busy weekend and doctor's appointment update

Holy Moley! It's been a busy weekend! Saturday, I didn't work till the evening, so we grabbed lunch, drove to the Lions Club Game Park in town and ate under the picnic shelter. It was great. mid 70's nice breeze. Kaelyn got to see the bison (but by the time we got to the enclosure they were in the water/tall grass and not in view. Kinda Sad! ) We saw deer, and caribou! Then we went to the park and played on the swing, went on the slide a few times, on one of those rocking animals (you know the ones. with handles and a big spring so they kind of bounce and wiggle in all directions? those are the ones). Last but not least, Jeremy wanted to take Kaelyn on the merry-go-round. SHE LOVED IT!

Sunday morning we woke up at the butt-crack of dawn to go see my dad and step mom compete in The Border Battle WORS race in River Falls. It was a gorgeous day. If you were in the shade, with the breeze on you, it was PERFECT! Kaelyn loved playing in the long grass (and you can be sure I checked for ticks later). We packed a lunch and she got to play with toys and eat snacks on a blanket while cheering Dad and Tammy on! They both made the podium. Tammy finished 3rd, beating out her "nemesis" and whooping some butt! (GIRL POWER!) and Dad had a great race finishing 2nd! Grama Tammy even took Kaelyn up on the podium. I think they are trying to give her a taste of it now, so that she gets the bug. If She's like her momma, she'll end up at least giving it a try. (I raced for two years, before puberty and BOOBS got in the way. Among other things)

All in all it was a great, fun, family oriented, exhausting weekend.

Today, Kaelyn had her audiologist appointment and it went great! We have beautiful weather so we BIKED. yep. It was a bit warmer than expected but a beautiful ride. We tested great. awesome responses to sound stimulation. they want us back in 6 weeks though because she might have water in one of her ears that might have messed with her one ears' tests. even tho they were normal, she just wants to recheck. Kaelyn did NOT, however, like having them test the soundwaves (with the earphones in her

ears) but she was a trooper!!

A beautiful day here!

IT's been a rough few weeks at the Van Dreel House. Last week, we had the FLU! It started with Kaelyn waking up having puked in her crib. It was a rough night! Every half hour she was awake (or as awake as she could be being sicker than a dog and her body waking her up to be ill) and it broke my heart! By about 8am, this mommy was tired and daddy woke up to take over. He took the day off of work so that we could take care of her. She kept down pedialyte and napped a little with daddy while I crashed for a few hours. They played a little and then we ALL crashed for a nap! The rest of the day was uneventful. We were pushing the fluids and so happy to see her smiles coming back! The next day, MOMMY got sick, and then Saturday, DADDY got sick. Thankfully he was sick on a Saturday so he didn't have to miss more work! Sunday was a lazy family day until I went to work ( i missed 3 days taking care of Kaelyn, myself and Jeremy.) I love my family, but I needed to get out of the house. I needed adult interaction and a non-lysol environment!

We've spent the last week just recovering. The laundry was piling up. I washed and dryed but didn't fold laundry while everyone was sick so I had a HUGE PILE of laundry to fold. Ugh.

Kaelyn had her optometrist appointment last monday. It went awesome! She had her eyes dilated. They used the drops and we went in at 8am and she got 1 drop in each eye every 5 minutes. Between her drops and our appointment, she took a little nap and cuddled me, but the down side was that I had to wake her up for her appointment! No way was she happy! But she did awesome, her eyes look good. Nothing to be concerned about. She is a little farsighted, but most children her age are farsighted so it's nothing to worry about. (Although with so much of our family wearing glasses I am guessing it is just a matter of when and not if she will need glasses of some sort.)

We've been working on her walking and she's getting so much stronger and more confident every day! We are still using her Juppy baby walker. She LOVES to cruise the furniture still so I am so very much hoping that we have a walker on our hands soon! I have got to say that I LOVE using the Juppy because it means I can walk with her and my back isn't KILLING me after 5 feet!

We had a pretty good scare on Friday though. I logged onto facebook and saw a post from one of the local tv stations back home. They mentioned an explosion at the paper mill where my dad and my father-in-law work. It was pretty scary. Luckily, both of our dads, both of Kaelyn's Papas, were safe and had the day off! Phew! 3 people were injured, 2 were released right away and 1 was taken by helicopter to Madison with burns! It was very lucky for us that our dads were okay and we said a prayer for the families of the 3 men who weren't so lucky.

For now, I am off to make lunch and bake some banana bread. WOOP! We are teething like crazy. getting in 2 or 3 teeth right now and we are MISERABLE. Kaelyn is waking up 2 or 3 times a night! Hopefully we can bake some bread, eat lunch, I can shower and we'll take a good nap!

Tomorrow we get to shampoo the upstairs and downstairs living rooms. Our roommate moved out and we have less furniture downstairs and the carpet could use a good cleaning. I'm not 100% sure that the carpet was all that clean before we moved in! Add a year of furniture and high traffic and it's in need of some TLC! I'm Super excited. All the basement needs after the carpet cleaning is a couch and maybe a nicer tv, but for now, it makes a great big open room (baby proofed) for Kaelyn to romp around in! With the way the weather has been, though? Not sure we'll get to use it.

Have a great day! ( I know we will!)

Lara and Kaelyn

15 month check up

So we had a good week so far, despite the heat and humidity. Kaelyn had her 15 month check up yesterday and got 2 shots in the process! She's growing like a weed!

Here are her 15 month stats:

height: 30.5 inches (45%)

weight: 21 pounds 4.5 ounces (15%)

We didn't get to see our regular doctor, Dr W. because she was on vacation. GO FIGURE. She's hard to get an appointment with because she is popular and in demand. That also means she always seems rushed and part of me still doesn't like taking Kaelyn to her because it wasn't until her 9 month appointment that she even mentioned noticing a possible chromosomal issue. She brought in Dr. A to look at her and see if he saw the same "markers" that she did. He saw them as well and was more thorough in the 2 times we've seen them than all the other times. I LOVED our appointment with Dr. A and his nurse. He only saw her once other than the consult but he remembered her, made sure to ask that we were seeing birth-to-3 and checking up with the SPC Down's Syndrome Clinic. Reiterated that he didn't want her to fall through the cracks. Was so pleased with the things we had going for intervention and check ups! With the exception of her walking being delayed, she is right where she should be and even a little ahead! I told myself that this appointment would be a test of who to take Kaelyn to in the future and as we were walking out, I felt very secure in my decision to switch doctors.

As I mentioned earlier in this update, the humidity has been through the roof (70% today) and in the high 90's. Too miserable to go out in, even for a short while, so we have been stuck in the house and that hasn't been helped at all by the numerous teeth coming in and the usual "crankies" we get after shots. Here is to hoping tomorrow is a more perky day for my little lady.

peace, love, and hugs!

Lara

Rainy day

Oh lordy! I seem to have all of these grandiose ideas about blogging on a regular basis. So this is where I say to myself "I have a TODDLER..... I will blog whenever I get the time!" We had a great week last week. Just very mellow. Kaelyn chilled out with her Papa Mike and Grandma Sandy and Nanny (my mom) while the hubby and I went to our class of 2001 10 year HS Reunion. It was a pretty sad showing. our of a class of OVER 600 we maybe at MOST had 70 people (that is including spouses) show up. The food was kinda skimpy but it was nice to see a few people and chat with them. The next day we took Kaelyn down to the river front to listen to some music, visit with family and watch the fireworks. Needless to say, she was OUT like a light before they started and only woke up for the finale. We went to the parade the next morning before heading home and spent some time with my brother in law, his wife, and their precious little girl. She's 2 months old and "dangerous". The kind of cuddly newborn that makes you want another one RIGHT NOW!!

We had a few days of quiet then my mom came up for a visit. We had loads of fun. We had our July birth-to-3 visit and it went well. more ideas of what to do to get Kaelyn walking, to get her to gain more strength in her legs and more balance. We went shopping, and got an Autograph from #30 of the green bay packers, John KUUUUUUHN!!! was a pretty fun day. I worked the weekend so Kaelyn got some quality time with her Nanny (my mom). We played it mellow at the beginning of the week but picked it up again when we went to the zoo on Wednesday. We had fun but by the end of the day she was POOPED! I can't say I blame her, it was a long day. First we couldn't get the prius started for swim class. we get there 1o minutes late and BLAM! No swimsuit for Kaelyn. At that point, we just left for the zoo. We figured it was not going to get any better if we went back for the blasted swim suit. SO after all that drama of getting to the pool and NO swimsuit, I just changed out of my suit there and we left. We got home and Mom and I grilled chicken breasts on the grill and then added some bbq sauce for good measure. I never grilled chicken before and it was NUMMY! I'll have to do it again!

We had a lazy day thursday. Just hung out, made some sweedish Meatballs. YUMMMM... Watched "Hall Pass" and went to bed.

Thursday was also our last day of swim class. I was kind of hoping one of the moms would have wanted to trade numbers and meet at a park every so often but no luck there. We came home and Kaelyn napped like a pro! napped through a thunderstorm and everything! Yay!

Since swim class is over we are going to go to a play group on Friday mornings through our local birth-to-3 program. they do gross/fine motor skills, sing a few songs, have a snack, group play, sensory activities. It was pretty fun. I just want to make sure I keep it so that she is well socialized and interacts with kids of her own age level on a regular basis.

WOah! this turned into quite the blog. I just want to give a shout out to my april 2010 WTE mommies. You ladies are great! Thanks for all of the chats and many more to come!

Time to go make some cookies and wash some diapers! (i think i forgot to post on that....i'll double check later. )

Have a great day! Lara and Kaelyn

holy smokes!

It's been SO LONG since my last post! Over a month!! Kaelyn is getting bigger, faster, and smarter every single day. It's almost frightening!!

Look at her new face. Lots of people call it the "duck face" but in our family, we call it the "Grandma Mildred Face" as that is how she would scrunch her face up, after licking her lips, to give you a big old smooch. Kaelyn DEFINITELY has a little bit of great grandma Mildred in her.

Anyways, Things are going great. She getting closer to walking every day. She is less timid, and lets go a lot more and started to take steps. Whether or not it is her partial T21 or her previously loose hip, She is not far off from walking. And that alone, terrifies me. If she is fast on all fours, how fast will this kid be upright and walking? YIKES!

This week we started swiming classes. YAY! It's more of a work out for me than it is for her, but she is getting more and more comfortable in the water and even lets us lay her on her back! She's not close to floating as she still DEMANDS to be held onto (but hey, she's 14 months old!) but if i lay her head on my shoulder and her legs away from me, she does very well! And she just loves the water and her new friend Otis. Otis seems to like her too. Watch out! We have a flirt on our hands.

We also recently dived into the world of CLOTH DIAPERS. Yes, I said it. CLOTH DIAPERS. BUt so far we are on Day 2 and it's going great. They don't stink up her diaper pail NEARLY as bad as the disposables (cuz the poop gets flushed and doesn't sit and bake, i'm guessing) and i LOVE diaper changes since I have all of these fun diapers in fun colors to put on her! My only regret is that I didn't buy more!! We went with Nubunz pocket diapers and they are awesome! The one drawback, in my opinion, is that it took FOREVER to get any order information from them. I bought them on the 10th and didn't hear anything from them until the 19th. Even if they weren't being shipped right away, I had hoped i would get an order number and a reasonable deadline as to when to expect them. Once I emailed them, however, I got a confirmation number and they were shipped the next day! I stalked the UPS site with my tracking number every few hours and wonderfully, they got here yesterday before I went to work. I got most of hte parts and Jeremy is going to build us a diaper sprayer. So far all of our #2 diapers have been pretty "solid" and THANKFULLY we haven't needed the sprayer. YAY! I need to look into some diaper soaps and hopefully I can get some samples to try out and, even though i'm sure NOBODY Else reads this, I can put my opinions up and people can have a little bit more information without doing all of the work. (Cuz, HEY! I did it first!) later taters! Gonna go look up that diaper soap stuff. Have a good day!!

Lara and Kaelyn

the month of may

Kinda sucks. Not gonna lie.This month started out with an emergency trip back home. We went home on a sunday night after a call that my grandpa, or Papa as we call him, was in the ICU. His COPD was stage 4 and they were keeping him comfortable but it was only a matter of time. He passed away 2 days later on monday. I was lucky enough to be able to be there for him, he got to hear Kaelyn say "papa" (a word she learned just earlier that week) SO between the funeral and the family drama (there was plenty) it was an exhausting week. I had to come home when Jeremy came home (he only got 1 day of bereavement and I got 3) so the two remaining days were spend playing out in the yard with Kaelyn and catching up on the sleep I lost the previous few days.

From there, the next week we had a great visit with our Birth-to-3 ladies, Mary and Natalie. They taught Kaelyn how to climb up the stairs!! She is now a pro! We did it twice yesterday and in the process of trying to get a video, we needed her to do it 2 more times! She slept through the night for the first time in weeks (teething is a stinker! The tooth fairy is being a brat to us, lets just say that much.)

Sorry for the lapse in between posts, but life is crazy, having a toddler getting into EVERYTHING. I'll try to be a little more faithful in posting. in the meantime, here is a link to her video of her crawling up the stairs.

Have a great day!

Lara, Jeremy, and Kaelyn!

HERES THE LINK

One Year Old!

I can't believe its been a year since my baby girl was brought into the world! A whole year of smiles, diapers, sleepless nights, and so much more! I can't believe that I've been a mommy for a whole year now! She's been such a blessing to Jeremy and I, to our whole family and just because of her diagnosis, it makes everything that much more special. It makes us appreciate every single day, every little thing. All of the milestones and the memories. I get teary eyed just thinking about the last year!

Her party was awesome and just perfect. My mom came up a few days early to help do some cleaning, and get some stuff cooked and decorated. She had so many guests and special presents and we have so many memories to pass on to her! She got lots of music toys, especially a music set (egg shakers, tambourine, shaker, drums) and she also got a way cool wagon! We've put it all to wonderful use taking trips over to the park across the street from our house! She also got so many special and adorable outfits! We are still trying to wear them all! OH! and she got a BOX! I am in the process of painting it mossy green and "sunrise pink" lol. Ugh. It's getting late and i have to get to bed. We have Kaelyn on an awesome sleep schedule (bed by 10 and up at 8 usually) and I have minimal time to get up and shower before she wakes up! Every day is awesome and she wakes up SMILING! (Our birth to 3 Occupation therapist says she's "amazingly easy going! If I knew all babies would be as easy going, I'd have a dozen more!..... well maybe not a DOZEN, but I'd sure jump on the bandwagon for another one. I kind of want to try again, but we'll see. ENOUGH of my rambling, i'm off to bed. Thanks for reading! i might try a video blog for my next entry. we'll see how that goes!