Seven Month Post

Dear Hannah, 


You are SEVEN months old! WOW! Another month has come and gone. Our sweet baby girl is growing up. This month has been jam packed for us. 

We've had a lot of visitors over the past month. Aunt Susie and Megan came to visit. We had so much fun showing them around Chicago. They were able to stay for five days. Megan got to go to story time with you and of course we took them to the aquarium! 

Mimi and Smooth came to stay with you and Daddy while I went to Boston to host a shower for Auntie Jo jo. This was my first time being in a place where I couldn't easily get back to you. You did wonderful and I hear Daddy and Mimi did a wonderful job keeping an eye on you. 

You finished up the lap-sit library music class. We met some great kids and hopefully will be able to continue meeting with the group throughout the summer

You took your second flight and your first alone with Daddy. Daisy and I drove to Grandmommy and Grandaddy's and you and Daddy flew(and first class at that!). Daddy said you were very well behaved. He fed you and then you fell asleep for the majority of the flight. 


You've really taken well to starting solid foods. So far, you've tried: rice cereal, oatmeal, multi-grain cereal, butternut squash, yellow squash, sweet potato, white potato, carrots, corn, green beans, sweet peas, asparagus, prunes, pears, apples, eggplant, mango, pumpkin, banana and avocado. You've loved them all! You had a tricky time with green beans at first, but now they don't seem to phase you. You are an excellent eater! So far, you haven't had an allergic reaction to anything and honestly, I don't expect that you will. 

You have three teeth,  bottom middle two and one top tooth. You have a second top tooth trying to break through.   


You are extremely close to crawling. I'm not sure I'm ready for it. You try your hardest to crawl during tummy time, but end up scooting backwards. You are bringing your knees up to your chest and are pushing forward. It's just a matter of time before you figure out how to coordinate your movements to propel yourself forwards. 

You have definitely found your voice this month. Your cousins, Megan and Max, are very social. You've always been more reserved, but have decided that talking is fun! You babble and scream and laugh till your heart is content. 


You study everything you come in contact with. You examine objects and try to figure out how they work. You study faces when people talk to you and try so hard to shape your mouth and make words. No noise comes out, right now you're just mimicking lip shapes. 

You really enjoy the great outdoors. Mimi discovered simply taking you outside during fussy periods calmed you right down. Since then, I've been taking you outside the hour before we start your bed time routine. 

We took you to the zoo for the first time this month. We took your cousin Max and met up with Hudson and Amanda. It was fun looking at all the animals. 

You also attended your first Clemson sporting event, a baseball game, with Grandaddy. WE dressed you in your cheerleading outfit and you cheered the tigers to victory!

You had your second visit to the pediatric opthamologist this month. The doctor is keeping watch on a potential partially clogged tear duct. She doesn't think it will be an issue moving forward, but we have a third (and hopefully final) visit when your 11 months just to be sure.  


We did some measurements on you and you weigh 19 lbs with all your clothes on and are about 26.5 inches long. 

You are a very well adjusted girl and generally happy. You had a bit of stranger anxiety when you first arrived in SC, but we're chalking it up to a new environment and you wanting to cling to the only things familiar to you. You wanted nothing to do with Grandaddy, Uncle Bill and Mr. Adam the first two days you were in SC. You haven't had an issue in over a week and you've certainly been passed around. 

Daisy's Surgery

Our sweet Daisy had major surgery last Tuesday. Over Christmas, Daisy was out in the yard playing ball. She was having a wonderful time, running full force as she always does. On one of her trips back, she came hobbling in on three legs. We took her to the vet and he diagnosed her as having a torn meniscus and lead us to believe it would heal on it's own in 8-10 weeks. 

Weeks passed with no relief in sight for Daisy. We finally took her to another vet for a second opinion. This time, we were told Daisy had blown her knee. Yep, she had a complete ACL tear which would require major surgery. After much discussion, Wes and I opted to have the surgery in SC. Wes' travel schedule was jam packed for the month of April and I needed extra help taking care of both Hannah and Daisy. Luckily, Wes had a flight booked to Atlanta for the Masters. We added infant in arms to his ticket and I drove Daisy from Chicago to Clemson. 

Daisy had her initial consult the Friday we arrived in town. Unfortunately, Daisy had a more complicated injury than we thought and required the expertise of a specialist to fix. We took her to see the good folks at Upstate Veterinary Specialists on Tuesday. Her official diagnosis was a full ACL tear and a major tear of the meniscus. She had surgery that afternoon.  Apparently, Daisy's knees are at a 32 degree angle. This puts Daisy at a much higher risk for ACL tears. Normal dogs have 25 degree angles in their knees. We'll have to be extremely careful in the future with her activity to protect her right knee. 

The surgery isn't like what they'd perform in a human. The surgery performed on Daisy actually changed the angle of her knee by sawing and pulling a portion of the bone in her knee forward, placing a metal "cage" in that area and securing it with bone grafts. Eventually, scar tissue will also form and that will stabilize her knee. 

Pretty gruesome, huh? I think Daisy was more mortified about her hair cut. 

Recovery is 8-12 weeks. Daisy is doing fantastic! The first few days were tough, but it's been over a week and she's back to her old self. This isn't the best news for me as she's very energetic. Daisy goes all out, all the time. Yeah bud, you still have at least 6.5 more weeks of "bed rest" to go.