Happy Birthday, Megan!

We made it to one year! My how time flies. It's so amazing to think how far we've all come in just 12 months. Megan is such a unique little person...not just a cute little lump.

We spent her birthday weekend at Trivia. Everyone was amazed at how easy and well behaved she is, even in an environment as unusual as it was. The house was full of adults she didn't know. Her schedule was different and mom and dad were busy with both her and the Trivia thing. Yet she was in a good mood all weekend long. She ate well. She slept well even though she was in her Pack and Play in a strange room with Matt on the floor next to her and Audrey in the next Pack and Play over. (The three of them had lots of fun when they weren't napping.)

When we came back home today, we took her to the Nitty Gritty for her first official birthday celebration at the official place to celebrate. She got to eat her favorite foods-- pickles, yogurt and ice cream-- and got a big purple balloon. She even seemed to try to blow out her own birthday candle in her mini sundae!

We're having a birthday party with family and friends next weekend. More on that in my next entry.

Until then, the important thing is, "Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!"

Health

We were pretty lucky in the first months of Megan's life. She's been a VERY healthy baby. She's never even had diaper rash. In the first 6 months of life the only illness she had was a mysterious case of the spots when she was about 5 months old--and it really was just the spots; she didn't run a fever or have any other symptoms. The spots disappeared just as quickly and mysteriously as they had appeared.

More recently, we haven't gotten off as easy. She came back from Arizona at Christmastime with a pretty bad cold, which led to a cough that seemed to last for weeks after the other symptoms were gone.

Then during one of the many weekends Todd was on a road trip during the second half of hockey season, she had her first real experience with projectile vomiting. That led to me getting it 24 hours later, then Todd getting it shortly thereafter.

When Grandma Kathy was here visiting during Spring Break, she seemed to get the same thing again. Unfortunately this time we weren't at home, but rather visiting friends and family out of town. Needless to say, we cut our visiting short and headed home. We actually ended up in the emergency room that night because she couldn't keep anything down.

While we were there, we found out she had an ear infection to boot. It turned out that the antibiotic they prescribed for the ear infection caused her to have diarrhea. She was in rough shape. All she really wanted to do was sleep and just sat listlessly on someone's lap when she was awake. After a few nights of battling that lovely mess, we finally got some advice to give her plenty of yogurt and soy formula and she felt better in a jiffy. It was like a magic cure!

The only good thing was that none of the rest of us got sick. Probably not what Grandma had in mind for her visit, though.

The other health-related adventure that we had that week was visiting the pediatric opthamologist. I had noticed that her eyes appeared to be crossed on a lot of pictures. Our primary doctor thought it was worth the referral. Luckily the opthamologist could find nothing wrong with her eyes whatsoever. Apparently, her cute little button nose is what makes her eyes appear to be crossed and as the bridge of her nose develops, it will no longer happen. She had her eyes dilated for a full exam while we were there, which explains the photo I've chosen to put with this post. :)

All in all, that's not to bad for a baby's first year. I'm thankful every day for our happy, healthy, smart, funny little girl!

Updates

I've been getting a lot of complaints that I haven't written in a long time. I know, I know. It's no excuse to say I've been really busy with the baby, but it's the truth, take it or leave it! :)

(Megan loves the computer ... maybe if I let her blog, there'd be new posts more often ... )

Anyway, Megan's first birthday is fast approaching. She still refuses to crawl, but she could walk any day now. She cruises all over the place, holding on to whatever she can get her hands on.

Her first official word is "HI!" and she uses it all the time. She likes to greet people when they come into the room. She also likes to use it to impress and woo strangers when we're out in public. When someone responds to her greeting, she flashes them her big, toothy grin. She's got 7 teeth, three on the bottom and four on the top. Everyone finds her quite charming.

She's also saying something that might mean dog, but it comes out "gdodg," so we're not sure.

Well, that's an update for now ... I don't want to write too much or I won't be motivated to write for 3 months again!