16 month stats

Maya had her 15 month checkup today (one month late) . Here are her stats:
Weight: 19 lb, .7 oz.
Height: 30"
Head: 17.25"
Needless to say we will continue to feed her all day long!
Shots: Maya is a little behind on some of her shots, so we did 2 today, will do another 2 in about two weeks and then 3 at 18 months. I don't give Maya all her shots at once, which is why we are behind at times.
Speech: Per the pediatrician's timeline, she is on course with her speech - says about 10 words. My recent favorite word to hear her say these days is "bath". Thank you Baby Bumblebee!
Teeth: Maya is getting her 6th tooth in. Yes, 2 months ago we were at nothing. Now 6. This is the the front bottom (next to the first tooth). She is SUCH a trooper about teething. She even has a molar in!

Time to brush your teeth, Maya

Sapna has been trying for quite some time now to brush Maya's gums and when they finally erupted, her teeth. She was using one of those finger brushes. Maya was a no go on that. She hates it when you put your fingers in her mouth. We find it odd because when we brush our teeth, she is so into it and acts like she wants to do it, too. So mommy thought it was time to buy her a big girl toothbrush. This morning while we were brushing our teeth, we gave Maya her toothbrush. It didn't take but 10 seconds and Maya was "brushing" too! Next time maybe we can try it with toothpaste.

March for Babies

Today we did the March of Dimes walk (now called the March for Babies) through & around the University of Houston campus. There were predictions of rain for the walk, but it turned out to be a nice & relatively cool day. It was perfect for the walk. We walked with James, Lauren & their 4 month old Dylan. Maya slept a good part of the walk, but when she was up she was loving the ride, the wind in her face and watching all the other kids. Also, after the walk we spent some time at the KPMG tent & were able to meet up with Mason & his family. Their family is the Ambassador Family that we met in our office when they came for the kickoff meeting. Here's me and Maya at the finish line.


Thanks to those of you who donated & if you didn't get a chance to donate you can still donate now. In fact, Farmer's Insurance is matching all donations received after the walk, so any amount you give will be doubled.

After the walk we headed straight to Rudy's for Mark's birthday party. She got to see all of her cousins on the Pringle side. After lunch it was time for a family nap. We love family naptime!

Picky Maya

Feeding Maya has become quite the chore. She never seems to want to eat the first thing you try to give her. Now we have gotten to where we will hold the food in our hand(s) & ask her if she wants it. She will let you know for sure one way or the other. She will completely shake her head from side to side if she doesn't want it & will nod & get all excited if she does want it. If she does want it you better be ready to give it to her or she will start fussing until you do. We have had some drama if we have to warm up the food after she has seen it.

We used to always use fruit as a fallback, but now she will rarely eat any type of fruit. However, she loves her Indian food. No matter what dish it is she will usually eat it up. The only problem is her Mom doesn't really know how to cook it. Luckily, her grandparents are great at cooking her Indian food, so we keep having them stock up our freezer for Maya. I think if it was up to Maya she would be a vegatarian, so we have to find ways to stick chicken or other types of meat in her rice, etc. She loves rice, any type of bread & of course tortillas. She is also like her Mom in that she loves salsa & the spicer the better.

Now we have recently had to not only figure out what Maya will eat, but also how she wants to eat it. We went through the stage where we had to let her hold the spoon & put the food in her mouth herself. Of course Maya has always wanted to spice things up, so she has decided to add some steps to the feeding process. She loves to play with the cap from her sippy cup/bottle. Well, she also likes to put the food in the cap first, then it can go into her mouth. Not sure why that process is needed, but Maya requires it often. Today there was a new twist. Sapna was feeding her some Indian food out of a bowl with one spoon. Since we had tried a few more food choices, we had a bowl of chicken soup and another spoon on her high chair as well. She decided that she would take turns with her bites between the Indian food and the chicken soup. Then, she was done with the chicken soup after a few alternating bites, but I guess she liked the spoon that we used for the chicken soup. She made Mom alternate spoons between her bites of Indian food! There were 2 different types of spoons and I guess she liked them both and didn't want to make a decision between the 2. I mean seriuosly this girl has definitely got a mind/attitude of her own.

Vegas

We left for Las Vegas on April 16th right after tax day. We went with Scott & Summer & Britt & KC to celebrate the younger members of the group that are turning 30 this year. We stayed at a nice MGM property just off the strip & spent 4 nights there. We did a little gambling, saw some shows and even did a helicopter tour of the Hoover Dam/Grand Canyon. The helicopter tour was a lot of fun & we even had lunch down in the Canyon. You can see the our pictures here.

Maya stayed with her Nani & Grandpa while we are gone. Nana got to babysit her on Saturday. When we got back we noticed that Maya was saying a few more words or phrases. Since she was with Tyson & Angel, her favorite cats, now she is saying "meow"or really it is "eow". She says "oh, boy", "bath" (b/c she loves her bathtime) & "papa." The first day we were back with we could tell she was obviously spoiled while we were gone since she was not happy when she didn't get everything that she wanted. I doubt she missed us too much :(

Time for some swimming!

Maya's first day of aquatic therapy was today. I know it sounds like she is in therapy everyday, but this one is by far the best for her. The water lets her move around better and she doesn't have to work as hard at it. We are doing a 10-week rotation with Texas Children's Hospital. We cut down on one of her physical therapies per week to make room for this one. Unfortunately, she was sick the first 2 weeks, so we finally get to start. It's pretty far from the house, too. Took us over an hour to get there and it doesn't help that we go during rush hour. Each session lasts 40 minutes. So that's over 3 hours of travel and preparation for a 40 minute therapy session! Well, that tells you how important this is for her anyway. Here are some pics of her in her bathing suit. Nani came to help since she lives so close.

Session 1 didn't go as well as we had hoped. Maya cried when we put her in. Yes, the same girl who cries when we take her out of the bathtub, is now crying because we are putting her in a "big" bathtub. It didn't help that I just handed her over to the therapist, Kristin. So I had to change into my backup biker shorts and tanktop and got in with her! Of course I was all dressed for the office that day and didn't bring my stuff to get ready for work again (and no towel to boot). The first session ended up being about Maya getting acquainted with the water and her therapists. She had fun playing with some of the toys and moved her legs a tiny bit so it wasn't a total loss! Next time, mommy brings a bathing suit and more towels!

Tortillas 'n' Queso

Maya loves tortillas and queso. During one of Nani's emergency visits to help me with Maya while she was sick, she taught her how to dip her tortillas in queso. I didn't know that Maya had mastered such a skill until lunch today. We were at a Mexican restaurant (surprise!) and I noticed she was picking up little pieces of tortilla and mimicking dipping. I put some queso on her "placemat" and there she went - dipping.

She is so funny. After she had finished eating, I saw her smiling really big at me. I didn't realize that she was now brushing queso all over her hands with a tortilla! No wonder she was smiling. She was a mess - queso everywhere!! The reason this is so funny to us is because Miss Maya is definitely becoming a clean freak like her daddy and I. If she gets food on her fingers, she often shows us her finger and grunts, "asking" us to wipe it off. That or she will just stare at the little crumb until she finally decides to eat it.

Medical update: This morning was Maya's follow up visit with her GI dr, Krishna. Her AFP level continues to decrease and is finally within range! He would like another ultrasound this fall to see if the hemangioma has shrunken any. A big topic of conversation was her weight and nutrition. Maya weighed in at 18 lbs today and height at 30 in. That puts her at less than 3%. Her height is at around 30%. She lost 1.5 lbs due to being sick but we still need to beef her up some. Dr Krishna went over all the risks of malnourished children and how it affects their minds and bodies. I promise we're not starving her! She is actually in that high chair more than she is playing on the floor! She has her good eating days and bad ones. She definitely likes the Indian food still and our parents are quick to help out with healthy, protein filled dishes for her (they even puree it for us!). Anyway, I'm sure Maya will gain like 3 lbs being with her Nani for 5 days!

Happy Easter!!

Maya got a brand new dress from her Grandma for Easter today. We went to the 9:30 service ahead of Maya's nap time and boy was it packed! We got there so late that we had to sit in the foyer. We had Maya with us instead of putting her in child care. She made her presence known while babbling and throwing her Cheerios on the floor.

We took some pics before cooking and naptime. Maya and her cousin Hailey wore the same dress!


Family pic...

After it stopped raining and Maya had her nap, it was time for Maya's 2nd Easter egghunt. All the cousins were there and Maya got first dibs on the hunt since she is the youngest (tradition). Of course, cousin Bryce was a little upset about having to stay back since he is the oldest and actually missed the egghunt since he was so busy pouting! Its okay he got enough the day before at his other grandma's.

Maya was very excited about this one in the tree

Such the organizer and accountant. Candy over here, money over there. Count the money over and over.

Maya had a great time with the egghunt even though she had to share this time. She LOVES LOVES LOVES her cousins and has such a good time when she is with all of them. All her aunts and uncles held her all day long. We had a great time at Grandma's today and enjoyed seeing the family.

View all our Easter pics here.

Easter Eve

Today we spent Easter with Nani and Grandpa. First we went to lunch at PF Changs. Maya is a big fan of noodles these days. Of course now, when she is done eating, she picks up a big stack of food with her fist and throws it on the floor. Then she looks at us and gives us the BIGGEST smile ever. We say "no, no, Maya" and she just laughs at us. Little toot! Today at lunch I had to look the other way since I was laughing so hard - don't want to teach her that it is okay to do it you know?

After lunch, Maya had her first Easter egghunt of the weekend. We started in the house. Eggs were hidden in the most obvious places for our little Maya Bean to find! Then we headed to the front yard (can't go to the backyard b/c of the swingset). She got SO excited when she saw the eggs. She would make this "O" face. Too cute!

Watch as she places the egg nicely in her Easter basket. Well this one was placed nicely. All the rest were thrown in. She is for sure going to be a softball player :)

Finally, we get to open them all up and see the goodies. Naturally she wanted to save all her shiny new quarters in her piggy bank. The Easter bunny even brought Maya a $20 bill. So lucky she is! All the chocolate got thrown...of course.

Fun, fun day. It was good practice for tomorrow when she has to compete with all her cousins in the Easter egghunt at Grandma's. Maybe they will give Maya a head start!

The things she does

I need to do a better job of documenting what Maya is doing as she gets older. I will certainly try to keep up but there is so much to write with daily activities and her health stuff so just bear with me.

This week's tricks included:

She plays pic-a-boo with a cheese wrapper:

She talks on the mommy's phone constantly:

She shows us her nose (and sometimes picks it):

She gives kisses (or as we call them Shushes):

She squinches her nose and blows in and out like she's really mad:

Another Virus?

Last Saturday morning when Maya woke up, I noticed she had a fever. It was 101.5. Of course we were wondering what gives since she just got over a cold/virus. Gave her Tylenol, let her spend the afternoon with Grandma while we worked at home. By late afternoon, Gayla was calling us saying that Maya was shaking and her fever now at 103.5. We started Motrin at this point with cool washrags on her head. Charlie and I were talking about who we could call - to not bug the pediatrician again - and decided to email our co-worker whose wife is a pediatrician and they live in the next subdivision over. Maya was asleep by the time they called us, so we decided to forego them coming over. We honestly thought Maya just had an ear infection this time (because theER doctor last Sunday suggested that could happen). We went to bed around midnight, felt Maya's head and she was burning up. We had to wake her up, poor girl, and stick a thermometer up her butt. It was 104.5! She was upset by this time and just seemed to be getting hotter. Hospital...

Sunday: We went to St Luke's in the Woodlands this time instead of Tx Children's (again, we thought this was an ear infection). Checked in at 12:30. They gave her more Tylenol and Maya fell asleep. They finally called us in at 3:30. Once we were back there they took her fever since we asked for some Tylenol only to find out her fever was gone! The doctor checked Maya out & she couldn’t see any signs of any sickness(i.e. no ear infection, throat looked ok). So, she ordered another chest X-Ray & a test to check for a urinary tract infection (Maya's first catheder experience). The tests came back fine, so again they concluded that it “must be a virus.” Maya actually warmed up to the nurse in the emergency room, which is really surprising considering he looked like a biker with this long beard and not anywhere near a nurse! When he came in to discharge us she was all smiles despite the fact it was almost 6 in the morning & she hasn’t hardly slept a wink. So, we left the hospital & went home to go to sleep! Gayla came to get Maya after she had slept for several hours, so that Charlie & I could sleep a little longer. After Maya’s afternoon nap she had fever over 103 again. At this point we called in some reinforcements. Nani came over to stay with us. For the rest of the afternoon & the night we alternated Tylenol & Motrin while checking her temperature every couple of hours. Her temperature made it over 104 again, so we gave her a lukewarm bath which seemed to help. You never would have thought Maya was sick at all since she still continued to be so happy & babbling constantly. She is such a trooper!

Monday: This morning she woke up with fever over 103. Another visit to Dr. Bhakta. He did more blood work (tested neg for the flu) & noticed that her white blood cell counts were low, but still couldn’t say exactly what she had. So, we checked with Dr. Swoboda’s team to see if we the medicines could be causing the fever in some way. She wasn’t concerned about her white blood count & told us to not stop the medicines. Dr. Bhakta let us know that anymore than 3 days of fever and using the Tylenol/Motrin would be a concern. It was day 3, so we hope she gets better or else we might be coming back to Dr. Bhakta. She continued to have high fever in the afternoon/evening. We gave her a couple of baths, one of which resulted in an incident the tub. I won’t go into that any further, but Nani got to clean it all up!We had to cancel her aquatic therapy again this week since she has been sick both weeks. Her fever was down enough in the evening where we finally didn’t have to wake her up to give her medicine & check her temperature. Nani went home tonight since Maya seemed to be getting better. Maya didn’t want to go to bed at her bedtime today. We think the fact that she has several teeth coming in at once (five teeth) that she was in a little pain when we were trying to put her to sleep. Either that or she wanted to stay up & watch 24 with Mommy & Daddy. So, we put her on the couch & gave her my cell phone. We had all the lights turned off, so she when the phone lit up she got sooo excited. At one point she couldn’t even keep her head up since she was so tired. Finally, she went to sleep in our bed.

Tuesday: She woke up Tuesday in a WONDERFUL mood - so good that we were sure she didn't have a fever. Nope. It was 103.5! Geez, this fever just won't go away. Luckily though it did and that was the last one she had all week. Finally after tonight, Maya is going back to her crib! Good thing because my back and neck are a mess from sleeping on one side only with her.

The first virus she got she was very weak and didn't drink much. She wanted to eat, but we were scared to feed her too many solids because of all her congestion. The second virus, she wasn't weak at all (just jittery at times due to high fever), she wanted to drink but not eat. We've had two very rough weeks but hopefully that is it for quite some time and she stays healthy. We use GermX like crazy around her, she doesn't go to daycare, and we "safeguard" her from almost all germs when we eat out. Just don't get how she got sick both times. We think it must be her physical therapy and doctors visits. We gotta keep her healthy. I promised her at least one week without a doctor, nurse, shot, finger prick, etc and I haven't been able to deliver that promise yet. My poor baby! You won't hear Charlie and I say this enough. She is such a good baby (toddler, whatever). Despite all that she has gone through, she is so sweet and friendly, always smiling, laughing and waving. We are just so happy to be with her all the time!Every little thing she does, even the occasional whine, is music to our ears :)

The scary mask

No pictures, please!

After the ER visit on Sunday, Maya got a lot better day by day. Monday and Tuesday she went to her pediatrician. We cancelled her PT on Monday and her 1st day of aquatic therapy had to be cancelled as well. We let her do OT on Wednesday since its at the house. Today she was back at PT. She still has congestion, but she looks 200% better than she did Sunday and Monday. Her pediatrician put her on antibiotics and we’ve kept her SMA meds to once a day until she gets her energy back to normal. Next week we are back in business.

We started giving her breathing treatments with the nebulizer everyday starting Saturday. She really fought it the first time, but by Thursday night she was all about it – for like a minute, but still not like the first night where she was really upset at us. Side note on that – when she saw the nebulizer the first couple of days she started crying, the next couple of days she would “play sleep” which was actually pretty funny and the last couple she just sits there watching the dragon mask. I know she will learn to like the machine. It is helping her out afterall.

My cousin Mona was supposed to come in town this weekend and we were to visit Austin so she could see all the kiddos but her flight got cancelled. She will try to come back in June and when she does, there will be another Mistry baby! By the way, I have another nephew on the way – May 9th or until Krista can keep him in!

Random note: Today Maya finally found where her nose, ears and mouth are. We say “Maya, where’s your nose?” and she will either point to her nose or she will crinkle it. Same with ears and her mouth. Too cute!

March of Dimes kick off

Today was our KPMG March of Dimes kickoff. This will be our 3rd year walking to save babies. Pretty ironic that we started walking when I was pregnant and little did we know that it was for our own baby’s cause. SMA is actually one of the conditions they list on their website. Charlie and I had the opportunity to meet with one of the the ambassador families, the Leibhams. Their son has Pfeiffer Syndrome. Just when we think we have it rough, this boy has endured 31 surgeries. His parents were told he would only live hours after birth, but here we had met him yesterday and celebrated his 2nd birthday with him. We had a really nice conversation with them and it turns out that we have the same pediatrician! If you would like to sponsor Charlie, Maya and I on April 26th, please visit our websites at:
http://www.marchforbabies.org/sapnapringle, and
http://www.marchforbabies.org/cpringle

During our meeting, I needed a babysitter. Who better than the boss’s wife. Ray, my partner at KPMG, found out I was bringing Maya to the office and he called his wife, Elba, to come babysit. Elba got to play grandma – I think Ray played grandpa – and the others got to come by and peek. Its tax season, so a baby in the office is quite a disruption. Maya had a great time and sure was showing off that Best Smile. We finally got a few “uh oh”s and “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa”s out of her. Maya entertained the crowd for 3 ½ hours! Needless to say, Miss Maya fell fast asleep before I even got on the freeway! Sorry no pictures. I've been bad about that lately. She looked super cute today though!