The BIG 2

Another birthday has come and gone. Our baby girl is now 2 years old. In some respects this has been the longest two years of our lives but at other times I feel the time has just flown by.

We have been enjoying the weather and spending a lot of time out in our newly remodeled backyard. It is so nice to have a lawn instead of concrete to stick the pool on.

Before we get to all the birthday fun here is a quick update.

Elin has been wearing her CI full time since June 10th. She loves it! For the first couple of days she would smile and get excited when I showed it to her before putting it on. In a short month and half we have seen amazing gains. For instance- we know for sure that she knows her name. Now when we say Elin she turns her head. Major breakthrough for a such a minor thing. Also- whenever she hears music she starts to dance (sway back and forth). She is babbling more and using new consonants and putting strings of vowels together. No real words yet- she does say dada but I'm still not convinced she is entirely sure it's his name.



As for physical progress she seems to be moving along nicely. Our PT Nicole is always amazed at how quickly Elin is picking up on new things and mastering certain movements. She is crawling much quicker now- still on her belly but we are working on getting her up on her knees. We have borrowed a gait trainer and Elin is learning to walk in it and seems to like it more now- at first she wasn't so sure. We are working on standing from kneeling and transitions from crawling to sitting and vice versa. We are encouraged by her continued progress and enthusiasm for movement.

We had a short stint at Children's on July 7th. Elin had a fever seemingly out of nowhere and had three subsequent seizures; two at home and one in the ER. We spent the entire night awake in the ER watching her closely and we were admitted after she had her third seizure and they were able to see how quickly her oxygen levels drop. It's scary and definitely worse to witness when we are in the ER because we are helpless. Now at home I feel like I can take care of her better then anyone and it drove me NUTS that they didn't give her her rescue meds early in the seizure. She had to wait over 8 minutes to get her midazolam and at home we try to give it in the first three. Thankfully she seemed better by the mid day and they sent us packing.

The encouraging news is that kids tend to grow out of high fevers. So our hope is that as Elin gets older she will get less severe fevers and this should reduce her risk of seizure.

Onto the fun stuff!

Elin turned two on July 24th. We celebrated in her coop class at Kindering with cupcakes and again at home that night. This past Sunday we had a backyard BBQ and invited a lot of family and friends to help us officially celebrate her amazing two years. She had a blast and the party was a huge success. My friend Kate made two delicious cakes. A large on for the group, and small "smash" cake for Elin. As you can see from the pictures it was quite a hit.

 And on another exciting note- we have a new member of our extended family. Calvin Scott Schneider was born on July 21st. Scott and Natalie are thrilled and he is absolutely intoxicating.