Bad Mommy Blogger, VERY bad Mommy Blogger

Here are some pictures of Maryam at the park from earlier in the week. I've been REALLY bad about taking pictures lately. These pictures were actually taken on my Black Berry, that's why they aren't the best quality. I keep forgetting to bring the camera with me to the park. And on days that I do remember to bring it, I leave it in the car. DUH!

Here is a picture of Maryam being proud of herself because she walked up the stairs, crawled through the mouse tunnel and stood up with little help from Mommy or Daddy. What you don't see is that shortly after this, she went down the slide by herself! Hooray for Maryam!

Here is Maryam helping Daddy push the stroller back to the car. I think its time to buy her a little toy stroller to push a dolly around in. I think she might be ready.

Here is Daddy carrying Maryam to the car when she decided it would be more fun to run back towards the play ground instead of towards the car! Daddy ran and got her and thought keeping her feet away from the ground might make it easier for us to get her in the car. She does not like when its time to leave.
Winter time, quarantine time, lock down time, seclusion, sequester....whatever you want to call this time of the year is often referred to by me as STIR CRAZY TIME. And I know I'm not alone, many preemie mommies and mommies to "medically fragile" children or "special needs" children feel the same way. None of us want to endanger the lives or health of our babies, but we need grown-up interaction. Or just time out of the house!
I've been REALLY bad this winter. Technically, Maryam's "quarantine" is supposed to start at the beginning of RSV season, which depending on which region of the country you're in, usually starts in October some time. Maryam had her first Synagis shot on October 13, so Brett and I decided that would be the date to start her lock down. Well, since then, I've take her out to Target at least 3 times, Walmart once, the Exchange twice and the park 5 times. Its just SO hard not taking her out anymore. Last year it was really easy. Mostly because we had not tasted what it was like to have a normal baby who was allowed to go out places. Now I have a toddler who needs to run out some of her energy and the park is a perfect place for that. EXCEPT for all the walking petri dishes on the playground with her.
Speaking of my normal toddler, I'm VERY happy to admit that having a pretty normal toddler is way more difficult than my old "special needs" baby! I still have the challenge of getting her to keep her glasses on, (which by the way is impossible now that they're broken) and I still have the eating battle every 4 hours and OT and PT appointments 2 to 4 times/week but other than that, she's like any other toddler.
Her vocabulary has grown exponentially in the past week. Today she told me that she was holding a blue pen! I couldn't believe it. I had no idea that she knew another color! Of course later when I asked her what color her Elmo bag was, she just said "color Elmo." So, she still has no idea that blue or yellow are colors....but she knows that something blue is blue and something yellow is yellow.
Tomorrow we have Maryam's NICU reunion at the Kaiser Permanente San Diego Medical Center. That should be a lot of fun! I'll be sure to get lots of pictures and bring back many inspiring stories. Hopefully stories about 25 week micro preemies with fundos and G-tubes who started eating 100% of their food orally before starting pre-school! Ah, the dream.