All About Makenna: 13/14 Month Update

Makenna is officially 14 months old!  It amazes me how fast my baby is growing up.  In fact, some would even classify her as a "toddler" now!  How is that possible?

You may have noticed that I skipped her 13 month update.   That is because thankfully her 13th month of life was so uneventful that an update wasn't really necessary!  Literally nothing changed that month...which is fine by us! It is refreshing to get a little break from "crazy" every now and then.  We were happy that she just continued getting better and stronger at everything she had been doing.  That alone was enough to thrill and impress us everyday.



Month 14 on the other hand has been far more eventful.  It had it's share of ups and downs, but the best thing about this month was the fact she hit a special milestone---moving!  She still can't roll or crawl, but my clever little sweetie has mastered the booty scoot!  It is so wonderful seeing her scoot around and she is enjoying that fact she can finally go where she wants to go.  It has also brought the stress level in the house way down.  Before it was impossible to get things done around the house because it meant Makenna had to sit in the same spot for the entire time we were working.  She couldn't move unless we moved her, couldn't play with new toys unless we gave them to her, and let's face it, no 13 month old is going to be happy in that situation.  So she was getting increasingly fussy as time went on.  It's not like a 5 month old who can't crawl/roll/move, 13 month olds have desires and wants.  Their minds are programmed for exploration and independence, they don't like staying still!   So basically to do anything around the house I pretty much had to carry her around with me or listen to her crying and whining until I could come back and "recuse" her from her isolated boredom.  It was exhausting for both of us, and Rex too since he had to come home from a long day at work and do all the chores I couldn't do while holding and entertaining a baby.  But now it's so much better.  While I periodically get things done she can scoot around, moving from toy to toy.  She is enjoying the Christmas tree and we even turned the office into a playroom, so now she has more space to spread out!  Physically she is also getting stronger.  She can stand up while holding onto toys for short periods of time and if she is seated on the edge of a step she can usually lift herself into the standing position.  She can't standup on her own though, so when she does this I have to be there to catch and support her before she tumbles. One thing we also noticed this month is that Makenna gets unusually upset or scared when she tumbles over.  She isn't like most babies that shake it off and keep going.  If Makenna tumbles, falls, or bumps into anything, she completely breaks down into hysterics to the point that she has trouble catching her breath and is difficult to console.  She likes to be in control of her movement at all times and if looses control, even for a second, she is overcome with panic and fear.  We are working in PT on desensitizing her to the fear of falling because it is really holding her back from learning to stand, creep, crawl, and walk.  She also still can't go from laying down to sitting up, so this is also something we are working on in PT.

 

Another physical thing that has changed over the last two months are her teeth!  On her first birthday she had her bottom two teeth.  A week later her 3 back molars cut through, and then a week after that she got her front left tooth (6 teeth total).  Leave it to my silly girl to get her back molars before her front teeth!  Since 13m she hasn't gotten any new teeth, but I can feel another round of 3 about to cut through.





Fine motor skills continues to be one of her strengths.  She gets better and better at playing with toys each day.  It amazes me how quickly she learns to use each new toy she's given (playing the xylophone, throwing balls, hugging babies, pushing buttons, etc).  She loves to "read" stories and pretty much chooses books over toys every time.  Now that she can scoot, I often I will find her sitting on the floor with a book "reading" out loud to herself, turning pages, and pointing to the pictures.   She has delays with many OT type skills though, so they decided to begin giving her occupational therapy once a week.  This will help her learn to put objects in buckets, stack blocks, drink from open cups, use crayons and utensils, and those sort of things.


Communication during month 13 seemed to come to a screeching halt.  She stopped saying all of her words (including mama) and signs.  She continued to babble and make noises like crazy, but would just whine or point much of the time.  It was really worrying me, but my mom and her physical therapist both said that that often happens when kids are focused on another area, such as gross motor skills.   Thankfully they were right and now that Makenna is scooting she is back to talking again.  She can say mama, mom, hi, hey, and go.  She can also sign want, more, all done, I don't know, and hi/bye.  They have also decided to up her speech therapy to weekly now to help her continue to expand her vocabulary and learn to drink water without choking.  Makenna also genuinely communicates love now.  She loves to give spontaneous kisses and hugs (without being asked) and will often blow kisses when asked.  She gets exciting when her daddy comes home from work, and loves to FaceTime with her Grammy and Papa each night. She also constantly points to the door and says "go."  She loves getting out of the house to go shopping or for walks and has started to handle being in the car a lot more for short periods of time because she realizes it means we are going somewhere.  Makenna is also a very headstrong little girl, she already knows what she wants and doesn't like being told not to do something (when she is told "no" she will often look at you and scrunch her nose in dissatisfaction); however, she will almost always comply when we tell her to keep her hands off or not to do something.  She really just has the sweetest most sociable little personality.  She is a very loving and gentle baby.  She is also very sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others.  She makes friends everywhere we go and continues to inspire others.  She is also very calm and gentle towards things.  She doesn't hit, push, or pull things, but rather approaches everything in a sweet rather delicate fashion, I even let her play with regular (non board) books and my pop-up books because she is so gentle. 

Medically this was also a busy month!  She is still not sleeping through the night and wakes up every 30-60 minutes all night long. Most nights she goes right back to sleep after a wake up, but a couple nights a week she will stay up for 3-4 hours straight in the middle of the night.  In hopes of figuring out what is going on, she and I spent the night at the child neurology center several weeks ago.  They hooked her up to their electrodes and did a sleep study to analyze her brain waves and breathing while she sleeps.  We haven't gotten the results back yet, and the anticipation is killing me.  Part of me hopes they find a reason so that we can fix it and sleep better, but at the same time, I really hope there isn't a neurological reason.  Kids with hydrocephalus are prone to seizure in their sleep and also sleep apnea, both things I hope we don't have to deal with.  I hope we can eliminate both of those and discover it's just a bad habit she will grow out of!

This month she also had an allergy scratch test to officially determine if she is allergic to anything.  From that test we discovered she is pretty much allergic to everything.  Her list of allergies includes dairy, soy, corn, wheat, eggs, carrots, and apples.  We know she has severe reactions to milk and moderate reactions to carrots, apple, and soy, and she's never had egg...so we are avoiding all of those; however, corn and wheat we are just monitoring to see if she has any reactions.  So far she hasn't.  The pediatrician said to just continue allowing her to have them until her body tells us she shouldn't.  Fingers crossed it never will.  We have been limiting the amount of corn she receives though by not giving it to her directly.  She might have a little corn starch in a waffle or something, but we aren't giving her actual corn.  It's been a challenge to find a variety of toddler appropriate meals that fit within her diet parameters.  She is a little bit picky about texture and that really complicated things further.  She doesn't like to eat things that are too slimey such as bananas, peaches, and pears. She also won't use her hands to eat anything that would typically require a spoon, such as chili, mashed potatoes, or stews, so since refuses to allow us to spoon feed her, all of those food typically go uneaten.  Thankfully she is doing great for weight and getting the nutrition she needs.  We are working on teaching her to use a spoon, so once she gets the hang of that it should open up more options.

This month we also had another medical scare that landed us back in an ambulance on the way to Gainesville.  Makenna had been a bit more fussy than usual all day and went to sleep at 5:30pm (instead of 7).  She slept until 9 (3.5 hours straight..absolutely unheard of for her) and then woke up screaming.  I tried everything to calm her down, but she refused to nurse and didn't want to cuddle or anything.  As I began walking her around the house her body got really stiff and she refused to bend her legs at all.  I remembered that stiff joints, being irritable, and sleeping more than usual were all signs of a shunt malfunction, so I tried calling Shands on-call neurosurgeons.  I guess it was a busy night (the Tuesday before thanksgiving) because I couldn't get anyone to answer (that's never happened before).  So we decided to take her to the emergency room.  We went to get into the car and discovered that the key was missing and the spare didn't work...so her carseat was locked in the car.  We spent 30 minutes searching for the key, and as we did her screaming got louder and louder.  Finally we gave up on the keys and called an ambulance to take us to the hospital.  As soon as they arrived she started throwing up, another sign of a shunt malfunction.  By 10:30 we were at the hospital and my poor baby, still screaming, was being poked and prodded once again.  Two blood draws, a urine cath, and a CT scan later, the small country hospital had done all they could do.  The CT scan showed she had "marked hydrocephalus" but the radiologist they use in Tampa couldn't see her previous scans and had know way of knowing if the marked hydrocephalus was Makenna's normal or if it meant there was a problem with her shunt.  So they called Shands and Shands said they wanted to see her.  We were great with that because we love it there and if anyone is going to be entrusted with our child's brain, it's them.  Unfortunately rainy weather made it impossible to fly to Shands, so we had to spend the night in triage at the local ER until an ambulance was available the next morning.  10 hours later we began the 5 hour drive to Gainesville.  Thankfully though by morning she seemed to be getting better.  She wasn't crying, but she also still wasn't bending her legs.  Anyway, once there, after another excruciating blood draw and unsuccessful IV attempt, they determined her shunt was functioning properly.  They decided not to admit her because of all the germs in the hospital and instead asked us to spend the night in town and monitor her ourselves.   We don't know exactly what happened, but thankfully she is doing fine now.  Either way it worked out because we were able to spend the day before Thanksgiving with some of the people we are most thankful for!  Thanksgiving day we drove home, stopping to eat our Thanksgiving dinner at the same Ruby Tuesdays we went to on the way home from our consultation visit with Dr. Kay's while I was pregnant.  We might not have had the feast we planned for that day, but it didn't matter because we have Makenna.  The last time we ate there, there was a 50/50 chance we'd never get to experience sharing a meal with her, the future of our family was so unknown, yet here we are!  14 months and 14 trips to Gainesville later...eating together as one little happy family!  There may be a lot of bumps along the way, life may be super crazy, but we are blessed beyond belief.

 

Height:  31 inches

Weight:  21 pound 4 ounces

Eyes:   Brownish-green

Hair:  Light brown, getting thicker, and shockingly long!

Clothes:  Starting to be too be to tall for 12 month pants.

Diapers:  Still using cloth, but she fits in size 3.

Food:  Still loving her mommy milk! She also likes noodles, turkey (most meat really), gnocchi, watermelon, and bread.

Sleep:   Still getting up many times a night. 

Shoes:  Her feet are 3.25 inches long.  She fits size 2 for length, but her feet are too chubby for them.  Size 3 are way too big and mostly all fall off. 

Favorites:   Makenna loves her baby dolls, balls, "little people," and things she's not supposed to have (cell phones, remotes, pieces of paper, etc.)  Also loves books.