9 month checkup

Payton had her 9 month well visit today, she is staying right on track, she is 28 1/4 inchs long, which is 75%, 18 lbs, 14 oz, which is 70%. Her iron levels are good. She didn't even cry when the tech pricked her finger, and then she tried to eat the bandaid, so we took that off pretty fast! All in all, it was a pretty quick appointment, he said to start feeding her meats, and that yogurt and cheese are ok now too. He also said we need to take her out of the infant carrier by 20 pounds. We are ok for now, but we only have about a month to go, then she needs to be in a big girl car seat. And he said she'll probably have to face backwards until she's 2! He said there's a lot of new research, and it's being considered for a law so not to rush and turn her around at a year until I go back in and make sure the law hasn't changed any. I can't imagine that, but we'll do it if that's the law. Poor thing, I guess she won't know any different other then seeing Garrett facing forward. I want her to be safe, but 2 seems like a long time!

9 months old

Payton was 9 months old on Tuesday! I can hardly believe it. She was not interested in having her picture taken, and just wanted to play with the sign I made. She is very much a playful little girl. She has 4 teeth, 2 top & 2 bottom, I've been trying to get the top two in a picture, but she moves a lot and it's hard to catch her with the right smile so you can see the teeth.

She's still pulling up on everything and now she's trying to stand on her own. She cruises along the furniture a bit, but seems pretty content to crawl and pull up, and that's ok with me! She waves bye-bye now and gets super excited if you wave at her. She started dancing this week and that is just SO cute! She also loves to hit things and hear the noises it makes. Her favorite thing is to smack the couch and giggle. She "talks" a lot, I have no idea where she gets that from, lol! As always her favorite is G, she just follows him around and gets the biggest grin when he pays attention to her, which is quite often, he seems to like her just as much, and that makes me SO happy.

She loves playing in his room. When given the chance, she heads straight for his room or the bathroom, she LOVES the tub. She will go stand by it and yell, like she wants to get in, and if the water is running, she comes flying in the bathroom and tries to climb in. She gets so excited to be in it and cries when you take her out. She also hates having her diaper changed, all the sudden she will wiggle and cry when you lay her down, it's a real pain!

But, she is just such a joy and a great addition to our family! I can't see what else is coming up.

Preschool

Garrett is loving school! He was moved up from a 3 year old to a 4 year old class. His teacher Ms MiMi, said he loves to learn and wants to please her, he has some issues with keeping his hands to himself, but she said that's more about being a 3 year old boy then anything and they are working on it. Recently she told me she thinks he may be a lefty and I'm supposed to encourage this. As if I wouldn't! But, she said whichever hand he grabs the pencil or scissors with, to let him use that hand. Of course, I'm right handed so helping him cut left handed is definitely tricky, but she gave me some tips and we'll see how he does. He loves to write, they've done the A and the B, for some reason he wants to write the A all the time, the B never, but we're working on it! Logan did not get moved up with him, so his new best friends are Turner and Libby (or new girl, as he calls her). He really does seem to be learning a lot and I"m glad we decided to send him to preschool this year. In the evenings we'll try to get him to repeat some of the stuff they did in school and he'll tell us, "I already did that once today", lol!

He loves to read, we recently went to the library to check out some books and he just stared at all the books. He wanted 2 Star Wars books and I got him a Dr. Suess one, he read mine once and hasn't wanted to read it since, but the Star Wars ones are read multiple times a day. I will stop reading and he will fill in the blanks, I am very impressed by this! If someone didn't know better, they'd think he was reading the book. I'm amazed that he's memorized it that well and that fast. The books go back on Thursday, so I've been spending the week prepping him. He keeps asking if he can get a Luke Skywalker book, I told him we'd look.

I can see his "skills" improving so much, he stays in the lines SO much better, and actually chooses different colors now, he cuts remarkably well, loves to glue things and of course, loves to write. I really hope this love of school continues!

8 months

I can not believe that Payton is 8 months old already!! She was 8 months on Saturday. I am just floored at how fast time flies by. She is doing great. She is crawling, quite fast I might add, she is pulling up on everything, and twice on Sunday, she let go! She loves big kid food, cries if I don't give her something she can feed herself at meal times. She still loves baby food and since I figure she's getting so much variety that way, I give her the cereal and baby food and then some food she can feed to herself. She has figured out how to drink from a cup, she does not like the ones with handles, she likes G's cups, but refuses to hold a bottle. She will actually put her hands up in a "stick-em-up" kind of pose, and cry until you pick her up and give her the bottle. Most times, this is fine with me, but every once in a while, it would be really nice if she would hold it herself! She still has the acid reflux, as a matter of fact, we just increased her does on Friday. Sadly, as of today, she is still spitting up a TON! This I hate more then anything, I know it makes her uncomfortable, and as much as Matt & I hate giving her so much medicine every day, we can truly see she is not ready to go off the meds yet. Her top teeth are just below the surface, I can see the one and it's SO close to breaking through. It looks like her incisors are coming in too, no wonder we've had so much trouble with her sleeping through the night!

She still has the strawberry blonde hair and the blue eyes, she's 18 pounds, and oh so happy! She makes the cutest face where she scrunches her whole face up and smiles and snorts at you. I've been trying to get a picture of it, but when she sees me raise the camera, it distracts her.

We are finally getting her baptized this weekend. I know she's a tad old, but we never seemed to have all the family together that we wanted. Since my parents will be here, we figured it was time!

So, Happy 8 month birthday Peanut!

Kidney Stone

On Thursday night, I had put the kids to bed and Matt & I were watching tv, and I got this horrible lower back pain. It was a little after 8, and by 8:30, I was laying on our bedroom floor. Matt told me I needed to go to the ER or he was calling 911. I decided to drive to the Physician's Center, since it's SO close to our house. Turns out I was in the process of passing a kidney stone! This was my second one, so we kind of suspected as much, the Dr just confirmed it. The funny thing is, The ER was SO small! I think there was only one actual exam room, my bed was in the hall. I kidded about it, but I actually preferred it, at least I was right next to the nurses station and had someone to chat with. They gave me fluids, and did a CT scan. The Dr said it appeared to be stuck and that I was having trouble peeing (I had noticed this), so he sent me home and had me follow up with a Urologist on Friday. In all, I was in the ER for less then 3 hours, I'd highly recommend that ER for anyone needing anything not too serious, they do not handle any trauma, no strokes, heart attacks, kids or pregnant women (I found that out last year), but for kidney stones, pulled muscles, sports injuries, pneumonia, etc, they are great!

The urologist looked at the scan and said it was a decent size stone, and if I didn't pass it within a week, they would look at other options, blasting it, or surgery if it really wasn't moving. The funny thing was, on Friday I had almost no pain, the Dr said this is perfectly normal, the pain normally comes and goes. Well, Saturday morning, I passed the stone. So, no surgery, no x-ray, no more Dr's visit. I believe that was pretty fast for passing a stone, but I honestly have no idea!

The Dr feels it's from my lack of Calcium, so I will be taking a calcium supplement to try and prevent this in the future.

Back to the Dr

So, Payton is looking worse then ever, so I took her back to the Dr today. Big surprise, no ear infections! She has a tear duct infection, I have never heard of such a thing. But there is a duct that runs from your eyes to your nose (that's why your nose runs when you cry), well, she has so much congestion that hers are all clogged up. So, I am to finish the antibiotics (had planned on it anyway), but now I have the joy of putting eye drops in her eyes now! I asked about the congestion, he said she managed to get a virus and that's probably what caused the start of all of this. But, he feels she should be a lot better in a couple days, I'm hoping so!

7 months old

Last Thursday, Payton turned 7 months old, with all the "fun" we were having with medicine and eye boogers and snotty noses, I haven't had a chance to post the couple pictures I got of her.

She is crawling all over the place, I have to make sure we keep doors closed to keep her out of the pantry, laundry room and anywhere else she doesn't need to be. Her favorite thing is when I put her down in her room, she takes off across the house to my bedroom. Head down just on a mission. I have no idea what is so fun about my room, but if we can't find Payton, that's where she is, every time! And when I say, "can't find Payton", no I don't leave her unsupervised, but I do need to go to the bathroom and sometimes help G, often when I come back, she is not where I left her!

She is pulling up on everything, this is crazy to me because she's 7 MONTHS old!! She tries to crawl with her legs straight, she pulls up on anything that doesn't move, it's just amazing. The Dr said she'd crawl and walk early, and I have to say, he was right! Now, she very well could just pull up on things and cruise around for months, but I'm guessing She'll be walking by 9 months, maybe sooner.

She loves to eat. She loves her baby food, and she loves every bit of adult food I've given her. The Dr originally said 9 months, but I didn't listen :) She loves real bananas, strawberries, bread, her yogurt bites, the baby puffs. Anything I can mash fairly easily, she's eating.

Her eyes are still blue, and she still doesn't have enough hair for a barrette or ponytail of any kind!

She is happy almost all the time! She is such a joy, she will just sit on the floor and laugh at us, Garrett is by far still her favorite, if she's fussing while I get her food ready, he'll run over and make faces at her and she'll shriek with laughter, it's great!