A Chronicle of Our Adventures
Estelle’s newest words are “bubble” and “hello.” She also combined two words together which is pretty impressive. This morning she asked for “more bubble.”
Every day she points to the bottle of bubbles on the counter and then we must blow some bubbles for her. It’s the most exciting thing on Earth… after breastfeeding.
I came home yesterday to find my 17 year old cat, Sergei, not acting like himself. He was doing the following things, all of which are not normal behavior:
My cat is dying. I immediately took him into the bathroom, placed him in my lap, and started sobbing. I was crying so hard I couldn’t breathe, and my eyelids became red and puffy.
I spent the entire night with him, cuddling him, talking to him, kissing him, offering milk so he wouldn’t be dehydrated or hungry. He seemed happy to cuddle, but then he would run away. When he got away, he didn’t know where he wanted to go.
I took him to bed with me, but he didn’t stay too long. I woke up at 5 am desperate to check on him – was he still alive? He was hiding under Estelle’s bed. I took him and cuddled with him for another hour, offered him some more milk, and then went back to bed.
The whole night, I knew that this would be the last time I saw him. I made my peace with him, knowing that when I take him to the vet the next morning, it would be his final stop.
I held Sergei at the vet as we let him go. I kept telling him, “I’m sorry. I love you. You had a great life. I’m sorry.” It happened fast… way too fast. He left this world today, November 21, 2012 at 12:28 pm.
Goodbye Sergei, my dearest friend. I will miss the way you rubbed your nose with mine – that was how we kissed. I will miss your beautiful green eyes and when you squinted them at me – that was how you said, “I love you.” I will miss cuddling with you and hearing your soothing purr. I will love you forever. You are at peace now.
And this is the last photo I took of Sergei… right before we went to the vet. 🙁
Estelle co-sleeps with her doll at day care. Then she puts the baby doll to sleep by laying her face down and covering her with a blanket. We also bought her a stroller and she loves pushing her dolls around the house.
Estelle will be 16 months next week and she already has a few common words!
English: Momma, Dada, Hi, Bye, Ball, More, Doll, and No.
Ukrainian: Die (which means “give me”)
I’d also like to add that she loves playing with dolls, it’s so cute. She loves to cover and uncover them with a blanket.
Just spent 3 hours at a children’s hospital to see an allergist. We knew that Estelle was allergic to dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese) because every time she ate it, her face would swell and break out in rashes immediately. And if she ate more than a taste, she would have trouble breathing too.
Today we did a skin test to confirm the allergy, see if she was allergic to anything else, and create an action plan for future reactions.
We learned that in addition to dairy, she is also allergic to eggs, peanuts and tree nuts. This requires us to always carry around an EPI pen with us. And when you use an EPI pen, you have to call 911 immediately. This scares me… everywhere we go we have to make sure we ask what is in the food… restaurants, friends’ houses, pre-packaged food. We have to always be mindful of the food that she is about to eat… and so far this has not been easy.
We’re back and settled from our almost month long trip to Canada and Europe! We had an amazing time visiting friends, attending a wedding, sight-seeing, celebrating Estelle’s first birthday, watching EuroCup soccer games, border-hopping, and spending quality time with family. In all we visited 7 countries: Canada, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine.
We have many photos to share and they’ve all been posted to Flickr – check them out here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/smaha/collections/72157630604227542/
We also took a lot of videos – stay tuned – I hope to post these soon.
Today we celebrated Estelle’s first birthday in Ukraine with family and friends! It was a beautiful morning, but sadly in the afternoon Estelle suffered from heat stroke due to the heat wave here and no A/C units or fans.
Also, Estelle can now walk all on her own. She can pretty much walk to any where she pleases and has even mastered climbing.
For more photos from Estelle’s birthday, click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smaha/7514250326/in/set-72157630604359052/
Estelle at 9 and 10 months old
