The costumes are ready

The pumpkins are carved, the kids are excited and daddy got part of tomorrow night off!!! They went to school in the spirit of fun and came back with lots of loot!!
I am hoping that tomorrow night is as warm as tonight, my luck there is snow on the way!
Be prepared to be overloaded with pics tomorrow! Just a few more from our pumpkin carving fun!!!






On a different note: today we were outside playing, Tajia asked daddy how to spell stop....so daddy said S-t-o-p.....verbally, and she wrote this without help from there..........I am proud of her!!!!

Its been a long day

It is 10pm (feels like 2am) and all 4 kids are sleeping.....It has been a never ending day! Non stop fighting. Lots of time outs, even for mommy. I was counting the time until daddy came home! Oddly enough about 5 min before he walked in the door the fighting just stopped, and all the kids got calm. I swear they do this to me knowingly.

Gabe was in attack mood today. He bite, hit, kick and yelled every chance he got. Deze was the target to almost all of his attacks. I am not sure how to stop this, it slowed down with occupational therapy, but since that is one break it is getting worse again daily. She has bruises on her from him. I wish there was a way to just make him stop. I need to make her stop too...she tends to try to make him mad. He will tell her to quite down or stop it and she will get louder or keep going.
The two of them make oil and water look like best of buds.
Tajia threw a fight today because I will not buy her buttercup (if you don't know what this is google it) you know the 260 dollar fake pony....yea 45 min of screaming cause I am the meanest mom in the world for not getting her this. And just to be clear if we did have this for her (and we don't) after yesterdays fight there is no way in hell she would be getting it! I would show it to her and then have her help to return it. I will not let her act in this manner!
Nomuken loves her glasses, she knows when they need to be cleaned...she helps to clean them! She is so cute when she sees something for the first time with the glasses on.....its very obvious that she needs them.
Halloween is just 4 days off.....then Nomuken's birthday, then thanksgiving, then Tajia's bday, then xmas.
If anyone knows how to get 4yrs old to realize they are 4 and not 16 let me know.....until then what type of hair color really covers the gray hairs she is sure to cause?

way too early in the yr for this

we saw our first few snow flakes today.....they are not going to stick just yet....but they are in the air. The kids are thrilled, Tajia is freaking out cause she does not have a coat. I just want to stand in the yard and catch the flakes on my tongue.....
If only all our issues melted like the snow that hits the still warm ground.
Its dark and gloomy outside.....the kids are all eerily calm.......so the question for the day is....when is the storm going to hit....or is the calm an all day thing?

Update of the day!

The puke feast has begun! She has a fever, has a rash, and is puking. My guess at the moment is virius of some sort, maybe hand, foot and mouth. ICK!
She was given a cool bath and her temp went down a little....water has stayed down for 30 min now....she sees her ped. at 10am.
Gabe has been umm very, very loud today. He is doing verbal stiming, and he knows that mom is busy today. I gave up on the legos until after dinner. They are not going anywhere.
Deze is being a pain! She likes to lick things, anything. Books, daddies boots.....and if you have a weak tummy stop here, I caught her today licking her own poo! I could smell it, thought it was Gabe, changed him, then found her. She was hiding behind the futon, poop on her legs and her hands in her mouth. I grabbed her and headed for the tub.....she started to laugh at me, and then the smell of poo hit me, coming from her MOUTH! I checked her hands they were covered in poo too! This kid to so odd.......
Nomuken is being my angel of the day.....the most she has asked me for was water...and to clean her glasses off again. Everyone needs one easy kid! She has her "bad" days, but thank goodness that today with everything else going on she is having a good day!
2 more hours until back up arrives!

Its going to be a long day!

It is 11 am here now, Tajia woke up saying she was freezing, thermometer says 101.3, that explains that. She is sick, curled up in my bed under 3 blankets watching yo gabba gabba for the moment.
Gabe is very, very wired today. He is on a break from occupational therapy through the hospital here, its been 2 weeks and each day he is getting wilder (is that a word?) and screaming more, listening less! I am not sure what they do to him there, but it helps. I am going to try to wait it out another week, they want him to take a 6 week break for medical insurance reasons. I am not sure I will live that long! He is doing things that seek out sensory right now. All his legos are all over the house, he likes to step on them....not sure why this is? He has cleared all the normal toys and stuffed animals out of his bed, normally he has to have them to sleep. If you try to sneak any of them in, in the middle of the night he gets up and moves to the floor to sleep.
I need a manual for him somedays! That and cameras through out the house so I can see what he is doing when I cannot be in the room with him! I have picked up the legos 3 times this morning, he gets made, screams for 20 min and dumps them back out. I am not sure what to do about it, if they were in one place I would be ok, but they are on the steps and the playroom and the kitchen!
On a good note he is now taking showers without the normal amount of screaming! We learned the secret to them! We bought him a shower head that attaches to ours, and looks like a frog (its called my first shower) he and Geromy named this frog Benny the frog. Without Benny the frog a bath, shower or anything other then a pool that involves water you might as well be dreaming! Now we only have about 3 min from the start to the end of the shower, on a good day....this involves already having the water on when you tell him. One parent carries him into the shower, the other with shampoo already in one hand and a washcloth for his eyes in the other. The key is to move super fast!
Now if we could get him to use the toilet that would be great! We have the reward charts for this, we remind him 100 times a day.....I refuse to drag him in there, I don't need him afraid of the bathroom. I think that pushing him will make him refuse more....so its a waiting, begging and bribing game for the moment!
Nomuken loves her glasses, she loves being able to see. She keeps yelling for me, when I get there its something simple to tell me. Yesterday she was using the potty and screaming for me, I get in there and she wants to show me that the toilet paper has a pattern to it! She can now see the texture to it! Makes me so happy I could seriously cry.
Deze is well Deze. She has been found on top of the dryer once so far today! At the moment she is watching TV give her 30 seconds though, I am sure that she has lots of plans on keeping me busy when I need to be picking up legos again.
To sum it all up its going to be a long day! One sick kid (does not help to know that chicken pox, hand foot and mouth and pink eye are all over Gabe's school.....and we had to find that out from another parent not the teacher!) so its only a matter of time before puke or more sick kids. One calm kiddo. Two kids that think that mommy likes to move all day long chasing them back into the house, cleaning up the legos before someone gets hurt and busting up their fights!
Only 8 more hours of this before backup gets home!!!!!

Gabe's IEP meeting

Gabe had his annual IEP meeting today. It went ok, I don't feel like his teacher really cares about the kids that she has in the room. We are told by one of the class helpers (she has transferred rooms with Gabe for 2yrs) that Gabe was having issues in the room, that he spends lots of time in the calm down box. Yet his main teacher tells us its all gum drops and sunshine! I am not sure how to handle this. I feel like anything I say to her she just ignores.
This is the same main teacher that swore to us that the sub that harmed my son would never be in his room and then turned around and had the women in her room less then a month later! I don't get it. His teacher tells us that he can count, we have NEVER seen him count past 4. I have bribed this, helped him and it didn't work.
So what are we planning to do about this you ask? (or don't I don't care I am telling ya!) we are going to be going to class with Gabe more often and showing up at random times. Talking to the teachers aide that we believe, and sending him at random with a tape recorder in his backpack.
I get that my son is doing very well, I also get that it took alot of work to get him to where he is now, and if they just stop all of that he will regress again. I know that I cannot protect him from the whole world, but how are you supposed to protect your kid from someone that is supposed to be there protecting kids too?
At this point I feel like I am at the end of my rope, when I try to voice how I feel or what I think would be best for him I get the run around from the school. Yet in the same breathe that they tell me that they do not think I am right they tell me that I would know him best and what he needs.
I want my son to have a teacher that loves the kids, and loves the job and is not there for a simple paycheck. I know this sounds mean, but I feel like I am not being heard and it hurts.

Nomuken has glasses!

And she looks all kinds of adorable! She got them this morning......the minute that she put them on she started to look around at the world, amazed. It was as though she was just seeing things for the first time, she stopped to look at the leaves outside, and her teachers at headstart said that she was taking sand in her hand and look at the grains the whole hour that they were outside today. My baby can see! I about cried watching how excited she was to see things clearly....it was something that words cannot describe.....makes me wonder how much she has missed in the last nearly 4 yrs not being able to see clearly.
The first kid that calls her a name is going to be hurt, the first adult that calls her a name....well to my friends that read this, I would be needing help with a body!

halloween is coming soon!

Only a matter of days until halloween, and I....umm I mean the kids are getting excited about it!
Costumes are bought (less then 30 for all 4 kids combined!) fixed up (the ones from yard sales and second hand) and ready for kids. We even have extras!
I cannot wait for halloween! Geromy works this yr all night on halloween night, so its just me and the kids.....this is either going to be a blast or hell. Either way its a memory in the making!

trying not to sell my 4yr old

My kids are supposed to be in bed, yet they were all up and playing. Nomuken started to cry, so I checked on them to find Tajia on top of her punching her. Tajia was removed from the room and placed in time out. She is now SCREAMING "mommy, stop ignoring me!.....MOMMY" over and over.
Her time out does not start until she is quiet, she knows this! Yet she will not stop, just keeps getting louder. I am tired have had a very long, stressful day and this is not what I need right now. I need a break, I want to be able to breath or pee without a kid helping, just one single time this month! But here I am home alone with 4 kids, 3 of which are supposed to be in bed. Tajia is going horse from all the screaming! Nomuken is sleeping, Gabe is playing Lego's, and Deze is reading a book.
My favorite for the moment is Nomuken! Granted that could change in two minutes!
It does not help that I am still all stuffed up from being sick.....not to mention the lovely headache! Yep that cutie in the pic causing all that hell!
On a different note Nomuken had her eye doctors apt today....nearly 3 hours long! They dilated her eyes, she didn't cry! She did really, really good, and then we picked her out a pair of kiddo glasses, they will be her in 3 to 5 days. She is not so happy about them, but she knows she needs them.
We are hoping that the glasses take care of her right eye turning in, if it does not then she will have to have surgery. She goes back in 2 months to get checked again. I am so proud of her, she was the only kid out of all the kids in the office (about 4-6) that didn't cry, and she was one of the youngest there. I did however warn her of what they were going to do (the eye drops) and told her that it would hurt for a while. It was funny because the nurse literally spelt it out to me when she said that they had to do d-r-o-p-s next and that it would h-u-r-t, she was stunned when I turned around and told Nomuken!
I simply feel that she has the right to know what is going on, and to be prepared for the pain, no way could I lie to her about that!

Its the middle of the night and......

I cannot sleep, no way, no how. I am tired, very tired (thank goodness for spell check!) but I cannot sleep. It is nearly 1am. I can hardly breath from being so freaking sick, meds are doing very little with the sinus issue.....and laying down makes it all worse! That and I am nervous.
I am scared of the apt at 10 for Nomuken. She will be getting glasses this I know. Her vision in her right eye is between 200-400 over 20. She needs gasses for sure. My worry is that the word surgery has been dropped, eye surgery. It scares me, terrifies me! She has a wondering eye, its bad, I know this, anyone that talks to her and looks her in the eye can see this, but I don't care for the words eye and surgery around my 3 yr old!
She on the other hand is out like a light, she knows about the tests, and the glasses, she wants them in purple, thank you very much! The rest of it she has no idea about, I don't feel the need to scare her. Where is Geromy you ask? Is he up worrying with me? NOPE! Snoring away next to me! Just like a man.....mom's tend to worry about everything I guess.
On a side note I get to go to the doctor sometime this week....I burned my fingers bad! Funny, embarrassing story there: Our oven is crap, it stopped working again! So I was trying to figure out what happened....I had it on (450) and had my hand in there feeling for the heat. Gabe comes around the corner and scares me, I move my hand up and hit the top heat coil. By the way, the bottom one is the busted one, the top one is just fine.....and the smell of flesh burning while I was trying to pull my fingers off the coil was horrible.
45 min of straight ice on it! It is discolored, swollen and sore as hell, 2 days later. Geromy has talked me into seeing a doc. I know I need to, I don't want this infected, but I also don't want to have to explain what happened to a doctor. Simple for the fact that I don't want to be laughed at!
Speaking of laughing.....I heard a song, an older country song the other day, made me cry...reminded me of my son, Gabe.
The song is by Mark Wills, its called "don't laugh at me"

The house of sickies

My Nomuken ended up in the emergency room on Friday night, she was having issues with breathing and doing nothing but screaming. Geromy took her in while I put the other kiddos to bed. She has a severe upper respiratory infection, ear infection....and a fever to go with all of that. She started her antibiotics on Saturday. And starting Saturday I have been getting sick.....we know who started all of this (daddy) but what I want to know is what made him feel that the rest of us wanted it.
Geromy did stay home from work on Saturday to help me with the kids, thank goodness I slept most of the day....and I do feel a little better!
Nomuken's meds are working, she is getting better, now if only there were a pill for all the whining that my girls seem to have "caught"!

Firetrucks!

We went to an open house at the fire station on Thursday night, the kids got hats, balloons, stickers, hotdogs, chips and juice. Then to top all of that off they went in a ride in a fire truck. Daddy went with them, someone had to stay with the strollers and hats!

Public school sucks!

So we get a call letting us know that there is a sub in Gabe's class on Friday.....and on the last 2 class days of the month. The issue you ask? This is a sub that my child is not allowed to be around, he is terrified of her to say the least. Last school yr I went to get him a few min early one day. I walked into the room to see this sub holding my son. She was standing behind him....he was facing outward and she had his arms crossed in front of him, squeezing him, hard.
I locked up at that moment, I didn't know what to say to her, instead I grabbed my son away from this women and left quickly. I got him home and he was very scared, not talking at ALL...no smiles no nothing.
I looked on his arm to see bruising in the shape of fingers, from her! I took pictures of the bruises and called the main teacher. We were told that the sub would not be in the class again, we asked for her name to call her into the Minnesota board of education, yet they refused to tell us!
So this yr we tell the new teacher that we have issues with this sub, tell her what happened...the old teacher had already told her which sub and why. She told us over and over that this sub would NEVER be welcome into her class EVER.
Well we get a call on Thursday to let us know that she is the sub for Friday! Not even a month into class and a promise is busted, I am loosing faith in this teacher!

Geromy went to class with him and stayed all day Friday, it was not fair for my son to miss class cause of this women, we do now have her name....gotta love name tags! We will be pursuing this, I want this women to never work with kids again, I have no idea who else she has hurt....these kids cannot just say "hey mom that women squeezed me too hard and it hurt" heck Gabe didn't cry while she was doing it!
This lyeing teacher will be getting a piece of my mind as well. I do not like being told one thing and her doing a whole other thing! She has been telling us white lies as well. She tells us that Gabe loves school and that they never have issues with him. Truth is that they do, there is a teacher in his room that has been with him since he started special ed. I love this teacher. She tells us that Gabe has a hard time with the other kids, he spends lots of time in the cardboard box in the room hiding! Geromy saw him do this for almost an hour and a half on Friday.
She tells us about his meltdowns and when he gets mad at kids and why. The lead teacher tells us that nothing is wrong ever there.
We are going to be hiding a recorder in his backpack.....there is not an observation room that we can just watch him from, or I would be parked there! I am sick of them giving him milk when we tell them not to and provide soy milk, lying about how his day goes, bringing in a sub that is known to hurt kids!
I just want Gabe to be safe! I want all my kids safe, but at least I know that my girls will tattle on someone in a heartbeat if they are hurt!

my baby turns 3yrs old today!

I know that I "should" be thrilled to have her growing up, but it makes me want to cry. I cannot believe how fast time is going. I don't want her to grow up, I most likely will never have more kids, she is the last and final one. Geromy is fixed...so other then adoption or a miracle that would give us the cash to get him reversed I am out of luck. Why do I say I am out of luck? Because I am the one that wants more kids...not him. (big fight 3 yrs back lots of tears....MN does not require a wife's signature to do the big V so I lost, and he almost lost me because of it)
I know what everyone thinks, I should be happy for the 4 we do have and I am, I just feel like I was not done, incomplete. I love the kids I have, with everything I have...but I cannot help the feeling of being "empty" somedays. I am not sure if this is normal or if I should be checked in somewhere for this "issue".......
On a different subject my son is starting to sleep more! As you may or may not know he normally stays up till 2 or 3 am then is up at 7 or 8 am for the day, no naps. Lately (within the last week) he has been staying up till 11 or midnight, then sleeping till 8 or 9 am. I love it....would love to move him to the 8pm bedtime of the girls but that will take time.
On the other hand Deze is starting to be a night owl. I am not sure what to do with her, she can and will open all baby gates, or break them. I don't mean the walmart gates I mean the 100 bucks a pop ones we have in our house. They don't slow her down. We put her to bed and she is up and out, we fight her for hours now....till 10-11pm...and she is still the first kid up in the morning. I just don't get it, maybe I am old, but I love my sleep!
Tomorrow is Deze's bday party, she picked Dora this yr....its all bought and ready to be baked, hung up or blown up!

The world keeps on turning

We finally got our laptop back today. I so missed it! We have been busy, decorating for Halloween, and prepping for Deze's birthday party. My baby is going to be 3 yrs old tomorrow. I cannot believe it has been that long.
Time goes by way too fast. I wish that there was a way to slow it down, pause it, will it to stop turning sometimes.....if only it were that simple. I try hard to take pictures as often as I can, of as much as I can, somedays I wish that there were cameras in my home.
Today also marked a first for Gabe. He touched the inside of a pumpkin. He has never touched it before ever, Occupational therapy has tried many times before and he would not have it, no way, no how. We were gutting the pumpkins for carving earlier today and he wanted to help us, so I let him. He touched it with only one finger.....then screamed and ran to wash his hands! But he TOUCHED it non the less!!!! Yes I will take it.....and yes of course I have a pic of it!
The kids are getting excited for Halloween, and all the upcoming birthdays. I am getting stressed trying to keep up with the normal things, school, the holidays, the birthdays and the IEPs. If only life was simple forever.......I am just happy that the kids don't know the stresses we deal with daily....the lack of money, the wealth of bills, the lack of time, the lack of space....
We have been looking in the paper and driving around looking for homes to move into lately. This 800 sq foot (yes you read that write and no its not a typo) 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom townhouse is getting old. I want room to breath, I want a room that is just mine and the hubbys.....(we have to share with Gabe for now)
I have to be patient as it will be after xmas before we can move...but at least the light is in the tunnel no matter how far off, its there and that is all that matters for the moment, keeps me going through the day.....well that and caffeine lots and lots of caffeine....

When it rains it pours!!

So lets just jump right into day to day life......yesterday morning I get all 4 of my kids up and dressed to go to headstart. We get to the first stop of two at 8:15am, this is where all 3 of the girls go, so I leave Geromy in the van with Gabe and run the kids in.
Deze gets dropped off first....I get in her room and get told that she cannot stay, the school has lost some of her paperwork and her ped. has to redo it, and until they get that she cannot stay. So she melts down and starts to scream. I scoop her up and head back out the the van with all 3 girls to leave Deze in there with daddy too. Back inside we go....Tajia gets dropped off no issues, next up is nomuken....and that is the hard drop off.
She starts to cry clinging to me like she will never see me again. I have to remind her over and over that I will be back at 2:30. I do the signs for 2:30 with her about 15 times, then I hug her kiss and tell her I have to leave, it is now 8:45am, and Gabe was due at his school across town at 8:30am as well (gotta love having only one car)
I head out the door and down the hall to leave. I get stopped by the home visitor trying to tell me that she called me 3 times and blah, blah, blah. I tell her that she didn't call, I know she didn't cause all we have is cell phones, we don't miss calls.
She continues to blab about how she even mailed out the paperwork that we were missing...the "missing" paper work was the 24 month check up for Deze, who will be 36 months old next week! I didn't have time to argue all of this, so I said that I have to leave NOW, and walked off while she was talking. Rude I know, but I was late and she wanted to talk for 45 min that I didn't have.
I get to the van....get my son to school. Call up the doctor to see if she can redo the paperwork that the school lost. Then I get more wonderful news. Our medical is canceled....all of it, great!
We start to make calls to see what went on there...get all the paperwork done and in. 48 hours to get medical back on, but we can drop off the papers for the doctor to do. So we drop off the papers and head home to clean in the 2 remaining hours will we have to get our son. We have to go home, cause we are on empty and our check was due in mail.
Get home, start to clean, hear the mail run...I head out to get our check so we can get gas and food....junk mail, all of it, no check! I take a deep breath, cuss then go on with the day.
11:30am hits and we have to get to Gabe's school to pick him up and to do his meeting with the teachers...the ones that think we are dumb and do not know our rights. We sit there as they say the same things that they always do....they are preping him for kindergarden with 3 hours a day, 2 days a week. That is can do anything they want him to do there. Yes he can do all the art things that they do.
Ask him to count past 3 then get back to me....1 hour meeting, waste of time. Learned nothing and nothing I said was heard by the know it all teachers.
We leave there and vow to order homeschooling things for Gabe over the weekend.
At 2:30 I pick up the other 2 girls from school and come home...finish up laundry.
We go to an autism meeting at 6 pm. We have a sitter all lined up. 5pm, sitter calls and cancels. We make food for the kids and drag them with us.
Geromy ended up with the kids in the lobby for the night while I was in the meeting. The guest speaker is the main one we have issues with at school. She was there to tell people how to advocate against the school in favor of autistic kids. How ironic that she is there telling me this, when earlier the same day she ignored all I had to say!
2 hours of meeting and finally home for the night for bedtime! It was just one of those days when I wanted to yell "whats next". I know it was not a horrible day, but the stress lately is unbelievable, and that didn't help at all!
Hopefully today is better!

My youngest girl

Her name is Deze, she entered this world 3.5 weeks early and as our biggest baby.
She was born with a bad cause of jaundice....she was also born in water. She was my water baby. While she was in the hospital my grandmother (whom we no longer speak to) signed for her to have her shots. I didn't want her to have them because she had jaundice and I knew that could make her more likely to get sick from the shots.
She had 16 ear infections from the time that she was 11 months old till she turned 2 yrs old. They were all set to do ear tubes and the infections just stopped.
We started to see issues with her at 2yrs old, she mouths EVERYTHING. She will eat ANYTHING that holds still. We have poison control on speed dial just for this child, no joke either. Caulk, paint, chalk, cig. butts (we don't smoke so these were off the ground and from strangers GAG!) super glue, sun screen, dirt, worms, grass and paper just to name a few.
We were told that she is ADHD at the age of 2.5, she moves, NON STOP....all the time..seems to seek out things to break, and is over all a tornado!
She was also diagnosed with asthma at 2 yrs of age, and eczema (she takes oral steroids and a nebulizer)
At the time that she was born my oldest was 32 months old. Yes you read that right..I had 4 kids all single births in less then 3 yrs, and yes again they are all biologically mine. And no I don't know how we all survived it!

My middle girl

She was born when my son was 21 months old, and Tajia was 11 months old. Her name is again odd and I don't need a stalker just yet, so she will be going by her nickname on here. That would be nomuken (mean monkey in Japanese).
She was my smallest at birth. She was 3 weeks early and induced.
She loved to be held for hours and hours on end. Almost always calm and quiet. She never crawled, she rolled. starting at 5 months she would roll all over the room. At 8 months she started to walk alone, or should I say run? She never "cruised" furniture, she just got up and off she went without a hand to hold on to.
Even though she could walk, she much preferred the warmth of a lap....
We noticed at the age of 2 that she could move her eyes separate of each other.
The first time she made herself pass out from a fit she was 10 months old, she screamed and held her breathe.
She stopped breathing, I was scared, home alone with all 3 kids and 8 months pregnant on top of that. As I got to the phone with her in my arms to call 911 she gasped and started to breath again on her own. We took her in to the doc, who told us that our child has a temper and that is what she is going to do when pissed off at us...this doctor was so right about her temper!
She will go from all calm to pissed in seconds. Another child will hit her and she will cry, then 3 hours later explode when I forget about it and hit the other kid, or try to shove them down the steps...or whatever she can do at the moment to get even with said kid.
She would still much rather sit on a lap all day ever day...she is a major snuggle monkey! She too entered the role of big sister at 11 months old.

My oldest girl

First off her name is one of those you don't often hear...so I will not be putting it here to protect her safety. I will be using her nickname, Tajia instead to refer to her.
She is going to be 5 yrs old in Dec of this yr. Gabe is older then her by 9 months and 27 days. Yes they are both biologically mine.
She is well a princess. She loves to learn, wins any stubborn contest, and can outwhine all the other kids. And for that we love her.
Tajia is the one that is closest to Gabe, they are always playing together and most of the time no screaming or blood is involved. They do have their days though. She was born with a heart murmur it fixed itself when she was 13 months old. The first yr of not knowing was crazy....we knew she had it, didn't know if she would need surgery. We had to keep her from overdoing things in fear that her heart could not handle it.
She used to HATE to be held by mommy, loved daddy. Since daddy was working long hours when she was tiny, she was in the swing alot, it was the only way to keep her from crying. She stopped taking her bottle at 9 months old...just refused it one day and went to sippys and "real food". She learned to crawl at 7 months old, but refused to walk until her 1st bday. The day she turned one she up and walked across the room!
She has a heart shaped birthmark as a reminder of the heart issue that used to scare us. She also has my very thick hair....She became a big sister at the age of 11 months old.