Something About Space

Well I cant believe how so much happens in just a week. This week Kaitlyn has learned to "get down" from standing. She's been practicing bending over now all week. She's so cute, she bends over and reaches down to touch the floor (to hold on) and then puts the other hand on the floor and plops her butt down on the floor. Oh man, it's so great to watch her! She's getting much better at not screaming her head off when she falls down from standing. Now when she falls to a sitting position, without banging her head on the floor and crying, we clap and tell her "Yay! Great Job." That way she knows that she did a good thing by sitting down from standing. I know it's hard for her to understand but it is so amazing when she does get it.

She's LOVING when WE understand HER. She will put her hand to her head to sign for Daddy and we say to her "Dada" when she does and she gets a GREAT big smile. Also because she fully understands the "Hi" sign (opening and closing hand to wave) she gets a huge smile when we do that too. She's getting so much better at understanding us and we are of her too and it seems like such a big deal to her that we do communicate what she is trying so hard to.

She's still teething like mad and this week she spiked a 103 fever one day and we were up all night with her screaming and screaming in pain. We think it was teething, anyway because she wanted nothing to do with a bottle or her pacifier or anything. She was just miserable. All I could do was pace the floor with her to keep her calm. I know she was hurting but she had Tylenol and Motrin to bring the fever down but it wasnt cutting it for the pain though. She's been better this week since then so thats a good thing.

Kaitlyn's hair is getting longer and I think it's going to have some body and curls to it. It's starting to curl up on top of her head... it's cute. She also has these cute curls on the sides of her head that turn into wings sometimes. I'm constantly pushing them back along the side of her head. I forgot to mention that she found her hair and ears. She grabs her ears to play with them and move them around and also when she is tired. I noticed, too, that she found her hair because when she's tired she will grab the hair on the sides of her head and pull it. It's funny but she doesnt mind it so she can do what she wants. I'm sure her pulling her hair is nothing compared to the reflux pain she gets!

As for her reflux, it's still sucks! She's still puking a lot and still in pain sometimes. Right now I have to call the Pediatrician or the GI to see about getting a dosage check because she is back to crying while eating and she's also not eating nearly enough again. She's cutting herself back again to about 14 ounces a day. Yesterday I gave her Maalox before her bottle and she actually ate 4 or 5 ounces but she has only been taking two or three at a time lately and thats just not enough for the calories she is burning! On that note, Kaitlyn is very into our food. I have to order her something when we go out to eat now. She get so mad if we she doesnt get to eat while we are or what we're eating. She eats just about everything we do now, except for things that will aggrivate her reflux of course. She doesnt get tomato sauces or anything like that. She does get some of our veggies, rice, potatoes and plain pasta.

As for gross motor skills, Kaitlyn is SO great at walking around the room with all her toys and her highchair and anything else she can grab on to to walk with! I even went and bought her a new pair of real sneakers with real bottoms. All the other shoes she has in the size she is wearing now (a size 2) are basically decorative and have no real soles on them. She likes to stand at restaurants and other places we go and walk around the highchair there or whatever she can and now that she has real shoes she can do that. They are cute too, I took a picture of them! Anyway, Kaitlyn and I built her a whole round circle of things so she can officially walk the entire room by herself. It's really great how independantly dependant she is, ha ha ha. Oh she's getting really good too at walking while only holding on with one hand. We've been practicing with her trying to get her brave enough to try it on her own. She is getting brave while standing on the couch and she will practice standing without holding on. She's actually not bad at it, if she wouldn't concentrate on it! When she doesn't pay attention to herself doing it, she can stand for a couple seconds.

Ah, anyway, I think that about sums up the week. We did go last night and buy Kaitlyn a coat. Though they don't make coats for babies under size 12months, so we had to get her one in that size. They really only make snow suits and stuff like that for babies that cover every part of their body... I guess they don't think a 7 month old would be walking and need her feet out! So we got her a cute dark pink coat with white stripes and a little butterfly and flowers on the front left side. At least it's big enough that it will fit her until spring. She does have a snow suit too but since it's been 60 degrees here lately (in FEB!) it's not needed.

Ok thats enough, this is long enough already! I'll update more soon!