Standing Tall

Callie continues to impress us every day-and night! I am writing this (at 11pm) as she is standing, yes standing, next to me clapping her hands! She loves to pull herself to standing, but still hasn't crawled...although she gets closer daily! She also loves to babble...she is discovering all different types of sounds that she can make. We are loving the weather this week and have gotten out on walks almost every day! Callie is now such a big girl that she sits facing out!

She had her synagis shot today and weighed in at 17 lbs 3 oz.

Our Big Girl

Here are some fun pictures of our growing girl. She is getting more playful and active every day! Eating has gotten very interesting...Callie wants to be in constant control!

Happy New Year-a little late!

Happy New Year everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting, it has been a busy week. We first wanted to take the chance to thank everyone again for all of your love and support in 2o09. While it was one of the most difficult years of our lives, it was also the best. We are so blessed to have such a wonderful daughter. She continues to amaze us everyday. We plan on continuing with the blog in 2010, so that those who are interested, can continue to follow Callie's progress!

The last week has been an exciting one...on New Year's Day, Callie said her first word, "Mama"!! It was the sweetest thing! And she said it twice in front of Mommy, Daddy and Grammi, it was amazing! Callie also has learned to clap. She isn't isn't fully clapping yet with open hands, but she does this partially open hand clap whenever you "yeah" or praise her. Sometimes, she will even do it before you prompt her...she is a smart girl and knows when she has done something to impress us!!

Callie's First Christmas!

We hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas! We spent the day together, just the three of us! It was truly a blessed day! Callie loved all of her presents, but she enjoyed the wrapping paper the most! All she wanted to do was eat the paper...it was so cute!

Busy Week

We have had an extremely busy week, both medically and personally! First the medical updates...

Callie had an appointment with her eye doctor last week at Johns Hopkins. Her ROP (Retinopothy of Prematurity) has corrected itself, but Callie now has Strabismus, or a lazy eye. This is can be common in both preemies and full term babies. The good news is that Callie has full muscle capabilities in both eyes, she is just favoring her right eye. So, the Doctor is having us patch her good eye one time a day for an hour in the hopes that she will start using the left eye more. If this doesn't improve over the next four months, we are most likely looking at surgery again. We are praying the patching works, we would just hate for her to have to go through surgery again!

The other big appointment of the week was with the Developmental Pediatrician at Hopkins. This was a follow up from three months ago and they were extremely pleased to see how far Callie has come. It is still to early for the doctors to give an official prognosis, but she feels safe that Callie will become an independent adult. Callie is still at high risk for having learning disabilities, but not to any greater degree than any other baby. Physically, she still has some stiff muscles, but it doesn't appear to be limiting her as she is starting to pull to stand already! We will continue to work on her muscles daily with stretches. The Doctors are confident that Callie has a great future ahead of her (we already knew this :)) but it is amazing to hear it from the experts!

In fun news, Callie experienced her first major snow storm this weekend when Maryland was pounded with 22 inches of snow. We decided to take her outside briefly and see what she thought of the snow...of course, she loved it! Over the weekend, Callie also had her first Christmas with two of her her Aunts and her Oma (Lee's Mom). And she also had her first bath in the big girl tub with Mommy! Fun times!!

Christmas Photo Shoot

We are enjoying a beautiful snowy day here in Maryland and I thought we would share some of Callie's Christmas pictures. We decided to just take them at home this year and avoid the photo stores and all of the germs that come with them! Callie is such a happy girl, she made the photo shoot so much fun!!

Updates

Callie has had a couple of great weeks in a row! Medically, she has seen her Pediatrician for her 9 month check up. Her doctor was very happy with her progress. She is on the full term baby growth chart for weight, hanging out at about the 5th percentile and she is almost on the chart for height. She is closer than last time, so the doctor is happy! Callie also saw her Neurosurgeon. We had been seeing him every 3 months and he was so pleased, he doesn't want to see her again for 6 months! Her shunt is still at the lowest setting (highest resistance to flow), so he is pleased!

Developmentally, Callie continues to progress. She sits for long periods of times, is working on crawling and standing, and loves to play! We were commenting the other day that she is out of the "Infant Stage". When she is awake, she now likes to be entertained. Whether with toys, music or reading, she likes to stay busy!! We also made the big move last weekend to her crib in her own room! I think this was hardest on Mommy...but Callie seems to love it!! The picture above is her looking out at us through the crib!

In other news, Callie's Aunt Calise has moved in! We are so proud of Aunt Calise for graduating from Penn State! Now she is going to spend the next semester with us being Callie's full time Nanny! We couldn't be more thrilled!!