New Shoes and other happenings

Ally has new shoes! Two new pairs of Robeez arrived in the mail yesterday. They're both way too big but they actually stay on her feet so she is wearing them anyway.

Ally had lots of fun in our big recliner yesterday- she was up on hands and knees rocking back and forth and flopping onto her belly while giggling the whole time. The pictures don't do it justice, but it was really cute!

This funny face is something we've seen a lot lately- she'll scrunch up her nose and breath through it really rapidly... we think she's trying to imitate the dogs!

More new shoes!

A silly self portrait

Ally also has some new teeth! Both of her top front teeth have started to poke out over the last two weeks. She handled it like a champ again with very minimal fussing. I've been trying to get a picture of them, but they are very hard to capture.

Ally has been on a new medication for her acid reflux for a week now. It's hard to say if it's making any difference as we're going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment. I think she may be arching her back and screaming a little less during feeding times, but she still pushes the bottle away and gets very easily distracted. Feeding her continues to be my greatest challenge every day. She's still not eating any pureed baby foods yet even though we try to feed them to her every day. Feeding therapy is pretty discouraging and I'm not sure how beneficial it's been thus far. On Tuesday we spent our entire hour long session feeding her one ounce of formula! Our therapist still believes that as soon as the reflux is under control everything else will fall into place.

I spoke with Ally's GI doctor earlier this week and he still wants to schedule her for an upper endoscopy which enables the physician to look inside the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum (first part of the small intestine). The procedure is used to discover the reason for swallowing difficulties, nausea, vomiting, reflux, bleeding, indigestion, abdominal pain, or chest pain. Matthew and I aren't wild about the idea because it will require her to be under anesthesia for 30 minutes or so, but we'll most likely relent if we don't see any significant improvement from this new medication within a few weeks. Everyone keeps telling us that most babies spontaneously grow out of reflux and colic by their first year so we hope that will be the case with Ally too. She'll be 9 months on Monday so we don't have too much longer to go.

Matthew will be attending his squadron Christmas party solo tonight because we had a miscommunication with our most trusted babysitters- Pop Pop and Grandma. They ended up being out of town so I'll be home tonight with Ally and enjoying some lazy time on the couch after she goes to bed since I don't have to work tomorrow. I'm sad to miss out on the party, but happy to take it easy. At least I didn't have to buy a new dress this year!

On Saturday, Ally and I will attend the squadron Children's Christmas party. Santa arrives on a helicopter- it's always a huge hit! Matthew will be driving his mother's car down to their home in Florida this weekend so he'll have to miss it.

That's it for now- thanks for checking in with us!