Side note - Jason started this blog as a way to keep family updated on Rachel's life as she grew. It has now transformed into somewhat of a journal that I (Meggan) write as Jason is too busy and I enjoy it. This blog entry is honest, from the heart, and perhaps written more for me to decompress than it is to be a happy line of communication to our family and friends.
Thurs Oct 13th was Rachel's first birthday! Wow. We did not do anything different than any other Thursday, except that Rachel wore her black and pink PUMA tracksuit and a clip in her hair, and looked very old :)
Today, Oct 14th, she went to the doctor for her 12 month check up and immunizations. We really like our new doctor and the clinic. I felt like we had time with our doctor and that she listened, asked questions, etc. However, there are a few concerning things going on with Rachel. The most significant is that she has only gained a few ounces of weight in the last four months. She weighs a mere 17lbs. Her head is growing fine. Her length continues to be around the 75th percentile. But her weight has gone down from the 50th percentile to the 2nd percentile. The doctor had some significant concerns about this, since a drastic change in growth is considerably more alarming than being consistently small.
For a first time mom, this is anxiety-provoking news. I had suspected Rachel wasn't gaining weight well. I am keen to explore tests and options. But when the doctor said that Rachel was "...failing to thrive..." I nearly burst into tears. I know what the doctor meant by this in terms of weight and nutrition. But the emotional response was still significant when I heard this particular phrase.
FTT is the medical abbreviation for 'failure to thrive'. In my experience as a physical therapist, I have seen this written on many charts. There are mainly two populations that I have seen it written as: struggling newborns who are really sick, and elderly patients near the end of life who are not eating and are also very ill. Obviously the doctor did not mean to lump Rachel into either of these categories, and she didn't even mean that Rachel is very sick. But I still want to scream "Rachel IS thriving! She's a happy girl! She will giggle and learn and explore and clap and kiss you and color with a crayon and try to walk!"
I'm trying to get past this phrase, since it's really just an issue of semantics.
So we're going to have some blood, urine, and allergy testing done. And we had a discussion about Rachel's eating habits, and came up with options for trying to get her to pack on some more pounds. Basically now we have one month to try to get Rachel to eat and drink as much as possible to hope that she will put on some weight.
For those of you who have had the pleasure of eating with Rachel, you may be shocked. Rachel can really pack it away. She eats all the time. A great breakfast, lunch, and dinner and breast milk and she snacks almost all the time that she's awake. It's going to be a real challenge to try and get MORE into her, since I already feel like most of my energy in a day goes toward getting her food ready and satisfying her non-stop hunger.
(And let's not forget that Rachel's Daddy eats non-stop and gets pretty darn grumpy if he doesn't eat every few hours!)
Perhaps it is because I'm now a full time mother, and do not have too many other things going on in my life - I think this puts a bit more pressure on me to do a good job of being a parent because it's all I do. Or perhaps it's because I've attached a lot of pride to making almost all of Rachel's food and helping her eat well. Maybe it's because she has been a frequent eater since she was born and hasn't stopped eating since! But I'm absolutely crushed to think that we've worked so hard to help her eat and (eat and eat and) eat well when she eats... and that it hasn't been good enough.
I have a tiny bit more insight now into how emotional it must be for my brother Jeff and sister-in-law Janelle to have 2/3 children with Celiac disease. I've always known it would be a lot of work and expense, but the emotion tied to health and to food is intense.
The other tough part for me to swallow is that I likely haven't been providing Rachel with enough breast milk. Hopefully this is all that is going on, and now that she has started drinking whole milk she will get more and catch up. But when we discussed how much milk Rachel should have been getting in a day, there was no way that we were getting her enough. I feel terrible about this! Particularly since Rachel has always fed more frequently than her peers, and in August I actually worked hard to get her DOWN to three sessions of nursing a day. Now I'm going to see if I can zip back UP to four sessions! It is possible that training for a marathon was not the healthiest thing for me in terms of milk supply and being a nursing mother.
So... cross your fingers that Rachel eats and drinks non-stop for the next month, puts on some weight, and comes to her next doctor's appointment giggling and thriving!
Tonight, Pops (my Dad) arrives in town and Saturday we're going to have a casual birthday celebration at the park with Rachel's friends. Pictures after that, I promise.
Also, my very fantastic friend Jehanne will marry her handsome groom Nick tomorrow in Tofino, and I'm sending them excellent vibes for a brilliant wedding day!
October 14, 2011
October 10, 2011
Independence Pass Weekend
We woke up Saturday morning to open the curtains, look outside, and see that snow had fallen on the local mountains. SNOW!!!! What a great way to start a weekend road trip to Aspen and Independence Pass to see the fall leaves and colours. Our goals were to explore our state, see the big mountains, and try to do so without spending any extra money.
(Note - now that I'm living in the USA, I may start having to spell 'colors' instead... but for now I'm going to keep the 'u' because I know my Dad would like it better that way.)
Anyway, Rachel woke up at 5:15am and it still took us until 8am to leave the house. We didn't even need any particular gear for this weekend but it seems to take us an incredible amount of time to pack up food and extra layers. Maybe other families who don't eat as much or aren't afraid of getting cold don't take as long to pack up. We'll have to work on getting out the door faster for ski days.
The pictures for this weekend can be found here
So, we started driving south from Boulder to Golden and it started snowing! Yipee!! I (Meggan) drove up to Summit County to practice driving I-70 in the snow while we had extra time and the highway was not busy. We learned that it only takes 90 min or so to get to the Summit area, which was less than we thought and made us excited about ski days. We drove to Copper Mountain Village to play in the snow. The snow blowers were on as the mountains in this state all race to try and claim first opening day. Wolf Creek won this year, by the way, after a recent 3 foot dumping of snow. We expect some mountains locally (well, if we can call the Summit area local) to open Oct 21st.
Rachel was not old enough last year to interact with the snow. This year, she decided to pick some up and see what it felt like. She picked it up, shook it around, and then cried (we assume this was because it was cold and she refuses to keep gloves on her hands.) Then she repeated this whole process several times. Take a look: VIDEO
We drove onward through Vail and stopped at a rest area to enjoy our picnic lunch. Rachel tried to get peanut butter all over the car, tried to spoon feed herself beans, and then had a dance party in the front seat.
VIDEOS:
Through Glenwood Springs and south we headed to Aspen. Aspen had far less snow than the Summit County mountains, and generally seemed a bit shut down for shoulder season. We went for a nice walk through the river parkway, including a John Denver memorial, and past a lovely bench with the inscription:
"Cairns guiding us along life's journey". This made us really excited, since we had a cairn as our wedding altar and a theme for us has been about cairns guiding us through our various stages and adventures. We played in the park with Rachel and had fun with the slide.
We left Aspen and drove up Independence Pass, heading east toward Leadville. This highway is narrow and windy and will be closed for the winter season shortly. Rachel slept through the gorgeous mountain peaks. At the summit of 12,095, we got out quickly to enjoy the view and then headed down toward Twin Lakes. This area is full of '14ers', including Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive. We arrived at our $65 cabin in time to cook a spaghetti dinner and play before an early bedtime. Rachel slept soundly from 7:30pm until 6am, which was a huge treat, especially considering she was in her travel crib.
Sunday morning we warmed up our frosty car, checked out and headed south to Buena Vista. Jason used to do rafting trips there while working at the BOEC, so he showed me around. The '14ers' of Mt. Harvard, Oxford, Princeton, and Yale were in sight and towered majestically over the flat ranch valley. We checked out some old favorite camping spots of Jason's, and then turned back north toward Leadville.
We had hoped to find a fun run or hike to do in Leadville - the highest city in CO. Jason will one day run the Leadville 100miler running race there, I'm sure. However, Leadville was... well... ugly. And cold. And pretty snowy. It's a has-been mining town with nothing to really offer, so we drove through and landed in Frisco. We went for a 3 mile run near Lake Dillon and dreamed about owning a cabin in the area some day. We were pretty happy that we survived a run at 9000ft and then had a picnic at a playground. Our friend (Jason's old roomate) Angela joined us for a visit, and then we drove home to Boulder.
(Note - now that I'm living in the USA, I may start having to spell 'colors' instead... but for now I'm going to keep the 'u' because I know my Dad would like it better that way.)
Anyway, Rachel woke up at 5:15am and it still took us until 8am to leave the house. We didn't even need any particular gear for this weekend but it seems to take us an incredible amount of time to pack up food and extra layers. Maybe other families who don't eat as much or aren't afraid of getting cold don't take as long to pack up. We'll have to work on getting out the door faster for ski days.
The pictures for this weekend can be found here
So, we started driving south from Boulder to Golden and it started snowing! Yipee!! I (Meggan) drove up to Summit County to practice driving I-70 in the snow while we had extra time and the highway was not busy. We learned that it only takes 90 min or so to get to the Summit area, which was less than we thought and made us excited about ski days. We drove to Copper Mountain Village to play in the snow. The snow blowers were on as the mountains in this state all race to try and claim first opening day. Wolf Creek won this year, by the way, after a recent 3 foot dumping of snow. We expect some mountains locally (well, if we can call the Summit area local) to open Oct 21st.
 |
| Rachel walks at lunch in full pink |
We drove onward through Vail and stopped at a rest area to enjoy our picnic lunch. Rachel tried to get peanut butter all over the car, tried to spoon feed herself beans, and then had a dance party in the front seat.
VIDEOS:
Through Glenwood Springs and south we headed to Aspen. Aspen had far less snow than the Summit County mountains, and generally seemed a bit shut down for shoulder season. We went for a nice walk through the river parkway, including a John Denver memorial, and past a lovely bench with the inscription:
"Cairns guiding us along life's journey". This made us really excited, since we had a cairn as our wedding altar and a theme for us has been about cairns guiding us through our various stages and adventures. We played in the park with Rachel and had fun with the slide.
We left Aspen and drove up Independence Pass, heading east toward Leadville. This highway is narrow and windy and will be closed for the winter season shortly. Rachel slept through the gorgeous mountain peaks. At the summit of 12,095, we got out quickly to enjoy the view and then headed down toward Twin Lakes. This area is full of '14ers', including Mt. Elbert and Mt. Massive. We arrived at our $65 cabin in time to cook a spaghetti dinner and play before an early bedtime. Rachel slept soundly from 7:30pm until 6am, which was a huge treat, especially considering she was in her travel crib.
 |
| Breakfast in our cute cabin |
 |
| MOJO puffy jackets at Mt. Princeton / Buena Vista CO |
We had hoped to find a fun run or hike to do in Leadville - the highest city in CO. Jason will one day run the Leadville 100miler running race there, I'm sure. However, Leadville was... well... ugly. And cold. And pretty snowy. It's a has-been mining town with nothing to really offer, so we drove through and landed in Frisco. We went for a 3 mile run near Lake Dillon and dreamed about owning a cabin in the area some day. We were pretty happy that we survived a run at 9000ft and then had a picnic at a playground. Our friend (Jason's old roomate) Angela joined us for a visit, and then we drove home to Boulder.
The new family addition
After the last post, you'll all be happy to know that sleep has significantly improved. We haven't done anything differently, but Rachel is napping during the day and sleeping quite well at night and we're thrilled.
It appears that we have a new addition to the family. No... we're not expecting another baby. But Rachel has decided that her stuffed bear (who we call 'Bear') must now come with her just about everywhere. She can't say many words yet... but she can point and say 'uh uh' or cry and point or crawl or walk with help over to where bear is, and make the helping adult get bear to come to breakfast, lunch, or dinner, bedtime, stroller trips, or car rides.
Other fun things Rachel is really into:
- trying to flush the toilet
- puzzles (like the wooden ones with handles that remove and replace the animal into its proper space)
- learning body parts
- giving kisses, blowing kisses, and giving hugs
- lift the flap books
- pumpkins
- walking
Like most skills, Rachel hasn't exactly walked on her own yet. She has taken 1 independent step several times, but this has been when she's let go of one object and throws herself forward toward another object and grabs it to save herself. She does want an adult or a stroller to help her walk around and around and around for hours and hours... so because of this, we're looking forward to her figuring out how to do it all by herself.
The last point to update is that Rachel is still very clingy. She wants her mamma all the time and is pretty upset when mamma goes more than 1 foot away from her. We've had many upset moments trying to leave Rachel with other people while mommy tries to do something else... and we're hoping that bear can serve to replace mommy as mommy can't always have Rachel attached to her. At the moment, Rachel cries even if her mamma puts her down long enough to stand back and take her picture, which is what happened in many of the 'pumpkin patch' pictures.
For those of you who haven't seen recent photos of Rachel or our other adventures, check out:
- Hike in Rocky Mtn National Park Oct 2
- recent pictures of Rachel
- pumpkin patch
It appears that we have a new addition to the family. No... we're not expecting another baby. But Rachel has decided that her stuffed bear (who we call 'Bear') must now come with her just about everywhere. She can't say many words yet... but she can point and say 'uh uh' or cry and point or crawl or walk with help over to where bear is, and make the helping adult get bear to come to breakfast, lunch, or dinner, bedtime, stroller trips, or car rides.
Other fun things Rachel is really into:
- trying to flush the toilet
- puzzles (like the wooden ones with handles that remove and replace the animal into its proper space)
- learning body parts
- giving kisses, blowing kisses, and giving hugs
- lift the flap books
- pumpkins
- walking
Like most skills, Rachel hasn't exactly walked on her own yet. She has taken 1 independent step several times, but this has been when she's let go of one object and throws herself forward toward another object and grabs it to save herself. She does want an adult or a stroller to help her walk around and around and around for hours and hours... so because of this, we're looking forward to her figuring out how to do it all by herself.
The last point to update is that Rachel is still very clingy. She wants her mamma all the time and is pretty upset when mamma goes more than 1 foot away from her. We've had many upset moments trying to leave Rachel with other people while mommy tries to do something else... and we're hoping that bear can serve to replace mommy as mommy can't always have Rachel attached to her. At the moment, Rachel cries even if her mamma puts her down long enough to stand back and take her picture, which is what happened in many of the 'pumpkin patch' pictures.
For those of you who haven't seen recent photos of Rachel or our other adventures, check out:
- Hike in Rocky Mtn National Park Oct 2
- recent pictures of Rachel
- pumpkin patch
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