Gemma at Friday's

Gemma had a great time at Fridays. Mostly she played with Hector, our manager's son. He is obsessed with Gemma, all summer our manager said that whenever they were at school Hector would ask if Gemma was coming.

Waiting patiently...


Gemma and Hector sharing a HUGE sundae (it was for the table, but they got first dibs). This was the only crying in the whole night; she was eating on her own and all of sudden started sobbing; "Cold!! Mama COLD!"

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Hanging around with Hector


This was the best! They would hug, then Hector would lean back, like he was picking her up. So Gemma would throw her legs around him and they would both laugh and laugh.

Gemma and Great Grandpa McKenzie

Here are some pics of Gemma with her Great Grandpa McKenzie. One is of this summer, playing patty-cake at the home. The other is of 6 month Gemma amazing Grandpa with her ability to...drool on empty thread spools strung together. He loved his grandbabies and great grand babies.

G'up!

So this is how Gemma woke Chris up two days ago:

"Chris! Chris, G'up!!"

(G'up is how Gemma says get up)

Ha ha!

Chris!

So we were having supper last night, the three of us, and Chris let out this enormous belch. I quickly admonished him, "Chris!" and Gemma immediately looked at him and said, "Chris!". We both sort of froze, wanting to laugh so bad but to not encourage her. It was so funny. I suspect we won't have that problem with 'Nevada'.

Word of the Day

Yesterday's new word was Mom-EE. Note the emphasis on the EE. Chris also got her to say fart, but it sounds a lot like this other four letter word that starts with f, so we won't be asking her to repeat that anytime soon. ;)

Last night we took her baby for a walk in its little stroller. She LOVES that stroller, it is hands down her favorite toy ever. (Thank you Kim and LInda and girls) We like to go outside and walk the baby. Down the elevator. Down the driveway. Down the street. On the weekend she had walked three city blocks with it until I finally made her turn around and come back. (She then had a tantrum; laying on her face on the sidewalk kind). Last night we took the baby to the park. It was so funny because she parked her little stroller right where I park the stroller, went down the slide once, and then wanted to leave. It was just so funny, we walked all the way to the park just to go down the slide once. We were about halfway home and then she decided she wanted to go back so we did. The baby went down the slide too. Gemma likes to go down the slide 'back' she calls it, actually, she lays down on her tummy and goes down feet first. I think she saw someone do that before. It's amazing what they will see once and remember. Like yesterday the babysitter said she was really insistent on having milk on her raisins. Well last week, I had put raisins in her cereal with the milk, and she must have remembered.

Gemma helping

Gemma was so cute yesterday! I was washing a few dishes and she wanted to "clean". So I put a chair up beside me and would give her the washed and rinsed dishes to put in the rack. It's amazing watching their little brains work. I put in one spoon the way I like them in the rack, handle down, eating part up. And she started to put one in the wrong way, saw what was already done, and switched it. She stacked all the bowls together nicely. She struggle to lift the big pot up, she's little too short yet, but it was so cute.

Then we were in her room listening to her 'songs' as she says (on her CD player). I have a wee sing tape and we LOVE it. I do the actions and she totally imitates me. Itsy Bitsy spider is her best one, she does it so well. It was just cute watching her try to do all the actions.

She spent the whole day with Daddy yesterday; 6am-6:30pm. I was away in meetings. Of course they did fine. Daddy painted her toes with nail polish. "toes..pritty!!"

Other vocab:

peeSA (pizza)
back (her back, and going backwards)
uhside dow (upside down)
money
toes
chin

The sicko recovers

So Thursday she threw up once and had diareah once. Friday she had diarreah 3 times, so I took her took the dr. again. He said as long as she is active and eating then not to worry yet, give the medicine a few more days. So that was good news. Today is Tuesday and only one diareah sonce the weekend, so I am assuming we are on doing ok.

Gemma is underweight. The dr. commented on this in April, just saying that her weight gain was really slow and we should watch it. It continued slow all through the spring and summer. I never really paid much attention to the growth chart thing a) because it was in Chiense so I didn't know what I was looking at, b) she seemed proportional; yes, she is light but she is short. Her face is still round, her belly stuck out like a pudgy baby belly, etc c) her development has been normal. She walks, plays, etc. So when we were in the doctor's office this week, after throwing up 7 times he said she is very underweight. So when I got home I looked her up online on the growth chart. She isn't even on the growth chart! Her height is in the 13th percentile, but her weight doens't even get onto the chart.

So I started doing some research on what to do. Obviously we don't want to fatten her up with just junk, but we want to ensure her daily requirements are being met. Especially with being sick so much lately; I want her to be as healthy as possible. Here are some things I learned

ok, I've been working on this post for three days and will never finish if I get started with that...moving on...

So what is our plan?
1) Keep better track of what she actually eats in a day
2) limit sugary snacks (which we mostly do, but more strictly) Sugar fills up without providing real calories. Also, too many snacks fill kids up and then they don't eat real meals properly.
3) adding new healthy foods to our diet. (ok, who am I kidding; HER diet) On the list to try is avocado, kidney beans, prunes, and cream. Yes, cream. I read that for underweight kids you should add cream, butter, or mayonnaise to whatever you can. I don't fully subscribe to that and will not be going crazy but adding a bit of butter to noodles or peas, or cream peas...we'll try it.
4) Pediasure. I bought a big can and will try to give her a glass a day.


Anyway, I hate being anal or over analytical and charting what she eats, etc, but we'll try for a few weeks and see what happens.

So as I said before, I've been working on this post for a few days so I can already give you a small update: She hates pediasure. Of course she does, it was like 20$ for the can. So instead of giving her a whole glass every day I am mixing 1 1/2 scoops with her milk. So in a day she is getting 3 scoops instead of five, but I can't figure out how else to give it to her covertly.
I also bought an avocado and mashed it up for her tonight for her chips (she loves nachos). Would she eat it? No, of course not. She had one bite.

UGGGGG!!!!!! How frustrating. Oh well. I am not going to make food a huge battle and give her all sorts of eating issues. We act very normal at meal times and don't force her too much. (More than we did before, because I've realized she quits eating before she is really full. If I insist on a few more bites she always puts them down easily.)

Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

Trip back to Taiwan

Here is a pic of Gemma cruisin' in the boat this summer. I will try to go backwards through the summer and give you some highlights through the next few weeks, but we'll start with the trip back to Taiwan.

Our trip started good. She slept great at Kala's, woke her to put her in the car at 3:45am, and had an uneventful drive in. Customs was busy but we were there early enough so it was no problem. (Calgary airport is EXTREMELY busy on those flights to LA, SanFran, etc. Not enough customs agents working and a tonne of flights al leaving at the same time) As we were standing to board the plane, right at the plane's door, she threw up. What a great way to start the day I thought, drat. Wrapped up her sweater, got on the plane. with a half hour left on that flight she threw up again. This time no salvaging the outfit. Stripped her down to her diaper, went to the bathroom and got as cleaned up as we could. I didn't have any extra clothes on hand because all oversized carry on had to be gate checked and put under the plane, so as soon as we were off the plane we got our bag and got her dressed again. Had a major cleanup in the real bathroom at the airport, rinsed the yucky clothes, etc, and waited around for our next flight. We had chicken noodle soup for lunch, trying to think of what would be healthy yet not hard on her stomach and she ate ok. Got on the next plane.

Well, those 12 hour flights just get longer and longer and longer. She slept a lot, which was good. I saved her some dinner, because I figured she would need to eat and she had just the carrots. After that she threw up 4 more times. She didn't even seem upset. She was acting normal. She would jut look at me weird, cough, and then blah. No crying or anything. By the time we landed she was in her last outfit. One more time and she would have had to wear her jacket and leg warmers off the plane! And, for good measure, she threw up in the car on the way home. Fortunately I was prepared and the beautiful car Chris had hired for us was spared (unlike the airplane pillows and blankets...)

She seemed ok at home, asking for milk, etc, and I cooked her some plain pasta. She had diareah twice. (can't spell it, sorry) Then at 8am she had the HUGEST puke I've ever seen (sensitive readers stop NOW). It was like a fountain. First it covered our Poang chair. Then she opened her mouth and more came out, all over her body and feet, till she was standing in a pool. It was very very very disgusting. Fortunately I had my loving husband home to assist me, so we got everything cleaned up. Since it had now been almost 48 hours without holding anything down it was off to the doctor for us.

He didn't have too much to say. He asked if she had had any recent illness and typed frantically as I relayed the last month for him. With all the visiting, other kids, hospital visit, traveling.... it was hard to pinpoint what the exact problem could be. He gave us lots of medicine and said to come back if she still can't eat later, or if she gets a fever. When you only weigh 20 lbs not eating for 2 days is a bit of a problem.

We bought some baby cereal, as Dr. recommended, and she has eaten a bit. Had some oatmeal this morning, and soda crackers, so my fingers are crossed. One runny diaper last night, but thats it, so hopefully she is on the mend. We so badly want to go visit Elias and Andy and Audrey but am too scared to contaminate with whatever bug she's got .

Now that we are back I will update frequently. Welcome back, loving readers!