Kaitlyn: Mommy's Little Miracle

Difficulties & Kindergarten on the Horizon

2010-09-05T09:42:00.002-04:00

We've had quite the difficult summer when it comes to Kaitlyn's Aspergers. There has been terrible regression in bathrooming and she has been back fully in Pull Ups since about mid July. She has just recently gotten better at going to the bathroom while at home and will go on the toilet a few times a day. She is telling me that she is having trouble, sometimes, feeling that she has to go but I really think that comes down to her sensory and control issues. We're still working to get her back in underwear because she has her first day of Kindergarten this week on Sept 8th. As of now, the school has told me to send her to school in underwear and send extra clothing with her in her bag and they will help change her. This is one big concern for me for a lot of reasons that I may not get into right now... we'll see how it goes and I'll update. I do know that it bothers me to think my child would be the one getting picked on for going to the bathroom in her pants (and, as she does, not telling anyone) and being the "smelly" kid.

It's also been a pretty meltdown filled summer as well... there has been a lot of routine changes and uprooting and changes in schedules and all kinds of instability for Kaitlyn and she has not handled any of it well. I do believe that has had a LOT to do with the regression and going into a regular public school kindergarten is only going to cause the regression to worsen. I'm looking forward to getting Kaitlyn back into a very rigid routine and hopefully control some of the outburts.

We did do a trial with her and took her off of her medication for a few weeks to see if it really was helping and we found that, though it doesnt seem like a lot, it is helping. Without the medication the outburts and meltdowns were horribly worse. She became very aggressive, angry, destructive and violent.

Now, as I mentioned, Kindergarten starts in a few days and acedemically Kaitlyn is more than ready. She has been doing workbooks at home and is doing 1st Grade work in them. She is starting to read a lot more too and LOVES LOVES LOVES learning and how things work and is constantly asking questions about things. She is my little "Johnny 5" and "needs input!"

Kaitlyn will be starting Kindergarten in a regular public school. For the first week of school the kids will all be clustered together and evaluated on their acedemic skills against their peers and then placed in a classroom with a teacher. We have no idea which teacher Kaitlyn will have but we do know that each class will have 1 teacher annd 25 students. We do NOT see this going over well as we all know how Kaitlyn does NOT do well with large groups and also is delayed when it comes to social, emotional and behavioral things. Basically we're going to send her into school for a few weeks and see how it goes before heading back to the CSE... we're going to tell the CSE exactly what we want for Kaitlyn (ultimately we want her to go to Crossroads) and if they do not agree to give it to us then we will be pulling Kaitlyn out of the public school and will be homeschooling her. We feel that she will be served better at her own acedemic pace and will then be able to spend time working more on her social, emotional and behavioral growth and then we can attempt 1st grade next year when she is a bit older and hopefully learned more skills.

It's all, again, a waiting game and we will see how things go!

Rotterdam Challenger Baseball

2010-09-05T09:33:00.005-04:00

Kaitlyn had a wonderful time playing Baseball and did so awesome at it! She had a great coach and a great team. We cant wait to get to play again next year! She was a great player hitting the ball every time at bat on her own without help from anyone!

She even got a little trophy at the end of the season and a banquet... which was a WHOLE lot of people and she had a very hard time being at but the season was a success and she really had a great time and we are so happy we got the oppurtunity for her to play on the team!!

At a Crossroads (Center for Children w/Special Needs)

2010-09-05T09:09:00.005-04:00

Over the summer we were lucky enough, thanks to Thrivant for Lutherans, to be able to privately send Kaitlyn to Crossroads Center for Children. Feel free to click the logo to check out their website. I'm so grateful to them and all the work they did with Kaitlyn for the VERY short time she was there. She did AMAZING there and loved it and told the teachers she wished she could come EVERYday.

It was crazy how every single day of school in Preschool we fought and she cried and kicked and hid just trying to get her into the classroom and how I had to carry her in kicking and flailing and hand her to a teacher and walk away... then we go to Crossroads (who uses ABA methods there - AWESOME!!) and she ever so willingly and happily walked into class everyday, rarely even remembered to say bye to me or anything. She would go hang up her bag & lunch on her hook and go into class without a word. It was amazing how comfortable she was there.

In the short time she was there she definitely learned some sort of social skills because one time we went to the mall to let the kids play and a little girl asked Kaitlyn if she wanted to play and st first Kaitlyn started out her sentence with her own agenda BUT stopped herself short and said, "what's your name?" - something we HAVE never seen her do before!!!!! It was SUCH a huge thing... not to most people but to the parents of a child with Aspergers it was the most wonderful scene and put huge smiles on our faces and made us so proud!

Thank you Crossroads for giving Kaitlyn the few tools you were able to give her in such a short time!

Tyler got to spend some time in the Daycare room at Crossroads as well which was an integrated room (as was Kaitlyn's) and at first he was ok to go and play with his new friends but as the weeks went on he was more and more unhappy about leaving mommy.

They both "Graduated" from Crossroads Center on Aug 19th.

PreK Grad, Gym Show, Birthday, Dance Recital

2010-09-05T08:32:00.006-04:00

Yes, yes... I know, once again a LONG LONG time between posts! We've been a busy family this summer and getting through the end of PreK last year was tough! We did make it and Kaitlyn graduated from Care-A-Lot Nursery School in June 2010! We had a lot of regression through the year but in the end Kaitlyn really misses Miss Christy her Social Worker who made her a great Social story and a photo book about Kaitlyn's feelings (took actual pictures of K to make both things!)

We were not exactly happy with the CSE meeting in April as they "declassified" Kaitlyn telling us "we dont care about her behavior or if she can be with other kids, as long as she is able to learn." So we had everything taken away from us and we will be heading into Kindergarten with nothing. I'll get into that more in another post! :)

I'll start where I left off last. Kaitlyn did her Gym Show for dance in March and it was great, she was able to do many more of the gymnastic moves this year from the last! What an improvement! Her little Baton routine (we were unable to get pics because she was on the other side of the Gym! GRRR!!) was cute and she did SO well. It's amazing that a 4yr old can learn an do those things! She did wonderful and we're very proud of her for getting out there and doing it.

Again, Kaitlyn's dance Recital on the Big stage at Proctors was on the weekend of her Birthday so we ended up having a little party the weekend before for her at Chuck E Cheese (her choice!!!) with a few of the kids she knows and she had a great time. Overstimulated and overwhelmed and everything she still loved her party and had a wonderful time... she was able to tell the GIANT furry Chuck E Cheese character to stay away from her because she was uncomfortable and everything and I think being able to express her feelings about such things REALLY helped her enjoy herself.

On Kaitlyn's birthday/recital weekend we had Grandma Lois, Aunt Donna & the boys come and stay with us and Grandma Lois came to the Dance recital and afterwards we had a little BBQ Birthday party with just the family. Aunt Michelle, Uncle Jon and Cousin Ben came over too. It was a nice little party and we did cake and all that and just enjoyed the weekend together. Kaitlyn's actual birthday was on Sunday so Grandma took us all out to IHOP for breakfast in the morning to celebrate Kaitlyn's actual day. It was a great way to start her birthday day! :)

It's amazing that my little girl is 5yrs old! When we went for her well visit she was 41 3/4" tall and weighed 36lbs. As far as health she has some issues with her asthma when sick or when really humid out and we've had to use the Nebulizer a few times through the summer. Other than that she's a pretty healthy little thing for the most part! No major issues to report!

Kaitlyn did amazing at her Dance recital again this year. She is older now and able to express how she feels (and is also able to see now with her glasses) so she was VERY anxious and very scared to get up on the big stage but she did it anyway and made us all proud! She did a dance called Beautiful Baby and had an orange and black costume.

This season we're off to another year of Kinderdance (which MIGHT be her last year but we'll see at the end of the year). This year she needs both pairs of shoes, though I must say, we're pretty lucky to have gotten 2 yrs out of the same pairs of dance shoes!! That doesnt usually happen! She will still get plenty of use out of the baton we got last year so thats one less expense. She has already told me that she does not really want to do the show on the big stage but we're going to wait a little while and see how it's going when it comes time to pay for the costume. If she REALLY doesnt want to be on the big stage she doesnt have to. She IS, however, VERY excited about doing the gym show now that she has perfected doing a headstand!!!

Always a Mystery

2010-03-10T15:04:00.003-05:00

I know I haven't updated in a while but there isnt much to say things have been the same for the last little while. We do have Kaitlyn's CSE meeting coming up April 1st so I'm sure I'll have a lot to say after that since thats when we talk about Kindergarten next year.

K has been sick with a high fever for the past three days and hasn't been to school. She's not complaining of anything else, no ears, bladder, nothing to indicate why she has the fever... these things come and they are always a mystery to me!

One bit of big news... Kaitlyn's Gym Show is this coming Sunday. She has rehearsal on Saturday and then Sunday she will be doing a Baton routine and gymnastics-type routine. Hopefully I'm able to get pics and video while keeping little brother under control! HA!

SAWIIIIIIIIING BATTER!!

2010-02-23T08:32:00.002-05:00

Just popping in here to say I found a Free Baseball League for Kaitlyn to become a part of and I'm so excited!! We got her all signed up and the league starts at the end of April! I will be back later today I hope to update on how things have been going lately... we NEED an update! I did want to make sure I got the Baseball thing in here though! She will be playing 2 "games" a week and all the kids get to hit the ball and run the bases and they play about 3 innings and they get T-shirts and Hats and even a banquet and trophies at the end of the season!!! How exciting! :) This is SUCH a great oppurtunity for her socially and I can't wait!!!

Need to Find Acceptance

2010-02-08T07:50:00.002-05:00

I think I just need to find acceptance that Kaitlyn is always going to be her. Tantrums, anxiety and all. I have started another behavior-type blog monitoring tantrums and bathroom issues and all that. I can't stand doing it because it just shows me on paper whats going on and I feel it enough emotionally and physically that I dont care to see the same things over and over on paper. I'm just hoping that this will help with either some medications or some sort of work to help her through this.

I am very pleased at how she (and I) handled her cousins Baptism last weekend. It was a very unfamiliar, uncomfortable church and I noticed the signs quickly and took her off to a space where she could walk around with the anxious energy and try not to worry so much about what was going on. Overall she did well at the house with all of the people too. She just didnt talk to whom she didnt want to (which I later explained why they didnt get the normal warm welcome children tend to give family) and she just went about being herself.

Anyway, not much of an update I guess.

2010-01-28T18:10:00.003-05:00

Well this month has been kinda rough on little miss Kaitlyn. She's had some acidents and then about 10 days of nighttime accidents (which have cleared up, btw, after me talking to her about the ABC Train!!!!!! Pfffffft to you silly Dr's who think I'm crazy and know nothing!) and then this past week has been just horrible with tantrums and meltdown after meltdown.

We went to see the Developmental Ped again for a follow up last week and we decided to keep her meds the way they are and just keep and eye on the behavior and see if it is getting worse, same or better. I decided that I'm going to start, yet another, behavior type log. I had stopped doing it because I got sick of writing the same things over and over but this one will be a little different and just simple. I just want to track a few things and check for patterns and things not find out WHY she is melting down... I know why those things happen!

So far her therapy at school has been so limited I dont see that she has gotten anywhere with it. She hasnt even had enough time with the therapist for me to go to the school and say anything about it. It's frustrating to say the least and I'm not one for playing this waiting game. Nothing else I can do though, I'm stuck in the muck on this one right now.

This week Kaitlyn has had two BM accidents at school. On Tuesday when she had one the teacher had her clean herself up and take care of everything on her own, which I understand the whole building independence thing, but Kaitlyn came home with a terribly raw rear from not cleaning well enough and she was crying because she couldnt sit down in the car it hurt so bad. Then today she had another accident. She said she was busy making her stairs (with Legos) and that she didnt want to leave them so she ended up waiting too long and barely made it to the bathroom with a small accident in her pants. In talking to Kaitlyn about it I could feel her anxiety coming out when she told me that she couldnt get the stairs to go "right" and she needed them to be right before she could go potty... also she feared that if she left them to go they might be gone when she came back and she was right... when she came out of the bathroom the legos were put away and the table was moved. She started crying as she told me that part. I can tell that those things make her anxious - she didnt get to put them away and clean up (her words) so I think she didnt get closure on that activity and it's extremely hard for her to move from one thing to another like that.

Tonight has been fun so far, while I was cooking dinner I told the kids to go find something to play with (we practically own a toy store here!!!) while I made dinner. That was just before 4:30pm and that began the screaming and crying meltdown. She had no idea what to play with that was fun and she was demanding that I find her something fun to do and on and on crying away... for a min or two she got quiet and I heard her Leapster2 game turn on so I figured she found something "fun!" Well little brother must have grabbed the game or something and the Leapster started acting funny and not playing the game correctly... this sparked her and escalated the meltdown and it continued on and on and on about how she couldnt play the game, it's not working right, it's broken, she'll never play it again, etc. By this time it was after 5pm and dinner was on the table and she sat down still in her meltdown (which I asked her to get control of if she were going to sit at the table with us). Well... she went to take a drink of her milk and decided that her milk was "too cold" and more escalation to screaming and crying and totally losing control. I ended up sending her to her room because that behavior is not appropriate at the dinner table. She needed to go up, get control of her behavior and center herself... over all the meltdown was 1 hour and 41mins of screaming and crying and stomping and flailing and she did end up with pretty much nothing to eat for dinner since she couldnt not get control of herself.

Now... I look at the moon phase and wonder... what am I in store for tomorrow & on the weekend with the schedule being crazy from the Baptism and since the moon is ALMOST full... I guess we'll find out!!!

The Missing Pieces

2010-01-20T13:21:00.005-05:00

So I mentioned in the last post that Kaitlyn was having potty issues at night for about a week or so off and on... Well I think I may have found out WHY!

A little back story: At church they have this cloth ABC Train zip-up book-like thing. Inside are little cloth stuffed animals with letters on the back of them. Each of them goes in the matching letter car on the train. Well, it used to be downstairs with all the other toys in the play area. Somehow it ended up upstairs in the back of the church where there are coloring books and puzzles and quiet toys for the kids to keep busy while we enjoy service.

Well, on Sunday 1/10/10 Kaitlyn found that this toy had made its way upstairs and she was playing with it and putting all of the letters in their correct train cars. She (and I, just from watching her play with it) noticed that there were two animals missing from the train. They were all there when it was downstairs!! So she didn't mention it but I saw her looking through the bins and all over to try to find the missing letters. She didn't find them... she still never mentioned it but I knew it was kinda bugging her a little(and ME! but I didn't say or do anything of course). Then this past Sunday she was REALLY looking for the two missing letters and I knew it was really getting to her that she couldn't find them but it's not something she openly discussed so I thought once we left church it was something she forgot about. Ya know... I thought it bugged her at the moment of playing with it but once it was out of sight, you wouldn't think of it.

Apparently, for Kaitlyn, this is not true! She has been carrying this around for a week and a half!!! It has been eating away at her and last night she had a nightmare about it! Last night at almost 11pm I heard Kaitlyn upstairs crying and yelling out "Stop!, Stop!" and she wasn't calming down so I knew it was time for me to go up and see if it was a nightmare or night terror and try to help calm her. Well this is when she told me she had a bad dream about looking for the missing letters for the ABC Train at church. She said she looked every where for them, she looked in both bins upstairs and they weren't there. She was telling me this all while crying and very upset. This afternoon she told me why it was so scary. She said in her dream she was at church looking all around for the letters and when she looked up everyone was gone and she was alone at church and that was what scared her. I calmed her and told her that this Sunday I would help her look downstairs for the missing letters and not to worry about it. I then asked her why she was holding her head and yelling stop. She told me "to make it stop" I asked "to make what stop? your head?" She then got visibly upset and said "yes, 'cause it's going all crazy" and she waved her hands around her head. So I reassured her that we would look for the missing letters this Sunday and to try to get back to sleep. She did.

I truly believe that this is the reason she has been acting out more the past week and a half, the reason why she has been having bathroom issues at night. Her anxiety must have been heightened this past Sunday from seeing/playing with the toy and perhaps that is why she has been getting stuck in her dog character the since Sunday? Could this be why she has been acting out even more and having tantrums the past few days? It seems to me that it is... that she has been carrying this weight around with her all this time and that those missing pieces are bothering her so much because it's not complete, it's not perfect, or whole. I know that feeling... I will throw puzzles away if they are missing pieces for a long time because I can't stand them being with the other puzzles. I absolutely HATE when toys are missing pieces, it drives me bonkers... I just wonder if she is feeling that because of her OCD tendencies and preference of order, perfection...

Again, thing that make you go, Hmm?

We're off this afternoon for a drive down to the Developmental Pediatricians office in Woodstock, NY. I'll try to update how that appointment goes soon.

Ruff, Ruff

2010-01-19T13:04:00.003-05:00

So far today has not been the best day for Kaitlyn. She started her day at 6am with a wake up call from her bladder which caused her to have to change clothes and ultimately waking up the whole house and no one went back to sleep. She's been having accidents at night now for about a week or so every other day maybe. I'm actually sick of running out of panties for her and having to do extra laundry every other day! So I picked up some pull ups incase we need to use them for a few nights to help her remember to get up and go!

Anyway, getting her off to school was MORE than a challenge today but we did manage to get there just on time. When I picked her up, however, I was told that she was really good all day up until the end of school. She started acting like a Dog and then got "stuck" in the behavior/character even after being asked to stop. She continued to the point of spitting which caused her to get "in trouble" and to get a "yellow" for the day. The teacher said she seemed mortified by her own behavior and that she seemed unable to stop because she was "stuck."

She's always gotten "stuck" on things but it used to be with playing with things or other stuff... now that she is into becoming characters she gets stuck in them and ends up going too far. We handle her at home by ignoring/re-directing or telling her that "we're talking to Kaitlyn now" but she's obviously taking that behavior elsewhere... though I guess the more time she spends at school the more of the behavior they are finally going to see. I just wishing it would go away or get better rather than her seeming to be getting stuck in these characters more often. She's been caught up in being a dog for the past 2-3 days... to the point of completely not listening to us and ending up being yelled at or taking it to the point of doing something inappropriate and getting a time out. Some times she will go a few days only talking through her stuffed animal Mary and some days a robot or a cat. Sometimes she will get stuck being characters on TV and acting out episodes and will go so far into it that she ends up "going too far."

Is this just something she is going to do the rest of her life? We're going to have to help her get "unstuck" from things?? Will this type of thing be grown out of? Is this from the social part of her that is underdeveloped?? So many questions and only time will give us those answers, I guess.

2010-01-18T10:02:00.002-05:00

Kaitlyn's been doing alright for the past few days... until today. I'm not sure if it's because I forgot to give her her meds first thing this morning or just because the plans (Mommy's anniversary surprise for Daddy and Family) she knew about got squashed for yesterday. She was the most upset about not being able to go for the special family time I'd planned and cried and cried but then seemed to get over it. Then this morning she has been acting all silly and goofy and then ended up in a screaming tantrum for about 30 mins which then led to not going outside and a Time Out. Maybe she just needed to get that out because now she is calmly and quietly sitting at the dining room table coloring.

So I spoke to the Therapist that goes to Kaitlyn's school to see her and mentioned a few things to her and one thing she asked me to look for during K's "play" was that when her toys have an issue come up does Kaitlyn come up with solutions. The answer is No! Since I got a few chances now to really sit and listen and then even with some prompting she has trouble figuring out solutions. We even give her a couple of choices and she will have trouble deciding but might go along with one of them.

Anyway, an example of what I mean... Kaitlyn will play with stuffed animals or her Polly Pockets and she will make them talk to each other (you can tell how bad she wants to have conversations with people but HATES that conversations aren't scripted or predictable! She would be a GREAT actress!!!) and then usually some problem will come up like Polly can't get her hat on and she (Polly) will be crying. What has been happening is that the problem comes up and she (Polly) will cry for awhile and then K will either move on to something else or she just goes on to another doll in some other situation or just starts a new conversation with Polly. It's interesting to watch and I've gotten to see her play out these "problems" with a few different animals/dolls now and each time the issue comes up but the solution never happens.

I'm not exactly sure what that means and why that is so important but hopefully the therapist can shed some light on that for me. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!! I'm curious to know where that leaves her social development/skills.

No One Would Listen So I Just Gave Up

2010-01-12T10:19:00.002-05:00

So yesterday Kaitlyn went to the bathroom in her pants and she says she tried telling the teacher but "no one would listen so I just gave up" and the kid walked around with poop in her underwear all day and by the time I picked her up it was... well you get it... it was there all day her poor butt was red and sore!

I talked to her a bit about it and told her if they didnt listen she needed to go tap the teacher and make them listen. I told her they have extra clothes there for that reason and she needs to tell them she needs to change.

Argh! How did no one KNOW?!?!?!?

Inhibitions, What?

2010-01-11T08:16:00.000-05:00

This morning after Church the Aide from Kaitlyn's Sunday School class comes up to me to tell me about class. He says they were doing a story about God coming down as a dove to sit on Jesus's shoulder and they used a picture board with a picture of Jesus and they set the dove on his head/shoulder and Kaitlyn asks "Did he poop on him?" Hahahahahaha Nice... just the thing my daughter WOULD say in Sunday school, huh?? Very funny but inappropriate!!

Ah well... that was the only mention of poop during Church so thats a good thing!! :)

Those Poor Poor People

2010-01-07T19:52:00.002-05:00

Well I figured since I sold some of Tylers smaller clothes and got the money I would head out to the store to pick up a few things we needed and get some ingredients for a few dinners. Well Kaitlyn had to "go potty" 3 times and barely even went the one time I did take her. Then was throwing her "Mary Monkey" around in the store so I gave her a warning and told her that Mary would be gone for the night if she did it again, since she was not being responsible or respectful of her toy. So I turned to get some cottage cheese and when I turn back, who is on the isle floor?!?!?! Right, MARY! So I picked her up and put her in my pocket. Kaitlyn FREAKED and threw a HUGE screaming tantrum the rest of the way through the grocery store and the entire time we had to stand in what seemed like the longest lines in the world at that moment! There were at least 17 people that looked at me like I had a rope around her neck and was making her do it. I just looked back at them and smiled. One guy even covered his ears she was screeching so loud... I felt bad but I wasnt about to give in because of some old guy in the checkout lane! Yeah right!

Anyway, that was fun!

The whole Mary thing wasnt the only issue yesterday... since Jon picked her up at school she was tantrumish and I think that was the last straw. She was upset about things that happened at school and in general was having a bad day. The kid seems to be getting more confused about things with the social worker coming to see her. Ugh... this whole school thing is rough on her and she doesnt understand why the other kids "dont want to play with her" or why "they dont want to talk to me..." I'm not there to see whats going on but I wish I was. I wish I was there to help her or could get some feedback from her teachers. They are regular PreK teachers and are not trained to look for what I need them to look for or to help her with what she needs help with and that annoys the living crap out of me! AHHHHHHHH!!!

Anyway, she ended up being very tired today, fell asleep in the car at like 5:30pm and then both kids went to bed early. I think she is getting sick again. I just wish I didnt feel so helpless sometimes.

Sweet Little Girl

2010-01-06T09:59:00.003-05:00

I found out last night that Kaitlyn (and her OCD) is such a sweet little girl! She was in the bathroom before bed, taking FOREVER, supposed to be brushing her teeth and going potty. Well I started to get irritated that she was in there so long, thinking she was screwing around I told her "Ok, Kaitlyn, you're done now!" kinda firmly. Then we went about heading up to bed.

Well a little while later I went into the bathroom to go myself and sat down on the toilet and looked at the toilet paper roll... I was just in awe and said to myself "what a sweet little girl!" Why, you ask? Well... someone's little brother a bit earlier had gone in and unrolled a ton of toilet paper on the floor and I was getting them ready for bed so I figured I would just take care of it (roll it back up) after I got them to bed. Well... THAT is what took her so long in the bathroom... she spent all that time rerolling up the toilet paper from the floor AND going potty and brushing her teeth before bed!! She's such a sweetheart!! I'm sure she did it because of the whole ocd and thats not how the toilet paper should be but it was still awesome! :) She made me smile with something so simple without even knowing it!

Though when she woke up this morning I told her how wonderful it was and thanked her!!

I Can See Clearly Now the Rain is Gone

2010-01-05T14:17:00.003-05:00

First I want to start off, because I totally forgot about this yesterday, with what Kaitlyn was asking in the car on the way to the mall!!! OMG! We're driving on the way there and all of a sudden from the backseat we hear Kaitlyn ask something... at first we didn't really hear her so I asked her to repeat herself - and got scolded! "I was asking DADDY!" Well... excuse me! lol Anyway, so she asks (after taking the loooooong sentence around) "how do they get the meat from cows?" WHAT?!?!?! I looked at Jon with bugged out eyes... because, like we're really going to tell her HOW they get the meat from cows? Anyway, daddy says "there are different parts of a cow where different kinds of meat comes from..." you KNOW that wasn't good enough lol She starts again... "No, no, no, Daddy... but HOW does the meat COME from the cow. Cows make milk, I know... but where does the meat come from?" Well this type of questioning went on awhile and we kept trying to get around it but finally Jon came to the answer of "well, I dont get the meat from the cow so I'm not sure exactly HOW." And I added, for good measure, maybe when you are older you can ask a chef! LoL It was crazy... she really wanted to know!

So on to the post! This morning seemed great, it's Tuesday and K loves school on Tuesday with the one teacher and only six kids! YAY! She got there, changed into her sneakers and went into the gym without a hitch! YAY again! Then... DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN... I picked her up. We got there and she was getting her coat on and changing into her snow boots and all that and then was yanking on me to get out of there as if she couldnt leave fast enough. She had the blankest look on her face, almost mopey and I asked her how her day was... she just kept her head down and said "boring." Which, DING! DING! DING! mom knows, is her default word for any "bad feeling." So... I tried to get it out of her on the way to the car, what was wrong but all I got was that she was "tired (yeah I could see that) and bored." Finally, IN the car, the truth comes out. I got her talking about her day with our *Rule: Must tell us 1 thing about your day. So she told me... and she was SOOOOO sad!!! She said "I tried to play and tried not to but I got frustrated." OMG OMG OMG OMG I'm freaking out that she is actually TALKING ABOUT HER FEELINGS!!!! YAY!!!!! So, holding it together, I questioned a little more and got what I needed! she finally, today, after all this time was able to tell me that she had a hard time playing with the other kids!!! Sounds stupid to be excited about that but it just means she is starting to understand it... that that type of thing doesnt come easy for her... that she will need help with it and will need to work on it! YAY!!! She's GETTING it!!! She's only FOUR!!! hahahaha

Ok so what I managed to get out of it all was that she had a fine time playing in the gym since it wasnt much back and forth play. Then they went up to the classroom and while they were playing playdoh and she asked for things and they were given to her or was doing things her way she was fine. THEN it got to a point where she tried playing with the other kids (not sure doing what) and they wanted to play a certain way and not her way... she said it made her very frustrated and upset. So I explained to her that it was ok for her to feel that way and that, for her, it's a little hard to play with other kids and understand when they can be so confusing. It is VERY confusing to her when at one point they will do "her will" and then all of a sudden they have their own ideas and plans!! She doesnt understand WHY they wont listen to her anymore or play "her way."

Anyway, I'm just glad to see that SHE is actually getting somewhere in this emotional/neurological mess she is in. There is so much hope for my little girl and she just needs the help and the push in the right direction. I wish we could get her there but it's going to be a fight to the end and I see it now. Hopefully over the summer we can get her into the program at Crossroads and she will have a fighting chance before Kindergarten!

Some Days are Just That

2010-01-04T20:46:00.002-05:00

First of all Happy New Year! And thanks to my daughters Preschool class she thinks something is WRONG with her because she did not "see the big ball drop" for New Years! She's FOUR - she was in BED!

It's been a strange couple of days. Kaitlyn must have cabin fever or something... she had a VERY strange "Stim" day where she literally would not stop talking or NEEDING to do something and pushing ever boundary. We tried some "Pillow Play," which is some safe rough play for the kids (they get to be loud and jump all over pillows and off the couch into the pile and Daddy joins in!). However, by the end of the night we ended up having to use "compression" on her. Well I mean Daddy had to restrain her (lightly) and just let her wrestle in his arms to try to help get the "need" out of her. I don't know if it had anything to do with us mainly playing inside and then I took them out to play in the snow and the fresh air "went to her head" or what but she was having a rough time dealing with whatever it was going on inside of her.

Then yesterday we decided to take the kids to the mall and let them play in the play area. It's just freezing outside and they cant get much exercise there. Well there was a little boy there about Kaitlyn's age and he seemed to want to play with her (and the other kids!) and she really wanted nothing to do with him and did get rather frustrated (breaking down crying) when he was getting in the way of her imaginary ice cream store. So Daddy offered up the suggestion of "Closing up the shop" as a way of getting her to stop playing the ice cream store (since she was in a climbing thing in the middle of a public play area and we really couldnt KEEP people away from it! lol) and at the same time having some closure about it. She went over to close up her store and said "ok, ice cream shops closed up for the day!" just out loud but not to anyone inparticular. The little boy yells out "No it's NOT!" and says started to get upset again and said "Yes, I'm closing up my shop" and the boy says "well, mines NOT!" He didnt seem like the nicest kid around but whatever - I'm not his parent - I dont think I liked her much either, but thats a whole other story! Anyway, what I'm getting at is that that whole thing socially... just didnt work out well.

Then I noticed a VERY peculiar thing!!! There was a young girl there (preteen? Maybe 10yrs old) and she started playing around on some of the equipment with a couple of other girls. I noticed Kaitlyn all of a sudden CLUNG to this girl. She must have said Hi to Kaitlyn or something and then K asked her name... cool! However, Kaitlyn then started mimicing EVERYthing... and I mean EVERYthing this little girl did. The way she walked, any sound she made, the way she climbed on something, sat on something... it was one of the ODDEST things I have ever seen and we had to STOP her because the poor girl was going to freak out that this little girl was following her around getting WAY too close in her personal space and literally doing EVERYthing she was doing. Kaitlyn must have taken to her because she really looked like a much older version of herself! She was thin like K and had brown hair like K. It makes me wonder if K was trying to BE that little girl... or emulate her or whatever it's called. She saw that the little girl had a relationship/friendship with the two other older girls that had come in the play area and I think she wanted that too! It was amazing to watch and scary at the same time... because THAT is why kids think other kids are "weird."

We did end up having to tell Kaitlyn that she needed to give the girl some space because she might "get bored" of her following her around like that... Jon chose that word because Kaitlyn understands boredom... he thinks had he told her the little girl would get annoyed that might have been a bad thing lol! It did work and she would only periodically do the mimicing thing and Jon would remind her to stop and she did.

She ended up, obviously, being triggered by the whole play area thing and finally managed a tantrum and breakdown after dinner and before leaving the mall. I ended up just picking her up and carrying her (most of the way - Daddy finished!) out of the mall crying over my shoulder. For some reason she just needed to get that out! I really think she felt better after... it was interesting to see and enlightening at the same time!!

In a Dark Place You're Likely to find.....

2009-12-29T18:08:00.005-05:00

A MUSHROOM!!!! lol K got her mushroom haircut back and couldnt be happier! She forgot her glasses when we left the house so she looks kinda weird, not to mention this is a pic from my cell phone. She's so happy with her haircut and getting to go to the Salon and let Miss Lindsay cut her hair!

So today was a little bit better behavior day... I think the meds are starting to kick in. We havent had any major blow ups today anyway!

Waiting on the Meds

2009-12-28T19:23:00.004-05:00

So I'm waiting on the meds to kick back in here with Kaitlyn. Today I had to run an errand to the bank and she had a huge screaming tantrum for about 20 mins because she couldnt draw some triangles right. Here I am sitting with the man at the bank in his cubicle trying to fill out a dispute form and I have a 20 month old sitting quietly playing with his mittens and a 4 1/2 yr old screaming, crying and flailing around in a chair because of her lack of ability to draw the way she wants to... oh the joys of Aspergers. I just apologized to the poor guy sitting there having to listen to that and explained that sometimes she cant get control of her emotions. Hopefully he doesnt think I'm a complete nut or what I'm SURE he was thinking... "Cant this chick control her kids in public?"

Whatever... I'm going to get a T-Shirt to wear EVERYwhere that says Proud Mother of an Asperger Kid. Then when people look at me funny during a tantrum I can just open my coat and smile! :) Let them go home and Google it!!! hahahahaha

Ok just had to get that out...

Sans Meds

2009-12-27T19:21:00.002-05:00

So I decided to take K off the Tenex as I didn't think I was noticing much improvement... well... I admit, I was wrong! There WAS improvement on it... not much but after her being off of it a week she has been a terror. Tantrums (the long ones again), screaming fits, all around nasty behavior and not being able to control her behavior AT ALL. Maybe it has nothing to do with the meds, maybe it does... but we started her back on and will be putting her back on 1/2 pill twice a day. The past few days have me worn to the end and there are times when I want to give up... but I know, for her, I cant. She needs me even if she is treating me terribly. I love her and I will be there for her through good and bad... unconditionally.

She's also having an asthma flare up so we're doing albuterol & pulmicort in the nebulizer for a bit to try to get rid of the cough and then I think we will finish out the winter on the pulmicort once a day. She must have gotten a touch of the cold her brother had and then triggered the asthma. If she keeps coughing I'm going to take her in to have her checked out and let them help me out with the dosing in the Nebulizer... maybe she needs twice a day for a bit to get rid of the cough and yucky breathing.

Anyway... hopefully we will see an improvement in her behavior and I'm also hoping in Jan we can get her started with a private therapist, work on getting her more services through the school district and/or getting her into Crossroads so she can get some intensive treatment.

We'll just have to see how the new year will go.

Holiday Letter

2009-12-26T07:34:00.005-05:00

Though I think this "Letter" should be rewritten for ANY time you're going to see family it really brought tears to my eyes because if Kaitlyn could, this is what she would be saying!!!

Holiday Letter
This article appeared in the holiday 1999 issue of ASAP News! (Volume 3.5) The Autism Support and Advocacy Project, and Potential Unlimited Publishing.
"Dear Family and Friends:" was written for the purpose of it being sent to relatives and hosts of holiday gatherings who might need a crash course in what to expect from their guest with autism.

"Dear Family and Friends: " I understand that we will be visiting each other for the holidays this year! Sometimes these visits can be very hard for me, but here is some information that might help our visit to be more successful. As you probably know, I am challenged by a hidden disability called Autism, or what some people refer to as a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). Autism/PDD is a neurodevelopmental disorder which makes it hard for me to understand the environment around me. I have barriers in my brain that you can't see, but which make it difficult for me to adapt to my surroundings.

Sometimes I may seem rude and abrupt, but it is only because I have to try so hard to understand people and at the same time, make myself understood. People with autism have different abilities: Some may not speak, some write beautiful poetry. Others are whizzes in math (Albert Einstein was thought to be autistic), or may have difficulty making friends. We are all different and need various degrees of support.

Sometimes when I am touched unexpectedly, it might feel painful and make me want to run away. I get easily frustrated, too. Being with lots of other people is like standing next to a moving freight train and trying to decide how and when to jump aboard. I feel frightened and confused a lot of the time. This is why I need to have things the same as much as possible. Once I learn how things happen, I can get by OK. But if something, anything, changes, then I have to relearn the situation all over again! It is very hard.

When you try to talk to me, I often can't understand what you say because there is a lot of distraction around. I have to concentrate very hard to hear and understand one thing at a time. You might think I am ignoring you--I am not. Rather, I am hearing everything and not knowing what is most important to respond to.

Holidays are exceptionally hard because there are so many different people, places, and things going on that are out of my ordinary realm. This may be fun and adventurous for most people, but for me, it's very hard work and can be extremely stressful. I often have to get away from all the commotion to calm down. It would be great if you had a private place set up to where I could retreat.

If I can not sit at the meal table, do not think I am misbehaved or that my parents have no control over me. Sitting in one place for even five minutes is often impossible for me. I feel so antsy and overwhelmed by all the smells, sounds, and people--I just have to get up and move about. Please don't hold up your meal for me--go on without me, and my parents will handle the situation the best way they know how.

Eating in general is hard for me. If you understand that autism is a sensory processing disorder, it's no wonder eating is a problem! Think of all the senses involved with eating. Sight, smell, taste, touch, AND all the complicated mechanics that are involved. Chewing and swallowing is something that a lot of people with autism have trouble with. I am not being picky--I literally cannot eat certain foods as my sensory system and/or oral motor coordination are impaired.

Don't be disappointed If Mom hasn't dressed me in starch and bows. It's because she knows how much stiff and frilly clothes can drive me buggy! I have to feel comfortable in my clothes or I will just be miserable. When I go to someone else's house, I may appear bossy and controlling. In a sense, I am being controlling, because that is how I try to fit into the world around me (which is so hard to figure out!) Things have to be done in a way I am familiar with or else I might get confused and frustrated. It doesn't mean you have to change the way you are doing things--just please be patient with me, and understanding of how I have to cope. Mom and Dad have no control over how my autism makes me feel inside. People with autism often have little things that they do to help themselves feel more comfortable. The grown ups call it "self regulation," or "stimming'. I might rock, hum, flick my fingers, or any number of different things. I am not trying to be disruptive or weird. Again, I am doing what I have to do for my brain to adapt to your world. Sometimes I cannot stop myself from talking, singing, or doing an activity I enjoy. The grown-ups call this "perseverating" which is kinda like self regulation or stimming. I do this only because I have found something to occupy myself that makes me feel comfortable. Perseverative behaviors are good to a certain degree because they help me calm down.

Please be respectful to my Mom and Dad if they let me "stim" for awhile as they know me best and what helps to calm me. Remember that my Mom and Dad have to watch me much more closely than the average child. This is for my own safety, and preservation of your possessions. It hurts my parents' feelings to be criticized for being over protective, or condemned for not watching me close enough. They are human and have been given an assignment intended for saints. My parents are good people and need your support. Holidays are filled with sights sounds, and smells. The average household is turned into a busy, frantic, festive place. Remember that this may be fun for you, but it's very hard work for me to conform. If I fall apart or act out in a way that you consider socially inappropriate, please remember that I don't possess the neurological system that is required to follow some social rules. I am a unique person--an interesting person. I will find my place at this Celebration that is comfortable for us all, as long as you'll try to view the world through my eyes!"

I thank, with all of my heart, whomever wrote this.

Bouncing Ball

2009-12-26T07:31:00.002-05:00

Really this will be short... Kaitlyn was BOUNCING off the walls the entire day Christmas Eve and yesterday. I have no idea why she was acting out so badly but she was being rude and talking back and not listening. She was getting Time Outs over and over and just overall a complete mess.

Christmas morning was good, she loved all her presents.

Oh the Screaming!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-12-18T19:34:00.002-05:00

All night... Screaming.... Screaming... SCREAMING!!! K is not feeling well and her stomach hurts but with her sensory issues (and flashbacks of reflux puking I'm sure) she cant tell if her tummy hurts to puke or poop and so all she does is SCREAM... why is that her only response to things.... SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH I can't take anymore tonight. I just gave her some Pepto in hopes that if it is one or the other it will take care of it and she will feel a little better and be able to go to bed and not be screaming out all night keeping her brother awake - or me for that matter.

I'm so terribly exhausted from everything these past few days and I'm barely making it to Noon before I crash from exhaustion. I'm heading to bed here in about 5 mins with the kids!

Wish us luck that this is just something she ate and she will be all better in the morning. She has dance and the Christmas Pageant rehersal at Church tomorrow! Ok off to get these guys to bed.

What a Tightly Capped Bottle!

2009-12-17T15:10:00.003-05:00

Well we went to Long Island this past weekend and went into NY City to see the tree. There were tons of people, lights, we rode the train and the subway which were also cramped and crowded. Kaitlyn (though we know she needed to) did so good and held it all in and controlled herself so well! She was SO overstimulated but didnt want to lose control and misbehave. I'm so proud of her!! You could see she was a balloon ready to pop! She also handled having the family over Sunday morning to Grandma's like a champ. She was a little snippy and her brain was so stressed and she was a wreck inside she couldnt even think to write letters or numbers correctly. The poor girl was writing backwards because she couldnt focus! It was crazy to see her doing that. I was told the scientific reasoning behind that and it was interesting that I noticed. It's pretty much that her amygdala was getting all the blood flow and therefor there was only a little going to her hippocapmus. Yes, I've been learning about the brain lately!! lol :) Anyway, by the end of the day Sunday we finally got the tantrums we'd been waiting for. She had one in the bathroom at Grandma's for about 20 mins and then another one for about 20 mins again in the car while strapped in her carseat. She really needed those for a release but she tried so hard NOT to have them. I'm proud of her but then there are times where we can see how bad she needs to release the stress and tension and we WANT her to have a tantrum! It's all crazy!

I am going to be doing some more reading on this whole amygdala/hippocampus thing because it amazes me that I can see things in people and know whats going on and then there are scientific reasons behind what I am seeing and noticing. I really do need to be a therapist... maybe one day when I'm older and the kids are in school I can move into that profession... we'll see!

Lights, Camera, Action!

2009-12-11T07:40:00.004-05:00

Well... since we went to Long Island last we've had a couple of rough weeks with behavior. Tantrums, nightmares and just overall irritability and easily set off. Just yesterday IN Wal-Mart Kaitlyn had the hugest meltdown. She started arguing with her brother over something - she didnt want him touching it - and so I took it away. My goodness did she ever BLOW UP! She was in the basket part of the cart and started crying (of course, thats normal!) and escalated to her kicking, screaming, thrashing around shaking the cart and all kinds of craziness while I simply walked along doing my shopping. I was sure to calmly tell her "her behavior is inappropriate" but other than that, I was unresponsive. It makes me wonder what people must be thinking to see a kid Kaitlyn's age doing that and me just walking along like nothing is going on!!! hahahahaha Anyway, all the crying and screaming got Tyler upset so HE started crying and freaking out... so there I was, walking in Wal-Mart with TWO screaming kids in my cart! hahahaha After the 20 min? or so ordeal little miss Kaitlyn was still upset but had run out of energy I think with all the hard work she was doing to shake around the cart and everything. She then just cried the rest of the time and began the begging me for a hug and kiss to make her feel better and she just kept saying "I'm sorry mommy," "I'm really sorry mommy for doing what I did, I dont like it," and "I dont want to do that, I was sad about the Candy canes, I'm sorry mommy." She was saying all of this VERY quietly while crying in the cart... not sure if it was REALLY to me or just her talking out loud to herself??? I wonder if I could get the Security tapes from yesterday?!?!?!? hahahaha Just to be on the outside seeing that happening would be interesting!

Kaitlyn did have her Dance Studio Holiday Party this past Monday (12/7) and they did the same dance routine as last year and Kaitlyn was so scared (she told me) she stood there with her hands to her face and didnt do any of the dance really... I spoke with the Dr about the drastic change from last year when she did EVERY move. We came to the conclusion that she is more aware of her anxiety - especially when she tells me "it felt like all the people were looking at me." So we'll see how the rest of the dance shows go from here. She did tell me she likes dancing on the stage just not on the roller rink, which is where there little holiday thing was. All we can do is wait.

Anyway, once again we're headed to Long Island this weekend so I'm sure I'll have more than a few days filled with tantrumish behavior once we're back. It's a short trip so hopefully it's a short run after! I hate when there are changes in the routine but we need to get this overwith so we can have a few weeks at home with uninterrupted routine to see how she is really doing. She is on .5mg of the Tenex in the am and now we added the pm. If we still see no change in her by the end of December we're going to pull back and take her off the meds and see how she is then and figure out what to do from there.

I've also been doing a lot of looking around into where we can get money to get her into the program at Crossroads Center to get her some real help. She is going to be starting with the Social Worker the school is providing today! She will be getting that whole 30 mins per week at school but we did ask the girl if she would come here, to a "safe" and "familiar" enviroment to meet Kaitlyn rather than just going to the school. I've also contacted a lawyer to see what kind of options we have as well... I'll update once I know more, right now everything is so "up in the air."

Oh tomorrow is also the annual trip to NYC to see the tree... I just KNOW thats going to be Sensory overload... all the people, the lights?? Yeah... thats going to be an AWESOME tantrum waiting to happen!!!

Mysteries of Moon Phases

2009-12-01T19:38:00.004-05:00

I am fully convinced that Kaitlyn's moods are connected to the phases of the moon. It's a full moon today/tonight and poor Kaitlyn has been "losing it" all day and been having screaming tantrums about NOTHING. Tonight the biggest "fit" was about WHERE she wanted to eat dinner. She screamed and cried about not wanting to eat at the table. I'm not sure where it came from, either. Then after about an hour of screaming (she's started throwing things now too) she came to me crying and begging for a hug and said she was sorry couldnt stay in control (not exactly her words). The poor kid... had to put her to bed a little early (can only handle so much screaming), dragged her up the stairs screaming, put her in her bed - a few times - where she continued to scream and thrash around... all of that because of her brother touching puzzle pieces which I warned her of before she started playing with it.

We did just get back yesterday from a 4 day trip to Grandma's and I'm sure being all thrown off whatever sort of routine we had was hard for her and coming back to it must be harder. I wish there was a magic button sometimes to just make it all better. Hopefully after a couple days of being back home and back to the routine she will settle back down.

One Sick Little Mama!

2009-11-24T23:55:00.003-05:00

For the past two weeks or so Kaitlyn has been sick sick sick!! She got the flu back on Nov 5th and that lasted about 5 days of horribleness and it never got better! She ended up in urgent care only to find out the Flu caused Ear infections and Bronchitis (well what was thought to be anyway) and she was dehydrated. She was put on a Z-Pack to try to get rid of the Upper Respiratory stuff. I tried my best to get her to drink and hydrate for another day and we ended up spending the night in the ER with IV fluids because of the dehydration. That is when we found out she had a UTI and she was then put on Bactrim. Well we finished up those meds and Kaitlyn was still coughing and tired all the time and complaining of pain and so I took her back in to the Pediatrician where we found that the Bronchitis was actually pretty bad wheezing and asthma and she was then (in the office) started on a Nebulizer with Albuterol and Pulmicort. She was also given oral Steriods (Predisone) for 5 daysto help the inflamation in her lungs. We have been doing the Nebulizer treatments twice a day for a week. During all this fun stuff Kaitlyn started complaining about her back hurting and it hurting to pee again so we found that the Bactrim they gave us was not the right med and she needed yet another script for Duricef.

Today we had a check up again for her and we need to finish out the UTI meds before we know she is clear and we started an Asthma Action Plan! We're going to continue the Nebulizer twice a day with only the Pulmicort, unless she gets a cold and clogged up and we need to use the Albuterol. This will go for 3 more weeks and if there are no colds in the 3 weeks we can stop the Nebulizer until she might need it again. If she does happen to get sick in the next month we might end up using the Nebulizer all winter. We did get lucky and the Dr's office had a mask so I dont have to hold it for her anymore! :) Hopefully she gets used to it... it's new so she's having a hard time but we will get there.

I think that about catches us up! We're heading down to Long Island to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday and for the weekend so we'll have to update again after that!

School District Meeting...

2009-11-05T23:44:00.000-05:00

First of all... here is the low down: Kaitlyn will be staying in her current PreK class, and getting a social worker once a week for 30 mins to help her with some social play therapy type stuff. They want to do every other week at school and then the other week at the house.

So pretty much we're getting nothing. We were not happy (or completely unhappy) with the meeting. We felt bullied and not really listened to and were offended by some of the very inappropriate words chosen by Nancy. We did not argue too much with the decision, mainly because the Comittee Chairperson barely let us talk or even try to argue but because we were told that the 30 min visits would happen in the class and Kaitlyn would not be taken out of the class and made to feel odd or different. I'm not sure I believe it but at this point we're going to wait and see what happens.

I dont understand their thinking in not intensively helping Kaitlyn NOW since she is "gifted or a Genius" as they put it and she can learn now. They said that she will go in a Kindergarten class with mixed (Special needs & nuerotypical) kids and a regular and special ed teacher and that will be where she gets the most help... I'm not sure if it has to do with money (probably!) but I just dont get that part.

We dont think Nancy, the Chairperson, has ever been to Crossroads because she said her whole VERY inappropriate piece about not sending Kaitlyn there and why and she said "you really should see these types of places before you think about sending your child there." and Jon spoke up with "actually, we HAVE been there and saw the class that Kaitlyn would be in and we saw NONE of what you are describing but just the opposite." That was when her mouth about hit the floor and she started to stumble over her words and said that we must have gone at a different time then she did hahahaha it was quite funny, actually!

We decided to give this a shot and if this is not helping/working then we will set up another meeting and tell them she needs more and/or figure out what to do from there.

Regulation of the Circadian Rhythms

2009-10-28T09:54:00.002-04:00

Hahahahaha wondering what that title means? Well here ya go!

Melatonin (pronounced /ˌmɛləˈtoʊnɪn/ also known chemically as N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine, is a naturally occurring hormone found in animals and in some other living organisms, including algae. Circulating levels vary in a daily cycle, and melatonin is important in the regulation of the circadian rhythms of several biological functions. Melatonin produced in the pineal gland, which is outside of the blood-brain barrier, acts as an endocrine hormone since it is released into the blood. By contrast, melatonin produced by the retina and the gastrointestinal (GI) tract acts as a paracrine hormone. The melatonin signal forms part of the system that regulates the sleep-wake cycle by chemically causing drowsiness and lowering the body temperature.

The Melatonin has been working GREAT for Kaitlyn! My little girl hs never shown signs of tiredness. Would never yawn and lay on the couch and say "I need to rest my eyes for a bit..." lol and now with the Melatonin she does all that and goes right up to bed (thats not to say she doesnt fight going up to bed or have tantrums - we still get that) and she doesnt play around for 2 hours in bed before going to sleep... she lays down and GOES TO SLEEP!!!! I just love it... it's so much better for her and me! She's not getting out of bed and coming out of her room to because she has to "tell me just one more thing." So I'm very happy that she is getting good sleep now. She's also still waking up at the same time in the morning and sometimes I even have to wake her up!!

There is one downside, if you will, to this sleeping so well thing. She has to relearn now how to feel when she has to go potty in the middle of the night and be able to wake up so we've decided to put Pull-ups on at night so we dont have to change clothes and sheets in the middle of the night every night! That was getting to be a pain! So we'll retrain her little body to know she has to go and that it has to wake up in the middle of the night to go. I think after that we'll be all good!

As for the Tenex... I know I said wasnt going to update until after a week but I just wanted to mention something. I'm not sure if it's the meds or what but this morning when I took Kaitlyn to school we got up there and there were a lot of kids and parents in the coat room. Normally she will hide behind me or under a table or something because she is so nervous... well this morning she was all happy and springy and acting like a little clown making everyone laugh! She even said goodbye to me and her brother and just went into class! It was the first time (besides the first day) that she has done that!! So... hopefully this is the side effect of the meds and she isnt feeling as anxious and stuff.

Yesterday Kaitlyn was having a "bad transition" day and when I was there to pick her up she didnt want to leave the playground and ended up starting a tantrum while clinging to the fence. That continued all the way home and I had to fight with her (literally put my body weight on her) to get her in her carseat while she was screaming and kicking. I do have to say that since we are handling her tantrums a little differently these days, the other two she had yesterday were short-lived. The one from school to home was the biggest and longest yesterday!

Progress, I say, Progress!!

Follow-Up in Woodstock, NY

2009-10-24T20:16:00.002-04:00

Kaitlyn and I drove the 150 miles round trip today to Woodstock, NY for her follow-up with the Developmental Ped. We left at 8:30am and were with the Dr almost 2 hours and ended up getting home at 1pm. It was a long morning! The Dr says she is going to try to have Kaitlyn's report done by the end of next week so that I can take it with me to the School District meeting.

So after calling around everywhere today I finally found a place that had liquid Melatonin and we started that tonight. I'm not sure if it worked or not but I put both kids up to bed at the same time tonight and didnt hear a peep out of them. It was Tyler's regular bedtime and just a little early for Kaitlyn but we had a long day and she didn't nap. I think it may have helped... we'll see after a few days if it's the same then I'll know!

The Dr thinks (and we agree!) that we should try out something for Kaitlyn's anxiety. It's a very mild medication, Tenex, which is actually prescribed for Blood pressure but works great in kids for anxiety and ADHD. So we're going to start that tomorrow and see how that goes... we really think a lot of K's issues are anxiety related and maybe this will help her. We can only try and see how it works! Of course I'll update about that after we see how she does on it for a week or so, I think.

Other than that, we're going to try to get her in a different "program" for school. We're hoping for a "center-based" program that is specifically tailored towards the kids that need a certain kind of help and stability and consistancy and more one on one work. We'll just have to see where we go from here with the school district!

Time will tell!

1st School Field Trip!!!

2009-10-23T14:59:00.002-04:00

First of all, yes, I know it's been a bit since I've updated on Kaitlyn but, to be honest, she's been taking a bit out of me these days! Pretty much school has been the same. She's having some trouble going to school or when we get there she doesnt want to go in because "there are people in there and she wants to be alone." We've had a lot of bathroom "accidents" at school as well as at home since starting school as well. I was even called to pick her up one day as they could not keep taking away from the other kids in the class to clean her up and she had gone twice in a span of 20 mins. I'm noticing that Tuesdays and Thursdays are a little easier for her with the smaller class. She does love school though and does have a couple kids she likes running around with and playing chase or "monster" or whatever with. She tries so hard and bottles everything up while she is there and the tends to explode when at home.

I did get the report from the school - FINALLY! Really... it's just too long to explain but basically they saw what we see (minus the tantrums, of course) and the suggestion was that she needs some coping skills, social skills, and would benefit from a smaller class, where the schedule is routine and predictable and that is run by a special ed teacher who is familiar with kids of her nature. Of course, she scored super high on the testing they did for cognitive and all that and speech. The OT did notice the sensory issues but thinks they may be driven by anxiety or control issues.

Ok so on to the good stuff... sort of! :) We went on Kaitlyn's first school field trip today with her class (and families) to the pumpkin patch! The kids got to pick a gourd, pumpkin and an indian corn from the field. We went on a hay ride, saw some animals, went through a hay maze and hay tunnel (well the kids did, not me! It was only about waist high). The kids got to run around and play and they had storytime and heard a couple great stories. We even ended up losing Kaitlyn just before the Hay ride as she didnt want to follow directions and Mommy was trying to coax Tyler out of the hay tunnel! I told her to wait with everyone else and she decided to make a right turn and go back near the animals to pet the Sheep. So when I finally got Tyler out and managed to make it to the waiting spot for the Hay ride, there was no Kaitlyn with the rest of the group. I didn't really freak out as I knew she really couldn't be far but still. The other parents and teachers were looking around outside while I ran back to the barn with Tyler to look for her there and, of course, thats where I found her. Anyway, weather turned out to be FREEZING and I was NOT prepared and the three of us pretty much froze to death but it was still a good time...

until...

we had to leave. That is when the BEAST showed up, shall I say. We had a couple little crying episodes during the trip but I thought I was lucky and that might be it! One because she was cold but thats understandable and the other was a little worse because somewhere along the way she lost her chapstick that I had just given her this morning (we'll be hearing about the lost chapstick for the rest of the winter, now, just like the "book corner" that is no longer in her classroom!). So after the hay ride and picking the pumpkins it was time to go. I gather this was difficult for my daughter as she began her screaming fit that she didn't want to leave at the barn and it continued all the way to the car (who knows what the poor family walking to their car in front of us was thinking), she then began flailing herself around on the side of the car screaming that she is "not getting in and wants to stay." I managed to get the thrashing little girl into the car and buckled - with some difficulty - and she cried, screamed, demanded and thrashed about, fighting against her harness for most of the ride home (it's about a 35 min ride). I, of course, ignored her behavior completely and Tyler just looked at her kinda bug-eyed. By the time we were almost home I think she tired herself out because she had finally gotten quiet and I looked back only to see her staring glass-eyed into space looking like she could fall asleep at any moment! Up until now we've been dealing with the whole "end of the world" behavior and the very "demanding" behavior... hopefully she will get it out before bedtime and we dont have any screaming fits then.

So, I'm glad we had a good time at the field trip but it was obviously very over-stimulating for Kaitlyn and will make me think twice about field trips from now on... but... we'll probably go anyway because I hate sheltering her just because she "blows up."

Well we're off to see Dr Meyer for a follow up appointment tomorrow so I will update then with how that went and then we're off and running to deal with the school district Special Ed committee as to what to do with this girl regarding school.

2009-10-01T07:54:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to mention before I forgot. This week, every morning, Kaitlyn has been complaining about being sick in the morning and she doesnt feel good and is going to throw up and doesnt want to go to school. Then yesterday she cried for about a half an hour or so and the entire way to school about not wanting to go and "does she have to go and sleep there too." The poor girl is so anxious about school and really does like it but I think being there is very hard for her. Hopefully this morning goes better. She has behaved pretty well at school this week though and we've been doing well handling the tantrums and catching them before they get out of hand here at home. Yesterday, starting out the way it did, was one of those "end of the world" behavior days where she whined and cried all day about one thing or another and then fought me at bedtime. She was very tired because once I got her IN bed, she didnt make a peep and fell right asleep.

Ok well time for breakfast and then off to school!

But, Why, Mommy?!?!

2009-09-28T15:34:00.003-04:00

So, first I'll start off with this morning. Kaitlyn woke up saying her tummy hurt, she didnt feel good, she was sick and didnt want to go to school. She went to school because I saw no real sickness at all and she ate and drank fine so, off she went.

When I picked her up today the teacher said she "had a good day" and even "had a conversation with Gabriella for almost 10 mins" today. I was in shock! I managed to get Kaitlyn to talk about the said "conversation" and she didnt seem all that happy about it. I asked what she was talking about with the other girl and she told me "Apples." Well, if they were talking about apples, K would have talked for a week lol. But, still, Kaitlyn didnt seem all that happy with the conversation, she was telling me how the girl "just couldn't listen" (K's way of saying someone wasnt listening) and that "she wanted me to come to her house to have apples for a snack but she couldnt listen and I dont want to go to her house for any snack since we have snack here at school and I dont have two snacks in a day, only here at school." So she seemed upset and it makes me wonder what SHE thinks this little exchange was... a conversation? and argument? What, in the eyes/mind of my daughter, could this exchange of words mean????? I wish I could ask around inside that little head of hers!! lol :)

Ah well... she talked to someone today... two someones actually because she, first, told the teacher that she wanted off the SeeSaw and the teacher told her to just tell Sarah (one of the other girls on it) that she wanted off so, of course, Kaitlyn did. It seems she is still learning the rules of when it is ok to talk to other kids and when it isn't... I know she will learn!

Sooooooooooooooooo after school, Tyler and I picked Kaitlyn up and had some errands to run. First we decided to stop and have lunch and while we're sitting in Wendy's, eating our chicken, there is only one other gentleman sitting (about 5 ft away) near us. You have the scene, here is the dialogue:

Kaitlyn: "Mommy, that people over there eating lunch like us"

Me: "Yes, honey, it's lunchtime and everyone here is eating lunch, just like us"

Kaitlyn: "No, mommy, THAT people *pointing to the man near us* sitting THERE"

Me: "Kaitlyn, honey, it's not nice to point..."

Kaitlyn: *sitting up higher to point at him better over her brother*

Me: Kaitlyn, sweetheart, it is in appropriate to point at people, please stop that"

Kaitlyn: "but mom, that people, him, HE, THAT one, sitting there *nodding her head in his directions* sitting there, eating like us..."

Me: "K, shhhhhh, don't talk so loud"

Kaitlyn: "he's weird looking"

Me: *sigh!!!!* "Kaitlyn that's not nice, please be quiet"

Kaitlyn: "but Mama, HIM, HE... *nodding her head again*"

Me: "Kaitlyn, it's not nice to talk about people. Please stop talking!"

Kaitlyn: "But, Why?... he's weird looking."

Me: *sigh*

Oh MY! That was awkward!!!!! What a wonderful conversation!! LOL :) Boy... we were soon out of there after she let half the restaraunt know that she had to go potty, as well.

Overall, today hasnt been that bad we had some moments doing errands but I let her do a LOT of helping today and took my time (there was no rush) and let her take her time and do what she needed to make it through the stores without issue. She had to stack the cans and count the cans and make a tower and put things in certain places... all of which I gave into so that we got through peacefully and we did!! :)

Made it home and she has been playing her video game and coloring and chatting a little with me. We'll see how the rest of the night goes and I think I'm going to do a long bedtime transition tonight so that we dont have any tantrums today.

Anyway, she just came in reminding me that we're supposed to make Brownies! So off her and I go to make some tastey No Sugar Added Brownies!! YUM!!!

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood!

2009-09-24T18:19:00.002-04:00

If only everyday could be like today when my lovely daughter is behaving like a normal kid! WOOT! Today I kept Kaitlyn home from school today and I took both kids to the Dr because the whole house is sick. K has another throat infection though negative for Strep, YAY!

Anyway today has been wonderful even though I'm sick as heck! She has been so good and behaving like a 4yr old should! Ya know, I've had the few "no's" from her and little "I want to be in control" things but that is so normal I actually look forward to that rather than the screaming!

So, today is a beautiful day in the neighborhood and tomorrow we're back to school... so we'll see!

and the Saga Continues...

2009-09-23T16:10:00.003-04:00

So at school today, besides going to the bathroom (#2) TWICE, Kaitlyn was pretty good and was interacting! Though when I picked her up I could see how worked up she was and she was yanking on my arm and raising her voice to me starting up a tantrum as the poor teacher is trying to tell me how things went and what happened with the "accidents." By the time we got to the car we were in a meltdown and Kaitlyn's behavior had escalated to kicking, screaming and crying in her booster seat the entire way home from school.

I just had tears in my eyes because I knew she just needed to let out the "overstimulation" or "anxiety" or whatever it was that she was feeling and had no idea how other than to blow up once she was safely with mommy who loves her no matter what. I really think thats why only a select few have seen these screaming fits because Kaitlyn holds it all in until she has to "blow" and it's usually at home with mommy and/or daddy since it IS safe here with us. We wont be mad at her for having them or anything.

Anyway, I did try VERY hard to figure out just what it was she was feeling and unforunately she couldn't/wouldn't talk to me during her screaming... she even screamed at me "I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU RIGHT NOW!!!!!" So I sat there, mouth closed with tears in my eyes and drove home. She continued the behavior but only for a short time after getting into the house... something (daddy?) changed the situation and she had a whole new thing to deal with so the behavior changed.

So far this evening no real issues have come up so thats good! She spent a lot of time alone doing her PuzzleBuzz books alone and really enjoyed herself. Then she has been watching a bit of tv since we had early dinner.

So tonight we're headed to dance class and hopefully it goes well. Doing all this running around every morning is killing me so we're looking to switch dance to Wed nights so Saturday can be our do nothing day! :)

Enlightenment

2009-09-23T08:04:00.002-04:00

I just watched a video on YouTube from a teenager with Asperger and he really described something in an awesome way!! Since Asperger is neurological issue he put it this very simple way. Parts of his brain have not developed as quickly as others have and the creative part and/or the thinking part have developed much faster than the Social, Anger Management and other parts... that right there explains Asperger's so well. In a not so clinical way and I just thought I would share that. It's why our Aspie's can seem so smart but then get into fights or arguments or have full on tantrums.

Anyway.. it's about time to get the kids dressed so Kaitlyn can get off to school!

A New Week Begins

2009-09-21T15:09:00.003-04:00

Well we are officially starting our first Full week of Preschool without interruptions (no Dr appts, or no school days). I have to say... it hasn't started off all that well! Jon picked Kaitlyn up from school today and was handed a bag of dirty panties because Kaitlyn had, according to the teacher, "forgotten to go because she was playing." Which actually worries me because K doesnt usually forget... that usually happens because she is stressed about something and I'm very curious to know what happened in School today. She also did it again at home so that tells me even more that it's stress and not just an "oops!"

She was fussy and fighting and crying and ultimately screaming a hissy fit for about an hour and a half about having quiet time/nap time though after being carried upstairs again, kicking and screaming, she ended up falling asleep around 2:30pm. I really think she was stressed out about something today and the only way to get it out was to finally "blowing her top." I hate that sometimes that is her only option - as of yet - but I guess thats how it has to be until she can learn to express herself better or easier.

I am just wondering if at school they tried some "back and forth" type play with the kids and that stressed her out or something. She did tell me that she didnt play the computer at school today and maybe that feels safe to her and she was stressed because she didnt get that today. I have no idea but I wish I could be there to observe an entire day of her at school to see what really happens.

Oh well since she is napping now we will see how the evening goes after she wakes up. Hopefully she will be reset and not rev'd up!

The weekend is here!

2009-09-19T11:24:00.003-04:00

Well this ends a semi-full week of PreK for Kaitlyn. We've had some behavior issues afterschool and in the evenings but over all IN school she seems to be doing well. She listens to teachers and follows directions and everything she should be doing. She is not social really at all and just keeps to herself while the kids are playing. Even on the playground yesterday she would go to the slides or climbers where no one was or wait until they got off before going on. No biggie... I really dont want to push the social issue right now until she is comfortable with just going to school and gets used to the crazy routine!

Plus I have to get used to it too... it's not like in 4 yrs we've had to get up EVERY day to be somewhere by 9am!

Which brings me to another point... I'm thinking of switcing her dance class to the Wed 6:30pm class (a little smaller and girls who have done it before like K) simply to give ME a break from getting up at 7am every single morning 7 days a week to be somewhere. Struggling to get her fed, dressed, hair brushed... I'm not used to the rushing and neither is she so it can be a fight in the morning.

Anyway, today was her second day of Dance class and she fell right back into it! She was wonderful doing everything like last year and she even did the whole Duck Dance from the recital and she remembered it all!! She is loving taking Baton and seems to be doing well with it. I hope she keeps it up and really enjoys it. I would love to do whatever I can for her to stay in dance for as long as possible. It's o good for her mentally, physically and emotionally!

Oh Say Can You See!

2009-09-16T14:44:00.000-04:00

Well today we went to the eye Dr for Kaitlyn's check-up. Kaitlyn has been wearing her glasses for about 2 months now and they seem to be working!! YAY!! When she started her vision was crazy horrible and her left eye was not really even "on." She has been doing great and it only took about a week or so for her to actually ask for her glasses. Now she says things like "I just cant see without my glasses" lol and will ask to put them on first thing in the morning! :)

Well the Dr reexamined her and her eyes are, technically, BETTER!!! They are both at about 20/50 with her glasses on. So the Left eye has been "turned back on" by her brain and although she doesnt have 20/20 vision and is still extremely farsighted she is getting better. Not sure if I mentioned it before but people who are farsighted are +1 to +2 usually at most but occasionally there are people like K... who is a +7/8!!! So she is VERY farsighted! Anyway, the Dr tweeked her prescription a little bit and we went to get K new glasses today too! We can get them in about a week. Since this prescription is going to be like this for AT LEAST 6 months I opted to pay more for the lenses that dont magnify her eyes. They are expensive but she will look more like a little girl with glasses now rather than a kid with glasses that give her bug eyes lol :) Though she LOVES bugs so maybe she likes that!! hahahaha

So I'll add a pic when we get her new glasses, they are really cute - not the perfect shape I would have liked but they seem to fit her well.

The Haircut of the Century!

2009-09-15T09:34:00.003-04:00

Well had I known my child was so sensitive to getting a haircut I might have thought twice. I cut her hair today so she has bangs again like when she was 2. She looks cute but she FREAKED out, curled up on the bathroom floor crying and was very upset by the change. She didnt even want to look at herself. She was "too scared." She said, "I don't like change and I just want to be me. I dont like haircuts because I'm not me!"

I dont know why but I'm sitting here crying about this because I caused her to be so upset and I guess I feel terrible for that. I didn't know she would react this way and I hate that I triggered her by trying to help keep the hair out of her eyes.

Maybe today will get better, there is no school today so we're going to run out and do errands and I plan on taking the hand held video games with us!

The Evening After...

2009-09-14T21:40:00.002-04:00

Well we ended up with a couple screaming fits today and just overall not good behavior. Kaitlyn was fighting about everything and it seemed like she was trying hard to get into trouble so she had a reason to blow her top. She eventually did. Thats about all... we'll see how the rest of the week goes. I started a Behavior Log and I'm putting little marks on the calendar when she has bad days. This way I can guage when the bahvior happens, what days, what triggers, naps or not... that sort of thing.

First Real Day of PreK

2009-09-14T14:31:00.003-04:00

Well Kaitlyn had her first real day of preschool today.

It started out with our door codes not being entered so we couldn't get in the building and she was getting anxious and kept whinishly asking me "Why can't we go in yet?!" Once inside we went up to the classroom where she completly ignored the fact that the teacher sai Hi to her and instantly wanted to hide in the corner playing the computer by herself. I had to again ask for a hug and kiss goodbye... she really doesnt mind me leaving When Kaitlyn wanted to play on the computer there were already two boys playing there, the teacher told me she redirected her and she did, in fact, find something else to play with. The teacher said they will probably have to limit her computer time because thats really where she wants to stay since it is a pretty secluded spot. The teacher told me how she was lining up Care Bears that matched in lines and was making the Care Bears have voices, some crying because they couldnt find their mommys. She often does this at home with small toys as well. Overall the teacher said she did well and got a Green Smiley Face on her Calendar for the day!

From the moment we picked Kaitlyn up from school we have kinda felt like we are "walking on eggshells" today. We got her from school and she, quite literally, pulled me out of there and is not listening (not even hearing us call her name), is being rude/inconsiderate, talking back, says to leave her alone ri...ght now she doesnt want to talk, and is having a lot of trouble focusing... she is very "heightened" and I don't have a good feeling about today but I'm TRYing to be positive.

I did manage a few hours later to get her to talk about her day. She said she played with the Care Bears (and told me all about the mommy & babies) and matching them up and that she played with the computer. I asked if she talked to or played with any of the kids and she said "I told you I what I played with, toys! I didnt play with kids or talk to them."

For now she is napping and we will see how the rest of the day goes. I'm hoping the nap will recharge her and not backfire on us. Jon is home today so I'm not sure what the evening will bring or where we might go, it's a beautiful day.

No School tomorrow and her Recheck at the Opthamologist is on Wed morning so hopefully that goes well. Oh yeah and she woke up this morning with a stuffy nose and cold so she is tired and sick and not happy about that either. Hopefully she will be too tired from that to throw any big tantrums!!

First Day of Sunday School!!!

2009-09-13T19:54:00.002-04:00

Geeeesh... everything sure did start at the same time this year!!! Today was the first day of Sunday school and since Daddy was working midnights last night I took both kids to church myself. Kaitlyn had her Sunday school class which she was instantly in shock over that she did NOT have the same teacher. THAT began the day with a bang, shall we say. She was a mess in class, couldnt sit down, was interrupting EVERYone, was sticking things in the teacher's face and was grabbing things out of others hands. Not to mention almost, just ALMOST having a fit about a crayon she wanted to use that someone else was using. He was nice enough to say she could use it JUST as she started to get fiesty!

All through service Kaitlyn pretty much stayed in the back corner playing with stickers or laying on the floor looking at books. She really wanted nothing to do with being around anymore people. Which brings us to the "picnic" after service for the beginning of Sunday School. She pretty much hid in the toy area and played with toys alone and then we ate and then I knew it was time to leave... she was getting that look in her eye and starting to talk back really bad. I just simply know where that behavior leads... and I wasnt wrong.

Ever since getting home from Church today we've had nothing but nasty behavior and tantrums and potty issues. So much so that she ended up in a pull up and ultimately in a diaper at bedtime. We did buy, yet another, pack of underwear since we've thrown 5 pair away now in the last week and a half. Today was NOT a good day for us or her. We all did a lot of yelling we wish we hadn't I'm sure but there is only so much a person can take before they explode. She essentially escalated since Friday and with Jon working midnights I was completely worn out by today and he was tired and not in any kind of mood for the behavior either. I'm not making excuses... ok, I am... but it's the truth. We were all in the wrong today and I hope that tomorrow will be a better day... but then again, tomorrow she starts her regular school day.

I'm anticipating a tough day tomorrow.

First Day of Dance!

2009-09-12T21:45:00.001-04:00

Well today was K's first day of dance!! She started her second year of KinderDance at Merritts and this year added KinderBaton!!! There were, what felt like to me, a MILLION people/kids there today and I KNOW Kaitlyn felt it. She did great in class since it was pretty much like any other class she went to last year and they did a lot of the same stuff as review for some kids and to teach the littler ones. There were a lot of new kids there this year too! I'm really thinking about switching Kaitlyn to the smaller Thursday class that runs at 3:30pm since her behavior today has been off the wall. She got so overstimulated and I couldn't bring her back today and she was sassy and every choice she made in her behavior seemed like one where she was looking to get into trouble.

Well we will see how tomorrow goes... tomorrow is the first day of Sunday School and then Church service and then a picnic for the kids after!

"First" Day of School!

2009-09-11T16:38:00.002-04:00

I actually don't really consider today Kaitlyn's first day of school since it was only an hour long and we just went in and I was there for about 10-15 mins of it, the kids just played with the toys and go to know the teachers and classroom. When I told K I was leaving and would be back to get her in a bit, she just turned around and looked at me as if to say, Ok see ya! I asked her for a kiss (repeatedly) and then got one before walking out. Kaitlyn, of course, found a quite corner of the room to sit on the computer by herself for about 40 mins and then they did "Carpet Time" for the last 10 mins where K promptly found a spot on the carpet but just far enough away from the other kids off to the side. They sang songs (Wheels on the Bus & stuff) and I was told by the teacher that Kaitlyn was offering up things that were on the bus an what noise they were making... just like her to want to be in control lol.

Overall she had a good day, but as I said, it was only an hour long. After getting home she spent the day in a mood teetering on tantrumish behavior. She had a hard time going up for quiet time (was kicking and screaming on the way up) and ultimately ended up waking up her brother for his nap but we got through the day!

Next week will be the true test on how this whole school thing will go. She starts regular 9-11:30am class M-F and we will see how the behavior holds up. I'm also heading over sometime next week to sign the papers to get theEvaluations going through the school. Time will tell!

Mall + Holiday Weekend + Aspie = NEVER!

2009-09-07T23:49:00.002-04:00

So we got home at 1am last night and the kids went right from the car to thier beds. We got up this morning like usual and tried to have a pretty normal day at home. Since Kaitlyn had completely been off the potty for almost a week I decided to put her in panties and cold turkey her back to the potty - especially since School starts Wed! She managed to go potty in the bathroom but then proceeded to have a full blown screaming fit in there because she was "scared to wipe." She screamed and yelled and cried for about an hour and then ended up falling asleep for a couple hours. Then we decided to head out to the mall to let the kids play for a bit, pick up a few things and then use some coupns to get something to eat at Fuddruckers.

Going to the Mall on Labor Day with Kaitlyn was a HORRIBLE mistake. It was VERY crowded and poor Kaitlyn didnt handle it well at all! She started to get overstimulated or anxious in the play area and then we went to the bookstore and she began getting tantrumish there. We then ran to one other store and while I was in there looking for something for her, no less, she ended up having a full meltdown and Jon had to take her out of the store and she was screaming and having a fit in the middle of the mall. Sometimes I wish things weren't so hard for her... like going to the mall but it's life and we just go with it. Jon did manage to get her calmed down by giving her some strength things to do to try to work out the frustation or anxiety. It wasnt the best but it helped with the tantrum at the moment.

We did manage to get out of the mall and decided to go have dinner anyway but made sure to completely explain how things were going to be in the restaraunt and that didnt go so bad. We ate and came home and hung out a bit before putting the kids to bed. Kaitlyn did ok at bedtime with only a few trips out of her room.

We are hoping that the tantrums or whatever anxiety is leftover from the Michigan trip will get out of her system quickly and she can be ready for her first day of school on Wednesday!

Michigan Trip Ended

2009-09-07T23:32:00.002-04:00

Well we're home from the trip and it really did end up being a very hard thing for Kaitlyn. We did have a good time at the Mall with Grandpa and Kaitlyn LOVED driving Grandpa around on his Scooter! We had lunch at Max & Erma's, the kids played at the play area and then even got into the water fountains they have there to play in. I figured they could get wet since we had the suitcase in the car and I just changed them before we left!

Kaitlyn got very overstimulated at the Mall and ended up going potty in her panties and we had to toss them... that was about the last time for the week she wore panties and by the end of the week had abandonded going to the bathroom in the potty at all. I feel bad for her that she gets that way but there is nothing I can do other than to put a diaper or pull-up on her. She ended up bouncing around at McDonalds while waiting on my brother to having dinner with us before heading out to my moms. She did seem to enjoy visiting with my brother and seemed very comfortable with him and talking to him. She's only met him a few times but he didnt seem to bother her much and she liked that he helped her put together her paper dolls from her Happy Meal!! LOL :)

We ended up getting to my mom's house at about 9pm and then the kids went to bed very late that night. Friday we got up and went to the Mall because my mom wanted a picture of all of her Grandkids together. That was NO fun at all. A big busy mall + a photo shoot + an Aspie = NOT a good mix. Kaitlyn was in rare form and did have a tantrum while there and everything but not a horrible one. I think I handled her pretty well especially since I had Tyler in the stroller and didnt have to worry about him running around. She really was way overstimulated and not handling it well. I ended up giving her two shots of Benadryl which barely helped at all. My mom really got to see how it was when K was full blown (though she SOOOOOO missed out on a good screaming fit tantrum - THAT would have been nice lol). In a way it was nice that my mom actually got to see what our life is like... it was hard for her seeing it though and it did make her upset where she almost started crying because she realized how much work Kaitlyn can be. It's just life though and doesnt really phase me - most of the time. Seeing it from the outside must be different though. Anyway, we did make it home that afternoon after deciding not to go to the Zoo and taking the kids to Build A Bear instead. Kaitlyn got a cute bunny and named her "Bunny Bunny," of course! :) She's got a pink Tshirt and pink bows on her ears and a checkered heart inside!

Saturday was just a hang around the house day for the most part and Kaitlyn again got WAY overstimulated and got no rest/quiet time and was pretty much a complete nutball all day. She ended up having Night terrors for a few hours that night (boy THAT was fun for me!) and then Sunday we got up, ate, took baths, played a bit more and then had lunch and left. K didnt do too bad in the car on the way home... it was after we got home that the real fun began...

You'll have to see the next post for that!

Visiting Family in Michigan pt 1

2009-09-03T09:44:00.003-04:00

Me and the Kids got here yesterday to start our journey visiting family in Michigan. Last night Auntie Sarah and Uncle Scott were so awesome to have my dad and Dorie over for dinner so we didnt have to drag the kids out! It was great!

Kaitlyn was doing ok until we all sat down and were all together having dinner. She got VERY anxious and starting running around and eventually abandonded her meal and went to hide in the bedroom to be alone. She has such a hard time around a lot of people... We just let her go since we knew she wasnt comfortable but she did do pretty well.

I called the Ped before leaving to see if there is anything I can do for her when she gets anxious or panic attacks (which has been happening!) and other than prescribing her a sedative he said we could try a good dose of Benedryl to calm her (and possible make her sleepy) so she's had a couple doses of that in the past two days but it's working to calm her enough to help her sleep. She is getting so anxious before bed and at bedtime that we're on the edge of tantrums... so the Benedryl is actually helping keep the screaming fits at bay! I wish it worked a little faster though!!

Ok we're getting the car loaded up and ready to head out soon for lunch with Grandpa and Grandma Dorie at Partridge Creek Mall.

Got a call from the Preschool Teacher

2009-08-21T15:05:00.002-04:00

Ok so the Preschool teacher called today and we talked for quite awhile and I gave her some examples of behavior she might see out of Kaitlyn and really gave her an idea of who she is. The teacher seems very nice and willing to monitor Kaitlyn's behavior at school and we will talk everyday about how the day went in the first couple weeks. We will also be watching to see how her behavior is at home after going to school.

So yesterday when I finally got the diagnosis I KNEW was coming... for some reason it hit me like a ton of bricks because it was actually REAL and on paper. Immediately my brain started racing and I was asking myself where I went wrong and if I did something to cause this and all kinds of crazy things. I do know that there is nothing I did to cause this and I also know that my daughter is EXTREMELY smart beyond her years and is VERY in tune with herself and can totally learn the skills she needs to "beat" this and she will be perfectly fine. She is a strong little girl and she WANTS to be able to have friends - she told me and the Dr that - she wants to play with kids - she just needs the tools on how to do that! She will get there and it's SO early in her life that this will barely effect her in the long run.

Ok yesterday I let my emotions get the better of me... today is another day and it's like any other... just because there is a label doesn't change my love or parenting of my child or children, I should say! On we go to the next obstacle.... whatever that might be! :)

Diagnosis

2009-08-20T20:24:00.003-04:00

Here are the Dr's words "My diagnoses for Kaitlyn will be Asperger's Syndrome and Overanxious Disorder of Childhood (which is comparable to Generalized Anxiety Disorder in adults)."

Thats really all I have in me right now... I have a lot to think about. I just keep telling myself this is not because of anything I did or didn't do...

:*(

Dr's - School Districts - Frustration!

2009-08-18T12:01:00.004-04:00

Well the Dr (and US!) don't think putting Kaitlyn into the regular Preschool class is going to be a good idea. 15 kids and 2 "teachers" or not I know it's going to be a disaster. I called today to talk to the Chairperson for the Committee on Preschool Special Education about getting Kaitlyn reevaluated which is fine she says she is willing to do it because she understands our concerns. She wants us to WAIT though and put Kaitlyn into the regular PreK class and see how she does. I'm really not looking forward to doing that and it's really frustrating me. I mean, I understand the idea of it all... maybe she will do fine and I'm sure AT school she will do great but *I'M* the one who is going to have to deal with all the tantrums that come from her being triggered there with the other kids.

Right now... I just dont know what to do. Kaitlyn (even at 2 1/2) is REALLY smart and tested above average during her evaluations then (except speech) and I'm starting to realize that getting a child with Apsergers or even a Severe Social Anxiety Disorder help to be able to go to school is not going to be easy. I doubt Kaitlyn will even qualify for ANY services without the report from the Developmental Pediatrician saying specifically that she has Aspergers (since that is on the Autism Spectrum and there is a spot for that for them to agree to services) but going by the evaluation that the school district does, she will blow it out of the water and be fine. First of all it's done by adults whom Kaitlyn wil surely talk to and get along with... they need to see her around other kids and really watch her behavior overall and not watch her play with toys and can she stack some freakin blocks... ARGH! I'm getting angry about this and frustrated and sad.

I just wish I knew what to do to make it all better... if I had money I would just put her in a private school and say screw it to the public school system - but we are one of the "lucky ones" that have free Preschool and we should be happy about that...

Evaluations EARLY!!!

2009-08-14T20:29:00.002-04:00

Well we got a call yesterday from the Developmental/Behavioral Ped's office in Woodstock, NY and they had a cancellation for this morning at 9am! We JUMPED on it! It was SUPER hard since Jon worked all freaking night and then we spent 6 or 7 hours, with driving, after he got off work! We even managed to have Kaitlyn vomit all over herself, her clothes, and her car seat 2 miles from the office when we were running late as it was. It had to happen the ONE time I don't have a change of clothes for her, except a pair of panties, in the car. We ended up stopping on the side of the road, stripping her, cleaning the puke off her and out of the carseat and putting her in the clean panties and my purple zip-up sweatshirt jacket that luckily was in the back!! The poor girl had to ride the rest of the way to the Dr and home sitting on a poncho in her seat and I strapped the regular seatbelt around her. It was quite the drive and we did make it!

Jon, even being tired as hell, did good and handled the kids while I spent over 3 hours in talking with the Dr doing the Intake. It went well and we managed to get through everything and then she spent about a half hour watching Kaitlyn and asking her questions. The Dr told me that Kaitlyn managed to show her most of the bahavior of I was talking about in that short time (minus a meltdown, of course!).

While in the office she gave me a lot of "tests" to take home and fill out as homework - SCARED, CAST and a PDD one. I went through them breifly and realized... poor Kaitlyn has issues lol :) She also gave me names of places that could help out with Kaitlyn's Social Skills so hopefully we can get working on that but the main thing we want to do right now is get this whole school thing worked out. She even called the School District from her office while I was there to try to get the ball rolling on getting her reinstated/reevaluated by the PreSchool Special Education board to see about getting her either services or getting her placed in a Center setting. This all has NOTHING to do with Education... and everything to do with people and noise and stuff. We have ourselves a little Einstein here who is a super smart little girl and very literal but just cant stand being around people and gets very anxious - yes, ladies and gentleman - Einstein had Aspergers!!! As did many other very eccentric but very talented/intelligent people!!

The Dr, of course, couldnt do a full diagnosis today but does, in fact, agree with us that she believes she is "spectrumy" - as she called it! She believes that Kaitlyn would be better suited in a specialized school rather than thrown into a regular school where she may not be able to handle it.

So right now our main concern, as I said, is to get the stuff going with the school! :) So that is where we are and we have a follow up appointment with the Dr in Woodstock, NY in October.

Allergist/Eye Dr/Behavior Update

2009-08-07T20:05:00.003-04:00

Well this post might be a little long! First off at Kaitlyn's 4yr appt the Dr sent her to the Allergist to finally find out if she had a true milk allergy and to see what other, if any, allergy she had. Well it turns out she really doesnt have any allergies (sensitivities) and she is also Lactose Intolerant. So when we want/need her to have dairy she can take a lactaid pill and be all good. We are keeping her on the Soy milk she has been on forever now because trying to switch her made screwed up up gastro-intestinally, lets just say. Poor kid was sick and "backed up" for a week or so!!

Also at her 4yr appt she failed her eye exam and was sent to the Opthamologist where we found out she is 20/25 in her right eye and 20/70 in her left (Hyperotic). It's basically something about her eye focusing behind her retina instead of on it. So right now she has some SUPER strong SUPER thick lenses on her cute little glasses to try and help fix her eyes. Hopefully the script will get better with time and we can avoid having to patch her... for now it's a waiting game and we go back to the eye doctor in two months after wearing her glasses and see how she is doing.

As for Kaitlyn's behavior... Jon and I did some serious hunting around as well reading in a few books on trying to figure out her behavior. When sitting back and observing Kaitlyn over these last couple of months and putting together everything over the last two years we went and had a meeting with her Pediatrician. Instead of trying to get it all written down here (because I could write for pages!) I will simply say that the Dr, Jon and I agreed that we need to have her evaluated by a Developmental/Behavioral Pediatrician to rule out Aspergers Syndrom or PDD. Thats where we are right now and we are going through A LOT with K regarding all of this and realized that it has been increasing over the past 2 years or so.

She has her evaulation in Kingston, NY since there are only 3 Dev. Ped's here in the area that do the screenings and they are all booking out into mid-year next year. The Dr who actually works in Woodstock, NY was able to pull some strings and find us an appointment in November at her Kingston Location... so I will more than likely update then.

Wish us luck!

New Blog - Fuchs Family Blog

2009-08-07T17:16:00.001-04:00

Please see our new blog!!

http://thefuchsfamilyhappenings.blogspot.com/

My Big 4yr Old Girl!

2009-06-22T09:52:00.006-04:00

Wow... ok, so it's been a year since I posted lol Kaitlyn is 4!!!

Kaitlyn has had a great year, she started taking dance in Sept 08 and just had her very first dance recital ON her 4th birthday! She takes Kinderdance (Ballet, Tap & Gymnastics) at Merrits and their recital was at Proctor's Theatre in Sch'tady... my baby girl on the big stage!

She had a Mickey Mouse Themed birthday party complete with a Mickey Bounce House and even Mickey Mouse M&M's in her favors!!! We had lots of family here too for the whole weekend. Grandma Debbie, Grandpa Reese, Cousins Kinsley and Derek all came from Michigan for K's birthday party and recital. Grandma Lois, Aunt Donna, Cousins James and Anthony also came up from Long Island as well! It was a great weekend and the kids all enjoyed playing together.

On Tuesday 6/16/09, after the birthday & recital stuff was over, we took a vacation to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. The kids had a great time at the park and K went on her first Roller Coaster and LOVED it!! We had lunch with all the Sesame Street characters two of the days we were there. It was a very exciting trip and even though we had a LOT of behavior issues from both of the kids in the hotel from being way off routine, it was still awesome and we cant wait to go back!!

Kaitlyn is going through this "phase" (it started about a month or o ago) where she is Little Miss Sassy, talking back and yelling and demanding. Apparently this is something kids go through for about 18 months around this age and we just need to keep "reminding" her that she needs to ask nice and talk nice over and over and over and over and... oh you get it. Needless to say she gets LOTS of Time Out's these days!

She has also (since about a week ago) started telling awesome and very creative stories. She will use toys and talk to them acting out stories... it's a lot of fun!

So we went to the Dr today for her 4yr check up and she is a pretty healthy little girl. We are FINALLY getting her into the allergist to see about her Milk/Dairy problem which we are extremely happy about. The Ped. is also sending her to the Opthalmologist because she didnt pass her Eye Screening. Her right eye was 20/40 but her left she aparently couldnt make out anything on the board. She has actually grown a little! She was 32lbs and 40 1/8 inches tall. Everything else was great though!

This year we also started going to Church and became Members at Immanuel Lutheran in Niskayuna and Kaitlyn started Sunday School in Jan too and will start up that again in Sept 09. She is also starting Pre-School in Sept too and will be going to school for 2 1/2 hours a day M-F. She is growing up so fast and really becoming a wonderful girl and we love her so much and are extremely proud of all of her accomplishments.

Kaitlyn's 3!!

2008-06-13T13:49:00.000-04:00

Wow! Three whole years! Just a quick update here because I plan on starting a whole new blog to cover the whole family in one place - now that we are a family of 4!

Kaitlyn is 39" tall and 29lbs and quite the smart little thing! She's talking out of control and started speech again in Feb 08. She had Speech Feb - June and will have it again Sept - Dec when the school year starts up again. She is really talking so much and is doing amazing. She has some articulation issues but they are slowly coming along! Her speech therapist was amazed that she could tell a 2 1/2 - 3yr old WHERE to put her tongue and how to move her mouth to make sounds... she kept telling me she was too young for it, until she tried it!! LOL

Kaitlyn is also the BEST big sister! She loves her little brother and helps out so much with him. Kaitlyn became a big sister this year when Tyler was born on April 23rd 2008. He was 7lbs 12oz and 20 1/4" long.

Anyway, there are about a billion things I could write here since it's been so freakin long but I do want to say that if you were keeping up on Kaitlyn here please feel free to check out my myspace blog because I will be updating there about the whole family. It is too hard to have so many journals!!

New House, New Life

2007-09-10T15:52:00.000-04:00

Well we are finally moved into our new house and Kaitlyn loves it! She already knows she has a play room and calls it that. She has been asking and sleeping in her own bed since about a week after we moved. The first week we were here daddy was not here yet as he was finishing up his last week of work on Long Island. Since daddy got home here she has wanted to be in her own bed and in her room. She is doing so well sleeping in there too. most naps and nights she goes right up and climbs in bed and goes to sleep!

The first week we were here in the house we spent a couple nights in the ER because K had a 104 fever for 5 days. I ended up having my friend take us to the ER twice. It was a crazy first week!

We also found out that K is going to be a big sister!! We think she is going to make a wonderful big sister too! We decided for the next 7ish months that we are going to talk to her about it everyday, kinda like we did with the house. I anticipate the change going very well because of this. The transition into the house went VERY well so I dont think we will have too many issues with the new baby either.

Other than that, not much else is going on... Kaitlyn's speech continues to flourish and she has new words everyday even ones she hears on tv or from other people. She really is doing very well!!

A Little Late But Not Never...

2007-08-16T07:50:00.000-04:00

Well we finally got a chance to take K for her 2 year photos and I thought I would share a few that I really like.

This one is my favorite and we got this one done in Sepia to put on our living room wall once we get moved in our new house!!!
Just had to put this one here because she is so funny... she was trying to walk away (about a million times) during the shoot and this was one shot... K can be such a nut at times! The bad thing is... is she KNOWS it!!!

Busy, Busy, Busy

2007-08-09T09:08:00.000-04:00

I could probably sit here and write a book about all the things Kaitlyn has been doing in the past almost two months, however, I wont. There is no way I could remember it all anyway. She is chatting away like crazy, new words come everyday and she finally started saying two word sentences! She does get a little lost when she tries two or more syllable words but she is getting so much better!!

We joke and call Kaitlyn an Elephant... this little girl remembers EVERYthing! She knows where the railroad tracks are that we go over on the way to Jon's work and she even remembers ANYthing we tell her. There is no saying "later" to her and thinking she will forget. She remembers... and then asks for it later!!! She's so smart it almost hurts!! Hahahaha

K's also had a bit of some issues for the last two months. She is MUCH better now but for the last two months she had diarrhea and could not get over it. We ended up taking her completely off dairy and she was drinking Rice milk and getting Acidophilus and Florastor twice a day to try and replenish her normal flora in her belly. She also ended up gaining over a pound in a month! She is now 33 1/2 inches tall and weighs 26lbs... she's getting so big now, she is definitely not a baby anymore.

Well almost every morning Kaitlyn and I go for a walk and go to the park. I stop at the Deli and get my coffee and when we get to the park K wants to swing & swing & swing on the swings. She usually will stay on them for at least a half hour. It's fun and gets us both out of the house for an hour or so and we love spending the time together without the tv going or the computer.

We've also been very busy this summer because we are buying a house! We found a beautiful house upstate, NY in Schenectady. Jon will be going back to work at Albany Medical Center and I will continue to stay home with K. I may go get a little part time job since Jon will be working evenings and that will give me a chance to make a little extra money and also give me a break from watching K 24/7.

K's not really understanding that we are going to have a new house but I keep telling her. She is having a hard time with the fact that I have packed up a lot of her toys. I just make sure to keep telling her about the new house and how the big orange moving truck is going to come and take all of our things and her toys to our new house soon. We're moving Aug 24th but we will be heading up there next weekend for the closing and to clean and get the house ready to move in.

I hope that once we get moved in a settled in the new house I will have more time to update Kaitlyn's blog. Until then...

Birthday Girl!!

2007-06-13T22:10:00.000-04:00

Happy 2nd Birthday to my little girl!! Some say the time goes too fast but to me it really feels like it has been 2 years, am I strange? Maybe it's because I am home with her and seeing everything hour to hour, day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year where others are not. Who knows! All I know is that I love being here for it all and I love my little girl. Today we remember one of the happiest moments in our lives and celebrate the wonderful little girl that has blessed our family.

Today Kaitlyn went to have her 2 year check up at the Dr and she is 33 1/2 inches tall and she is 24 3/4lbs. Both of which put her in the 25 percentile for her age. Her head still measured at 47cm so she's certainly not a fat head! She did not get shots this time around and does not need them now until she is 4!!

We had a small birthday party at the park last weekend to celebrate her birthday and two of her friends showed up, Joseph and Joshua. We met them through the mom's group I am a member of and she gets along with them really well. The kids enjoyed playing together in the sand and swinging on the swings. We had a little bit of a Blues Clues theme for her party here and made a Blue's Clues cake. We even colored the cake and pudding filling blue too!Jon and I made little Shovel & Pail favors and put stickers, rings and little things in them for the kids. Grandma Lois, Aunt Donna, Uncle Charlie & James, Aunt Michele & Uncle Jon didn't make it to the park to celebrate with us but we did end up seeing them that day.

Kaitlyn still has two more parties to celebrate her birthday! We're having a get together in Michigan at Papa Paul's on Father's Day and then Grandma Debbie is planning a great party at her house in Niles, MI which we are very excited about. We're doing a Dora & Diego theme for the party at Grandma Debbies and it should be such a great time.

We're leaving tomorrow for our annual trip to Michigan so we will update about all the fun we had there when we get back!

Happy Birthday baby, we love you so much!!!

Adenoidectomy & Partial Tonsillectomy

2007-05-10T09:05:00.000-04:00

Well yesterday May 9th was the big day. We got up at 5:30am and got together a few toys, got dressed and grabbed a couple bottles of water. Woke Kaitlyn up at 6am (not on purpose) and got her changed and ready to go. We left at 6:30am and headed to the hospital... though not without stopping at Dunkin Donuts for some coffee first!

We got to North Shore Hospital in Syosset at 7am and got Kaitlyn all registered. I do have to say that the registration process was amazingly fast and NOTHING like it used to be when going to the hospital. It took all of about 10 minutes at most to get all the paperwork signed and information verified. After registration we were escorted up to the Surgical suite and we got settled in Pre-Op with our Nurse Bridget. This is where they got all of Kaitlyn's vitals and told us what all would be happening and got K into her hospital gown and mommy into her protective wear, since I was the one going into the OR with her. I gotta say she was so adorable with that hat on!! Kaitlyn's surgery was scheduled at 8am and we ended up being in Pre-Op until a little after 8 and then Kaitlyn and I were taken into the OR where they put the mask on her and I had to watch and try to calm her as she was put to sleep. I have to say, as a mother, this was absolutely the hardest thing I have ever seen or had to endure. I held K as long as possible but I had to eventually put her down on the operating table and she started to scream and kick and cry. I mean, I know it was so scary and overwhelming for her to have 5 people there holding her down and shoving a big plastic mask in her face. It was horrible watching her fighting and screaming as they tried to get her to sleep but finally she went off. It's not like when you are an adult and you close your eyes and go to sleep. She looked so weird and her eyes were still open but she was sedated. The even harder part was turning around and walking away so that they could do the surgery. Leaving her there laying limp on the table hurt me so much inside. I trusted them and her Dr. He is so wonderful and told us everything that would happen and was very helpful in keeping us calm. Not that Jon and I aren't calm about all this stuff but it was nice for him to be so reassuring!

So after I left the room and Kaitlyn was sedated that is when they put in her IV and all of that so she never knew that was happening. I'm so glad they did it that way because the time we had her in the hospital for the dehydration and holding her down to get the IV in was hard too! I'm glad we didnt have to go through that!

The surgery really didnt take that long and the Dr came to get us at about 9:10 or so and she went in and they started the surgery at about 8:25am. So rather quick if you ask me! I'm glad we didnt have to sit there for hours waiting and waiting to hear how things were going. Her Dr said everything went very well and this surgery will definitely help her breathe better and everything. He said, "her adenoids were very enlarged." In the office he said they were enlarged but he said after taking them out they were very big and it was no wonder she seemingly had a chronic stuffy nose.

Here is another hard part! When they came to get us after surgery and they were waking Kaitlyn up from the anesthetic she was screaming and twisting and turning and just very out of it. It was hard seeing her that way and her not really being awake or understanding what was going on. She was so hoarse and her little cry sounded so weak. Thats just Kaitlyn though, she doesnt cry very loud and scream like some kids. We also had to keep this "wet air" blowing in her face so she didnt get dried out and start hurting in her nose and throat more and she kept batting at it because she didnt want it in her face. After about 5 or 10 minutes she started to wake up a bit more though and wanted me to pick her up so I did and she calmed down a bit and went in and out of sleep while laying on me as I sat in the rocking chair.
After a good hour and a half she came out of the anesthetic more and was still crabby, whiney and you could tell she was hurting but she got more alert and we turned on the tv and some cartoons for her. We kept trying to get her to drink some water, juice or anything and she only wanted to hold her cup and not drink. Eventually I got her to eat some ice chips though so that was good. She didnt even want to eat any of the Cherry Italian Ice they gave her! Though, I dont blame her one bit! So she watched about a show and a half on tv (Dragon Tails & Bob the Builder) and then wanted me to hold her again and she fell asleep on my lap in the rocking chair again. It was about Noon then and we still had another hour to go until we could be discharged. So we hung out there with her sleeping and boy, did I want to go to sleep too! Then at 1pm they took out her IV and the annoying Pulse Ox monitor off her toe (she kept begging for it to come off the whole 4 hours in recovery!) and we got her dressed and headed to pick up her prescriptions and come home. The Dr has her on Amoxicillin for 10 days to prevent any infections and he gave her Tyelnol with Codeine for pain. She has a post op follow up appointment on May 21st to see how she is doing and I know she is going to be just fine and dandy.

When we got home yesterday she slept off and on and she was very whiney and crabby and just wanted to cuddle with mommy a lot but she was doing very well.

She is doing very well today too... a little crabby and whiney still but drinking good (even asked for a drink) and had a few bites of fruit this morning too. She's walking around and playing but she gets frustrated easily but I know that just because she doesnt feel completely well.

Grandma Debbie in Michigan sent Kaitlyn a beautiful Get Well gift also so when we got home K had a delivery! She got a great little Bear and a Get Well Balloon and she also got a vase with three very pretty white roses in it. She really liked getting her present and even took a nap with her new bear!All in all the day was great and the hospital was great too. We had a very pleasant experience through it all and I'm happy about that. Now we just wait out the healing period and watch for Bright red blood or anything. I'm sure everything will be just fine since she is already doing so well today!!

Surgery in a Week

2007-05-02T08:43:00.000-04:00

Well Kaitlyn is having her surgery one week from today. She is getting her Adenoids out and her Tonsils "shaved" in hopes that she will be able to breathe much better and keep her mouth closed. I really hope it works because two years of having plugged up ears and a stuffy nose has got to be annoying! Things are going to be so different for her in a few weeks when the swelling and everything goes down.

We went to get Kaitlyn's blood work done for her pre-op stuff, 2 year CBC & Lead and also got her allergies tested. Everything came out great and no allergies! So we have NO idea why she is reacting to things the way she is. Tomato is a huge one that gives her hives and stuff and we cant figure it out. Maybe she is just sensitive to it and then it wouldnt come up on an allergy test? I have no idea. I'm glad everything came back ok but I think I might take her to the allergist anyway to see what else might be causing it. Jon is going to run a few more tests on her blood today since there are some tubes left at his work and he is running the allergies today!

I have been very upset lately regarding Kaitlyn's second birthday. I wanted to have a small party here in NY with some of the family and a couple of my mom friends, however we really have no day to do it since there is so much going on in June now with Donna doing James' baptism and us going to Michigan. So I'm thinking about combining Jon and Kaitlyn's birthday's and doing a day at the park or something. I figure the boys can play basketball and the kids can play in the sand and on the playground. I guess we can just do cake at the park or something too. I havent decided if I want to do that or just have a small party at McDonalds and then I dont have to worry about the weather. I'm leaning more towards the McDonalds venue. It's only about $8 per child so that might be what we do and then we will just bring our own cakes and I think the kids get food too. I figure if the adults that come want something, they can just order their own.

Not to mention that the party we were thinking of having in Michigan is looking like a wash too it's just all stressing me out and really getting to me. I have decided that we are not going to cater to everyone else anymore when we go home to visit. This year we are going home to visit my dad for a few days and then to see my mom and not going to worry about making our plans around visiting everyone else. I was trying to do it so that everyone could see Kaitlyn but I think it's best just to let her spend some time with Grandpa and Grandma and get as much time in with them as possible and maybe we can make it to the Zoo this year like we were going to try to do as a yearly event. We'll see how this whole visit works out and then maybe re-think how we work the vacations/visits for next year.

Anyway, this year I'm just going to make the most of what we have and even though it's not much, hopefully K will still enjoy her birthday. She really wanted a Blue's Clues Party but it looks like all she will get is a Blue's Clues cake since Jon and I will be making that.

Got My Eater Back!

2007-04-09T23:11:00.000-04:00

Well K is doing MUCH better!! She has been eating very well since yesterday and she's got firm poop again! What a great thing to be excited about but after pure water coming from both ends the past week, this is great news!

Anyway, just wanted to update since she is doing so well. Also, a couple nights ago I started putting Kaitlyn down to bed and leaving the room. So far she has been doing excellent at going to sleep on her own. Once in awhile she will cry a little bit but she is doing a great job. I can't believe what a big girl she is now. Tonight was wonderful too, I simply put her in bed and told her that it was her turn to go "Night night" and that mommy would come down later when it was her turn. I gave her a kiss and told her Good night and didnt hear a peep out of her and she went right to sleep. She is still falling asleep in our bed but still she is doing it on her own and I no longer have to lay down with her to get her to sleep! Soon she will be going to sleep in her OWN bed... then... in her OWN room!!

Not sure if I'm ready for all this growing up, to be quite honest. I'm beginning to miss those times with her. I love cuddling with her while she goes to sleep but there are times when I dont want to. I just know that she is getting to be a big girl and soon she wont need mommy for any of that anymore. Soon we will probably be fighting and at each others throats like all mothers and daughters are. I have to admit that I actually like when she comes over to me in the middle of the night saying "mama" and wanting to come up in bed with us. I think her being in her own bed all the time might be harder on ME than it is her. Oh well... she does have to grow up but I feel like I miss her sometimes even though I'm with her all day.

Anyway, I cant remember if I mentioned this before but we signed Kaitlyn up for a class at Orly's Treehouse and it starts this week on Friday... though I dont think she is going to like the class much. I'm going to be switching her over to the class her little 2yr old twin cousins are in on Mondays so the girls can all play together and then their mom and I can chat too!! It should be a great class since it's in the Olympic gym and they get to play with balls and things. I think it will work out much better than the class I originally signed her up for... it wasnt all that fun when we went in for the trial class.

Ok it's time for mommy's to get some sleep, especially emotional ones! I'm so happy my little monkey is feeling better, man I love her so much!!

The "Good Boo Boo"

2007-04-05T23:46:00.000-04:00

Well we had Kaitlyn in the hospital for the last 8 hours and just got home. She has been sick with "Acute Gastroenteritis" (or the stomach flu) since Tuesday and she finally got so dehydrated the Dr said it was time to take her in for IV fluids. She hadn't had a wet diaper since Tuesday and couldnt eat or drink anything without puking or pooping it out so it was time.

When we got up this morning K was so lethargic and wasnt talking or walking around or anything. She just laid and cried and could hardly stay awake. I finally called the Dr and walked over there (in the snow!) and he checked her out and noticed she was dehydrated. He said we had a good chance of bringing her back if I could get her to drink some fluids but when we got home and I did manage to get some juice in her she barfed it all back up within a few minutes after drinking it. I called the Dr back and he sent us immediately to the hospital.

It took about 8 hours of IV fluids (two of them bolouses(sp?)) to get her hydrated again and to the point where she was able to go pee. According to her blood work she was just one number away from being admitted so we were lucky! She did great in the hospital though... it was rough for her to get the IV but the PA who put the line in was great. She was quick and did a great job and K cried but only for a little bit. K handled it so well! We were both so proud of her!! The whole time she was there with the IV in she kept pointing to her arm and saying "oohhh bo bo" (translated that is Ow, boo boo) and Jon just kept explaining to her that it was a "Good Boo boo" and that it was going to make her feel better and she wouldnt be sick anymore. She seemed very happy with that explaination and went about her business of sitting there staring at Dora (which the Child Life Specialists had put on for her).

I'm just very proud of her... it was a long day and we are ALL crabby and tired and it's time for bed! She is such a big girl!!!

Explosion!!!

2007-03-30T05:28:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Kaitlyn had a speech therapy session, they are usually every Monday and Thursday. Well I was sitting there with Ms. Lori after K's session and she was filling out the necessary paperwork and we were chatting about stuff. K was sitting on the couch between us minding her own business reading a new book Ms. Lori brought over. It was a "Little People" Lift-the-Flap book and K loves the Fisher Price Little People. So what I'm getting at is that Kaitlyn has never seen the book before. Anyway, she is flipping the little flaps and out of her mouth clear as day and perfect as ever comes "Dina." Ms. Lori and I looked at each other, both shocked and then we looked at what Kaitlyn was looking at... sure enough, Kaitlyn had found a picture of a DINOSAUR!!! It was SOOOOOOO awesome! So I asked Kaitlyn just then, "Is that a dinosaur?" and she, matter of factly, says "yea!" The only time we really talked about dinosaurs recently was Monday when we were at the ENT appointment. While we were there I took out a Happy Meal toy she got that happened to be some weird lizard dinosaur thing. Anyway, it was so incredible to hear her say that on her own and so super clear!! It was perfect!

So she is basically exploding with words and her comprehension is incredible. She is so quick now to respond to what I ask her or things we would like her to do. Well most of the time anyway, sometimes she KNOWS she should be doing something and deliberately doesn't! She's got some heck of a sense of humor already too. She will do things that are funny or that she thinks are funny and she will come out with this big huge HA HA HA laugh. She cracks herself up... and us!! I just love it, I love how pretty much everyday she is changing. I could not have asked for a better daughter she makes me melt inside.

Ohhhh yeah, so we're in the middle of a LOT of fun right now... K is getting a couple top Eye teeth and everyone knows, I HATE teething. So my poor baby has had diarrhea and her but is rashy now and I'm sure it's on fire and she cant stop chewing on her hand. I have to keep giving her the chew necklace thing we got her and reminding her to bite on that. I can't believe how hard she bites her little hand, she leaves teeth marks! I so hate that she has to go through teething - I so hate that I have to go through it with her! I know we will make it through all of the teeth but I just dont like feeling helpless against nature. Ah well... nothing I can do about it!

So I thought of more words Kaitlyn has so here they are (some are not used often or are only said if we make her say them): "Mooh" (moon), "Op" (up), "Nih Nih" (night, night), "Ih" (in), "Dee" (drink), "Tee" (tree)... Ok it's early and this is all I can think of for now...

We're off to Orly's Treehouse again today, she didn't do too bad on Wednesday when we were there. She didnt scream and cry and I got in 22 minutes on the treadmill. Hopefully today will go just the same!

Surgery on the Forefront

2007-03-28T22:41:00.000-04:00

Well we took Kaitlyn to her follow up with the ENT and we decided to go ahead with the surgery to help Kaitlyn feel a little better. First of all, he said that her ears had finally drained the fluid and they looked very good so there is no need for tubes at this time. However, he did take the time to stick a camera up her tiny nose to have a look at her Adenoids and they are enlarged. So he said they should be removed and that he would also shave down her tonsils a bit too since they were a little big but not in need of removal.

This surgery will hopefully help Kaitlyn's snoring, night wakenings, chronic mouth-breathing and should help some with her speech. The Dr said that since the Adenoids are at the ends of the Eustachian tubes (where the ear drains) and they are enlarged they are not letting her ears "pop" well or drain well. So this should really help with that and she should seem to be hearing muffled anymore.

Kaitlyn has been doing AMAZING with her speech!! She says so much now and is really watching me talk and tries to say things I say now!! I love it!!! She knows who Mama and Dada are now and once in awhile will even call us by name. It's so great, she's so smart and I'm so happy she is able to express herself better now and we are all working really hard to get her to talk as much as possible.

Let's see... Kaitlyn now says (regularly and consistantly) Mama, Dada, Nana (banana), Uh uh, Yea, Moh (more), Bubo (bubble), Behbo (Elmo), Doda (Dora), Boo (boots), Bahh (ball), Rohh (roll), Teekie (stickie/er), Dih (drink), Deeeeeee (please), Ewww (just said this for the first time today!!!), Diity (dirty), iity (empty), Deedee (baby), vrumvrumvrum (any vehicle driving), Nnnn (nose), Boo (blue), Yaya (yellow), Dahpeh (diaper)...

Gosh there might be more, but this is all of the ones I can think of right now... I will add more if I think of them! Anyway... she was saying NOTHING at 18 months and here we are 3 months later and she is saying over 20 words. It's great... speech therapy has been a huge help... not only for her but for me, because I am learning what to do to continue her "therapy" 24 hours a day. I think because I work so hard with her that that is why this is coming along so quickly. That along with the fact that K is VERY determined to speak!

I'm also excited because Friday the 13th of April K and I start her class at Orly's Treehouse! I signed her up to take "Big Champions" it's a little class where they sing songs and get to play in a gym that is all soft climbing things. I'm hoping I picked the right class for her because we did a trial of it and she didnt seem to want to sit down and sing the songs or anything... she wanted to roam around the room and play with the balls... so now I'm wondering if maybe the Sport Tots would have been more for her since it is in the bigger gym and they get to run around and play with balls and work on catching and throwing things. I might see if I can switch classes... who knows, I'll see on Friday when we go there again!

Well I guess that about catches us up, for now.

Sass-A-Frass

2007-03-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

This is Kaitlyn giving us the sassy eye when she doesnt like something we tell her... it's just great! She's so freakin cute and sometimes we cant help but laugh at her!

We went for Kaitlyn's 21 Month appointment yesterday and she is 23lbs (after eating a banana, cereal bar and a 9oz of milk), 32 3/4" tall and her head measures 47cm. She's getting so big!!! She got her Chicken Pox vaccine yesterday too and did so well... she didnt even cry. She got a little mad and was going to but I told her it was ok and it was all over and she handled it great! I bet she is going to be like Mommy and actually LIKE shots!! Ha ha ha!

Ah well... she really is doing well. She usually only eats one meal a day and will pick at her meals the rest of the day so a couple times a week she drinks a Pediasure and we give her little drinkable yogurts as well to get in her protein and nutrients. We started vitamins as well and she likes eating them! Since the water here in Levittown does not have any Floride I decided to buy her her own water that has it in it. That way she can get in her floride without having to take nasty liquid vitamins! I hate giving them to her and she hates taking them. The kids vitamins are so much better and she likes being "in charge" of them!

I can't believe she is going to be 2 soon! It's amazing! I'm having some trouble, actually, deciding what to do about her birthday party. She really has no kid friends here so it makes it hard to plan anything at a play place. Most of them are parties only for the kids and they are $300-$400 for 12-16 kids... all we have is maybe 5 kids at most and 16 adults! It's hard at this age. I'm thinking about just having a family dinner out somewhere with Mommy, Daddy and Kaitlyn and then just paying to have a real party in Michigan when we go home to see my side of the family. Kaitlyn has more cousins and I have friends with kids there which make it more worth it and more exciting for an actual birthday party. I'll see though... it's really a hard thing to try and plan for a 2 year old. Might be easier if our families weren't spread out across the world... that and if my friends who have kids were closer too!!

I guess it will get easier when she is older and she has some little friends from school! I guess I should go because she is standing here jumping up and down screaming at me because I wont give her MORE vitamins! Now I have to go explain that she only gets one a day!!

My Baby No More

2007-02-21T07:47:00.000-05:00

Well Kaitlyn is certainly not a baby anymore!! She is so big now... 20 Months old... almost 2! In some ways I cant believe it's been so long but in others it's such a short time. Being a mother and watching Kaitlyn grow and mature into a beautiful little girl has made me see a lot of things in life and really notice what we take for granted.

Yesterday we took her out in the snow to play a bit since it was kinda warm and she just loved walking back and forth on the snow hearing it crunch beneath her shoes. She was so intrigued by a puddle she found, too. She must have stood there banging her stick into the puddle for ten minutes over and over watching as the water would move and splash each time. It's amazing to me that something so small could entertain her mind so much. It seems in life, as we get older, we take these small things for granted. I guess, until you have kids and watch them grow, you never really realize how it takes ALL of the little things along the way in life to make us who we are as we get older...

The last couple days Kaitlyn has gotten soooo much better at hopping! She actually gets a little air now... it's so cool to see something so amazing! You wouldnt think it was so much work just to learn to hop an inch or so off the ground!

Ohhhhh and she is breathing much better since the course of antibiotics for her sinus infection. She is not snoring really but does breathe heavy once in a while. She still has some mucos in her nose but that is something I will talk to the ENT about when we see him again in March. We could definitely tell that the meds cleared up her head even after one days worth of doses. She was up talking back to Dora on tv and repeating/imitating her the next morning and that was something she never did, not even when we tried to get her to. So it has been a big help already just in getting her to communicate more.

Speech therapy is really helping as well, she is really learning to form her mouth to words and her "Ut Oh" is perfect... and she uses it ALL the time. Especially if mommy forgets to close the baby gate at the top of the stairs!! Ha ha ha ha She's got a good 10 words now and she said her first unprompted sentence on Monday night! She and Daddy were reading some books together on the floor and since she has gotten sooooooo good at saying "Moh" (or more in Kaitlynese) she told daddy, "Moh Boh" which meant "More Book" so we were ecstatic to say the least! She has now said, "Moh Dee" or "More Please" but it takes some prompting to get her to say that... though she is coming along! It's really great to see the progress and all of her chatting (or babbling/repeating/imitating) has really come since being on the meds and I LOVE it!! Right now she is TRYING so hard to say "Belly Button" but she is still having trouble forming her mouth to make the right sounds. It's still adorable to watch her try and we LOVE praising her with every attempt!

Well besides that and completely coving the living room in toys everyday she is really growing up. I think we're going to work on "clean up" in the coming weeks because the mess around here is just not working. We live in such a small place as it is that we just cant have toys all over taking up what little room we do have! So we will have to have clean up time a few times a day. I think it will work out, she usually likes to help out. Well when she isn't telling me "Uh, uhh" (or No actually)... since that is the most common "word" used these days with her. Most of the day is filled with "Uh uhhh's" and "Ut oh's." It's all cute and I love it anyway but it cant get frustrating at times!

So to end this, I say, what in life are some of the things we take for granted...

Getting it All Done

2007-01-25T12:28:00.000-05:00

Today was Kaitlyn's first Speech Therapy session and it went so well! Lori came over to the house and Kaitlyn was instantly interested in her and what toys she brought. They talked and played and Kaitlyn showed off her "Ut, oh" and by the end of the session she managed to get out "All done." I was so shocked and smiled so hard my cheeks were hurting!! It was amazing... she also tried very hard at one point to say "more" but her lips just didnt make the right shape. Lori really wants to work on Kaitlyn's lower jaw and tongue since they are both hanging and she says that Kaitlyn is not using the muscles which in turn is causing the little bit of a delay in speech.

Anyway, overall it was a great session and we look forward to more and hearing more words come out of her!!

Playing in the Snow

2007-01-24T10:20:00.000-05:00

Well Kaitlyn finally got to play in the snow this year. Last year she was too small so she really couldnt play in the snow unless she just laid in it! We went upstate to Warrensburg, NY to stay at the Cornerstone Victorian B&B (where we go every year for our anniversary) and there was actually snow up there so we got to go out and run around and play in the snow! It was fun so see the delight on her face and the aww when she actually touched the snow.

The wonder and amazement on a childs face when they experience something new gives you such a great feeling inside.

While we were upstate we had to get Kaitlyn some new sneakers and snow boots... she wears a size 6 now!!! She's getting so big! It's amazing to think she was so tiny 19 months ago!!

Jon and I are deciding if we will be ready in June to try for another, I really think it would be great for Kaitlyn to have a brother or sister so we'll see how that goes. It all depends on how I feel about it all and being pregnant again when the time comes I guess!

So speech therapy starts on Monday and I truly believe K is going to do amazing at it! She already is starting to make more sounds and tries so hard to say things. I know this is going to be a huge help for her! I cant wait to hear her say something for real!!

Lately, Kaitlyns favorite thing is to totally destroy the house... she can not decide what one thing to play with and the house just gets trashed over and over even if I clean it! The tantrums have not stopped either, they are sometimes very bad and last for a long time. When she has a breakdown, she really has one and there is no comforting her until she is ready - which can take an hour sometimes!!!

I just hope that once we get her talking it will help with the tantrums. They really are draining and I would like to get one on video so that when Kaitlyn is older she can watch it to see what exactly I mean by her having tantrums.

Well I'm going to clean up the living room yet again and see if I cant get her to help me this time! When are kids old enough to do dishes?? hehehehe

100 Years of Magic

2007-01-16T23:19:00.000-05:00

Wow!! We went to see the Disney on Ice 100 Years of Magic show tonight at the Nassau Coliseum and it was wonderful!! We all had such a good time! Kaitlyn was dancing on daddy's lap and she was dancing and singing with me and it was so beautiful and just amazing. She really enjoyed it so much and so did we!!

Kaitlyn ended up falling asleep soon after the second act started but I know she really liked the show because she was smiling and singing and dancing and talking to the characters out on the ice. It was so great to see the wonder on her face and the excitement when Mickey came out to say Hi. She just really enjoyed the entire thing.

I was very happy with the way the show was put on, there was not loud obnoxious music or anything like that. The show was done very well and I was so happy to have gone.

Our next little adventure will be the Circus in March! I cant wait for that either!!

"Chsheh Chsheh"

2007-01-13T04:39:00.000-05:00

What is that title about, right? Well that, right there, is my 19 month old daughter's 2nd word!!! She says CHICKEN!!! or well "csheh chseh", her version of it. She isnt totally consistant but now we at least get unprompted "ut, oh"ish things and prompted "chicken" ones! FINALLY!!! She still wont tell me what a piece of chicken is but she repeats it when we say it some of the time! I was so excited tonight when I was eating my chicken salad and out of no where she repeated me when I gave her a bite and said "yummy, chicken?"

The day this kid says anything remotely close to "I love you, Mama" I'll cry, I swear!!! I'd even settle for her saying "Mama" TO ME and have it MEAN mama!!! hahahahaha She still says "Da da" when I ask her to repeat "ma ma" lol Ah well, it's a work in progress and she says CHICKEN!!! lol :)

So anyway, Kaitlyn qualified for Speech Therapy through EIP and we had our meeting with the Nassau County Coordinator and the Speech Therapist. We officially set up the schedule with her and she will now be coming twice a week (Mon & Thurs mornings) to help move K along in talking. She is going to be getting a lot of oral motor skill work through the PROMPT technique as the therapist is leaning towards K having a bit of Apraxia which is when a child has difficulty with volitional movement for the production of speech. This can be at the level of sounds, syllables, words, or even phrases (connected speech). The motor struggle is most typically seen with sounds sequencing.

I know that the speech therapy is really going to push K into talking up a storm. She really wants to and tries soooo hard to form words and make sounds so I know the PROMPT is going to be a huge success! I hope this also helps to cut down the tantrums because today made me want to tear my hair out, run away and hide. I was a mess today because she was having horrible "throw herself on the floor screaming" fits because I was trying to cook dinner and wasnt picking her up. Its getting really ridiculous as she screams harder during those times if Jon even attempts to pick her up or talk to her or console her. I'm not sure what to do as we have tried ignoring her (literally for almost an hour sometimes) and she screams and screams and screams and gets herself so worked up and even cries so hard she does her passing out thing or will cry so hard she starts doing this almost seizure type shaking thing... it's weird. At that point, I can not leave her like that... so there has to be something we can do... but I guess we'll mention it to the Dr and I also hope the speech thing helps to alleviate some of that too!!! UGH!!

Another thing I want to work on is getting her to fall asleep on her own but I dunno if we should do that before or AFTER we work on getting her to self soothe at night. I just can't do this crap anymore... and people talk about having another kid??? HA are you kidding me??? It's times like these where I lay in bed crying and saying no way in hell am I having another... ya know??? I love my daughter with all of my heart and soul but being a parent is by no means and easy job and sometimes it is so stressful and unrewarding!

Then there are times when you hear "chsheh chsheh" and you just get so excited! :) It just seems the tantrums are outweighing the "chicken's" right now, if you know what I mean!

Such a Lazy Mom

2007-01-05T01:00:00.000-05:00

Yes I know, I rarely get here to update about Kaitlyn anymore. It's just so hard to sit and think and type with a toddler running around! I can barely get my dishes done because she stands at my legs screaming because she just wants mommy's attention!!

So here is a quick update and I will throw a newer pic in too!

Kaitlyn had her evaluations and Family Aides, Inc is sending in all the info to the county and we have our group meeting on Jan 12, 2007. We will know for sure then if she qualifies for Speech Therapy and we will set up a schedule of once a week or twice a week or whatever they think she needs.

I did have to go to Family Aides today to sign a paper and I asked if she qualified and, of course they cant tell me FOR SURE if she did but, she did! So hopefully soon K will be talking up a storm! I cant wait to hear her say something... other than "dah" and now the "ut oh" type thing she says! It will be so neat to hear her voice, I just know it is going to be adorable and it's going to make me melt just like I do when she looks into my eyes!!

The only other thing to update on is that she is yet again sick. This is about the 6th week we have been dealing with her having a cold. I'm actually getting very sick of her being sick and I cant wait til she is feeling better. I decided we are not going to be visiting any of the play places with the Mom's group where there are toys to chew on. Since we started going to them, she has been sick! So I think thats why... there are plenty of climbing gym type ones to take her to and I think they will be better for now until the weather turns into actual winter. Speaking of that it was 60 here today and it's JAN 4TH!!! Oy!! Something wrong with this planet!! We didnt even get a white Christmas and that was very disappointing for me. I know K doesnt know the difference but I have always had a white Christmas... with the exception of the year I spent living in Southern California!

Ok so here is a pic of Kaitlyn and Daddy just before Christmas. Daddy likes to play the Elf after Santa comes and he sorts the presents for everyone on Christmas morning and Kaitlyn and I got some Reindeer antlers to wear (though mommy forgot this year!) and I just had to get a picture of how cute these two are!

I really would like to get here to update a lot more often so I'm going to do my best to try. It's important for Kaitlyn to have this to read later on in life!

Lately, K has been going through some Mommy seperation anxiety and she will scream and scream even if I'm not in the room so we are working on that. She is still very motor and she climbs and crawls under things and over things and in things. She loves playing in and on boxes and wearing bags on her head while she walks around bumping into things. She has the BEST little sense of humor and knows it!! She will do things she finds funny and cracks up so hard at herself! She's really becoming such a great little person. She is still very polite and says (signs) please, thank you and you're welcome. I dont even think I could sit here and list all the things she "says" (signs) because she has SOOOO many. She's just a smart little cookie!

Since I had my surgery (and am unable to get pregnant until K is about two), Jon and I decided not to make any decisions about having another child until after Kaitlyn's second birthday. I'm still unsure if I want to be pregnant again... as much as I look at K playing by herself and wish she had a brother or sister, I just dont know if I can handle it again. Plus with Aunt Donna and Uncle Charlie expecting her little cousin coming next month that might be good for her and she will be content. I dont know... it's a lot to think about and I guess we will decide soon enough!

Well, I'll do my best to update again soon but definitely after the meeting on Jan 12th with the EIP people!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

2006-12-21T04:04:00.000-05:00

how you hurt when you fall on me!!! ha ha ha ha

Kaitlyn got attacked by our Christmas tree last night and it's only a 3ft tree!!! Our kitty Totoro was trying to climb up in the tree thinking we might have to call the fire department to get him out or something... and Kaitlyn was standing there in front of the tree watching him and playing with ornaments. I, of course, yelled at the cat to get out of the tree because he might knock it down... I then walked into the kitchen to finish what I was doing and not 2 seconds later I hear Jon yell from the other room, "There it goes!" It took me a few seconds to realize what he was talking about and then Kaitlyn started screaming. I'm not sure whose fault it was, the cats or Kaitlyns (she yanks the ornaments off the tree) but I do know it must have scared the crap out of both of them! Kaitlyn was ok after a minute but she got scratches all over her face and hands (Thank God she didn't get poked in the eye!).

Anyway, this was one of those times you wish you had a video camera going constantly to catch funny things that happen... we might have just gotten into the finals of America's Funniest Home Videos with that one! The tree is fine and only 1 ornament got broken. It was one of mine and Jon's (our first married Christmas) but it's not bad and I can glue it back together, no problem. So, we got the tree back up and straightened back out and told them BOTH to leave the tree alone! I'm sure Kaitlyn will be right back at it the next time we are downstairs at Grandma Lois'. We put the tree down there again this year so there is plenty of room for it and presents.

Man... I wish we would've gotten that on video...

Well, the EIP Speech Therapist was only here for the evaluation for an hour and since then we have been working with K just to try to get her to form her mouth to make the "O" shape/sound. Well she has been great and is REALLY REALLY trying so hard to form her mouth to make sounds and words... most of the time nothing comes out but it's a work in progress and hopefully we get approved for the Speech Therapy because she would benefit so much from it. This proves it!

Last night K was in the bath and she was splashing around as usual drowning the bathroom and playing with her toys. She took two of her little ducks and flipped them over the side of the tub on to the rug and I said "Ut oh, did you lose your duckies?" and she looked at me and made the "O" shape with her mouth and said "oh-ohh," kinda... she actually made the "oh" sound and almost got out the "Ut-oh." I screamed and praised her so much and kept getting her to try it over and over... it was adorable!!! I cant wait to hear her talk!!!

Certainly NOT a Baby Anymore

2006-12-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

Kaitlyn is now a toddler which leaves me little time to be on the computer or to be updating my blog! Needless to say this will be a short and to the point update!

Kaitlyn is now 18 months old and she is 32" tall, weighs 21lbs 3oz and her head circumference is 46cm. She should definitely weigh more but she has actually been sick with a mean nasty cold for over a month now and she stopped eating for about 3 weeks totally. We've been slowly relearning how to eat here and chew. She started swallowing any food she managed to put in her mouth whole instead of chewing it. Thats a whole other post though and if I get a chance to get into it, I will.

Since just before turning 18 months Kaitlyn has begun having real melt-downs and full blown throwing herself on the floor screaming tantrums. We totally ignore her and act like she isnt there when she does this because most of the time it is for no reason. If there is a reason, I try to kneel down and look her in the eye and talk to her and tell her why she can't have/do something. I know she doesnt understand most of what I am telling her but I want us both to get in the habit of talking things out. So if she throws herself on the floor screaming like she did last night for a half an hour just because I will not pick her up, then she will be ignored!

Kaitlyn is still not talking and so we have begun the Early Intervention Program (EIP) evaluations to see if she qualifies to receive some Speech Therapy. The Speech Therapist came this morning to meet with us and to evalute Kaitlyn and it went fairly well. The problem with this whole process is that Kaitlyn is very smart and has above average comprehension skills that overall when you add the two scores together having a high comprehension score can disqualify a child who may actually need some help in communication. Jon says it's kinda like a baby SAT where you can stink at the reading part but still score a 1200 because you are a genius in math. However, in order to get Kaitlyn the help she needs (and that the therapist said she would truely benefit from) she needs to score on a lower threshhold. So now Kaitlyn has to be evaluated by the Special Education teacher and then both of the evaluators will send their reports into the County Coordinator and we will see if she will qualify.

Other than all that Kaitlyn is becoming quite the comedian. She has one heck of a sense of humor! For example, last night she had something she shouldnt have and I asked her to give it to mommy, please. She held it out and walked closer to me as if she was going to just hand it right over... well just as I reached for it she pulled it back real fast and busted out laughing! She really was cracking herself up, the little jokester! She has a wonderful laugh and finds herself and many other things very funny.

Ok I will try to update more often if I can but we have a lot going on. I will definitely get here to update after Christmas!! That should be fun and I will update with some pictures too!!

Quick Update

2006-09-01T10:22:00.000-04:00

Ok I know it has been FOREVER since I have written in Kaitlyn's journal. I hope to get back to it and keep up on it. I'd like to at least post here once a month on how things are going.

Since I last wrote Kaitlyn has been off her Zantac and doing very well. For about a month after she was puking a little bit up here and there but otherwise doing great. Her reflux seems to be under control but I do not dare say she has grown out of it yet, simply because when she gets sick she still gets reflux flares.

We also went to the Infant Reflux Disease convention in Cleveland, OH and had a wonderful time. It was amazing to meet all of the families I have been talking to for over a year. The kids were great too! It was so nice to be around a bunch of people who totally understood what we have been through on this roller coaster ride. While we were there, Kaitlyn ended up picking up a bug and was sick for about two and a half weeks after.

After the convention Jon, Kaitlyn and I went to a Cleveland Indians game at Jacob's Field and it was a wonderful experience and a great game!!! We left from there and headed up to Michigan to see my family. We had a great time in Michigan and Kaitlyn loved spending time with "Papa Paul in Michigan" and Grandma Debbie & Papa Reese. She was VERY afraid of my mom's two big labs but, of course, the day before we left she got more comfortable with them.

Since coming back from Michigan, we were dealing with Kaitlyn and I both being sick (I ended up sick too!) and trying to get our house fully unpacked and cleaned and organized. We rearranged our room and decided to get Kaitlyn a Toddler bed for our room to see if we can work on getting her into sleeping in her own room at night. It would be nice to have our bed back after a year! She is sleeping so much better and is really good about soothing herself in her sleep so I think it's time. Even if she sleeps in our room, as long as she learns to sleep in her own bed, that would be fine with me for now. The bed we got her is so cute, it's cherry colored and a sleigh bed and it matches our bed and bedroom set so it should be very cute!

Kaitlyn decided to taste dirt for the first time the other day (8/30/06). Her and I were outside playing and she went digging in the planters Grandma Lois has on the back porch and she ate some dirt! She was such a mess after playing in there. It must have been so much fun for her!

Also last night was the first time ever Kaitlyn has attempted to take off her diaper. She didnt undo the tape at all she pulled the diaper down as if it was a pair of panties! It was so adorable though when she tried pulling it back up it got stuck under her butt and she couldnt get it back up! Ha ha ha it was cute! I was so proud! I asked her then if she wanted to try going potty like a big girl and she looked at me and shook her head yes! Hopefully she can wait until Christmas, I plan on getting her a potty chair then and letting her slowly work on her own towards going potty. I dont plan on bugging her about potty training until she is about two... unless she really wants to start trying when she gets her potty chair. She's getting so big!

So she is 14 1/2 months old right now and she is still not talking. She signs SOOOOO much and totally understands and communicates very well but still no real english words. I dont know if thats a bad thing but at least we totally understand her and she listens and understands what we say to her. Thats all I care about. She does "talk" a lot in baby talk though so I know she can express herself.

We have an appointment with the Pediatrician in a couple weeks for her 15 month check up. So we shall see how things go then and how much she has grown.

Until then...

Monkey See, Monkey Do

2006-07-06T15:00:00.000-04:00

Every day it's more and more incredible to watch my little miracle develope. Kaitlyn is becoming such a wonderful little lady. She's very into imitating now which is good and bad. We have to watch what we do because she does it too, but it's fun to see her doing all these things. She is such a great little helper already too! She and Daddy cleaned up her toys last night and he asked her to put a few in the toy box but after that she went around the room picking them all up and putting them "away." Some of them ended up in very strange places but hey... she was helping and cleaning up her toys! It was great!!

She did the most amazing thing last night too!! You dont realize a kid so young would have such an imagination OR that she would know to do this... but... Kaitlyn was FEEDING her baby doll!! She has never seen anyone feed a baby in front of her so she must just know that she was fed. I have no idea how she knew but she was pretending to eat out of this little bowl she had and was then giving the baby some from the bowl and back and forth she went like that for about 10 mins. It was so adorable to watch! She's already going to be a good mommy!! Ha ha ha

Other than that we are working on talking which she still isnt doing really. She understands and will answer "yes" and "no" by shaking her head, but she still does not really talk. I have begun asking her lots of one sided questions, waiting for the day she answers me! She points at a lot of things too and I have started telling her that "I do not speak Point" and she will have to tell me what she is pointing at or at least go show me. Most of the time it is pointing for a book to read, but still. I want her to either sign what she wants or say it. We're getting there she is "talking" a lot more, especially while looking at books, but no real words yet other than Mama's and Dada's sometimes.

She's really working on feeding herself with a fork and spoon too and I gotta say she is getting really good. When she eats, even if I'm feeding her, I give her a fork or spoon (appropriate for the meal) and let her feed herself some too. I gotta say... even though there are times when K will drop food on the floor (when she is done eating) or her fork or spoon, she has yet to throw a plate or bowl - empty or full. When I give her a plate of food she sits there and holds it with one hand and very gently gets food off of it and eats. She's such a big girl!

I'm just more and more in love with this child every day! I couldnt be any happier with the way she is turning out. Now, if we could just get her to sleep in her own bed!

More Little Milestones

2006-06-30T07:11:00.000-04:00

Lately Kaitlyn's favorite thing to do is to bend over and stand with her head on the ground. I have no idea where she got it from because I certainly am not doing that. I think it's genetic, when Jon was little he used to sit upside down next to the couch and watch tv. I'm sure she gets this stuff from her dad!! ha ha ha

She's walking so much better and faster too... almost running! Daddy and her play a "gonna getcha" game and he chases her through the room and catches her in the hall way. She's getting so fast now. She also doesnt give me things like she used to. Before, I could ask her what she had or what she was eating and she would bring it to me. I guess she learned that when she does that I take things away from her. Now, she will show it to me from a few feet away and when I try to get it, she turns and runs! She's adorable too so I can't be mad about it, and hey, it gives me some exercise too having to chase her!

I just love how sturdy she is getting on her feet now, her dancing is getting so good. She's got rythm! She bends her knees and bounces now and she pushes up on to her toes and back down. She's not falling nearly as much when she does it, either. Oh and she is so cute too when she does those things and puts her hands up in the air, kinda like a "raise the roof" type thing but her palms are facing forward!

We're having so much fun now, SHE is so much fun now! Kaitlyn and I go for walks almost everyday and she just loves seeing the trees and all the new things around. I try to take a different route every day. Sometimes we even walk to the library. It's about a mile and a half so that gets my 3 miles in for the day.

So far K has been doing well on milk. We spent about a week switching her over and adding it to her formula and after a week we said forget it and gave her full milk. She did fine and she likes it. She's drinking 12-15 ounces if it a day, which the Dr said was fine. She also drinks TONS of water everyday and sometimes some juice. Needless to say, this kid pees a lot!!!!

We had to switch Kaitlyn over to the next size diaper too. The size 3's still fit her and had plenty of room but they were not long enough and were cutting into her hips and thighs. So now the 4's are big around the waist but good for length. Plus the bigger ones hold more fluid!!! ha ha ha

Anyway, she's such a big girl now and so independant! I'm so glad we are incorporating some attachment parenting into how we raise Kaitlyn because she is becoming such a wonderful little lady. She is so polite, sharing, empathetic and considerate. It's amazing that a one year old can be so intelligent! She knocks on every door before she enters, she offers you the food right out of her mouth, she gets upset when I'm sick... she is just so wonderful. I love her so much!

One other thing Kaitlyn has gotten good at is signing "phone." Whenever Grandma Lois' phone rings she puts her fist to her ear. Yesterday she was eating lunch and the phone rang and she did that and said "Dada." She wouldnt even finish her lunch because she kept signing phone, saying Dada and pointing at my cell phone. I guess she just knows that Daddy is the one who calls on the phone to talk to her. It's not like we get many other calls!

Ok I think I've written enough here for now... there is just a lot going on and I'm so glad I'm home to see it all and to raise my beautiful, amazing little girl.

Build A.... What?

2006-06-20T22:02:00.000-04:00

When Kaitlyn was only a couple months old (if you have followed our journey you may remember) we went to the Albany IVF Baby Harvest. Kaitlyn won a couple prizes for her costume and one of them was a Build-A-Bear Workshop gift card. We decided a long time ago that when Kaitlyn turned one we would take her to make something, so today we went and built Kaitlyn a Hello Kitty!

We had her choose between Hello Kitty since she was pointing at her as we walked in the store and a Giraffe. We got her out of the stroller and I held them on either side of me... she had a hard time choosing because to her I think a toy is a toy, but finally she picked the Hello Kitty. We got her a little pink Mets outfit (they didnt have any Detroit Tigers stuff!) and even a little mitt, bat and ball! It was really cute watching Kaitlyn while we were making her kitty. She just kept grabbing for it... she wanted it so bad! After we got her made up and dressed we got to name her and make her a birth certificate. We decided that since most kids end up saying "Ditty" before they can say "Kitty" that we would name her that.

And, "Ditty" was born June 20th 2006. I guess I'll have to get a picture soon and add it!

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH yeah!!!!!!!!!!! Tonight I was changing Kaitlyn's diaper in her room and Jon walked in so I asked Kaitlyn "Who's that?" and pointed at Jon. Kaitlyn clearly said "Dada" after about 1 minute or so. That just means that "Dada" is her first word! I wanted it to be Mama so bad but I guess I talk about Dada so much that that would be the first word she says! Oh well... I'm just happy she said SOMETHING and said it about something, or someone as it was.

Like a Duck to Water

2006-06-17T21:29:00.000-04:00

Well today I'm in the bathroom and of course Kaitlyn has to follow me in there as always. She was hanging out and playing with her bath toys while we were in there. I stood up to flush the toilet and before I even had a chance to close the lid she tossed in one of her bath ducks! It was so funny! I called Jon in to get it out, too! Ha ha ha

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY ONE YEAR OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-06-13T17:38:00.000-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KAITLYN, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KAITLYN, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOOOOOOO KAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIITLYN, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!!!!!

Well Kaitlyn had a very nice party and I have already uploaded the pictures to our Shutterfly Collection (http://fuchs.shutterfly.com). She was such a good girl and handled all the people being there very well! He party was on Sun June 11th. We had food and cake and she opened her presents. Daddy actually made Kaitlyn's cakes and decorated them too! He made a little tiny two layer heart cake for her to mutilate and another for the adults to eat. She got lots of great gifts and money too which will buy her some wonderful outdoor toys. We plan on getting her a Sandbox, a pool and a few other things she needs or that we want to get her.

Two of the things she got for her birthday she will not put down! She got a baby doll from Auntie Sarah and she carries her around everywhere... even HAD to take her on our walk yesterday! Also Uncle Charlie got her a My MP3 player... it's a little toy MP3 player that has a few kids songs on it and she just adores it! She constantly has it and is carrying it around playing the different songs! I think I'm going to get one for my Great Niece Alyssa since her birthday was June 8th... I know I'm late but I had so much going on last week!

Not a whole lot to say really other than she had a wonderful day. I do wish my family could have been here to celebrate too but it looks like we will have to celebrate with them later in the year when we go home for a visit!

So NOT Little Anymore!!!

2006-06-10T21:31:00.000-04:00

Oh my goodness I can't believe what happened today. Well first of all the whole world knows that Kaitlyn sleeps in our bed still and one day we will get her in her own. Well today, this afternoon, she was taking a nap in our bedroom in the bed, which is downstairs. Jon, his mom and I were all in her kitchen downstairs baking a cake and talking and just getting ready for Kaitlyn's birthday party tomorrow. Jon made an AWESOME cake by the way and decorated it so cool! Anyway, we're sitting there talking about how Kaitlyn was still sleeping and that we would hear her when she wakes up and blah blah blah.... out of the corner of my eye I saw something move... I kind of screamed and looked and it was KAITLYN! She climbed down from the bed (which she already knew how to do and has been doing) and she walked all the way through the house to Grandma's kitchen!!! We were ALL in shock that she didnt cry when she woke up or yell to one of us or even get into anything in the bedroom. Trust me, there is plenty to get in to!! She just quietly came out of the room and into the kitchen with her pacifier in her mouth.

I cant believe it... she is such a big girl... makes me wonder if we should just make her crib a toddler bed now lol Maybe she would sleep in it! hahahaha

Anyway, everything is set for the party tomorrow. We just have to go in the morning and get the balloons blown up. Jon made a little tiny two layer heart shaped cake for Kaitlyn and a round two layer cake for the adults. We also have a Carvel Ice cream cake too. I made a deli meat tray with Ham, Turkey and Roast Beef and a cheese tray with American and Swiss. We have White and Wheat bread and Tuna & Macaroni Salad and Potato salad too. I also made some YUMMY Ham Rolls - which I can eat one or two of, too! I think it's going to turn out to be a nice party. We will be sure to get lots of pictures and I will add one or two here when I get them. As always there will be a bunch at our shutterfly collection, online.

Wobbly Walker

2006-05-27T11:34:00.000-04:00

Well I thought I would update a bit on Kaitlyn. Not much new to report other than she is still doing very well with her reflux! She has hardly puked at all in the last almost month. She did get sick for a few days and was puking more then but for the most part she has been doing wonderfully. We are still not thickening her formula and things are going great. I really think we are seeing some light here and that she really is outgrowing this mess! It took a year but it looks like we are here, finally!

The other thing Kaitlyn is getting so incredibly good at is walking! She now walks around our little space up here with out holding on to much. She will walk across at least half the room alone. She's getting so big!! She's been babbling a lot again too and I'm hoping a word or two might come out at some point... so far nothing but baby talk.

Kaitlyn is also getting so good at signing and she knows a lot of things already. All we have to do now is tell her to go push the button without pointing or looking at anything and she knows to go over and push the button on her Tunnel to make the music play. There are times she doesnt feel like going over to it and she will just look at it and point and make this cute grunt, as if to say, yeah it's over there. ha ha ha ha She knows where her ears are and her hair and Mama's Boo boo's (from my surgery), just so many things. She's very into the imitating stage and she does things we do now quite a bit! Not sure if I mentioned it before but she is very thoughtful when eating and offers me EVERYthing. Even if she has already had it in her mouth, she will take out the food and offer me some. It's adorable! I just have to tell her no, thank you, it's for you because I cant eat what she eats and well... who wants to eat something thats half eaten out of someone's mouth? Ha ha ha ha

She's so much fun now... last night we were "beeping" each others noses and she was cracking up... Oh how I LOVE her laugh! She was just laughing and laughing out loud every time she touched my nose and I said "beeeeeep"! She loved it!!! She would touch Daddy's nose and his nose made a "Hoooooonk" noise... it was so cute!

She's getting big too... really growing well!! We got out her 12 month clothes and she is now wearing them. They are working out great too with length and everything. Somethings are a little big but it will all work out! I still have to put all of the clothes in her drawers, but I did get the drawers cleaned out and they are ready to go!

I still can't believe we're planning Kaitlyn's 1st birthday party!! We sent out the invitations already and we're having it June 11th from 1-3pm. Jon is going to be making her cake and we also got a Carvel Ice cream cake (that was free from the Birthday club at the local grocery store). I'm going to be making all the food, there wont be much. We're doing deli meats w/bread, veggies and dip, Tuna & Macaroni salad and I'm going to make some Ham Rolls. I decided since my new life consists of lots of protein and no carbs and this is MY daughters party that these are the things we are having. No cookies, brownies, chips, crackers... nothing... the cakes are more than enough. Everything else needs to be healthy! I'm going to even get Light bread too White and Wheat and people will eat it or not. They wont even know the difference. I may think about making a fruit salad too but I think that will be enough food since it's only a 2 hour party!

Anyway, her party should be lots of fun and I got great decorations! Jon and I just wish Kaitlyn had some little kid friends to come to play with her... oh well, next year maybe! I wish my family was closer so they could come too but I think it will be nice having a small get together anyway!

Well... this turned out to be a big update... I'm sure I'll have more to say sometime soon. If not we'll definitely be updating after the party with pictures!

Family os Sickies

2006-05-19T10:51:00.000-04:00

Well it looks like we all got a bug. For the past 4 or 5 days Kaitlyn has been sick and feverish (99.8-102) and just miserable all around. Well Jon and I realized last night we were both getting sore throats and stuffy noses and now it looks like we all got caught up in the sickie bug. I think it all started with Grandma Lois feeling sick and us hanging out with her... though she didnt mention being sick until the day after. Ah well... now we all suffer!

Too Big Too Fast

2006-05-15T09:20:00.000-04:00

Wow... Kaitlyn is just speeding along at growing up! She is now about 20lbs... I cant believe she is growing so much so fast. She is so tall too but I have not measured her. She just turned 11 months on Saturday too! It's just about time to get out her 12 month clothes because although her 6-9 month stuff still more than fits her around the waist and stuff the sleeves and pants are getting way too short! Well see about getting all that stuff ready in the next month and get her into those clothes.

I'm so amazed at Kaitlyn's comprehension and of course her communication. She does so much to tell us stuff and she totally understands things I say! I love it! She's just getting so big so fast! No, by the way, I'm not wanting another baby just yet! Everyone said I would miss being pregnant and I dont... they said I would miss having a tiny baby and I dont. Dont get me wrong, I loved both of those things, but I dont miss them enough to get pregnant again now. Plus I have to wait 12-18 months to get pregnant anyway after my surgery. By then Kaitlyn will be about 2 or so and I think that will be perfect! She will want to help with her little brother or sister and will be even better at understanding and communicating.

Today, since I'm feeling a bit better, I hope to get the house picked up and try to get the dishes done and then do my best to keep it that way. Kaitlyn has torn this place apart over the last two weeks while I was in the hospital and while I wasn't able to do much and it's time to get my house back in order. I guess Daddy understands how tiring it can be to be a stay at home mom!

Well, I guess there isn't much else to update about, Kaitlyn is doing great and growing so well! Oh her reflux is doing so well too!! The week I was in the hospital (so starting May 1st) we stopped thickening her formula and she has been drinking it plain for 2 weeks now with no issues at all! She still takes her meds and has only thrown up a couple times these last couple weeks. I dont want to jinx anything but I think we are seeing the light... I think she is starting to grow out of it... FINALLY at almost 1 yr old! I'm so happy for her!! I'm going to see, if when we go to her 1yr appt, they want to try weaning her off her Zantac and see how she does.

I'm so proud of her for enduring all that pain as a baby while we tried to find what would help her... she is such a strong girl and I know she will go very far in life. I promise to love her and support her along her way in everything she decides to do!

Love When it Comes Out of No Where!

2006-05-08T20:45:00.000-04:00

So out of no where today Kaitlyn started doing a couple things! She now does an "Oh my goodness" and "Uh oh" hand signal. She now puts her hand over her mouth kind of backwards across her cheek - I definitely need to get a pick when I can - whenever we say "uh oh" and "oh my" she is so great! She gets a huge smile on her face when she does it! I cant believe it! She's amazing! I guess with Grandma Lois and Mommy doing this same hand gesture she learned it! I love it! It's so adorable and I just cant get enough!

Oh and the other thing she started doing is something Mommy does! When I laugh real hard I kinda put one hand on my chest and tonight she started doing that too!! She put her hand on her chest and laughed out loud!!! Oh my goodness, it was so incredibly funny. Jon and I just busted out laughing even harder!

Oh she's getting so big so fast! I cant believe all the imitating she is doing now and how much she is communicating and understanding! She's still only 10 months old and seems like she is two!

Who knows what she will do today!

Update

2006-05-06T20:54:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I have updated. I actually spent some time in the hospital getting surgery and I havent been able to sit here long enough to get any updates about Kaitlyn written. Really all she has been doing is perfecting all of her acquired skills. She claps all the time even with us just saying the word "clap."

She has had an explosion of comprehension. She understands and waves "Bye, Bye" she understands "press the button". She knows when I tell her to get her "nummy" she goes and gets her pacifier and comes to me to go down for a nap. She just really understands so much more than she used to show. I'm sure she understood a lot but she shows it now.

I will update more when I get a chance and I am feeling better... having having major surgery I'm not feeling up to updating all that much.

Clappity Clap Clap

2006-04-25T20:02:00.000-04:00

YAY!!! Kaitlyn clapped for the first time just now!!! WOOHOOOO!! Daddy was writing on his Mets blog and he has a background song on there. The song came on and Kaitlyn started dancing (bouncing actually) and clapping her hands! She's not making a loud clapping noise, but she does make a tiny clapping sound sometimes!! We were so surprised! She did it out of no where with no prompting!!! She's AWESOME!!! WOOOHOOOO!!!!

My Little Toddler

2006-04-25T10:31:00.000-04:00

Ok so I know I haven't updated in a bit but having a toddler running around is keeping me VERY busy!! Even right after I clean my house she is into all of her toys and her cupboard (I let her in the plastic ware cupboard) and yanking everything out. Yeah, I know, it's what kids do but it keeps me going all day long.

Easter was ok... we didnt do anything special. Kaitlyn got a little bunny easter basket and a stuffed bunny. We figured since it was her first Easter we didnt need to go all crazy and get her tons of stuff. Grandma Lois got her enough crap! We did get her a little Bible story book and a couple other Little Golden books that she can read when she finally stops chewing on and eating all of her books. Anyway, it was a good day, we had a quick dinner with Grandma Lois and then we went to the park to play and watch daddy and his friends play basketball.

Kaitlyn has gotten SO much stronger as far as walking goes. She walks now from toy to toy or to the couch and takes the steps all on her own. We do work with her everyday for a few minutes but the rest of the day she choses to walk all on her own. She's so much more sturdy than she was too! She also stands all the time too. She is practicing all the time, she will pick things up and then let go and practice holding things while standing and she is pretty well balanced. She's even started dancing while standing when there is music or when I sing. It's so adorable!!

Her reflux has been rearing it's ugly head lately too and she has been puking a bit more than she has been. Though she doesnt really wear a bib for anything other than eating now, mainly because she doesnt want to. She rips them off of herself!

Oh, another thing Kaitlyn has gotten GREAT at is communication! She will point and let us know what she wants. When she is tired she will either go get or point to her pacifier and then will lay down on my shoulder. She only uses her pacifier when going to sleep so it's not something we will have to worry about breaking except for at night. She has gotten so much better at napping in her chair and not on Mommy. She also lets us know when she wants milk... so far she just whines and points or she will climb in her chair so we know she wants some... but we're all learning .

Kaitlyn is getting SO tall too! I have my craft table set up in the living room and she is now tall enough to grab things off the top of it! At least things that are around the edges of the table! One other reason she has been keeping me busy during the day! Needless to say, today is yet another massive cleaning day. I have been working hard to get a lot of things organized and soon I have to work on getting Kaitlyn's 12 month clothes out. Even though the 6-9 months are so big on her... the length is not cutting it anymore. The onsies and pants are getting short.

Ah well... thats about it.

Big for Her Britches

2006-04-15T08:09:00.000-04:00

I really think Kaitlyn thinks she is older than she is! Ha ha ha! Let's see, she is doing things much before a child normally does, like, no longer using bottles and standing and walking on her own. She's just amazing to watch! A couple of days ago I noticed that she is now steadying herself and standing all alone, without prompting or anything from us! I also noticed that she will take steps to get to something she wants now instead of crawling. Not many, but a few steps! She does still crawl around and loves to find a book or a piece of cardboard or anything like that that she can put her hands on a push around the floor while she crawls. It's so funny to see her doing it and I'm not sure where she got the idea but she just started doing it one day.

She's just really growing up and she is definitely NOT a baby anymore! Now if I can only get her to talk... and say Mama!!!

10 Months Old!!

2006-04-13T19:37:00.000-04:00

Wow... it's amazes to me to think 10 months ago I gave birth to this gorgeous, beautiful, amazing, little girl. I can't believe how much she has grown and how much she has learned. She still has so much more to learn too!! I LOVE watching her accomplish things, like crawling, standing, walking. She gets so so so excited when she does something new. Her face just lights up and she has a huge smile and she makes this weird grunting happy noise. I'll have to remember to get that on video! It's just so wonderful and much more than I ever thought Motherhood would be. She makes me so proud!

I always knew this was my true calling in life... I was meant to be a mother but never really realized how happy it would make me to be everything for my child. I love how she looks at me, I love how she needs me, I love her wet little tongue kisses - which she gives now without prompting! I just love everything about her. She's very stubborn, hard headed and sassy like me and I love that too! I used to think I never wanted a girl, because I didnt want her being like me... but this is truely how everything should be. I'm supposed to have a girl and work with her to be a great mix between me and daddy!

I just never knew the love for a child could be so grand. I thank God everyday for my special gift, my little miracle. I love you Kaitlyn more than I have ever loved anything or anyone in my life and I will forever!

Auntie Sarah in Virginia

2006-04-11T16:18:00.000-04:00

Kaitlyn has now been in 8 states and she still isnt even one year old! We took a trip to Virginia last weekend to see my best friend in the whole entire world, Sarah. She is married to Scott and he is in the Navy, they are stationed down in Virginia for now but are both from Michigan originally. Scott is finishing up a 6 month tour out to sea right now so Sarah is home with their two kids, Hannah and Gavin. Hannah is going to be three next month and Gavin is about 2 1/2 months younger than Kaitlyn. The kids had a good time playing with each other. Kaitlyn has never really had time to play with other kids or be around them for a long period of time. I really think she enjoyed being around them. I liked it because they kept her busy a lot of the time and they are also really good kids! I do have to mention that Kaitlyn is very empathetic when other babies cry. Whenever Gavin would cry or sound like he was upset Kaitlyn would start crying. At first we thought she was scared of him but we realized that she was ok with him until he started crying or squealing. After a couple days of being together everything was ok. Kaitlyn really LOVED having space to crawl around. Sarah has a really nice open and big apartment so the kids had lots of room to roam. Thats something Kaitlyn doesnt get here in our very tight living quarters.

The weather wasnt all that cooperative, we had planned on going to the beach and the zoo but, while we were there it was either hot and rainy or chilly and sunny. Very strange weather! We did decide to go to the little Petting Zoo right near their house and the kids had a good time. Espeically playing at the playground that is there too! Well Gavin was sleeping most of the time, but Hannah and Kaitlyn sure enjoyed going down the slide and on the swings!

It was a very wonderful and relaxing weekend and I'm glad we decided to take the trip. It was actually a wonderful birthday present from Jon because I had been feeling a bit down and seeing Sarah and getting to spend some quality time with her was just what the Dr ordered. It was great just hanging out most of the weekend and talking! Sarah and I didnt shut up pretty much the whole weekend!

Anyway, I wish we lived closer, not only for us, but for the kids. They are so close in age and really enjoyed playing with each other, I know if we lived closer they would end up being best of friends, like Sarah and I!

While we were there Kaitlyn started "saying" something new... well not really saying a new sound but saying it differently. First of all, she has been saying "deh, deh, deh, deh..." and "baa, baa, baa, baa..." when she was saying the "baa's" she had her tongue sticking out of her mouth. While we were at Sarah's she started doing "Bah's" without the tongue and they sounded more like bah, rather than baa! It's so hard describing in writing what it sounds like when kids "talk." Anyway, most of the time she remembers to put her tongue in her mouth to talk but she does still say them with it sticking out.

Speaking of communication, Kaitlyn is really good at pointing for things she wants and she still signs Daddy and Mommy. She asks to be picked up and asks us to get something for her if she is unable. She's gotten good at putting things inside of things and taking them out. She likes to help me with the laundry by taking the clothes out of the basket and handing them to be to put them in the washer. It's not that helpful when she takes the folded clothes out of the basket though! She has fun and I only have to refold them so it's no big deal. One day SHE'LL be doing the laundry!

STEP by STEP!!!!!

2006-04-04T20:02:00.000-04:00

Kaitlyn took her first steps!!!!! YAY! YAY! YAY! Jon and I were working on getting her to stand more and we worked a little on her walking and she did it!!! We even got it on video!!! YAY!!! WOOOHOOOOOO!!!!

Jon also took a couple pics of Kaitlyn in her new Beach hat and Sunglasses!! We're taking them to the beach with us when we go to Virginia this weekend!!

Ketchup - Catch up!

2006-04-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

Ok so let me catch up here... Kaitlyn is doing such cute things now. Jon and I both LOVE getting her open mouth tongue sticking out kisses! She's great and now sometimes she just gives us kisses without us prompting her! I love it!! She even kisses her toys now, especially her green Care Bear with the Kite on his belly (not sure of his name). Ohhhhh and it's so cute too because she does the tongue kiss thing and then after she will make the "Smooch" sound hahahaha she doesnt make the kiss noise WITH the kiss!! hahahaha!!

Ok so she's really growing up in the eating department. Now she's been pretty much soley on table food since she was about 7 months. A few days or so ago... maybe a week or so, we notice K would take a bite from the fork or whatever and then pull the food out of her mouth and then put it back in and she would keep doing it over and over. For the life of me I couldnt figure out what the heck she was doing and it was getting irritating because she wasnt really eating and seemed to be playing with her food. WELL! We figured it out!!! She's taking bites!!! Like we do... we put food to our mouths, take a bit and then take the food away! She was immitating us! Now I realized that she is doing that same thing and sliding the food down over her teeth to rip the food and she does it over and over too until she gets it small enough that she eats the last piece. She's just learning so much and she really amazes me everyday! I'm so proud, seeing her so happy with her acheivments makes me very happy!! YAY!!

Kaitlyn is STILL into chewing on everything and that includes my toes!! lol She doesnt realize how much those two little teeth of her hurt! Sometimes she gets ahold of my toe and bites and it literally hurts! She's very easy to startle right now so sometimes when I jump and "yeouch" she starts to cry because I scare her. Not purposely, but she is in that stage where she is very sensitive! She'll learn quick! Even a guy at the restaurant last night scared her just by sneezing! She started crying and was so upset! I hope this doesnt last too long!!

Oh the other night I gave Kaitlyn some apple slices and she had a great time eating them!!!! She held them and she rubbed them on her teeth to eat them. She seemed so proud of herself and really enjoyed her Apples!! She did a great job eating them too. She's getting so big.

I wanted to mention here that though she is still puking some, Kaitlyn did have a couple days that she didnt puke at all. She had one day of nothing coming up last week and then she had a couple days where she just spit up some... then of course she has had a few days of puking all over herself and other places I didnt realize, like the carpet! Ah well... she seems to be doing a bit better overall!

Last night was SOOOOO cool, Jon and I just stopped what we were doing to watch K. First of all she is really using her imagination. She has three "voices" now or tones of voices anyway. She has her normal voice and then she has a high pitched voice that she talks to her toys with but she also has a mean/mad sounding deeper voice that she does. It was great watching her play with her toys and get mad at them and stuff... it was amazing! I was in awe! She also - man she's creative - was taking her blocks out of the yellow container and putting them at the top of the back of her bouncy/rocker chair and watching them slide down to the seat part. She kept bending down and picking block after block out of the bucket and watching them slide down the chair. It was so great and so amazing that she would think to do something like that. She even stopped in the middle to look at us as if to ask, are you watching? hahahaha it was so cool!! She's got such a wonderful personality!

Well next weekend we're off to celebrate my birthday in Virginia with my best friend Sarah and her two kids, Hannah and Gavin. Gavin and Kaitlyn are about 2 months apart so they should have a good time playing together! It's going to be a great time, we're planning on going to Colonial Williamsburg and to the beach and the zoo too! It's going to be a good time and relaxing... plus Auntie Sarah is doing all the cooking and it sounds like we will have a wonderful range of foods to eat next weekend!! I'm excited about that!! Sarah and I are probably going to do a little crafting stuff too while we're there too. I cant wait to get away, but even more I cant wait to see Sarah and spend some good time with her! I miss her so much and even though we've seen each other a few times over the past few years, we havent gotten a chance to spend any good amount of time together. It's going to be wonderful for the kids too.

Ok I'll keep updating as the accomplishments occur!

2 Toofs

2006-03-23T11:09:00.000-05:00

I know it's not the best picture in the world, but here are Kaitlyn's new teeth! he he he he!! The one on her right came in a few weeks ago and the one on her left is coming in now. It hasnt quite popped through the gum. I do have to say that this second tooth is much better than the first as far as her dealing with it. She hasn't been so crazy this time though she waking up so much at night. We're all getting through it... hopefully each tooth will get easier and easier for her!

Playing in the Curtains with My New Tooth

2006-03-22T14:53:00.000-05:00

-Ok so we all know Kaitlyn loves to pull the sheer curtains down from the window and here is a pic of her with herself all wrapped up in them like some queen of of the She-Babies or something.

Please forgive me for leaving my kid in her pukey clothes... though what you see in the pic isnt half of whats really on the shirt! ha ha ha Yeah, Yeah we own plenty of bibs... sometimes I think the kid needs a break from a bib all the time. And heck, we have Spray N Wash! ha ha ha ha!

Anyway, the reason Little Miss Pukey pants is ever so pukey lately is because she is adding to her chompers! She's getting another tooth!! She's feeling like crap, not eating and puking everywhere. Man, do I ever love reflux. Anyway, I did get a picture today of her wonderful little teefs, I'll add them here when I get a chance.

We did add lots of great photos to our Shutterfly.com Collection, I think there are close to 500 pictures in there now! WOW!

Well now to find my child something for lunch that she isnt even going to eat.

.... Now Face West.

2006-03-17T14:44:00.000-05:00

YAY!! Wow, so much happening all the time!! K just stood by herself for about 10 or so seconds! I was holding my Poland Spring water bottle and she wanted it, whats new? So I let her hold it, she grabbed ahold with both hands and after she was steady I let go of the bottle. She did so great! She didnt even fall, she started to lose her balance and she bent her knees and put her hands on the floor and sat down!! She was great!! So, needless to say we will be working more and more on this over then next week or so and hopefully we can get K walking on her own!! She is doing better and better just holding one of our hands now... she just needs some confidence that she can do it herself! YAY I'm so excited she stood by herself!!!

Wet Tongue Kisses

2006-03-14T20:35:00.000-05:00

YAY Kaitlyn gives KISSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! he he he he!! She gave us her first kiss tonight! She opens her mouth and sticks her tongue out a little and leans in to give us kisses!! It's amazing and I LOVE IT!!! NOTHING can make your heart melt more than a wet tongue kiss from your child! We keep asking for them and she keeps giving them!! It's so fun to get kisses!! Now we're going to work on hugs!!

Here, For Mama & I'm 9 Months Old!

2006-03-13T21:47:00.000-05:00

So Kaitlyn is a little talking machine! Though we have no English words, she is certainly babbling her own little baby language very well. She has been doing ba ba ba ba, da da da da and sta sta sta sta (I think thats how you would write it) for the past little while. I believe she also thinks that the sign language sign for Daddy is also for Mommy. Though I still have some investigating to do on that one!

She's getting to be so big though, she only really gets 2 bottles now a day, one in the morning and one before bed. She drinks her formula out of her sippyh cup the rest of the day and does a super job at it! I give her the cup and lay her down on her pillow and tell her it's her "milk." She lays there and will drink most of it. Then something will catch her eye and she will have to go play with it, so after a bit I lay her back down and she will drink more.

She's also gotten into giving me things. She picks up blocks and toys and anything else she finds laying around and brings it to me to give to me. Then I give it back to her... then she gives it back to me. We go on and on like that for a few minutes at a time a few times a day. She smiles so big when I say "Oh for me? Thank you, you're so nice to share with mama!" Then she will go off and play with something else awhile and then come back to give me more things over and over. I love that she is learning all of these great things! I love to see her smile at her discoveries! She's such a little explorer!! One of these days she is going to get that pointing little finger of her caught in something! ha ha ha ha! She's so cute, she points at everything... even at me when I point at her and tell her "NO!" She will point back up and me and "uhh uhhh uhhh" her little mad voice grunts at me! Man, she's adorable!!

So Kaitlyn finally went back to the Dr for her 9 month visit. She is now 18lbs and 26 3/4 inches. Still growing fairly well and just about staying on her curve. She still only eats a small amount of formula (most kids eat 16-24oz a day - she eats 9-15oz per day) and she is on all table food. She started eating table food at 7 months and hasnt wanted to have much baby food since. She still likes her fruit mixed with cereal sometimes but would rather just eat regular veggies instead of mushed ones hehehehe. She eats everything, whatever I'm eating she wants... so needless to say, I have been eating MUCH better because she always has to have a bite! I cant let her eat bad like I usually do!! We share just about every meal. The Dr said she's growing and gaining weight so she can keep eating like she is. The Dr has no worries about any of that right now!

As for her reflux... it's still there and a big part of her life. She is still getting her Zantac (4.5mL/day now) everyday and still pukes all over the place. Last night it happened to be all over me... YAY! The Dr said he's not worried about her puking as long as she is growing and gaining weight and not in pain. I feel the same way, so thats GOOD! I'll just keep cleaning it up... and changing my clothes! I do have to say that she is MUCH better than she was months ago... she pukes much less now compared to then. Most of the time she refluxes and swallows it... I know thats gross, but the poor kid does what she has to. So once in awhile (2-5 times a day during good days - during a flare, it can be 10 times), she pukes a puddle on the floor. It's only about an ounce, at most, these days... though now she likes to play in it and crawl in it! lol :) How fun for me! I'd say some stock in Spray N Wash is a good investment!! :) hahahaha Of course, what isn't fun is when I have no idea she puked and find it later by stepping barefoot in a puddle of cold puke. The formula she is on is very oily so it makes the hardwood floors slippery! Anyway, the Dr said she could be puking like this until she is 18 months... if she still is by then, then we will look into it more... but we have awhile to go before that and hopefully she will get better!!

Playing Around the Playground

2006-03-10T21:36:00.000-05:00

Today was such a beautiful, warm day! It was in the 60's, so we got a chance to go outside for a walk and to play on the playground around the corner. It was the first time Kaitlyn has been on a swing or anything and she really enjoyed it! She got to lounge in the baby swing while Mommy and Daddy pushed her and took pictures (and video). Since K is so into "Shake-ah, Shake-ah" I took her over to those metal animal things that you sit on and rock and she LOVED it!! She's so tiny and can barely keep herself on it, but she sat there shaking and rocking herself like crazy. She was so happy and amazed to get such an effect out of her "Shake-ah, Shake-ah."

Kaitlyn also got another first while at the playground. She was crawling, well walking through the tubes and going down the slide with daddy and we noticed when eating lunch that she somehow got a splinter in her finger! Her little finger was all red, but it wasn't a terrible splinter. Her skin is so soft and her body was very responsive... so as soon as we got home I simply pushed on the back of the splinter, or would that be the front? Anyway, it kinda floated out of her skin with a miniscule amount of blood. She was perfectly fine after that and went along playing without so much as a band-aide!