"Hi"

Not much new to report this week. Caitlin certainly did a lot better than she did last week though! She seems like she's back to her old self and has started doing some new things. She's really starting to try to climb a lot more and has also started waving and saying "hi" when she sees people! She also has started dancing when she hears music. It's so cute to watch her start bouncing up and down when she hears music. :) She seems like she has unlimited energy sometimes. This week was pretty uneventful, I was on call until Friday morning so most of our nights were spent at home. Friday night we went to a retirement party for my Director who retired today. We wish her all of the best in her retirement and I will miss working for her.

Saturday night Toni planned a "Bachelorette" party for Sarah. They all went to a spa for some pampering and then out to dinner. It sounds like they all had a good time. :) I stayed home with Caitlin and Dan. We had a good time just hanging out watching Family Guy and Men in Black. :) Sunday Dan and I went to see G.I. Joe. It was ok. Mostly just a lot of action and explosions. Not a bad movie, but not a great one either. Hopefully this week will be pretty quiet. Hope everyone has a great week!

What a week.......

What a week! This week was one of those weeks that I hope not to repeat any time soon! Monday started off with Caitlin getting sick. When I got up to go wake her up in the morning I walked out of our room and was immediately hit with an extremely unpleasant smell. When I got to Caitlin's room, I found her with poop running up her shirt and on her legs and on the mattress! She didn't like getting put into the shower fully clothed but we managed to get things cleaned up and get her dressed. We figured that she had just had a diaper blowout and weren't too concerned. Unfortunately, she got pretty sick at school and blew out a few more diapers and then threw up quite a bit on herself. :( It was so bad that they had to change her clothes and give us her old ones in a tightly wrapped bag. The day care called us around 4:00 and told us that she wasn't doing well and that we should come and pick her up. I left work early and picked her up. Monday night she didn't have much of an appetite so I stayed home sick from work to take care of her. To top off her Monday, she had also fallen at daycare while trying to run and ended up falling face first onto the floor. She ended up with a scrape on her nose and a bruise in the middle of her forehead.

Tuesday I used some sick time and stayed home with her. She slept a lot and didn't want to eat or drink much. She started the morning with another leaking diaper which I luckily saw before it got too bad. :) By Tuesday night she was eating and drinking a little more so we took her to school on Wednesday. Within 20 minutes of dropping her off the daycare called and told us that she was throwing up her breakfast. We asked them to give her some dry Cheerios and water and let us know how she did with that. By 9:00 they had called back and told us that she was still throwing up even bland food so I left work early to take her to the Doctor. The Doctor said she had a virus and that she didn't look dehydrated but we needed to get some wet diapers from Caitlin and needed to give her Pedialyte, Gatorade or even watered down Sprite. I spent the rest of Wednesday home with her and was able to get her drinking a little and get some wet diapers. Toni stayed home with her on Thursday and Friday to make sure she was ok. Thursday night Caitlin's bad luck continued. She opened one of the drawers on our coffee table and pulled out 2 glass coasters and started looking at them. I told her to put them away but ignoring me, she started clanking them together and one of them broke! I immediately picked her up in fear that she would step on some of the pieces and as I was checking her over, I found a drop of blood on my hand. I started panicking because I couldn't find where the blood had come from at first. She had a small cut on her pinkie and thumb. :( We patched her up with band-aids which she didn't like at first. The only way we could get her to stop trying to take the band-aids off was to show her a band-aid and put it on her thigh. :)

On Friday things started going better. Toni and Caitlin came to join me for lunch and Caitlin started seeming like her old self. To cap off the week, she slipped while trying to climb out of her crib and hit her face 0n the edge of the crib and got a little mark on her cheek. :( What a rough week this was for her!

This weekend was pretty slow for us. On Saturday we just stayed around the house because I was on call. We did make a quick trip to Wal-Mart but that was about it. Sunday we went out to dinner to celebrate Uncle Dan's 34th birthday and Nana Bev's 61st. We went out to eat and at the restaurant, Caitlin started picking up food with her spoon and started feeding herself! I got a quick video of it on my phone. It was cool to see but she quickly realized that it was faster and easier to use her hands and reverted back to that. :) We had a nice time and it was a good way to end the week.

Tonight Toni started cutting Caitlin's hair (as long as she would cooperate) and I heard from my life long friend Mike who is currently living in California. His daughter is graduating from Basic Training here in San Antonio in mid October so he'll be coming out for about a week to see her. It should be a lot of fun to see him again and I look forward to catching up with him. :-) Hope everyone has a great week!

Take me out to the ballgame..

This weekend we took Caitlin to her first baseball game with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Dan. We went to see the San Antonio Missions tonight and while she didn't seem too interested in the game, she definitely enjoyed the mascots. Her face lit up when she saw "Ball-a-peno" (a guy in a jalapeno pepper suit) running around the bases. She kept smiling, laughing and pointing at him. She also couldn't stop smiling and laughing when, "Henry the puffy taco" was on the field. After Henry came off the field, Caitlin went over and got to meet him. In the 2nd picture she doesn't look like she's having much fun but she really did enjoy it. After he left, she kept pointing at him and was trying to talk and smiling. :) We didn't stay for the entire game but had fun and hope to make another trip out to watch them play again soon.

This week Caitlin also started waving hello and we think saying the word "hi". When she waves hello now she actually waves her hand and when she's saying goodbye, she is still closing her hand together as if trying to grab something. She was very excited to see her Nana Bev and Grampa Bob on Saturday night as well. When she saw them, she came running around the corner with arms open and smiling and ran up for a big hug! She had a great visit with them and I think she really enjoyed spending time with them.

This week there's going to be a change for me - My schedule at work will be changing to 8-5. I'm looking forward to not having to be there until 8 rather than 7 but I will miss getting off at 4. I'll probably have double the commute time now. Oh well....

In other news, Toni has started a blog of her own to document our lives from her point of view! Anyone interested in what's going on in our lives should definitely give it a look - http://sweetpeanutdiary.blogspot.com/. I'm going to get to bed. I'm going to try to continue getting up early so I can start working out at least 20 minutes or so before going to work now. Hopefully that'll work for me. :)

Child proofing...

Hello everyone! Sorry this post is a little later than usual. This weekend we stayed home and watched a movie and on Sunday Sarah and Dan stopped by to visit. We also decided it was time to childproof the kitchen. In the first picture, Caitlin was sitting on my lap while I was test fitting the door locks on the cabinet doors. When I started testing them, she came over and sat on my lap and started watching. It was really cool how she wanted to sit with me and she's getting more affectionate every day. Besides wanting to sit with me while I was working, she's also started hugging more and has even started trying to climb up onto our chair to be close to us. It's the coolest feeling to pick her up at daycare and see her face light up when she sees us and excitedly walks over to us with her arms wide open wanting to give us a hug. :)

This week Caitlin also tried walking in slippers! In the second picture above she was walking around in her Pooh slippers. She seemed more interested in Pooh than walking. She's also continued this week to get more teeth. She's started getting 2 molars on top to go with her 6 teeth she already has. The funny thing is, her first 2 teeth came out on the bottom and the next 6 have all been on top! Her hair has also started getting longer and she now has some pieces in the back and on the sides that are flipping and curling. :) We've had to cut her bangs once already and we're going to have to cut them again very soon.

The only other new development is that she is understanding a lot of phrases now. She understands, "pat Shiloh", "give me a kiss", "high five", "give me five", and "come here".

Today at school Caitlin also had a dental screening and they said everything looks great! We've got our normal 6 month checkup next month and we're going to ask our Dentist when we should bring Caitlin in to have her teeth checked. Hope everyone has a great week!

Eye appointment

This morning we had a follow up appointment with an eye specialist for Caitlin and everything went well. Her problem where her right eye won't move to the right is still there and always will be but it's minor and not causing any problems with her vision. The Doctor wants us to bring her for another follow up in February and if everything looks good then, we'll only follow up once a year. Overall the news was good.

In other news, this week Caitlin started kissing! She still either pecks your cheek with her face or gives you a big, slobbery open mouth kiss on the cheek but it's obvious she knows what she's doing and when we ask for a kiss, she'll usually give us one. :-)

"Da-da"

This week Caitlin figured out how to open the cabinet doors in the kitchen.. In the 1st picture, she was standing at the kitchen island opening and closing the door and laughing and smiling the whole time. We've been paying extra attention to her when we're in the kitchen now and will need to get the cabinet doors baby proofed soon. She is walking around now more than ever and loves to explore. She's started pulling out hats and trying to put them on herself and will take them off of our heads if we have one on. The only thing that seems to be able to divert her attention from exploring is cartoons! She really seems to enjoy Mickey's Playhouse and watched The Cat in the Hat this afternoon. She seems to enjoy watching them but we're trying to limit her viewing so she doesn't become a couch potato! :-)

This week she also said her first words (we think)! She's pointed at Shiloh in the past and said "Doggie" and has pointed at a baby and said "baby" but we were never positive that she wasn't just making her normal babbling sounds. This week though, she pointed at me and said "Da-da" on several occasions. Each time, she pointed at me and smiled and said it! It was so cool! She also understands some of what we're saying as well. She understands "come here", "no", "cookie" and "food" among other things.

In other news, she also has another tooth coming out! She now has her 5th tooth coming out on top and has 2 out on the bottom. She's teething quite a bit and seems to be using her pacifier more now than she did when she was younger. She also moved off of formula this week and is on milk only now. She's doing great with that and seems to enjoy it. She also tried drinking water from my water bottle this week. Now when she sees me with a bottle of water she'll come stand next to me and open her mouth really wide. She acts like drinking from a real bottle is a fun game and really enjoys it. :-)

This week should be pretty busy. Caitlin has an appointment with the eye doctor for a follow up to her appointment that she had 6 months ago. I'll update with how the appointment goes. Hope everyone has a great week!