Loving the baby pool!

Peyton's beautiful blue eyes!

Peyton "helping" me clean up.

Sorry I haven't updated in a a few weeks. We have been super busy with work and taking care of sweet Peyton. She is still doing great! We are working on eating solid foods and while she has progressed, we still have a ways to go. I am just amazed at how she completely lost her interest in baby food after she got sick. She is eating carrots, bananas, applesauce, and peas every now and then. She only finishes an entire container a few times a week, but it's progress. She does love her bottles though, boy! I think she has lost a little bit of weight, which is not too worrisome since she is incredibly active. She still looks like a chunky monkey!

She loves the baby pool we got her a few weeks ago; she is definitely a water baby. I am thinking it won't be long before her daddy teaches her how to surf! I believe she is not too far away from walking. She still gets a little nervous when I try to walk her with just one hand instead of having both of my hands in her hands. When I take one of my hands away, she immediately plops herself down. I wish she was always that careful! However, she has no fear looking over the side of the bed, ugh, and loves to rough house with the dogs (don't forget that in addition to our two very large dogs, my parents have three large dogs so she is constantly surrounded by huge puppies!). I already plucked one gray hair out the other day!

She is still sleeping pretty great. Usually goes down around 8 - 830 then wakes up about 8, so 12 hours which is awesome to us! Last Saturday she slept until 10 am!!! Amazing. Every now and then she does wake up in the middle of the night or she wants to stay up late with her mom and dad, but we cannot complain; we have been so blessed with her sleeping through the night since 6-8 weeks old.

On June 14th, my grandfather passed away. He had been suffering from Alzheimers for the past 7 years and it was incredibly difficult to watch him suffer from the disease. Although we are all devasated by his passing, I find myself relieved because I know he is in a much better place and is his happy self again. Grandpa was an incredibly independent man and it was so hard to watch him become so dependent on everyone and everything. He was a navy pilot for 20 years, even flying his own plane after his retirement. I always felt that he and I were extremely close and cherished every moment we had together. I am also so incredibly happy that I got to introduce him to Peyton last October. Peyton and I are flying down to Florida in July and I was hoping Grandpa would still be around then by unfortunately during his last few weeks, his health declined rapidly. Yet, I have some pictures of him with Peyton and I am truly blessed that I will be able to share them with Peyton as she grows up.

Ok, this is a rather poorly written entry but I am exhausted and should be getting to bed soon! I will update more later this week!

9 month check up

Peyton had her nine month check up on Wednesday and it went pretty well. She weighs 19 lbs and 13 oz (down to 60th percentile from 75th) and she is 27 inches long (30th percentile). So in other words, she is short and stocky! The did a fingerprick to check her hematocrit and calcium levels, and those are both good. I wasn't aware of this procedure, but they also took pictures of Peyton's eyes with a special camera to see if her eyes are developing normally; those results will take several weeks and I was told that if we didn't hear anything then everything is perfect. Pretty neat.

Developmentally Peyton is right on target. I discussed the whole eating finger foods then turning blue because she chokes so easily thing with the pediatrician and she was somewhat concerned since Peyton has also been less interested in eating stage two foods since she got really sick in the beginning of May. She said that Peyton may actually have reflux and that could also explain why she dropped from 75th to 60th percentile in weight. Obviously, Peyton is getting enough nutrition, especially since I have been offering more bottles with her decrease in foods so the pediatrician is not too worried. She laid out a plan regarding Peyton's diet and what it should be like at 12 months, and we will be working on that for now. Other than that, everything looks great!

Oh, I did forget to write an entry on Peyton's hearing test - she passed with flying colors except for two tests with her left ear (three tests were done on each ear, so a total of 6 tests in all). The audiologist believes it is because Peyton still has fluid behind the eardrum in her left ear from when she got really sick with the sinus and eye infections. So Peyton will have another hearing test done in 3-5 months just to make sure. We are fairly certain that Peyton's hearing is perfect, but as the pediatrician reminded me, we don't know what caused my hearing loss so we will have to watch Peyton's closesly.

Other than that, Peyton is doing fantastic and growing perfectly!