Tummy

I've been promising an update on Ella's tummy situation, so here it is.

She's been seeing a pediatric GI specialist the past couple of months for monitoring, and he has been wonderful. He ran a few more tests on her for some other diseases and syndromes, all coming back negative.

If I have understood everything correctly (which in my crazy state of mind dealing with all of this I could be completely wrong), basically here's what they think probably happened. She had the tummy bug, which created some of the tissues in her colon to become inflamed. This can sometimes cause idiopathic (spontaneous) intussusception where the small intestines telescope thru to the large intestines. Since our last stay in the hospital, the surgeon and GI doctors have been monitoring her, and everything seems to be completely fine and normal again!

She's been taking a pro biotic for the past month, which is supposed to help regulate the good bacteria with the bad bacteria in her tummy. Supposedly these pro biotics can do wonders for children with colic and stomach problems, and they better b/c they are not cheap. Since all of this madness, Ella has been doing great with trying finger foods (some days; some days she just spits it back out in our face), and has just transitioned to whole milk no problem. Last week the GI doctor released Ella from his care, and said we only have to come back as needed. She finally weighs 20 pounds, which is almost 4 more pounds than when she was released from the hospital in February.

So, there's the update. I still get nervous and anxious when she starts crying because she is always such a happy baby, and when she's upset I know something is wrong. But for now...I think its that huge molar I see popping thru her gums in the back....that makes 9 teeth!

A day at the Petting Zoo

Hayden's 2nd birthday party was a few weeks ago at the Oak Mountain petting zoo.

Ella especially loved petting the cows

And there were real animals there too...

Hayden did not like everyone singing to him!

But he definitely enjoyed opening all of his presents!

All of the animals sure did like David!!

One of the goats grabbed Ella's cheerios right out of her diaper bag.

The Big 0-1

It's hard to believe, but according to Ella's birth certificate she turned the big 0-1 this past Sunday. I never knew time could fly by so quickly. And from what I hear it just starts to speed up even more.

Her birthday party was at Homewood Park on Saturday and luckily the weather turned out beautiful....a little breezy at times; ok, quite breezy at times. Ella really seemed to enjoy being in the spot light and loved everyone singing to her. She was not a fan of the birthday cake, which made for an easy clean up.

Ready to dig in....And this is about all I could get her to eat.

She doesn't like getting her hands all dirty...so we tried a fork.

How old are you going to be?

Dancing a little Jig

Today I started my new work schedule, where I leave at noon on fridays. The idea is for me to now have some free time to run errands, get some house work done, and have a little me time! Of course Ella's school calls at 12:45 this afternoon and they closed early due to bad weather. So much for me time today....but Ella seemed quite excited to get out of school early today....

Cutie

Botanical Gardens

We thought we had a great idea to go to the Birmingham Zoo on Good Friday since it was a beautiful day, no work, no school. The entire city of Birmingham thought the same thing and we couldn't even drive into the parking lot, so we nixed that idea and went over to the Botanical Gardens instead and strolled around, fed some fish and took a few pictures.....

I threw up off of this same exact bridge when I was little.