My Angel Isabella: 18th Month Update

The Stats:

Weight: 14 lbs 8 oz

Length: 27 inches

The Highlights:

We just recently had our second VCUG and Isabella’s stage 3 kidney reflux has been resolved. That is one less doctor and one less prescription meds to deal with.

Isabella is still at the beginnings of becoming a crawler. She knows how to alternate her arms, but somehow still needs to motor plan alternating her legs efficiently.

She discovered toys. She would shake a bell or a rattle. Grasp on some beads and flail it around. But we don't need to bother on going crazy shopping for toys that light up, spin around, or those that make those annoying-drive-you-crazy sounds (thank god!), because her favorite play thing is paper. She loves to pick it up and move it around so it makes that rattling, flapping, crunchy sound… We can hand her our junk mail and she'd be the happiest girl in the world. RECYCLING!

She is becoming more “nosy” about what is going on around her. She is starting to get into our things, like picking up ( using a palmar grasp) her brother's toys, make a mess of mommy’s papers, and dive into the tower of folded laundry that her dad just made. The other day she even managed to rip some papers. What a typically developing thing to do! =D

Sometimes, we would be engaged in “circle of Hmms” at home. What I mean is that she’ll make “Mmmmm” sounds in various pitch, tones, volume and inflections and we would answer back with “Mmmmm” in various pitch, tones, volume and inflections. It’s like having a conversation with her without really knowing what it is we’re talking about, only that it is fun for us and always funny for her.

She is a drama queen. She wants to be in close proximity at all times and is a master manipulator in getting people to pick her up and hold her. She does not talk us into picking her up… it is more of her “grunting” us into it. Now I know what the other WHS mommies are talking about when they say that their children may not talk but they sure can get their message across, and the message is loud and clear!

The “W” sitting is still there, but she can manage to fix her legs and bring them to the front on her own (about 3 to 4 out of 5 times she will fix it) and keep herself sitting like that without having to topple backwards.

Her feet seems to be growing inwards… its most likely because of all that “W” sitting. . We need more insight from the therapists regarding the need for orthotics. Although it is not that pronounced, it is something to watch. The PT says that orthotics might not be necessary for now. We figured that since she is still learning how to crawl, orthotics just might get in the way. So, it is something on hold for now.

We were proud that she was bearing weight on her legs and standing up, only to find out that what she is doing is locking her knees. We were told to discourage this and to focus on the crawling. We're still proud of her of course, but the standing thing would have to be something for another time.

Her teeth came late in her development, and now it seems that all her teeth are coming out at the same time. She already has two at the bottom and the one tooth at the top (the midline incisor that the neuro saw in her MRI… we are only expecting one tooth at the top btw). She also has two molars at the bottom and her gums are still swollen and after a "feely" inspection of her gums, it seems like we are expecting a couple more molars to come soon.

Before all these multi-teething we have been weaning her off her overnight feeds and have been successfully feeding her a variety of semi solid foods during the day time and throw ups almost seem like a thing of the past. It felt that the G-tube was non existent during the day... but things sometimes being too good to be true and with what looks like "teething-trauma", all oral feeding has slowed down, over night feeds have been increased, and daytime G tube feedings have been resumed... and because she's on a fluid diet, the puking from the past is once again part of the present… and yes, we caught on quickly on the cleaning after her throw ups quite well. It was almost like muscle memory, or something like that. We call ourselves the puking pros, we know by ear if something's going to come back up (puking ouido).

Since she does not need her daily dose of antibiotics for her kidney reflux, I feared that her fighting off anything that she can catch in the air will be all her doing. This would be a good chance for us to really see how good of an immune system she has. Although the immunologist does not suspect any immune system issues, I wanted to see how Isabella can handle “fighting” the world on her own. We eventually do want to bring her with us on a plane and be able to fly home. And so my fears being put out there have once again became soemthing that I have to come face to face with (not to worry... I'm fine...I've become a pro at facing my fears)…. the other day, we saw some blood on her ears. Upon careful inspection we saw that this was not dry blood rather some kind of a wound inside her ear. We immediately set up an appointment with her pediatrician and as it turns out she has an ear infection… a major one with blood and pus. What was weird was that she was not in pain, nor was she crying nor anything out of the ordinary at all…. No fever either. She was just her regular self… always smiling, picking up a rattle and shaking it, nosing around on our things, not eating much, and some puking here and there. It is a concern that she was asymptomatic…and being that how would we have known right? It could also be because, in comparison to all the other things that she has already been through, an ear infection is a piece of cake.