Nicu Reunions

This week Callie had two NICU reunions. The first was an informal get together with another miracle baby from St. Joe's, Ailyn. It was so nice to finally get a chance to meet up with Ailyn's family after so long. We spent a lot of time talking with Ailyn's parents while our girls were gaining strength at St. Joe's and it was nice to finally catch up out of the Hospital.

Ailyn and Callie spent time checking each other out-too cute!

Even Ailyn's older brother, Camden, spent time cuddling with Callie.

Later in the week Johns Hopkins had their annual NICU Reunion.

It was so nice to catch up with so many wonderful families that we had gotten to know during Callie's time at Johns Hopkins. Callie was even able to catch up with her Primary Nurse, Mary, and many other people that took such great care of her. How can we ever thank them enough?!?

New Interactions

Callie has had some "firsts" over the last couple of weeks! We caught her feeding our Dog, Riley. Which I am sure is going to be a first of many for her! We know we should have stopped her, but it was SO cute, we had to get it on film!!

Callie has also learned to stand up on her own. Up until now, she was either pulling herself up on someone, the couch, the table, etc or crawling over to the step and standing up. Now she can do it all on her own!! Such a big girl!!



Callie also finally got to meet some of her cousins! We spent Saturday spending some quality family time in New Jersey. It was so cute to have a new generation playing together, and despite them all being different ages, they all got along so well! Callie's younger cousin, Connor, is only 4 months old and almost weighs as much as Callie!

Callie was very excited to end her trip to New Jersey in the swimming pool!! As always, she was a little water bug and loved every second!

Water Baby

Callie's summer is off to a great start! Callie has certainly become our water baby! She loves being in the water every chance she gets! The pictures above are from Father's Day when we were invited to a neighbors pool-thank you! Callie was in the water for three hours straight. She would cry every time that we tried to take her out.

Callie has also started to get more vocal in the past couple of weeks. She is saying lots of "Dada's", "up", and "help". She had been communicating well with the sign's that we had tought her, but we are happy that her voice is starting to get more usage!

Callie is also walking a lot more. She is iniatiating it herself and if she doesn't get too excited, she can make it across the room on her own! She was evaluated by Physical Therapy last week and they are thrilled with her progress. Her therapist said that her development was "textbook". I asked if that was textbook for a micropreemie and she said, no, textbook for childhood development! That was SO nice to hear!!

Callie made her first visit to Ocean City, NJ for the 4th of July! She absolutely loved it!

Mommy and Daddy couldn't believe how much she loved the water. Everytime we would try to walk her towards the beach, she would turn us around back into the water! We never sat down the whole time we were there!!

After a long day splashing in the ocean, Callie finally took a nap on the boardwalk! We hope everyone had a wonderful fourth of July!

Kisses

So far, June has been a great month! Callie is continuing to amaze us as she develops into a happy, little girl! The picture above is Callie lounging during an exhausting shopping trip with Mommy and Daddy at the Mall! I think we wiped her out!!

Callie loves to give and blow kisses, even to the dogs! This video is of her giving kisses to our dog Bryson. We have been really impressed with how the dogs have taken to Callie. When Callie was a baby, the dogs would always be the first ones to her bassinet if she was crying. Now that she is on the move, they are pretty patient with her chasing them and rough petting! We are trying to teach her the concept of being gentle, but we aren't quite there.

Swimming lessons were so much fun this year! The picture above is of Callie on the day Daddy swam with her. As you can see, our little miss priss was a little bored with the activities of the day and decided to lounge on her kick board instead!

As the classes progressed, Callie really began to get comfortable in the water, even willingly putting her face in the water. We are sad Guppies is over, but plan on trying to get Callie in the water as much as possible during the summer!

Callie loves her daily afternoon time in the yard. She is always smiling and laughing and showing off her new top tooth! It is SO cute!!

Our biggest struggle right now is getting Callie to eat the food we want her to. She LOVES goldfish and cheerios, but obviously she needs to eat a more balanced diet than that! It definitely isn't an ability issue, because if we can get it in her mouth, she chews it right up...it is just getting it between her clenched lips that is the issue. So, if anyone has any tips for feeding a picky baby, please let us know!

Great Friends

We had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! One of Mommy's best friends from home, Sara, came to visit with her husband, Mike, and daughter, Haley. Haley is also a preemie, born at 28 weeks last June. It was so great to finally have the girls together and for them both to be doing so great!

It was really fun to watch Callie interact with Haley, especially since this was her first real chance to play with someone her age! As you can see, Callie had to learn about sharing and not stealing binkies!

It was a really hot weekend in Maryland, but we tried to get as much time outside as possible. We took a daytrip to the Inner Harbor and got to visit with another friend, Alison, from Canton! We also spent a lot of time in our yard playing with Callie's new water table!

It was so nice to have a relaxing weekend with great friends! We are so greatful that Sara, Mike, and Haley made the trip down to visit us.

First Steps!!

Callie officially took her first steps tonight!! We couldn't be more proud of her!! She will be one year, Adjusted Age, in a few weeks, so this is perfect timing! She is actually ahead of her Mommy who didn't walk until she was 14 months old!

Weekend Update

Callie has had a couple of follow-up doctors visits over the last couple of weeks. The first one was with her eye doctor. Callie's "lazy eye" hasn't improved much, although, sometimes, especially in the mornings it is perfectly in sync. He still wants to give her body the chance to correct on its own, although he doesn't feel this is likely. With preemies he likes them to be at least one year adjusted age before doing surgery. He has instructed us to continue patching her good eye for one hour a day and we will see him again at the end of the summer.

The second appointment was with her Neurosurgeon. He was extremely happy with her progress. He has always been very business like with us. This time, you could see his excitement with how well she is doing. He kept saying that he couldn't believe she is a 24 weeker! Obviously, we were thrilled to hear that!

The weather this weekend was beautiful. We made our first family trip to the Inner Harbor to see some friends from the NICU that were in town for doctors appointments. It was great to catch up with them and see how well their daughter is doing. It was also great for them to see Callie because the last time they saw her she weighed about 2 pounds.

Callie is really starting to enjoy "guppies". Each week, she has gotten more involved in her swimming lessons. She is starting to kick her legs and just starting to do the arm motions. We think this has been a really great experience for her!