All things BABY

Well, we are in the process of getting our computer cleaned up and such, but until then I can NOT DOWNLOAD ONE SINGLE PICTURE. My space is FULL.

So, I thought I'd update on the baby a little bit. I am 22 weeks and 2 days and feeling pretty good. I've managed to hang on to the nausea, but not as bad as it was the first trimester. I still gag and I just think I'll have to wait until after the baby is born to really enjoy food again. Oh well, no big deal, we're making it just fine.

Other than that, I feel good. Nothing hurts or is uncomfortable yet. I am seeing more and more how much easier on my body this is than carrying 2. I had nothing to compare it to last time, but I now can totally tell a difference in so many ways.

As of this week, I'm feeling baby move lots and lots. That is another thing that spoiled me last time. I was feeling TONS of movement SOON and OFTEN with the twins. You could see them move on my belly shortly after 20 weeks and as soon as I could feel it, Kory could feel it too. This has been a more gradual thing with a few flutters here and there but its finally more constant and noticeable. The ultrasounds have shown this baby to be quite the mover. It is always all over the place when they're trying to get pictures.

I have started seeing my Dr. every week now. She checked me last week and everything is perfect still, so that is nice to hear. I started the FFN test which is a test that supposedly predicts if you're going to go into labor in the next 2 weeks. I don't think its the most accurate thing in the world, but it is just one more thing we can do to keep an eye out for preterm labor. As I near that 25 week mark my nerves are starting to kick in. I just want to get past it and each week will get us closer and closer to a bigger, healthier baby. I'm trying to take it as easy as I can and not over do it, but that is easier some days than others. The world doesn't stop, but I'm doing my best to slow down.

So far, the secret of the gender of this baby is safe with the sonogram tech girl. I am not sure when I'll get another one, but I just get nervous every time. Now that I'm committed to not finding out, I really REALLY don't want to. I feel strongly that its a boy. So strong that sometimes I feel like the surprise is already ruined. That makes no sense (which Kory reminds me of all the time) but that is how I feel. We are working on names, but having a hard time. We have a good list of 4 boy names that we both like, we just like them in OPPOSITE ORDER!! AHHHHHH!! We have 3 girl names now but the middle names are kind of tricky and again, we don't like them in the same order. So I'm not sure if one of us will compromise or if we'll just pick one in the middle. Hopefully we have MONTHS and MONTHS to talk it over. I can totally see us not deciding until after its born even if we make it all the way to December. Its just so hard!

On a different note, I'm starting to think about things we are going to need after this baby comes. One of those is a double stroller. I'm trying to decided what route to take there. I know the tandem ones are not as wide so may be easier for shopping and stuff, but I also feel like everyone I know that has twins ends up getting a side by side one when the kids get older. I really don't want to buy 2 strollers, so any advice on double strollers would be greatly appreciated.

The next thing I need a little help on is a pump. Yes, I'm asking advice about a pump. I should be the expert, right?! If all goes as planned with the pregnancy, I am hoping to nurse this baby. BUT my question is, should I get a pump too?? I just don't know how much I would use one if I'm able to nurse OK. My thing is I don't want to get a crummy one. Since I had the high-tech big mama jamma hospital pump as my Siamese twin for so long, I want to get a good one. BUT the good ones cost big bucks and I don't want to waste money if I'm not going to end up using it. I know its nice to be able to pump and leave a bottle, and especially with Kanyon's crazy therapy schedule, etc. I may be a little more restricted as far as being able to just nurse whenever. I just don't know. SOOOO girls....did you pump even when you could nurse?? Was it worth it to you to buy a pump?

Speaking of, the milk bank sent me my grand total for how much milk I donated:
4, 324 ounces!
Is that not hilarious!

Ok, that's all for now.

Video

Kanyon has copied a couple of things that we do. One of them being, he touches fingernail clippers on his fingers after I'm done clipping his and then he started doing this.......

Amazing how he just picked that up and here I am spending all of this time trying to TEACH him other stuff and he pulls this one out on his own.

Pictures...you deserve it

If you made it through my last post, you deserve some cute pictures to look at:

We got to stay with Paul and Katie a couple of weeks ago in Dallas when Kasey was out of town. BIG fun. Kanyon is pretty much obsessed with Paul!!!

Here's a little proof that I wasn't lying about the eating thing:

Chocolate pudding at Paw Paw and Gay Gay's house

Fresh Pittsburg peaches at home!!

Wait...who's this guy???? This was back when I started baby food the FIRST time. If I only knew .......

This was taken way back in June when my friend Leah was in Dallas for a school thing. Me, her, and Alison went to dinner one night. It was fun to catch up. Leah is pregnant with her third and we are due within a week of each other. She is a stud volleyball coach in San Angelo and it was SOO fun to see her! btw, my belly is much bigger new, but this it he only picture I have of me pregnant! YIKES!

I caught a sweet moment with klp and Ollie.

Out of order. Here we all are after our fun dinner....me, alison, leah. It was fun to be back together!

We made my last trip to Paris until baby comes and had a great weekend. Lucky for us, the rodeo was in town. Here are the KLP's enjoying some East Texas "culture"

klp and I stayed until we went to Dallas on Tues. to spend a little extra time with the fam. We went to Club Kerby on Monday and had a great time! Nolan was asleep in the bathroom. He missed all the fun.

If we're at my parents' house, there's a 90% chance this is where I will find Kan and my mom. They just love that swing. He used to sit in her lap, but he now insists on sitting by himself.

This is a bitter sweet picture. This was last week, our last week to go to Dallas and stay with Kasey. When I took this picture, she made me promise I wouldn't put it on the blog, but it turned out WAY TOO CUTE! I could write thousands and thousands of pages about Kasey and how great she has been to have us 2 with her every week. She is probably the most generous, caring, thoughtful, and helpful people I have ever known. Not to mention tons of fun! We will miss our Tuesday nights with her, but we are glad we're not traveling that much anymore.....see I'm blogging instead. Normally I would be loading the car to leave right now.

We got some cool shades at Addison's birthday party!

Another bitter sweet picture! This is PoCo, Kanyon's feeding therapist. She was so great and we will miss her so much!!!!

We had a different schedule this past week in Dallas because we had an appointment at the Scottish Rite CP Clinic. It was our first one and it was L-O-N-G! Thankfully, Kory came and went with me so that was great. It was a successful visit where we just really talked a lot and they learned all about Kanyon. That was the goal of the first visit. They just wanted to meet him and hear about his history, etc. We will meet with the Dr. again soon to discuss his thoughts after our visit and he also requested every single medical record from every Dr. and hospital since Day 1 so he wants to read through those and "get to know Kanyon". We liked the Dr. and are hopeful that this clinic will be helpful for Kanyon as he grows.

That appointment was early in the morning, so we had some time to kill before therapy that afternoon. So we did a first. I bought my son some shoes. I've never bought him shoes!!! AHHH!! We had some great ones last fall from my sis in law and my mom, but those have long been out grown. BUT now that we have the Tryke and he's starting to do more therapy standing, we had to have shoes that go over his AFO's (he can't be in just the AFO's and do anything. They're slippery on the bottom so he has to have the shoes). After talking to several other parents and therapists, we had a pretty good idea of how to fit the shoes. We headed to Target and actually found some that we think will work. So here is my almost 2 1/2 year old trying on shoes for the first time in his life!

I think he was pleased with the purchase.

If we don't have to have the shoes on for therapy, chances are he will still be bare footed. I mean i just can't make that a priority. I guess when it gets cold I'll have to change that. Until then, my kid will be enjoying the benefits of not being a walker and being able to go free and barefoot!!!

Stay tuned for some really cute videos!!!

Baby Book Post

I'm warning you that this post is for ME. I think there are several reasons why, but I've ended up not doing a very good job of recording Kanyon's milestones. I kept up with stuff the first year, but in most areas, not much happened in the first year and he has done lots of things since then that need to be recorded so I can look back on them. I am not planning on going back to when he was 1, but I am going to record what is going on with him now. The last few months have brought some fun new little things that are encouraging and exciting for his parents!



Physically, the booty scoot continues to be his mode of transportation. One of his PT's said that is THE hardest thing to change because its so efficient. BUT we have been working really really hard on quadraped crawling (regular crawling) for several months. He's SOOOOO close to being able to do it, but he still needs the support of someone helping him balance. He really does a good job even with his left arm and keeping that left hand pretty open. Once the motions clicked (we moved his legs/arms FOR him for a LONG time) he got better and better. Now one of his biggest problems is getting too excited and letting his arms get ahead of his legs. We had decided to do a bit of crawling boot camp and hit it really hard during all of his PT time in hopes of "checking if off our list" though none of us were convinced he would ever CHOOSE to crawl over scooting. Recently though, we've decided to keep working on it, but start doing more standing and stepping kinds of things too since he's lolly gagging a bit with the final steps of crawling. We feel confident that he has what he needs to do it and "gets" the movements so that is great. So, in the next few weeks we will be learning more about helping him stand. He doesn't pull up yet, so we'll start doing things that encourage him and teach him how to do that and will probably spend more time playing in the kneeling position and learning to get there on his own.



Fine motor wise, he's doing better with his left hand even though he still doesn't want/can't grasp things with it. Its really not too functional but he knows its there and is doing more with his arm, so we're hoping the hand will come too. His preferences for "tools" go like this: 1. right hand 2. mouth 3. forget it/left hand depending on who diligent he's feeling! :) With his right hand he's really into throwing (nice) and can do pretty much whatever he wants. He can even put the lid on his bottles and since he's such a fan of spinning things, he can spin the lid and screw it on. Funny stuff. He has been working on stacking blocks and is getting better with that. His pincer grasp is good with his right hand and he can even scribble a little bit with a crayon. Though he prefers to eat the crayon instead. We are always making him do things with his left hand reminding his sweet brain that its there and helping it learn to use it!



The most fun thing lately has been his language development. He has no intentional expressive language (what he says), but is really proving to have even more receptive language (what he understands) that we thought. All kids can understand more than they can say, but his gap seems to be wider as his expressive language is so delayed. I can say "close it" when he opens a cabinet or door and he will close it....and usually throw a mini-fit at the same time. The other day I said, "come here I need to change your diaper, and he stopped where he was and layed down! Most things just kind of happen and I'm like "WOW! He knew what I just said!" This is encouraging because he knows the words have meaning and his brain is doing a good job of processing it. The words will come out eventually. We have taught/are teaching him signs and he picks them up pretty well. He still doesn't use them on his own, we have to tell him to use them, but we're hoping at some point he will use them on his own. Here are the signs he knows when we tell him to "say" them: PLEASE, THANK YOU (not to be confused with blowing a kiss....we've never taught that), DOG, HORSE. We are working on "all done" and "help" is coming soon. When we say "Where's your belly?" He raises up his shirt to show his little belly. When he wants us to pick him up we say "UP" and he holds his arms up.....we sometimes have to wait for the left one, but it makes it. He can gives kisses and has even kind of taught himself to hug. He just lays his head on something or someone and makes a little whining sound. Its funny to me that the 2 things he taught himself were kisses and hugs. He's such a lover. Most times if you ask him Where's Ollie, he will look outside (or wherever he is) and reach. He can also do that some if you ask him where certain people are that he knows. After watching me shake up his bottles for the last year (we add thickener and have to shake it up) he knows what "shake" means. When he's holding something and we tell him to shake it he LOVES IT!! He can sort of play "peek-a-boo". I say "Wheeeeeeeere's Kanyon?!" and he will hold whatever (blanket, shirt, whatever's in his hand) up over his face (it usually DOES NOT cover his face, but he thinks he's hiding, right!?) and then pulls it down when I say "Peek a boo!" One of my most surprising was the other day he was fussing while I was at the sink and I kept telling him over and over "Go put your animals in your barn." After me saying that several times, he scooted over to the fridge and started playing with his fridge farm!! Exactly what I was telling him to do! I was shocked! He is understanding more and more and we are thankful and joyful to watch his little gears turn as he learns about his world.

He LOVES the nursery at church and has had VERY little trouble transitioning into that. He is even up with the bigger, walking kids on the bid kid side of the nursery. After a couple of weeks of crying and lots of love from his teacher Mrs. Patti, he's a nursery champ. He's NEVER cried when I've left him or walked away. He just needs a warm body, not necessarily mine, just a warm body and there are lots of those in the nursery. He keeps up pretty good with his friends, but sometimes gets frustrated when everyone is moving too fast for him and I think its sometimes scary if they're running around him because he's on the ground and it just seems to overwhelm him. He has a toy puppy that he plays with during snack time in the nursery and that suits him just fine! It is so cute to see (they have double sided windows so we can look in) all the kids sitting at the table eating their crackers and Kanyon is right there with them chewing on his puppy!

Speaking of chewing, the next big thing is Eating!!!! Well, in the last month or month and a half, the boy has decided to eat a little food. We have been working on pureed foods for almost a year and just recently he's started accepting more and more bites. I am up to feeding him around 60-65 grams of pureed food 2 times a day (thats about 2 ounces). Over the next 6 weeks we need to work up to 3, maybe 4 times a day. This isn't really enough to be any nutrition, that is still coming from the bottle, but we will gradually increase those amounts as we work our way up. He doesn't seem to be picky as far as taste. He also doesn't really have favorites, its all the same to him. We follow the same protocol the use in therapy and so far he's pretty successful. We don't do baby food, I actually puree whatever food we eat or I make things just for him. Its borderline...no, not borderline, its TOTALLY gross to blend real food, but whatever. His menu would surprise/gag you. Its higher in calories and will hopefully make it easier as we transition up and out of purees. Plus I like having a little control over what is going in him and I like to think I can make my food a little yummier than that nasty ol' baby food! We'll see. We are SOOO proud of him and hoping that he continues. We are taking it VERY VERY slowly, but that's OK! In about 6 weeks we will head back to Dallas for an inpatient stay at Our Children's House. We did that last summer for the bottle. Its better known as EATING CAMP! My Dr. has so far said its Ok for me to go. I will be STAYING in Dallas as opposed to traveling back and forth and I will see an OB every week while I'm there. I will be right next door to Baylor Hospital, so I"ll be in good hands. It is about a 6 week stay, so I'm not exactly looking forward to it, but I know we need it, especially with new baby on the way. Any progress will be a huge help when I'm trying to take care of a newborn. So, that is where we are for now with the feeding.

I think I'll stop this post for now, its getting out of control. And the worst news of all is that I don't have any pictures to post. My computer's brain is full and I need to clean it out. Sorry.