Memorial Tattoo

I've finally decided on a tattoo and placing!  I'm very excited to get it! It's been a little over a year since my due date, and I'm hoping to get it done soon.

I'm going to get this design in light blue on my left wrist. 

I carry you within my heart

as I will never carry you in my arms.

For every step of my life

and when God calls me home,

I will see you, and know my baby.

5 Months

At 5 months, Kaitlyn:

• Is starting to teeth.  Her little gums are swollen, she's a little cranky, and chews on everything all day long. 
• Has been sucking on her bottom lip...she looks exactly like the little baby on the show 'Dinosaurs'. 
• Is talking and squealing more and more. 
• Laughs when you tickle her, make a funny face, or 'drop' her.  She loves being scared!!!
• Is wearing 6-9 month and 12 month clothing.  She outgrows everything SO fast!!!
• Rolls over like a champ. She spends more time on her tummy than her back.  She now loves tummy time. 
• Is sitting up more.  She sits up in her bath and in chairs. She's still working on sitting well on a flat surface. 
• Eats 3 meals a day.  She has rice cereal and fruit for breakfast (3-4oz of food), rice cereal for lunch(3oz), and oatmeal and a vegetable for supper(4oz).  Her favorite food so far is bananas. 
• Also gets 30 ounces of milk a day.  She nurses in the morning, gets a 10am bottle, nurses at 12pm, bottle at 2:30, and nurses at 7pm before bed. 
• Loves to walk!  We hold her hands and she loves to walk all over the house...usually trying to chase the dog.....poor Buster!
• Scoots around in her car.  She only scoots backwards at the moment!
• LOVES the water!!!  She's gonna be our little fish! Hubby better get to digging out a spot for a swimming pool in the backyard!
• Has a budding personality.  She's starting to let us know what she wants and why!

She makes the funniest faces. 

LOVE her laugh!!!

She loves books, especially the ones she can chew on!

Trip to the Zoo

This past weekend, we ventured to the zoo with my parents, brother and his girlfriend.  I didn't expect Kaitlyn to do much other than chill out in her stroller, eat and nap.  Boy, was I wrong!  In the morning she did exactly what I expected.....just chilled. But in the afternoon, we ventured to the aquarium and that is when she surprised me!  She was sick of sitting in her stroller, so I took her out and just carried her around.

She was fascinated by the fish!  She loved  looking at everything and I'm pretty sure her eyes couldn't open any further!

Missing out??

As we approach my due date, I find myself thinking about what I would be doing now if things had happened like I wanted them too.  Right now, I'm sure I'd be busy planning a first birthday party and putting invitations in the mail.

I'm conflicted inside.  Part of me misses Taylor and thinks about what would have been.  The other part of me knows that we were blessed with Kaitlyn because we lost Taylor.  It seems like an impossible situation to be in.  I feel like if I'm missing Taylor, I'm wishing Kaitlyn wasn't here. On the other hand, if I'm giving all my attention to Kaitlyn, I'm feeling like I'm forgetting that we lost Taylor.  Some days are easier to handle, but today is one of those overwhelming days.

I'm lost.  That's what it boils down to.  I feel like I'm on a road and instead of it forking into two, it forks into a circle....I just keep going to circles inside.   I haven't been able to be at peace with my loss and I haven't been able to be at peace with our child.

I'm sure one day, I'll look back and realize this was all part of God's plan for me.  I know that my struggles bring me closer to Him, but at the moment I really wish I wasn't struggling with this.

A life worth remembering and celebrating...no matter how short.

4 Months

Our little princess is growing so fast!!!  At the doctor this past week she was 26 inches long and 16 pounds 14 ounces.

At 4 months, Kaitlyn:

• still sleeps through the night.  Every so often she'll get her limbs stuck in the crib and needs help getting them out, but she always goes right back to sleep. 
• has learned to talk with her lips closed......it's the only way she's been talking for the last week.  Her daddy is sure that she'll be a ventriloquist someday. :)
• is talking and babbling a lot less.....I'm pretty sure it's because she's watching everything and everyone so closely that she doesn't have time to talk. 
• takes a nightly bath.  She loves to splash and kick and squirm!  I'm pretty sure that it's her favorite part of the day!
• is still eating every 2-3 hours (depending on naps) and still eats 5 ounces at a time. 
• wears a mixture of clothing sizes.  Most of her clothes are 6-9 months, but she has a few 3-6 months and few 12 months mixed in. 
• LOVES daycare!  She gets excited in the morning when I strap her in the car to go and is all smiles when I hand her over to Cathy!
• has discovered that she can bounce in her activity gym.....sometimes she gets a little crazy and jumbles herself up too much resulting in a little spit-up. 
• rolled over for the first time this past Saturday!!! I've been trying to get her to do it again, but she's teasing me!
• still loves to stand up.  Hubby and I have been just giving her our fingers and a little boost to get her from laying down....the rest is all her. 
• likes to scoot around in her 'car'.  She's not quite tall enough to push it around with her feet yet, but her daddy indulges her. 
• has figured out that she is flexible enough to put her feet in her mouth.  This morning, I had to peel slobber-soaked jammie feet off of her. She is absolutely amazed by her feet. 
• laughs a lot.  She laughs the most when she is scared.  If you scare her enough to make her jump, there are lots of cute, loud laughs pouring out of her mouth!

Update:  At her 4 month doctor's appointment, Kaitlyn weighed 16lbs, 14oz and was 27 inches long!  She's in the 95th Percentile for weight and off the chart for height!!

Daycare musings.....

I was terrified of sending Kaitlyn to daycare.   How was someone else going to take care of my daughter??? I'm a very hands on mommy....and dropping her off for someone else to take care of did not sound like something I wanted to do.  I knew I had too.  It was necessary to continue our lives as we know it....we could hunker down, cut out all of our 'fun' costs, and hubby's salary could cover our bills.....but that's not something we're willing to do.  So with that, Kaitlyn started daycare.

My worrying was useless!!!  It was really tough on me to drop her off in the morning, but thankfully I go feed her during lunch so I don't have to go long without seeing her!  The time that she's at daycare seems very odd to me.  I've been so used to her being with me all day, that it seems like something is missing!

What makes it SO much easier is that she LOVES daycare!!!!  She gets very excited in the morning when I strap her into her seat.  When we get to Cathy's, she 'happy' screams and kicks and laughs!  She loves being able to talk to Evie (a baby her age) and loves to watch the older kids throughout the day. It also helps that Cathy is so understanding, attentive, and helpful! She is such a wonderful daycare provider!

It makes this mama very happy to see her girl happy and makes me feel so much better about the whole daycare thing.  I'm sure that as daycare becomes part of our routine (it's only been 2 weeks) that it'll be much easier for me to accept.

First Day of Daycare

We were fortunate that we were able to find daycare for Kaitlyn.  Cathy is one of the best places to go in town and is the hardest to get into.  I called at just the right time, had the right age of child, and needed care for the right days.  God sure was watching out for us!

As good as I know Cathy is, it was HORRIBLE having to leave my little girl this morning! What made it worse was that she was crying!  Nothing could have prepared me for having to drop Kaitlyn off at daycare.  After I left, I called my hubby bawling and told him that he should have dropped her off.  It really broke my heart!

What made it a little easier was knowing that I would see her in a few hours.  My plan is to visit daycare over my lunch hour and nurse her, so I don't have to pump and so I get some time in with my baby!  I literally was counting the minutes this morning until lunch time and seeing my little girl - even if it was for just an hour, that hour really helped ease my nerves!

She was happy when I arrived and when I had to leave, she was happy when I handed her back to Cathy.  I'm sure that dropping her off in the mornings will get easier, but for the time being I'll be going through a lot of Kleenex!!