Long time, no updates!

Daddy - What took you so long?

It's been a long time since we've done an update. We have learned that having two children is exponentially more time/energy consuming than having one child. With one you can take him/her nearly everywhere with you with ease, and if one parent needs to do something solo, no problem. The other parent or a family member can handle the child fairly easily.

Now with two children, especially with one being an infant, everything needs to be carefully planned and prepared for, and going anywhere takes at least 45 minutes just to prepare/pack for, and can be much longer if the infant needs feeding first.

Along with Victoria being back at work full-time and resuming heavy travel, I have had a heavy workload and my current job does not allow for "non-work related" Internet use. The result being that there has been no free time and energy left to blog. But I have a window of time now that will allow me to fill-in the past few months.

Maya is doing great. She is amazingly big for her age - way off the charts. She is currently 22 pounds and 27"+ long. She wears size 4 diapers now and her clothes that fit comfortably are the 12 month ones.

She is a great smiler and it is easy to get her to do a deep smile!

The opposite of her smiles is the pouty face she puts on before crying. This has become more frequent as she seems to have been teething for at least a month now on and off. Her chubby face combined with her pout makes her look like one of those 1920's babies that you see often on the funny greeting cards.

She has also begun to use her hands to manipulate things. She grabs at my mouth and makes cooing sounds which I imitate back. I put a french fry in her hand last week when I was at lunch with Brianna, and she waved it around and mushed it a bit near her eye. Brianna laughed and said she looked like a pirate waving a sword.

Brianna adores her little sister and is so good at attending to her and helping out mom and dad! She loves making Maya smile (not a tough job) as well as helping feed her, burp her, get her clothes and bathe her.

Brianna has been taking swimming lessons and is getting more confident at it. We are still waiting for her to be able to submerge her face without fear, but she kicks well and can go way out into deep water with her floating swimsuit on.

On to Maya's latest medical news. We had her 4 month exam with a cardiologist. She has 4 cardiac-related issues we are watching and will follow-up on in a year.

1. PDA - she still has this, and although it is small the cardiologist recommends we have it closed off when she is a few years old. He does not expect it to close on its own at this point, and although it may cause no visible problem, it leaves her with an increased risk of cardiac infection. He wants to wait until she is bigger to insert a catheter up to the PDA site via her leg - just like an adult getting a shunt installed. Right now it is riskier due to her small arteries.

2. PFO - this is smaller than first diagnosed. The cardiologist labels it as minor and does not anticipate any need to intervene.

3. Enlargement of right-side of her heart/asymmetrical pressure . The cardiologist beliefs this may be a residual effect of the CCAM and will monitor.

4. Slight intermittent murmur unrelated to any of the above. Not expected to be a problem, most of us have one that is undiagnosed.

Maya and Brianna are also happy to have a new cousin, Jake Ryan. Savannah is doing very well as a big sister to Jake.