Knees and Toes

Its been a while since I've provided an update.  Usually that means things are good, life is busy and there's been no 'issues' for us as a family.

For those who check in on our CDH baby Payton, she's doing well, growing like a weed.  She's recently overcome her 4th round of Pneumonia but like all the times, she's handled it like a champ.  This time it only took 1 well timed visit to the ER for them to run an x-ray and send her home with a prescription.  A second visit was in our future but only to deal with asthma that seems to now be in the cards for her when she's dealing with respiratory colds/flus.

Developmentally and physically Payton continues to progress much like we would expect any 'healthy' child.  She continues to be slightly tall for her age (though shorter than Olivia) and while she wouldn't be called chubby, she's just right for a running, active toddler though I'm so used to how chubby Livy was it does worry me slightly that I can see Payton's ribs.  Still, she's tipping the scale at 13 kilos (29 lbs) so I know she's doing just fine in the weight category.

Her reflux continues though easily handled with medication we add to her milk.  She knows what it looks like and will often complain if she sees me pouring it into her cup/bottle.  She's a hoot with her words right now and I have to say, Wilma has done an amazing job with her manners.  Even in the middle of the night if she asks for her bottle she'll say "Thank you Mommy" so clear, and will promptly fall back to sleep.

She can count up to 13 (only skipping the number 8) and can pretty much do her ABC's now (she skips anywhere from 2-3 letters.  I'm thinking that's not bad).  One of her favourite songs is "Head, shoulders, knees and toes...".  Often though I only hear "Knees and toes, knees and toes" repeated over and over until she gets my attention.  Sometimes she breaks into song because she wants her socks removed and she's tugging at her toes.

While in Hawaii at the beginning of April Payton officially started stringing 2 words together (rather than repeating common word combos like "ready, set, go" or "thank you mommy").  This last weekend she spoke a full sentence...it only dawned on me a few minutes later that she had strung a bunch of words together.

Olivia has been growing in leaps and bounds and she's starting to get easier on so many levels but like many 3, almost 4 year old's, her knowledge and maturity bring with it a whole slew of other issues.  One thing I've started to talk to her about is bullying.  That she needs to talk nice to people and if someone doesn't talk nice to her its ok if she doesn't want to play with them but that is goes both ways.  While she doesn't always heed my advice, she sure is on the ball when I say something in a not so nice way.  Suffice to say Dwayne and I have been doing a lot of apologizing to one another for how we talk because Livy does NOT let us get a way with it.  A good reminder for us all.

Dwayne and I are doing well.  Dwayne just finished his first bike race of the season last weekend and we were there in full force to cheer him on (ok, we were at 2/3rds capacity as Payton was at home napping) but Livy and I were there for support.  We're all pretty happy he had a great race and Livy and I got to have our own little fun with the mini pump track they had on site.

Speaking of bikes.  Technically Livy can ride a pedal bike.  Officially she's not quite there yet.  With me as support she has ridden and stopped without support.  With Dwayne she's started and ridden without support.  She has not started, ridden and stopped yet all in one ride on her own but we're down the last final few efforts before she's there.  She's dealing with some fears at this point so its a gentle push to ride from us with her gently resisting...hopefully she'll find that last little bit of confidence and it won't be much longer.

As for me, I'm gearing up for my 1st Half Marathon in less than 2 weeks.  I've made it challenging for myself in that I signed up for a trail run half marathon.  I realized on an 18 km run (15 km on trails) that 21 km road run would be a relatively easy walk in the park compared to a 21 km trail run.  I'm not 100% sure I'll even be able to finish it, not because I don't have the energy but rather because my calves start to seize up around 15 km on the trails (something that's never happened even after 18 kms on the road).

So, time will tell.  Our household is healing from this last round of chest colds (Payton, Olivia and I are on the mend but Dwayne just started it yesterday) and hopefully this won't hinder me too much (I've taken 2 weeks off running).

I'll sign off with a few fun photos of our Hawaii trip last month.  A much needed trip away that Dwayne and I put in over time over the winter to squeeze in.  As our industry faces cutbacks we're still wondering if it was a good idea but we're very thankful for the wonderful memories we did get out of it.