Happy Baby!

Hooray!

I can stand!

Bunny (J. Wombatski) and Baby Bunny

Thankfulness Friday - New

One of the best thing about teaching is meeting new groups of students every fall, especially first year students.  I got a good group of freshmen in my Cells class... all 32 of them, bright eyed and bushy tailed, eager to learn.  Most of them have declared Biology majors with intentions of going to medical school.  Some will make it there.  Some will over the course of time decide that they really didn't like science after all.  That's OK.  College is the time to discover.

I've had a good full first week of school.  It started out a little shaky but came around very quickly.  We get Monday off for Labor Day.  It is really the end of the summer.

Muscles!

Baby Bunny's latest trick:  pulling herself up to stand in her crib! She's so proud of herself, too.   She's got a ginormous smile on her face and laughs.

I can feel her little leg muscles tighten up when she stands.

I've been building up some baby biceps myself!  Bun Bun is still around 16 pounds.  But, she's heavy enough for me to get a nice work-out every time I pick her up.

Oh yeah!

Thankfulness Friday - Last Week of Summer

It's not really the end of the summer.  It's the last week of summer vacation before classes start for the new school year.  Well, it's not really summer vacation, either.

When I tell people that I teach in the summer months, most assume that I'm on vacation.  I don't have classes to teach, but I am teaching students in my research lab.  Summer is when I get most of my research work done, and I've always had at least two students every summer in the lab.

This has been a crazy busy summer, but one that has been quite productive.  I did manage to take a few days off and spent them wisely with Bun Bun and Bun Bun's Daddy.  Some days, I just "worked from home" to savor the moments with Baby Bunny.

So, on Monday, classes will start.  I will be teaching two classes again - the Freshman Cells (Introductory Biology) class and the upper level Immunology class.  The Immunology class has a weekly lab, too.  I missed teaching them last fall with the arrival of Baby Bunny.  Hopefully, it'll just be like riding a bike.  I will see some returning students and meet the first year students.  I always liked the start of the fall semester more than the spring.

Thankfulness Friday - Straw

Straw?

For two weeks, I've been looking for a decent straw cup for Bun Bun.  Drinking from a straw is the next skill for Bun Bun to learn.  It has great benefits.  Sucking through a straw uses a different set of muscles in the jaw and lips as well as tongue movements than suckling through a nipple.  To activate and use these muscles will actually help with speech later on.

Bun Bun has been weened off the bottle.  She's been drinking through a sippy cup for several months now.  So, now, it's time to try the straw.

Yesterday, I bought some apple sauce in a pouch.  This way, she can wrap her little lips around the opening of the pouch, and I can squeeze the contents for her to get the idea that yummies come out of this strange thing.  After a few squeezes, she figured out how to suck.  It was pretty amazing how quickly she learned.

After looking through toy stores and on-line catalogs, I ordered some take-and-toss straw cups and a little Mr. Juice Bear straw cup.  They should arrive next week.  I think they'll be great!

Mac & Cheese

Mommy made me a silly hat from newspaper ads.

Mommy's baseball cap... it's too big!

Can you see my tooth?  Ain't it cute?

I like my new tooth!

I'm not much of a mac & cheese kind of gal even though I love food of all kinds.  It's just not something I would particularly crave.  Maybe because it's only got 2 or 3 ingredients and doesn't have too much taste.  A couple of weeks ago, we were at a friend's house for dinner where they were serving mac and cheese made by Annie's Homegrown.  Baby Bunny loved them.  Her little fingers were able to pick up the small little shells.  They were soft enough for her to mash up with her gums.  I've been buying them up recently to add more food variety to her diet.  Some end up on her lap and floor, but she ate most of what was on the plate.

We were at the Down Syndrome Growing Up study, conducted by CHOP, earlier today.  Bun Bun's stats will be part of new set of growth charts for individuals with DS.  Current charts are very much out-dated.  They are in their third year of collecting data.  Every time we visit and Bun Bun gets measured for weight, height, fat content, etc, she earns $25.  Yep.  Bun Bun has been earning money!  It's all for science, too!  Today, she weighed about 16.5 pounds.  She's been stuck around 16 pounds for months now.  She has been growing though.  Most of her calories goes to her stretching out vertically.  She is about 2 feet and 3 or 4 inches tall, slightly more than the 50th percentile in her DS peer group.

Thankfulness Friday - Sleep

For the last couple of nights, I have gotten some restful sleep.  For most of the summer, I've slept restlessly.  I think it's from the stresses at work.  So, I'm thankful to have had two back-to-back good night's rest.  I like sleeping, almost as much as I like eating.  It's an interesting activity, if you ask me.  It's great to be able to shut down for a few hours.  Everybody needs it, from small fruit flies to large whales.  No exception.  On the other hand, it doesn't make too much sense evolutionarily speaking.  Animals tend to be vulnerable to predators when they are asleep.  That's a question I'll have for God in heaven.

Sunday is a big day for me.  It'll be the start of my fourth decade.  I'm thankful to celebrate a birthday.  I could have shared it with Bun Bun.  That was her due date, too.  But, I'm glad she gets her own earlier in the summer.

Not much to update for Bun Bun's tooth.  It's definitely emerging, just taking its own time.

Tooth!

Yup!  That's a tooth.  I saw it with my own eyes!  I heard it, too!

Bun Bun has been drooling more than ever.  She's been biting and gnawing on anything she can get her hands on.  She hasn't been cranky, still pleasant and full of love.

Tooth?

Methinks Bun Bun is getting her first tooth.  Stay tuned!

Thankfulness Friday - 10 months.

In a week, Bun Bun will be 13 months old.  If I went by her due date, she'd be only 11.5 months old.  Over the past several week, her therapist have been testing her to see where she is developmentally, according to a set of guidelines with a long list of developmental milestones babies generally reach.  Bun Bun tested at about a 10-month-old.  We knew she'd be delayed with the Down Syndrome.  Her low muscle tone means most things would be harder for her.  Being 2-3 months behind really isn't terrible.  In fact, I'm thankful.  I'm thankful that I have to start chasing her down because she's belly crawling around the living room, getting into Daddy's stereo system, and finding dust bunnies under the sofa.  I'm thankful that she can sit up in her crib and entertain herself.  I'm thankful that she can pick up small food items and feed herself.  I'm thankful that she can tap the iPad to get the Zoo Zoo Safari animals to dance.  My heart melts when she smiles at me every time I walk through the door after work.  Bun Bun will have to work extra hard in everything she does.  She'll get there, in her own time.  I am thankful.