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He's here!!!

Dean Michael Catalano was born on August 17th at 9:24am. He was 19.5 inches long and weighed 6 pounds, 10 ounces.
Everything with labor and delivery went really well. I started having contractions around 10:00pm on the 16th that were progressively getting stronger. Mike and I went to the hospital around 12:30 (we didn't want to wait too long since our new house is a lot further away from the hospital). Once we got there, everything went pretty quick. So quick at the end in fact, I made the nurse really nervous - I needed to push and there was no doctor in the room yet! My doctor made it and in a few pushes, Dean was here.

One thing we weren't prepared for was that Dean was born with a clubfoot. This is a birth defect that takes several years of treatment to correct. The good news is that since it's not too rare (about 1/1000 kids are born with it) the treatment is fairly proven and he should be just like the other kids his age once it's corrected. The bad news is that the treatment is not easy... He's currently in a full leg cast and gets it removed and a new one put on every week (Thursdays for Dean). These started the day after he was born and the doctor thinks he'll need to have about two more after the one he currently has on. After that, he'll have to have surgery where they'll be severing his achilles tendon which apparently will grow back longer (a three week healing process in a cast). After the surgery, he'll need to wear braces on his feet 23 hours a day for about 3 months. Then, the time in the brace will slowly decrease to by the time he's one, he should only be wearing them while he sleeps. He'll need to continue to wear them while he sleeps until he's four years old.
The whole thing has been very overwhelming for Mike and I and gives us an additional set of worries for our little man (as if I don't worry enough about him and Luciana as it is...). His current cast is very heavy and bothers him a lot. It breaks our heart to see him in pain, especially knowing that this is just the beginning of a long road for him. I'll try to update as I can so everyone is aware of his next steps, especially his surgery which I have a hard time even thinking about. Hopefully writing about it will make it easier to go through...

Always makes us laugh

I can't really help it that I think Luciana is the funniest person I know - She's just like me so we have the same sense of humor. However, here's a perfect example of how funny she is and a glimpse into what our lives are like right now...

Luciana's been staying up at night lately until about 9:30. She's in her bed, not crying, but wide awake singing songs, playing with her stuffed animals, moving her pillow around, jumping on the bed, etc. Last night she was again wide awake at bed time. Mike and I were in the living room and here's how the night went:


Me: "Luciana, it's time to lay down and go to sleep"
Luciana: "Mommy?"
Me: "Yes, it's Mommy. Now lay down and go to sleep"

More singing and jumping noises from her room


Mike: "Luciana, you need to go to sleep"
Luciana: "I think that was Daddy" (spoken to her stuffed animals)
Luciana: "Is that you out there talking to me Daddy"
Mike (while we're trying not to laugh): "Yes, it's Daddy, now lay down"

Silence... and then...

Luciana: "I need a tissue"...silence..."I NEED A TISSUE"...silence..."AHH-CHOO!!!" (faking a sneeze by actually saying ahh-choo) "I NEED A TISSUE"

Now - How can you not laugh at that!!

Mini family vaca

This past weekend, our friend Paul got married in Chicago. Being that I'm over 5 months prego and really hated the idea of not seeing Luciana all weekend, I was thinking of not going. But then, I had a brilliant idea! We could go for a long weekend to make a little vacation out of it and bring my parents along to watch Luciana on the night of the wedding. So, that's exactly what we did! We drove out on Thursday (my parents took the train) and came back on Sunday. We did all sorts of family Chicago things - whenever Mike and I have gone there in the past it was mostly to go to bars/clubs and nice dinners. This was the first time we did family type stuff and we had a blast! Luciana loved everything too and was a trooper, like always, with the drive, the time change and the change to her normal routine.
We went to the Children's Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, the Navy Pier and of course some shopping on Michigan avenue. She especially LOVED the Disney store. Here are some pics from the trip - and check out the video page to see some fishing at the Children's Museum :)


Showing her friend Squeaks the view!



Taking a reading break at the Children's Museum


Playing in a tunnel at the Children's Museum


Being a princess at the Disney Store


Loving every second!!!


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BIG NEWS!!!!!

Mike and I are going to be growing our family and Luciana is going to be a big sister!! I'm due on August 19th and on Tuesday we found out we'll be having a little boy! We're SO excited. Luciana has been practicing being a big sister already by reading big sister books (thanks Nichole), taking care of her baby dolls and patting my growing belly while saying "Hi Brother". I'm assuming she'll have a bit of an adjustment period once he gets here but after that, I think she's going to make a great big sister!

Here's his most recent picture, more to come...



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Lots of catching up to do...

The person that writes this blog is such a slacker!!

SO many updates have happened since my last update - Halloween (she was a bunny), Thanksgiving, Christmas... Luciana is still talking non-stop and now we're calling her the singing bush because she's also singing non-stop (sometimes while she's talking). She loves singing the ABC song, which she knows all of, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Farmer in the Dell, and about 30 others. She loves to read books to Mike and I at the same time we're reading to her and then yell TRADE and we trade books and start all over again. She's really into coloring, stickers and Play-Doh right now too.

Everyday she makes us laugh and smile and we can't believe how lucky we are to have her.



A shopping diva in one of her Christmas dresses



Playing hide-and-seek... Can you find her??


Here she is!!


She loves her Tinkerbell sunglasses (and making funny faces)!!
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15 month checkup

Luciana just had her 15 month check up and everything went great (except for her shots which ended in crocodile tears for her and really having to try hard to hold mine back this time). Her doctor said she was very impressed with her level of speech (surprise, surprise) and that she's developing everything else just perfectly! Now that she's running around so much she's not so chubby anymore :( She's in the 50th percentile for weight but she's still in the 90th percentile for height, I'm not sure where that's coming from.

I also found out that she LOVES exam table paper. Especially being able to dance on it - which was really like running in place on it while I held her up. I wish I had that on video, maybe next time.

She's obsessed with books right now and wants one read to her at all times. Once you've finished one (or she's finished it by closing it while you're still reading) she runs to her bookshelf to grab another one. She has about 100 books and we read all of them but her favorites are Hop-On-Pop (which she calls hopop), I love you Stinky Face (she calls it mama mama because that's what the boy in the story says) and a pop-up book about rescue vehiles that she calls weeooo-weeooo (that's my attempt at spelling out a siren noise).

Now we're getting ready for Halloween and Christmas is right around the corner - I can't wait!!