12 Months!

Since I am so late in posting this blog, I have to go back a few weeks and start from Ella's big birthday bash. I might have had more fun planning this birthday party than I did my own wedding, or at least they were comparable. I wanted to focus on every last pink, white, and yellow detail and anticipated seeing everything come to fruition for months. I love getting all of our family and friends together and being surrounded by everyone that we love. I'm not sure Ella had any idea what was going on but she definitely loved all of the attention and all of the presents. The thought of doing this for every birthday is overwhelming to say the least, but I figure every child's first birthday should be something extra special. From time to time, Johnny & I still watch the video of our 1st birthday party in our grandparents backyard and now Ella will have a priceless video too. I have to admit that I think my favorite part of the day was seeing the cake. I had drawn a picture for the bakery and they created it exactly how I envisioned :-)

On June 11th we had Ella's 12 month doctor appointment and she did very well! She got a total of 4 shots which was really hard on mommy and baby (especially now that they know what's coming). She weighed in at 23.6 pounds (92nd percentile) and just over 32" in height (100th percentile!). They made a big deal of her "accomplishment" and she got a special toy and numerous individual visits from various nurses & staff to see the super tall baby (you would never think so when you see her in real life). The nurses were all trying to guess how tall her dad was and seemed disappointed when I informed them he was only 6'1''. It will be interesting to see her actual height one day.... watch her end up only 5'6'' like mommy. She still will not walk by herself, she insists on holding on to someone's hand. We are trying to work on her confidence but she is, without a doubt, an overly cautious child. It will be fun to see how that transpires.

Just last week we went to see her cardiologist to get an update on the VSD (ventricular septal defect). She wasn't cooperating too well with the EKG so it took longer than expected. They attach over 15 stickers to her chest and stomach area to get a reading of the electrical activity of her heart. They determined that she still definitely has the holes so we decided to wait to get the Echo again until her 2nd birthday. Everything should be fine and hopefully it will close by then, fingers crossed! The only issue was that her weight had dropped significantly since the last appointment with her pediatrician. She dropped from the 92nd percentile to 70th percentile in 2 weeks. Doctors don't like to see a significant change in a short time span. I had discussed with the pediatrician that she is refusing to eat anything but snacks and she recommended some things for me to try but, thus far, I'm not seeing much improvement. We are working on snacking all day instead of full meals. We also put her on a toddler formula and poly-vi-sol (which is an infant multivitamin) so at least she is getting the essential nutrients. Doctors seem optimistic that this is just a phase and that it has to do with her molars coming in. I hope so too ;)

I can't emphasize enough what a crazy year this has been. I feel like we have had more life challenges thrown at us that I ever could have imagined and we've learned to adjust and move forward, becoming stronger every day. Luke has made huge strides at work and we are very excited. Hard work really does pay off and we've learned that when you're going through hell, just keep going :)
I'm thrilled to be spending the summer hanging out with Ella and finding fun activities to do every day. I feel like after her birthday, I've grown into my new role as "mom" and have started to leave my old life behind. I mean that in a really good, positive way. I'm okay with the fact that I'll never be the career woman I thought I wanted to be and that kids are my priority for the next, oh 20 something years or so. I would be lying if I said that the decision was easy or natural. I'm hoping to continue to teach either part-time or full-time, but teaching is the best job a mom can have. It allows me to still be a mom.