I’m late on this!
Ellie is now 15 months old but here is what she was doing at 14 ½ and
later in this blog entry at 15 months old:
So at 14 ½ months old…
Height: 29.5”
Weight: 21lbs 9 oz
I think this puts her in the 30% or so for height and weight. A little perspective, this is the height and weight that Payton (who remains in the 90% for height and 66% for weight) was at 9 months old.
Wears: 12-18 month clothes, size 3 diapers, size 4 shoes
New things she can say: “Wah-wah” for water or for anything she wants to eat, “Bee-Bee” for baby or for other random things.
Sometimes signs “All Done” and attempts to sign “Ball” and “Water”. Can sign “More” but doesn’t sign it when she wants more of something.
Can pull up on everything now and has started walking while holding onto things. She can now let go and stay standing for up to a few seconds. She also lets go and tries to walk to us but as soon as she tries she falls face first (usually into our arms unless we aren’t there to catch her!)
Pretends to blow her nose on random things, fake coughs into cups/toys, grabs her toes and screams to indicate that she wants me to play “This little piggy” with her, likes to play peek-a-boo, likes the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. She is very silly and fun.
She wants to read book after book. She grabs a book and starts screaming as she bum scoots on over to me. Her favorite books are the Highlights magazines, Biscuit books (about a dog named Biscuit), and any book with animals. She now can find and point out a few items like dog, cat, ball, bird, and fish.
I think this puts her in the 30% or so for height and weight. A little perspective, this is the height and weight that Payton (who remains in the 90% for height and 66% for weight) was at 9 months old.
Wears: 12-18 month clothes, size 3 diapers, size 4 shoes
New things she can say: “Wah-wah” for water or for anything she wants to eat, “Bee-Bee” for baby or for other random things.
Sometimes signs “All Done” and attempts to sign “Ball” and “Water”. Can sign “More” but doesn’t sign it when she wants more of something.
Can pull up on everything now and has started walking while holding onto things. She can now let go and stay standing for up to a few seconds. She also lets go and tries to walk to us but as soon as she tries she falls face first (usually into our arms unless we aren’t there to catch her!)
Pretends to blow her nose on random things, fake coughs into cups/toys, grabs her toes and screams to indicate that she wants me to play “This little piggy” with her, likes to play peek-a-boo, likes the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. She is very silly and fun.
She wants to read book after book. She grabs a book and starts screaming as she bum scoots on over to me. Her favorite books are the Highlights magazines, Biscuit books (about a dog named Biscuit), and any book with animals. She now can find and point out a few items like dog, cat, ball, bird, and fish.
Ellie UTI Update
Despite concerns that she had an
antibiotic resistant UTI, the Augmentin did the trick and got rid of the
infection. So we are very thankful for
that! We are hoping this was just an isolated
incident but we will attempt to keep a close eye on her to make sure she
doesn’t get recurrent UTIs.
Unfortunately since she didn’t give clear signs that she had an
infection the last time, it’s hard to know what to look for. I mean, does waking up crying every 30
minutes indicate a UTI or is that just her???
I’d hate for it to get to the point that she’s hyperventilating and her
heart rate is through the roof just for us to know that she has another UTI.
Ellie Heart Update
We had another health scare with
Ellie the last week of January. She was
playing with Payton and when I picked her up to get her ready for bed I
realized that her lips were a dark blue color.
Almost navy in color but her lips weren’t solid blue, more like patches
of blue. Charles was also in the room
and I pointed it out to him. Then we
watched as her lips gradually changed back to normal. She was also breathing really fast but we
knew that could have been because she and Payton were playing so hard. It was pretty scary because immediately your
mind goes to the worst--- which is that I immediately feared it was due to the
heart abnormalities that Ellie has seen a pediatric cardiologist for since she
was 2 weeks old. The next day I got her
in to see her cardiologist. Poor Ellie,
who has had 3 catheterizations done in the past 2 weeks and is not feeling very
fond of doctors and nurses at this point, was not a very cooperative
patient. In fact she screamed and cried
constantly during the entire appointment and nothing, not suckers or stickers
or videos, would make her stop crying.
I’m actually surprised they were able to do an echocardiogram on her
because of it, but they did. And
thankfully the doctor said her heart is functioning just fine and actually
looks a lot better than the last time he saw it. That she still has some mild thickening of
the pulmonary valve but that the other valve looked good and that the PFO
(small hole in her heart) had actually closed itself completely. He said, “I’m sorry but I don’t know why her
lips turned blue because her heart looks good”. This was great news! Although we still have no idea why her lips
turned blue. Hopefully it won’t happen
again! This child has been giving us
some scares lately but thankfully she is overall a healthy little girl!
Payton Update
I’m always updating about Ellie
because babies grow and change so much but so do 3 year olds actually so here
is a 3 1/3 year old update for Payton.
Height: 39.75” (90%)
Weight: 33 lbs 6 oz (66%)
BMI: 14.86 (26%)
Yes once they outgrow measuring
the head circumference they apparently start calculating BMI instead. Payton, who used to be a tall, chubby baby,
has now become a tall, thin little girl.
It’s still hard for me to believe she actually is a little girl
now. The past 3 1/3 years have flown by.
Clothing size: 4T and even fitting into some 5T clothes
Shoe size: 9 .5
Reading:
At 3 1/3 years old, Payton is
now reading many three letter words on her own.
She knows all of her letter sounds and can sound out basic words. I didn’t even realize 3 year olds could learn
to read but she just started picking up on it so I started working with her on
it. We have these foam letters that
stick on the bathtub and I create words and then see if she can sound them
out. The other night I created 16
random, 3 letter words, and she sounded out and read 13 of the 16 words
correctly without help. She then asked
me, “Are you so proud of me?” And the
answer is Yes, I am so very proud of her!
Favorite books: Payton has many favorite books but books she
has been really into lately have been….
·
Olivia books
·
Pinkalicious
books
·
Care Bears
books
·
Highlights
magazines
After really enjoying books
about trains and animals for so long, Payton has just started becoming
interested in books that seem a little more “girlie”.
Winter Show and School Update
On the evening of Thursday,
January 30, 2014, Payton had her first school performance. The 3 and 4 year old class sang a couple of
songs first and then Payton’s class (the 2 year old class) sang two songs with
them. They sang the “B-L-U-E Spells
Blue” and “I’m a Little Snowman” songs.
And yes Payton is in the “2 Year Old” class this year because they go by
the kid’s age on September 1, which is how the public schools in Texas do it
too because you have to be 5 on September 1 to start Kindergarten. And on September 1 of this past school year
she was still 2. This means, with an
October birthday, Payton will always be one of the oldest in her class. But actually her 2 year old class at school
has several others will fall birthdays too so she isn’t even the oldest in her
class.
Payton has really been loving
her first year of preschool. She attends
school two days a week for 3 hours and looks forward to those days. She has the sweetest teacher. She tells me her best friend in her class is
a little girl named Myar and her favorite thing to do at school is to ride
scooters outside.
Cold Weather
In January we had a couple of
strong cold fronts. For both cold fronts
they cancelled school in Galveston because of the threat of freezing rain but no
ice actually accumulated on the roads for either cold front. Charles was still
able to commute to work in Houston and so it didn’t affect us the way they
thought it would. I think some places,
particularly north of Houston, did get some significant ice/snow but not here. I posted some pictures on my facebook page
poking fun at how extreme everyone was reacting to the weather but instead of
laughing, people seemed to have taken me seriously. Clearly cold weather is not a joking matter
in Southeast Texas. But seriously,
cancelling school because the forecast calls for it to get down to 34 degree
and well, that’s pretty close to freezing and entirely too cold for anyone to
be in school, right? On one of those
almost freezing days I took the girls to the grocery store because we needed
food. I had the girls bundled up in a
couple of layers and an old man, in a t-shirt, came up to us in the store and
said, “You shouldn’t have such little girls out in this weather”. I was very nice about it but some people
definitely need to mind their own business.
My family needs to eat whether it’s cold out or not. Plus the day before, when it was sunny and
70, I opted for the girls and I to spend the day at the park rather than in the
grocery store and I don’t regret that decision one bit.
So, despite all the cold
weather, Payton still hasn’t seen snow in her 3 years of life. I asked her, “Do you know what snow is?” and
she told me, “Yes, you skate on it”.
Well, that’s ice but close enough!
We did get some sleet and when she thought it was snow I allowed her to
believe it was….. Once again, close enough!
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Lala and Papa
The last weekend in January,
Lala and Papa (my parents) were able to come visit for a weekend. Payton enjoyed showing them her new
trampoline. We also played a round of
Putt-Putt that I think my mom won (I just know it definitely wasn’t me--- I’m
pretty sure I got last place!) and then
we ate lunch at Jimmy’s on the Pier.
Their dog Baby stayed at our house while my parents stayed in a hotel
and each morning Payton would tell them, “I took care of Baby for you”. Payton showed my parents how she knows how to
work the remote control to our DVD player on her own and Lala said, “Oh, Papa
and I don’t even know how to do that!
Will you come to our Georgetown house to fix our DVD player for us?” So throughout the weekend Payton would tell
Lala, “Don’t worry Lala, I’ll come fix your TV for you”.
February 2014
During the second weekend of
February we had a strange event take place one evening where a couple of people
tried to enter our house while we were home.
I was in the shower when I heard Charles yelling at Payton to, “Go to
the bathroom with Mama! Go right
now!” I didn’t know what was going
on. But apparently some people opened our
screen door and were starting to mess with the door knob when Charles ran
across the room and locked the front door.
The people then got in their car and drove away. Because of the way they didn’t leave quickly
and had parked in the driveway to begin with, we have a feeling they weren’t
trying to cause trouble but were probably confused and had the wrong house. But, to have someone try to get into your
home at night is still a bit unnerving and we did call the non-emergency police
number to report the incident.
Valentine’s Events
The Wednesday before Valentine’s
Day we attended a Valentine’s play date at our friends Cristal and Skyleigh’s
house. It was so cute to see the girls
(yes, it was all girls and one baby boy in attendance) all dressed for
Valentine’s Day. And Cristal had prepared
some really cute crafts and snacks for the kids.
On Valentine’s Day, Nana (Charles’
mom) came to visit and brought lots of treats for us and the girls. Charles and I never used to celebrate
Valentine’s Day. It just seems like a
silly holiday and when you’re single it’s the kind of day that just makes you
want to puke so I think we both hold some resentment towards such a puke-worthy
holiday. We do, however, sometimes talk
about the year we both came down with an awful stomach bug on Valentine’s Day
that we dubbed the “Valentine’s Day Massacre” but otherwise we generally ignore
the holiday. But, with our girls, I just
can’t resist the excuse to dress them up cute and take pictures. Plus Payton is at the age where she now has
expectations that something good will happen on Valentine’s Day. This year, in the days leading up to
Valentine’s Day, she kept mentioning that maybe for Valentine’s Day she would
get her own watch. So, Charles ended up
getting her a watch and a train whistle and he got Ellie at tractor toy. Because those are kind of unique Valentine’s
gifts for little girls, I posted about it on Facebook and Charles responded
with, “Be my Valentine’s? Woo
Wooooooo!” which I thought was funny.
Nana Visit
As I said above, Nana was here
for Valentine’s Day and stayed the week.
Charles had off for President’s Day so we took the girls to the Houston
Zoo. Nana had things she needed to get
done at her beach house so she didn’t go with us but she came over that evening
for dinner. She had brought Payton so
many presents this visit that when she came over Payton asked her, “Do you have
a present for me?” Nana told her, “No,
I’m sorry but I don’t today” to which Payton looked sad so she told her, “Don’t
be sad”. Payton then said, “I’m not sad,
I’ve just had a long day”. LOL
We like to tease Payton and call
her Payton “Mayonnaise” because that’s what she calls Payton Manning. We like to say things like, “Wait, are you
Payton Mayonnaise?!” To which she
responds with, “No, I’m not Payton Mayonnaise!
I’m Payton Falgout!” Well one of
the mornings that Nana was in town, Payton was talking to Siri on my iPhone and
every time Payton would tell her that her name is Payton, Siri would call her
“Bacon” instead. So we have started to
joke around with Payton by calling her Bacon Mayonnaise, which frankly makes me
a bit hungry each time I say it!
Mardi Gras
This past weekend was the first
weekend of Mardi Gras. The 1st
weekend is always a big weekend for us because the two biggest parades of the
weekend come down Seawall by our house.
The weather was warm and sunny and just perfect. The first parade we attended was the noon
Krewe of Aquarius parade. This year they
extended the Seawall parade routes to not only go down Seawall but to also then
go to the Strand. That’s a 4 mile parade
route! (And most of these kids marching
in the bands participated in both parades so they walked, danced, and played
their instruments for 8 miles on Saturday!)
So, possibly thanks to the long route, there weren’t too many people
standing around us for the parade. Which
meant every single float that passed noticed Payton and threw to her. She caught tons of beads and 4 stuffed
animals! Ellie sat in her stroller and
seemed to enjoy the parade as well.
Parts of the parade are really loud with fire trucks, marching bands,
blaring music so I never know how my girls will react but to date they have always
seemed to enjoy the parades.
Around 4 some of our friends
(the Andersons, the Gehrkes, the Bohlmanns, and the Hendersons) and my brother
Kyle and his girlfriend Marissa came over.
We had pizza, drinks, and deserts and the kids had a little time to play
together before heading to the parade at 6.
The kids again scored plenty of beads and other items. The big hit of the night with the kids were
these flashing light up balls and glow necklaces being thrown from the
floats. I’ve never noticed them throwing
a bunch of the light up balls before but it was a genius idea, they loved them! After the parade we came back to the house
and spent some more time hanging out. We
had a firepit going in the front yard that especially the guys, and some of the
kids, enjoyed sitting around.
The next day (Sunday) we took
the girls to the afternoon Children’s parade downtown. On our side of town (by the Gulf) it was
super cloudy and cool but downtown the weather was sunny and warm. I had dressed the girls and I in longsleeves
and we were literally sweating. Got back
home from the parade and it was still cool and foggy. Amazing how just a couple miles further from
the water makes such a difference. The
parade was small but Payton enjoyed it and it was nice to get away from the
constant fog for a bit.
The 1st weekend of
Mardi Gras so much fun! It is always one
of our favorite times of the year. Let
the good times roll!
Ellie’s 15 month update:
Height: 29.5” +
Weight: 21lbs 9 oz +
Wears: 12-18 month clothes, size
3 diapers, size 4 shoes
New things she can say: “Ba-be” for belly button (and she can show you her ba-be), she whispers ”Eyessssss” and can point to my eyes, she uses the word “Be-be” to mean baby, Ellie, Payton, and bye-bye.
She is getting good at being able to walk while holding onto
things. She can also stand herself up
without holding onto anything and can stay standing for a few seconds at a
time. She has still yet to take her
first steps. Apparently 15 months is the
cut off between what is considered “normal” in regards to walking and was is
considered “behind”. But she continues
to develop and progress so at this point I’m not feeling concerned. I do think she is getting close to taking her
first steps and might do so in the next month but I don’t see her truly walking
around for a while yet.
Because I keep getting asked the question, she is still not
a good sleeper but overall we have all adjusted to her sleep pattern. I have no complaints and don’t wish to
receive any more sleep advice from well intending people. ;)
Charles
I know I don’t normally write about Charles and I but some
of our family knows that he recently went to MD Anderson for some testing due
to the colon polyps that he has been having removed since he was a teenager so
I thought I would give a quick update on it.
First a bit of background, when he was a teenager he started
experiencing symptoms that caused a doctor to perform a colonoscopy where the
doctor discovered he had colon polyps.
Since then he has had to have periodic colonoscopies to remove the
polyps. The polyps are adenomatous
polyps which means although they are not cancerous, they have the potential to
become cancerous if not removed.
Unfortunately in recent years the number of polyps that they have had to
remove has increased. Last year I think
the doctor removed 12 and this year he had 18 new ones that needed to be
removed and will have to have another colonoscopy (this time to be done at MD
Anderson) in just 6 months. So his
doctor, not knowing what could be causing all these polyps in a young person,
referred him to MD Anderson for genetic testing to see if it’s one of two known
genetic mutations that can cause colon polyps.
Charles just got a call from them today letting him know that his
testing came back negative for those genetic mutations. That’s pretty much a good thing because the
genetic mutations he was being tested for can be bad but what it likely means
is that he has a genetic problem that they haven’t yet discovered (because even
the 2 they tested him for were just discovered in the past few years). The doctor who called him said they are
waiting on FDA approval to study a few more genes that could cause colon polyps
and they will be in contact with him in the years to come as those tests become
available. He underwent the genetics
testing for a couple of reasons---- first to try to get a diagnosis for his
condition so they’d have a better idea of how to proceed in the future with his
treatment and second to know what to expect in regards to if our girls will
eventually need to be tested for this disorder which appears to start affecting
a person in their teenage years. With
the results coming back “inconclusive”, he will just proceed with periodic
colonoscopies. We are just grateful that
his first polyps were discovered years ago and therefore his condition,
whatever it may be, has been and continues to be manageable.
Conversations with Payton:
One funny thing I heard Payton tell Ellie after I gave her
the baby from the King Cake:
“Ellie, you are too wittle to play
with baby Jesus. You will try to eat him and he will make you sick and then you
will throwed up. “
She then, 5 minutes later, lost the
baby and we were concerned that Ellie would be the one to find it. I ended up finding the baby later when
folding laundry. Apparently Payton had
dropped it into the washer machine while helping me load it with dirty laundry. Oh life with a 1 and 3 year old! It’s fabulous and crazy all at once.
A more serious conversation with
Payton about her Grandpa Chuck (Charles’ dad) who passed away 10 years ago:
Payton: "Are you making
soup?"
Me: "No, dirty rice."
Payton: "Oh, Grandpa Chuck loves dirty rice."
Me: "Yes he does. This is his recipe."
Payton: "Yeah but he lives far away."
Me: "Do you know where he lives?"
Payton: "Yes, he lives in a house, but not
close to us. I don't know where his house is."
We have told her before that he
lives in Heaven with Dixie and Haven (our dogs) but as far as she is concerned
Heaven is just another place far away like Albuquerque is far away.
2nd Weekend of Mardi
Gras
We had warm weather again for
the second weekend of Mardi Gras. I
can’t remember another Mardi Gras where we had such nice weather for BOTH
weekends. I rented another camera lens
(I’m trying to decide which lens I want to purchase) so Saturday morning I took
some Mardi Gras themed pictures outside to try out the lens. After that we attended the Krewe De Rosaire
parade and caught some beads and a whole boat load of Moon Pies (that Payton
loved) and candy. That night was the big
Knights of Momus parade. This is the
biggest parade at Mardi Gras Galveston and it always has just a completely
electric atmosphere. We always have so
much fun at it and this year was no exception.
The next day, Sunday, there were
two more parades down Seawall by our house.
Our friends Christina and Brian brought us a Mardi Gras decorated cookie
cake because they know how much we love cookie cake and attended the pet parade
with us. Ellie really got a kick out of
the pet parade because she is fascinated with dogs right now. Christina and Brian brought their dog China
with them so both girls enjoyed petting and seeing her too. After that we came back to the house so the
girls could take a nap which meant we missed seeing the Childen’s parade which
was okay because we’ve attended a lot of parades this Mardi Gras.
Ellie’s 1st Steps
The morning of Sunday, March 2,
Ellie let go of the bookshelf that she was holding onto and took a step in my
direction on her own. This was her 1st
independent step! A couple days later
she again took about 1 ½ steps towards me before sitting down. She is very hesitant to try walking and just
takes tiny baby steps before sitting down but this is definitely her showing
some progress towards being able to walk!
Fat Tuesday
Unlike the two beautiful
weekends we had for the Mardi Gras celebrations this year, Fat Tuesday was rainy
and cold. Payton had school in the
morning and it was “Crazy Hat Day” so she wore her crazy jester hat along with
her Mardi Gras shirt. Reid, a little boy
in her class, also wore a Mardi Gras shirt and crazy Mardi Gras hat. Payton had a very fun day at school because,
in addition to it being Crazy Hat Day, it was Emma’s birthday (a little girl in
her class) and her mom brought the class pizza, cupcakes, balloons, and party
favors. I arrived at school to pick her
up a little early so I got to watch (through the one-way window looking into
the classroom) Payton and her classmates in music class. The teacher would put on different songs and
the kids had a blast dancing around to the music. Payton looked like she was having so much
fun. She kept grabbing Myar’s hand to
dance with her.
That evening I picked up food
from Leo’s Cajun Corner (their chicken/sausage gumbo is amazing!) for
dinner. After dinner my friend Christina
came over and rode with us to the Strand district for the Fat Tuesday
Parade. There was a light rain and the
temperature was about 39 degrees. I had
dressed the girls and I in about 6 layers of clothes each (literally) but I
managed to forget Ellie’s hat and Payton is the only one of the 4 of us who own
mittens but I meant to bring Ellie some socks for her hands. Charles gave his hat to Ellie and I took off
my wool socks and put them on her hands.
So both girls appeared warm despite the weather (Payton later told me
she was not just warm but hot for the parade).
Because of the poor weather there were very few people at the
parade. We watched the parade the first
time at the very beginning of the parade.
We got loaded up with beads, stuffed animals, candy, glow balls, and
other trinkets. An extra-large strand of
beads got thrown at Christina and actually hit her in the face, making her
teeth really sore. Thankfully she was
okay and didn’t lose any teeth in the incident!
After the parade passed we then walked to the Strand to catch the parade
a second time. Again we caught tons of
goodies. In the 10 years that we have
attended countless parades, we have never caught some many beads and other
items! And the quality beads we caught
were also unmatched! We were so excited
and it was a great time despite of (or thanks to) the yucky weather.
I think that’s about it since
the last time I updated this blog. This
afternoon starts spring break for most Texas schools so I expect this weekend
and week to be a little bit crazy around here.
I will definitely make a mental note not to drive down Seawall, that is
for sure! Hope everyone has a good one!
