Katie bugs

I feel like the worst mother ever. The last Katie update was at 2 months. Hello, she is going on 6 months. I cant remember the last time I picked up the camera and took a picture of Katie. I think it was probably July 24th? I used to do big updates on Issac as he grew and Katie has nothing. I know, I know, they say that the first always has everything and the more you have the less and less each one gets. I don't want to be that way! I want to remember her milestones too! Here comes the "but I have NO time!" excuse right? Its the truth. If I had more time I could blog more, and thus the memories would be forever encapsulated in the digital world. Right? Sure. Excuse me while I go cry.

So now that I have some time, or shall I say am making the time I am going to overload you on Katie pictures. No particular order to these, just random times I did actually get out the camera. If I remember anything about the picture or why I took it I'll enlighten you with a caption. I do have several videos I need to upload, however that takes a million years so stay tuned for a post with nothing but videos.

Before I drown you with pictures I want to tell you about my Katie lady. She's all girl. She's even got the high pitched girl scream down. I told Donavon a long time ago I thought she was going to be our screamer. Why? She's always gone from totally content to the world is ending and I needed my bottle 5 minutes ago within 2 seconds. No fussing or starting to get upset. 0 to 60 in a spilt second. The girl has a temper. Just recently she has mastered her scream. She is now starting to do it when no one is paying attention to her and she is getting bored.

That's another thing about her. She doesn't like to get bored. She needs to be entertained. Lucky for her she has an older brother who is always up to something, and 3 little girls next door who are always over. Last year I used to joke there was an Issac fan club. Everyone came over to hug and kiss on Issac and talk about how cute he was. Its not the Katie fan club. Issac is chopped liver. Sorry bud. Mommy still thinks you are the cutest little dude!

At about 5 months we gave Katie a taste of rice cereal, she loves it. She's always loved her food. I'm sure when we start her on veggies she will be thrilled. At dinner time we sit her in the Bumbo and she sits there, practically trying to claw her way out and watches us like 'you're going to give me a taste right?'.

She sure loves to suck on her fingers too. Used to be her pointer and thumb, but just in the last week its turned to more of just the thumb. I think its official. I have a thumb sucker. You can pull her thumb out, stick her binky in and she will pull the binky out and stick her thumb back in. She loves to look at magazines, and books. She'll try to eat them if you aren't careful. When I sit at the computer trying to pay bills or something I give her a cellophane candy bag left over from our wedding and she loves crinkling it. She also really likes all of her toys. Not to long ago I busted out the exersaucer and she loves that. She's even a TV watcher. She watched Beauty and the Beast with her brother a few weeks ago.

Back in July Miss Katie was in the hospital. I mean to blog about it after it happened, just like I meant to blog about a million other things. However trying to get my baby girl feeling well and carrying on in other daily things takes priority. I believe it was the weekend after my birthday, I had been noticing this squeak when she cried. I kept telling Donavon and he didn't notice it. It started to get worse and worse and then it was an ear piercing squeak every time she'd cry. It was a Friday morning and I called the Doctor's office to talk to the nurse. She wasn't sure but said bring her in and we will check her out since its Friday and we don't want her to get any worse over the weekend if we can fix it now.

We had a wedding reception to attend that night as well, we rushed up to the Dr on the way to the reception. The Dr checked her out and never heard the squeak, however the nurse heard it and backed us up. The Dr said everything looked fine, however she wanted to rule out foreign body obstruction just to be safe. If it was, whatever it was could dislodge at any time and she could stop breathing. She ordered up x-rays and sent us on our way. Donavon dropped us off at the hospital while he and Issac went wedding gift shopping. Got the x-rays done and off we went.

Went to dinner, went to the wedding reception, came home, helped the neighbor with some yard work, chatted away... then we got a phone call, or shall I say, missed the phone call. It was the Dr. I listened to her message and my heart sank, that isn't a good message. She didn't say anything bad but she said 'call me back and we'll discuss what to do from here'. I called her back and she explains to me that she isn't able to see the actual x-ray from home but read the notes from the hospital and in so many words when they laid her on her side to take the x-ray, her lung didn't collapse like it should from the weight of the other lung and heart. No object was found on the film, however since the lung didn't collapse, that suggests something is blocking her airway from letting air in/out. So hurry your buns on into the hospital, but it has to be Primary Children's in Salt Lake because no one else will be willing to touch her she's so small. This was about 9:30pm. We hurried and gathered everything up, packed a bag for Issac and rushed to the hospital. The whole time I'm panicking that she might stop breathing. Donavon's parents met us at the hospital and Donavon and his Dad gave her a blessing and then they took Issac home for the night so we could be there with Katie.

They took her on back to the ER and so the process began. Before we knew it there where about 12 Dr's or wannabe Dr's in the room. Yikes, really? I'm all for teaching but wow. Some of the ER staff heard the whistle/squeak however none of the important Dr's did. (This whistle sounded like the beaver off of Winnie the Pooh, you know how he whistles when he talks? She sounded like that when she cried). All her vitals were fine so there was no rush, they finally sent down the specialist from surgery and he said they were going to have to knock her out and scope her to really rule out anything. They sent in someone to do the IV. Oh my gosh... Have you ever seen them do an IV on a little baby? Heart breaking and gut wrenching. Big tough combat medic Daddy couldn't even watch. I thought they were going to break her wrist. It was going on 1am, he (the Dr) was yawning like crazy. He finally said, look I'm tired, you're tired, her vitals are fine and the OR is crazy right now so lets all get some sleep, and I'll do it first thing in the morning when the OR opens up. So they admitted us and took us to the "you aren't good enough to have a real room, but we cant keep you in the ER all night" wing of the hospital. Aka, the ghetto part.

The poor girl hadn't eaten anything in hours. They wouldn't let me feed her because she had to have an empty tummy for surgery. Really? And remember me just saying she gets MAD, especially when she's hungry? I did everything to keep that little girl asleep and then those nurses would come in every hour to take her vitals. Taking her temperature seems simple but noooo, they had to strip her down and do it up the bum each time. Really? Do you really have to keep waking her? After each time they'd smile and say 'try to get some rest' as they'd walk on out. Yeah, thanks. Donavon and I slept on a twin size sofa bed. It was awesome. They wouldn't even let me lay on the sofa and hold her to sleep. "You might drop her on her head, its protocol, she has to remain in the crib".

They told us 6am, turns out they really meant 8am. Time to roll, she's the first one on the list for the OR. We wheel her up to the OR and the anesthesiologist greats us, assures us our cuter than ever baby girl will be fine, and they take her away. I wanted to melt down. I kept reminding myself its a quick scope, not heart surgery. About 45 minutes later she was done and the Dr comes out. Couldn't find anything. Her lungs look very healthy and as soon as she wakes up and eats you can go home. Awesome, she's healthy and fine but... she whistles when she cries. Why? They don't know. Thanks.

She finally woke up, ate, and we waited for.ever. Finally Donavon went and asked the nurse can we go?? She ate a few hours ago! Turns out the nurse Donavon told didn't tell Katie's nurse so we had been waiting for nothing. We finally got out of there and went home. Oh forgot to mention when she came to, and started to cry she was now barking like a dog. I said 'whoa, why is she doing that' the nurse said 'sounds like a normal baby cry to me' Yeah if you have 4 legs and are covered in fur!!! Ugh. I wanted to punch her. Snot.

So we went home, and the bark went away within the day and the whistle has slowly faded away. She had her 4 month check in the next few days and the Dr said that her muscles in the airway were probably weak and that they maybe collapse a bit when she cries, causing the whistle/squeak, but the scope wouldn't show that obviously because she wasn't crying.

{Waiting in the ER all hooked up. Luckily Issac left a blankie behind because she calmed right down once I wrapped her in his blankie too. Must have been comforting to smell him?}

{Being a sweet little Angel, finally asleep and starving to death!}

{Post-Op still knocked out. Check out that IV cast. Poor thing!}

Happy to announce its gone.

Her 2 month stats where: 23" tall, 10.1lbs, and her head was 14.5"

Her 4 month stats where: 23.3" tall, 11.15lbs and her head was 15.3"

As for what else is new with Katie she is a happy girl in the mornings and when she wakes up from her nap. she can be quite the pill and gets pretty fussy. However in the last few weeks it seems to have gotten a bit better. There was a few weeks I wanted to cry, and some days I did just that. There was absolutely nothing I could do to get her calm and happy. All my time was spent trying to figure out a way to make her happy and in turn Issac was having a hard time and throwing extra fits. I felt like every time I got her to be happy or go to sleep he'd wake her up. Things are improving.

Katie loves to be held, and she loves to be watching everything going on. She's already getting frustrated at not being able to run with the big kids and gets upset when she cant see where they went. She's also intrigued by the neighbor girls baby dolls.

Oh and she loves to pull hair. Just ask Issac. She got his one day and had about 20 hairs in her hand.

Big brother likes holding her too. He will ask from time to time to hold her, holds her on his lap for about 15 seconds, gives her a kiss and then is done. When she gets upset he'll give her a hug or find a binky.

Still not sleeping through the night either. She's up at about 2:30 then 6:30 or 7.

{May 22 - just chillin in bed... sideways...}

{May 27th - Loving the swing, trying so hard to talk to Momma}

...Ok my internet always moves slower than cold tar when I blog, I kid not. So instead of waiting 10 years for each picture to upload you get collages. Sorry. To see each picture better, click on the collage and it will bring up the collage in a browser of its own... Sorry I need to simplify my life.

Left to Right - Clockwise - for all collages, got it?

{1. July 20th - Katie grew tired waiting for me, cant remember what I was doing, but apparently it was boring!  2 &3. July 4th - according to the camera, I say the 5th who knows... Katie in her bumbo while Issac and I made play dough  4. June 25th - She likes to sit sideways in her bumbo, and suck on the side of it. Weirdo.}

{1. July 20th - Katie loves the exersaucer!  2. July 6th - She loves her play mat too!  3. July 8th - Keeping coooool in Mom's shades!}

{1. June 30th - Cutie pie after her bath! With the towel covering her hair she looks just like brother!  2. May 30th - Napping peacefully, so sweet!  3. July 5th - She fell asleep holding her zebra, which at the time was her favorite toy. I have one of Issac holding his elephant just like this!  4. August 12th - Sprawl out baby girl!}

 {1. July 7th - Katie & Great Grandma Henderson  2. May 27th - Watching boring TV with Dad  3. July 5th - Playing with Mom while the neighbor snaps a quick one.}

{August 8th - Looking adorable in her Bumbo. Spitting image of her father I tell you. Looks like Donavon with a purple bow in his hair!}