What's new in 2009

Hey everyone.  We are trying to get back into the swing of things here and by the swing of things I mean back to a regular schedule again now that the kids have been back in school for about a week and a half.  My body is really protesting these early mornings especially when the sun hasn't been shining and the temps have been in the teens here.  Wow, it's been a cold January so far.

I may not be able to tell you what's new in 2009 but I can tell you what is the same and that is Sophie Kate's kidney stone.  Bet ya'll didn't see that coming did ya?  Yes, SK had an appointment with her urologist about two weeks ago where we got the news that her kidney stone was still in the same place and was still the same size as it was 6 months ago.  What does this mean for SK?  Not much, it's not blocking anything and it is not causing her any pain so we will wait another 4 months, do another ultrasound and see where it is then.  She passed the last one on her own and he expects that she will be able to do the same this time too.  What do SK and her daddy have in common?  Answer: they each have their own urologist as well as some other men in our family too but I will spare them being mentioned by name, they know who they are.

Um....let's see....what else is the same in 2009?  SK's sitting progress or rather lack of it I guess.  There really hasn't been any progress made in sitting unassisted in about 2 months I would say.  She can sit for about 30 seconds until she falls over to one side or pushes herself backwards.  She really wants to be straight all the time, she's not real big on bending at the hips.  So we just keep working and working and working on that.

Oh, I know something that's new in 2009, SK is not eating by mouth as well as she did in 2008.  That has just about fallen by the wayside completely.  She starts choking on her food pretty quickly so I really don't feel comfortable forcing her to continue eating due to the risk of aspiration.  I am putting baby food in the formula that I mix up for her so that she is getting some "real" food in her diet, but at this point all of her food is going through her gtube.

Also, SK has decided not to sleep as well in 2009 as she did in 2008.  She is still sleeping through the night, but she is more irritable at bedtime than she used to be and is taking a lot longer to fall asleep than she used to and will sometimes even wake up and cry out during the night.

We do have some new therapy options that are currently being investigated.  We will also be seeing our Pediatrician around the first part of February for SK's 15 month checkup.  We really need to get her off her infant formula and will be discussing those options with him, can't wait.  We tried changing her formula right before Christmas and to make it a very short story I'll just say that it didn't go well at all, so I am really not looking forward to this one.

Positives, positives well I can't think of any right now so I will go with....at least we're not at Children's right?