Father's Day 2012

Yesterday was Father's Day. This is not a holiday I have had to celebrate with a significant other. All new to me. So... what do you do for your fiance with all 4 kids for Father's day? You make a video...and then go on a family hike.

Here's the video:

Our family hike was to Jones Run Falls in the Shenandoah National Park. This was a brave 3.4 mile hike for our first time hiking and for taking all 4 kiddos. Although Katelyn fought with us (and lost) about what she was going to do and where she was going to hike, Mikayla felt faint, Sydney said she was tired, and Jessyca was just determined she was going to be the first to the end -- I would call it a success. 

Eric loved the video (brought a few tears I think) and then had a good time spending the day with us on our outdoor adventure. We have decided that maybe hiking is not our thing at this point with a challenging two year old. Maybe next year?? 

At least we enjoyed the beautiful scenery....

Mikayla, Kate, Me, Jessyca, and Sydney looking at Jones River Falls

Eric & Sydney in front of a Mini-Waterfall

Our First Break

It's insane how something so expensive can be left on a 2 year old's head 12 hours a day. Thus the breakage issues. Today was our first break. Don't know when or how, but when Kate took off her hearing aids today and handed them to me, the volume button was missing. I didn't notice it at first, but if you look carefully, the left ear has a gray toggle switch and the right no longer does. You can see the inside of the aid now. I immediately called the audiologist and they will look at it on our next appointment June 6th. For now, electrical tape will have to do! A little ghetto looking, but at least they still work!!

Enlightenment

Last week, I had an meeting with the Fluvanna County Public School system to set-up speech therapy to begin in August for Katelyn - since she is not eligible until next year. Katelyn went to a friend's house for a play date. The meeting went well and I went to pick Kate up. Immediately after walking in, Kate takes her hearing aids off and hands them to me. She had not touched them the 1.5 hours I had been gone. ::sigh:: SUPER frustrating!

While talking to the mom of Kate's friend, a song from the Fresh Beats came on the television. Kate's friend began dancing along. Katelyn ran over, followed her friend's eyesight and landed her eyes on the TV. Immediately, Kate ran over to me and pointed to her ears. She actually ASKED to have her hearing aids put back in! She realized she was missing out on the music being played by the band. While this may not seem like a huge deal to some people, it's a complete breakthrough.

She has yet to repeat this request, but it is good to know she realizes the benefit of the hearing aids! All I can do is pray and praise the baby step successes.


UPDATE: Within an hour after I published this post, Kate was watching Sesame Street and one of her hearing aids came off. She brought it to me while attempting to put it back in her ear unsuccessfully. Making strides every day :)

Persistence is Paying Off!

Sometimes I do things with Katelyn & her hearing aids wondering to myself, "is this going to pay off in the end? Or is this a lot of effort for nothing?". I know patience is key and will pay off in the end. If you have experienced a Katelyn sized frustration tantrum, then you know why I would consider quitting instead of standing my ground.

This week magic has happened...

After one month of hearing aids, Katelyn is attempting to communicate in a structured way! For key words and phrases I sign and speak simultaneously. My hope was that she would also do both so I can tell what word she is trying to say. SHE FINALLY HAS!! It is relieving that she can tell me she wants to "eat", "drink", "up", "down", and has a few other words such as "please", "thank you", and "ready, set, go!". 

Currently, when she attempts to speak it is not clear what she is saying without a sign accompanying it 90% of the time. Many sounds come out the same. Speech therapy will fix this with time.

After this 6 month long frustrating journey, it's nice to see the hard work beginning to pay off!

Imitation is the Sincerest form of Flattery

In the past week or so Katelyn has grown to be a copycat. Things you don't realize your doing she starts to repeat. A few examples are:

1. I snapped to get her attention for a photo. She put her hand above her head and tried to snap back at me. (see photo above)

2. I covered my mouth with a napkin when I quietly burped at dinner the other day. She now makes an odd noise every time she covers her mouth with a napkin.

3. If you sneeze around her, she pretends to sneeze back at you.

These are all things she began to do on our vacation. Now I just need to be more aware of myself to ensure I quit my bad habits and prevent them being passed onto her as well. So far, the only thing she won't repeat: speaking. I guess only time will tell!!

Basically, I think she's pretty awesome. Her imitations of people and things make me laugh every day. How did I get so lucky to have such an awesome little girl??

Kate's First "Happy Meal"

Kate is now 10 months old and eats mostly solid food. This is a welcome change. It will be cheaper and easier to feed her now that she doesn't need baby food at every meal. Monday evening we went to Chik-Fil-A with my mom and grandmother. Little did we know that it was Kid's night and by purchasing an adult meal we got a kids meal for free.

Clearly, Kate got her first kid's meal. She had a fruit cup, chicken nuggets, and I shared a few of my fries with her. It was great to see all the choices of what you could opt not to get in order to provide your child with a healthier meal.

In addition, they have board books for children under 3 years old. Between the board book and the balloon, Kate was in heaven :)

Happy Halloween!

This is Kate's first Halloween. About 10 years ago my sister was at a thrift shop and randomly bought a pumpkin costume for a 9 month old. Little did she know Kate would be 9 months old on her first Halloween. This costume fit her so well! She was absolutely adorable :)

We did not go Trick-or-Treating although I was asked if we were about 100 times. Since she can't walk and could not say "Trick or Treat!" I opted to visit a friend at Effort Baptist Church's Hallow Him celebration. Everyone was dressed up and there were many activities for children. Although Kate cannot interact much because she's so young, she had a great time watching people in costumes and loved all of the decorations. It was a great evening!

Watch Kate grow with us!

Below we have two videos taken Monday, October 25th.....

This one is when we went out to dinner at Red Lobster. I gave Kate a lemon. This is the result :)

This second video is a little dark (and loud - just to warn you). We put a cookie just out of Kate's reach to see if she would crawl to it since she isn't crawling yet. We didn't quite get a crawl, but its good enough for me!

Carter's Mountain 10/24/10

This past Sunday, we went to Carter's Mountain Orchard to go apple picking. Last year Katelyn was in my belly and we said we would come back with her this fall!

Kate loves being outside. She even picked her own apple. When that girl wants something she gets it and has quite a grip! We went a little crazy and let her try an apple doughnut as well. She loved it.

Can't wait for next year when she will be more active and can enjoy a hay ride :)

It's been a while...

Today we went in for our 9 month check up. She had her last Hepititis B shot & the first of two Flu vaccines. She's a champ with the shots. Crying and then getting over it pretty quickly with some love and a bottle :) At Kate's first check up, she was in the 25th percentile for weight and 50th percentile for height. Today is is 19lbs and 14ozs and 28 inches long. This puts her in the 75th percentile for both weight and height. What a big change! The doctor can't believe it either but said its nothing to worry about since she's in the 75th percentile for both.

Since its been about 7 months since the last time I've posted, there is no way for me to post everything that has changed with Katelyn in that time. Currently, she is mobile, but not quite crawling. Its interesting to watch how she can get to things she wants without actually crawling yet. We're slowly introducing solid foods as well. She has the cutest smile, but that little smile is all gums. No teeth quite yet!

The next month or so I believe she will start crawling, pulling herself up, and get a tooth. She's right on the brink of all three. The one thing she does VERY well is let people know what she thinks! Katelyn is a very vocal baby. She is known as the "Terradactyl Baby" to one of the parents at daycare because she yells/talks all the time. I can tune it out and most of the time its pretty cute :)

We will certainly post much more often from here on out! Thanks for checking in <3

Loss of Umbilical Cord & First Bath

Baby Katelyn lost her umbilical cord when she was 11 days old. This little present was found in her diaper, but we were very excited! Not being able to bathe her and having to be super careful during diaper changes was starting to be stressful. Now we had one less sensitive spot & thing to worry about!


The loss of her umbilical cord = first bath!! After 11 days, Katelyn got to experience her first bath at home. They gave her a bath the day she was born, but I think she was too traumatized about being out of the womb to know what was going on.


She screamed the entire bath. We had been told to use only a couple of inches of water which probably made it a little uncomfortable. I cleaned her off while Dylan took pictures and tried to talk to soothe her by talking to her.

Her favorite part was being wrapped in the towel and cuddling with Dylan afterwards. She definitely finds him comforting which is really cute :) Dylan always gets to be the "good cop" parent with her since I do the things she hates the most aka burping, diaper changes and baths. 

So far, she still hates bath time. Hopefully she will grow out of this phase and start enjoying it soon!

First Nail Clipping

Believe it or not, this happened the afternoon she was born. Mom and Brandi ran errands to pick up some last minute things while Dylan and I were in the hospital with Kate. They bought the health care kit and came back to the hospital in the evening. Kate had already scratched herself several times. I was too nervous to cut her nails since her fingers & fingernails were so tiny. 


Here is a photo of how long her fingernails were when she was born:

I wish I had nails like that!! Her fingernails are still growing like crazy. In the last 6 weeks, I've cut them about 4 times. She's one lucky girl to have such nice & hard fingernails!