Written:  July 20th, 2003

Wow... So much has happened this summer!!  I don't know where to start!  :-)

Let's see... Back in May, Ashleigh went down to stay at my parent's house in the Outer Banks, so my parent's could have a little of their life back and so I could continue working without having to put Ashleigh back in daycare yet.  I have been going down several times a month and they have been back here a few times.  

I'll start with her health.  She has stayed so very nice and healthy that I am still confident with my decision to hold off on her surgery.  She was scheduled over 4 months ago now and so far, she has not had one single problem.  Not even so much as a cold or cough!  (I'm sure that will change when she gets back and goes to daycare!!)

She's been bouncing between 29 and 30 pounds for the past 2 weeks now and is about 32" tall.  She still has to drink liquids that are thickened.  She was taken off the Pediasure 4 times a day back in early June because she was gaining weight too quickly at that point.  She was gain 2 - 3 pounds a month and really should only be gaining 2 - 3 pounds a year now.  So, they put her on a vitamin, said give her one a day, and were even hopeful that she would lose a little weight.  That didn't happen, but she seemed to plateau.  She was at 28.12 in the end of May, so at this point, she's probably gained about 1 pound in the past almost 2 months, which is pretty good.  Her doctor should be pleased with the level at which she's gaining now.  

She is also getting some thin liquids from time to time.  We just need to make sure she coughs after she drinks the thin liquids to clear anything that may have started to head into her lungs.  No problems there.... she's learned the difference in texture and really coughs by herself now... I think back to when she was in the hospital and December and she was 14 months old.  One of the residents walked in on me telling her to cough and she was doing it and he laughed and asked if she knew any other tricks.  It's absolutely amazing to me how sponge-like little children's brains actually are!!

She is talking up a storm... some of the really tough things she can say include ambulance (shocking I know!), basketball, umbrella, apesghetti (spaghetti), and boom sparkly (which is interchangeable between fireworks and thunder and lightening) :-)   She's also gotten really good at putting single words together to indicate her wishes.  She'll say things like apple jacks, chair, giggies, now.  That means she wants to have some apple jacks, sit in her high chair, and watch the Wiggles.  

She can also say "I don't know Mommmy" and that's gotten VERY clear in the past couple of weeks.  She through one of Nana's watering cans down the stairs on the deck and I asked her why she did that, shockingly, her response, "I don't know Mom."  That was the first real sentence she had made.  She can also say "peed da bed."  lol...  Ashleigh has gotten very good at taking her diaper off so she'll occasionally do that when you put her down for a nap.  Then she'll start hollering "peed da bed! peed da bed!"  She seems to find it quite entertaining! 

One day earlier this week, my mom called me and told me that Ash woke up very upset.  She was hollering "Nanny, Minnie, broke, fix, battry."  I guess in the middle of crying, it was a little harder to understand.  Mom took her out of her crib and Ash went running to the kitchen just repeating those 5 words.  She got to the drawer in the kitchen, opened it, reached in there, and hollered the same 5 words.  It finally hit my mother that she needed a battery for Minnie.  So she pulled out a battery and asked Ashleigh if that's what she wanted.  She said, "yes, fix, Minnie, broke, battry, tool."  Then she turned around to the other drawer and said "tool, tool" and was trying to get the screwdriver out so my mother could replace the battery in Minnie.  :-)  It's been quite sometime since we had to replace Minnie's battery, probably 4 months or so.  It was amazing to us that she could not only remember back that far, but she could find the words, and the items that were needed to fix Minnie!  :-)  

Ashleigh has been exposed to my parents working on their deck and just the other day they were out for a walk and she saw a man working on a roof.  She started screaming "hammer, screws" ... "man, hammer, screws."

So, she is definitely staying on track with her ability to talk, hear (it's that sponge thing again!).

What else?  Let's see.  That's really the highlights!  Now for the really good stuff ... some of the best pictures of the summer!  (For a larger image: Just click on them!)  (There are a lot more pictures on Ashleigh's Summer Pics 2003 page - didn't want this page to take forever to load so I split them up!)