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On the 4th Madelyn tried another new food… pears with raspberries.  She doesn’t like pears so I think that ruined the flavor for her, but after some sour faces…

…she did eat some.  So, I guess it wasn’t as bad as it could have been!

Tonight at dinner I let Madelyn try chewing on a chunk of banana for something new to try.  At first she was a little confused, but also liked that it was a banana (her favorite fruit).  She ended up chewing on it a little, but then it got too slippery for her to hold onto and she got frustrated.  Still, I think it will be a fun finger food for her to try now and then.

Madelyn has been trying some more new foods lately.  Now that she’s a pro at eating her 1st foods, we’ve started trying some 2nd foods since they introduce some more variety.

February 22, Madelyn tried bananas with strawberries, her first 2nd food to try:

She loved them!  Too bad I only had one jar on hand and haven’t been able to find them in the local grocery store.  Next time we go back to Walmart I’ll be sure to stock up, this is one of her new favorites.

February 25, Madelyn tried sweet potatoes with sweet corn:

…and she wasn’t all that thrilled with it.  She did eat it though, so it’s not as bad as some things she’s tried.

On February 28, we decided to let Madelyn try fruit puffs since she seemed interested in foods she could pick up:

“Yuck!”

Let’s try again…

“Eww, gross, I don’t want to eat that!”

Yesterday we tried something that was a mix of flavors she’d already tried – apples, bananas and strawberries.  The apple taste was a little too strong so she didn’t really like it, but then I mixed it with some carrots and she liked it a lot like that.  Looks like I found a way to get some fruit other than bananas into her! 

At dinner last night we had potatoes and she seemed interested in what was on my plate, so I let her try a little bit of the potatoes.  At first she was a little confused by it, but was willing to eat some more, so I think she liked it.  I think she really wants to eat regular people food.  At least potatoes are nice and soft so they are easy for her to eat. 

New pictures are up on Madelyn’s picture page!  There’s not as many as usual, but at least I’m not as behind as I usually am. 

On Thursday Madelyn had her 6 month check-up.  She was 27 1/2 inches long and 15 pounds 8 ounces.  So, she’s about 50th percentile for weight and 95th percentile for height.  Since she’s 6 months old now she’s able to get the flu and h1n1 vaccines, so the nurse helped me figure out which of her regularly scheduled shots we could delay so that she could get the flu shots.  Madelyn was not very happy about getting her shots, but otherwise it was a good appointment.  I can take her back in about a month to get her flu vaccine boosters and catch up the shots that she didn’t get this time.

On the 15th we took Madelyn for her 6 month portraits at Sears.  She didn’t want to smile much, but we did end up with some nice shots.  I picked up our photo CD today so now the pictures are up on Madelyn’s picture page.  Here’s a couple previews:

I just caught up on a bunch of Madelyn’s pictures.  I uploaded a ton to her picture page, and this batch even includes a couple videos.  Enjoy!

Last night and during the day today we got a bunch of snow, so this afternoon I took the kids outside while I shoveled the driveway.  Madelyn is finally big enough to use her infant sled, so she tried it out for the first time today.  She actually stayed in it for quite a while watching Aiden and I shovel the driveway.

Yesterday Madelyn went to see the pediatric ophthalmologist.  I’d say the appointment went pretty well.  He determined that she is farsighted, but says that he’s seen far worse cases than hers.  She is able to track objects and is where she should be developmentally.  He couldn’t find any abnormalities in her eye either.  We are still searching for a cause for her nystagmus, so we are being referred to a neuro ophthalmologist in Syracuse, and she will probably also need a test done called an ERG (Electroretinography).

Today we took Madelyn to see the neurologist in Elmira.  He took a look at her, tested her responsiveness and development, and concluded that he is 99.99% sure that she does not have epilepsy since she is responsive even when her eyes are moving.  He will order an EEG if it makes us feel better, but he really believes that it is not necessary.  He diagnosed the eye movement as congenital nystagmus.  The bad news is that she may never outgrow it, but so far she is developmentally where she should be so it doesn’t seem to be holding her back.  He said that he wants to see the actual MRI scans that were done on Thursday since all he had was the report.  Since she wasn’t sedated, she was moving during the scan, so if he doesn’t feel the images are good enough he wants her to repeat the test sedated (apparently the hospital in Elmira will do the test sedated).  We left not learning much more than we knew before, but it is good that it doesn’t seem to be related to epilepsy.  Tomorrow we will go to see the pediatric ophthalmologist and I expect we will learn more at that appointment.  We ran down to Binghamton to pick up a CD of the MRI scans tonight so we can drop it off at the neurologist when we’re back in Elmira tomorrow.  I actually took a look at the scans on my computer and can see a lot of them are pretty blurry from her moving, so I won’t be surprised if we have to do this again.    Beyond that I’m pretty exhausted and feel like we were on the road all day!