Things are really Calming Down

There isn't too much going on at the Hendrickson house lately. It seems like Chloe's medical concerns have sort of plateaued for the time being. We only had one doctor's appointment last week and that was her 9 month check-up. It felt like such a normal week! Freaky!

Her new contact has stayed in place for a week and a half. Yeah! I only have to take it out once every four nights and Chloe doesn't mind the in and out so bad since I don't do it very often. We go to the Optho on Wednesday so they can test her vision. I'm curious to know what they'll say...
She has accompanied Solana and me to a few stores and even Solana's end of the year picnic for Pre-School. (My sweet girl is going into Kindergarten. Sniff Sniff.) We go a little crazy with the antibacterial wipes during outings and I only had to offend one mother at the picnic who decided to hold Chloe's hand without asking (I actually felt kind of bad about saying something. I tried to be really nice about it but just couldn't hold my tongue...)

Chloe now rolls over every time she's placed on her belly. This is a great success - something we've been working on for months. It's her new cool trick and we love watching her perform it. She'll do it over and over and looks so proud of herself when she lands on her back. The only downside is that I count on tummy time to be "off the back of her head" time. I think most kids her age are sitting readily but Chloe's always laying on her back (unless I'm holding her, of course, and I do that A LOT). The back of her head's a tad bit flat, though. I asked the Ped yesterday and she said it's not bad and not to worry. I suppose I won't worry but I still try to keep her off her back as much as possible. Leticia sent us a Bumbo. I was excited to use it - not so much as sitting practice (it doesn't really work those muscles) but at least as a way to get her in the sitting position and off her back. Our little turkey will have no part of it, though. She arches her back and throws herself back in order to get out of it. She's strong! We're working on sitting exercises every day, though. She'll get it eventually. In the meantime I'll be working on getting over my obsession with the back of her head. Her hair will cover it eventually, right? :-)

We've been spending a lot of time at home. Dave has plenty of work to do in our yard. We bought a house on an acre lot and it's all yard. This is three times the lot we had in Colorado and we love it! We have lots of mature trees and it's like a private park/getaway in our own backyard - which is nice since we spend most of our time at home. I have a vegetable garden going with tomatoes, zucchini, garlic, onions, brussel sprouts, cucumber, potatoes, kale, spinach, lettuce, pumpkins, watermelon, and herbs. I just set up my new compost heap today - kind of bummed that I didn't have any compost to work into my garden for this year but if I can get it hot enough I should have some ready to work in this summer. This will help my veggies grow better and tastier!

We also set up a bird feeder in the back yard. I have a perfect view from where I sit and feed Chloe. So far we've identified 11 species of birds at our feeder. Plus squirrels, who love our birdseed. I started throwing peanuts our for the squirrels to lure them away from the bird feeder. They haven't gone for the peanuts but the chipmunks under our deck have. Let me tell you something: Chipmunks are just about the cutest creatures I've ever seen. If you've ever considered bird watching I highly recommend it. You just may get a surprise! Our book is called Birds of Ohio Field Guide, by Stan Tekiela. It's organized by color so you can easily look up the bird you've seen. We've had so much fun. And Solana totally gets into it, too. Once we learn a bird she squeals to tell us when it's back and she loves flipping through the book to find a bird she sees on the feeder.

That's about our lives in a nutshell. We've had friends over a couple of times so we do manage to socialize a bit. Dave's setting up our old tent and is having a campout with Solana tomorrow. The neighbors are even coming over for hot dogs and s'mores. We're very excited about the s'mores :-)