Farewell to the blog

It has been almost a month since our last posting and what that tells me is this: Life is busy! Allison is wonderful - growing by the minute, learning new things (cruising the coffee table) and giving herself to us more and more. She has become quite the Momma's girl but she absolutely loves when her Daddy comes home from work. Steve walks into the room and Allison stops what she's doing, gives him a huge smile, screeches and starts clapping (Steve is not used to anyone being so happy to see him).

The biggest thing to happen in the last month was her 1 year birthday on 3/6/09. Grandma and Grandpa Rueschhoff visited from Nebraska to attend the festivities - which included balloons, party hats and vanilla cupcakes. Follow this link for pictures.

This weekend, we had our first "photo shoot" with Allison, and she was all smiles. Here is a sample of some of the photos.

We thought that the milestone of her first birthday would be a good time to close down the blog (that, and we just can't seem to find time to update it). We appreciate all of the nice comments and well wishes we have received as a result of sharing this. Thank you for reading!

Love,

Steve, Darcie and Allison

Happy Valentine's Day!

The week leading up to Valentine's Day was typical from Allison's perspective. She's still taking two naps a day, going to bed around 8:30 pm and filling the other hours with play and reading books. Her current favorites are Brown Bear Brown Bear, Good Night Gorilla, Go Dogs Go, Chicka Chicka ABC, Mr Brown Can Moo, and Moo Baa La La La. She was previously very into Dinosaur's Binkit but has vehemently cast it aside (literally - I heard Steve start to read it to her last night and then start laughing when the book was torn from his hands and dropped over the side of the chair). Hhhmmm, my daughter is opinionated. I'm opinionated. Steve's opinionated. Uh Oh.

We were visited by my long-time friend Julia Werner and her daughter Ainsley (age 2) who brought us two bags full of gently used clothing as well as a great toy her kids no longer use (that miraculously does not require batteries). I was not on my game with the camera so unfortunately I have no photographic proof of their visit. We'll be sure to snap some shots next time. Allison was a typical 11 month old in that whatever toy Ainsley picked up, she immediately wanted (despite having no interest in that toy EVER).

We received some terrible news Thursday morning that Art Baumert, the father of Steve's very close friend, Chris Baumert, had passed away the night before. Steve had known Art practically his entire life so he caught a flight to Nebraska Thursday evening to attend the services and return on Saturday evening. I am glad that Steve could attend and I wish I could have too. We have many wonderful memories of Art and Sharon and always looked forward to seeing them when we were in Dodge. He will be greatly missed. This was my first solo flight taking care of Allison without Steve coming home in the evening and it all went smoothly. I was happy to do it.

On Valentine's Day we were visited by The Herron's - Tim, Margaret, Jack, Kate and Matthew (link to photographic evidence below)! Allison enthusiastically watched the kids play and loved all of the attention, but did not stray from my lap for long. After everyone left, the look on her face said, "Hey where'd all the kids go?" Not to worry, there were more kids in the wings for Sunday as Jim, Bridget, Matthew and Maggie Baumstark paid a visit (sorry, again, no photographic evidence). We all enjoyed our visits and I'm thankful to everyone for their willingness to come to us.

Here is a link to a few pictures from Valentine's Day.

Playdates and Parks!

Another week has zoomed by and Allison is finally filling out some of her clothes. She is right around 17 lbs and just over 28 inches.

We had 3 sets of playdates last week. Susan and Abby Potts came by Tuesday as well as Monica and Evan Navagamuwa and Cathy Elstad on Wednesday. Then Saturday afternoon Kathy, Mike, Charlie and Marguerite Downing visited. Allison thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone and especially liked watching Evan (who is only 4 weeks old).

On Friday, Allison had her appointment at Highland Park Hospital for her lab work (routine blood tests and vaccination titers) and renal ultrasound. Her pediatrician wants to rule out any melamine exposure. She started screaming as soon as I put her on the table for the blood draw, but I did apply numbing cream to both arms to help make it less painful. The technician found a vein in the first arm but sadly it slipped away from her so we had to draw from her other arm. Thankfully that one was successful. The renal ultrasound was not painful at all, but you wouldn't know it by Allison's reaction. She screamed throughout it and we were both soaked in sweat (and ultrasound gel) by the time it was over. We will know the results in a week or two but we don't expect to find anything wrong.

Here are some pictures from the week.

--Darcie

You know the old saying ...

If you want your kid to eat a meatball, just toss it in Hoisin sauce. Ok, maybe that's not an old saying. But I think it may become one in the Rueschhoff house. Meatballs were previously barely tolerated until the hoisin lightbulb illuminated.

Allison is great - there's just no other way to put it. We're having a wonderful time in our role as parents and enjoying every minute.

Here are a few recent pictures.

Just your basic 10 month old

For anyone who has had a 10 month old, we're pretty much your basic household ... two naps a day, experimenting with foods, playing with toys, dropping things on the floor a million times and looking at one's own reflection. Sounds eerily similar to my 18 month retirement.

Allison loves people of all ages, especially children. We're taking visitors, but with the napping schedule and bedtime schedule, there are just a few short windows of opportunity (and I would at least like to have regular clothes on and my teeth brushed). Feel free to call for an appointment.
: )

Here are some recent pictures.

All our best!
Darcie, Steve & Allison

Allison is doing great!

I'm not sure if anyone is still reading this blog, but just in case we'll post what has been happening since Tuesday.

Steve went back to work on Thursday and sensing her mother could not handle another 3 a.m. wake-up, Allison cut the old gal some slack. She slept from 9:30 pm until 4:30 am (and pushed the volume of the Huggies diaper to the limit). Allison has been taking 2 naps a day and usually has to be awakened. But she always wakes up happy, and we're all thankful that she likes her crib and will actually sleep in it.

Friday at 10 a.m. was Allison's "official" 1o month check up/doctor's visit and was Darcie's first solo flight leaving the house with a baby (for the record, she arrived 5 minutes early for the appointment AND managed to brush her teeth before she left). Allison is pretty much over her flu, so this was just the standard work-up. It has been determined that Darcie no longer needs to walk on the treadmill for exercise as preparing and dressing a baby to leave the house, then keeping her content at the doctor's office is its own form of exercise (and wrangling her into her pink snow suit takes it up a notch). Another form of exercise is changing a crib sheet - producing sweat and an upper body workout. As far as the doctor is concerned, we need to have some blood tests to see if we must to repeat any vaccines, as well as a renal ultrasound to ensure there was no melamine exposure (just to be safe - we don't think there was any exposure). Also, Allison weighs in at 15 lbs 8 oz and is 28 inches long. That's the 50th percentile for height and under the 5th percentile for weight. Allison is starting to eat a lot more and is taking 4-5 bottles a day, so we should be improving on the weight number by her 1 year visit.

Here are some "never before-seen" pictures and video for your viewing pleasure.

We're still working it out

"They" say that for every hour in time change, it takes a day to get back to normal. China being 14 hours different than Illinois, we have at least another week before we can attempt a more predictable sleep schedule. The other families in our adoption group are going through the same ordeal - which means we're all up, from Connecticut to California, from about 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.! We slept until 10:30 this morning - something I haven't done since college. Funny how quickly the day goes when you're in pajamas until 1 pm.

Yesterday we took our first trip to one of Darcie's favorite spots - the mall. It was mainly an opportunity to get out of the house and test drive the stroller, which can't be done outside right now. It was also an opportunity to take Allison somewhere she wouldn't be stuck with a needle (although Steve would rather be stuck with needles than go to the mall). Steve rode in the back seat with Allison to keep her company. Upon being put into the car seat, she stared ahead blankly as if to say, "I didn't ask for ANY of this." All in all we deemed the outing a success as it took only 2 attempts to seat her in the stroller and she lasted 45 minutes before fussing ensued (Cheerios were invoked for the final 5 minutes). It was also a success because Darcie found a really cute red/brown velour hoodie for Allison on sale for $5.98 at Baby Gap (can you tell who is writing this entry?).

By and large all is going well. Allison is certainly feeling better, eating more and inching out of her shell more and more all the time.