Braska Bear

A few weeks ago me and Jack went meet a new friend, Henry .  Well, he’s not so new, but I never had met him for real, just in our blogs.  Our friend Matthew was there, too. We played at Henry’s grandma’s house in the back yard. It’s SO pretty! We had a pretty fun time.  But there was a little oops.  See that blue tub in that picture up there? I was standing up there holding on to it, Jack was standing next to it by that little bush plant.  I decided to give Jack a big hug, so I put both my arms on him, but he couldn’t hold me up. So we fell back onto that bush, then we flipped over our heads and down the hill.  We weren’t too happy about it, and we screamed pretty loud, but our mommies got there pretty quick and we were ok.  My mommy said she really wished she had it on a movie for us to watch over and over because it was kind of cute. Later Jack did end up with a boo boo when he fell and bit his tongue.  It was icky and bloody!  Bu...

Again, to review, Braska is 34 months old, she rolled over at 8 months, she sat independently at 13 months, and she crawled consistently at about 25 months. Over the last year she’s slowly conquered pulling to a stand, cruising, and taking steps with two hands help. Braska has PT every week.  She loves her Miss “An-juh-wa” very much, and she performs better for her than almost any of her other therapists.  She has really taken off over the past few months since we’ve been having some sessions in the motor therapy room at Braska’s school.  She LOVES that room and is totally energized when she’s in there. They swing (a favorite always) and climb and do little obstacle courses while crawling.  She especially loves the space maze, which she has finally been able to master—all three levels—all by herself.  I often say that if we ever were to win millions, one of the first things I’d do would be to build one of those rooms on our house and fill it with all that coo...

Dishes, showering, laundry—all on hold. I just can’t keep putting off an update on this girl or I’ll forget all this before I can get it down. Since this is my main record of Braska’s goings on, it’s important at this stage. We’ll start with feeding, and there will be at least a few other categories to follow soon. To refresh for anyone who might be a newer friend here on the blog, Braska doesn’t eat orally, not regularly, never has. She has a g-tube/button, and she gets all her nutrition via Pediasure through her button. She has no medical issue that causes this problem. This is not a “Down syndrome thing.” She chooses not to eat. She does not show hunger or thirst, and she couldn’t care less if she eats or not. This is a behavioral issue. Even with our ability to feed her without her help, she still has always been underweight. At 34 months, she is just under 22 lbs. Because her weight is low, we cannot do more stringent caloric challenges (holding back on nutrition/food/milk, causin...

One morning when we were getting ready to go to the store, Mommy put KiKi in my bed while she was helping me get dressed.  KiKi likes to play with the mirror in there just like I do.  When I got dressed and we went to get KiKi out of the bed, I told Mommy I wanted down in the bed.  So she put me in there and I gave KiKi a hug right in front of the mirror.  I think she liked it because she got all giggly!

Mommy likes me to keep track of how big I’m getting, so she wanted me to put it on here so she won’t forget. Yesterday we went to a place and they checked to see if I had gotten bigger.  When they put me in the little chair that tells them if I’m eating good, it told them I was 22 lbs.  That’s really big!! I think that’s bigger than I’ve ever been before!  And then they made me lay down on this big hard thing to see how far down my feet went.  I did not like it at ALL!  But when they let me get up, they said I was 33 1/2 inches.  I think that’s good, but I’m not sure. Anyway, I’m with Daddy and KiKi at Grandma C’s today so that Mommy can have some quiet time at home.  We’ve been kind of hard on her this week, and she was asking us to start being good girls again…especially KiKi.  She was really bad.  I’m the good girl, don’t worry.

It’s time for football, and we are so excited at my house!   I know just who I am supposed to cheer for and I know what to say.  I say,  “Go Bears!” and I say “Touchdown!” I got all dressed in my new jersey shirt Daddy got me and my new Bears shoes that Auntie Rachel got for me. This is what Mommy calls my a-loof pose. This is me putting my arms up for “Touchdown”!! Here’s my new way to smile. I say, “Eeeeee” and poke my cheeks.  It’s a secret where I learned it, and Mommy can’t figure it out. These are my new Nike shoes with Bears colors. I like them alot! And here’s what we call my “sad face” when I got my fingers hurt Sunday night.  I wanted to touch the fan when Mommy wasn’t looking.  It didn’t feel good at all. The Bears didn’t win Sunday night, but we had a fun time watching the game!  Go Bears!

My little friend LC is the cutest thing you have ever seen!!  And if you haven’t seen her, well, you just don’t know what cute is, that’s what I say… LC has been missing her Daddy because he’s been busy at work, and she’s so sad.  But she likes to talk to him on the phone.   You just have to go see how their talk went the other night, it’s on her blog .  Really, I’m sorry you’re sad, LC!!  You’re Mommy’s great too, though…you should try cuddling with her, maybe!