Week 1 - At the hospital

It's New Year's Eve. It's crazy that tomorrow we will be in 2016! We can safely say that it will be a while before I will be printing my blog book for 2015 to have as a keepsake. Colt got off this morning around 7am, and he went back in at 9pm tonight until in the morning. He couldn't sleep today so he looked tired when he headed in. Hopefully he isn't crazy busy since it's New Year's Eve. Kinley, the pups and I are laying in bed, and hopefully we'll be ringing in the new year asleep! 

In my previous post, we had only had Kinley home from the hospital with us through the entire night that Monday. In the wee hours of Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, we ended up taking her into the emergency room at Children's. Colt checked out the waiting room and saw that it wasn't busy and saw who was working so we went ahead and took her in. As I mentioned previously, we had hopes of getting her a belli lamp blanket and coming back home. They even tried to pull some strings and make it happen, but it didn't.  There was actually a shortage of belli lamps in Children's completely. They were all being used over at the main hospital. EMS were sent to get us a blanket. They set us up and started treating her while we were in the emergency room. 

They decided to admit Kinley into the hospital, but it was going to be a while before her room was ready. One of the nurses went ahead and put her IV in her arm while we were in the ER. It was the worst to watch. They gave her "sweeties," aka sugar water, on her pacifier to try to make it better for her. The nurse missed the first time and had to do it again. There was blood everywhere... poor thing... and it was only the start of her getting poked and prodded. We didn't get moved upstairs into a room until around 8am on Wednesday morning. We were so exhausted. 

Our sweet girl in the ER at around 6:30 Wednesday morning... not exactly how we would have liked for her to visit daddy's work. 

Before we were moved to a room... Colt falling asleep laid over Kinley 

We didn't know until after the fact that because we took her to the ER, the main hospital then considers her "dirty" and won't let her go back over there to the nursery. This fact made us wish that we would've waited until the next day and taken her to the nursery for treatment. However, when we called during the night, they told us to take her to the ER at Children's and didn't mention that she would be considered "dirty" after that. Colt wasn't happy about that. The last thing he wanted was for her to catch something and get sick from being at Children's. 

These were later Wednesday morning after we'd been admitted. 

I hated seeing her in this little metal bed. At first we just had the belli lamp blanket. Then later they brought in the lamp that goes over her.

Sometime on Wednesday Colt went and grabbed us some lunch at Jason's Deli. Dede ended up coming late on Wednesday night. At the time we thought we would be going home on Thursday so she was planning on coming and being there to help out and cook us some meals so that we wouldn't have to worry about that. Since we ended up not going home after all, she brought us a few meals and snacks while we were at the hospital instead and helped with the dogs since we weren't home. 

This was at about 1:30 Thursday morning. Every time she would move her arm, which was all the time, the machine she was hooked up to would start beeping because her IV line wasn't straight. Since they had taken her off of everything by the early hours on Thursday morning and we were supposed to be going home on Thursday morning after rounds, we asked if they would go ahead and take her IV out so she would be more comfortable and we could all rest better. While we were in the hospital, I started pumping and feeding Kinley because I was scared to breastfeed her with her IV in, especially since we were still new to the whole breastfeeding thing. 

Thursday morning things took a turn for the worse. The nurses checked Kinley's temperature and it had dropped to 95. Looking back, I fully believe it's because they removed her from the belli lamps and she didn't get swaddled up right afterwards. It made me feel awful because I really think our next couple days in the hospital could've probably been avoided if she had been bundled up. When they took her temp and it was 95, they had me hold her next to me bundled up for a few minutes to try to get her temp up before they checked it again. They checked it again but it was still low. She wasn't able to regulate her body temp that fast. Because of her temp, it drew up red flags to the doctor. He came in suggesting that we do a full workup as soon as possible to make sure there were no other issues. When the doctor said this, Colt's head and shoulders immediately dropped. He was holding her, and he started consoling her. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted to happen. At the time, I didn't know what all this would entail but I knew by Colt's reaction that it wasn't good, and it scared me. When the doctor was talking to me and making me sign all the consent forms, I was so upset and worried. Dede brought us breakfast from Chick-fil-a while all this was going on and I couldn't eat. My stomach was in knots.  They took her down the hall to do the lumbar puncture and place the IV in her head. I couldn't watch and I don't think Colt wanted me to at the time. At first, Colt didn't want to see it either, but he didn't want her to go by herself. The LP, they got on the first time thankfully. I don't think he watched them put the IV in her head, but it went smoothly too. The worst thing about the IV in her head was the way it looked, but I think it was actually a lot more comfortable for her than the IV in her arm. After the LP, they brought in a warmer and put her under it. It only took about an hour to get her temperature up to where it was supposed to be, and she never needed it again. Once she got it up, she kept it regulated. I really think that if she hadn't gotten chilled and if we would've had just a little more time to get her temperature back up that she wouldn't have had to go through any of that. Your baby having to have an LP at less than a week old is not what you want to happen that's for sure. Due to all of the above, we had to stay in the hospital until at least Saturday until we got back all of the results. Colt said the only good thing about having a full workup before we went home is that we wouldn't be going home worried about what she might've caught while we were there. 

Since we were in the hospital a few more days, Josh came up and visited on Thursday afternoon. Then that night, Dede brought us a roast for dinner that she had cooked. While we were in the hospital, Colt would leave for a little while to go to the gym or go home and shower to get a little break. Thursday, I went home to shower and get out of the hospital for a bit. It felt so weird leaving her. I didn't like it at all. 

During our hospital stay, Colt was sleeping on a bench by the window, and I was in the chair.  We were still waking her up every two hours to feed her at this point so I was waking up, feeding her, and then pumping for the next feeding every two hours. Colt barely fit on the bench because he was so wide so he wasn't getting any sleep. By the time we left, he had somehow managed to break the bench.  Every time I would wake up, I would be hurting from being asleep in a weird position. The last night we stayed there, we wised up and I slept on the bench and he slept in the chair. It wasn't great but it was a little more comfortable for me at least. 

This was Thursday afternoon. 

and Thursday night

This was Colt sleeping at around 8 Thursday night. We were sleeping any chance we got. Evidently I wasn't sleeping because I was taking pictures of both him and Kinley sleeping. 

Colt did some daddy duty in the middle of the night too. This was him holding her at about 4 in the morning on Friday. 

Friday morning, Dede brought us eggs, bacon and fruit up to the hospital for breakfast. All Thursday and Friday were spent basically just waiting on all of her results to come back and checking her jaundice levels to make sure they were still on track. 

Sweet Kinley on Friday morning. 

At this point, I still had quite a bit of swelling in my feet and legs from pregnancy and delivery. I don't think sitting in a hospital or sleeping like we were was helping any. Friday afternoon, I went home again, but this time, I was there a little longer. I took the dogs for a walk around the block to give them some attention, get some sunshine and try to help my swelling. Then after my shower, I checked in with Colt and Kinley was still asleep so I laid down in our bed and took a short little nap for about 30 minutes or an hour. Our bed felt so good and I felt like I had been asleep a full night! After I got back to the hospital, Hillary, from work, visited. She is from Belton, and she stopped by to bring gifts to me from all my co-workers. Then she even came back later and brought us more gifts. Her and her mom had ran errands and she had went and picked us up preemie outfits, snacks, and a magazine and dropped them off at the front desk. It was so sweet and a thoughtful little surprise. David came down Friday night too. Him and Dede picked us all up Chipotle for dinner and brought it up to the hospital. 

These were both taken Friday night in the hospital.

On Saturday, our results came back and everything was negative. As soon as they did morning rounds, they started all the paperwork for us to go home! We got to leave the hospital around 10 on Saturday morning! Here's a pic of Ms. Kinley leaving the hospital to go home the second time around and this time for good!! Her belli when we got released that day was 13.5 so we were just supposed to follow up and get it rechecked at the pediatrician's office the following Monday. Her weight was also back up to her birth weight.

The nurses and doctors our whole stay were great. One funny story that happened when we were there is when they checked her temp on Thursday morning. They checked it initially and when it was so low, the nurse came in to do a rectal and Kinley pooped ALL over her. I'm talking ALL over her to the point that she had to change her scrubs! It was actually pretty funny. The nurse that it happened to was actually our favorite nurse from our stay. The next time she came in to do a rectal, she was gloved up and had a plastic suit and mask covering her scrubs!  

Even though I think we could've probably been released on Thursday, rather than Saturday, we are thankful that all her results from her full workup were negative. Basically, we were just in there to get treated for her jaundice and had a small setback due to her low temp reading. It definitely wasn't a nice week at home getting adjusted to being a family of three though that's for sure. Kinley had a rough start her first week. It was also bad because Colt was off those few days and we were stuck in the hospital the whole time. When we were finally able to go back home to adjust and relax a bit, he had to start back to work! 

Going home from the hospital...the first time

The fact that I am over 6 months behind on blogging is a little overwhelming. I just keep getting more and more behind. I had planned on posting weekly updates of Kinley, and the fact that I'm so far behind makes me sad. Even though I have a TON of pictures and videos and I've kept up with a few notes on my phone along the way to try to remember things,  I know that I won't remember and be be able to capture all the little details that I wish I had. Some is better than nothing though! 

As I mentioned in Kinley's birth story, we got to go home around 5pm on Monday, June 15th.  Since I didn't have any bags packed, her going home outfit was just one of the outfits that got washed and brought up to the hospital. Nothing we had fit her, and even this onesie was way too big! It matched her little hat and gloves though! She definitely didn't fit in the personalized gown that I had bought and planned on her wearing home from the hospital. This was her laying on the bed before we loaded her in her carseat to head home.

She was 6 lbs. when she was born. I think she was 5 lbs. 5 oz. that day when we got to go home that day. 

And this was after Daddy loaded her in the carseat. She was so tiny. It's crazy how differently she fills up her carseat now!

My mom left the hospital to go to our house a little before we did. When we got released, they wheeled me down in a wheelchair, and Colt went to go get the truck. I was waiting and waiting with the hospital staff. After a while, we figured out that Colt had went to the other exit door! When we got to the same place, we loaded Kinley and then me up. Everyone we saw while leaving the hospital told us what a beautiful baby we had! It was definitely a weird feeling to be driving home with a baby in tow!

Colt had previously brought home one of Kinley's blankets for the dogs to smell. When we got home from the hospital, I came in first and played with the dogs and gave them some attention. Then we brought Kinley in and let them smell of her for a bit to try to get them adjusted to her being there. 

Here are Lucky and Alex meeting their sister for the first time!

When we got home, we ordered pizza for dinner. We left Kinley with my mom for a few minutes while Colt and I made a quick Target trip to get a few things that we had to have and see if we could find her some clothes that would fit. My mom was a little emotional that night which stressed me out a little. Other than that though, that night home with Kinley was great and pretty easy. Because of her jaundice, for at least the first two weeks, they wanted us to wake her every two hours for her to eat so that we could get weight on her and so that she would go to the bathroom so we could get her belli levels down. 

When we got home, we were supposed to be monitoring Kinley to see if she started looking any more yellow from her jaundice. The lighting in our house seemed awful and depending on where we were in the house, she either looked fine or looked super yellow. Colt started taking pictures of her in comparison to his hand to try to determine any changes.

Daddy giving her a bottle that first night around 10:30. I don't think he focuses that much now!

And this was us playing at about 12:45 that night/the next morning while she was up for a feeding. She was real hard to get alert and awake for feedings at first.

Tuesday morning we had to take Kinley to the hospital for her newborn screening. Our appointment was at 11am. My mom left to go home when we left for her appointment. At the appointment, Kinley was gaining a little weight and she passed her belli level check. We also saw the lactation consultant while we were there and they watched a feeding. 

Kinley passed out on Tuesday afternoon. 

Robb and Alicia came over and brought fajitas to us for dinner and ate with us on Tuesday night. Later on Tuesday night, Kinley started acting funny and became inconsolable. Colt kept taking her around the house and even in the garage to look at her coloring. 

This was around 8:30 when we started thinking she was looking more and more yellow.

And these were at around 9:45.

  And then again around 3 am when nothing was working and we were both starting to get a little concerned.

After she just kept screaming her head off and looking more yellow, Colt decided he wanted to go ahead and take her in.  He said he guessed he was going to be one of the dad's that they all talk about that brings his kid into the emergency room! He really thought we would be able to go and they would give us a belli lamp blanket to take home and treat her, but that wasn't the case. Unfortunately, they don't do that here. More about our trip to the emergency room that led to our stay in the hospital on the next post. 

Thankful

The holidays are over, and I think it took me a couple days to recover. Kinley was pretty fussy on Sunday and Monday after we got back so we've been doing a lot of nursing and a lot of snuggling, and I've just been enjoying it. We celebrated Christmas with both of our families and then celebrated my dad's birthday. We decided to head back home to Temple after my dad's birthday party on Saturday. It was supposed to start raining and storming bad on Sunday. We wanted to try to avoid that, plus, we wanted to give Colt a little breather before he started back to work. We were watching the news on Saturday and trying to time leaving my parents to avoid storms and tornado warnings for the Sulphur Springs area. We avoided that, but little did we know, that the Dallas area was about to get hit even worse. We started listening to the radio and calling Colt's family on the phone about the weather. We were planning on staying on I-30 and exiting 635 to get to 20 and then 35 to head back home. However, after listening and looking at the weather, Colt decided we better exit early, before 635, and try to stay south of the tornado warnings that were being issued. We exited in Royse City, and it's a very good thing we did! Literally 5 minutes later, we looked out of the vehicle to the right and you could see a tornado. I would guess it was about 10 miles from us. It was huge and we kept seeing it light up the sky everytime it would hit something electrical I'm guessing. Let's just say Colt made it a priority to get us to his parent's house in Forney to get us off the road. It was scary and even more scary because Kinley was in the car. If we would've stayed on I-30 and not exited, the timing would've been awfully close, too close, on when the tornado cut through in Garland. We waited the storms out and watched the weather for an hour or two in Forney before getting back on the road to head home. Multiple tornados ended up occurring that night in the Dallas area. The Garland and Rowlett areas were hit hard, as well as the Wylie and Red Oak areas. The devastation looks awful. So far, the death count is at 11 still I believe. Several of those deaths occurred along the highway in Garland. I can't imagine what all of the families are going through that lost loved ones. Hundreds and hundreds of families also lost everything they own. It's awful to think about what it would be like to basically only have the clothes that you're wearing left out of all your belongings and having to rummage through what little is left of your home. Flooding started on Sunday, along with colder weather, so I've heard that's made recovery efforts even more difficult. I'm also seeing all the pictures of all the lost dogs and dogs getting found in the rummage days later, and that breaks my heart too. My brother actually had to go work a shift last night and guard one of the hit neighborhoods. Like they did in Forney a while back, and I guess every event like this, there are looters trying to steal things from the neighborhoods that were hit. The whole things is awful, and I'm definitely thinking about all of the families that were involved and affected. One of the moms in a group that I am in on Facebook that has a baby about Kinley's age, as well as another kid, lost everything. Her GoFundMe site has a picture of the bathtub they were taking shelter in. It's basically the only thing left of their entire house. It's amazing that they all made it out ok. Things like this definitely puts things into perspective, and make you thankful for what you have. 

Here's a picture of one of Garland tornado that is circulating the internet. This is pretty much exactly what it looked like when we were driving. We just kept seeing it the sky light up bright blue.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our little family of 3! So glad that we have a little one to celebrate with this year! 

This was this year's Christmas card. I tried to get a picture of Kinley with Lucky and Alex to add to our card too but I was very unsuccessful. We also weren't brave enough to try taking our dogs to our family pictures either! 

Today is Christmas Eve and we are at Colt's family's house to spend time with them. We drove down last night after Colt got off work. We will celebrate Christmas morning here. Then we will head to my family's to celebrate with them the rest of the day. We are also celebrating my dad's 70th birthday with him the day after Christmas. It will be a busy few days before we head back home for Colt to go back to work. It's definitely harder being a distance from our family's come holiday time and trying to split what little time we have, but at least he got a pretty good stretch of days off this year.

This was our tree on Tuesday night, our last night at home, right after I got all the presents wrapped and under it. I was on top of it this year for the most part and bought almost all of our gifts online right after Thanksgiving, but I had a couple last minute things and handmade items I had to get wrapped.

Along with our tree, these are a few of my favorite ornaments that were new this year for Ms. Kinley. The handprint was from right after she was born. The silver ornament was her first ornament I bought that has her name, date of birth, weight and length on it. The block we bought while we were out not too long after she was born. The reindeer ornament with her footprint we made and also made a few as Christmas gifts. Her Grandma Linda and Tooter also gave her a baby's first Christmas ornament this year as a gift that has her name on it that is precious.

This was another one of our Christmas crafts that we made this year with Kinley's footprints. I thought both of our Christmas crafts, this and the ornament, turned out super cute. I'm pretty proud of them and I know we will treasure them for years to come! 

6 month check up

I figured I would go ahead and write about this while it was on my mind before I start trying to go back and post in order. Just a couple days after my last post, on Monday, we had Kinley's 6 month well visit with Dr. Drigalla. She weighed 16 lbs. 4 oz. She was 25 1/2 inches long. Her head circumference was 42.5 cm.

Dr. Drigalla was debating on whether or not to give her the rotavirus vaccine since that's when all our issues started two months ago. After asking the GI specialist's opinion and talking to us, we decided not to just to take it out of the equation. She had already received 2/3 of this vaccine so the doctor thought she should be covered and if she did happen to get it, that it wouldn't be bad since she's received the other two immunizations already. She did want to go ahead and give her the first round of the flu vaccine which has egg though so we let her. Colt went to this appointment. It's the only one he's gotten to go to so he got to be the one to hold her doing shots and see how pitiful she is. 

The last four nights, basically since her shots, she hasn't slept AT ALL. I thought our sleep schedule of every two or three hours was bad enough, but right now she is waking up every hour and  sometimes even every 30 minutes or so during the night. I'm one TIRED mama. Basically the last two months, I haven't gotten more than 3 hours of consecutive sleep. She hadn't had a bowel movement for a few days, but she finally did on Thursday, and she had blood in her stool again. The puzzle about the blood this time is that of course we aren't sure if the blood is from possibly the egg in her vaccine or the milk/egg reintroduction into my diet.  We eliminated milk and egg from my diet again for the time being just in case. Since the first diaper, she has had blood in one more but the latest one, yesterday, I didn't see any. If it stays clear, then I'll start reintroducing milk a little again, and we'll assume it was possibly the vaccine. 

We've had a busy week. Her appointment was Monday. We hosted an interview dinner on Tuesday at our house with about 30 people and a ton of kids. Wednesday, Linda and Tooter came to visit and have a little early Christmas.

 We ran a few errands yesterday for about 3 hours and she was great the whole time. She fell asleep in the car on the way to take Colt lunch. Then when we got home from errands, I laid her in her room while I put up groceries. When I went in to check on her, she was sound asleep in her floor (falling asleep on her own doesn't happen often)...although it only lasted about 20 minutes until she dirtied her diaper!

 The sleep thing will hopefully resolve. I'm hoping this new waking up every hour is all linked to the blood reappearing, vaccines or possibly a little growth spurt.  I'm still going to keep working on it but we're also about to be traveling for the holidays, so if it doesn't get better, we'll get even more serious after Christmas. I don't know if I mentioned in my previous post, but she used to like her pacifier. The past week or two she wants nothing to do with it. She just spits it out. 

Other than that, Christmas cards are now done and presents are all bought. I just have a few more presents to wrap and need Colt's help with finishing up a craft that we made more of for gifts. Colt's working a rough schedule the last few days so he's tired when he is home. He has a rough next few shifts before the holidays. Then we will be heading to see family later this week. 

Catching up

I had planned on my next blog post being about Kinley coming home from the hospital after she was born, but I had also planned on my next blog post being much sooner. I don't know how new moms stay current on their blogs.  Their babies have to sleep much better than ours... which wouldn't take much because Kinley doesn't sleep well at all, especially lately! She's been asleep for a little while now. We're actually probably currently at a record for the past couple months, and I am just waiting for her to wake up. If she would do this every night without me having to be right next to her, then I would have more free time. We can hope that it'll happen one day. Since I am so far behind (6 months, yikes!), here's a little update of what's going on currently.

Kinley turned 6 months old today! We're already at her 1/2 year birthday! How did that happen?!? Where has the time gone?!? It makes me sad that it's going by so quickly and that she's getting so big, so fast. 

On our scale at home, she's weighed 16.2 lbs. the last couple of times that I've weighed her. We go for her 6 month well check and shots on Monday so we'll get exact measurements then. The last time we were at the doctor, which was on November 24th, Kinley weighed 15 lbs. 4 oz. She was 25 3/4 inches long, and her head circumference was 42 cm. This wasn't a normal doctors visit with her pediatrician. It was a follow-up visit with a GI specialist. After Kinley's 4 month checkup and shots, she started having blood in her stool. Initially, our pediatrician's office thought that it might be a reaction to the rotavirus vaccine even though they hadn't really seen it as a side effect before. We went in a couple times to the pediatrician. After the blood remained, we ended up doing blood work and stool samples. When Kinley was 10 weeks old she was pretty fussy so we had cut out cow's milk then. I had replaced it with almond's milk. However, we weren't strict on the dairy since she didn't really have any issues so I was still eating things that had cow's milk in it.  Due to the blood not clearing up, her pediatrician, Jess, told me to go ahead and eliminate all dairy (cheese, sour cream, etc. that I had still been eating) but that she thought it would probably be fine to still eat it if it was cooked in food. We also discussed possible other allergens and worst case, stopping breastfeeding if need be. The blood continued so I got very strict on the dairy and eliminated it 100%, and Jess also referred us to  GI specialist. Luckily, we got in really fast. Kinley was still thriving and still gaining weight so the specialist, Dr. Jatla, didn't see the need to run scopes or run any more test. He didn't think they would tell him much and said that a lot of the tests aren't very reliable in a baby that young. His plan of action was to wait the 10 days or so to get all dairy out of my system and go from there. Two weeks later there was no change so I contacted the doctor. He said the next things to eliminate were soy and wheat. That's when I started looking at our boxes in the pantry to see if my cereal had wheat. It had MILK. Who would've thought that... so I hadn't really eliminate 100% dairy like I thought because I had been eating a ton of cereal. She also hadn't been sleeping well so we had tried Gerber rice cereal and of course that has allergens in it too! I didn't even think about it. I wasn't near as strict as I thought and I kinda wasted two weeks. I didn't want to waste another 10 day/2 week window of time for products to get out of my system so I told the doctor that I would of course cut out dairy (for real this time) and also go ahead and cut out both soy and wheat. I wanted to have those eliminated before we saw him again. Two weeks of eliminating all three of those from my diet, still no improvement. After talking to my sister-in-law at my family's Thanksgiving and realizing that I had been eating a lot of eggs, I decided I would go ahead and eliminate egg as well. Talk about limiting my options of what I could eat! My favorite snacks became mixing natural peanut butter, gluten free oatmeal and honey and making smoothies with flax seed. All I could basically eat was meat, veggies and fruit. Colt also found me some Cheerios that I could eat and that became my breakfast of choice. Our follow up visit with Dr. Jatla was just a couple of days after I eliminated egg. She was still gaining weight. He didn't see any markers or flags to make him think Crohn's disease, Celiac or anything like that. He still didn't think sedating her and running scopes and more test would tell us much. He also didn't see a reason to stop breastfeeding. He did go ahead and give me a sample of amino acid hypo-allergenic formula for us to research but said that it was a last resort because he didn't see a need for it and that Kinley wouldn't like the way it tasted. He basically said there was nothing left to eliminate from my diet but since I had already started the egg elimination to keep at it for a week to see if she showed any improvement. He also set up a referral to an allergist so maybe they could give us a starting point. I also spoke with him about solids. We had been given the ok at our 4 month well visit so I had tried sweet potatoes once a while back but I stopped because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see the changes in her stool and to determine if the blood was getting better or worse. He said to go ahead and continue introducing solids as planned. Well, I am so happy to say that finally since I've cut out eggs, we haven't seen blood since. Just in the past couple weeks, I reintroduced both wheat and then soy and we were still good. This Thursday, I started reintroducing dairy slowly just in cooked things and I'm waiting to see what happens with that. So far, so good though! I also accidentally ate egg cooked in a muffin on Thursday and didn't realize it until Friday night so I failed on that but as of right now, we're still ok. I just won't be eating any more egg just yet and definitely not scrambling up any for breakfast. Fingers crossed we are just better for some reason and we have no allergy issues. I can't tell you how good a slice of wheat bread tasted the first day I reintroduced wheat though after being on that strict of a diet! One thing that this being on a strict diet the last two months did do was make me lose all of my baby weight and stomach, plus some. I currently weight about 8-9 lbs. less than I did when I got pregnant with Kinley. Of course, I don't have any muscle either though! 

Kinley loves her some food! I think her new favorite is apples and she also liked pears when we tried them for the first time tonight. We've tried sweet potatoes, bananas, and squash. She's a fan of everything. She didn't seem as excited about the squash though, and with the apples and pears, she didn't leave a drop behind. A couple nights ago, I wasn't moving fast enough and she started licking her tray before I got her food ready! She also grabs the spoon and eats with her left hand. Will being a  lefty be yet another thing she gets from her daddy?!

Now on to Kinley sleeping... or lack of sleeping! She had started sleeping really good, or good in my opinion. It was at least a schedule that I would LOVE to get back to. For a while she was sleeping 5-6 hours, then another 3 hours, then another 3 hours before she would get up for the day. It was great but it was short lived! This schedule was also while she was sleeping in our bed. We said she wasn't going to be sleeping in our bed because of all the horror stories, especially with Colt seeing the horror stories at the hospital first hand, but when we were desperate for sleep, it happened, and it's still happening. We had tried to transition her to her crib early on but since she wouldn't sleep very long in there, we decided to transition again around 4 months. Well those plans changed. Right about the time of her 4 month check up, she started waking every couple hours to nurse again, and we are still at it! We have tried EVERYTHING, everything I can think of, everything I've read, everything I've been told! Even though our pediatrician doesn't want us doing rice cereal in her bottle, we tried it recently too. It doesn't help. I was messaging with my sister-in-law, Jennifer, this past week and she said that her son still nurses about that much during the night so that made me feel a little better! Then she also said it's just a phase and that it is, an exhausting, but wonderful at the same time, phase! I think part of our problem is that she just likes the sucking sensation and she's not really a huge fan of a pacifier. A lot of the times when she wakes during the night she is actually eating for a while but sometimes she's just snacking and using it to go back to sleep. We definitely have not gotten the art of self-soothing yet.

Kinley also does not nap unless I'm holding her. She'll nap for three hours while I'm holding her. I put her down and the crying immediately starts! We play many rounds of putting Kinley down to nap a day! We've tried the rock 'n' play, the swing, the crib, pallets in the floor so I can lay next to her, you name it. We've done the putting her down awake, laying a hand on her, etc. I think when I was trying to get hours in for work at my desk, I got her used to being on me when I was baby wearing. I would let her nap on while I wore her to get more straight hours in. Then Colt thinks at 4 months when she started having blood in her stool, we started babying her a little more and she got used to it. She never was great at napping on her own but she was better than she is now. I know a lot of people say you can't spoil a baby, but I think I've spoiled her. Looking back, we could probably have been more consistent too, but I feel like with Colt's schedule flipping back and forth from days to night about every day, it makes it a little hard. Since he works nights a lot, I didn't want to fight with her all day and him not be able to sleep. Then when he works days and is home at night, I don't want him not to get any sleep either! For now, I guess we will keep battling with her and hope it gets better! I do think that since we are fighting naps during the day is why she isn't sleeping as well at night because when I give in and hold her, she seems to sleep better at night. 

Other things that are going on with Kinley... She is rolling around like crazy. She's been rolling for two months now. She absolutely LOVES her baths. She always has the biggest smiles in the bathtub and would probably stay in there forever kicking. She loves eating. Her favorite toy is the jumparoo that James, a resident, got her at our shower. It's been crazy watching her advance with that. She went from barely playing with the toys on it to playing with everything like crazy and jumping all over the place. She also loves her activity mat and reaching up for the toys. She usually doesn't stay on her back long though before she flips over. She definitely prefers to play and hang out on her stomach. Just in the last couple weeks, she's started to sit a little better on the floor. She's not quite sitting on her own and balancing yet, but she can stay sit up if she's leaning forward a little with her hands on the ground or playing with a toy. Just recently she started showing a lot more interest when I read to her. She now grabs and touches every page and really looks at the pages. She has started to really feel and scratch at everything with her fingers. I have a little bright pillowcase owl dress that a resident gave us hanging by her changing table and she constantly plays with it and pulls it and has for months now. She loves watching the dogs play or even just walk by her. She always smiles so big at them. She has the biggest smile! She is happiest first thing in the morning and is alway smiling. Generally, she'll always give out smiles to me or daddy. She loves to look at herself in the mirror. She always smiles at herself. This has been going on for a while now too. She's started making a couple new funny noises with her mouth here recently. She has an exaggerated yawn. I made the comment that I didn't know why she made so much noise when she yawned, and Colt responded that I do it too! The past month or so she's been really trying to put her feet in her mouth, especially in the bathtub. For some reason for her bathtub = toes in mouth. I guess in her bath seat she has easier access. The first few months her feet were stinky. They were sweaty, and I swear they smelled. This passed and I don't really notice it anymore! Just this past week she's started a new thing when she's nursing where she grabs her foot and pulls it up and down while she's nursing like she's doing aerobics. I've thought she was teething a couple different times now because she's started drooling more than normal and wanting to chew on everything (even more than normal) but we can't feel any teeth just yet. She also loves when I sing to her... she doesn't know quite yet that mommy can't sing. Colt actually said today when I was singing that one thing I got out of this is that I finally have someone that likes my singing! She loves anything with light... phones, tv, you name it and she's glued. She tries to push the buttons on my phone when I'm holding her and on it. We have a little projector in her room because we thought it would soothe her and help her fall asleep on her own but it just entertains her. I will be rocking her and nursing her and she will stop and look up at the ceiling with the biggest grin and then go back to eating! She went through a phase a while back (months ago) where she would scream when I was trying to talk on the phone. She even did it to Dede one day, but she's over that one! She loves when I and especially when Colt holds her up high above our heads and it always get giggles. Overall, she really is a happy baby when she's awake for the most part! She has definitely changed our lives even more than I expected, and we love her more than anything! 

One other major thing right now with mommy is that I am currently on a leave of absence from work. At the beginning of November, I decided that working while also keeping her home with me was wearing on me since I was working all hours of the night to get my hours. Colt said I couldn't keep it up, and he was right. I was pretty miserable and stressed. I felt like I wasn't giving my all at work and wasn't giving my all to her or him either. After much debate, I decided to resign. However, when I made the call, I ended up on a temporary leave of absence until January 4th for the time being. I'm sure I'll post more about all the details of that later. 

I think that's enough of a little current update for now. Hopefully my next post will be soon and will be back to when Kinley was just a couple days old and coming home from the hospital (a WHOLE 1/2 YEAR AGO). I keep saying I'm going to do a post a day but when I have a little free time, I find myself decorating for Christmas, wrapping presents or a million other things these days. Even though I'm not working for the time being, there still isn't enough time in the day and the days fly by!