Baby Catching

First things first...Kaylie is 13 lbs. 11.5 oz. She has gained almost 1lb in 2 and 1/2 weeks. We have changed to a level 3 nipple on her bottle and has started to inhale her milk. She is still only drinking 4 to 5 ounces but she is finishing more of her bottles.

April - 11 month/ 8 months corrected picture with Buster (13 lbs. 11 oz)

That is the look that will get her a pony when she is older!

Before Kaylie was really mobile I made a comment to my mom about people who could not get their babies to lay down long enough for you to put their diaper on. I told her you should be able to teach a growing baby how to do this (through a routine) and not have to "catch them" and hold them down. I finished that conversation by laughing and saying that I knew at some point I would eat my words. That time has come! Kaylie only likes to roll to her right side and because of that she is quit stealthy about it. The minute you take that diaper half way of she is on her stomach trying to get away. It is quit a site to see a half naked,13 lb baby with a diaper dragging on the floor. Your first reaction is do I grab the diaper or the baby. This morning Jason was not home so I did the morning duties. Since he does not have a set time that he has to be a work he has taken on that task. After this morning I have a lot more respect for him. No one can ever say he does not have patience. With her diaper hanging half way off I frantically played the "how to catch the baby" game. Now I know you are thinking that I am silly and how hard could it really be to grab her, lay her down, and put on her diaper but I promise she is fast. The minute you go to reach for the clean diaper she is off. To top off you are on the floor which means play time to the dogs. I wait for the day one of them grabs her diaper and runs out the doggie door with it. That will be another post. Once you finally completed the mission and gotten her diaper on the game starts all over again.

I thought this was an adorable picture. This dress was put away before it was worn because she did not get to wear it before it got to cold. Who knew she would still fit into it 8 months later.

What are you talking about...? I wasn't doing anything wrong!

On a side note...On April 14th, I took Kaylie in to the doctor because she had started coughing really bad and as a 28 weeker her lungs are developed but definitely a lot weeker. They are somewhat immature. Because of this we spent the entire winter on RSV watch. Over Christmas we got a very mild case that we caught fast enough (Christmas Eve) allowing us to start breathing treatments and keeping us out of the hospital. Since then we take her in to make sure it is not in her chest and then restart her breathing treatments any time she gets a cough making it so it goes away fairly quickly. This time her cough has not gone away. On the 14th the doctor added another inhaled medicine called Pulmocort. It is an inhaled steroid that is used for asthma. That would be given with the Zoponax making her breathing treatments last 30 minutes vs. 15. For anyone who has had to give a breathing treatment you will understand my pain. 50% of the time Kaylie will go to sleep. The other 50% you are fighting her trying to keep this mask that is shaped like a Rhino on her face so that she gets the medicine. The only plus to her crying is that she inhales the medicine better. It doesn't make it easier. =) When I got to the office they ask the same questions. The first thing they ask you is what brings you her today? For the first time in months I really did not know. I told them I did not really know if anything was wrong but she spent the night before waking up every hour either whimpering or screaming. Her cold had picked up and her cough had not gone away. Prepared for the doctor to say she is fine and continue with what you are doing I waited. When he came in he listed to her lungs and nothing. I was confident he would not find anything their. He did the rest of his exam and nothing. The last thing he does is check her ears. Poor thing hates this but for some reason she did not cry. He said she had some wax and started to pull it out only it was not wax but blood. The first thing he said was she ruptured her ear drum. Frustrated, stressed, and sad all at the same time I almost lost it. Poor thing has been sick since November and can't get a break. He then said he was wrong and it was actually from her tubes. He told me she had a really bad ear infection and the blood was from the tubes. Gross! He also said she most likely had a sinus infection. As we were about to leave he told me that because she was a 28 weeker chances were we were going to have to see a pulmanologist for her lungs. Since she can't seem to get rid of this cough we may have to look at some different types of medication that he would not feel comfortable giving her. He said we would give it another week. Ugh! My hope and prayer is that maybe if we add this last component to her day we might actually have a week or two with a healthy baby. The doctor prescribed us a new antibiotic that has not been out too long and after one day of it her nose is clearing up and her moods have drastically changed. She is playing and happy. It could also be from the combination of that combined with the antibiotic ear drops and 3 doses of breathing treatments. =) Please continue to pray for her and her health. When she is healthy we catch up on so many milestones. It is amazing to see what she has done in the past when she has a week or two of feeling good.

I always know she is not feeling good when she uses her paci during the day.

Finally

After 8 months of trying to convince others I can finally say I am not going crazy. Even though some may still disagree =) it has been confirmed. On Thursday I went in for a minor procedure called laprescopy. They make an incision under my belly button, one below that along my c-section line and one to the left of that. From there they were planning on sticking a camera in to just "explore". Up To this point I have had many tests in an attempt to figure out why I have pain on my right side of my body. After my c-section I continued to have an aching pain that would come and go and no one could figure out the problem. I had two ct scans to check my appendix, kidneys, liver, gall bladder etc. and everything came back negative. That is when my ob decided it was time to explore. My bet was that it was scar tissue. I had been saying that all along but had to rule everything else out before hand so finally she agreed to it. During my procedure I was put under. I hate that. They tell you to move to the table and then your done. Before you know it you are waking up from so ridiculously weird dream forgetting for a second where you are and saying things that do not make any sense. When I came to the first thing I asked the nurse was..."What time is it?" If nothing was wrong with me the procedure would have been 15 minutes and I would have been done. If something was wrong they would fix it right then and there making the procedure last longer. It was 9:20am so I asked what was wrong. The surgery started around 8:00. All she knew was that I had lesions. Phew! I am not crazy. What a relief! After I got home I spoke with my doctor. She told me that my bowels and abdomen were stuck to the scar tissue. When the put the camera in they could not see anything. Once the detached that they put a lining over it to prevent it from happening again. Thank goodness! At least now I have a answer. Hopefully now I can heal and move on.

March of Dimes Walk

Jason, Kaylie, and I want to thank everyone who supported us for such a special cause. Our team of 8 ended up raising $2,875. Jason and I could not have asked for anything more. Thank you.

Here are some pictures from the walk. It was amazing to see all of the people. Considering their were over 25,000 people walking the weather could not have been better. 5 miles would have been rough if it was any hotter! Kaylie and Fletcher did great. They both slept for a good 2 miles of the walk. The both rode in luxury and enjoyed being able to people watch. Even though the strollers had a few accidents and a little bit of off roding they both made it to the end without any bumps and bruises! Jason and I feel so blessed to be standing in front of this sign with our beautiful baby girl! She wouldn't be here without there help.


The sunglasses did not last very long.



Fletcher and Kaylie...2 of many reason for why we all walked!



Me and my daddy



Renee and Kaylie...how cute!



Me, Emma, Renee, and Kaylie

Jolie and Shelly - We all stayed together by following the orange shirt.

We put the back of Kaylie's stroller down. She propped her legs up on the tray and passed out. She stayed like this for a good part of the walk.

Post race celebration. I swear she is drinking milk.

It's a rough life!

Today wee needed to get some yard work done so we decided to try her in the pack and play with some toys. This pretty much ended before it really started. At least I got a cute picture out of it. After I took her out I went in and fed her. This was what she wanted. She ate and then passed out right after and slept for 3 hours. We were able to work after all.

A daddy and his daughter

Here comes trouble!

What a blessing! This brought tears to my eyes!

MMG

Last night was a rough night for us. Kaylie woke up crying many times. This morning she woke up right before Jason left and as he said good bye to her he told her to be nice to me. I should have know right there and then I was in for it. Just like the past few days Kaylie was fussy to the point of not being able to put her down. I tried to put her down for a nap and she freaked so I decided to put her in her bouncer while a took a shower. The bouncer has several of her stuffed friends on it and entertains her for about 10 minutes. As I placed her in it I noticed some blood on one of her toys. I went to look at it and saw some more. As I started to investigate I realized not only was it on the toys but it was on me and all over her. I looked closer and noticed her hand was covered in blood. What in the world did she get into?!? I grabbed a towel and wiped off her hand. Immediately it started gushing. The blood was coming so quickly I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. After trapping her hand I figured out it was coming from one of her fingers. She had some how sliced her pointer finger. The problem is I could not get it to stop bleeding and being that her fingers are so small I did not know how bad it truly was. After a few minutes of trying to stop it I decided to take her to ACUTE kids. By the time I got dressed it had slowed down. At this point she was ticked. She did not seemed phased by the cut. All she cared about was the pressure I was putting on it and the fact that I was holding her hand and not letting her play. Since she was covered in blood and crying out of anger I decided to give her a bath. Baths calm her down. As we walked to the bathroom I started trying to think about what she could have gotten into. Then it clicked. When we came upstairs to take a shower I had a can of diet coke in my hand. Some how she had to have reached into the hole and cut her finger. I defintely felt like a bad mom. I had MMG...major mommy guilt. Thank goodness it stopped bleeding. I felt like such a dummy. I have to remember that she has quick hands. As I got her ready for her bath I sat on the edge of the tub waiting for it to fill. She enjoys watching the water so I figured it would help her calm down. As I reached in to feel the temperature a warm wet feeling ran down my leg. I looked down and realized she was peeing all over me and the floor. I guess she was letting me know how she felt about me and the Diet Coke can. We are now even.

The Apple

One of my favorite sayings is "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree." In this case it was true. She wanted my bottle so bad. When I tried to take it away she started to cry.

House Arrest

Kaylie has been sick with several different things for the past few weeks. Hoping that a weekend at home would cure her we have decided to put ourselves on house arrest. The doctors office suggested that we let her sleep and eat when she wants and if she is not doing better by Monday we will take her back in. The funny thing is at times you would never know she did not feel well. She will wake up, play for a little bit, fuss, and go back down for a nap. We are definitely ready to have a period of good health.

On a different note...Kaylie has started rolling over in her sleep which is great. The only problem is that when she is on her stomach she has a better chance of backwards crawling putting herself into a sitting position. From their I feared she would try to pull up, be successful, and fall out. After a day or two of stressing about this I decided to pull out the pack and play. She ended up sleeping in it for about 5 days. On the second night I walked in to find her sitting up. Phew! I need to remember to always go with my instincts. Lowering the crib is somewhat of an ordeal. You have to take the side completely off to do it. Jason got a chance to do it today. The first thing she tried to do once back in her crib...Pull up. She almost got it. She was just about up when her foot slid through the bars and got stuck. Great! She ended up getting stuck a few more times this afternoon. Maybe her pack and play would be better. =) The pictures below are somewhat appropriate for our weekend. She looks like she is a jail bird. It was fun taking these. She actually hammed it up for the camera.

In the first picture we had just put her down for a nap. I walked in a few minutes later and she was sitting straight up. Needless to say she did not sleep. The second and third pictures are of Kaylie in her crib after we had lowered it.

Bum-mer

Kaylie has a really bad diaper rash so we decided to try a technique they used in the NICU to heal it...AIR. Air is a sure fire way to cure a diaper rash so we put down a bunch of the water proof pads, took off her diaper, and let her hinney air out. It worked great except for one thing. She ended up peeing in the one spot that was uncovered. She had also been sitting on her foot and ended up peeing on that. Gross! In the first picture I had just taken her diaper off. In pictures 2 and 3 I had decided to take everything off. I think she liked this. She tried moving everywhere! I wonder if I should use this as an incentive to help her start crawling.

Buster and Kaylie

Every month I try to take pictures of Kaylie with Buster. This month I decided to put them together so you can see how much she has grown. I am not sure what happened but I did not have one for October. I was very forgetful for a month or two after she came home.

September - 4 months/ 1 month corrected

November - 6 months/ 3 months corrected

December - 7 months/ 4 months corrected

January- 8 months/ 5 months corrected

February - 9 months/ 6 months corrected

March - 10 months/ 7 months corrected

Easter 2008

On Saturday we went to our neighbor's house for an Easter egg hunt. She

did not care too much about the eggs. To make the best of it I decided to take

advantage of the situation and got her to pose for pictures.

Since I gained some weight I have tried to avoid the camera.
This is one of the first pictures in a long time that I actually like.

Kaylie's basket was Eeyore. I chose this for her knowing that

this may be the only time I get to pick out what I like. The

funny thing is, Eeyore is almost as big as her when she is sitting down.

When we sat her down on the grass she had a field day. Having two

dogs tends to keep Kaylie out of our back yard. Even though we pick

up after them it still grosses me out to think she may put

something in her mouth that doesn't belong. She sat their

and entertained herself by picking grass. It was adorable.

This was hunt #2. We went to a friend's house for their son's 2nd birthday

and they decided to have an egg hunt as well. This time she tried

to eat the egg. Yet again, another photo op.

I had decided to not to go crazy for her first Easter. At the last

minute I broke down and got her a few toys and some finger snacks.

She has been able to stand with assistance for awhile but this was her first time to stand by herself. She didn't even do the little dance that she did to keep herself up. She is so proud of herself.

1st Easter outfit

1st Easter bib

WANTED!

Female baby between the ages of 10 to 11 months. Petite with brownish hair that sticks straight up like making it look like she has a Mohawk. She has blue eyes, weighs about 12 1/2 lbs and is 24inches long.

Crime: Pooping in the bath tub causing an immediate evacuation of Mr. Duck. Immediately following the baby was whisked away so clean up could begin and has never been seen since. She fled from the crime around 5:30. If you have seen this baby or know of her location please call immediately. She is full and ready to explode at any moment. If you know where she is do not attempt to take actions into your own hands. She may do to you what she has done to Mr. Duck. Mr. Duck will never be the same again.

The victim

Sketch of the suspect at the scene of the crime.

Another First

Today is the last official day of my spring break. In my eyes Friday and Saturday do not count. For the most part it has been nice. Jason took off the entire week which was a huge blessing considering Kaylie got tubes on Tuesday in addition to being sick the entire week. It was a great tag team effort. Even though she is still a little down we decided to take advantage of the fresh air. I think we all needed out of the house so, after spending some time on the porch we decided to take a family walk. The best part was that today was the first "official" time to have her face forward. She looked absolutely adorable. Even though she looks tiny she and can barely see over the tray she had a blast. She could not get enough of the view. I am not sure what she thought of my driving though because she held on to the side for dear life with the other one in the air. I only ran off the sidewalk once or twice but nothing to wild and crazy.

This is the hat I tried to put on her to keep the sun out of her eyes. It lasted less than 5 seconds. She tried to pull it off but it kept getting stuck. At one point she had covered her face completely. She ended up getting so mad she started to cry.

My next thing to try was to actually put sunglasses on her. I figured this was a shot in the dark but you never know. These lasted even less time than the hat did. They were easier to pull off.

Easter Bunny

Here is Kaylie's picture with the Easter Bunny. With so much going on it was hard to get her to smile. This was the best picture. All the other ones had her leaning forward.

Success!

This morning Kaylie went in to have tubes put in and with her being so young they wanted her to go first putting us at the hospital by 5:45. I was thrilled because she could not eat and drink after midnight and as we all know babies do not stop letting you know that they are hungry. My fear was that this would be the one night she woke up at 3 starving so to help with this I feed her at 11:30, just in case! We got to the hospital, they checked us in and took us back. The hospital we went to is pretty new and not that busy so the service was awesome. The nurse to baby ratio was pretty much 1 to 1. When we got back to the area for day surgery they had me put this little yellow baby gown on her. I looked at it and laughed. It was gigantinormous on her! I laughed and the nurse apologized for how big it was. I didn't care and since Kaylie enjoyed eating it she didn't seem to care that much either.

Kaylie's procedure was not supposed to start until 7. By 6:45am I had met everyone and they had already scooped her up to take her back. They were done and back in to get me by 7:00. Wow that was fast. The funny thing was I heard this baby crying, looked at the nurse and said that's not my baby. The doctor came in 2 seconds later to confirm it was. Oops! Apparently, his theory is crye no dieye (that is spelled phonetically to show what he said). I guess this made me feel a little better.

I went back to get Kaylie and the poor thing would not stop crying. Since I have had some friends go through this I was completely prepared for this to happen but it was still difficult. I knew she would stop once she was a little more oriented with her surroundings. I tried so many things to get her to calm down. Finally, I sat in the rocker and rocked. After about 5 minutes she settled down and fell asleep. The nurse came in and asked me if I wanted to dress her. Knowing that she did not like to be dressed on a regular basis I opted to have her go as is with a blanket over her.

Once home we put Kaylie to bed and then I went to sleep. Neither of us woke up until 11:30. For the most part the rest of the day went well. Since she had an ear infection to begin with she was still in a good deal of pain. She was so stuffed up she was struggling to eat which made her not want to sleep. Poor thing was starving and exhausted at the same time! We have tried to feed her whenever she is awake. I finally decided that the only way to get her to sleep was to give her oatmeal. This worked. I think we are going to have to do this the rest of the night.

Cool thing: The ENT called us tonight to check on her. How cool is that?!? How many doctors call there patients to check up on them. I was able to ask about her appetite, the bleeding in her ears, and her fussiness. I figured all of these things were normal. He did say that if she did not have an ear infection to begin with she would most likely be feeling great. He said that because her ears were so inflamed to begin with we have to wait for them to heal. He also said that with her being so premature it may take longer for her to get over the anesthesia.

Even though it was very stressful getting to this point, getting tubes is going to do wonders for Kaylie. Jason and I are thrilled. Since November Kaylie has had 4 to 5 ear infections and was not turning to sound. The noises that come out of her mouth are not normal. She grunts, does what we call a pterodactyl (high pitch squeal) and goes oohh and now that she can hear so man y things can change. The other thing is we might see a huge increase in her weight. Whenever her ears hurt she eats less. I can't wait to see what will happen!

10 months old!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
10 months ago, at 3:54pm Kaylie was born. Wow! Time flies! Today was a very eventful day. I took her to the doctor for a cold and sure enough we had an ear infection. This is the 4th or 5th one since November. Since we are getting tubes tomorrow for the fluid in her ears the doctor went ahead and prescribed us augmentum. Unfortunately I did not realize it but that is the same thing as amoxicillian. Last time we had that we had VERY full diapers! Thinking we should try it again just to see we ended up creating another first. Her first official throw-up. Jason and I stood there in shock as it happened. It was several hours later and after we had just taken a bath and eaten. Fantastic! The funny thing was afterwards she was starving so I went ahead and feed her again. She passed out right after. Bath time

After seeing how much Kaylie enjoyed her little tub I decided to try her in the big tub. This was fun but she could not sit still causing her to move all over the place. With her being so light and my fear of her falling I pulled out the inflatable duck. I was a little skeptical at first but after 1 minute of her actually being able to sit by herself I was in love. This was the first time I didn't have to squish the girls over the tub to hold her. I could sit back and enjoy watching her play. The funniest part was when she would hit the water causing it to splash in her face. She would stop, make a funny face, and then do it again. It was hilarious! I put some toys in with her and she loved it. They did not have the room to float away as she reached for them. As she sat playing she would kick her foot up to rest on the side of the duck. Like mother like daughter! She also tried very hard to climb out. This is not the time to try pulling up.