How is she & how are you all doing & what’s been WonderBaby’s latest accomplishments?
She’s doing well and we’re all doing well and thanks for asking!
She’ll be 7 months old (!) on the 9th, so adjusted from her due date, she’s 3 months “oldish” right now. She’s smiling, occasionally vocalizing (she can sometimes say “gah!”) and grins like a happy puppy when I cajole, “say ma-ma!” She has more smiles for her brother and father than for me (I’m just the milk machine -* le sigh*).
Physically, she’s still teeny tiny, even for her adjusted age. She’s in the 5th percentile for head circumference, weight and length, but her brother was only in the 10th, so I’m not surprised. (If you go by her actual age, of course, she’s not even on the chart!) She’s turning over, she’s batting and kicking at toys suspended above her, she’s starting to grab and shake toys. She folds her hands in that cute little “praying baby” pose. She sucks on her two middle fingers, having tried and discarded the thumb. All of this is right on target or a little ahead of her adjusted age, according to the physical therapist from the state who comes in once a month.
Her eyesight is still uncertain - the retinopathy is gone, thanks to laser surgery, and she’s going to be tested for glasses (!) next month. My gut feel is that she’s nearsighted; she responds best to faces and objects about 6 inches away fom her face, instead of 12 or 15. Ah, well. If nearsightedness is the worst she suffers, I’ll consider us lucky!
My milk supply has taken a turn for the worse again, so I’m back to pumping every two hours and giving her bottles instead of breastfeeding (we thought she had figured out nursing at 6 months, but turns out she lost weight, so apparantly she wasn’t nursing effectively.) If I can’t get my supply up in the next couple of days, we’re going to have to put her on mostly formula, which makes me very, very anxious. Formula is *not *a good substitute for a micropremie - a much worse substutute than it is for a full term infant. But I also know that I’m doing everything I can - herbs, Domperidone, frequent pumping, eating oatmeal and brewer’s yeast - so if I fail, it’s not because I didn’t try, you know?
WhyKid just included her on a school project of “The Most Important Things in My Life”, along with his own spinal surgery and Legos! He’s really great with her, and will get his first all-on-his-own and for pay babysitting gig next month when WhyDad and I go to the Dead Can Dance concert. So he’s being quite the helper in the meantime, learning all he needs to know.
I’ve been terrible about putting up new pictures, but your question has moved me into action! By the end of the day, there will be new(er) Caileigh pictures up at a1.to
Alright…so, “by the end of the day” meant sometime in the next couple days. Sue me. She’s too cute to spend time uploading pictures! 
But there’s some new ones here.
I really like this one - it was her reaction immediately after she figured out how to breastfeed!
This was for a costume contest (she won). Too bad you can’t see the fairy wings I made for her. She was the cutest (and only) Punk Rock Fairy Baby entered!
WhyNot, she’s beautiful!
…and for the record, I got glasses when I was six months old, and am doing just fine at twenty-five.
WhyNot, I’m not much of a baby person, but that is a darling baby!
Thanks so much, WhyNot!
When my computer was loading the first pic, for a couple seconds there was nothing but her baby-dome forehead & glowing blue eyes- kinda scary!
"Let there be… EYES!*
Then the rest of Caileigh loaded & she became much cuter!
And I think I see the edges of a wing- but she is a great Punk Rock Fairy Baby! I admire the fact she actually kept the glasses & wig on. Lesser babies would have tossed those immediately!
That’s kind of how we feel every morning when she wakes up. Jeepers, but that girl has some peepers! And they’re just that blue, too, IRL. I have the same eyes, but I don’t really look at them, you know? But my husband says they’re what snagged him, so I’m happy his daughter has the same ones.
Oh, me too! I kept waiting for her to snatch them off, or shake her head or something. But nope. Cool as a rock star, she was dressed like that for almost two hours, with paparazzi snapping photos of her and giggling over her. Even a very loud man with a microphone and a radio station didn’t phase our girl.
Then again, this is a child who just stares at me as I cut her fingernails and toenails, barely wiggles away from the nasal aspirator (“nose sucker”) and is even quite civilized for suppositories (!) so mellow doesn’t begin to describe her!