures from our fun.

Looking at the panda bears.

Yes, she is eating her sock.


Such a happy baby at the zoo. She was lucky that Lily went with Noah & Catherine into the reptile house (Mommy says, no thank you very much to reptiles) and we waited outside. She got to love on 'babystar' without Lily taking her away!

The Siglers girls went to see Bill play soccer tonight. His games are usually after bedtime, but tonight's kickoff of 6:45 gave us just enough time to watch for a little while before heading home for bedtime. Lily was so excited and commentated the whole time, and kept asking me, "did you even see that, Mom? That ball went so high." She was not happy when we had to leave.

Daddy takes a rest and we get to hang out with him before we head home.

Not so good of Bill and Imogene, but too cute of Lily.

To the Doctor We Go, Again

This time we went to see wonderful, patient and caring Dr. Baldrate, the girls' pediatrician. We certainly had lots to talk about with her. Imogene, as always when she's at all these doctor's offices, was quite a trooper. We're going to start two new medicines, one to help her stomach, and one to treat acid reflux. Way back when she was a newborn (that seems way-back!) we tried several different reflux medicines, but to be honest, we were never quite sure she had reflux. Dr. Baldrate thinks that it is worth trying a reflux medicine to see if that will help her at night, and maybe cut out the spitting up which happens daily. We'll try anything to help her at night, which in turn helps us. Sleep, people, we need sleep! Imogene was quite the charmer with Dr. Baldrate, but she started to lose her patience with us when we were waiting for the nurse to come back with her shots. She was so not happy after the vaccine and her flu shot, both in her right leg. Then we had to go down to their lab, to get a CBC work-up and lead test (both standard tests run at her age by the pediatrician). Both of these could have been done with a finger prick, but since Imogene also needed to have blood work done for the clotting disorder test, she needed a blood culture (the long drawn blood from the arm, complete with rubber tourniquet.) Let's just say Imogene did not enjoy this one bit at all. Sweet Bill held her and did his best, but she was not happy, and who can blame her! She's really going to be mad at me when we go back later this week. Yep, we have to go back. Seems she was so unhappy that her blood flowed so slowly that they didn't get enough for all the tests. They told me this news, and then asked if they could just prick her finger one time to check a level that showed up weird in their first test. Oh good grief. Not a good time at all. Poor thing was so wiped she fell asleep about 5 minutes into the drive home. The kind of asleep where your head falls completely forward and you don't even care. She was back to her sweet, happy self by the afternoon.

Imogene is 9 months old!

We can't believe it either. Nine months old already! Her 'photo shoot' was especially fun today. Here are the pictures.

PT went well today. Imogene worked on weight-bearing on her legs, and we learned how to teach her to (one day) use her arms to pull up to a standing position using a chair or a table.
Lily behaved really well, considering it was her first time there and she had no idea what to expect, and she didn't really get that I couldn't pay full attention to her. She handled that part pretty well. I think she thought if Susan was working with Imogene, then I could just play with her the whole time. Susan did bring out a few toys for Lily to play with, which I greatly appreciated. It made Lily feel a little special, as did the 'Dora' sticker she got to pick out of the 'treasure chest' at the end of the appointment. There is a little boy Lily's age who is at the PT center when we are there each week. His name is Jack and he always comes over, with a little hesitation, and plays peek-a-boo with Imogene. His mom and I finally had a chance to speak to each other today, and she said he's been in some type of therapy or another since Imogene's age. It's funny how quickly you can be reminded of how fast time goes, and how many people are going through something so similar to what you feel so isolated in. When we were driving to therapy Lily asked when she could go with us to see Dr. McClintock. Um, okay Lily, I had not realized that you picked up on his name! I don't think we say his name that much, but maybe we do! Or as Bill said, "maybe she reads the blog." She also said when we pulled up to the medical park where the center is, "This isn't Dr. Baldrate's office." (That's our pediatrician.) She's too funny.
Here are some pictures of Imogene ready to head out into the cold, rainy day we had today. Thanks to the Sowell family for the adorable jacket!

Winter Arrives in Alexandria!

It is so cold here! I have to say I like it - one of the reasons I wanted to go to college in Virginia was to live somewhere that had actual seasons. Boy am I getting that this week. Unfortunately it is arriving with a lot of rain. We've had a nice run of dry days that have allowed for a good bit of outside time. Not sure what I'm going to do without that option with Lily! I spent about an hour in Lily's class today. She seemed so proud and happy to have me there. Which I have to say was pretty nice because I feel a lot like she is just always angry or grumpy or whining when we are home. I know that she's had to deal with a lot these last 9 months. She didn't just get a baby sister, she got a baby sister whose lack of sleep is resulting in extreme exhaustion for her parents, and I know that plays into how we are sometimes with Lily. And these last 2 months, I imagine she understands in some way, without saying so, that things have really been all about Imogene. But even with all that in my mind as we deal with the tantrums, it's so hard to deal with the tantrums!!!!!!!! But her teacher said that she is a dream at school, so that makes us happy. Imogene loves WWP too! I put her in the Bjorn carrier yesterday when we picked Lily up, and as we were walking through the parking lot she made this loud grunt/laugh sound, which I swear was excitement because she knew we were going to get Lily. And she just loved watching the kids run around on the playground after school - kicking her legs and laughing out loud.
Tomorrow is Thursday - PT for Imogene and Maggie comes in the afternoon. Yippee for Maggie. Lily is going to PT tomorrow as well. Maybe she'll get an idea of what Imogene is doing, even if she doesn't really 'understand.' And I hope that it will help Imogene to have Lily there, because there is nothing in the world Imogene loves more than Lily.

Opthamologist

Imogene saw Dr. William Madigan today, who is a pediatric opthamologist with Children's Hospital. It was a long, two hour appointment, most of which was spent waiting for her eyes to dialate. She was such a good patient and did not even scream for that long after the drops! Her right eye is 'wandering' just a bit - he said about 5%, which is not too serious. He said that she is turning her head just slightly to the left, which is how she compensates when the right eye wanders and she wants to look straight ahead. (That still doesn't make complete sense to me, so I'm not sure I'm really explaining it correctly.) Nevertheless, he did not want us to be too concerned and said it was a pretty normal response to the palsy. We'll watch out for any changes, and he wants to see her again in 3 months. So yeah, a doctor's appointment that didn't end with us feeling confused and "full of angst" as Bill so appropriately put it!
Imogene will be NINE months old on Friday! Wow! We'll see our regular pediatrician on Monday the 19th for her nine month check-up. Boy do we have a lot to talk to Dr. Baldrate about!