A Letter to Elise at 10 Months

Jeremy Update:

Today along with the blood clots they found in Jeremy's arms, they found one in each leg. If they were to break loose, they would travel to his heart. To remedy that they will be putting a filter in tomorrow morning that will catch the leg blood clots before they can make it to his heart. His surgery is set for 8:35 in the morning, but he isn't the first surgery so it may get moved back if there are any complications with the surgeries preceding his. The nurses will not move him around tonight to make sure he doesn't get jostled which would increase the chances of a clot breaking loose. They have reduced his pentobarbital to 3.25 mg per kg of body weight, so we are getting there! His ICP has been awesomely low all day, below 10 and his CPP and blood pressure have also been great. Last night we had a reminder of how lucky Jeremy is and how lucky we are that he is still here and doing as well as he is. There is a 19 year old man who came in 2 days after Jeremy and started having really high ICP which led to a craniotomy on one side yesterday and then the other side last night in the middle of the night. There was also a woman brought in from a car wreck who passed away during the night. We are very sad for those patients and the families involved and were reminded to be thankful for our current situation. It could be better, yes. But it could also be significantly worse. Keep Jeremy in your thoughts and prayers tonight that the blood clots remain where they are and the surgery tomorrow is successful. Now on to Elise's 10 month post...

My sweet little Elisey girl, just thinking about you makes me smile! You are the happiest and sweetest little baby. You can always make me smile and you make my days brighter. You love to make other people happy and will stare and smile at complete strangers until they turn to look at you. One day we were eating lunch out and you kept smiling at a woman sitting by a table near us. She came over to tell me what a sweet baby you were and how you'd made her day. She went on to explain her 7 month old great granddaughter lives far away and she hasn't gotten to meet her yet. She loved seeing you and imagining her great granddaughter. It made me so happy to know you had brought a smile into her day!

You may have just started crawling a little over a month ago, but you are already so freaking fast! You take off pretty much the moment I set you down and I'm always off searching for you after I get dressed or have gone to the bathroom. Carter is so good about going and checking on you for me when I'm going potty. He'll come running back to me with a full report. Sometimes I'll even hear him saying, "No, sissy, that doesn't go in your mouth!" He's quite the care taker! You have also started pulling to a stand this month. Daddy saw you do it a few times but you weren't doing it consistently because I was waiting for a week after daddy said you had done it and I still saw nothing! Once you took off with it, you took off though! Now you are constantly pulling up to a stand on pretty much anything tall enough for you to do it on. You like to pull up to a stand on the step up into our shower which makes me nervous since it's tile. If I'm taking a shower, you try to climb in the shower so I usually just put you in the shower with me so you won't bonk your head. Sometimes you'll be standing and I can tell you want to get down, but you're not sure how. Normally you just slide down to a seated position. It seems like it's when you are standing at something really tall that you get worried about getting down. There have been a few times when it was about naptime and you were standing up and got so tired you were only holding on with one hand while you sucked your thumb on your other hand. You also try to climb onto things. You've pulled up to a stand and climbed onto the dishwasher when I was unloading it. You also tried to climb up onto your chair in your room along with the trampoline while Carter was bouncing. You are a bit of a dare devil!

Before you started pulling to a stand you would crawl to my legs, put your hands on my feet, and then grab my legs and pull up to your knees. Sometimes you would be constantly doing that and pulling on my legs to where I couldn't get anything done, usually when I was trying to cook dinner. You are so independent and happily play alone all the time. You also wake up and play quietly in your crib for a while after naps so it surprised me to realize you are a bit of a momma's girl. With Uncie J in the hospital, I've been leaving you and Carter with someone for a while so I can go up to visit him. When I come home you screech when you see me or hear my voice and bee line it to me. You will babble mama over and over as you are crawling. One night I got home as daddy was getting you ready for a bath. You heard me talking in the entryway and cried until he brought you out to see me. Everyone always jokes that your brother is a big momma's boy, mostly because he's so cuddly and likes to play with my hair. It surprised me that you are a bit of a momma's girl since you've always been so good about playing on your own and not needing to be held all the time like your brother was at your age.

You smuggled this wristband out of Uncie J's house in your coat sleeve and it's your favorite toy right now.

You sit like this all the time when you go from crawling to sitting.

You very obviously say mama and lucky for me, it's usually when you are excited to see me and want me to pick you up. Your brother only said mama at your age when he was upset and needed something. You also say buh buh when you see Carter or when you are reaching for him. You don't say it quite as much but I have noticed you say it. I've also heard you say dada when you hear your daddy talking in a different room or when you see him and want him. There have been a few times when you looked at Harper and attempted to say her name, saying something that started with the /h/ sound. I've also heard you say bah bah when you see a ball or when you are crawling toward one. It's so exciting that you are starting to say words and associate names with people or objects.

We went on a walk to the library with the wagon on January 12th. It was your first walk in the wagon. Your only wagon rides before had been in our driveway. At first you looked a bit startled and scared when we took off, but after we turned the corner you were loving it and smiling so big. You looked like you were in sensory overload as you could see so much more than you can in the stroller. You were turning and looking all around. Then on the ride home you wanted to look at some board books just like your brother. I think you loved the wagon because you were facing Carter instead of sitting next to him so you could see him really well which totally made your day! You started standing on your own consistently on January 17th. It was the first time I'd seen you stand and you did it over and over and over and haven't stopped since. Daddy had seen you do it before but you hadn't done it again after daddy saw you in over a week.

Your personality is simply described as awesome. You are so funny and love to laugh. You do the silliest things. When you are on the laminate floor in the playroom/kitchen you like to lay on your belly and push off with your hands to make yourself spin around in circles. It's the funniest thing to watch you. You are also so loving and smiley. You just picked up waving and wave at people all the time. If I say hello to you, you wave back. Sometimes you'll wave at people to get their attention. But if I'm trying to get you to wave, forget it! You only do it when you want to! Something that cracks me up is your tendency to shove things in your mouth. I feel like much of my day is spent following you around, fishing things out of your hand before they reach your mouth or out of your mouth once you've snuck them in! I've found a whole range of items in your mouth, from avocado stem to safety pin and a number of scary items in between! I consider it a successful day when you haven't been able to shove anything questionable into your mouth. I feel like you're getting a little bit better about this as I haven't had as much trouble this past week. But if we are outside at a playground, Carter can forget me playing with him because it's a constant job keeping you from ingesting a random item you might find and there are just too many options! If Carter uses his potty chair instead of the big toilet I have to clean it out right away. One day I forgot and I found you happily splashing away in his potty! Ick! The joys of being the second born!

This month has been huge in the development of your relationship with Carter. He loves you to pieces and tells you constantly. You'll be playing together and then he'll randomly just say, "Sissy I love you so much!" He's always talking about how cute you are and is so proud to tell people you are his sissy and your name is Elise anytime they are oohing and ahhing over you. When you wake up in the morning he likes to run into your room and sit in your elephant chair right by the crib. You crawl over and sit by the slats. Then he starts singing to you and telling you stories. It's such a precious thing and I dare not disturb it, so I stay wherever I am and watch you guys on the monitor. When he sings, you often times get on your knees and bounce up and down. You'll screech in response to his stories and many times you are both laughing. Usually he ends the time by climbing into your crib with you and then I come in to find you both standing, holding the rail, eagerly awaiting my arrival. He also likes to bring toys over to you and sits with you so you can play together. He'll sit by you with a book and read you books. Just today he fussed at me to get you out of the carrier at Bikes and Balls so you could play with him. He "could eat you up, he loves you so".

Carter woke up and came in the room during our photo shoot, can you tell where he was?!!?

You've had lots of new foods this month and I was a bit bad about not waiting the 3-4 days in between foods in case you had a reaction, that way we'd know for sure what you are allergic to. With the big stuff that I thought you may be allergic to, I've been more careful. Otherwise I just let you eat foods you can now try as we are eating them with a meal, it's easier that way. You had egg yolk on December 29th and you really liked it. I'm a bit anxious for you to try egg whites since that's what Carter was allergic to. You had cantaloupe for the first time. On January 15th you ate dark cherries and loved them. They may be a favorite right now. You had black beans January 17th and ate them all although you didn't act like they were anything special. January 18th you had cottage cheese. You ate some but for the most part tended to spit it back out. You've had rice cereal before, but had long grain brown rice for the first time on January 19th. You still love to eat and can eat a crazy amount! You had a well check on January 6th at 9.5 months. You weighed 17.4 pounds which put you in the 20th percentile and were 28.2 inches tall, putting you in the 65th percentile. Your head circumference has been just like your brothers, steadily inching up into the upper percentiles. It was 18.2 inches around which put you in the 94th percentile! The funny part of that is that Carter will randomly look at you and say, "Sissy's head is so big!" I don't think it looks big, though.

One of my favorite things is when your daddy passes you off to me and I go to give you a kiss only to find the smell of your daddy's chapstick on your cheeks. He loves you so much and I've loved seeing your relationship grow and change. Right now even though you are a bit of a momma's girl, aren't all babies at least a little?, I see that bit of a daddy's girl in there too. He seems to be wrapped around your finger just a little bit more than he was around your brother's. I think that comes with you being the second child so he's more confident with you and can enjoy you more without being scared or worried. Little Miss Elise, the baby of a million nicknames! The other day I called you Elise and your daddy pointed out how weird it was to hear me call you by your actual name. Usually it's Ereesers, Eeserson, Ereesykin, Ereesey Reesers, Reesey Reesers, Elisey, Elisey Leesers, Sissy, Sissapee, Eester, Issapee, Eseey Kay, or Sister. I had no idea your name would turn into so many nicknames. When we picked out your name I totally thought your nickname would be Ellie or Ellie Kay. I can't say I've ever called you either of those names! We all love you so much, sweet girl! You make our lives so much more fun and filled with love! 

Now on to Daddy:

Full steam ahead baby girl! You have been crawling for some time now, but you are so fast now it is unbelievable. You move on to new areas so often it is sometimes hard to keep an eye on you!

You also were a sweetie and let me be the one to see you pull to a stand first! Of course I saw you do it 2 or 3 times before anyone else did, so no one was believing me. Then, you did it in front of your Opa and now you do it all of the time! It was great that I got to see one of your firsts first!

You and your brother get along so well it just warms your mom's and my hearts. He does his best to watch out for you, but sometimes he gets too wound up and ends up hurting you. But, you are a tough little girl and it never phases you for long!

love you sweetie!