Goodbye VPK hello Kindergarten!

Olivia is graduating VPK tomorrow 6/6/2018 and she is very excited to start Kindergarten.  She keeps asking me every morning if she is going to kindergarten today... We have until August lol.  Looking at her and seeing how much she learns and knows, you would never realize she had such a tough start.  She is vibrant, feisty and very energetic.  For summer camp we are going to send her to a sports camp so she can learn to play sports; we have not done this with her so that is our fault.  Hopefully she will love it!  

One thing we have noticed that she does love is art.  She loves drawing pictures with paint, luckily someone bought her a paint set for her birthday that came with paint brushes that already has paint in them.  This is the best thing ever! While she loves painting, if she messes up she does become easily frustrated and can have her moment with a fit... this is frustrating for us as well.  We are working on it with her, hopefully it will improve soon.  

Another exciting thing is that she is starting to learn how to ride a two wheeler. She is really happy about that and we can't wait until she is on her own!

Speaking of exciting, Olivia now has a little baby brother!

Because of my history, we received a cerclage at 16 weeks and got progesterone shots from 16-36 weeks. We made it all the way up to 36 weeks! When I went to have the cerclage removed his heart rate dropped so they induced me, Josiah was born at 36 weeks and 3 days weighing 5 lbs 10 oz and 18 1/4 inch long.  Olivia was so excited to meet him as you can see in the picture.  We are of course dealing with the new behaviors that come with having a new sibling in the house.  Some days are great, others, not so much. Overall everything is going fantastic and Olivia is still proving God still gives miracles.  

Hopefully you are all doing great.  I'm not sure if anyone will even read this, if you do let me know! 

It's been a while!

Hello all, so this is a post I began in December of 2016 and never posted.  I wanted to post it because it has some good information in it and I am currently working on a new post now.  Enjoy!

It has been over 2 years since I've posted and life has been busy! Olivia is doing great, she is now 3 1/2.  She has been in a bi-lingual daycare for the past 4 months and her language skills have improved drastically.

Things that have occurred in the past 2 years:

Potty Training - 😠

This was difficult for us.  In hindsight I realized we created the problem ourselves by trying to force the issue.  She was not ready to use the potty when we were ready for her to use it.  In the beginning, it seemed as if everything was going to run smoothly.  I did research online, I talked to my mom, sisters, cousins and friends to get tips and tricks. We were ready! By "we" I mean my husband and I. We were ready to stop buying diapers.  We were ready to stop changing diapers. We were ready to put that money towards something else.  Olivia, on the other hand, was NOT ready.  The first exercise we tried was potty training in 3 days.  This is where you are basically held hostage in your own home for 3 days while you pump your child with water and/or juice and sit them on the toilet every 20 minutes.  Olivia loved being able to drink more apple juice than normal.  We stayed home and I did just that, I even put an alarm on my phone to remind me of when I needed to bring her. The weekend was fantastic and I thought we were home free, but then I realized she didn't poop at all. A few weeks went by where we were forcing her to sit on the potty and it became this big negative thing for her.  Junior and I discussed the problem and we decided to take a break from potty training because we did not want negativity to go with that.  We decided to try again when she was around 2 1/2 and we discussed it with her before we did it.  This time around it was easier with pee, poop was a struggle.  To be honest, she still gets embarrassed every now and then and tries to hide.

Pre-school - :-D

At the end of July of 2016, Olivia joined a preschool and it's bilingual! She misses her babysitter but she loves the school.  It is so much fun see her interact with other kids.  She really enjoys it there and she is learning a lot.  The school kind of like a Montessori school of thought which we love.  They also have flamenco dancing on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the parents that want to pay extra for this service, it looks like fun but we haven't added her yet.

Behaviors 

Olivia knows what she wants and she is not afraid to express her displeasure if she doesn't get it.  We are struggling with getting her to listen more often. She listens every now and then but not enough to for my satisfaction.  When Olivia loves a particular outfit she wants to wear it non stop.  Like every.single.day! This stage has been exhausting, luckily there were lots of great spots that keep us sane.
Olivia has a natural caring and nurturing demeanor about her.  She is very sensitive to the emotions of others.  Whenever she sees someone crying or sad, she always points out that they are sad and if it's a kid, she will go up to them and hug them.  She is always giving out hugs and kisses which are amazing.  She gives great hugs.  Olivia is also willing to help others in need.

Medical 

Praise goes to God for Olivia's health.  Overall, she is very healthy and has no major complications from the prematurity.  She did end up in the hospital  a few times with bronchiolitis and once with double pneumonia.  She was taken care of each time by the wonderful staff at Coral Springs Medical Center.

In September of 2015 , Olivia received her first pair of glasses.  She is near sighted with bad astigmatism. She looks so adorable with her glasses on.  The transition to wearing glasses wasn't that bad I don't think.  I honestly can't remember, I'll have to ask Junior.

Olivia is 1!

Happy birthday to my precious little miracle!! She is already 1 year old! While the first 4 months felt extremely long, the last 8 flew by. She is now a crawling machine, we cannot leave her for a second.  She is also very energetic!  I’ve added two video’s to today’s post, they were taken a few weeks ago.  She is now climbing up much faster and easier; all she wants to do now is stand or jump in her jumperoo.   We will celebrate her birthday this weekend, I can’t wait. Thank you for your continued support and prayers. 

 

I'm pretty much mobile!

Olivia continues to grow and develop.  She is now around 12 ½ pounds and she loves to play with her toys.  We are encouraging her to crawl to her toys; she has figured out that she can roll to them instead.  In addition to rolling, she also does the “worm” on her back to reach them.  It seems she understands the leg portion, but she does not move her arms yet.  She gets on all 4’s just fine, she just needs to learn how to move forward.

We also increased her food intake to twice a day.  She enjoys everything we’ve given her so far.  Everything she has eaten has been home made.  She’s had: oatmeal, sweet potato, squash, zucchini, apple and banana.  I will start mixing her foods soon. 

We are 2 months away from her birthday! I’m so excited for it as well, it’s right after Mother’s day.  We are joining the March for Babies walk on May 3^rd to help the celebration.  If you would like to donate to the cause, the link will be provided below. 

Here is her 9 month picture. 

http://www.marchforbabies.org/team/t2178481

She turns 10 months this Saturday and I feel like she will be crawling soon after.  Enjoy this video!

 

8 months!

Olivia turned 8 months on the 15^th of January.  We had a doctor’s appointment on the 21^st and she was 11 lbs 4.5 oz and 23.75 inches long.  The doctor is happy with how she is doing.  Olivia has been eating solids for a few weeks now.  So far she likes sweet potato and oatmeal made with breast milk.  We will continue to introduce her to new foods; next will be squash, avocado and bananas.   

 

 

As I mentioned in my last post, we went to Junior’s graduation and cheered him on.  Here are a few pictures from that day.

 

 

 

 

 

Olivia has been sitting up by herself more and more each day.  This is her on Christmas getting ready to open her gifts. She also enjoyed trying to open one of her gifts. 

 

 

We also got to spend time with family; below you will find pictures with grandpa then grandma, followed by her grandma and great grandma and  a picture with her cousins.

 

Another great thing we are noticing with Olivia is that she is now scootching forward on the floor like a caterpillar.  I will try to get video of that soon. Her curiosity is wonderful to watch; she is continually looking around discovering new things.  She has discovered mommy and daddy’s faces recently.  When we hold her up she stares at us then she grabs our nose, chin, cheeks and then she slaps us as she screams in delight haha and it can hurt!

Sleeping patterns: Olivia’s sleeping has improved tremendously in the past 2 months.  She is now sleeping for at least 7 hours before waking up for a feeding.  The fact that she is sleeping better has helped with her attention, grouchiness and her overall tiredness (no more continually rubbing her eyes and arching her back).  At her last Physical Therapy appointment her PT was happy with her progression; he gave us a few things to continue to encourage her on, which we have been doing.  With all of her scooting around I find her on all sections of her bed in the middle of the night.  I just make sure her arm or leg does not get caught in the middle of the bars; if they do, I move her back to the middle. 

The rest of Olivia’s hair is starting to grow in, so it is beginning to look really nice.  The hair on the top of her head has grown long as well; so long that her sitter is able to put it into a ponytail. (The one time I tried she would not sit still long enough) It seems as though Olivia is teething but nothing is coming through yet, she is showing the signs (drooling, putting her fist in her mouth, chewing on everything) but nothing yet.  Let’s hope it isn’t too hard on her.  I believe I covered most of what has happened in the past few months.  As she meets new milestones I will continue to let you guys know by updating the blog.  As a bonus I am adding pictures of Olivia smiling :-)

 

Happy New Year!

Olivia is one week shy of 8 months.  She should be around 10 pounds (we have an appointment later this month) and she is becoming more and more active.  She is a pro at rolling over from her back to her belly and she enjoys tummy time and playing with her toys.  We were able to go to daddy’s graduation and cheer him on.  Our professors were able to meet our joyous daughter along with Junior’s classmates.  Christmas was nice, we stayed home and had dinner for Christmas eve.  Christmas day we visited family; going to 3 different homes which made the day very full and tiring.  It was a good day.  Olivia slept for the New Year, along with her parents J 

She continues to do well with her sitter; we were blessed to find such a wonderful lady to take care of her.  The bronchiolitis cleared up really well and we have not had any issues since.  We began testing out solid foods with Olivia and she did not like peas, pears or bananas.  We believe it was more of a surprise and she was unsure what to do.  We tried oatmeal made with breast milk and she took that well.  Hopefully we do not have a picky eater on our hands; we are going to introduce many different foods.  As she grows she is beginning to sleep longer; we began sleep training at the end of last year.  That means we began a nightly schedule and we have to be consistent with it.  In addition, we let her fall asleep on her own, this way she can learn how to self soothe.  Olivia did not have a problem falling asleep on her own from the beginning, but she did cry when she woke up in the middle of the night.  She fell asleep after a few minutes after.   She has been sleeping for 7-8 hours before waking to eat then again for another 2 or 3 hours.  Thanks for checking in!

Amazement

This morning Olivia had her Physical Therapy appointment.  While she was sitting on Tim's knee as he was working with her, I looked at her and thought “I can’t believe how big she is.” From the first appointment we had with him 3 months ago, until today she has grown and developed wonderfully.  We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at home as a little family; I enjoyed it so much.  Olivia, however, developed bronchiolitis and is now getting medication through a nebulizer.  She has improved tremendously in the past week and will be off the medication Monday, with a follow-up appointment Tuesday.  This past Wednesday we had an appointment with Dr. G, the eye doctor and I am pleased to announce that Olivia has no active ROP! In addition to that, she does not need glasses! Praise God.  Now, this does not mean she will not need glasses in the future, just for now.  Our next appointment with him is in 6 months. 

Olivia did great during the physical therapy; she is doing things a 4 month old does.  Her adjusted age is 3 months, so this is a good thing.  We now need to buy a few more toys for her to play with and have new exercises to practice.  She is lifting her head up while on her tummy, she has great head control, she rolls from her belly to her back and she grabs at things (she likes my necklaces).  She is also very talkative, mainly with Daddy; she likes to tell him secrets.  Next week is his graduation and I can’t wait to cheer him on with Olivia!