RowanEmilia.com

Fascinating paper!

Crawling isn’t even the most exciting thing going on in Rowan-land. Rowan is officially eating! It’s crazy.  It’s like a switch turned on and she just decided that eating is a worthwhile thing to do. She started taking down jars of baby food and is now eating mashed table food. All within three weeks! Rowan will even feed herself Cheerios and graham crackers. I hand or spoon feed her most of the time, though, because she throws EVERYTHING.

Rowan’s feeding therapist is very impressed with her progress. Last week, Rowan yelled at her because the therapist was too slow with the butternut squash! I can’t quite believe that Rowan is really eating. I keep thinking that Rowan will refuse to eat like she’s done in the past. But her therapist doesn’t think so. She feels we’re past that..because Rowan really likes her food.

Several times today, including with witnesses, after remote controls and lollipops.

Clear sense of the necessities of life.

Some choice shots of Rowan visiting the Valley for Thanksgiving weekend.

Rowan is kind of sick right now. She has a lot of congestion and a cough. But as you can see, that isn’t stopping her. Poor Sophie.

Here is the princess before PT on Thursday. She is feeling a little under the weather so no Halloween parties for us today. But we will definitely be taking more pics of Rowan in her costume. Hopefully we can finally get some good pictures of Sophie in her costume…as Darth Sophie.

Rowan, aka Peanut, is now officially a toddler. She’s not actually toddling yet, but who cares? Rowan is doing great. She’s willful, feisty, stubborn. She loves to “dance” to the opening credit songs of the Twilight Zone and NCIS. She will laugh and wave whenever Hugh Laurie is on TV. Rowan is also a huge flirt. Not shy at all. She will smile and wave at anyone. Recently we were  waiting for a chest Xray. There was this poor man in the waiting room who was obviously in pain probably due to broken ribs. Rowan got him to smile and babytalk to her. Ridiculous! She is a charmer for sure.

Of course, the downside to this stubbornness is that Rowan is not eating at all. She just shakes her head whenever I offer her food. We’re back in therapy for it. One of the things I keep remembering is something Rowan’s PICU nurse Trent said. The day after her heart surgery, Trent said that he had a feeling that Rowan isn’t going to be the type of person to do something just because we want her to. She will do it when SHE wants to. That’s been the truest thing anyone has ever said about her! Once she decided to be mobile, she was. I have a feeling the eating thing will be the same way.

Health stuff: Immunology? “She looks great, I’ll see you in a year.” Cardiology? “She looks great, I’ll see you in 6 months”. We are being cautious now that we’re in cold/flu/RSV season though. I’m not taking any chances!

It’s crazy that Rowan has been here for 10 months. The time really has flown by! Rowan weighs 18lbs 20z and is hovering at right around 27inches long. She’s doing great! She has been healthy and the retching and vomiting has officially stopped. We are back on the eating train. We discovered that she likes ginger and soy sauce so Ryan is making her Filipino babyfood. She’s my asian baby afterall!

Rowan isn’t crawling yet and is getting increasingly frustrated about it. She WANTS to move but doesn’t want to have to bear weight on her arms, which is kind of necessary. She has learned to log roll to get where she wants to go.  She will bear weight on her legs now so we’ve been practicing standing with support. Whatever. Rowan will do it eventually. Her ECI coordinator put Rowan at 12 months cognitively so I’m not sweating the physical stuff. Rowan’s communication is a little behind but that is also normal for tubefed/ low tone babies. She definitely has “the spark” as one therapist put it.

I also add pics to the photo gallery.