Happy St. Patty's Day to Grandpa and All of You

Okay, my Dad, Allie's Grandpa is the biggest Irish person I know. So, today, we took a few fun pictures and made a little video to wish him a wonderful St. Patty's Day. We love you, Grandpa. We hope everyone has the luck of the Irish with them today and everyday!

Did you catch it sounded like she tried to say Grandpa when she saw the picture? She is coming along!

We haven't been able to update you lately, we've been under the weather as you probably all saw from a recent post and we've been trying to raise awareness for Down syndrome in big ways. I'd say it is working, despite the fact we only need about 9,000 more votes to win. We are raising awareness just by having people look at the car and spread the word about Allie, so I'd say we met our goal.

Allie got a nice St. Patty's Day card from Grandpa and Granma and it came with a nice new $1 bill - that we promptly put in her bank. I'm not sure she was happy about that as she was enjoying playing with it. But, it is safe and sound now. We were sick the day we got the card, so it was a fun new thing to look at and we've continued to read it multiple times like it is a book. We are still trying to recover from this "fever virus" we have. Seems that is the most common thing for Allie to get. It could be worse as most of the kids in her class have recently had Strep Throat. But, it is still a bit exhausting for her and of course she doesn't eat as well when she is sick, so she has lost a little and is back to 16.8 pounds. Hopefully we can get this immune system of hers up a notch or two over the spring and summer

On the other side of things, I must repeat what you all already know - we believe in Sign Language! Last night, Allie's temp spiked again to 103 at about 3am. She was not happy and it was hard to help her get comfortable. At one point she sat up straight, looked at me and signed "Apple". I tried to tell her that it wasn't a good idea to eat right now, but she was so determined. She continued to sign "eat", "apple", "cracker", "drink", and "thirsty". I had been giving her small amounts of water, but would never have thought to give a sick child food in the middle of the night with a high temp. Because she was so adamant, we went to the kitchen and had an applesauce and cracker feast. She devoured it and it seemed to help her a lot. Without sign language, we probably would have had a temper tantrum on our hands all in the wee hours of the morning and with a high temp - would NOT have been fun. So, teaching children to sign really does work. (www.signingtime.com) I guess now is as good as a time as ever to also say that research has shown that teaching babies to sign does not delay language or cause them to not want to talk. In fact, it actually works the opposite way and encourages language skills. With Down syndrome babies, low muscle tone is often a factor. Learning to talk uses a lot of muscles and coordination, so we knew Allie would talk later than other babies. Then, add in her hearing loss and we knew there could be additional delays. So, it has worked wonderful for us and I'm confident it is not causing her to "not" want to talk. She is trying and making a lot more sounds these days. Plus, she is learning words and can read them, so we are in a win -win situation in my opinion.

Cheers to you from Allie and Family!

(Tim wishes you all the best, too, he is avoiding this stay at home sick day - he had the last full week of sick time - about 2 weeks ago)

A Glance Back at Our Baby:

2008 - 4 months 2009- 16 months old