Four Months and Counting

Okay, yes, I dropped off the face of the earth. I'm back.

It's been stressful around here the last few weeks. Don't want to go into any details, especially since there is now a light at the end of the tunnel, and we're pretty sure this time it isn't a train.

Kiki's 4 months old now! I know, I need a 4-month pic of her, which I will take this weekend during her -- TADA!!! -- first solid meal! Yay!!! I cannot WAIT. We're all prepared and everything. Spoons, bowls with lids, cereal. Kipp even went and got some Level 1 fruits and such.

The doctor, though, told me to skip the Level 1's altogether, because they're too runny. Still, I'll feed 'em to her. Not right away... 2 weeks of cereal once a day, then start introducing new foods for 4-5 days at a time.

I explain this to Kipp, who only got 1 container of about 3 different fruits (not to mention an Apple flavored rice cereal in addition to the regular rice cereal), and he gave me a blank look. "You remember," I said, patiently, "slow introductions of food?"

"We never did that with C & B," he replied.

Wow.

I explained we definitely had to with Kiki, since I myself have food allergies. This also took him by surprise. We've been married almost 2 years now, and he didn't know I had food allergies. Well, they're not severe, and it never came up.

Anyway.

She had her 4-month shots yesterday, and the poor thing is miserable and feverish today. We've been giving her infant Tylenol, which is just basically knocking her out, and she hates to sleep this much, but there's not much else we can do for her. Even just cuddling her makes her start fussing and screaming after a little while.

She's 14 pounds and 24 inches now, which puts her at the 70th percentile for length and 50th percentile for weight -- on the regular chart!!! Yay! Again, this child amazes me. She's just bound and determined to be a normal baby. That's my girl!

And bless GoddessKristin who wrote this to me this week: "You know, my aunt is a special education teacher and she told me that a lot of her students with Downs are voracious readers. Since you'd written in your blog that you wondered about Kiki's reading I thought I'd pass that on."

K, you will never know how much you brightened my week with that. :)

OH! I almost forgot to relate this week's cute story. Today, I had Kiki in her bouncy chair, and left the room to get something. When I came back in, Sugar was standing right next to her. Kiki was holding her hand up to her, and staring at her while Sugar licked her hand. Sugar leaned in to kiss her nose, and Kiki started petting the underside of Sugar's chin, then started grabbing at Sugar's tags.

One of those moments where I definitely wished I had a video camera surgically attached to my forehead so I could keep those memories forever.