It's Been a While....

Zoe had a follow-up appointment with her Gastroenterologist (GI) on Friday. He's the doctor who prescribes her appetite stimulant, Periactin. Zoe gained weight! She now weighs 20 lbs. and this puts her right on the 0 percentile line for the first time ever. Yay! All the heavy cream and milkshakes are working! For those interested, Zoe is 30 inches tall (-5%) and I didn't catch the head circumference but I do remember that it was in the 90th percentile still. So her height and head size are still on their own curves.

The doctor suggested we try increasing the amount of Periactin that Zoe is taking just to see if we can get her to eat a little bit more. So we started doubling the dosage and OH MY this girl can eat! We have definitely seen an increase in her appetite. The only down side is that this medicine makes her sleepy. So she's been kind of groggy for the past few days. We're hoping that that will go away some as her body gets used to the new dosage.

One concern that we've had with trying to get Zoe to eat so much is that she would gain a bunch of weight but wouldn't get taller. We see this happening, but barely. The doctor explained that this small change is actually a good thing because if we do Growth Hormone therapy, her body will react to it better if it has proper mass and nutrition. So, he's curious to find out what the Endocrinologist thinks about all of this also. Zoe has an appointment with her Endocrinologist next week.

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A couple of days ago I was trying to get Zoe to come over to me so that I could change her diaper. But she was conveniently 'not hearing' me while playing with her toys. So I told her, "If you don't come over here by the time I count to three, I'll come get you." She just looked at me then carried on with what she was doing. So I said, "One". She then looked at me, dropped her toy, yelled "No three!" and ran over to me. OH MY GOODNESS. It worked!

I thought that was a fluke so the next day I tried it again... and it worked again. I really didn't think she'd understand that yet but man, she gets pretty upset about it. This morning I had to do it again and when she ran over to me I'm pretty sure she thought she was in trouble so now I just need to make sure I emphasize the 'I love you...thank you for coming over to me...hugs and kisses' stuff.

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One day last week Zoe decided it was time to walk up and down the stairs instead of crawl/climb. I'm not sure the normal age to start doing this but we're just super happy because Zoe is big enough to do it now. When she was in her physical therapy a few months ago to get her to start walking one of the things the therapist asked us about was if we felt that Zoe knew how to walk on steps but couldn't because of her size. We didn't really know because our stairs were just way too big for her. But now she cruises up and down them like a big girl. So that's not an issue any more.

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I'm going back about a month here. My friend Karen had us over for a Valentine's Day party for the kids. It was SO much fun. One of the things the kids did was decorate their own cupcake. Here is Zoe very seriously putting icing on hers.

Now that it has every frosting and sprinkle available on it she's testing it out. Yum.

Whenever we're going somewhere I usually ask Zoe which toy or 'friend' she wants to take with us. This is often what we end up with in the car.

My friend, Mubeen, had us over for lunch a couple weeks ago. This is Zoe and her friend Madyson (4). Mubeen also has a 1 year old and watches a 4 month old during the day. She's a busy woman. We had SO much fun this day.



While we were over at Mubeen's house (same day as above picture), Zoe climbed into this bouncer. I gave Zoe her cup of milk, turned the music and vibration on and I swear the girl almost fell asleep in it. It was so funny.



I have no idea why we took this picture. But I think it's cute anyways. :)

I got this pink hat from the dollar section at Target about a month ago. It is now a rare occasion when we see Zoe without it on. She wears it EVERYWHERE. To bed, to the store, first thing she gets when she gets out of bed in the morning & after napping, she even wore it to church this past Sunday. She loves to wear hats.

I'm sure Zoe will love me for this when she gets older. But I had to have an illustration for what she does in the car. She tries to get her feet into the two cup holders. It's SO funny. At least it keeps her busy in the car!

This is at Zoe's cousin, Jacob's, birthday party. It was an Indiana Jones themed party and everybody got hats to wear. Zoe refused to take her own hat off so this is what she looked like for most of the party. This is Zoe's 2nd favorite hat. If the pink one isn't around when she needs a hat then she wears this one.

The other day when Mike was taking a nap on the couch, Zoe climbed up onto the couch, worked one of the pillows out from under Mike, worked her way over to the other side of the couch and laid down just like Mike was. The whole process took her about 10 minutes of hard work. She had moved by the time I got the camera out and took the picture so it's not as cute as when she was laying on her stomach with her arms under the pillow but still.....