Changing So Fast

Time is flying by so fast and things are changing all of the time. Maya is talking more, Ben is becoming more mobile, and unfortunately, Vinnie is getting older. I'll start with the bad news. I'm sure many of you are aware but I will reiterate. Lezlie took Vinnie to the vet a couple months ago for a routine checkup. Just when the checkup was about done, Lezlie thought to ask the vet about how Vinnie walks. We've noticed for quite awhile that he sometimes drags his feet. But, we simply thought that he was being lazy. But, for the past year, he has been slipping a lot on our kitchen and hallway floors. The vet watched him walked and noticed it right away. Long story short, after blood tests and x-rays, he has been diagnosed with Degenerative Mylopathy (DM). What does that mean? Basically, his nervous system is breaking down, and he is losing muscle mass and feeling in his hind quarters. Chances are, it will continue to get worse, but we're taking it in stride. Let's just say he's getting babied like you would never believe.Now, on to Maya. She is definitely talking a lot more. But, she still has her own pronunciations. For the life of me, I can't get her to say yes. Her pronunciation is "da". And, like every other toddler, she starting to ask the normal questions. "What's that?" and "Who's that?" is pronounced "dat?"Maya has also taken to a new Sesame Street book that goes over the ABCs. Our normal routine is to sing the ABC song and then go through the letters and speak the letters. She soon started to speak several of the letters without coaching. She gets lost around F and then again at M but once she gets on track again, she quickly continues. Finally, the other day, she sung the song with Lezlie. I know this isn't that big of a deal but as parents, we love to see progress in the little things.

We also have a peddler now. Last year, the first word out of her mouth after walking in the door was "outside". Now, it's "ride bike outside Dada" while nodding her head in a very influencing way. It is pretty cute to see her peddle around the cul-de-sac with a big smile on her face. Our Parents-as-Teachers lady said that when she can peddle, she will soon be able to poddy. So, two weeks ago, we took the plunge and started putting Maya in panties. She did okay at first. A couple times she started to go in her pants and finished in the toilet. But, most of the time she would just go. Fortunately, she told us right away so we know she got it. From there, she told us she had to go. We would race her to the bathroom and then she would say she didn't have to go anymore. And of course, 2 minutes later, she would go. But now, after only 2 weeks, I'm proud to say she hasn't had an accident in 3 days. She's going poop and pee in the poddy. We continue to ask her if she needs to go a lot. Not that we don't trust that she'll tell us. It's just that we're not sure there will be a bathroom close enough that she can hold it from the time of telling us to the time she goes. But, we are definitely very proud of her. It seems like so many of these big transitions have been so easy. Its almost like its training us more than its training her.

Last but not least, Ben. Lots of changes with him. He started crawling on June 24th and has been going strong ever since. Not surprising, he follows Maya and Vinnie around everywhere. No matter what, he always wants to play with what Maya is playing with. If she's playing with a puzzle, I can give him a puzzle and he'll still want to play with hers. So, the sibling rivalry has begun. She gets a little frustrated sometimes, but she is doing pretty good. Currently, for the most part, you can take whatever away from Ben without him fussing as long as you replace it with something else. So, when Ben gets something of hers, we simply ask her to get something else for Ben to play with. But I have a feeling that won't last too long.
Two weeks ago, Ben started pulling himself up. That reminds me, I need to lower his crib before he jumps out. He's even let go of what he's holding and stood for a few seconds. I'm betting he will be walking around furniture soon. But until then, I'm sure he'll continue his monkey stage of crawling all over us.
With all these changes, we have gone through a lot of sickness. He had double eye infections, some unexplained rashes, and black eyes that the doctor thought was either allergies or eczema. He's also had runny noses and had to go through breathing treatments a few times. We were going to try and get his 9 month pictures this weekend, but his eyes were black again so we had to cancel. But, they seem to be looking better today. Not knowing what the real cause of the sickness was, we did a lot of house cleaning, had Vinnie shaved, and have also made a much better effort keeping his skin moisturized. And, so far so good. I'm just praying that this all wasn't caused by a dog allergy.

When he is healthy, the nights aren't too bad. He still wakes up once a night, but most of the time, he has one span of 7 hours of sleep. And the doctor said that 7 hours is technically sleeping the night. But, we'd still like to see that change to 10 hours of sleep and no feedings.