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!

Weaning, and other things

Well, we are officially down to one feeding a day. I am happy that we have a little extra freedom to go and run errands and just bum around town and have fun. But I am having a little bit of an issue with missing the closeness and bonding time. Like scooping her up from the crib first thing in the morning, put on the news and snuggle up and nurse her. Knowing I can do something for her that nobody else can. I am the one who nourishes her with MY body. I feel like I'm losing something that I can't get back. I know that it's best for both of us, and I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. I am sure there have been COUNTLESS other mommies who have gotten a little teary eyed knowing that our babies are growing up and they don't need us like they used to.

On the upside, there has been a little bit of tenderness but no outright pain, no engorgement. My body seems to be transitioning very well. And for that I am most thankful.

She's picking up speed with her crawling, pulling up on the sofa now. In her defense, our couch is high and rounded cushions so its harder for her. But man is she getting good! I may be losing nursing and bonding, but I am gaining a new perspective on life EACH DAY. I see a new little girl growing up before my eyes!

On a different note, my sister and mom's DNA tests came back a few weeks ago, and contrary to what our geneticist thought, My mom was not the one to pass on the genetic balanced rearrangement. SO now its either passed on from my dad's side of the family, or I am the first and it happened at conception.

HOLY SMOKES! It's 1/4 to 2! i'm jumping in bed. I'll post more later!

All of our love

Lara and Kaelyn

Guess who is 11 months old?

We are 11 months old as of the 5th and celebrated with a fun little photo shoot of our own! Woo hoo! We are under a month away from her birthday and her party! My mom made the invites and they are starting to arrive in the mail. We received our first call today. My grandma on my dads side is unable to make it. But we are home the weekend before and after the party so we will make sure to stop over for some special grandma time!

This next month is going to be amazing!

On the 16th we have ANOTHER meeting with our birth-to-3 ladies, Mary and Natalie. Those women are simply amazing. These little exercises they have us work with Kaelyn on has made such huge strides! She army crawls and then she crawls! It's hard to get her to do them now that she is crawling because she is so inquisitive and wants to explore and get into mischief.

The weekend of the 25th we are heading back home for the weekend because my brother-in-law and his wife are having their baby shower that weekend! Yay! We'll get to visit with my mom and sisters hopefully and some of the great-grandparents too!

We get to come home and clean like crazy and wait for the weekend of the 1st for Kaelyn's birthday party! I can't believe my little girl is turning one in just 3 short weeks! It seems unreal that just one year ago she was in my tummy, breech and stubborn and all over my bladder! And then she was OUT! She's here and she's thriving in the real world!

The very next weekend is TRIVIA! We participate in the world's largest trivia contest in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. It's a pretty big deal where we are from and the contest takes over the WHOLE town. It's going to be fun. Kaelyn gets to spend a whole day with her Auntie Kristin. Yay!! (what will this mommy do without a baby to keep an eye on?)

On a different note, sippy cup training is AWESOME! We are all but weaned from the bottles, doing awesome eating more and more table food. We have been weaned from pacifiers for months! She started rejecting them around thanksgiving, which is awesome!

Time sure is flying and its crazy to me. Next step is Kaelyn walking and having a fun spring/summer, her first easter (since she was born the day AFTER easter 2010) and all the rest of her milestones.

But if one more person says my headache is me being pregnant or asks me when we are going to have another baby, I am gonna scream! We are gonna wait just a smidge longer, due to the c-section and all.

Later taters! Gotta get ready to put Kaelyn to bed!

Take care and thanks for reading!

Lara and Kaelyn

March is here!

Does that mean springtime is on its way? I surely hope so. It's been a week or so since I have updated last and I think I'll just make it a weekly blog.

Last week, Kaelyn started crawling. I put a video link on my last blog entry. It's so adorable! But one thing nobody warned me about, the learning curve. Once they learn, you put them on the floor and they are off and racing! It's nuts!! Sometimes I lean over to put her on the floor and her legs and arms are already going!

I cannot believe that on Saturday, Kaelyn will be 11 months old! Party invites are in the mail and my mom did such an amazing job on them. Kaelyn will have such pretty invites for her very first birthday ever! I can't wait!

I've got quite the day of laundry ahead of me. Not only did i get 5 pair of pants (garanimals) on sale at walmart yesterday, but a co-worker of mine is through having children and gave me a HUGE TCP bag full of hand me downs! Gonna rewash them so we don't have any detergent issues, but OMG. Some of the outfits are so cute! I think tomorrow Kaelyn and I will have a mini photo shoot tomorrow for her 11 month pictures. I have heard as much yet, but I'm sure the grandmas would love something more than the Valentine's Day pictures I posted 2 or 3 weeks ago.

We've been feeding her more finger foods lately and we've been pretty successful! We LOVE macaroni and cheese, potatoes, fruity pancakes (bisquick gluten free pancakes with left over baby food puree in them) Graham crackers, cheerios, chicken, ham, turkey, spaghetti (not quite there on her own yet.) and others. I am going to steam some carrot coins and those can be her next new finger food. She also FINALLY found a sippy cup that she will drink out of and is starting to learn that she needs to tip it back to get to the bottom of the cup. We've done apple juice (50/50 mix with water) and whole milk. She REFUSES to drink formula with whole milk or breast milk with whole milk, and it doesn't seem to bother her tummy in the least. Thank the lord. Jeremy had a hard time getting her to drink her bottle on Tuesday when I was at work. She wanted either a.) the boob, b.) formula, or c.) whole milk. not a combination. luckily for this mommy, she was hungry when I got home so I could avoid the breast pump.

Odin is struggling with Kaelyn being more mobile as she loves to crawl over to him and yank his tail or pull his ears. He just kinda growls and walks away but that is by no means a deterrent for her wanting to "play" with her puppy. I was very impressed today by his behavior. He laid next to us on the couch and let her stroke his ears while she nursed. He was patient and seems to be learning that she's not going anywhere so he better get used to her. Our only REAL issue is that she thinks its okay to feed Odin. So when she gets finger food, he's put away in our bedroom. Today Kaelyn had bananas and got it on her feet. (don't ask me how, i'm still scratching my head at that) I run potty and come back to Kaelyn laughing so hard she's hiccuping. Odin is by her feet, head sideways, licking BETWEEN her toes. Too funny. Thank goodness my bladder was empty because it was HILLARIOUS!

We are battling a little diaper rash right now on her girly parts. Poor dolly hates when I lay her on the changing table because she KNOWS I'm going to have to wipe her down and put more A&D back on it. Desitin at night seems to help a little, but I believe because she is a tummy sleeper and the pee goes to the front of the diaper, a healthy glob of A&D before bed will go a long way towards being a skin protecting barrier than the desitin for this particular incident. I just hate knowing that she is so miserable for diaper changes. But oh well.

I forgot to mention that I emailed our Birth-to-3 (also known as "early intervention") lady after Kaelyn started crawling and they mailed out a few other ideas to work on for the next 2 weeks. We'll see if we can get her to sit in one place long enough to do them! Now that she is crawling, she is off like a lit firecracker!

I'm off to bed. I wanna get up early to read a little before kaelyn gets up. I baked oreo cupcakes again and need to frost them as well. But after making dinner, feeding Kaelyn, and baking the cupcakes, I decided that I could frost them later. I plopped on the floor and played with my girl and read a book on my Nook and before I knew it, she nursed, fell asleep (while nursing) and I laid her down. BONUS! Now, all I have to do is wrestle the remote away from Jeremy so I can put some news on to fall asleep to. OH! and kick Odin out of my spot on the bed. Jeremy have him a few treats when he came home after I gave such a GLOWING review of his behavior. I don't want my pillow smelling like dog breath and dog biscuits. ICK!

Later gaters!

All of our love,

Lara and Kaelyn

What a WEEK!

Holy moly. It's been a while since i updated. I feel like I should title the blog "Wow. long time no blog" or just have that be the title for each update. Being mommy to a little one is exhausting!

She had her February appointment with the Birth-to-3 ladies. They were very pleased with her army crawling and she even got into what they call a "bear walk" pose. they are going to continue to see her on a monthly basis just to make sure she stays on track. And seeing as how each time they come and give us a few exercises to do with her and she responds amazingly. Last time we got her on her knees and rocked her back and forth over her knees and soon after she was army crawling! So we saw them last week and got a few more things to try with her and what does she start this morning? CRAWLING! (click here for a video!) I got her to crawl for 5 or 6 feet at a time by having her crawl towards a box of cheerios. lol.I tried just having her follow a trail of cheerios but the dog caught on pretty quickly and ate them all up before she could get to them! Silly puppy. My mom was video chatting with us on skype and she got to see Kaelyn crawl too! And the upside is that Kaelyn went to sleep a whole hour earlier than normal! I could have gotten her to bed earlier, but she wasn't in her jammies and needed a diaper change. So that woke her up. She's getting so big so fast that it's hard to believe we are already thinking of guest lists and invites for her 1st birthday! and she kinda gets two because we go home the weekend AFTER her bday to compete in the worlds largest trivia contest (Click here for the 90fm trivia web page). I'm sure that we'll see a few relatives that can't make the drive to our place (2 1/2 hours from our hometown) and she'll get a few extra presents and maybe a cupcake! lol. Did i forget to mention the huge freaking snow storm we got on sunday! 12.5 inches of snow dumped on us in one day! The closed down the interstate and even monday morning on Jeremy's drive to work he saw so many cars in the ditch. It was probably not a good idea to take the interstate to work seeing as how the on/off ramps weren't plowed worth a dang, but he made it to work okay and he came home so we could finish shoveling out what the plow shoveled into our driveway. lol. It has certainly been a week so far and its only Tuesday! I cannot WAIT to see what else the week has in store for us!

Much love and happy winter!

Lara and Kaelyn

spring is almost here!

Monday was Kaelyn's first Valentines day! It's crazy! 10 months old and now we are closing a chapter, very soon, on her first year!! In 6 short weeks we can say Bye Bye to having a baby and say hello to having a 1 year old!! We can plan a birthday party and start thinking of walking and her first trip to the park across the street, playing on the swings, taking her on her first trip down the slide, watching her walk barefoot in the grass.

I got super hopeful for the weather to stay nice and bought a container of bubbles. Kaelyn was not much for the bubbles last summer/fall, it was more of a fun thing for Odin to jump up and chase after and catch with his mouth. Yay!

I had an AVON meeting today at a cafe/coffee shop down the street and the ladies were all enamored with Kaelyn. "She's so sweet!" "Awwww,...... what a cutie pie!" Hee hee. There is something about hearing how cute your child is that makes your day. After the meeting, we ran to walmart for some supplies for dinner and light bulbs for the kitchen. A trip to walmart is almost ALWAYS a fun time because my coworkers LOVE when she waves her chubby fingers at them. And she LOVES to chatter and jabber at people and scream at them when they don't notice her waving and clapping at them.

Kaelyn got up and did a "down ward dog" type pose this morning. So, I can only hope that means that she is getting closer to REAL crawling and maybe even cruising along the edges of furniture.

We have our Birth-to-3 assessment tomorrow. Another follow up with Natalie and Mary. It was a great time last time, to have reassurance that she is on track and doing well by someone elses standards. We'll see what they think of REPEATEDLY being told Kaelyn has low muscle tone (hypotonia) by St. Paul Children's and Kaelyn's family doctor. Just because she isn't going to fight you when you move her legs, doesn't mean she has low muscle tone, right? That's the only confusing thing.... Birth-to-3 says one thing and SPC and our local doc says another. Who to believe?

I'm blogging from the bathroom where Kaelyn is splishing and splashing in her tub. I better go and scrub her down and rinse her off. time to get ready for bed time!

I will most definitely update the blog after Birth-to-3 ladies leave.

Lots of love,

Mommy and Kaelyn

where were you when?

There are always moments in life where you know it will be a major even that, later in life, people will ask "Where were you when you found out?"

Today I was channel surfing, landed on CNN to see what was going on and amazingly there is a party on the streets of Cairo, Egypt because Mubarak has stepped down. I only pray that we can leave them, as a country, to fix their own mess and not step in with out giant "hero" complex and muck it all up for them. I mean, i'm all for stepping in when the need is there, but We have so many problems in our own country, I think we need to throw a little focus on fixing up our country before we go fixing anybody elses country!

Anyways, CONGRATS EGYPT! I was so happy to hear that Mubarak realized he was hindering (not helping) his country. Where were you when you heard?