Happy New Year!!!

At Elle's month 2 appointment, her she checked out by the docs as looking great. Her lymphocyte count is slowly increasing to 175 and she is almost 16 pounds-on track with Maddie's recovery. We started her on solids, and on day 3, she went so far as licked her lips and smiled. What an eater! I tasted the organic apple, carrot, and parsnip pureed combo, and it was pretty tasty. Yesterday, we had sweet potatoes - not such a hit. She has started to always try to roll-over and is very vocal and opinionated these days...I am wondering if she learned this from big sister or if it is just innate.

Maddie is as energetic as ever. Since Fernando's mom has left and the Au pair has been on vacation, she has been speaking more English and Fernando said her Portuguese pronounceiation has gotten worse. I think it is because my Portuguse that I speak to her is so bad. The little comidian is currently obsessed wtih taking off her pants and diaper. Fernando fed up after days of this fixed that by putting her in overals. Now we know why we received 10 pairs as hand-me-downs. I am getting Maddie tested for speech therapy on Monday to see if her delay is due to being bilingual or due to being tube fed. In late March, we are going to get her tested to see how her immune system is working. If the tests come out well, then we would stop all of her medications in June.

We spent all day opening Christmas presents, and we were exhausted. Maddie kept yelling a-bi-cah and trying to climb the baby gate protecting the tree (open in Portuguese is abrir). It was fun. My mom came over and brought lunch. Christmas Eve, Fernando managed to cook a 3 course meal (oysters, poached cod, and lamb) even with Maddie running around trying to get into the cabinets and garbage.