And the Answer Is...

A double jogging stroller!


So let me explain why I am so excited. The girls and I love to go on walks. But Emily is not capable of going long distances on her short legs. This has required that I strap 17 pounds of Jane to my chest in the good old Baby Bjorn while pushing Emily in the stroller every time we want to go for a walk. Emily has also loves to go on runs (lately just with Daddy - he's nice enough to watch the girls while I run), but our jogging stroller is a single so that means only Emily got to partake in the joy of running. We selected a model that works well for outdoor walking and then you can lock the wheel to make it a true jogging stroller, thus solving both problems.


So far, we have only taken it for one very windy walk, but I already love it. It was so freeing to just be able to push the stroller without a baby strapped to my chest. Totally worth a miserable week of work!

Pop Quiz

I recently got a week's worth of unexpected work. It was the first time I've worked since Jane was born and needless to say it was a bit stressful trying to draft with a screaming baby on my lap and a three year old throwing tantrums. So I decided to buy myself something I've always wanted with a portion of the proceeds.

Can you guess what I bought? Hint: It has three wheels, is bright yellow and requires three people for it to operate at its optimum capabilities.

It should arrive this weekend at which point I will share pictures and hopefully accolades. I am soooooo excited!

That's Solids, Man... Real Solids

This week Jane hit 6 months. That means she is (slowly) moving out of her colic and spit-up days, starting to eat solids and it also means she will be getting a hand. More on the hand later.

First, food.

We waited for as long as possible to introduce Jane to solids because it was such a screaming horrible mess with Emily. But we had nothing to worry about. Turns out Jane likes to eat. And that's okay when you're six months old because no one makes fun of you for having cellulite on your calves.

According to Jane's physiatrist, six months is also the perfect time to fit a baby with a prosthetic hand. Yes, I was reluctant. But here's what sold me: she said that if we don't do it now, our next window will occur in another 5 or 6 years and that if we do it now, she will accept it as part of her body more easily. But even at that, I would have never signed on for full time use. Jane will wear her hand in half hour periods a few times a day - just to build up her shoulder strength and get her used to having something there.

Her first hand will be what they call "passive". It won't have moving parts and will be made out of hard plastic. I'll post some pictures of it when we get it. At 18 months, she will move to a mechanical hand and a few years after that an electric hand. If at that point she doesn't want to use it, I'm perfectly fine with her not wearing a prosthesis, but this way we keep her options open.

So that is the hand story.

In other news, we finally got some cute pictures of Jane in her blessing dress.




Thanks, Mom for the beautiful dress. Thanks, Chris for the beautiful baby. I take no credit.

Silence is Golden

Since I have been blessed with two colicky babies, I am very grateful to also be blessed with an effective (albeit temporary) solution to colic.

When Emily was about four months old, a friend lent me a Baby Einstein DVD. I told her that I wasn't going to set a baby in front of the TV. She urged me to give it a try and assured me it wouldn't turn my child into a vegetable. That night, I went home and guiltily put the DVD in the player. For the first time I was able to just sit with Emily on my lap and have her not scream. The next day I bought the (then) complete Baby Einstein DVD set from Ebay. I limited her to two Baby Einsteins per day and relished my two twenty-minute silent periods.

I don't use it every day with Jane because she isn't quite on the same playing field Emily was. But today she was screaming that scream all day long that made me expect her eyes to glow red and for her to utter a phrase in a demonic language. Finally, this afternoon, I dragged her exersaucer in front of the TV and popped in the panacea. The relief that came as she immediately quieted down and began to watch Baby Noah literally brought tears to my eyes. For the next twenty minutes, I emptied the dishwasher and cleaned up the kitchen while listening to the pleasant music that had so instantly soothed Jane.

I was so happy that I took a picture of her, silently watching, sucking her thumb, her puffy red eyes beginning to dry. As soon as I snapped the picture, I knew it looked familiar to me.

_____Emily, almost 5 months_____ Jane, almost 6 months______

And both times there was a happy Mom behind the camera. Hurrah for Baby Einstein. Hurrah for twenty minutes of peace.

You'll Be Blessed

This weekend, we finally blessed Jane. Yes, I know, she is now five months old. We wanted to wait until the weather was nice and it ended up being a great decision. All of my family was able to make it along with Chris' brother and sister-in-law. In addition to the great roads, waiting meant that we didn't have a tiny newborn in the house while we had company. Jane is now a full-fledged, fat cheeked, sleeping-through-the-night baby and that helped a lot when it came to hosting family.

The blessing was beautiful. I think our whole family cried as Jane was given the promise that she would exceed everyone's expectations of her. That means a great deal because I already expect that Jane will do wonderful things. She was also promised a keen mind and the ability to help others.

It was wonderful to see my family again. We hadn't all been together since Simon's birth 18 months ago. Here we all are in my backyard:

Back Row Left to Right: Simon, Ami, Jacob, Grandma, Me, Jane, Chris, Emily, Dad, Mom, Virginia, Brian, Amity, Ryan

Front Row: Donovan and Sydney

I promise soon we will have some pictures of Jane in her beautiful dress. It was a wonderful day and I am grateful to everyone who came to be a part of baby Jane's special day.

The Ballad of Jane

Since Jane's birth, our attitude has been to treat her like any other baby because she is like any other baby. Because of this, we seldom mention Jane's differences. However, I recently realized that much of our family and many of our closest friends are unaware of the details of why Jane's arm is the way it is and how it affects (or doesn't affect) her life. So I thought I would dedicate a blog post to a short explanation.

Two weeks before Christmas, Jane came into our lives amid worries about her heart. After she was born, it became clear that her heart was perfectly healthy. However, there was something else that we were not expecting. Jane was born without a left hand and the lower portion of her left forearm. After a thorough examination, several doctors concurred that Jane had either lost or never developed a left hand due to amniotic banding, a rare condition in which fibrous bands that were once part of the amniotic sac entrap a portion of the baby's body. The presence of these bands is not common and is not due to any factor either on the part of the baby or the part of the mother. It is a random occurrence that we have since learned causes many pregnancies to end in miscarriage. Because of this, we are grateful that Jane lost only a hand.

That is pretty much the extent of the information we have learned about why Jane doesn't have a left hand. We aren't interested in pursuing any more of the why because it doesn't matter. Here is what does matter: Despite her missing hand, Jane has been overwhelmingly normal and we are delighted to have her in our family. We don't make a big deal about her hand because we don't want it to define her. Although it will always be the first thing someone will notice about her, we hope that as people get to know her, they will forget about her hand as we do for long periods of time.

We are currently looking into starting physical therapy and want to keep Jane's options open when it comes to prosthetic devices. There are some amazing devices on the market such as the i-limb that we hope Jane will be able to use in the future if she wishes. However, if Jane decides she doesn't want a prosthetic hand, we will be completely accepting of that as well. Many parents of children with similar challenges have found children's prosthetics to impede, rather than encourage, development. For that reason, we will probably be holding off on prosthetics for a while. Although we may change our minds when we meet with the prosthetist for the first time next week.

For now, Jane is doing well using her left forearm as she would a hand. She grasps objects between her right hand and left forearm and she has started to hold objects in the crook of her left arm. In every other respect, she is just like any other child. She has learned to roll over and can sit for short periods, just as Emily could when she was Jane's age. Her lack of a hand has not slowed her development at all thus far. We do not consider Jane to be handicapped or a special needs child. She does not function much differently than any baby her age.

We know that Jane was sent to our family as a blessing to us as well as to her. She has already taught us that different can be wonderful and that Heavenly Father knows what He is doing. Although the doctors considered the loss of Jane's hand to be a "random" event we know that nothing is random in Heavenly Father's plan for us. We love Jane and know that our family would not be complete without her.

If I had one wish then it would be... A happy happy birthday to you from me

It's official. I own a 3 year old. Most people get excited when they turn 16 because they can legally operate a car. But the big news around my house right now is 3. Because at 3 you can buy the toys with the little parts because the government says that you should have enough of a brain to not swallow the tiny parts. We'll see if that holds true.

Emily had a lovely birthday starting with the annual birthday zoo trip:

Then came the actual birthday and the birthday party.
Here's the cake:

She had a fun party with her friends and we discovered that all a 3 year old really wants out of a party is cake and balloons. Thank goodness we had plenty of both.

Emily also got her very own camera for her birthday. This is one of the better pictures. We deleted the ones of our feet and knees.
Even Jane got in on the birthday action. Her new highchair arrived (Emily trashed hers so badly that we decided to start from scratch when we realized that Emily's needed $70 in replacement parts.)

Jane doesn't eat any solids yet, but she loves sitting in it because she can get the lay of the land. Very useful for planning escape routes from Emily once she becomes mobile. And speaking of sitting... Jane sat by herself for the first time today. And I can't help but be just a little proud that did it two weeks earlier than Emily did.
Hurrah for Birthdays. And hurrah for me that I don't have to decorate another cake until Jane turns 1 in December.