That's what Solana said - March

3/17/11 "You're the first ever funniest mother I ever met!"

3/22/11 Chloe is terrified of Elmo. We recently brought out the dolls and she turns tail crawling away as fast as she can every time she sees them. We decided to sell them so Dave was replacing the batteries shortly after I laid Chloe down for the night. He tested one and we think she heard it because we suddenly heard crying from her room. Solana declared, "That's not just any crying. That's Elmo crying!"

3/23/11 (excited voice) "We got a new bus today! And the floor is really blaaaack. And the seats have no hoooooles. And it's all cleeeeean. (quick change to super sad voice, head bent, pouty lip activated) But I miss the old bus. It was perfectly fine..."

3/25/11 "Daddy, why is Mommy laughing all the time?" We'll take that to mean that we live in a happy house and NOT that I'm loco en la cabeza!

3/31/11 "You're the first ever funniest mother!" (If she said it twice it must be true...)

Pajama Day

Solana's class worked really hard to fill up their jar with little pom poms. The reason they worked so hard was because a full jar would mean Pajama Day! They finally did it and they got their pajama day yesterday. Not a single kid in her class forgot to dress up for pajama day.

In honor of her first PJ day, Solana and I read Fancy Nancy Pajama Day the night before. She loves Fancy Nancy books. She loves reading. She loves words and she uses her new-found treasures regularly. For example, just the other day she told me that I should buy the socks in the Kohl's catalog. I asked her why I should do that and she replied, "Well, because they're fancy. And your clothes are usually, well,...bland." The pause was nice - as though she was trying to spare my feelings. I looked down at my gray sweatpants and gray T-shirt and had to agree that her usage of the word 'bland' was absolutely on point.

Anyway....I digress...I'm good at that. One of the most exciting moments of the day was when Solana's class got to watch a movie and...get this...TAKE THEIR SHOES OFF! IN CLASS!!! It's amazing the things that excite kids. Leticia and I just had a conversation about this. She teaches 4th grade and her kids earn tickets that they use to buy things out of the prize box. Leticia buys treats and toys for her prize box but the *hot* items are things like: -sit by the teacher's desk for the day - take off your shoes in class - use a ballpoint pen for the day - wear a hat.

I believe that kids thrive on routine. But also note that they're giddy over breaks in it. (They couldn't excite over a break in routine without actual routine, though...) I've heard numerous people complain that their kids have too many toys (myself included) and I think we focus too much on buying things for our kids. I want to focus on the little things that truly make my girls happy. Not the ones that get thrown in the toy bin and forgotten but the ones that create "I remember when" moments. I suspect that Pajama Day will be an "I remember when" moment for Kindergarden.

Holey Socks-amole!

Umm...she's still a crawler...

Go Ahead. Prove Me Wrong.

Do your kids relish an opportunity to prove you wrong? Mine does and she's not even talking! I walked away from the table today during lunch and when I returned Chloe had grabbed her cup off the table and was drinking away. "Who gave her that cup???" I asked. Dave, sitting on the couch, shrugged and Solana looked at me blankly.
Tonight at dinner Chloe took about 5 sips from her cup. And three of those sips were taken while holding the cup herself. Go ahead, Chloe. Prove me wrong when I say you can't drink from your cup yet. I don't mind.
Little turkey.

Oh yeah! And she ate two whole macaroni noodles at our neighbor's house last night! That is a Big...Deal!

Chloe Update - Upcoming Surgery

EYES
Chloe will have another eye surgery on April 19th. This one is called strabismus surgery - a muscle surgery that will hopefully straighten out her left eye. Although she is using the left eye it's still significantly weaker than her right eye and crosses in pretty dramatically. She sees two pictures and probably has trouble putting them together. (She looks at everything with her head turned to the side - a sign that she's trying to align the two pictures.) We hope that her eyes will work together after the surgery. There are two muscles that the doctor can work on and he said he wants to be conservative; working on only one muscle. It's common to need follow-up surgeries.
Chloe's Vision Therapist is certain that Chloe's vision impairment has had a significant impact on her development delays. In addition, her world will be completely different after the surgery so it may take several weeks for her to re-learn balance and distance. But, if the surgery works, her overall vision could improve dramatically.


COMMUNICATION
Chloe babbles a lot. She talks to everything! Her spoon, her teethers, her blocks, her books, her toys...you name it and she's had an in depth conversation with it. She's FINALLY saying "ma." It's strange to me because her vocabulary of sounds is extensive and I thought "ma" was one of the easier sounds for babies to make. She has to work on it, though. "mmmmmmmAH"
She's trying to imitate words when we ask her to. Some words she's imitated are: Sissy (didee), Puppy (geegee), Kitty (geegee), Dada (Dada), Mama (mmmmmmA), Bear (beah). Something new that Chloe's been doing is performing a few actions when asked. She'll "Put the ball IN," "Gimme 5," "Touch (usually an animal or our touch 'n feel books)," "Will you give me a HUG?" "Will you give me a KISS?" She'll also clap at the end of every song and after everything she does. And she'll make the 'milk' sign (open and close her fist) when I say, "bottle" or "Chloe eat?"

EATING
We're still on purees and I think we'll be there for a while. Chloe still won't self feed anything mushy or soft in texture. The only change I've recently made is going from 5bottles/2puree meals a day to 4bottles/3puree meals a day. This is also forcing me to try a little harder on the sippy cup. Chloe will not hold the sippy cup to drink (only to shake and fling water around). And she'll barely drink from it. She usually just pushes it away from her mouth and tries to grab it (so that she can shake it and fling water around). I did hear a sucking sound last night, though. That was encouraging.

WEIGHT
Chloe didn't gain a lot of weight this past month - only 3ounces. But she's at a respectable 20lb 7oz. We were having some difficulties with the bottle for a while and it could have been a number of things: -she's been teething and spitting up more, - she got a skin infection and went on antibiotics for a while, or - she's just trying to transition herself off the bottle and refusing formula. I'm hoping the new 4/3 diet will help to get her weight gain on track. I don't want any raised eyebrows the next time we visit Dr. Sobande, the pulmonologist.

GROSS MOTOR
Chloe is a crawling fiend. She loves her new independence and crawls all over the house. And boy can she boogie. She gave up any and all attempts at standing for a couple of weeks but I think that was because she was too excited about exploring the whole house using her amazing new skill of fast crawling. She's recently starting pulling herself up again. She'll crawl to and pull herself up on anything now. It's fun to see. We may not see the quick transition to walking that I had predicted, though, because of her surgery. The vision therapist warned us about that. For now we're just letting her enjoy crawling and not pushing the issue on walking.

MISCELLANEOUS HEALTH
Chloe got a little infection under her skin that won't seem to go away. Apparently, her skin dried out (probably because of her teething drool/snot) and some bacteria got into a little dry skin crack. It became infected. It looked like no more than dry skin, a minor rash, and/or pimples. For a month I thought it was dry skin, pimples, or food allergies and treated it with lotion, bag balm, neosporin, changed her diet to bland foods. It came and went, staying between her nose and chin. When it spread up her face so I took her to the doctor. She's finished a round of oral antibiotics, a round of topical antibiotics, and we're about to start a second round of antibiotics because it keeps coming back. I'm trying to not worry but I really hope it goes away for good this time!
She had her final Synagis. Whew! Two shots a month for 5 months. Not fun. Chloe officially hates her nurses. And even though we only have to pay 10% of the cost it adds up when the shots are $3200 a month! And this final month was a doozie. She got two shots and then I had to take her in the next day for a third because they under-dosed her! I asked the doctor to smack the nurse who did that. Not cool lady! At least they caught it, though. We're almost through Chloe's second flu/RSV season without any more than a few cases of the sniffles. Very thankful!

Amazing

My sister, Leticia, called me today to tell me about one of her friends who has been following Chloe's story way back since we still had Chloe and Leila and were fighting TTTS. Unbeknownst to me, this friend (I'll call her 'Jane') continued following Chloe's blog even after the twins were born.

Today Jane called Leticia to tell her that they're pregnant with identical twins that share a placenta (putting them at risk for TTTS). Because Jane knew all about Chloe and Leila's story she immediately asked her OB about TTTS and if she would be switched to a specialist. His reply was something like: Oh, that's very rare and you shouldn't worry about it.

Knowing the dangers of TTTS Jane decided that simply wasn't good enough. She began seeing a specialist who immediately put her on bedrest (at about 20 weeks) and a high protein diet. Jane wanted Leticia to tell me that the only reason she didn't accept the first OB's flippant answer was because of our twins and the fact that we shared their story. I'm crying as I type this - unable to convey how it makes me feel to hear that. How amazing to know that we helped inform a mother so that she can do everything possible to save her precious babies! I pray that she has a long and healthy pregnancy!

Jogging Girl take 2

Solana asked to go jogging with me again this weekend but then decided she wanted to stay in her pajamas all day. It was fine that she decided not to jog but she didn't get to stay in her pj's all day :-). She did ask to join me after dinner tonight, though. And she even asked to go farther than last time. I agreed. She jogged for 22 minutes straight! I went back out and jogged the same loop in 16 minutes and a pretty fast pace (for me). I'm guessing it was a good mile and a half! I think I might be making a size 11 running shoe purchase, after all!

P.S. The pediatrician said it's perfectly fine for her to jog - as long as I go at her pace and let her stop when she wants to stop.

Pinkalicious!

Solana and I had our first ever mother-daughter date to Panera Bread on Saturday. Dave stayed home with Chloe during our date. Solana was so excited! And it was great to go out with and direct all my attention at her. That rarely happens. We both ordered the tomato soup and I had the Mediterranean veggie sandwich. Yum! Our window faced Centerville's main street and the building is next to a stoplight. We sat at the window and "people watched" the cars lined up at the light. The highlight was when Solana spotted a motorcycle. I looked up just as he spit a loogie (gross) and said, "Wave to him." Solana did and he waved back. That was soooo exciting. Hahahaha! She noted how amazingly fast he took off from the light but I think that was her imagination since he was behind about 5 minivans at the light (I think he did rev his engine for her, though.)

Kim and Sophia joined us at the show. The girls dressed up like Pinkalicious and really enjoyed it! It was much better than Bearenstein Bears, for sure! These pictures were taken in the basement during intermission.

I snapped a couple pictures of the girls but lady in front of me was sighing loudly so I stopped. And then, toward the end, I realized the show was running late. I decided to text Dave so he could get Chloe ready for bed and feed her. The usher came up and asked me to put my phone away. Wow. I think I was a smart phone hooligan at this show. So embarrassing! Fortunately, Solana didn't notice and we had a great night out!

Spicy Conversation

Dave and I love spicy food. Solana does not. In fact, she even complains if she sees pepper in her food. I'm determined to accustom her to spicy food. This whole business of separating her portion while cooking or leaving out spicy additions from recipes is getting really old.

The other night I made chicken tikka masala. It was AWESOME and I recommend this recipe by Aarti Sequiera (you can also read my rave review at that site). She has a show on food network and it rocks! Anyway, it has a whole serrano pepper in the sauce and is quite spicy. I cooked the chicken in the sauce and took Solana's piece out of the sauce so that it still had some sauce but not a lot (Dave and my portions were swimming in sauce). Then I put some ketchup on top of her chicken. Here's how the conversation went.

S: It's WAY too spicy!
C: Ok. You don't have to finish the chicken but you do have to eat one more piece and finish your veggies.
S: Mommy, I do NOT like spicy foods. Why do you make me eat spicy foods?
C: Daddy and I really like spicy food so I want you to like it, too. With a little practice, it won't even seem spicy to you anymore.
S: I'll never like it.
C: Oh, I bet you will. In fact, when you're a mommy I bet you'll want your kids to eat spicy food, too.
S: I'll never do that.
C: What
S: Make my kids eat spicy food.
C: Hahahahaha
S: Hahahahaha
(Solana takes one more bite.)
S: Mommy!!!! You're right!!! I'm used to it and it's not spicy anymore!!!!!
C: (giggling) See! Mommy's right sometimes. I knew you'd get used to it.
C: (getting up from the table to clean Chloe). I'll tell you what. You don't HAVE to finish all your food but if you finish every bite on your plate you'll get a reward.
S: What?!?!
C: I'm not telling. You have to finish your food to find out.

3 minutes later her plate was clean and she got her toenails polished. Sometimes being a parent is too easy.

Making Baby Food

I must admit that I did not make baby food for Solana. Making baby food seemed like the sort of thing that crazy people with way too much time on their hands did. Plus, how could anyone know what to feed a baby without the "Stage 1," "Stage 2," etc. on the label? Well, we've been watching some food documentaries over the past year and I've made some big changes to our diet: -Local and organic whenever possible -Less meat -Meats raised humanely by local farmers (pastured, cage free, grass-fed, hormone-free, antibiotic-free) -Lots of whole grains and legumes, etc. This diet is really working well for us. Dave's losing weight, we're going to the bathroom more regularly (and more quickly!), my skin has improved, and we feel good about what we're putting into our bodies. In order to give Chloe the benefits of our improved diet I needed to begin making her purees myself.

I was intimidated but it's turned out to be a very simple and satisfying process. I swear that the food I make for Chloe is 10x more appetizing than anything I've ever gotten out of a jar. The peas are an amazingly beautiful flourescent color. The fruits smell wonderful! Everything's organic. And now that she's moved on to more complex meals I find that I can pretty much puree anything that we have for dinner.

Chloe is having texture issues and will not self feed anything mushy or slimy. (Her vision therapist believes this has something to do with her vision impairment.) She only has two teeth so this leaves a limited amount of finger foods: crackers, cheerios, toast, broccoli, sweet potato fries...that's about it for now. She turned her nose up at: peas, carrots, scrambled egg, cheese, and bananas. I forsee pureed foods in my future for quite a while.

If you're interested in making baby food you must check out wholesomebabyfood.com. This website tells you anything and everything you may want to know about making baby food. When to introduce, how to prepare, how to puree, how to store and for how long, nutritional value (vitamins/minerals), why they're good for baby (eyes, brain, muscles), and recipes for almost any food you can think of.

Another misconception I had was that I would need special equipment for steaming and pureeing baby food. There are lots of baby food makers out there and I considered many. In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to spend $100 on a tool that would be good for just a few months (little did I know how long Chloe would be on purees). I went with the $7 steamer basket, my blender, and these freezer cubes that I LOVE. Guess what. They work just fine and that's really all you need. I baked some of the fruits/veggies at the beginning, too. The food processor is also a good tool, if you have it, but you can get by with just a blender. I rarely use the food processor because it chops really well but sometimes I have a hard time getting the smooth texture that Chloe likes for most of her foods (this may be user error since I'm not a huge food processor, anyway).

In preparation for our upcoming Mexico trip (I'll blog about that later) Dave bought me this mini food processor so I can make baby food for Chloe while we're at the resort. I'm crazy about it! I can mix up small amounts of food in a breeze and it's such a small appliance that it doesn't take up much room in the dishwasher. The double blades are nice, too, because sometimes thicker foods get "stuck" in my blender. You know, the bottom stuff keeps blending but I didn't create a vortex so the stuff at the top just sits there and never moves down to the blade. This one doesn't seem to have that problem.

My final misconception was the time committment. It's really not that bad. I can't say for sure how much time I spend making baby food. It varies. I think I probably spent 1.5 to 2 hours a week max at the beginning. Now I probably spend 1 hour a week max. I make up a couple batches of fruit cubes to mix with yogurt for breakfast and those two batches will last me a couple of weeks. A batch of veggies and beans will last me a couple of weeks, as well. And now that Chloe's eating a lot of our meals it's just a matter of scooping her serving into the blender and whizzing it up really quickly as I'm serving our own meals.

So if you're interested in making baby food I say, "Give it a try!" You'll probably love it!

Jogging Girl

I love to jog. I don't get to do it as often as I'd like but I usually make sure to squeeze in 2 or 3 runs a week. I'm pretty slow but I don't run competitively - just to stay in shape and get some fresh air. Plus, it's a great way to exercise our two Australian Shepherds. I love jogging with a buddy but haven't had a jogging buddy (other than the dogs) in years! Dave doesn't jog and my only jogging friends (our neighbors) jog way too fast for me to keep up.

I ran a 10K a few years ago when we lived in Colorado. Two kids ran the race that day with their parents - a boy and a girl. I believe they were 8 and 10 years old. They.kicked.my.butt. Ever since then I've had it in the back of my mind that I would introduce Solana to jogging one day. I've been toying with the idea of doing it this year but don't want to turn her off from the idea so I haven't brought it up. Today SHE brought it up! She really wanted to go jogging with me after dinner. I figured we'd run 100 yards to the stop sign and turn back. So we put on our black stretch pants, laced up (or velcro'd up in her case) our sneakers, leashed up Monty (our 7 month-old Aussie), and headed out the door.

I obviously let her determine the pace and we set off on our first mother-daughter jog. She looked really good. I tried to talk the whole time because I knew she would talk over any silence and I didn't want her talking when she should be breathing. "If you feel too tired just tell me and we'll walk. Do you want to turn back? Wow! I can't believe how far we've gone! You know, you've already gone way father than I could possibly have expected. We can stop any time. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth - all the way to your belly. This downhill part is fun. I like going downhill because it's easy on my muscles. We're coming to the uphill part. If you get too out of breath or your legs feel tired just tell me and we can walk. Do you feel ok? We're almost home. I like to run really fast at the end of my run. Do you want to do that with me?" I was a barrage of checking in and reassurance. She seemed to love it. I think she jogged for about 15 minutes straight. Unbelievable.

We got home and Dave brought out Bluebell. I took off again with both dogs. When I got home I told him how far we went and he said she kept jogging around the house after she came inside! When I tucked her in she asked if we could go again tomorrow. Chloe gets her Synagis shot tomorrow. I'll check with the pediatrician to make sure it's ok for Solana to jog. She seems kind of young but I hope she says it's ok. After the soccer debacle in the fall it would be so awesome to learn that this is Solana's sport!

Mullet

Do all babies (with hair) get mullets in the bathtub, or just mine? I had to dig up these old pictures of Solana because I keep thinking of her mullet every time I bathe Chloe. Granted, Solana's was a bit more dramatic, but they're still similar. They make me giggle :-)

Solana

Chloe

Solana

Chloe

It's difficult to look up an old picture of Solana without spending a ton of time looking through them. She was so darn cute! These pictures are of her at 11 months.

Dave's Bitter Revenge

We had our first taste of Dave's 2nd brew last night and were pleasantly surprised at how good it tastes! I love to taste beer but never drink a whole one. This one, though...I think I could. The reason we were so surprised at it's yumminess is because Dave messed up big time during bottling. He forgot to add sugar and that's a big problem! He had to carefully empty 5 gallons of beer from the bottles (without letting air mix into the beer). (It's a good thing he had extra bottle caps on hand, too!) I don't know how he did it but he managed to save the batch and good thing he did. It's lip smacking bitter goodness.

He's getting good at label-making, too.

Sisters in a Crib

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The Artiste!

The school district is currently hosting "Kidsview: Understanding the Art Experience." Solana's artwork was selected to be in the display and we couldn't be prouder. (I actually got so choked up while reading the letter from school that I had to hand it to Dave to finish reading it. Seriously! When and how did I become this mushy sappy mom?)

Solana and I attended the opening reception on Sunday. Her art was part of the "H" Andy Worhol exhibit. There was artwork from kids in every grade K-12 in the district so there was a huge variety. It was great fun to find her artwork hanging on the wall amongst all the other student work. And I loved it that she ran up to her art teacher and hugged her when we saw her. (I was way too scared of my teachers to do that when I was in school!) Dave will take her again before the it's over.

Big Baby Crib

Well, I can't say it's her "big girl bed" because that'll be her toddler bed but Chloe made a big move this weekend, none-the-less. She finally moved out of her mini crib (and Dave's and my bedroom) and into her full-sized crib in her own room! We figured we'd make the move soon after the oxygen was gone but hadn't really made a decision on when that would be. The absence of oxygen seems to have given Chloe some freedom in her crib, though. She suddenly became a very active sleeper - rolling all over the place and bumping herself on the sides of her crib. I can't tell you how many times we've woken to loud bangs and subsequent cries the past few evenings. We decided she needs more space. Dave asked me to decide whether we move the big crib to our room or finally move Chloe to her room and, since her bedroom is right across the hall from ours and we have a video monitor, I decided it was time.

The transition has actually been very easy. She cried for about 10 seconds the first night so I came in, laid her back down, and rubbed her back for a minute. Then she was out. The second night I laid her down wide awake and fully expected some crying but we didn't hear so much as a peep. Plus, as an added bonus, the darkening curtains we bought yesterday seem to be doing their job well. It's almost 8 o'clock and she's still sleeping! (Chloe's usually up by 7.)

All-in-all I think this will be a good thing for everyone. Chloe won't wake up with Dave's alarm in the morning and we won't be woken by her every movement throughout the night. We no longer have to tiptoe around the room when we go to bed ourselves. And we moved the glider into her room so we have more space in our own bedroom. I sense some rearranging this weekend!

As I rocked Chloe in her newly curtained room last night I told Dave, "This is the first time I feel like we really have a nursery! It was nice.

The glider's in Chloe's room now! We still need to get some things up on the wall but we're finally really using this room! Solana's wanted to pretend that she's about to feed Chloe for this picture... :-)

The new curtains. The sheer ones have pink polka dots. I love them :-) I'm not sure if the cat tower will stay or not. Hardy loves to go up there whenever I change Chloe because we visit with him after every diaper change.


Chloe's big crib (used to be Solana's) and sticker decorations from Ikea.

Crashed out at 7:45am. Lovely.

Milestone for Cyndi

I don't think I blog a lot about Leila, how much I miss her, how I think about her every day and wonder what it would be like if she were here with us. The other day Chloe and I were playing in the mirror - waving to ourselves and having fun. Suddenly she was right against the mirror and looked away from it at just the right angle. I suddenly saw Chloe and Leila playing together side-by-side. I cried, of course, like I do sometimes.

Mid-December to January was a particularly difficult time for me. I was severely, yet functionally, depressed. Bedtime was miserable and I spent hours upon hours laying there crying - re-living my pregnancy. I analyzed everything I ate, said, thought, and did; trying to determine what I did wrong and beating myself up for any perceived mistakes. I'd torture myself remembering the surgeries, the "I'm sorry" moment, my water breaking, the birth. And then I topped it all off with a thick slathering of guilt at being such an ugly unappreciative person. Why couldn't I just be happy and thankful for what I do have? I dreaded rocking Chloe to sleep, going to bed, and waking up. Those were the worst times for me when the bad thoughts invaded my head without so much as a knock at the door. I cried all day and through the night but managed to do it in secret so nobody knew. I didn't want to blog about my misery so I didn't blog at all. After the second morning of staying in bed way too long I called a friend who also lost a twin. She said all the right things within the first five minutes and then we talked for another two hours just for fun. Her name is Megan and she was my hero that day. Anyway, I've been feeling much better since then and still plan to talk to a grief counselor but not until I feel bad again.

Whew! I'm glad to finally clear the air about December. Somehow I feel like I've been lying all this time since I never addressed it.

Now to the main reason for today's entry. Solana attended a birthday party today. It was a swim party and I sat on the bleachers with two other moms. I quickly learned that both of them have twins. They asked if Solana was my only child and I said that I also have an 18 month-old. Then I felt a little upset that I couldn't join in as another twin mom. "It's not fair that I have to keep Chloe's twin-ness and Leila a secret in order to not be a 'downer'," I thought. Then I said to myself, "what the heck!" I straightened my back and at the next appropriate opportunity, "Actually, Chloe's an identical, too." I quickly told how the girls had TTTS, we had surgery, lost Leila, 11 days later Chloe was born at 24 weeks, and spent 5 months in the NICU. "She's AMAZING," I said, "She may have chronic lung disease, brittle bones, vision problems, and developmental delays, but she's a firecracker and will probably be my tomboy!" It wasn't weird. I wasn't a downer. I did not compel them to say, "I'm sorry for your loss." It was natural and honest and it felt good! One of the moms went on to say how uncomfortable her pregnancy was because her twins were born at 40 weeks and over 7lbs each. Nothing. I recognized her insensitivity but it didn't bother me and I didn't judge her for it. I actually thought, "Yeah, that probably was pretty uncomfortable." The other mom said she'd love to meet Chloe because she sounds like 'somethin' else'. That made me happy.

I don't know what came over me or how I was able to feel so footloose and fancy free today. I came home and told Dave right away about my experience. I was kind of emotional as I told him. My voice quivered and my eyes welled but it was more because I felt proud of myself. I know I'm not "over" the loss of Leila. I never will be. I'm not even "over" the difficulty of seeing or hearing about twins. It's like peaks and valleys, I think. Today was a peak - maybe the highest one I've experienced. I'm happy for myself and hope this feeling lasts...at least for a while.

Breathe Easy

It's official! Chloe has been ordered off oxygen! Yahooo! The doctor has sent the order to the medical supply company and they should come pick up all the equipment soon. Yay!

• Bye bye huge oxygen concentrator! Thank you for your service. We'll miss the white noise you made with your rumbly engine and the huge amounts of heat you put off ~ especially in the summer.
• Bye bye pulse-ox monitor. It was comforting to have you around when we decided to lay Chloe on her stomach to help round out her head and we will miss your crazy antics. Beeping every hour of the night because Chloe wiggled her foot = hilariousness!
• Bye bye heavy D tank. It was so much fun lugging you around to doctor's appointments. I'm pretty sure you had something to do with my mystery shoulder injury last year. You'll be missed.
• Bye bye C tank. If only we knew you existed sooner. You're so much smaller and easier to carry than D and your little carrying backpack was adorable!
• Bye bye extra canulas. Thank you for waiting your turn to replace your snotty predacessors.
• Bye bye extra tubing. We're so used to making sure we don't trip on you. Will we ever walk into the bedroom at night without looking down to spot you? (And may we please use you as a kooky long straw or jumprope now?)
• Bye bye extra sensors and wrong sensors. Why did the medical equipment supplier always insist on sending the wrong sensors? We'll never know...but we loved you no less.
• Bye bye extra sensor tape. Thank you for attempting to keep the sensor on Chloe's foot - even if you weren't always successful. Surely we can find some way to recycle you. Homemade bandaids for Solana's over-dramatized scrapes....perhaps?
• Bye bye water bottle. You humidified the oxygen and you humidified it well. Thank you for never falling over and pouring water into Chloe's tubing her drowning her in her sleep. We really appreciated being terrified by the respiratory therapist who set up our equipment and told us that story so we kept you tied down extra tight.

I just put Chloe to bed without a canula. Such luxury! Now we'll need to discuss when she moves to the crib in her room. Yikes!

Chloe Needs Her Stylist

This is what I look like before my personal stylist, Cyndre', works her magic.