15 Month Checkup

Kinley had her 15 month checkup today.  John is still in Florida, so thankfully my mom came back with me on Sunday evening.  I had a workshop all day on Monday, a dentist appointment yesterday, and Kinley's appointment today.  She was willing to come back with me and watch Kinley on Monday and Tuesday, and then come to her doctor appointment today with me.  We had booked her a ticket on Megabus this evening, and Kinley's appointment was at 3:30.

Today was Dr. Flanagan's first day back from vacation and we really had to wait a while.  We didn't wait too long in the waiting room, but I think we waited almost an hour once we got called back!  We started getting worried, because we knew she had to have shots, and we were going to be pushing it to make it downtown to drop my mom off.

Her stats today:
Length - 31.75 inches (79%)
Weight - 23 pounds (68%)
Head Circumference - 18.25 inches (65%)

She has met all of her milestones for this age.  I was pretty surprised that the "talking" milestone was only 3 words.  She definitely has that down!  Dr. Flanagan was impressed with her, and told us that she looked more like an 18 month old, in terms of development.  She really interacted with him quite a bit, and that's one of the things that I really like about him.  He said she looked great, and unless she gets sick, he'll see us back at 18 months.

She got 3 different shots, and it was pretty awful this time.  She cried more than I think she ever has, and it was so hard to watch.  It has always been hard for me, but now that she's more aware, I think it's worse.  She screamed pretty hard, poor baby.  My mom sat in the back seat with her on the way downtown.  She cried off and on a little bit, and my mom finally took the band-aids off, because she thought it was reminding Kinley that something had hurt her.  Once the band-aids were off, she seemed fine.

Thankfully we got my mom downtown just in the nick of time for her bus, and she made it back.  Kinley didn't really seem to suffer too much from the shots.  We will be back in October for her 18 month appointment.

Gran's 60th Birthday

John was offered a new job a couple of weeks ago.  We are excited about the new opportunity, but the downer is that he has to spend 2 weeks in Florida for training.  Kinley and I dropped him off at the airport on Sunday morning and then headed back home to finish some house cleaning and get packed to head to La Vernia.  We left Monday right after lunch.  My thought was that Kinley could have her nap in the car.  She did fall asleep pretty quickly, but unfortunately only slept about an hour.  She woke up suddenly, and then proceeded to just chatter away.  I kept thinking she might fall asleep again, but she never did.

Having a "nack" with the puppies

We spent the week in La Vernia.  We didn't do anything special, but it was fun to just spend time hanging out with Gramps and Gran.  Kinley is such a people lover, so she has fun with whoever she is around.  Friday night, Scott and Todd came out.  Brent had been out at the house all week, because it was his week for Air Force duty for the year.  We had a nice dinner together, and stayed up chatting for a while.

Jasper found the comfy spot

Gran introduced Kinley to pop-ice

We went to eat BBQ, and yes, that's a pinto bean on her head!

Having fun running in the driveway

Just chilling . . . before she fell out of the chair and got a big knot on her forehead

Cool baby

She has lots to say these days!

Her first time on one of these rides - we had to ride it twice.

Eating a quesadilla like a big girl

Reading her book with Emily

"Riding" Emily's new scooter

Having ice cream at Golden Chick

I love this picture!  So sweet!

Popsicles for snack in the pool

Snacks on the couch

With Uncle Scott - Kinley would not look at me

Today is my mom's 60th birthday.  Bob had some plans for her during the day, and then we were all going to have dinner that evening.  Their appointments at the spa ran a little long, so we didn't really get to see her during the day.  Emily had spent the night with us on Friday night, so Cory and Rachel came out to the house after lunch and we hung out for the afternoon.  Rachel had baked a cookie cake for Gran and Kinley and Emily helped her decorate it.

We went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner, and it was delicious!  I was impressed that Kinley sat contently in her high chair the whole time.  Towards the end, she wanted Gran to get her out, but she was really well behaved most of dinner.  John and I have really worked on teaching her that we sit at the table to eat a meal, and it seems to be paying off.  Everyone had a great dinner, and wanted cheesecake (you HAVE to get cheesecake), but we were all so full that we got it to go.

We all went back to the house and had cheesecake and cookie cake.  Scott had to leave, because he was working the next morning, but the rest of us sat up talking for a while.  I think it was a good birthday for my mom, especially since she got to have all of her kids celebrate with her.  I know she's really looking forward to our beach trip over Labor Day weekend, and so are we!

Time Out?

I thought these pictures of Kinley were funny.  Dora, her babysitter, uses the bottom step as time-out at her house.  The kids are really too young, yet, to understand time-out, but she told me that's what she uses when the time is appropriate.  John was downstairs, keeping Kinley occupied so I could do some cleaning upstairs.  When I looked over the balcony, I saw her sitting on the step.  I sent a picture to Dora and told her that Kinley was practicing!  I thought she looked too cute!

Ducks in the Yard

This evening, we went down to the Galleria to have dinner with Gary, Diane and their girls.  Gary is here for a 3 day workshop at a hotel in the Galleria.  We had fun visiting with them. 

We had quite a bit of rain earlier in the afternoon, and when we got home from dinner, there were a bunch of ducks in our yard.  There is a pond in the middle of our neighborhood, and for some reason, a bunch of the ducks were hanging out in our yard.  Kinley thought it was funny and (of course) kept squealing "buppieeeeeees."  John got some bread from the kitchen and we fed them, so they would come up closer to the house.  It was funny, and Kinley definitely got a kick out of it!

15 Months of Kinley

I'm not going to do monthly updates anymore, but Kinley is still changing so much all the time, that I thought quarterly updates would be good for her 2nd year.  I know she will change so much between 1 and 2 that it would be one seriously long update at 2 years.

As always, we just can't believe how much she is growing and changing all the time.  I am LOVING being at home with her this summer.  Last summer was priceless - my first as a mommy.  This year, however, we are more in a "groove" and she sleeps all night long!  I am amazed at how much she learns all the time.  It seems like almost every day she is saying a new word, and I'm just amazed at all the little connections she is making.  The teacher in me just loves to see all those synapses firing all the time.  :-)

Now that Kinley is a full-fledged walker, she is go-go-go all the time!  She even says "go go go."  It's too cute!  She definitely has her favorite toys, and her favorite things to get into, even though she knows she's not supposed to.  If we don't close our bathroom door, she will wander out with John's deodorant.  Every single time.  Sometimes it's tiring chasing after her, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I won't lie - there are days where I'm excited for naptime, but I also miss her after she's been sleeping for a couple of hours.

Speaking of sleeping . . . she continues to be a great sleeper at night - usually 11-12 hours, but due to our later summer schedule, she has started dropping a nap pretty consistently.  I guess it's a little bit of a trade off.  She sleeps until at least 8:00 every morning, but it's usually more like 8:30 or 9:00.  Sometimes even 9:30.  If she sleeps that late, it's kind of hard to get a morning nap in, anyway.  Some days, though, she will skip her morning nap, and wants to play in her bed during afternoon nap time.  This leads to a very cranky baby by dinner time.  Kinley is very content to just sit in her bed and amuse herself, and we have kind of gotten into a bad habit of leaving her there a little while to get a few more minutes of sleep, or putting her down for a nap before she's really ready.  This leads to her just sitting and playing.  So, I'm realizing we're going to have to change some habits to make sure she's just going into bed to sleep, not play.  We don't ever have problems at night, but nap time is the issue.

Kinley is still a very laid-back baby.  We have seen hints of a tantrum when she doesn't get something she wants, but at this point, she's still easily distracted, so we can get her interested in something else.  If she has prolonged fussiness, it's almost always because she's tired.  She's just not a very fussy baby.  We've had many people comment to us that she's "so good."  We figure we just lucked out with a really easy baby . . . that may mean we're in for it during the teenage years.  :-)

Here's some highlights of Kinley right now:

**She is mostly wearing 12 month clothes now.  She still has a few 9-12 month things that fit.  She actually still had some 6-9 month stuff that fit, but I finally packed away all of those clothes.
**She is still wearing size 3 diapers, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
**She usually drinks about 16-20 ounces of milk a day, and water in between meals.  Those are the only drinks she has had (other than a sip or 2 of tea out of my cup).  We don't see a need for juice at this time.
**She is still a pretty good eater.  She has gotten a little pickier and doesn't eat some things that she used to, but I know that's how it goes, so I try not to get too worried about it.  She's not as accepting of veggies as she once was, but she is a good fruit eater.  I just try to maintain as good of a balance as I can.
**She is starting to talk a lot.  It seems like she says new words almost every day.  Here are the words she can say right now (at least all the ones I can think of):  daddy, mommy, no, no ma'am (no me), puppy (buppy), Wubba (bubba), go, hi, bye, more, up, oh boy (oh by), snack (nack), nose, eye, night night (ni ni), ball, baby, banana (nana), bath, shoe, sock, yucky, woof and meow
(I didn't include all the gibberish she speaks all the time!)
**She knows how to climb up the stairs, and is learning how to get down (safely)
**She loves the water - bath time is a favorite and she likes going to the pool
**She can point to her eyes, nose, mouth, hair, tummy and toes
**She has really become interested in books.  She will sit down with a book and babble to herself for 5 minutes or more - it's adorable!

We will have her 15 month doctor appointment at the end of the month.  Her 1 year appointment was delayed about a week, because our doctor was on vacation.  She has to have shots again at 15 months, so it had to be spaced right, and our doctor is going to be on vacation again the week we were due to go, so we won't be seeing him until the 31st.  I'm interested to see how much she's grown!

This sweet little girl is the light of our lives right now.  Many nights, we talk in bed before we go to sleep, and we just reminisce about things she did during the day, or just how amazing she is.  We love her so much, and just can't believe how much she has changed our lives for the better!

**On the pictures . . . I had received 2 sets of monthly labels for 1-12 months, so I "doctored" one set to try and make a 15 month sticker.  It's not that great, but at least it helps me keep track!