New Things All the Time

I FINALLY got to see Kinsey roll over today!!!!

Kinsey is also getting closer and closer to being able to sit up on her own! She's still pretty wobbly, but can hold herself up sitting for about 2 seconds now without any support. Her back muscles are MUCH stronger and she straightens herself up instead of folding in half. She likes to spend time in her Bumbo chair now - here's a video of her playing in the chair: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-st6l8kFNA4

Kinsey is up to 15 lbs 12 oz (9th%), 26.8 inches long (38th%) and her head is 16.5 in (7th%) . Her pediatrician was very impressed with how much she changed in the last month. Kinsey's finally caught up enough on her vaccinations that she doesn't have to go see the pediatrician again for 2 whole months - that's a first!

We got Kinsey's foot splints adjusted this week and they fit her much better now. They are working on making new hand splints, but didn't seem real confident that they will be able to come up with something that will work. We should know in a few weeks.

On the whole, Kinsey is still doing well with eating food. She was starting to be difficult and someone suggested she might be bored with so much squash so we started giving her more variety. She eats carrots, sweet potato, peas (mixed with soy yogurt), pears, apples and peaches. We're also going to try mango and bananas, but she really seems to prefer the veggies over the sweet fruits, which is good. Sometimes she's still difficult with the food, but she's definitely getting better about it.

By the way, you should now be able to post comments on this blog. I guess I had to change some settings to enable the comments. Let me know if you try to post something and it still doesn't work.

Here are a couple of pictures from this week:

Playing in the Bumbo

I love these sleeping pictures!
Plus you can get a good look at her "poof mohawk."
 Her hair is simply uncontrollable these days!

Kinsey Got Her Airline Wings!

Kinsey Wearing Her Wings!

We're home from our trip to my Aunt's in NY and Kinsey was great! It was an adventure learning how to fly with a baby, but Kinsey didn't have any trouble with it at all. She didn't sleep much on either flight, but she wasn't fussy either. We got on the plane early and got an aisle seat and she sat there and watched each person get on and walk by us. It was SO cute! I told one of the flight attendants that it was Kinsey's first flight and asked if they still gave out wings. Not only did she bring Kinsey some wings, but she had a little certificate for her first flight and it was signed by all of the crew, including the captain!

We spent a lot of time in the pool at my Aunt's house, which Kinsey loved! My Aunt bought her a float and we found a way to prop her up in it, but she still really prefers to be held so she can splash her legs around.

Sitting up in her float

Floating with Jackie

Swimming with Aunt Linda

My cousin's cat Padfoot was really curious about Kinsey and not quite sure what to make of her. Whenever she cried, Padfoot came running and whenever she was laying on the floor or whatever he was creeping around trying to sniff her.

Kinsey of course got some new clothes on the trip. Here are some pictures of some of her cute new outfits:

Jackie bought her this outfit with the cutest little hat!

Aren't these shoes the cuttest?

A New Adventure

Kinsey and I are off on a new adventure on Sunday - we are flying to NY to my aunt's house! This will be Kinsey's first flight and I'm braving it by myself! I am hoping that she does ok with it and doesn't make me and everyone else on the plane miserable for 2 hours. I will be sure to let everyone know how that goes :)

Kinsey got her hearing aid this week. It's hard to tell if it's making a difference or not. She does seem to be paying attention to her surroundings more and not falling asleep as easily when we're out - maybe that's because she hears what's going on around her now. But she isn't responding to us any differently yet (like turning when she hears one of us talking to her). She could be hearing us better but still not responding because of other issues.

Wearing her new hearing aid

Overall (even before the hearing aid) she's been more engaged and aware lately - smiling when she sees us, recognizing the dogs when they come near her, laughing more, etc. She even laughed at a cartoon on TV the other day! She's also finally discovered her feet and she's grabbing them all the time now.

Kinsey's current weight is 15 pounds 2 oz - another 5 oz since last week!

It's been a while since I mentioned how Kinsey is doing with eating foods. About a month ago we started giving her squash once a day. We chose squash because it was the only 1st Food that wouldn't cause gas and we gave it to her just once a day to ease her into it. After a couple of weeks, we started giving her squash twice a day. More recently we increased it to 3 times a day and just last week we started replacing the squash with a fruit (peaches, apples or pears) once a day. This week we reintroduced cereal too (mixing it with some fruit) and we're up to 4 food feedings each day.

She is doing really well with all of the foods and she's still eating plenty of formula too (as evidenced from her continous weight gain!). She recognizes the spoon and opens her mouth for the food. We haven't had any problems with gas like we did when we first tried foods either. Her favorite really seems to be homemade squash, but when it comes to fruits she seems to prefer the gerber stuff (it's a smoother consistency). Eventually we'll try some other veggies too, but I just made a HUGE batch of squash!

Her cleft does seem to be an issue with the foods though - it seems like the food gets up in her cleft sometimes and she has a hard time moving it to the right place in her throat. That usually causes her to sneeze which makes her upset which means we don't eat any more food after that (I don't think I'd like to sneeze squash or pears out of my nose either). We have an appointment with the plastic surgeon the beginning of August to look into doing the surgery to repair her cleft. We're not looking forward to the surgery, but we think it will be really helpful to her in the long run. If the doctor thinks she's ready for it, we could probably have the surgery done in September sometime.

Kinsey's physical therapist saw her hand and foot splints for the first time today. She suggested some modifications to the foot splints and was not happy with the hand splints at all. The hand splints are very difficult to get on her so we actually hadn't been using them yet - good thing because the therapist didn't like the way they were fitting and told us not to use them. We've spoken with the place that made both and have an appointment to get the foot splints changed a little and get new hand splints (again). Hopefully the third time is a charm with the hands.

Our little rock star

I wish I could get such restful sleep!

All I Want for the 4th is My Two Front Teeth

Ok, so the song is really "All I want for Christmas," but Kinsey got her 2nd front tooth over the 4th of July weekend. We took a picture of her 1st tooth on Sunday and by Wednesday the 2nd tooth was coming in too!

Sunday - 1 tooth

Wednesday - 2 teeth!

Our trip to Asheville was good overall, but due to the tooth coming in, Kinsey was a little fussy. The weather wasn't all that cooperative either - really hot and rained every afternoon (it was like being at home!). We did finally get to Chimney Rock though - Jamie climbed all the stairs with Kinsey in the Bjorn and she did really well with that.

Kinsey is up to 14 lbs 12.5 oz this week. - that's another 10 oz since the last post two weeks ago. She's finally wearing some 6 month shorts and skirts (she was still wearing the smaller size in bottoms until recently). I think her head has grown a little recently too - it's at 16 or 16.25 now I think.

Tomorrow (Sunday) is Kinsey's 8 month birthday! It's hard to believe how fast the time has gone by. I can't help but think about how precious every day with her is and be thankful that the doctors didn't get it quite right.

Kinsey is getting her hearing aid this week (or at least we're going in for a fitting, I'm not sure if that means we're getting it that day too or not). We're very interested to see how having that will affect her. Jamie thinks (or hopes) she won't scream as loud if she can hear herself better!

That's it for this week. Here are some pictures from our trip to Asheville:

Kinsey's 1st Fourth

It's been a quiet week, so not much to report. We are heading out of town for a few days - going up to Asheville again. I'm sure we'll have more to tell you next week after the trip, but for now, just this: