Did you miss us?

With the first week with kids behind me I can take a breath and relax. I wish I could say it was the best week ever but unfortunately it was one of the craziest ever. I am confident this next week will be better.

Jason and Kaylie started the week off with major colds. Thank goodness Jason is was able to take care of himself because with both of them being sick and me starting with kids I did not have much energy. Whenever Kaylie gets a cold I have to be very careful to make sure it does not go into her lungs. In the winter we have to be on the look out for RSV. It is not as much of a concern now but if you heard her cough you would have raised an eyebrow. Now that we have had to deal with this for a year I am some what of a pro at caring for her. She has one inhaler she uses every day and one that is only used when it is needed. The minute she starts coughing I use this. I did not have this until May when she had a 2 month cough that we could not get rid of. Now I can make it so she is only sick for a few days. By Thursday, she was cough free. Awesome!!!!

Kaylie has now become pretty good at walking. She pretty much goes everywhere and anywhere she wants. The day care laughs at her because she pretty much does laps around all the other kids. The problem comes when you put this with her love of climbing. She climbs up on top of the big ring and stands their. It scares all of the daycare workers. I fear her scaling rock climbing walls in her future. I blame Jason for that!

Friday we went to the pulmonologist and Kaylie is now a whopping 16 lbs 1 oz. I think we are putting her on a diet. She is 28 inches tall. Her weight is good but as usual we have stalled. This week we are taking her off of her periactin (appetite stimulant) so we can take her to get allergy tested. They say that if you take them off for a little bit and then put them back on they will start to gain again. If it is like the first time we put her on it she will gain a good pound in 2 weeks.

While we were at the pulmonologist I talked with him about the chances of her getting the RSV shots again. We have had to go through several question and answer type sessions and now we are just waiting for insurance to approve it. It is really hard to qualify the second year but with her history it looks good. The things she has going for her are that she was a 28 weeker, had a low birth weight, still has a low weight, and has had major respiratory issues. As much as I wish she did not have these I will cry if she does not get her shots. You have to get 6 shots and they are 1700 a shot. Not something you can pay out of pocket. The shot does not keep her from getting it but provides her with the antibodies she needs to fight it.

I also asked him about the likely hood of her getting it this year. He said the chances of her getting it is high but the chances of it putting her in the hospital are low. That makes me relax a little.

On Wednesday our good friends Tony and Emma brought Andrew Dale Davis into the world. He is absolutely adorable. I can not wait to see him interact with Kaylie. Congratulations guys. We are so happy for you!

Friday, Mr. Fletcher turned one. I can not believe how much he has grown. I have had a blast watching the two of them grow up together. Kaylie loves to play with Fletcher and will marry him later in life =). Happy birthday little buddy.

With my lack of posts I figured I would post all at once. I hope you enjoy.


Kaylie was starting to get too heavy for me in her carrier so we decided it was time to upgrade her to her big girl chair. She loves it. She talks all the way home.


With her walking now it has become a lot harder to get a picture with Buster. This was my third attempt at it. Don't you love the drool?!?


I know that this picture is not flattering but I put it on here so you can see her tooth. Click on it to enlarge it. It is now one of three. The two that are on the top are huge. As I was looking at them I noticed she has four more coming in on the top, two of which are coming in any day, and two that are close but probably have a week or so. She also has 3 on the bottom, one of which is going to break through any day. It is crazy to see her smile. I am not used to her having teeth. She grossed me out yesterday when she started grinding her top and bottom. Yuck!






Kaylie looking all cute for her boyfriend's birthday.


This toy is called Rody. Jolie bought this for Fletcher. Needless to say, it freaked Kaylie out!

This was one of Fletcher's birthday presents from his grandparents. They both loved it.






This one is strictly for the belly picture. Isn't it awesome.







Hope you enjoy all of the pictures. They are not in any particular order. As I get back on scedule with school starting I promise I will start posting again on a regular scedule. Until then, you get mass posts. =)

Whoop!

Yesterday was the first game of the season. If you look closely you might recognize her outfit. This is the same shirt I put on her in September. The only difference is in September she was wearing newborns. This shirt is actually a 3 to 6 months.




In this picture she was 7lbs 9 oz. ish.

Walking Pro

Here is a video of her walking today. She is getting so good. For the most part she walks before she crawls. Unfortunately, we have the bumps and bruises to show as well. As of today we have hit our face (right between her eyes) on a table, hit our head leaving her with a large goose egg, and hitting the table busting her lip. This one happened this afternoon. We were actually glad it was just her lip. She now has three teeth and we were scared she had busted one of them. Just in case you were wondering. The 3 teeth are part of 10 (that we can see) coming in. Yes...I said 10. Sorry this is so dark.

Smarty

She figured this out very quickly.

Our new car

This one cracks me up. In the middle of this Jason walked in the door. Make sure you have your volume up.

Walking

This was her walking a week to a week and a half ago. Sorry it is so dark.

The bear and the mic

Almost

A few steps then plop! Their are 3 videos. The third one works if you click on it.

8 years

Has it been that long?!? Monday starts the first day of my 8th year of teaching. I can not believe I have been out of school for that long.

Kaylie started daycare on Monday and is adjusting well. I thought she was going to come home exhausted but it has actually been the complete opposite. Not only has she been stubborn about taking naps at daycare but she comes home and refuses to go to bed. I have dropped her off every day this week and spent a few minutes with her just watching. She is so much different than she was in June when we left. Since she is not walking or self feeding we went back to the infant 2 room. Now that she is the oldest she walks around like she owns the place. Her personality is out in full force. The minute I put her down in front of the trough of toys she was happy. Within a few minutes she was by the house, walking with the walker, and crawling through the tunnel. It was as if she had never left. Leaving her there was hard but I knew she was going to do fine. It helps that everyone their loves her. People came out of their rooms just to see her.

When I got to daycare on Tuesday to pick her up I was pleasantly surprised. Kaylie had been given a make over. I died laughing. She was absolutely adorable. Jolie and I have talked about doing this to her hair before but have not had a clip to do it. I loved it! Unfortunately the pictures do not do it the justice it deserves.






This is her favorite purse. She loves to put things in it. It is funny watching her try to shove something that is twice the size of the purse in it.


Hooray!


It amazes me to watch her discover things. I looked up to find her trying the ball in each hole. I always wonder what makes them know to try these things?


She is obsessed with remotes.

15 month well baby

Can you believe she is about to be 15 months?!? It is killing me to see how fast time is flying. She has grown so much in the past 3 months both physically and mentally.

Here are her stats (based on the preemie scale for a baby with very low birth weight):
Weight: 15 lbs. 10 oz - < 3%
Height: 27.3 inches - < 3%
Head: 17.5 - 25%

Overall, Dr. G was thrilled with her weight gain. She has almost gained two pounds in three months. Compared to other visits this is huge. Right now his only concerns come in the area of communication. She is a good deal behind on her sounds and struggles to understand simple commands. The good thing is that she has spent so much time working on her motor skills these were neglected. I think with a little time and patience we will make ground on these as well.

The one really bad thing about well baby visits are the shots. 4 shots today. Not only is it miserable for her but it is miserable for me as well. Whenever we get shots she is not herself for several days.

Explanation for having a very cranky baby...

Everytime we have gone in Dr. G. has made a comment about how she has no teeth. That problem has been solved. I knew she was getting several teeth. What I didn't know was that she is actually getting 6 all at once. 4 on the top and 2 on the bottom. Of those 6 one has actually broken through. The bad thing is that one tooth bothered her for over a month before making an appearance. He thinks they will be out in a week. I call BS to that.

The stages of an uncomfortable baby:





If you click on this picture to make it bigger you can see the one tooth that has actually broken through as well as her other tooth that is close to breaking through. I actually think the two on both sides may be close to coming up making it 8 teeth.

Breakfast anyone?

I have always been scared to take her to mall play areas because most of them are not baby friendly. Usually their are a bunch of kids running around all over the place and jumping off of things without taking into consideration the other kids. Granted, they are little kids but it still makes me nervous. I ended up getting together with Emily and her three kids and we decided to meet up at the mall to play. Nervous, I decided if it was too scary for me I could always keep her with me. She loves to dig in my purse and would think that was just as much fun. Fortunately this play area was different. Their are so many things for crawling babies to play on and their were not that many "big" kids running around. She had a blast.


Yes...she is crawling on top of an egg yolk.


Maybe this will make her hungry.


It cracks me up how tiny she looks up against these things.

Painting 101

After having a feeding tube for so long Kaylie has developed texture issues. She doesn't like to eat certain things and absolutely refuses to touch certain foods. To fix this ECI encourages parents to children get messy. That means you leave food on their face, allow them to get dirty, and give them the opportunity to play with their food. For the most part she does not care if she is dirty or if she has food on her face. What she does care about is the playing part. After the other day I think she has overcome this. She has come a long way.

Happy Un-birthday present

For Kaylie's "corrected" birthday Blake, Jolie, and Fletcher decided to surprise her with a present. She loves it. Everytime she plays with it she walks around smiling with her tongue hanging out. You can't help but laugh at her. The first part of the video is cute but the best part is at the end when Fletcher makes a guest apperance. Thanks for the gift. She loves it!

So it begins!

And so it begins! From here on out we begin the vicious cycle of my kid is sick then your kid is sick making it difficult for anyone with kids to have any type of social interaction. Claire has just gotten over her first cold, Nicholas just got over strep, and Fletch is in the middle of some type of bug. Isn't it too soon? Yesterday was the start of Kaylie's first cold of the new school year and let me tell you it has not been fun. She made herself sick last night because she was so congested. =( It was hard to watch because afterwards she started screaming. I know that is completely normal because she is freaked out about this uncontrollable ability to get rid of what she just ate but it is still difficult for me to watch. Today I have been loading her up with every possible combination of meds I have for her in hopes that tomorrow or the next day we will have a miraculous recovery and be able to enjoy my last week home with her.

The good thing...It takes away my concern of her getting sick the first week back at daycare.

...I...

I saw this on a random person's blog and thought it was cool. I don't usually do things like this but since I can not post pictures I figured what the heck.

i am: a mother to my beautiful baby girl, a daughter to my loving mom a dad, a wife to my amazing husband, a sister to my caring brothers, and a loyal friend to those who are loyal to me.

i dream: of a school year that is not filled by the unexpected.

i think: about how much my life has changed over the past year and a half.

i know: I am blessed

i want: to go on a cruise.

i have: many things to be grateful for. One of which is a little over 2 feet tall.

i wish: I did not worry about the littlest things.

i hate: celery and tomatoes. Yuck!

i miss: my twenties! Where has the time gone?

i fear: losing my family and friends.

i feel: over joyed by the many things Kaylie has overcome.

i hear: the sounds of a happy baby.

i smell: everything! I have the nose of a blood hound.

i crave: pizza and french fries

i search: for the ability to let meaningless things go.

i wonder: who Kaylie will be in 10 years, 15 years, etc.

i regret: Not living in the same place as all of my family members.

i love: My entire family. That includes Shiner, Bailey, and even Lucky Jo.

i ache: at the thought of putting Kaylie back in day care just to get sick again.

i care: what people think of me. Sometimes I care too much.

i always: make sure to tell people how much I love them.

i am not: the cleanest person you will meet. Thankfully, Jason knew that before he married me. =)

i believe: in Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior.

i dance: when I want to make someone laugh.

i sing: to calm Kaylie down when she is upset.

i cry: when I see a newborn baby for the first time.

i don’t always: follow through when I say I will.

i hope: I will live a long and fruitful life.

i fight: for what I believe is right.

i write: for therapy

i lose: sleep over the unknown

i listen: when someone is hurting

i can usually be found: at home, school, or shopping

i need: love and affection

i am happy about: my life

i desire: to always become better than I was the day before.

8/8/08

8/8/08...For most they think about the opening of the Olympics but for Jason and I it has a different meaning. Today is our beautiful daughters "corrected" birthday. If you look at the top of my blog you will see two different lily pies. One is her actual birth date which is May 17 (just in case you forgot) and her corrected due date (which was when she should have been due) is today. This corrected day is special to a preemie because you can not look at her as a soon to be 15 month old and expect her to be doing what a typical 15 month old would do. Instead, you have to look at her corrected age and base her milestones off of that. In Kaylie's case we would be looking at her milestones in regard to a 12 month old.

In the past year we have accomplished so many things. Here is a list of her one year accomplishments.

* She is saying her d's and her g's. She screams like a pterodactyl, talks like Donald Duck, and imitates a Ferbie.
* She can successfully walk like a bear and crawls when she isn't in the mood to be a bear.
* She decides to wave and say hi when you are not looking and stop once you are.
* She claps and cheers for herself when ever she does something good.
* Can pull up and climb up on things. She is definitely a monkey.
* Can get half way up the stairs before you realize she is gone.
* Can throw toys out of a bucket. If you are not careful she will throw one at you.
* She can skate across the room with your cell phone and use her walker to carry her toys.
* She is eating a few table foods without choking.
* She has started to stand up without using anything to help her.
* She can stand for a good minute now and has even ventured to take a few steps when you are least expecting it.

The above are just a few of her many accomplishments. We feel so blessed to be with her through all of this. Happy "corrected" birthday baby girl.

Here is a slide show of Kaylie's life from 8/8/07 to 8/8/08. I wanted to do this for her actual birthday but ran out of time. The first two pictures were taken on 8/8/07 and the last few were taken today. It is long so watch it at your own risk. Enjoy.