Party Weekend

This weekend, we had two birthday parties to attend. Saturday was the party for Ryan's (Tina and Kenny's son) 3rd birthday which was at a pizza place that had one of those big play structures for kids (like the ones they have at McDonald's). As you can see from the pictures below, I used Kaitlyn as an excuse to play in the structure and we both had a fun time crawling through the maze. Sunday was the party for Max's (Ron and Michelle's son) 2nd birthday which started out at a park, but moved to their house since the wind began to pick up. Kaitlyn had fun playing with the other kids and trying to open Max's presents. It was a very fun and busy weekend hanging out with friends and Kaitlyn balanced the hard playing with hard sleeping.

Below are just some random, cute pictures. The first shows Kaitlyn as she reaches for the hand towel in the kitchen. That is one of the few things still within her reach. Notice her left sock missing - she's always pulling that darn thing off. The second picture shows Kaitlyn smiling as she reaches in her toy box. She loves to pull things out and make as big of a mess as possible. The third picture shows Kaitlyn in a dress that was crocheted for her by a nun that Grandma Pride works with. She's a natural in front of the camera.

Easter Weekend and Kaitlyn Plays the Piano

Now that Kaitlyn has mastered crawling, she has started to pull herself up on things. She likes to crawl down the hallway and pull herself up on a storage box where Shawnna keeps her scrapbooking supplies. She only gets to her knees, but that's the first step to standing up.

I was doing laundry Saturday morning and Kaitlyn crawled over to the laundry room where I was loading clothes into the dryer. I stood her up next to the dryer door and she held onto it and stood all by herself. She even let go with one hand for a few seconds and never lost her balance. Of course, I was right there just in case.

On Sunday, we went to Grandma & Grandpa Pride's house for Easter. The Easter Bunny had stopped by and left Kaitlyn some stuffed animals, a dress, a movie (101 Dalmatians), a book and formula (instead of candy). She had a lot of fun rolling around on the floor with Grandpa and playing "airplane." I think Grandpa is going to be stiff tomorrow. She was also quite literally the center of attention with everyone gathered around as she demonstrated her newly learned crawling ability.

On the weekends, Kaitlyn and I like to sit at the piano while she creates an original composition. Below is a video documenting the creative genius at work.

X-Ray Results

Quick update to last night's blog post. The x-rays showed that Kaitlyn's lungs look perfectly healthy (no bronchitis or pneumonia). So, the doctor thinks it must be allergies (to what is anybody's guess). She suggested we give her Children's Benadryl (.5 tsp. every 6 hours) and see if that helps. Kaitlyn has her 9 month checkup on April 1st, so we'll see how it goes until then.

Kaitlyn's First X-Ray

After going to the doctor for an ear infection and bronchiolitis 2 weeks ago, Kaitlyn's health seems to have improved, but she still coughs every once in a while and sounds congested. So, it was back to the doctor today to see if something else is wrong. Kaitlyn's left ear infection has completely healed, but her right ear is still infected. We got a prescription for Azithromycin (1 tsp. on first day, then .5 tsp. days 2-5) to take care of that.

The doctor listened to Kaitlyn's chest and didn't hear any congestion. However, Kaitlyn happened to cough when the doctor was in the room and she was able to hear that it was more than just a dry cough, so she ordered a chest x-ray to see if there was something which she couldn't hear through a stethoscope. After that, we headed to the hospital for the x-ray and Kaitlyn was so good laying still on the table for the x-ray technician.

He took two x-rays (one from the front and one on the side) and tomorrow, we should find out the results. This has turned into a pretty event-filled week - some good and some bad. Let's hope for only good things in the weeks to come.

At least being sick hasn't slowed her crawling down at all. Her ability and range seems to be growing exponentially day by day. Tonight, she crawled halfway down the entrance hall toward a ball she likes to play with. When she got tired, she stopped, looked at me and let me know in a not so subtle way that it was time to come get her. It's amazing to see her develop right before our eyes.

Definitely Crawling!

Yesterday we weren't sure if what she was doing could be considered crawling, but today, there's no doubt. She's been crawling all over the place and getting into things we now need to move. She found a Pampered Chef DVD which seems to be her new favorite thing - she screams when we take it away. Let the baby proofing continue...

Early Attempt at Crawling

For the last couple of days, Kaitlyn looked like she was about to crawl. She would move an arm or leg forward a little bit, but then fall down. Tonight, she actually made some good progress and I caught it on video. I don't know if you can call it crawling yet, but it sure is close. She certainly reached her intended destination - take a look.

Weekend Images - March 15-16, 2008

On Saturday, we hung around the house and Kaitlyn continued to expand her area of exploration as she becomes more mobile (she's sooooo close to crawling). On Sunday, we went to Mimi's Cafe for lunch to celebrate Aunt Gayle and Cousin Heidi's birthdays. Below are pictures from the weekend. Roll your mouse over each photo to see the caption.

Feeling better and back on track

It's been a week since Daddy took Kaitlyn to the doctor, and she's feeling so much better now. Her cough is gone, she's sleeping well, and the color is back in her cheeks. She only has a couple more days of the antibiotic she's on, but she's done with the Albuterol. Amazingly, her eczema also cleared up. We have a totally healthy baby once again!

Kaitlyn is also back to her routine of rolling around on the floor to explore and she's been expanding her area of reach. She's now going onto the tile and learning what that feels like (sometimes she even tries to lick it). In addition, she's rolling her way over to the laundry room that used to be blocked off by the wine rack. Last weekend we removed the wine rack because it was becoming more of a nuisance to have to move Kaitlyn away from it every time she rolled to it and grabbed the bottles. Now we've opened up the area and Kaitlyn's gone exploring what she hasn't been able to get to before. Pretty soon she'll be circling the dining room table!

She's also almost crawling. Every now and then if you watch her, you think she's going to lift up her knee and go forward, but then it doesn't qualify as a crawl. Oh well, she will get there in time. I'm sure when she does start crawling, we'll be wishing she would stop!

Here's a photo of Kaitlyn have a splashingly good time in her bath last night.

Under the Weather

For the past couple of weeks, Kaitlyn has had a bit of a cough and a runny nose. Her coughs were few and far between, so we didn't think too much of it. The last couple of days, however, it seemed to be getting worse and she wasn't sleeping very well. Last night when I was feeding her, she didn't want to eat and I could hear the congestion in her chest when she coughed. It was time for a visit to the doctor.

I took her to the doctor today to get her cough checked out and I also mentioned that she has been tugging on her left ear. The doctor looked in her left ear and said it was on the verge of being infected. Then she looked in her right ear and said it was fully infected. Finally, she listened to her breathing and said she could hear wheezing and made a diagnosis of bronchiolitis. The prescriptions for these ailments are Amoxicillin (1 tsp. twice a day for 10 days) and Albuterol (2 ml. three times a day for 7 days). Add this to the Hydrocortisone we apply to her Eczema and we have a drugged up baby ;-)

Seriously though, she has been a real trooper and hasn't "acted sick." She's pretty much been her happy, easy-going self until her sleeping and eating were affected the last two days. I told her to let us know sooner next time so we could be more proactive and get her the medicine she needs to feel better. She just looked at me with her big, beautiful eyes and said, "Ba ba ba ga ga da da."

Raspberries and Kitties

Kaitlyn discovered how to blow raspberries using her tongue and she has been practicing all night as shown in the video below.

This weekend, Kaitlyn pet a cat for the first time. As you can see below, she did more of a grab and pull. I should have taken a picture of what happened next - she pulled her hand away and showed me a fist full of fur. Luckily, the cat (my mom's) has been around babies and was very understanding.

8 months old

Today, Kaitlyn is 2/3 of a year old! She is as mobile as she can be without crawling. She can pivot and roll where she wants to go - usually somewhere we don't want her to be (wine rack, electronics under the TV, stack of magazines under the coffee table, etc.). Needless to say, we still have some baby proofing to do before she starts to crawl.

She has become very vocal and certainly has a healthy set of lungs which she displays with a high pitched screech whenever her heart desires (see video below). She also enjoys practicing her ba-ba's, da-da's and other combinations of sounds which I don't know how to spell. She is a great sleeper. She typically sleeps 11 hours at night (8pm - 7am) and wakes up making the aforementioned sounds which is our cue that the day has begun. Oh yeah, she also likes to read and isn't happy when she's interrupted in the middle of a chapter (see picture below ;-)