Merry Christmas

J
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Christmas memories 2011

*** making Christmas cookies with mommy***

















*** end result ***



*** first kick-boxing lesson with daddy***




The best part was Abi dancing with daddy and mommy by the tree.

Such sweet memories! Let's hope she remembers them,because they were pretty good! :)

J.

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La cuccaracha

No comments other than she was looking in the mirror all this time ;)

Art

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Abi's first potty time in a restaurant.

I'm so proud of my big girl. We have been trying to encourage her to tell us when she wants to go to potty before it's too late.
We have been practicing at home without the diaper. And here we are at Olive Garden and Abi tells me she wants 'peepee'. So I took her to a restroom and she managed to hold until she was sitting on the toilette. I was soo proud of her! She flashed and washed her hands and ran to daddy to tell him what she just did.
I don't have to mention she liked it a lot and we ended up going back there 2 more times :)

My baby girl is growing up. Thankfully I just bought her new pairs of cute underwear. :)

Yey. Potty training is becoming more fun! :)


Jo


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Cardiologist Appointment

As we have already mentioned, today was Abi's cardiologist appointment, first in 9 months. This was the first time we stretched the appointments so far.

The nurses were all excited about seeing little Abi after such a long break and were really surprised with how much she's grown.

First the nurse checked Abi's blood pressure and ran a quick EKG and then we talked to Dr. Greene. He was thrilled to see how Abi has changed and to learn about her day to day life. Abi let him listen to her heart and chatted with him about stickers and a prize neckless she was promised ;-)



















Next we moved on to heart echo. Once again Abi did great so it didn't take long at all to take great pictures and check everything.

After the echo Abi went for a walk to get more stickers so we could talk to her doctor.








Here's what we heard. Her blood pressure and EKG were perfect. Her heart sounded wonderful and the echo showed all functions of all 4 chambers, greater arteries, pulmonary baffle and the new aorta are GREAT!!!! Her Ebsteinoid tricuspid valve is holding up very well with very little regurgitation, so we talked about Abi most probably never needing it fixed, if it keeps doing as good as it's doing now.

All results came back as good as she had a healthy, never repaired heart!!!!

Next visit in 12 months and from now on, we will go to visits annually, unless there's something going on.

There is a chance Abi could develop arrhythmia due to scarring so this is something we will be monitoring over the years, but it's nothing to be concern about now.

We are so happy with the results of today's appointment and can't believe how blessed we are by this lil girl ;)

Art

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Cardiologist Appointment This Friday

This Friday afternoon we're going with Abi for her first in 9 months cardiologist appointment.

Seeing how she's growing and changing we are pretty peaceful about this one. She is very active, doesn't slow down and doesn't get tired. She grows physically and develops mentally and emotionally as should, keeps talking and talking a lot, not only single words, but actually in full sentences being able to communicate very well.

Details from the visit soon.











Art

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2 Year Old Pediatrician's Check Up Today

I took Abi for her 2 year old pediatrician's visit and it went very, very well. She did great, having fun, dancing, singing and coloring on the bed in the office.

Her weight is fantastic, 30lb and 2oz (13.7kg) which places her in 83rd percentile and her height 36in (91.5cm), 92 percentile.

Everything went really well and I couldn't be more proud of her.

Next month, cardiologist appointment, first in 9 months. I hope it will go as well as today's pediatrician one and we will get only the best reports on everything.

Have a wonderful night,
Art

Time for doctors appointments again

We can't believe that it has already been this long and time for both, pediatrician and cardiologist appointments is here.

Based on our calculations and observations Abi seems to be on track, but we will know the details soon.

Next week- pediatrician, 2 year old check up. Next month, first cardiologist appointment in 9 months.

As much as we don't mind the first one, we are not really looking forward to the second one.

We will post the results.

Art


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2 Year Old Eating And Food Pyramid

There are days when Abi is a picky eater and since she has a CHD (Congenital Heart Defect) we had to watch her eating habits closely and keep record of every milliliter of milk she had since day 1. I think this has stuck with us, or at least with me and sometimes, I must admit, I am stressing too much about her eating, or rather not eating.

During one of the last cardiologist appointments we talked to Dr. Greene and he said something very important, especially for me. He basically said that if children are offered food and have some choice they won't starve themselves and if Abi was not interested in eating at times, not to stress about it and let her be.

It helped a lot at the time, but couple months later I'm back to stressing about it again, so I started reading a little bit on the subject and thought I would share some of what I read here, with others who may be like me ;-).

Melanie Shay, a registered dietitian, in her article on BabyCenter.com, says that it's common for 2 year olds to seem like they don't eat, but as long as they grow normally, they most probably are fine and we should not force them to eat or eat more.

Here is the best part. Per Melanie Shay, a recent study of children and their eating habits, from the American Dietetic Association showed that when children are presented with variety of foods, almost all of them will eat enough to meet their nutritional needs. How awesome is that?!

Since I am the one usually making deals with Abi just to make her eat a bit more, after reading the entire article and couple others, and looking at the Food Pyramid for Young Children I decided I will give Abi a break. If she doesn't want to eat enough, and by enough I mean according to my standards and expectations, I won't bother her and will let her be. We'll see how this works out for all of us. Her weight gain and my nervous system ;-)

Below I put the screenshots (with the links) of the Food Pyramid for Young Children and couple other links you may find interesting interesting:

Nutrition Guidance for Healthy Children Aged 2 to 11 Years

Kids Eat Right

Art

Infant CPR

Recently I've been thinking about the CPR class J and I had to take before she was discharged home after having Abi and before leaving cardiac unit after Abi first surgery. This triggered some memories and pushed my imagination a bit, so I looked at this again.

I remember when couple years ago J and I where spending some time with a friend of ours and her little girl, Oliwia, choked, swallowing a toy or something. We were all sitting on the floor talking and playing with Oliwia and she was just too fast for us. Her mom totally froze. And to be honest, we all can dream and imagine how we would react in different situations, but when they come our way, it's instinct or learned and practiced reactions that will take over.

Another friend of ours visited me this week with her little baby boy and we talked about it too. Since her and her husband have a little bit different approach to feeding and introducing foods than J and I have, the boy happens to choke on things a bit more often than Abi did at his age. So we talked about the proper techniques and how to react in such situations and then I understood that every parent should be required to take the CPR class before leaving the hospital with their newborn. I believe it doesn't matter if a baby has a heart condition, any other medical condition, or is absolutely healthy. Children choke and knowing what to do then can save their lives.

I thought I would share this short instructional video with you and, since we live in Smart Phones and Tablets era, this app for iPhone/iPad and Android that can teach you what to do when your or somebody else's child is choking or needs CPR.


CPR instructions
http://depts.washington.edu/learncpr/infantcpr.html

Instructional video
http://depts.washington.edu/learncpr/videodemo/infant-cpr-video.html

Android and iPhone apps

iPhone app
http://depts.washington.edu/learncpr/cpr-iphone.html


Android app
http://depts.washington.edu/learncpr/cpr-android.html

Here are couple screenshots from the iPad2 app. It looks the same for your iPhone and since I don't have access to any Android devices I don't have any screenshots (I will be happy to put them here if you can send me some) [Update: I have just received a confirmation from a friend of mine that this app looks the same on Android devices ;-) ]













I hope you never need to know any of it, and hope if you do this helps.

Art


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Cardiac Catheterization Explained

One of the groups we are following, 1in100 shared this interesting video today. Our little girl had her cath done couple times and we know there are many parents out there often wondering what a cath (catheterization) is and what happens during the procedure.

I post this here hoping others find it helpful.

http://tinyurl.com/3eroqh6

Art


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Crosswords Over Cartoons

Yes, this morning Abi watched some cartoons when she woke up. She usually does that while drinking her milk, but then she got on the big comfy chair, picked grandma's crosswords and..... worked on them for quite a while hehehe.

I sure hope her love for books will stick to her for years ;-)







Art

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New On The Blog

We have added 3 new sections to Abi's blog.

One is the slideshow you can watch at the top of the site with all the pictures from Abigail's Picassa Album, another is 5 the most popular posts and then there is a Videos sections with some videos we would like to share with others.

If you have any good videos you think others would enjoy, please shoot us an email and we will be happy to review them and add to this section.

Hope you have a great day,


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2nd Birthday Party

Thank you to all of the friends who could come and celebrate Abi's second birthday with us! We all had fun and Abi loved it! We need to sing her Happy Birthday at least couple times a day on behalf of every Teddy bear, bunny, doggy and kitty she has in her room ;-). She keeps singing with "them" Happy Birthday To Me ;-)

Even though the grill died and we could not grill for the adults, we had fun and good food and the kids seemed to have a blast.

Below are couple pictures from Sunday's party.















































































It is such an incredible experience to see her grow, change, develop her own personality. See her think on her own, being fascinated with things we take for granted, talk, find joy and laugh at things we no longer notice.

Being a parent is not easy at all. Being a parent of a CHD child is so much more difficult, but it is the most amazing thing I could have ever had the privilege to experience.

I have 2 absolutely wonderful girls in my life and I wouldn't trade them for anything else!

Art

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