The Banks Family: Happy Halloween

Here are some of Claudia's new tricks: hitting two objects together, clasping her hands, smacking her lips, head banging people or her mirror, excitedly yelling "aah" at people especially babies and children, crying "ma ma" when she's unhappy, and eating lots more foods. She's eating oatmeal in the morning, crackers at daycare, and strained vegetables in the evenings. She continues to flutter her hands and arms a lot, but I think it's more to communicate than to balance because she sits up perfectly now. Her "da da" chatter and "aahs" in addition to her arm movements tend to increase the happier she is, so her mood is easy to read. Although, she's almost always happy except when she's sick. Which leads me to my next story, she got the another ear infection and a virus last week. It was awful. She had a fever between 101-103 and missed three days of daycare. It was stressful and hard for Glen & I because we were worried about her and just exhausted from taking care of her and juggling our work schedules. She would hardly sleep at all and there was lots of crying. Thankfully, it didn't seem to be the H1N1 flu because she never developed the dry cough and also we didn't get sick, so it must have been another variety that we were already immune to, thank goodness! It was bad timing because I did my first infusion of Remicade (to treat my ulcerative colitis) while she was right in the middle her illness, but I tolerated the treatment well and I have another one in 2 weeks.

We celebrated Claudia's first Halloween recently and she dressed up as a cheetah. My mom cooked us meat pie and chips "just for the fun of it" and we went trick or treating at a few houses. Claudia had her 6 month well child visit today (a little late because she's almost 7 months now) and she's in the 50th percentile for weight (16 pounds 4 oz) and 75th percentile for length (27 inches). We also got lucky and were able to get her the H1N1 vaccine today. Now I just need to track down one for myself. The hysteria over the vaccine is ridiculous. People are lining up for hours at pharmacies to get one and they're running out before most of the people can get it anyway.

Showing off one of her new tricks, clasping her hands.