1 Year Check Up

May 5, 2008: Casey had her one year doctor appointment today. She was 29 3/4 inches tall which is 71st percentile and only 19 pounds 2 ounces which is the 18th percentile. Still long and lean. I was hoping she would weigh 20 pounds so we could turn her car seat around, but not quite yet I guess. We got the OK to start her on cow's milk. We chose Hood whole milk which is growth hormone free. For now I am combining it with formula and will slowly switch the proportions similar to how we did it when we went from breast milk to formula. After much research and thought I opted not to give her any of the shots offered at the one year appointment. We did not do the MMR, chicken pox, or Hep A shot. I am going to wait a few years for the MMR and we'll see when we do the chicken pox. Hep A is only really necessary if you are going to travel outside the country. On the subject of health choices we are also on BPA free bottles for Casey, we use the Born Free company. We switched about 6months ago when the news started coming out. My concern is that we make her formula with bottled water and the water has most likely already been exposed to plastics from the Poland Springs bottles for much longer than the 10 minutes it actually sits in her baby bottle. Oh well, hopefully the media attention will bring some more changes to help this. Besides all that she got a glowing report and seems to be very healthy.

Happy Birthday Baby!!

April 30, 2008: It has been an amazing first year with Casey. Her birthday was fun, but in reality she has no clue what was going on. Lala and Eddie came up to visit for the birthday. We made Casey the same cake that I had on my first birthday, a yellow cake with white icing in the shape of a bunny. She put her fingers into the piece we gave her but refused to try even a bite. We thought maybe she was full from lunch so we tried again later and the next day but she still wanted nothing to do with the cake. So there will be no classic icing all over the face pictures for her albums! Besides her actual birthday it has just been such a fun time with her lately. She is a full-time, confident walker now and does not crawl anymore at all. With the arrival of spring and her walking it has been great to play outside. She loves the swings and usually cries when we take her out. She loves being outside and loves getting dirty. We go through several outfits a day. She is "talking" so much more and makes lots of sounds. She has finally picked up on the sign language. We did the sign for "more" for almost 6 months before she really started doing it back to us and now we barely have to sign something at all before she learns a new one. She is doing more, milk, help, & food and I am starting on diaper change. Her 7th tooth is about to come out and there are three more that are very swollen and ready. Her naps have been great for the past 2 months, maybe the walking tires her out more. We go for her 1 year check up in a few days so I will report back on her height and weight. After her check up we will hopefully have the go ahead to turn her car seat around and also to start up on regular cow's milk instead of formula. It is very hard to believe that one year has already gone by since Casey was born. There were times when minutes seemed like hours, but all in all it seems to have gone by in the blink of an eye. It has been a great year for me and James and we feel very blessed to have such a happy and healthy girl. Here are some pictures of her gifts and cake experience.