Palate Surgery Date!

So, Kaylee's official palate surgery date is on the 12th of July. Right in the middle of summer...bummer. I don't think she will be able to go swimming if she is busy healing. Which is ok, just kind of sad. She already loves the water (bath time, water running, for example), and cries if it goes away. *sigh*

I don't have any major updates here, except that in two weeks my little sister and my brother-in-law will finally be home from Japan. They have been gone for far too long. It will be good to see them in the flesh again. And it will be good to reunite a mother and father with their two children. My poor sister, I could never imagine what she must be going through right now. Not too long though. :)

Other than that, so far so good this week. Been trying to get this house ready for going back to work which is in two-ish days. :) Don't wanna leave my girl. Not that she isn't safe or anything mind you, she'll be with her Daddy (whom she loves sooo very much) but because for 9 hours of my day she won't be there. Now, don't get me wrong at all - I am not complaining since others' such as my sister have been missing their children for months - I am a first time mom going back to work for the first time since Kaylee has been on the outside. That is kinda sad for me.

Anyway, that is all. No pictures today...I've been major busy getting this house clean and I have been slacking on the photo taking. I'll get some up soon-ish. JESS

7 Months Old - Easter 2011

Well...Easter was fun. Saw most of the people we wanted to see with a few exceptions, but c'est la vie right?

Anyway, day before Easter Kaylee turned 7 months! Gosh...she is getting so big, so fast. It really goes by faster than you would think! But I believe that to be true of anything in life really. For example: I just know that my last week as a stay at home mom will go by like lightning. Yes, I got a job. I am happy, but at the same time a little sad. I don't wanna leave my baby for nine hours a day, five days a week; again, c'est la vie.

In any case, developmentally Kaylee is moving along swimmingly. She can sit upright for like, hours if I would let her. She still refuses to try and crawl, though she does try more and more to get up on her hands and knees so, I am sure it will happen in a few weeks - which is normal apparently. She is teething, officially. There are two very soft spots on her bottom jaw that hurt her just enough to make her grumpy.  Baby Tylenol and a cold teething ring work well enough, and you can just see how white with pressure the gums are where the two baby teeth are going to come in. I can't wait!

Well, the favor bags that I made looked wonderful. I am sad that I didn't get a picture of them, but I have Kaylee's so I will try to get a good photo up. I just used some regular cardstock in pastel pink and blue, then the Cricut Cartridge Lite called "Celebrate With Flourish" and created some bunnies and chicks with bright green, dark green, pink and gold paper. They came out awesome. I am now going to work on Kaylee's birthday party invitations - hey I know how far away it is, but I've got a large family so I've got a lot of invitations to make out. I wish I would have had a Cricut when I was getting married, I would have made my invitations that way (on that note, I should have just asked Aunt Patty for help :). Ah, what it was to be young and pig headed for not wanting to ask for any help what-so-ever (I am working on that).

Anyway, enough with the rambling! I must go. I have a house that I must get in order before I have to go back to work next Sunday. Well, photographs are in order I believe; enjoy your week my friends.

Again with the shoes. *sigh*

Fine...I drool on my clothing!

Hanging with my cousin Kaleena.

Duckie, plastic egg...yep, it's Easter times!

*yawn* I'm so sleepy. 

My cousins from Japan! That's Azaria and Chuy!

Never A Dull Week - Update.

Kaylee is ok. She has a minor case of thrush in her mouth (we got a rinse for that) and a yeast type rash on her bottom from the antibiotics (so antifungal cream it is).

She also had her first booboo today. She was up on her hands and knees for the first time ever. She kind of panicked I think, and both hands and knees went out from under her. She hit her head on the corner of her baby piano type thingie. Tiny bump, little bruise, some crying here and there, a bottle and a nap and she is good to go.

Gotta go, lasagne is done. I made the bestest ever sauce. OMG. Tootles.

Never A Dull Week.

So, Kaylee is sick...again. I don't know what it is, we have an appointment today to find out.

Symptoms:

• She sounds like her throat hurts.
• She won't eat as much as she has in the past. 
• She has this weird rash with bumps in the diaper and on her neck.
• She is generally pissed off.
• She has white stuff in her mouth that doesn't go away with rinsing or wiping.
• Her sleep is interrupted because I think she is pain. 

Anyone? I am not sure what this could possibly be, but I now it just showed up in the last few days. She had a diaper rash from the antibiotics, but then as soon as we stopped them the rash went away. This is a different kind of rash altogether. This one is like bumpy. I don't know what that could be, or why it would be on her neck also.

Like I said, we have an appointment today, but still. This is strange, and she is in the worst of moods.

On the plus side, when she slept I was able to watch a few Harry Potter movies, which I haven't been able to do in ages - and I just got the new one! Eeek! That is all I have to say there.

I just hope that Kaylee gets well because Easter is coming up and I don't want her to miss egg hunting. I'm going with my mom tomorrow to pick out her first Easter outfit. Anyway, just wanted to vent a little bit. And oh yeah, her ears are completely clear now. No single bit of yucky coming out of them now, just gotta keep up with the drops and make sure that they stay that way. Gotta go, Monster is waking.

This is Kaylee's nightlight. It turned out blue in the photo, but it is actually purple!

Officially Four Weeks Post Lip Repair!

We had Kaylee's post lip repair visit with the doctor on Tuesday. It was informative, and we also got to talk a little bit about the palate surgery. It was a good visit to Denver, even though we never got around to visiting Dr. H. We got tired, and by we I mean Kaylee of course. Once she gets angry, the car veers towards the way home.

So, Dr. Allen is very pleased with how her lip turned out. He was very pleased with the scar and how it is coming along. He did tell us to be prepared though. You see, Kaylee's lip looks different from how it looked directly after surgery. After surgery, it was really straight and looked really good, now it has puckered up a bit and has gone a bit sideways. Dr. Allen told us to be prepared that it won't look any better in a month, or even two months. The way that our bodies heal themselves will cause the scar to pucker and pull up on her lip a little bit. So, for the next two months I get to rub a cream on Kaylee's lip called Scarfade. We need to do it twice a day for five minutes each time (basically morning nap and right as she falls asleep for the night). So far, it's going well, she doesn't wake up right away after a milk coma anyway, so this should work.

As far as her ears go: we are to leave them alone, the drainage will go away when it goes away and we will help it along by simply leaving it alone. The only thing we are allowed to do is to get a kleenex, roll one corner up and stick it in her ear to help clear out any gunk. Then we will start doing ear drops once the drainage goes away. Silly me, thinking that my daughter might have an infection...grrr. So, the antibiotics I had her on were doing absolutely nothing except giving her a bad bum-rash, which resolved itself the day after we stopped the antibiotics. Poor thing. Dr. Allen looked in her ears, he could see the tubes and could see that there wasn't anything wrong with them, just watch the fluid coming out, leave them be for a bit, and then start drops again.

We were worried that we were never going to be able to take Monster swimming, but guess what? No special precautions! We can go to the pool, to a lake, to the ocean, to wherever there is water. We get to go swimming. OMG! I love swimming. Swimming is good. So, yep.

Anyway, she finally hit 18lbs, and is doing well. She will be scheduled for surgery in three months for palate repair. She'll be 9 - 10 months old and she will have her whole entire palate repaired at one time. No triple surgery for us, no sir. We'll have it all done within one day, and then we will hopefully be done with surgeries for a few years  - hopefully. Anyway, that is the skinny for now. I hope you are all doing well. And here are a couple of pics for you all to enjoy. Enjoy!

I swear. I didn't do anything.

This crawling thing is hard.

Seriously, can I get a hand?

Oooh.. you have popcorn. I can haz?

Well - Four Weeks Post - Op!

Technically it's three weeks and six days or something like that LOL. I just wanted to let you all know that we are going to her post-op assessment tomorrow. The surgeon will check things out and let us know how we did and all of that jazz. Then we will find out about the plans for her palate surgery. *shrug* It should be an informative day. Tootles.

Three Weeks Post - Op: Ah...Ear Infection.

She hasn't had an ear infection before now. They said that she would be more susceptible to them because of the improper drainage from her ears to her throat. So they put in ear tubes. Now, she has an ear infection. A bad one. We're going back to the doctor today to show him the ear drops the surgeon gave us, as well as her surgery report so he can go over it with us and tell us what we are going to do now. Poor baby girl. There are things coming out of her ear that I've never even thought possible. :(

On the other hand she is loving life. She is starting to be a roly poly on the floor! It is cute. We've been spending more and more time down there. I felt like she was spending way too much time in the exersaucer. I just want to make sure she is well rounded in her development. So, on the floor we go! She loves this little musical pad thing, that turns into a table. There are two settings on it, musical and educational (which are both the same thing really). She loves the handle that gets the alphabet rolling.

Well, that button sure is fun! ABCD....

Piano! She just loved that red button.

 So, we went outside the other day and she of course loved it. I think I wrote about that already...hmm. Yeah, that is about it for now. I just wanted to say, three weeks has made a world of difference on my Monster's face. She is just gorgeous, and I don't think she will have much of a scar. Next Monday we have her surgical follow up and we are also going for a visit with Dr. H (the dentist who did her NAM) to give her the scrapbook I've been making with all of the pics Kaylee had over the past couple of months.

The scrapbook itself is more of a help to the other parents are going to go in for the NAM treatment. Kind of a look at what to expect, how to feed them, etc, etc. A helping hand for those in need. Also, I think the pictures will kind of help them see actual changes that the NAM does. So, yeah. That is about it. There isn't anything actually done on the scrapbook yet. I've still got to add pictures, but you know how that is...waiting in line at the Wally world in order to get those things all printed out sucks a lot.

As for me...I'm getting a job. I cannot wait anymore for next fall semester, so I am just going to get a job for a few months to pass the time, and help pay bills of course. It should be fun - except it certainly has been a while. Should be good times all around! Anyway, happy Tuesday all! And have a last Kaylee pic before you go!

What? I'm on my tummeh!

Spring is Here and That Means....

Lily garden pruning. Yay! I know...I am a nerd. But I love, love, love my lily garden. Best. Flower. Ever. And I must say: my garden is starting to pwn n00bs. Today, I took out all of the fall leaves that cover the bed every winter (you know, to keep the bulbs from freezing and dying), added compost, and watered it. I looked at the soil after watering - a million big, fat earthworms were wiggling their way through the soil! Perfect aeration! I am going to have awesomesauce in the garden again this year.

*Ahem* Kaylee enjoyed her first spring day outdoors for more than a few minutes. It was sunny and warm so I put her in a onsie, pink leggings, and a coating of baby sunscreen for safety (I don't know if she is going to burn like her dad or not, so better safe than sorry). We pulled her exersaucer outside, because we don't have a swing-set type thing yet, set her in the shade and poof - she loved it.

I was mainly hoping that some of the fresh outdoor air would be able to help her with her airways - she has been a little sick lately. Ear infection and all that. But she seemed pretty happy watching Ronan pounce around in the back yard and all. She laughed a little and screamed when Ronan ran by her really fast. It was adorable. Then when we came  inside she decided that she really wanted to eat the limbs off of Jack Skellington, she slobbered all over him and threw him onto the floor. Poor Jack.

It is safe to say that she totally digs the outdoors. She liked grabbing onto the branches of the trees, she liked the way cool stone felt on her hands when she touched the garden wall. I'm not certain that she paid much attention to the spiders and earwigs that we found (goodness knows I paid attention), but she certainly loves the outdoors. It is supposed to be super nice outside again tomorrow - I've got to start planting herbs - so I will probably take her out again tomorrow, and take many more pictures. Here are some from today!

Ronan The Destroyer - destroyed by the fun!

So, this is the tree huh? Kinda big. I guess.

Go Ronan Go!

Hi Mom, watcha doin?