Nine months old!

So much has happened since the last post (which shouldn’t really surprise anyone seeing that I haven’t blogged in almost a month)!  Allie is now 9 months old and is a professional crawler, climber, and cruiser.  She loves to be up on her feet and after a few clumsy face-plants, she has discovered the art of sitting from standing.  She even got her first pair of real shoes last Tuesday.  Her receptive language skills are improving every day.  When asked, “how big is Allison?” she’ll put her arms above her head.  When asked, “Can I have an awwww?” she’ll lay her head on your shoulder.  When you sing, “row, row, row your boat gently down the stream, and if you see a crocodile, don’t forget to scream” she’ll let out a scream.  She waves bye, bye and I’m 90% convinced she knows the sign for drink (it’s actually the sign for milk, but I use it for drink).  She plays peek-a-boo and loves to get attention!  She’ll clear her throat or do a little chuckle until you look at her and then she’ll give you a big smile.  She weighs 24 pounds 10 ounces (99th percentile) and is 30 and 3/4 inches long (100th percentile).  She eats many more foods, like cheese and bread, and loves cheerios!

Now I’ve just got to get the house techie to post some videos and photos!  Including photos from our recent vacation to Cape Cod.  Check back soon!

It’s that time again!

Allie has been enjoying her summer!  She loves being outside, she enjoys being in the water (even if it’s just her kiddie pool or the bathtub) and she started crawling this month, so that’s been keeping all of us busy!  Click the photo below for pictures from July.

Oops! Forgot the Photos for June!

I was thinking about how it’s almost time to post the pictures from the month of July and then I realized that I never posted the pictures from June! Click the photo below to see all the pictures.

Now we’re movin’!

It’s official!  We have a crawler.  One day shy of turning 8 months old, Allie got up on all fours and crawled all by herself.  Daddy took the video to prove it.

 

On a side note… here’s a video of Allie acting like a crazy animal!

Those big baby blues…

The past few months, Kevin and I noticed that Allison’s right eye tends to drift off to the side when she’s eating or “spacing out”. It only would happen for a second and then realign, but it was something I wanted to mention to her pediatrician. At her 6 month appointment, I mentioned to her doctor that she appeared to have a lazy eye, but that it only occurred every now and again. He looked at her eyes and had her follow a light and said he didn’t see any cause for concern and that I should wait until she was 18 months to get it formally evaluated. He said that what I was seeing may be pseudostrabismus where the eye only appears to be out of alignment. I hesitantly took his word for it and left the office. Over the following week, we kept noticing her eye drift more and more, so I took it upon myself to find an ophthalmologist who specialized in pediatric strabismus (abnormal alignment of one or both eyes). I found Dr. Simon in Slingerlands, and made an appointment. We had to wait a month to get in, but it was worth it. He was wonderful with Allie and appears to be one of the most knowledgeable doctors in his field. After her 2 hour evaluation, she was diagnosed with amblyopia. Amblyopia is when the eye appears healthy, but visual information is not transmitted or recognized properly through the visual and neural systems. More commonly, “lazy eye”. Allie’s right eye is not seeing as well her left eye, and therefore, her brain ignores the information received by her right eye in order to avoid blurred or double vision. When she isn’t using her right eye it drifts outward. We were advised by Dr. Simon to administer homatropine drops to her left eye (her “good” eye) in order to blur her vision and force her to utilize her weaker eye. We are hopeful that her vision will improve in her right eye and her eyes will remain in alignment. We go back to Dr. Simon in a few weeks to check for progress.

Here is a picture of her that we took a month ago while she was eating – when her lazy eye is most evident. You can see her right eye is drifting a bit.

This picture was taken last week after we applied homatropine drops. You can see her left pupil is dilated much more than her right one.

Today was another “eye drop day” and she is tolerating them very well. We have noticed her left eye drifting a bit now and then which is a good sign. It means she’s using her right eye like she’s supposed to. Hopefully we’ll get a good report when we see Dr. Simon in August!

Video Updates

This video was taken 5 days ago.  Since Allie was around 3 months old, I would turn on Nick Jr. while I ate my breakfast in the morning so she would be somewhat entertained.  Since that was usually around 6:30am, she watched a lot of “Ni Hao, Kai Lan”.  Now it’s her favorite show and she gets so excited to see and hear the opening song.

In the video below, Allie is starting to get the hang of crawling.  She still doesn’t crawl independently yet, but she can definitely get around by scooting on her belly.  I have a feeling we’ll have a true crawler in the next couple weeks.  Time to get out those outlet covers!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

  

 

Our little bub is almost 7 months!

Not to be cliché, but where is the time going!? It seriously feels like yesterday that Dana and I were racing  to Bellevue at 1am to meet Allie… and now she’s climbing me like a rock wall, wiggling her way around “AllieLand”, and slowly transitioning into only taking 2 naps a day. She recognizes and smiles at people she knows, and gives the stink eye to strangers (until she warms up of course). Her hair goes past her shoulder blades in the back, and beyond her nose in the front… It’s all things that developmentally should occur, but it still amazes me to watch her go through it all.

Anyway, here is a video of Allie out in our side yard from the other day during a photo session, along with one of the photos.  Enjoy!

An Eating Machine

Allie has been on solids for about three weeks now.  She has done so well with a variety of flavors and textures.  So far she has enjoyed apples, pears, bananas, apricots, sweet potatoes, and squash.  She has had mixed reviews on avocado, peas, and carrots. 

I’ve started making my own baby food using organic fruits and veggies.  It’s really easy to do and I think it’s cheaper.  The only drawback is that it’s not as fast as popping open a jar, but I feel good knowing exactly what’s being fed to her and I can control the consistency.  It’s also better for the environment because I’m not getting rid of all those glass jars!  This weekend, I plan on visiting the local farmers market to get fresh local produce and tomorrow we’re going to try some peaches.  Yum!

Allie in May 2010

Allie was a busy girl this month.  She had a visit from her cousins, Maggie and Elise, and also went to Florida where she saw her cousin Katie.  She also started eating solids and began using her big girl car seat.  Her 6 month doctor visit revealed that she weighed just shy of 21 pounds and was over 27 inches long.  Click the photo for a month of pictures!

Allie eats rice cereal! Yum!!

Today, Allie had her first taste of rice cereal and she loved it!!!  Here’s the video to prove it!