Half Liver Life

Shayna has now lived a day longer with her Aba's liver than she lived with her own.  She celebrated by throwing rocks with friends and swimming in a creek at our end of summer picnic.  Unfortunately I forgot to bring the camera to the picnic but I did get a nice shot of her with her friend Hannah at the neighborhood bbq.  (Shayna is always talking about Hannah.)

Just being cute with her balls.

Awesome Numbers (finally)

After 2-1/2 months of a gradual climb in all of Shayna's liver numbers, we saw a significant drop in them with Wednesday's labs.  While not alarmingly high, we would have had to do a biopsy if they had stayed in that slightly elevated state much longer.  She's also still growing quite well.  Her weight is about 25%-ile, height about 10%-ile, and her head circumference is off the chart (literary).

SJ is doing well.  I ask Shayna, "Where is Ima's baby?" and she pats me (she tries for the belly but any torso part she can get to works for her) and says, "Belly."  I feel stronger kicks all the time.  We will find out the gender some time in the 2nd half of September.

Free Candy for Being Cute

Shayna and I went to the hardware store yesterday to get a hacksaw to cut a pipe.  It's a local store so has a lot of older gentlemen standing around to help so I asked.  He showed me and got a grin out of Shayna at the same time.  Shayna then practiced her "running" while I paid.  She'll go about 6' from me, get my attention, then move slightly quicker than a walk towards me with a big grin.  I guess that just put her cuteness over the top as the gentleman ask, "does she like candy? Bring her over here and have her pick out some candy."  I'm thinking one little piece or something but no, it's little bags of candy that are quite large for a 1-1/2-year-old.  He got his money out so he could go pay when we finish picking and I can't say no because I can tell he's really pleased to see such a cute kid and wants to do this for her.  She likes fish so I pick a bag of Ju Ju Fish (gummies) and hand it to her.  She's very proud of herself for what she has even though she doesn't know it's candy.  She also seems to understand this nice man gave it to her for when I tell her to say "toda" to him (thank you in hebrew is better than no thank you at all), she walks straight up to him, looks him in the face and says, "Da!" Needless to say at that point I was in full agreement on her deserving the candy as well, which we all have been enjoying.  These are pictures from today with a mouth full of a fish and what's left of the bag in her hand.

 

To get her used to SJ, I bought her a baby doll Monday which she enjoys a lot.

Becca showed her how to carry it well so....

...she of course had to go admire herself with her baby in the mirror.

She's also working on learning to use a spoon (the fork was nearly mastered on vacation).  Yogurt seems to be the best as she doesn't scoop yet and yogurt coats and/or fills the spoon easily.

It's a little messy but I love the mess as she seems to enjoy herself so much.

I'm studying for the Professional Engineers licensing exam that takes place at the end of October so I'm extremely busy these days trying to get my brain back up to speed.  It'll take a couple weeks of intense work to get back to any sort of former abilities as I need to spend 3-4 hrs of intense study everyday until then working on it.  I'm up to 2, but they're a slow 2 yet.  This is also getting in the way of posts as spare minutes are devoted to study but I'll try to keep y'all up-to-date as much as possible.

"Rock, rock, rock, rock."

We're in Boulder, CO now and I don't have regular internet access so can't do many updates (Nahum is putting Shayna to bed so I sneaked out to use his computer).  Thought I'd let you know we're doing well and having fun.  Today we drove up Boulder Canyon to the 4th of July Trail Head and Shayna so thoughtfully pointed out 90% of the rocks to us on the way.  She LOVES rocks.  She likes climbing on the big ones, walking over the medium ones and picking up the little ones to throw, usually in water.  We did a 3 mile hike to a little waterfall on the way to Diamond Lake.  The lake was our original destination but being green to hiking with kid we were happy to make it 3/4 of the way.  Shayna LOVES water as well so was more than happy to enjoy a lunch looking at the falls while sitting on a boulder.  She made sure all the other visitors saw the falls too.  "Hiya," with a wake and then she'd point at the falls to make sure the hikers admired the wonder as well.

Shayna and I head to Pueblo tomorrow for some time with the grandparents, both honorary and official.  We'll be back up Thursday so Michael and I can go mountain biking while Melinda takes care of Shayna.  We've got social plans packed into every other spare second, including 1 more family hike and 2 longer hikes for Nahum and several dinners.

Here are some pictures of what we did in Seattle.

Shayna took advantage of every second with Melinda so she had a constant play companion.

Shayna likes beds, even doll beds apparently as she kicked to poor baby doll out of her's.

Looking out over the water near our campsite in Washington Park near Anacortes, WA.

Shayna was in her element with a full day of sailing in the San Juan Islands.  She did take a 2 1/2hr nap in the cabin but when she was awake she pointed out all the waves, birds and rocks she could see and would just stand and watch the water.

Grandpa Michael did the honory wheel barrow rides.  Melinda even got her turn; though, Shayna wouldn't let Melinda ride with out her.

Chasing Grandma Melinda was also a hit.

We got a visit from the neighborhood peacock.  Uncle David promptly scooped Shayna up and whisked her outside to get a glimpse.  The peacock then hung around for the next few hours.

Shayna's Special Announcement

Hi All. This is Shayna filling in for Ima as she's a little tired from all the work she's been doing lately and I just finished my typing course so had to try out my new skills.

I'm wonderful of course, but I don't need to tell all of you that. We're in Seattle, WA at Uncle David and Aunt Vickie's house. Uncle David is just as funny looking as Ima said. Grandma and Grandpa O are also here to spoil me. We had a wonderful weekend camping, sailing, and hiking but on to the bigger news.

I have a little secret to share with the y'all: Ima is making me a brother or a sister!!! My new baby is due at the end of January 2011. With me being so wonderful and all, I'm sure Ima and Aba are going to let me pick out the name for the new addition and I've got just the perfect one: Shayna Jr. We'll call it SJ for short. Ima misplaced the 12wk 2days pictures so she'll post those later but SJ looks beautiful and healthy.

June Pictures

I finally added captions to June's pictures so here's the link for all you Shayna junkies.

June Pic's

The Amazing Growing Baby

For all you chart and numbers people out there, here's Shayna's latest growth chart from 12-months to now.  The astounding thing is the 330g gain between this week and last week.  I wouldn't have believed it except we had a doc apt on Tuesday that show her at 9.8kg making the 9.91kg (21#13.5oz) today plausible.  (That's a jump from the 17%-ile to the 24%-ile.)  She doesn't show any obvious fat rolls from the gain and her belly actually has looked smaller this week (her large liver piece still makes her belly girth much larger than normal) so I'm wondering if she got taller too.  She's definitely getting stronger as her climbing skills and little shoulder muscles are much more evident.  My guess (from past experience) is she'll hold steady and take a couple weeks to actually reach the 10kg (22#) mark.

On the internal numbers side, things looked good this week.  We just checked liver numbers this week and they were holding steady with the last two weeks making both Shayna's doctors and parents happy.  If the numbers go up we're looking at another possible rejection episode and, with her immune suppressing drugs low, there's a distinct possibility of that.  Right now we're fighting the EBV (a virus that causes a harsh flu in normal people with the worst case leading to mono; in an immune suppressed person it can lead to EBV hepatitis where the virus attacks the liver and worst case leads to lymphoma (cancer)) so we've had to drop her immune suppressing drugs to try to get the active virus level in her blood stream down before it attacks organs/tissue.

On the fun side, we did a little family outing today of the Blacksburg Gardens Tour and saw some beautiful gardens that people have put tremendous work into.  My favorite was the yard with lots of curving beds with colorful, textureful plants that looked like wild organization.  Shayna liked that one too but for another reason; it had a water fountain.  Her second favorite was the one with rocks and dirt she could play in.  She likes to show us the rocks and sit in the dirt, picking up fistfuls to pour on her legs.  She also really started saying "Aba" and "Ima" today quite distinctly and in context.  She's been able to say both for a while but just didn't want to until today.  Nahum turns into a little puddle on the floor every time she says Aba.

Bubble beard baby from 6/25.