Reason # 652

For why I love Brenner Children's Hospital. The doctors don't look at you like you are crazy when you have concerns about your child. If it sounds concerning and you are concerned, they investigate it. I love our pediatrician(s), but sometimes I feel like they roll their eyes at me when I come in with Rachel. I know I'm over protective about her health but my motto with her has always and will probably always be "get it early before it becomes a huge issue that impedes her growth/development." That isn't very catchy, I know, but it's how I live.

going to a birthday party

Anyway, We had a follow-up with Rachel's geneticist, Dr. Chad, today (yes, he goes by Dr. Chad). He asked us questions about how Rachel is doing, how her reflux is doing and how she is progressing. I asked him about her head tilt. I told him how her ophthalmologist didn't see an issue with her eyes and how her PT checked her muscles and couldn't find any muscular reason for it, as far as maybe one side is tighter than the other. He said the next step would be to get an x-ray to make sure her bones were aligning correctly. Where do we go if that comes back ok (pray it does!)? Well, I don't know. Her head tilt worries me. There has to be a reason why she holds her head like that and I can't believe that it's because she wants to. She's only one and it's always been an issue. It's certainly not a phase that she is going through. Anyway, an x-ray will be set up soon and I'll report on how that goes.

rachel launching to give a "hug"

Rachel has been on the Simply Thick for a couple days now. It works pretty good. We had one full day of no spit up at all. It was amazing. She's spit up some recently and I think it has to do with two things. One, the Simply Thick has to be shaken into her formula which causes bubbles to become trapped in the formula. The bubbles can't rise because the formula now has the viscosity of glue so Rachel gets more gas. Two, we've started her on milk. She's only gotten it once a day but soon after drinking it she gets crabby and spitty-uppy. Her formula is lactose free. I think I'm going to get a lactose free milk to see if that helps. I'm also going to start giving her simethicone gas drops again. I thought we were done with those. Oh well. I guess if it helps I can't complain.

loungin' on the pillow

loungin' on the dog bed

In other news, Rachel has gained some weight and is now at 18 pounds. She also grew a huge 1/4 of an inch to be at 26 3/4. It took her 3 months to grow an inch. No wonder she was in her 6-9 months clothes forever!

She has been doing so fantastic with feeding herself and hasn't turned away from any of my "cooking." She is also getting into everything. We used to put a blanket down on the floor for her to play on but for the past couple of weeks she wants to be everywhere BUT on that blanket. It has been put away. Rachel will follow me if I go into the bathroom or if I step outside to get the mail, I have to be really careful when I open the door because she is usually right there waiting for me. She's also gotten into the dogs water bowl a couple of times to splash around in their water. I'm counting my blessings that she hasn't figured out how to open cupboard doors yet!