First haircut

Stella got her hair cut today for the first time. I took her to Cookie Cutters and she was great. She found the steering wheel on the little car quite entertaining. I just had a little trim done - she still has lots of curls!

Check her out:
http://www.haircutsarefun.com/Certificates/preview.asp?CertificateID=11365

Cruising

It's official - we have a cruiser. It's so exciting to watch Stella learn how to move and she is having a blast. She can now pull herself up on the couch and cruise from one end to the other. She also loves to walk around her little table. She does better going to her right, but can also go left. She's moving!!

17 Months

This past month has been so much fun, and has been filled with a lot of work and doctor’s appointments. Stella has made huge gains in her balance, coordination and mobility. She is so excited to be moving! Usually all she wants to do is to get down and move. She loves to stand at a table or couch to play and to walk while holding someone’s hands. We have tried using a push toy a few times, but she is a little insecure with it. It’s probably time for us to get one. She is trying to figure out crawling, and it’s pretty funny to watch her get stuck in downward dog. She has been working so hard in OT and PT and it is finally paying off.

We started speech therapy last week, and it was so funny because the entire hour Stella did not make a single sound. She is babbling more, but still not very many words. She does understand a lot. One of her newest things that I love is when I say, “Good girl Stella,” she claps her hands.

As usual, Stella was a good little traveler for Thanksgiving. We spent Thursday with Michael’s family and the rest of the weekend at my dad’s. Stella loved the Thanksgiving feast. It was her first time trying many of the foods and she just gobbled them up. She was such a mess afterward!

Sebastian is having a lot of fun with Stella now that she is more mobile, but I have also had to deal with my first real sibling conflict. Sebastian got upset when Stella found her way to one of his toys and he said, “Stella, no that is MINE!” and grabbed it from her, knocking her over. I’m actually happy that we have reached this stage. It’s cute to watch them play together though – I especially love when we all wrestle together and everyone laughs.

I am very frustrated with the lack of progress with Stella’s conformers. It seems like we are moving backwards and the ocularist doesn’t really know what to do. She did suggest surgery to expand Stella’s sockets, thinking then it will be easier to fit her for prosthetics. We met with the surgeon for a consultation and now we are researching it and thinking things over. It’s just hard to know what the best decision is.

We met with a developmental pediatrician and an endocrinologist this month. The pediatrician confirmed that we are on the right track with everything, and also referred us to a neurologist, who will help provide us with more of a big picture and help us set realistic expectations for Stella. He is well known in the community and was very informed and helpful. I look forward to working with him as Stella grows. The endocrinologist was also very helpful and ran some tests, which confirmed that Stella’s growth hormone levels are very low. No surprise there. We are going to do one more test in January, and then probably start her on synthetic growth hormone. The endocrinologist is optimistic that with the right doses Stella will still reach an appropriate height. All of our appointments have been at the Riley’s Children’s Hospital – I’m very impressed with the facility and the staff there.

I’m excited to see what’s next for Stella!