My Little Liliana

Hello,

Mercy here. I know it’s been a long time since we’ve last posted. A lot has happened, especially with Grandpa Tapscott passing away and our kids growing up so fast that it’s sometimes hard to keep up!

Well, Liliana hadn’t been doing very well with eating earlier this month (she was probably sick), but she’s gotten back to her usual appetite. She’s also started to wear underwear to daycare because of how often she would wet her pullups and she’s been doing well with it (only an accident a day at the most). I also cut her hair this week—her hair always tangles when long because of sleeping and she can never keep hair ties in her hair. Her current bob is so much easier to maintain, and I thought I had cut a part of her hair too short…her hair was very forgiving and you couldn’t even tell! Damien also had his hair trimmed a bit.

Damien has been in the toddler room at daycare for a while. At first he would cry when I left him there, and would cry and hide under the table when I came to pick him up. He was fine for a week, and now he’s started crying when I drop him off. At least he’s happy when I come to pick him up!

This probably won’t interest anyone, but we’ve started a vegetable garden in our yard. Sean built a raised garden bed; the cardboard kills the grass and eventually breaks down to feed the soil, while the mesh is to keep animals out from underneath. We’ve planted a used celery stalk, some used bok choy stalks (they’re regrowing so slowly!), and then broccoli and spinach seeds (both types have already sprouted!). I also have tomato and strawberry seedlings inside, and am trying to start some pepper seedlings. I’m also planning to have sunflowers, green onions, cilantro, and some other flower, but those I won’t be able to do until the end of the month (frost dates, don’t ya know). We also added some phlox and another flower next to the house because we moved our blueberry bushes.

I hope everyone is doing well!

When Liliana was born, it was theorized that she could be normal by the age of 3 or 4.  I can proudly say that Mercy, I and Liliana have started making real progress towards real normalcy.  We’ve had some obstacles on the way, as any young family does, but I’d like to fill you in on what we’re doing.

One of our biggest current obstacles is that we don’t really like Liliana’s daycare.  Financially, it’s wonderful and Medicare helps pay for it.  Educationally and long term, it is definitely not ideal.  The school she goes to has several other severely challenged kids, and I believe she is one of the most highest functioning kids there.  I fear that this may be stunting her social, intellectual, and physical growth.  All three of these areas require challenging interactions with other kids.  The school itself and the staff is excellent, but I’d like her to move to a school where she feels normal and can be challenged.

To get there though, there are a lot of things we need to accomplish first.  It mostly revolves around caloric intake and removing a lot of dependencies on the pump and tummy button for her maintenance.  We were discussing this last week when we had the idea to start tracking her calories each day and more precisely give a nighttime feeding.  Something similar was recommended by our nutritionist but its hard sometimes to take that first step.

Mercy developed a chart that allows us to count the calories of each meal and snack up, just a simple thing.  At the end of the day, we knew our calorie goal was 1200, so we found the gap between that and what she had eaten orally, and we filled it in.  Here’s the exciting part:  Liliana’s been eating enough to start decreasing her overnight feed volumes!

Next, we took her off of the Miralax as well.  We were using it to make excretion easier on her.  When we decreased the calorie volume of the overnight, we found we could replace that missing calorie volume with just water.  She responded fantastically!  She is hungrier the next day too.

In the last three days, by the end of the day, Liliana has been eating an average of 600 calories orally!

Keep your chins up, we can do it!

A video of Damien eating spinach leaves and Liliana pretending to be a T-Rex:

(E-mail subscribers should go to the Youtube video: http://youtu.be/taT3jAIPkW8)

Wow–I’m posting something! I know it’s been several months since there’s been a peep from me. New house, lots of work, being able to afford things for once, yadda yadda yadda. Also…the flu. Damien apparently got sick with the flu two Fridays ago, and it didn’t really seem like the flu until I got it. High fever, fatigue, all that good stuff! So the kids have been home all week with me being sick (Sean was sick too for the first half of the week) and now everyone just has sniffly noses.

So…let’s do a month-by-month rundown.

October

Liliana got orthotic braces for her feet. Her feet turned out while she walked, and her braces apply pressure so that she walks straight and it builds her muscle tone. It was also Liliana’s 3rd birthday. We had gotten the kids pirate costumes and dressed up one night in preparation for Halloween, but when Halloween came around, both kids were sick! They couldn’t dress up for their respective daycare’s Halloween events because they were at home being sick.

The two during our dress rehearsal

Liliana making an ARRR! face (I think)

Damien making a cute face...

...and then taking it a *little* too far.

November

Liliana visited her orthopedic doctor, where we found out Liliana’s scoliosis curve has gone down a lot. They said Liliana could be out of the brace for 8 hours of the day, so we’ve been sending Liliana to daycare without her brace on. And goodness, how that has helped with potty training!

Thanksgiving was at my house, turkey took forever to cook, and apart from the smoke (the turkey drippings overflowed in the oven—bah!), everything was fine. And I guess we went to the zoo sometime in November.

Damien and Liliana with a rhino at the zoo

Liliana with a robot she made

December

We had our first snow of the season already. Up here on a hill, we got maybe 2 inches of snow, and everywhere lower down? Rain. And a light dusting of snow. Damien was freaked out by the snow because it was something new to him, but he warmed up to it. When Liliana saw the snow, she said, “Winter’s here! I need my snow boots and my snow jacket.” We even made snow balls after getting home from daycare, and Liliana liked walking on the snow every morning and night that it was here.

Oh, but ever since Liliana’s recovered from the flu, she is eating things. Like…everything. Before, she couldn’t swallow chicken nuggets. I had gotten these letter-shaped chicken nuggets from Wegman’s, and she ate those just fine today. Before, Liliana couldn’t swallow regular sandwich bread. Either Wegman’s bread is awesome (which it is. It’s super soft and not dense), or Liliana has magically gotten better swallowing skills, but Liliana actually ate 3-4 bites of this bread’s crust. And apparently she ate some of a hot dog yesterday. Her, eating meat? Miracles are happening this December.

Here’s a video of Liliana and Damien doing “Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down”. It’s not super great, but it’s nice to see them getting along and not crying and fighting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhE_Jj1w6RU&feature=youtu.be

The weather has cooled down some, and it seems to be the perfect temperature to hang around outside. The kids played a lot yesterday, first with Sean and then later on with the neighbor kids.

Liliana first tried playing frisbee with Sean, while Damien wandered around.

And then Liliana wandered off, Sean begged me to play frisbee, and Damien was just running around.

After the kids’ nap, I thought it would be nice to get out. After some debate, we decided to let the kids play outside and Sean would play horseshoes with a neighbor. Eventually, our kids and the neighbor’s kids got together and it turned into a free-for-all. Damien grabbed the neighbors’ toys, the neighbors were playing with our toys, and even one of the boys that lives down a few houses came and played.

Sean thinks one of the neighbor boys likes Liliana because he said, “So beautiful!” when Liliana was riding a tricycle. She had a lot of fun with the tricycle—her legs are too short to use the pedals, so she used her feet to scoot the tricycle around and learned how to use the handles to steer and turn.

Not much else has happened, so I’ll end it here.

Now that it’s a holiday weekend, I have some time to actually make a post!

We’re Finally Moved In

Sean had taken a week off a while ago to do the move into our new house, and we’ve been living here for a few weeks already. There’s still a lot of organizing to do and storage solutions that we need to come up with, but everything’s turned out okay so far. The only thing Sean and I are worried about is all the spiders that are around. We saw 2 huge spiders (the kind that look like brown recluse spiders) when we got home from spending time with Sean’s parents today, and I definitely wouldn’t want them in the house!

Liliana’s Ups and Downs

Liliana had ear tubes put in about a month ago for recurring ear infections. She hasn’t had any ear infections since, but she’s had a virus that infected her throat and then a cold that turned into a sinus infection, so she’s stayed home a lot this past month. Whenever Liliana’s sick, she doesn’t want to eat or drink at all, and sometimes she can’t keep all of her formula down. We had taken Liliana to the pediatrician and they said that she had lost 7 lbs (!), but that measurement was a fluke because she was at her normal weight just 2 days later.

Liliana did go to her GI doctor recently; Liliana’s reflux has been much improved, except for when she’s sick, so we’re starting to wean her off her omeprazole. Liliana’s last weight was 28 lbs 7 oz, and her height was 2′ 11.83″. Her height-weight ratio was 50%, which is good.

Damien’s Quirks

Damien has been doing very well lately, and he actually knows how to count! I think he can only go up to seven or eight in the right order, but it really surprised me when he started saying numbers in the correct sequence. He’s been hiding his skills.

He also has some interesting habits…he likes to hold on to things in a hoarder’s fashion. He’ll grab all the crayons that he can and take them to wherever he’s going, whether it be the dining table, the car, or even his crib. He also grabs books, toys, and anything else he can get his hands on. I now have to tell him to put his things down somewhere when we’re going to his daycare, because he’ll grab something on the way to the door.

Photos at Longwood Gardens

A while back we had all gone to Longwood Gardens for Doug’s birthday (Sean’s dad); these are the family pictures that came out all right:

Liliana touching the water fountain in the Children's Garden

Grandma Kim and Liliana

Sean with the kids

Sean, Jason, and the kids

Damien does the weirdest things.

Damien doing a perfect impression of the Muppet drummer, Animal.

Okay, I should work or go to sleep now. I hope to have pictures of our finished house up next week!

I’m not feeling too well at the moment, but I think Sean really wants something posted. He drafted a post last week about finances but I’ll just summarize it here:

—————–

Sean has a large amount owed due to student loans, so no banks/mortgage companies wanted to loan to us. We couldn’t even get a $40k loan for a new mobile home, but some of it may be that I am a freelancer and don’t have a set income. We were really hoping to get into a mobile home park called Appleville—it’s right next to an orchard and the park itself is of a higher quality than most people would think. Unfortunately, the only way we’d get in there is by buying a new mobile home (we were denied by everyone) or by buying a used home that’s already in the park (all of them were made in the 1970s and were overpriced).

Sean had saved a lot of money, took out some money from his retirement accounts, received a bonus from work, and also got help from his family…totaling $18.5K+. We found a used 1985 home in a small park, and bought it for $15.5K. Sean hopes to continue investing into the house (eventually replacing all the windows, installing central air, etc.) so he can sell it at a similar price in 5 years. All of our money is going towards this house right now, and making it into a place where our family can thrive.

—————–

Fun.

While Don and Doug (Sean’s dad) worked on trim, Sean and I put up new window treatments.

White sheers from Kohl's, Red panels from Lowe's

Curtains next to our front door

View of the room with curtains on both sides

I'm going with a green theme in the kids' room, thus the green curtains.

Somehow, Damien seems to have gained weight because he feels so heavy when I lift him out of his high chair. He’s been refusing lunch at daycare, preferring to eat crackers and baby food, but he is a bit ravenous when it comes to snacks. I do worry about him getting no protein and too many carbs.

Liliana seems to be growing bit by bit. It doesn’t seem like she eats or drinks all that much (we’re now getting flavored Pediasure from our medical supply company, covered by insurance), but she did just outgrow one of her skirts. She’s also becoming much smarter…she can count in the teens (thirteen, fourteen, etc.) and can recognize all the letters of the alphabet (though I don’t know if she’s still having trouble with W’s).

Damien giving me the popsicle stick when he's done

Time for chalk!

Damien still doesn't know which places are inappropriate for laying down...

We saw a robin that was learning to fly. It was just sitting in this bush, surprised us, and then flew into the neighbor's window, bounced onto the ground, and then its parents were trying to guide it home.

So cute

Damien can pull himself onto the couch and hang around with his sister

It was overcast outside so I didn't get much natural light...thus the blurriness.

Also, Liliana eventually got the other side of her hair up so it wasn't just one side up.

I wonder if all of the children from my family will have this same "meh" face

Okay, I need to lay down. Sean said I looked pale earlier, and I just haven’t felt well for the past 3 hours so I’m taking a break. I’ll try to post next week!

I have some time before I run completely out of energy, so here’s a blog post! I know it’s been a long time coming!

Since no one was available the past few weekends to work on the house, Sean took a few days off during the week so I could help him while the kids were at daycare. We finished the flooring in the kitchen and started doing the bamboo for the rest of the house.

After finishing the kitchen, we had to lay out the cork underlayment for the bamboo.

With the kitchen done, I can actually have my dining table in the right place! I put all of those pieces together in one day by myself (a month or more ago).

Sean putting in the bamboo and some shims for expansion.

The kids have been getting sick off and on. Damien had been home for an entire week with the Coxsackie virus (hand, foot, and mouth disease), and while he was fine for most of this past week, he started acting sick on Friday with a slight fever. Now he’s having a runny nose, chest congestion, coughing, and I guess a bit of indigestion.

Liliana was feeling really sick from some ear congestion the past weekend, but recovered from it halfway through the week. I think these pictures are from Friday:

Happy smiles

Posing with chalk

Damien eating a popsicle

Look at all those teeth!

Okay, I need to get some sleep. I’m hoping the kids will start feeling better soon!

Too much stuff to do, but here are some quick pictures:

Damien has a buzz cut now.

Uh oh, pouring out bubble liquid on Mommy's wallet

Liliana playing outside

Damien knocked over Liliana's wheelbarrow--Liliana was not happy!

Cork flooring is now in the bathroom and in the kitchen.

Going now.

I’ve been working a lot these past few weeks and I still haven’t caught up yet, so it’s been near impossible for me to find time to write a post. Especially with these kids! They’re driving me crazy with them getting sick all the time.

I had both Liliana and Damien home two days last week—I think Damien’s having a rough time with teething and then Liliana had to go from one antibiotic to another because she had another ear infection. There was also a possibility that Liliana had the Coxsackie virus (one type can be the Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease), so that was another reason for her to stay home.

Liliana has an appointment with an ENT in the future, so hopefully we’ll be able to avoid all these ear infections.

Some photos of the kids:

Damien had just been crying

Grandma brought up Sean’s old wheelbarrow

After a lot of playing, some cold popsicles

The house is coming along, though it’s nowhere near being habitable.

It took me several days of stop-and-go painting (ugggh wood paneling), but it’s finally done (though I’ll need to touch things up after…Sean’s already peeled some paint off):

Here is the dishwasher, with the custom-made holding cabinet that the guys made:

And our weird kitchen sink and faucet combo. We bought the faucet first, and then had to go with a white sink because it was the only color available in the dimensions we needed:

The front of the house (don’t mind the pile of dirt right there!), where we planted new hydrangeas, our 2 blueberry plants, and moved the azaleas that were there. We put a border around the plants and mulched it:

Okay, going to go. Bye!