Life with a 4 year old

(Otherwise known as, didn't get a post up at his birthday, otherwise known as mom guilt at its finest!)

When you have a 4 year old, you learn...  well, a lot of things you never thought you needed to know.
For instance, leaving a roll of TP on the back of the toilet... not the best idea. 

I think if you had to sum him up in one description... the kid never. stops. moving.

 He's remained his quirky little self... His top 5 favorite things, in no particular order, as of this very day... His Snoopy "You can be anything" book, the movie "Cars" (which I so sincerely wanted him to like... what was I thinking?!)  His tag reader, specifically the Cars book and Finding Nemo.  Pushing his sister down is up there on the list too.  Not a malicious push, really, just a pull over/you're not doing what I want you to do... helpful guidance, he'd probably call it.  Lastly, his Thomas the Train set.  Oh, and how could I forget football.  There will be weeping when football is over.  Seriously, weeping.  Here's the closest he's ever going to get as a football player if mom has anything to say about it.  He's so cute.  For quite some time, his football pose had to have crossed feet.... I have no idea why, but it makes me laugh, every time. 

He's also a big fan of being on stage, which is all well and good, until he needs to get off the stage. Oh, man.  He only threw a minor fit at his preschool fall parade. 

Preschool this year has gone better than last year.  I think he just would rather be doing other things sometimes.  He's rather opinionated, really.  He's transitioned really well with the move, and he certainly enjoys the hundred acre woods out his back door.  Can't complain about that. :)

Kyleigh turns ONE!

Baby girl is ONE already!  How does this happen!?

We celebrated her birthday over the weekend, and she's enjoying her presents.  I apologize for the lack of blog updates, I thought I was updating via mobile, but apparently it wasn't working!

Kyleigh- Age 1
29 1/2", 18 pounds 2 oz.

Likes:  Her pacifier (still), carbohydrates- crackers, cheerios, etc, dancing, pestering Micah, getting up early, showing off her walking skills, playing in water

Dislikes: Not getting fed fast enough, being buckled into her car seat, not being picked up when she wants

She's so much like Micah in some ways... She likes what she likes and will tell you if she doesn't like it.  She's ornery... and unlike her brother, she doesn't mind being in the center of attention.  Much to the pediatricians surprise, she hasn't really hit the stranger anxiety phase, she just likes people too much.  She's mastered her princess wave to all her court (the people shopping at Kroger, lol!) 

We had her one year pictures done by an old friend, Erin.  Kyleigh made Erin work for these smiles, I couldn't believe how serious she was!

 Here are a few favorites!

Kyleigh strikes again!

She took her first steps yesterday! :) 

Kyleigh, 11 months

Kyleigh sporting her 80s look!  She's 11 months already! How on earth is that possible! She's chatting, loves playing boo and actually loves being pestered by her brother. She thinks its funny, which makes it hard to explain to Micah why he should stop. She's starting to step between things where she lets go for a second. She has a big wide toothy grin when she's being silly.  

The many faces of our 10 month old!

Our sweet girl is 10 months old already! She is cruising and crawling like a maniac! She has 6 teeth already. Her favorite past times include getting into everything Micah is.... Pulling books off shelves and giggling endlessly. She eats like she means business!  She's a great kid!

To the Zoo! To the Zoo!

No seriously, we've been to the zoo.... twice! :)

Living it up this June! 

Micah the giant honeybee @ the Toledo Zoo

The essential FW Zoo Picture :)

How to speak Australian... :)

Preschool 2012-2013

First day, August 2012

Last day, June 2013

Greetings!

Sorry it's been a couple of weeks... We've been busy.  Busy isn't even the right word.  Other than Friday, I'm pretty convinced the hubby is just a shadow that comes and goes... more going than coming.  Today he was gone 6a-6p, and 6:45 til... still not home (9:33...) He will be done with his Masters of Ministries on June 20th, not that I'm counting or anything. 

Micah is wrapping up his first year of preschool.  More on that later this week, complete with pictures, at least if I remember.... Capping hasn't been very successful.  :( He came down with a cold, now 11 days ago... still not really over it, as usual, it can last easily 2 weeks.) He has a size smaller trach now, so every little bit congests him. He's having trouble coughing and clearing his trach as easily as he did with the bigger size.  I hope we made the right decision, it's not a good feeling.  We still have not heard about his CT. One doc is out of the office, but I trust we'll hear soon. 

Kyleigh is  quite mobile... Unfortunately she's not getting worn out enough... She's been up multiple times a night here lately.  Please child, for the love of all things good and holy, SLEEP!  Otherwise she continues to roll with the punches, as I always hoped.  She's really hit the "in her brothers hair" stage.  She crawls up and stands next to him when he's playing.  So far he's not outright pushed her down, but he'll sort of push her out of the way with his elbow.  So it starts....
Here's a few Summer starter pics!

 Micah's favorite summer visit spot, the neighbor's "petting zoo"... (i.e. their 4-H animals... and more!)

 We took a fun trip to the Toledo Zoo a few weeks ago.  More pictures to come, but here's this darling one of Kyleigh and Aunt Mandy. 

8 months- What CAN'T this girl do!?

So, at 6 months I decided to only post every two month updates about K.  Well, little did I know she'd knock out all sorts of milestones in these two months.  She's mastered sitting at about 6 1/2 months, on hands and knees, as well as transitioning from hands and knees to sitting at around 7 months, crawling at 7 1/2 months, and just yesterday, she pulled herself to standing!

WHAT?!  Where's my little baby!?  This is too much for this mama's heart!  She's got a heck of a lot of personality, just like brother did at this age.  She's a big ham, and has figured out how to wave hello and goodbye... and she does it all the time!  She's got a big two-toothed grin (no new teeth since 5 1/2 months... and mom's okay with that!)  She jabbers, but not really intentionally saying anything yet. 

Here's the 8 month old princess on our trip to Cincy. 

Capping trial

Micah strikes again!

We had decided to do a capping trial at our last visit.  Overall, we didn't get our hopes up... We had no idea how he would do.   Well, apparently he's got this under control! :)  We're about 24 hours in and he's been doing well.  His oxygen is great! He occasionally works a little harder to breathe than is ideal, but I think he's having a little trouble coordinating swallowing and breathing.  The rules of the capping trial are tough.  He has to leave it on all the time basically or he fails.  He woke up last night a little freaked out and pulled it off.  He wouldn't let them put it on for a half hour...  Thankfully the ENT was willing to chalk it up to behavior, which Travis thought it was.  As long as he does fine tonight, he passes. :) 

Micah's Alphabet

Micah signing the ABC's.  :) He knows them all, and can almost keep up with the song.  So proud!

Rollin' right along...

Great, now that I've got a muppets song stuck in my head thanks to the post title...

Everyone at the moment is doing well.  Micah seems to catch every bug that comes around... boy are we glad Spring is acting like it's going to show up soon!  We were down in Cincy two weeks ago... Wasn't a very productive visit.  The good news is that we are going to do a trach capping trial (where there's a cover on the trach that is put on so he can't use it) in May!  They are also going to do a CT scan while we are there. It's a two night admission so they can monitor his oxygen levels.  We were so blessed to get into the Ronald McDonald House...They now have 4 short stay rooms you can book up to a month in advance. It'll be so nice having Kyleigh right across the street.  Since we're there, we'd be glad to drop off any pop tabs you've collected.  In years past, the tabs alone have generated more than 15,000 a year for the house.  A lot of tabs make a lot of difference! 

In case you missed the Easter adorableness, here it is:

Vacation- wahoo!

So, vacationing with a 3 year old and a baby isn't exactly... relaxing.  At all.  It, however, was fun!  Here's a few highlights.

Holy cap! :)

This is attempt number 4 to upload this video... I'm crossing my fingers.  So, apparently Micah can tolerate his trach being capped for at least a few (15!) seconds!  This is such good news!  We'd really never saw good evidence he could breathe in through his mouth, but here it is!  Hot dog! 

6 months

Unfortunately, my browser crashes when I try to upload a picture to this blog... and my other browser is crashing constantly... super.

Kyleigh is 6 months now!  She weighed 15#11 oz, and was 27".   Technically she didn't "grow" in length from 4 months, but we are assuming they didn't get an accurate measurement on her squiggly self last time.  She had gone from the 75% percentile at 2 months, to 95% at 4, and is now 50% at 6 months, so that at least somewhat supports our theory. 

Otherwise, she's starting to get on the move, getting where she wants to go by rolling.  She's starting baby foods and is generally unimpressed.  Otherwise she's happy, but she certainly knows what she likes and doesn't like.  Among her likes: watching brother hop across the room, sleeping in the car, her pacifier (some things never change), being talked to- and talking, and waking up at all hours of the night.  Some dislikes: getting an arm or a leg stuck out the crib railing, being ignored for any length of time.. so, she's a little spoiled. 

Big Girl! 5 months

Obviously Kyleigh is older than 5 months old, this is a little catch up.  She will actually be 6 months in 4 days!

5 months saw Kyleigh learning to roll over.  She gets rolled over and then gets rather unhappy (rather quickly) about it!  She can roll back over, but I'm pretty sure she gets so mad she can't figure out how to get over.  She seems like such a big girl now.  I was comparing her height and weight at 4 months, and she was about the same size Micah was at 6 months! No wonder she seems big.  She's still pretty social when she wants to be.  She's at the age where she wants to do things, but isn't quite coordinated enough to pull it off all the time.  Micah is pretty interested in her now, just working on the gentle part...  If I had to guess, we'll be working on that for the next 15 years or so.  :) 
Kyleigh really doesn't have a nickname that's stuck... It's usually whatever comes out of our mouth depending on her mood.  A common one Travis uses is "Kryleigh"...

Kyleigh, 5 months

Micah 3 1/2!

 

 

We can't believe Micah is already 3 1/2.  He's doing a lot better in preschool, although I'm not sure he's terribly amused  by the whole process.  He's graduating physical therapy at the hospital next week.  The progress he's made has been amazing!  We'll be happy to only have 2 therapies in a row instead of 3! (It really is a big difference...) He's getting closer to being potty trained as well.  As seasoned parents will tell you, they'll do it in their time.   Well, I'm not very patient.  :)  We all seem to be on the same page now.  He's not really a big fan of eating, but he's much better at it than he was 6 months ago.  I think part of that is staying away from surgeries and setbacks.  He's still 90-95% tube fed, but that's down from 95-97%.  Yes, that's progress, LOL! 

He's found how to take pictures from the iPod, and he very much enjoys it (hence the picture above).  I usually spend about 5 minutes deleting 50 pictures he takes... but hey, small price for big smiles, right?  

 

(I apologize for the lack of updates, for some reason either our new laptop or windows 8 hates this website... it almost always freezes when I try to upload a picture.  I have a 5 month Kyleigh update coming soon, hopefully!) 

Fun photos :)

Micah's finally taking an interest in Kyleigh.  :) It's very cute.

 More getting to hold Kyleigh. Always scares me, but still, very sweet.

This one's a keeper.

Staying up late watching the big game with daddy.