The Littlest Patient.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving Jas and I got a pretty big scare when a bulge appeared near Addie's groin muscle while she was crying. The bulge went back in when she settled down but popped out any time she strained or fussed. A trip to the pediatrician the next day and she was diagnosed with an inguinal hernia and we were referred to a pediatric surgeon. After meeting with him today, he was able to put our minds and hearts at ease.

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He confirmed the hernia and let us know it was actually her ovary that was buldging out but not to worry as it was not in danger or anything. Basically he told us that there are a lot of gaps in infants bodies that close during development in the womb and one of hers just happened not to close up on its own.

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He said she is a rare case simply because this type of hernia usually happens in little boys (girls make up less than 3% of the cases) but the good news is the surgery to correct it is actually much easier than the procedure that is performed on males. I think our little girl is already showing us how unique she is determined to be!

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The surgeon summed it up best when he said this would be a lot harder on us than it would be on her. This will be a blip on her radar and she will be back to her normal self just days after surgery.

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It was good to get answers and we left feeling much more confident and definitely a bit relieved.

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I remember when I was pregnant, I felt like I could protect her as long as I was carrying her and was nervous for her to be on the outside because there are some things you just can't protect your kiddos from. I would do anything in the entire world to swap places with her for this darn thing.

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"Having a child is like having your heart forever walk on the outside of your body." That is no lie!

xoxo,

Mack

6 Months.

Half a year has gone by and you are growing cuter by the second. We had your doctor checkup yesterday and you are in the 50th percentile for weight and the 90th for height which confirms that you are indeed our little miss string bean.



Your doctor was so impressed with how much you have grown and how coordinated you are that he told us to skip Stage 1 and start you off on Stage 2 baby food. This is going to be a fun adventure even though the pureed beef with gravy does not look very appetizing. Pics will be coming soon of peas smeared all over your face, I'm sure.

Your favorite things right now are WonderPets (I'm pretty sure this has staying power, I've listed it every month in your faves), pureed pears, your plastic ring toys and your Daddy singing "Twist and Shout" to you.

You've mastered "Dada", "Baba" and Gaga and mimic so many things that we do. The other day we could have sworn you said "Hot Dog" but it was by accident. If I have anything in my hands (cell phone, papers, cup) you are reaching for it and trying to snatch it away from me. If I am on my laptop you are trying to "type" with me which makes for some interesting emails.

You are finding all kinds of ways to be mobile. You are rolling all over the place and squirming around to cover every inch of your mattress while you settle down to sleep. You have also been throwing your head backwards while we hold you in our laps which means you want to hang upside down and watch TV between our knees. Funny little thing. You LOVE music, anything musical makes you smile and giggle... when you are on your tummy and pushed up with your arms watching TV you sway your shoulders back and forth with the music and "dance." I finally caught it on this video.

Happy 6 Months, sweet girl. We love you to the moon and back!!!

xoxo,

Mommy & Daddy

Adultness.

The key to keeping your sanity while raising a feisty almost-six-month-old is date night. WOOO-WEEEEEEEE! The stars aligned (and my mom offered to babysit) on Saturday night and we had a wonderful evening including : hot husband, oysters on the half shell, champagne, good friends and Rock Band.

In order of importance of course. :)

I Think She Has "Dada" Down.

Even though she has no idea what it means, it seems to be her word of choice these days! :)

Putting It All Together.

I've been down with the crud. Woke up Friday morning with a sore throat and I knew it was going to be a yuck weekend. I am NOT good when it comes to being sick, I have a hard time admitting it because I NEVER get sick (I haven't been sick in over a year!) and I try to just tough it out. Luckily I have a husband who steps in to talk some sense into me or I'd still be in denial and probably feeling much worse. He made me cancel all our weekend plans, set me up a "sick couch" and forced me to rest. Which I really really needed. Sunday morning he woke up and made me and Addie breakfast in bed (she had a stuffy nose herself). It was so nice to be taken care of. I am still not 100% but doing better thanks to Super Hubs/Daddy and ready to face the week!

Apparently Addie's stuffy nose wasn't going to slow her down because she did something big this morning! So, she has been rolling over both ways for a while but she would always roll to the right and then roll back to the left so she never really got anywhere.... until this morning! She finally put it all together to roll in one direction and actually get somewhere! I was in the kitchen when it happened the first time.... I had laid her down on the edge of her playmat and started puttering around in the kitchen, the next thing I knew I glance over and she had made it off the other side of the playmat and was just looking up at me like "what?" So of course I put her back in her starting spot to try and get her to do it again. It took about 30 minutes but she made it!! I like to call the combination the INCH-ROLL-SQUIRM.

Starting position:

And... 30 minutes later!!

We are so proud of our little sprout. She might be small but she is a strong little thing!

One Of Those Quotes You See That Stick In Your Head.

"Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about."

On The Lamb.

So the cold front never came and it was 85 DEGREES on Halloween. The weather man is going DOWN! Addison wasn't too thrilled at first as we put on her warm toasty Halloween costume but once it was on, she hammed it up like usual.

Doing the lamb chop shuffle:

Clearly, she has fine tuned her WHAT THE CRAP face.

Trick or treating at Gigi's wore her out so we headed home and watched a scary movie. Don't worry, she covered Jason's eyes during the scary parts.