Magic Wand

Hand over the Cheerios, or I'll hex you!

What A Difference A Year Makes!

Today marks the day that our sweet girl has been home with us for 1 year!

Sometimes I can't believe it's been a year, but other times, it feels like it's been much longer. Time is weird like that. Especially as you are watching your baby grow up.

I remember people telling us that the NICU experience would be hard, but someday it would just be a blip on the screen. I wouldn't say that we are there yet. I'm not sure we will ever actually be there. That's quite a blip. One that forever changed our lives. It saved our daughter. It changed our relationship. It changed how I look at the world.

It changed me. Not all for the better, mind you, but it changed me...kind of like that song from Wicked: "Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed for good." I know in many ways I have matured and been made stronger through this experience, but I certainly wouldn't say that I'm nicer for it. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm not. But, to quote another favorite musical (Into the Woods), "Nice is different than good."

And Becca has certainly changed. Here she was a year ago (at 4 pounds, 10 ounces):

And here she is today (somewhere around 14 pounds):

Or how about this? Then:

And now:

Oh, how I love toddlers and their messes. It's so fun to watch their curiosity spill out. I'm thankful that Becca's body is finally catching up so that she can explore how she wants to. Life is good.

In honor of Becca's homecoming, I am finally going back and catching up on her last month in the NICU. Remember how I just left you hanging, and then - all of a sudden - she was home? I'm trying to fill in the blanks. If you'd like to rewind with me, here's the first post. I'm post-dating them so that they fall in chronological order, so you can also get to them by going to the 2008 archives and scrolling to late September. I'll try to finish the rest up this week. We'll see how that goes. After all, I've got that toddler to contend with. Life. Is. Good.

Vote Early, Vote Often!

Okay, since I'm kind of that mom and Becca is the cutest kid ever...and because I could have some serious fun with a $1000 Baby Gap gift card, I entered Becca in the Gap Casting Call. The professional judges will pick the finalists in each category (Becca is in the baby girl category, but you could probably figure that out), and then we'll get to vote on the winner - after they fly us to New York and take us to see The Lion King! BUT you've got a chance to vote now, for the Fan Favorite. Just visit the site, log in (it's quick), and vote - and come back tomorrow and do the same! You can every 24 hours between now and November 17. The contest started a while ago, so we've got some catching up to do!

Here's the link: http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/IttyBittyBecca/413797372/ .

Have at it! And feel free to pass the link along! Thanks!

Preemies and Pain

Here's an article for all you medically-minded folk. It's over my head, and I'm a halfway intelligent person with an honorary MD (I gave it to myself, so there), so here's the gist of it: preemies who experience a lot of invasive procedures (i.e. needle sticks, intubation, injections, IV placement, etc.) experience a lot of pain (duh), which both desensitizes them to pain AND to pain medications. This would explain why Becca didn't even cry when she got her H1N1 shot last week. Not a bit. The whole not feeling pain thing is nice, in a way, but remember that pain is actually your body warning you to take action - as in, when you stick your hand in the boiling water, you feel pain so that you will remove your hand before tissue damage sets in. Anyhow, I found it interesting - the parts that I could understand, at least!

Hmmm...I don't seem to be able to get the text to paste. Here's the link, at least: click me!

Pumpkin Patch Birthdays

This weekend, Nana Dana and G-Diddy came to visit for their birthdays. (How fun is it that they come to us for their birthdays? I love it!) Jen and Colin came, too (so fun!), and we made the trek to Hendersonville for Becca's first trip to the pumpkin patch. (Yeah, First Methodist Youth!) Becca LOVED the pumpkins and had a great time, even though it was cold. She was so excited about playing with these fun orange things with sticks on top that she didn't mind!

Here she is among the big boys:

And in a patch a little more Becca-sized:

Posing with Aunt Jen and "Uncle" Colin (will we get to remove the " " 's someday?....hhmmm...if it were up to Becca, we definitely would! ;) :

I love this picture of John snuggling with her...he's such a great daddy! (And I don't know why it is doing funky things with the font here - sorry!):

And, of course, Mommy had a great time, too:

Somehow Nana and G-Diddy managed to make it out of the patch without posing with Becca, but here they are at their birthday dinner at the Hibachi grill - yum! We hope you had a happy (early) birthday! Aren't they cute?

And we got Nana a Jim Shore angel for her birthday, but, let's face it: here is her real present:

Privacy, Please

Becca has pretty much given up on crawling and insists on rolling everywhere. Unless something is directly in front of her (in which case she will army crawl to it), she will log-roll her way over to it. And she's pretty quick, even banking off of walls to change direction. It's pretty funny to watch, and I finally caught it on film. She loves to roll to the bathroom, and just before this clip, she had been in there and knocked over the cup of water we keep for the dogs in there (so as to discourage toilet drinking...still working on that). You can see John's legs in there cleaning it up. Such is life with a toddler - or roller, I guess.

Aside from the bathroom, Becca's favorite place to be is in front of the storm door. She particularly loves to sit and bang on it when her doggies are at the door. She's begging to get out, and they are begging to get it. She's squealing; they are barking. They egg each other on, and it's kind of a hoot. I don't have a video, but here's a cute still shot of it. Don't mind the smudges all over the door. I think they might be using their sticky fingers and slimy noses to write each other secret messages.

Miracle of Miracles

My daughter eats broccoli.

Okay, so maybe by "eat" I mean that she ate two bites and threw 14 bites on the floor.  (Yes, I did just count the pieces of broccoli on my kitchen floor.)  But if you are one who recalls my many years of sitting at the table long hours after everyone else left until I could stealthily feed my vegetables to my dog  finished my vegetables and/or my having to eat my leftover supper vegetables for breakfast the next morning, you know that it is a small miracle that any green at all would pass my offspring's lips.

Tonight's supper was a particularly toddler-esque meal.  We tried diced cooked carrots, a la Gerber (floor: 3 bites, mouth: 0 bites).  We tried the broccoli (floor:14, mouth: 2).  We tried de-li-cious homeade potato soup (this one stayed on the spoon with just a drop on her tongue).  We tried whole grain "veggie" crackers, which have very little vegetable matter in them (floor: 6, mouth: 1).  We tried a cut-up Gerber chicken stick (floor: 5, mouth: 0).  We tried quartered and peeled grapes (floor: 5, mouth:1, mom:2).  The score before I brought out the ringer: 33 bites on the floor, 4 bites on the floor.  And 1/2 a grape for mom.

Thank God (and Mr. Leo and WIC) for Pediasure and its total nutrition-y goodness.

I admit defeat and bust out the shredded colby-jack.  Even her blessed cheese is scorned tonight, though not after she shovels a few bites in.

Oh well.  At least the dogs will feast tonight.  I mean, just in case John is reading this, at least I will have fun sweeping tonight.

Any advice?  She will only let you feed her ice cream or sweet yogurt (like, say, Yoplait whipped chocolate and raspberries).  Everything else, she has to finger-feed.  Help!