No sign

The blankie remains missing. My temporary blanket is working. And the business that had the replacement blankets emailed me to say the shipment is on its way. Hooray.

I snuck into Jordan's room this morning while she took her morning nap... She was peacefully sleeping on her belly. It was the deep kind of sleep where she was breathing very deeply. She was so peaceful. So peaceful that I decided to get to work late and just get my work done from home. I just couldn't bear to bother that beautiful rest.

Lamb blankie!! Where are you???

So, we went to church and Jordan had her lamb blanket with her. I seem to remember her holding onto it in church... But she was getting a little too talkative in the middle of the service, so I took her to the nursery for the first time. I left her there with her diaper bag. Her lamb blanket, the breastfeeding blanket and some toys were left in her car seat with us in the pews. Randy carried the car seat back to the car after church while I carried Jordan. At some point between church and home, the lamb blanket disappeared.

This wouldn't be a big deal except that she has really fallen in love with this blanket. In the last week or so she's really started finding it as a comfort source. If you just rub the blanket along her face or on her arm, her thumb automatically goes into her mouth. I'm not sure what she's going to do without it.

So I just went online to order the blanket again... Just in case we can't find it. Actually, I ordered two just in case we have to go through this again. Jordan was a mess falling asleep for her naps today. I blame the missing lamb blanket.

Randy actually went downtown and drove around to see if we dropped it on the sidewalk. He tried to check church, but it was locked. I called church, but no one was answering. Poor Jordan. Poor us.

Seven months!

So big!
Originally uploaded by Jen Reeves.

What a big girl. Jordan turned seven months old today. She enjoyed it by taking a HUGE 3 hour nap. But when she was awake, we spent a lot of time playing with her toys while she sat on the floor in the basement. She is getting so good at that!

Of course, I had to take pictures of her doing all kinds of things... Including my traditional monthly photo shoot. She also had a ball petting the dog and smiling at Cameron and her Dad. She thinks they are SOOOO funny.

The separation stuff is still rearing its ugly head. I left her with Randy while Cam and I went to the grocery store (Cam asked me if Jordan was in trouble since she wasn't coming to the store with us... I told him it was because we were going to have Mommy and Cam time). While Cam and I were shopping, Jordan got really cranky on him... She probably needed a nap. So, when I got back. She nearly passed out before she was done eating. I set her down into bed and she fell right to sleep with the thumb in her mouth.

She has really started to move into the next stage of baby -- growing an opinion about the world around her. She really likes me... And it makes me feel special. She's starting to babble. I can even get her to babble into the phone! She even grabs onto it with her hand and little arm and smiles at it. She's amazed by the sound of voices coming from that black flashy thing.

With our new therapist, I'm hoping we can start showing Jordan why it's great to move around and work towards crawling.

New OT Meeting

Jordan and I met up with our new occupational therapist today. For the first time, Jordan took an actual OT test. Not surprisingly, the test proved she's really on target for her age. I'm very proud of that and I know the therapy we've been doing is because of that. And to me, it proves why it's worth continuing therapy: To keep her on track. The interesting thing about the meeting. Jordan proved she's officially in the separation anxiety phase of babyhood. Even sitting a little too far away upset her. Poor baby. Poor mommy.

By the end of the session, Jordan was exhausted. I fed her and I of course when I left my tired little girl, she got really upset. Fortunately, she fell asleep 10 minutes later for an HOUR. That never happens.

Another development. Jordan giggles more. It's fun. She kind of chuckles. That's probably a better word for what she does. It's mighty sweet.

Don't leave me!!!

I think it's happening, Jordan is getting upset when I leave her at school. This morning she dealt with it once I plopped her down with a bunch of toys in front of her. But this afternoon after I fed her, she was really, really upset. She was also really tired.

I hate walking away from a crying baby.

Avocado and Banana

Who knew mashed up avocado and a splash of mashed up banana would please my child so. It's the first food I've given her that makes her excited. She takes a bite and waves her arms and legs around in pure happiness. It's amazing. Even her teachers were astounded by her reaction. It's just THAT good. Of course, I've been so amused, I haven't caught any video or pictures of it yet. This is a picture of her eating peas. It makes her smile, but she doesn't get all worked up like avocados.

So yesterday, I started bringing in food for Jordan to eat in the afternoon. The doctor encouraged me to offer her a little something in the evening so she has two solid meals a day. I've been sluggish to do it since she just hasn't demanded it. Cameron led me more along with his needs in the food department as a baby. But Jordan is so relaxed, she'll just take what she's given. She doesn't have any demands yet. At this point with Cam, he was demanding that he eat cheerios and he wouldn't eat from a spoon until he could master the self-feeding. Jordan doesn't even have teeth yet. The littlest differences are already showing me how these two kids are going to have different personalities. Maybe she won't be as crazy when she's four.

We can only hope.

As all of the babies get older at work, I'm trying really hard to not compare and contrast the various milestones they are all reaching. I'd have to say Jordan is rocking them all out on the sitting up thing. But the others are much more mobile. This weekend, Jordan started attempting to push with her feet, hopefully our first step towards getting up on her "elbows" and knees. I'm really not that disappointed about Jordan's lack of need to move around. It keeps her safer. I can walk away from her when she's in the middle of my bed for a minute and know she's not going to roll off. But I would like to work on getting her moving to help her developmentally. She's also warming up to her prosthetic time. She wore it for about 30 minutes yesterday during play time at school without any trouble. That's pretty fantastic.

Another cold...

Jordan is fighting another cold. Can you believe it? Poor kid. She's been coughing for a couple of weeks, but today her nose started leaking, her eyes were runny and she had all kinds of sneezes. But in between many naps, she sat in the tree house with Cam and I for a while and we all took a walk to the "jungle." I even had an opportunity to plop Jordan down in front of some flowers and make her smile. Then I even convinced Cam to sit with her and pose a couple of times.

Now Jordan is having a hard time getting to sleep for the night. She's coughing and crying intermittently.

Since Jordan is really figuring out the sitting up thing, I think she's enjoying playing with toys more. It gives her more leverage with her little arm to hold things up into her mouth. Earlier this week, on her official 29 week old birthday, I put her down on the floor in the basement and just left a bunch of toys at her lap while I did the laundry. She sat up and played for about 30 minutes and only fell over twice. By the way, the picture looks like our entire basement is a disaster... And it was, but Cam has picked everything up since then. There appears to be a little more order in our world these days thanks to encouraging Cam to pick up from time to time.

Oh... Another developmental thing: She's really babbling. She babbles to toys, she babbles to us, she babbles just to babble. It's great. So now Randy and I are racing to get her to say Ma Ma or Da Da the fastest. I know Da Da will win, it's so much easier to say... But I'm working on it. So how do we do that? When she's on my lap, I chant "ma ma ma ma ma ma ma." And when she is on Randy's lap, he chants "da da da da da da da." When she's hanging out with both of us at the same time, we battle over who gets the eye contact to keep training her to say Ma Ma or Da Da. It's a silly competition. I think we did the same thing with Cam.

Speaking of Cam. He makes Jordan so dang happy. Tonight, I sat outside with Jordan and fed her before she went to bed while watching Cam play in his treehouse. She kept stopping her final meal of the day to goo and babble every time Cam said something. She is SO into her big brother. No matter how icky she feels, he makes her smile. We did just about anything we could think of outside today. It was wonderful out after a long stretch of painfully hot days. They were so hot, it was hard for me to blog! My brain was too sweaty.

Hard working baby

Jordan worked really hard at therapy today. We're working on figuring out the right way to use her prosthetic and not interrupt the wonderful progress she's making using her little arm. You really should see how cool it is when she grabs things with both arms. I'll try to post a piece of video of that soon.

Big girl and a fun meeting

Jordan had her six month old doctors appointment. Sure she's almost 7 months old. Anyway. Her stats: 16 pounds 11 ounces (75th percentile) and 25 inches long (50th percentile). She's doing great. I think it's so funny that almost 17 pounds is considered 75th percentile for a girl. It would probably be 10th for a boy! Anyway. After Jordan and her brother got shots, we headed out to St. Louis.

Not only were we meeting up with Daddy who had been in China for more than a week, we were meeting with a family that we met online through the Amniotic Band Syndrome group. We met Richie who is three and was born with fused fingers possibly caused by ABS. We went to the St. Louis Science Museum with he and his Mom and brother Andrew. We had fun and didn't get to stay there long. But it was nice to just connect with a family. Next month we will get to meet with a family who has a five year old daughter with a similar amputation like Jordan's. I'm really looking forward to meeting her.

So with all of the driving I did today, we got back in time for Cameron to make it to swimming lessons. We also finally have Daddy home again. Jordan gave him all kinds of love and smiles. It was great to see her in his arms again.

Complaining time

Yeah. I'm awake at a strange time of night. And blogging early in the morning is silly. But here's the complaint. I'm not planning on having any more kids. And tonight, my breast pump is starting to die. So I'm going to have to buy a new one to use for only 5 months. I'm not happy. To make matters worse, it's really humid out so the tubing is full of humidity and they won't dry out. To those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about. I'll just say there's these little tubes that help you use the pump and you don't want them to get moldy. So I have to run my already dying pump longer to get the tubes to dry.

Okay. I'm done complaining. These are the things we do to help our kids grow happy and healthy, right?

World of Flavors

Jordan is starting to eat for real. I give her one meal with a veggie or fruit in the morning mixed with cereal. At night, I've been giving her food to try and "self feed." Yesterday I cut up chunks of avocado just to see what she'd do. Today, I put some apple chunks into a mesh baby feeder thing. And she really liked it!

We've had a fun weekend. Jordan took a monster 4 hour nap today while we had visitors who came over to play. I'm bummed she didn't get to hang out. But I think the sleep really helped her. She has a little cought that I think has to do with teething. She doesn't drool much. She tends to swallow her drool. I think that makes her pretty gunky.

We had all kinds of smiles today for Cam. She's thrilled to have him around. Tonight when I was cooking dinner, she was laughing at him as he did peek-a-boo. She had been fussing... and he made her happy. It was awesome. I didn't ask him to help her. It was great.

Amazing feat

I wish I had caught it on camera. But Jordan did an amazing thing in occupational therapy today. I plopped her down on the mat where we "play" and put a toy in her lap. It was kind of an oversized weeble-wobble. A smooth plastic toy that would bounce back up when you pushed it and there's a bell inside it. Jordan thought it was very cool. So cool that she bent down and picked it up with her hand and her arm to suck on it. This was not a toy that was meant for picking up! And she figured out a way to do that. It was incredible. The OT and I were talking at the time and suddenly our jaws dropped. My girl is pretty amazing.

She went to work with me for a little while today while I wrapped up some loose ends at work. Then she went out to dinner with me. She took a great nap at the station and she just laughed and played during dinner. Man is this girl happy.

Jordan is also starting to eat flavors... 3 days ago I started sweet potatoes with her. She really started liking them today. She's growing up so dang fast.

Breaking News in Jordan's World

We got into First Steps today. After months and months of petitioning and asking and testing and convincing the state... Jordan was admitted today. I'm thrilled. I'm proud. And I'm so honored that so many doctors and therapists stood behind us to explain to the program why Jordan deserved the assistance and care. What does this mean to me? I will not have to spend as much money on Jordan's therapy and it gives us access to even more knowledge and programs that will make sure she continues to grow and develop! I feel like I just won a race or made it into the lead role of a play or lost 30 pounds or something tremendous. I'm pretty happy.

Now that was strange

So, the last two nights have been strange. I kept waking up to Jordan crying. It was strange crying... Not her normal kind of cry. So I would get up and check on her and by the time I got to her room, she was already asleep. So last night I decided to just go back to sleep in her room.

Suddenly I hear crying... not in the baby's room. But in my room.

That was creepy. So I go into my room and stand in front of the baby monitor. The crying continues and it sounds like a young baby who is really hungry. When I realize... There are little twins up the street who were born I think exactly 3 months after Jordan. Maybe 4 months. Anyway. I was listening to a baby up the street. Not my daughter.

I switched the channel on my monitor tonight. I hope I get a little better sleep. Jordan ended up waking up an hour after my baby monitor revelation. She's getting hungry earlier in the morning. A sign that I think is her telling me that she's growing and needs more food... and possibly solids. I've given her a little each day... But I think we need to be a little more serious about it. I want to return to the 14 hour sleeping days. Especially when Cam isn't here to wake me up early!!!

Over so soon?

We're leaving today. I'm pretty bummed. Jordan has just loved it here. She sleeps well in her pack n' play. She smiles at every tree and breeze. We took her to a beach that isn't too far from the cabin. We hope to visit there more often... And maybe next year we'll remember to bring the bug spray. Actually, we're planning to drive out next year. Very exciting and scary to think that we're planning to travel with a 5 year old and an 18 month old from Missouri to Maine. But hey, we can try.

This week has been a big deal for Jordan in my opinion. She has shown so much personaility. She glows and so enjoys attention from anyone. I realize she's had these characteristics forming... But they came through this week and it was so fun to watch. That may be the best part of a vacation -- time to stop and just watch your kids.

Enjoying the outdoors

Enjoying the outdoors
Originally uploaded by Jen Reeves.

We took it pretty easy the last 24 hours. Randy caught a strange 24 hour bug... Is much better today. So Jordan didn't do much yesterday except amuse all of us and sleep in various rooms to keep her away from her dad's germs. She is certainly addicted to Mommy. She's great with other people, but if she notices me in the room, she runs out of her happy smiles unless she's in my arms. By the way... I just realized I can blog directly from my Flickr site. Silly me. I've been wasting time coding Flickr pictures on my own when it can do it for me.

I have to say, there's something about the ocean air that makes the time here rush way too fast. One week isn't enough to soak in the environment. When we meet people in town, they ask if we're here for a month or two. When we say we're just here for the week they look at us a little strange. I wish I had a month or two to hang out here.

Off schedule, but happy

Jordan woke up twice in the middle of the night. I can't be sure it's because she's sleeping on a hard pack n' play or because she's teething or because she's sleeping in a room with Cameron and he talks in his sleep (or whines in his sleep, you make the call)... Anyway. She woke up twice... And I'm extra tired today. I'm not complaining. It was a grey and foggy day -- And those days are just as gorgeous from our view.

Since her sleep was a bit off... Jordan actually woke up before her brother. We had a nice early morning alone eating cereal and watching the tide drop. Then she took a monster nap to try and make up for the sleep she lost last night. And after that -- Oh why not... We went shopping again. I swear, she goes out of her way to squeal and smile at people to catch their attention.

Wind makes her giggle

Everytime the wind blows, Jordan giggles. She lets out this high pitched laugh. I love it. The wind blew in comfortable puffs today... And I guess it surprised Jordan from time to time and that made her giggle.

We knew today could be one of the best days of the week, so we took her up to our big rock to take her first official picture in Maine. Cam's a pro at it. He's done it five times after today. But Jordan did a darn good job on her own. She sat on the rock with Randy behind her just in case -- Just like Cam's first time. But unlike Cam, she let me take a ton of pictures. Cam's patience wore out with me a lot quicker. Of course, he was also four weeks younger during his first Maine trip.

Jordan is napping pretty well here. She ate cereal and slept through a number of her brother's tantrums. She also went shopping with us during a nice walk on the island... And enjoyed flirting with people. She's gotten to the point where she's squeal at people hoping they'll give her eye contact. It's a lot of fun.

I'm not hiding Jordan in any way when we're out in public. But I'm also not looking around to see if people are staring or whispering. I like it that way. My mom said it right earlier today - Jordan "sparkles." I like that word. You want to stare at her because she has such a beautiful personality. You never notice the arm because you are so enamored by the light in her eyes. And once you see the arm, you're so in love, why question who Jordan is.

Enjoying the experience

Jordan enjoys the outdoors... She always has. And her time in Maine proves once again, that she giggles in the wind and talks to the ocean. She's full of smiles. Today she woke up, smiled with everyone in the cabin and took a MONSTER nap. After some time out on the rocks, she went shopping with her Mom and Grandma. And she never fussed. She scored a few clothes for her outstanding shopping efforts... But overall, she got a lot of smiles and coos from people at L.L. Bean.

She slept in the car, she smiled as we rolled around the shops. All in all, a nice day for Jordan... And for the rest of us!