Zoo and More

Yesterday we decided that we were going o take Delphia to the zoo and spend some time together as a family. We asked her if she wanted to do a number of things such as the zoo, Boondicks, Park City, Gardener etc and she said no to them all. So we decided on the zoo. We got everyuthing ready and packed a lunch and some snacks and we were off! When we first got to the zoo we were amazed at how busy it was. It was a beautiful day so I think everyone wanted to be outside. The first little area of the zoo is the marshes with the ducks and little animals. She really liked the geese and ducks etc and liked watching them in the water.

She really took a liking to this little squirrel. She could get right up to the glass and he was just sitting there next to her.

Shane took her down into the "gopher holes" so that she could peek through them so I ran back out to get a picture of her!

My personal favorite at the zoo is the monkeys, it doesn't matter what kind they are all so cute and fun to watch. This monkey was sitting by the glass so we sat and watched him and then later when we were watching outside the same monkey came out to be with his family and he was the dad.

The little baby monkey was putting on quite the show swinging from the ropes and just having fun. When we sstarted to walk away he had climbed into the tube and his feet were hanging out and the mom was rocking him in the tube.

This is an elephant femur that we held Phia up to so we could see how she compared in length. She wasn't too happy about the whole thing, I think they scared her. The elephants were fun to watch. We were amazed how high they could reach to get food. We even got to see them eat whole fruit and I mean that it was really whole, bunches of bananas and oranges all with the skin still on.

She really liked the ring-tailed lemur also and so we sat and watched them for awhile.

The whole time we were at the zoo, Phia wanted to hold pretty much every animal. She didn't like the fruit bats or the spiders but I think those were the few exceptions. She loves animals! When we came to the wolf she thought it was a dog and was saying dog and signing dog. Here she is telling Shane she wants to hold the zebras. The funniest animal she wanted to hold was the giraffe. For some reason this picture of tiny Phia holding a giraffe popped into my mind and made me smile.

Before we headed to the zoo Shane was taking pictures of her and got this cute one.

here are some picture we took of her legs. She still has 2 of the bandages on and we are surprised they haven't peeled off. They other 4 came iff within days and we are now nearing 2 weeks post-op.

This is her no face and we have seen a lot of it lately!

19 months old!

She is my chip girl but she insists that she get her own chip out of the bag. She sticks her whole arm in and feels around for just the right chip and then pulls it out. She even sticks her head down to the bag so she can see the chips. It cracks me up though because she usually pulls out the smallest piece of chip. She was handing out the chips while we ate at the zoo and did pretty well until she handed me a handful of crumbs because the bag was getting empty.

She loves her M&M's and loves to get them out of the dispenser at Grandma's. We have offered her some mini ones when Grandma doesn't have them and she usually won't eat them. I gave her a few after lunch one day and she was getting silly and pulling goofy faces.

She is such a sweet little girl and I am constantly amazed at how smart she is! She loves music and we have a couple CD's that we listen to when we are in the car or she is sitting on my lap at the computer! Some of her favorites are Bellybutton , The Itsy Bitsy Spider, If You're Happy and You Know It and Bingo. She loves to clap and do the actions to the songs and even sings occasionally.

She has started saying even more words a few of which are blanket, backhow, tractor, bike, mail, blocks, spider, bellybutton, chip, bed, music, naughty, pajamas, medicine, dress, jacket, bandaid, barrette, animal, monkey, chilly, swing and quite a few more. She will usually repeat the last words you say. Yesterday we were at my mom's and I was working on a puzzle and Grandma told Phi that I was addicted and Delphia tried to say it. Shane even was trying to get her to say Pimpernel this afternoon, telling her that it was my favorite book. I have to say that it's far from it. She is a total daddy's girl and I can forget holding her if Shane is around. She loves to pretend and it makes Shane and I laugh. She loves to pretend she is giving herself medicine and even pretended to give her bear some yesterday. She even covered bear's eyes yesterday to If You're Happy and You Know It so that he was included in the song. She loves to give hugs and kisses and likes to give eskimo kisses. She has gotten to liking Tickle Me Elmo and asks for him at my mom's.

I think she has missed being mobile and I am patiently waiting for her to walk again. She acts like she wats to play with her cousins but I think it still hurts to stand on them.

On a sad note we found out yesterday afternoon that Shanes Aunt Mary passed away. It was totally unexpected as she had no major health problems. We had actually just seen her on Thursday evening when we took her some salt for her water softener. Shanes brother posted a poem on Facebook and I think it shows what everyone is feeling.

Loved ones she left behind
Just trying to survive
And understand the why
Feeling so lost inside
Anger shot straight at God...
Then asking for His love
Empty with disbelief
Just hoping that maybe
She flew up to heaven on the wings of angels
By the clouds and stars and passed where no one sees
And she walks with Jesus and her loved ones waiting
And I know she's smiling saying

Recovering From Surgery

Phia loves to sign the word more and then says it while she signs it. You know if she really likes something if she wants more, more, more. She was after malted milk eggs and came in my craft room to ask for more!

In an attempt to have things to entertain her while she was laid up after her surgery I went to the store and picked up a few things. We played with this a couple times before her surgery and she constantly wants to play with it and reaches for the container. Who knew something so simple could entertain her? I got wooden beads and put them in a container and gave her another container to transfer them into. She was using a teaspoon in this picture but when we did it at my mom's she used a melon baller and tongs. She loves doing this and recently she was at my mom's and my mom gave her a cup of ice with an empty cup and she moved the ice back and forth. Last night during dinner at my mom's she wanted to do it again so Grandma got her the ice to do it with. We also did it with different sized pom-poms. She likes the texture of them and even tried to eat a pink one because I am guessing it looked like the pink malted milk egg I had given her.

Shane and Phia built a fort last Sunday and they had fun playing in it. She would go in and go behind the couch so you couldn't see her and then peek around the couch to see if she could see you.

She is my ketchup girl! Everything tastes better with ketchup I suppose. She even dipped her jello in it the other night. She loved the potatos, sausage and onions we had and dipped all of it in ketchup!

She found Shane's hat in the closet and wanted to carry it around so we took a picture of her with it on. She just wanted to take it off and it took a couple pictures before we got this one.

Phia went in for surgery last Tuesday, March 10. They called the day before to tell us when it was scheduled and what time to be there, when she had to stop eating and drinking etc. When they called they told me she was scheduled for 11:15. I was pretty shocked because I was pretty confident that it would be at 7 and the first surgery. She couldn't eat after midnight and had to drink only clear liquids until 8:15 Tuesday morning. We kept her up until 10 Monday night and just let her munch on whatever she wanted. We got up early Tuesday and ate breakfast and got ready and then got her up and headed to my parents so my dad could help give her a blessing. It was seet at the end of her blessing because she said amen and knew they were saying a prayer. Through the whole blessing she was moving her head trying to figure out why the had their hands on her head. We then headed up to the hospital.

We eaded to the room we were supposed to register in and got her registered and bracelets put on all 3 of us. She went and played with toys for awhile and then was called back so they could get things started. They weighed her and measured her height and then they checked her vitals in another room and gave us the hospital clothes to get her in. They let her blow bubbles while they did everything and that seemed to keep her happy. The IV team came in to start her IV. She was not happy about that at all! There were 3 of them and it took 2 tries to get it into her hand. Shane was amazed by how they got it in with the us of a light under her hand to find the vein. They tried once and thought they had it in but it wasn't bleeding so they were going to try again on the same hand but it was bleeding too much so they turned her around and got it put in the other hand. The wrapped in with tap so she couldn't pull it out. I think she was more upset that she couldn't move her hands and that they both had stuff wrapped around them than she was that it hurt. We took her for a walk in a wagon to another room where she got to play some more. The anesthesiologist came in and talked to us for a bit and gave her some Versed through her IV. We strated to walk back to the goodbye point and Phia started to panic a little and get upset intsead of it relaxing her. The MD asked if she wanted to go and find butterflies with him and he took her and she started crying for daddy so he gave her back to us and gave her more Versed and then waited a few minutes and took her back to surgery. She was still crying and Shane and I walked down the hall crying. That was the hardest part of the whole thing.

More tomorrow.....

18 Month Appointment

Phia had her 18 month appointment today so I thought I'd record her stats real quick.

Wt 21.63 lbs, Ht 29.53 inches and her head is 47.9 cm.

Doctor Erickson was just tickled to see how well she is doing. She played peek-a-boo with him and waltzed all around the room fiddling with her hands and marching. She did really well with the stethoscope this time and didn't cry too much when she had her last immunization until she goes to Kindergarten.

It was funny, Dr Erickson asked how many words she said and we weren't sure so we guessed 20-30 and he said that was great! He said she was ahead in her social development, whatever that means. I am guessing because she is social, not too shy, outgoing, talks quite a bit and loves to just be wild! That's my girl! After Shane and I got out to the car we started to really wonder how many words she can say. She has been saying a new word or two everyday. Here's a list of what she can say:

Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Emma, Chloe, Kaylea, Dallen, Thank you, dog, fish, bird, cat, apple, banana, milk, cheese, eat, nap, amen, medicine, eye, ear, hand, shoe, barrette, balloon, marshmallow, water, clock, climb, up, hooray, cracker, no, doll, yes, doodle, toy, bear, teddy, buddy, milk, duck, quack, moo, baby, happy, mama, dada, pretty, party, tea set, purple, turtle, color, bottle, book, bubble, walk, Dora, Boots, Elmo, hot, hi, cold, backpack, brrrr, ketchup, more, plate, clap, hands, peep, bath, toes, belly button, elbow, bonk, mail, one, two, spider, again and ball. That's all we can think of right at the moment but we were amazed at how many words she says, we weren't sure she even said 30 to begin with and that's 82 that she says pretty consistently that we though of.

The other day she was playing with the Aquadoodle and sucking the water out of the pen. Shane kept getting after her and telling her that she didn't suck on it and that if she wasn't going to draw he would take it away. I was in on the bed reading and next thing I knew she had come into the room and around the corner, sucked on the pen and then walked out and laughed. I hollered to Shane what she had done and she then walked back in the room by me and I heard the water turn off and I told her dad was going to see her. She was sucking on the pen and Shane came around the corner and said, "Delphia" and scared her to death!

We went out for a walk yesterday and started talking to our neighbor Pat. Phia was walking up and down the sidewalk just meandering about when she walked over to us and bent over to our crumbling sidewalk and picked up a rock and handed it to Pat. Pat probably had about 20 pebbles in her hand before Phia got sick of that game. She then wandered down the sidewalk and found an empty cup and then brought it to me and climed the steps and came down a couple of times before we went it.

She loves the drinking fountain at the library and tries to climb the stool even though Shane turns the stool the wrong way.

This morning we went to my mom's and she was still tired and I couldn't sleep so I layed her on the bed and put a pillow on the side of her. Two hours later I hear her fussing so I go in to get her and her head is stuck between the headboard and the mattress and she was hanging onto bear for dear life with one hand and the mattress with the other.

We were folding clothes yesterday and we were ready to go put her clothes in her room. I told her that's where we were going and she picked up her 3 pairs of pants and handed them to me. I told her thank you and asked if she wanted to carry her sockd. I offered her 2 pairs but she only took one. We headed into her bedroom and I turned to make sure she was coming with me and I saw that she had her socks between her teeth, her sippie in one hand and her teddy bear crackers in the other.

Last night I made sausage, potatoes and onions for dinner and she ate them right up with some ketchup. We also had jello which she dipped in the ketchup also. I thought it was a fluke until lunch today when we had leftovers and she ate it really well again and even had seconds of potatoes. This is my girl who hates any kind of potato I have given her except french fries.

She loves to play on my mom's medicine ball. Shane lays her on the stomach and bounces her up and down and she opens her mouth and makes a funny noise.

Well, off to bed or to read I go. Shane and I are exhausted. We were up at 4, didn't go to bed until 11:30 and the went to her MD appointment, went case lot shopping at Costco and Maceys and the to the library! Whew!