Pictures!

Be sure to read the next text post, but here are a lot of pictures from our recent adventures:

A day on the beach in February in Marin County

Kaitlyn playing with sticks on the beach

Kaitlyn pondering her future
Check out my new big girl glasses!
My mom Corinne feeding Katilyn rice!
A giggle from Miss Katilyn

Feeding Katilyn on top of Angel Island after a long hike (3 miles) carrying way too much stuff with Grandma Mame (Brian's mom) in the back-ground
Mom feeding Katilyn fork mashed beans
Just finished the Kiwi fruit (green bowl)
Grandpa Gille (Brian's Dad)Our little hiker!Dad carrying Katilyn
Our tuckered out hiker!

Beautiful views of Marin County (where we live and I sell Marin County Real Estate) from Angel Island. You have to take a ferry (Kaitlyn's first boat ride) to the island. There are no cars, just hiking. Look at that trail down below us.
Golden Gate Bridge view
San Francisco, (or Cisco as Kaitlyn calls it) , the Bay Brdige and Alcatraz in the back-ground

Dad, Katilyn and Grandpa Gille on our Beautiful hike

After a long days hike (what a big girl she is looking!)

Finally an update

Hi everyone, sorry for the long delay, I think the flu bug took a while to leave me, and then I had back-to-back family in town for almost 2 weeks, which left me very little computer time.

But the good news is that today we had a detailed NT ultrasound (to check the neck folds for signs of Downs and they didn't see anything). This doesn't mean that I'm out of the woods, remember every year past age 35 your chance of having a downs child goes up highly which is why they recommend all women over 35 have an amnio. Now you know what my opinion is on amnios right?

I've also had a blood test in which I'll get the results back in a few days. It won't be guaranteed results, there are sadly a lot of false-positives, I'm just trying to stay really positive myself and say that our little peanut is just fine and perfect and that we won't be needing an amnio.

Our little peanut measured exactly where they should be, I'm 13 weeks and 1 day - which means I'm out of my first trimester, and thankfully am starting to feel a bit better also.

We got to hear the heart beat for the first time, good and strong.

Here are some pictures from today's ultra sound. We even got to see 4D pictures, (which to be honest makes our little peanut look a little alien-like), but still very cool to see all the details. Still too early to tell sex (what you see is the umbilical chord). Brian's convinced it's a boy (even before today). I don't really feel strongly one-way or the other. Last time we KNEW it was going to be girls even before we found out. We'll have to wait 5 more weeks or so to find out.

A very clear little foot!

The little peanut spent a lot of time with his/her hands near his/her mouth. Now if you recall my u/s pictures from our prom princess (our angel Corinne) whose water had broken (prom), you'll appreciate all that beautiful amniotic fluid like I did!

The 4D picture! Wow, pretty amazing isn't it? Looks like they are a thumb sucker! Look at those beautiful fingers and toes!

We saw Perinatologist Dr S, who was the first Doctor after my water broke who put it all bluntly what our outcome options were. He remembered that we had flown to Florida to try an amniopatch with Dr Quintero (which sadly didn't work). He wanted to know how Kaitlyn was doing and whether she had CP or not (which is so common for Micro preemies. We said that we were very, very fortunate that her motor skills were quite good.

I also saw my OB for the first time (this pregnancy) as I'm officially released from my RE (reproductive Endocrinologist) and I'm done with all fertility meds! Yeah!!!! That's a huge relief. She went over all the pregnancy do's and don'ts again with us....This is really happening. I'm GOING to carry this little peanut to term (well, it won't be 40 weeks, as I'll have to have a c-section, and it will be scheduled either 1 week early or 4 weeks early due to my previous incisions). So although my due date is 8/27 (and my birthday is 8/25) I think this little one may be a Leo (birth dates before 8/23) instead of a Virgo like me.

Update on Kaitlyn:

Well, good news to report on many fronts:

Kaitlyn hasn't gotten sick one single time (knock on wood) since just before Christmas! Wow! She (nor Brian) never caught my flu-bug. Her weight is doing great, I think she might be nearing 25 pounds. That's the quickest she's every gained weight. We are considering cutting back on some of her night feeds (she still gets 8 ounces of BD (Blended Diet) via gtube at night).

She's eating, really really well! She's advanced onto some regular toddler food. Now, this is strange for me to type, acknowledge and even truly believe. My daughter didn't eat ANYTHING by mouth last July. Now she is eating: goldfish crackers and LOVES them! Melba toast, Beef, pork, stew, mac-n-cheese, rice, french fries, oatmeal, spicy things, yesterday she ate a WHOLE tofu dog (not mashed) and dipped it in ketchup. Most oral averse kiddos I know of have a sever adversity to any different kinds of foods, that doesn't' seem to be the case with Kaitlyn, she loves trying new foods, it's just a matter of chewing them that's the issue.

Now, we still have a way to go and we still have a lot of work. Most of her nutrition we still have to fork-mash to a puree consistency. She still chews primarily with her front teeth, she still gags and still vomits about 1x a day. She can't handle a regular apple or orange (she'll just put it to her mouth briefly then hold on to it), but loves dried apple chips and fruit strips.

We've completely discontinued her watching the DVD, and now entertain her with my singing (not very good) or music on in the background. We play counting games, letter games etc. as the meals still can take quite a while.

Although she's still not much of a milk fan, we've tried some chocolate milk and have almost gotten rid of the straw-squeeze bottle we've had to use to get the milk into her mouth. We now are working with an open cup, but we have to hold it to her and pour into her mouth (but she will usually open her mouth). I often have to bribe and say 5 more sips, then you can have some more mac-n-cheese.

She is just starting to feed herself (which a toddler by age 2yrs 4 months) would def. be doing on their own. If she likes the food she's quite interested. Otherwise, we still feed her as a baby would be fed. I took a video last night of her eating rice on her own. I stopped the video and didn't get her refusal that happened a bit later. You'll be AMAZED at the video (but keep in mind a few minutes later I had to hold her hands down as she was batting me and the milk glass away). We can never let her get her way when it comes to refusing. She can't learn that she can get away with it. That's the primary deal with the Behavioral Therapy.

On that note, Kaitlyn's Feeding therapist (Dr Patel) has been on vacation, and we aren't due to see her again until March. I really, really am thinking that we may not need any more visits past this one. WOWEEEEEE!!! I'm not sure what else she can do to help us at t his point. Kaitlyn just has to continue to learn that she needs to chew on her back teeth. Hard to say if it's behavioral or not. Maybe so, her gag reflux is so strong, it's become a very ingrained habit.

Language and talking! Wow. Her language has absolutely taken off. She's now talking in sentences. We started with making her say: "I want...." instead of just "up" when she wants up, or open, now we make her say "I want open peeze". She learned that in just a few days. Last night was the lunar eclipse. Kaitlyn LOVES the moon and I explained that the moon was hiding and it was an eclipse, she picked it up and said, "moon hiding, eclipse" and kept repeating eclipse all night. Dad took her to the fire station, and now she says, when asked where dad is, "firehouse, down-the-pole", "firetruck" and "football" (as they were watching football when she was there).

She's into labelling EVERYTHING. She will repeat something over and over until we acknowledge her. she'll say, red light, red light red light, until we say, "yes, that's a red light" She knows her entire alphabet, even singing the alphabet song, counting in English and Spanish, and understands our Nanny's instructions in Spanish completely.

With her paralyzed vocal chord, she continues to be very quiet, but we can hear different tones of her voice. Sometimes her "voice" really is made using her chords, the other time it's more of a whisper and harder to hear.

She has the occasional 2 year old toddler tantrum (mainly if mom leaves) or I take her tooth-brush away from her, but she generally is a really, really good little girl.

We got new glasses awhile ago (forgot to mention that) as they were too big and she didn't wear them. Well her square glasses are now too small and she's in her other glasses all the time. No more chord behind her head, like a big girl!

Developmentally: Kaitlyn still is having sensory issues. She is still very hyper, and has a hard time sitting still. When we go to Easter Seals play group, she's the only one that doesn't sit during music time (and she loves music). She's getting therapy 4x a week still, which is hard on mom:

1. Speech/oral motor skills, 2. Easter Seals Play group, 3. OT (for her sensory issues) 4. Easter Seals Teacher

We have an eye doctor next week. She' still getting her monthly synagis shots against RSV. She's now really starting to hate going to the doctor (it never used to bother her before) as she knows she's getting a shot. I know 3 year hold micro preemies who have gotten very ill with RSV so as much as I hate that she's getting the shots, we are very, very fortunate that her insurance is still covering it (as it's over $2K a shot every month through April).

My mom was in town for 4 days and then Brian's parents were in town for 8. Grandmas and Grandpas loved seeing Kaitlyn, and Kaitlyn had so much fun. She says things like "grandma suitcase, open presents". We had a lot of fun, when my mom overlapped, we all went to the wine-country and went wine tasting (well I didn't taste, forgot to take any pictures) and Kaitlyn stayed home with our nanny, we went to the beach, we hiked to the top of Angel Island after taking a ferry there. Lots of activities (little time to update my blog).

Again, sorry for the long delay in this post, thank you again for all your continued support (if you are still reading this).

Sick, Sick Sick!

At first I thought my morning sickness was getting bad, then really bad, then really, really bad. No, I caught a horrible flu bug that turned into a stomach bug.

I don't recall being this sick for years (well, not counting when I almost died from becoming septic after delivery).

Finally feeling bit better today. Poor daddy had to take care of Kaitlyn and do every single feed, every diaper change and Kaitlyn wasn't a fan of mommy not getting out of bed! (and as luck would have it our nanny was sick too!)

Poor little baby peanut, he/she hasn't been able to get any nutrients (or prenatal vitamins) from mom, as I couldn't eat or drink anything for 5 days and couldn't keep anything inside me. If I wasn't better today I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital (for the sake of the baby)

Oh by the way, here's how far along I am:

A big announcement

Well, the McCarthy's have a big announcement to make. The main reason I haven't been blogging much lately is that I have been a little busy as of late! We are expecting another baby into our family!~

Yes, we did IVF again and it worked!!!

A singleton this time.

I guess it's "early" to announce it, but I figure I'm feeling very positive and good vibes and prayers will only help! I am 9weeks 5 days and am not feeling all that well. We had our 3rd ultra sound today, and here is the picture of our little peanut!

This is a moment I've been dreaming about since the second my first born daughter passed away in my arms. No baby can replace my angel, but I've just felt I was destined to have 2 children.

When I found out I wasn't having twins I was quite mournful, as I felt also that I was supposed to be a mother of twins, while at the same time I was relieved. This must be a hard thing for some to understand my emotions on this....I was terrified of the decision of how many embryos to transfer, as I want more than ANYTHING to carry a baby to term, and the risk of having twins is so much more than I ever knew. I know too much now. After 4 months in the NICU and seeing multiples after multiples arrive early...my dream for a full-term "healthy" delivery and baby outwon what I've missed by not having the twins I was supposed to have.

My due date is 8/27/08.

We are esctatic!

ultra sound from 1.28.08

9weeks 4 days

The 2 beautiful embroys we transfered. It could have been twins again....

IVF sounds sort of non-chalant right? I thought this might make it all a bit more "real" for what I just went through. These are the drugs that I injected into myself. This isn't any of the used needles, nor the bottles that were for multiple days. I had meant to take a picture of all the drugs and needles before I used them but forgot to do so. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy! I'm still on Progesterine actually. I was luckily able to switch from the 2.5 inch needle nighly butt injections a few weeks ago, I was hardly able to walk and I had to have my incredibly nice neighbor give me the shots when Brian was out of town or at work! I did that for 8 weeks! in Addtional to the daily injections I had for 3 weeks before that. Doctor visits, surgery. IVF is a very big deal, it's very stressful, very expensive and a huge emotional roller-coaster. We are very lucky it worked again for us.

Kaitlyns First Haircut

You can really hear Katilyn's quiet voice from her paralyzed vocal chords in this video! It's a cute one!

a Great post on catching up...

Here is a link to a post from a blogger friend of mine on the subject of my previous post... Well said B!

Link to topic on "still a preemie?"

Today is Kaitlyn's and Corinnes REAL 2nd birthday

Today, January 4th was my original due date and the date that my girls should have been born if they were full-term. This is the date that all evaluations are made on Kaitlyn's progress, as gestationally, she is 2 years old today and not 13 weeks ago which was her chronological birthday.

A month ago someone told my husband and I that it was so great Kaitlyn was 2 and was just fine. My husband said, well, she's really not 2 yet and she does still have issues. This person said that she's no longer a preemie and to forget about all that adjusted age stuff. preemies catch up by age 2.

I'm still reeling from this comment. Forget about it? Age 2! I've heard some of my micro-preemie moms say that they've heard that for every month the child is in the NICU that's how many years they should be given to catch up. Many times it's well past the due date that they are released, and that means that the child was extra sick and they have more catching up to do. If that's the case, Kaitlyn still has 2 more years of "catching up" to do. Pretend that she's "normal"... (as I'm cleaning up vomit and working a tiny bit of pea puree into her mouth hoping and praying she'll keep it down). What is "normal" anyway?

I've been feeling a bit down. Maybe it has to do with the fact that my house is freezing, we've had the worst rain storm today, I haven't left the house in 2 (or has it been 3) days? Don't they call this SAD (Season Disorder)?

Anyways, Happy birthday Kaitlyn and Corinne!

A family walk on New Years Day

Thank you Auntie Lynn for this great outfit for Christmas! It fits perfectly!

Mac & Cheese

This is an exciting movie, but keep in mind that she is NOT chewing what-s0-ever. It was the first time she ate anything besides a puree and asked for more! That's exciting. I also didn't get the huge vomit a few minutes afterwards when we switched back to peas, and just the little pea skin made her gag and loose everything that she just ate.

But, none-the-less this is a very exciting video, sorry about my dorky editing.

Running FAST

Good-by Christmas Tree

Holiday 2007

Here are some Christmas Pictures (and more) for your enjoyment:

The McCarthys, Christmas 2007

If you read about our Back-yard excavation project, you can see a bit of it out the window.

Uncle Gary ans the Traditional Christmas Pants (My dad wore these for YEARS until they were handed down to my brother Gary). Kaitlyn really loving her "Christmas hanger" See, we didn't need any presents!

Boys-will-be-boys....A little tequila holiday cheer tradition Christmas Day at my Step-family from LtoR: Mark (step-sister's Ash's husband), Derek (Step-sister Whit's husband), Brian, Gary (my brother), Dick (my dad), and Brad (step-brother)
Brian, Kaitlyn and Uncle Gary
More than opening the presents, Kaitlyn loved jumping on them with her "Christmas hanger"
Christmas Day Family


Kaitlyn having fun in the mall after Santa Picture
She loves to run around

Look at that big smile!

No snow here, but there's always wishing...

Kaitlyn "working" at the Bay Area Discovery Museum 2 days before Christmas
Dad and Kaitlyn as the Discovery Museum

The mall Santa, she amazingly wasn't afraid

Uncle Gary (my brother) Kaitlyn and Liz on Christmas Eve at a very decorated house in my neighborhood
Kaitlyn on Christmas morning with her new Trike
Actually getting the "concept" of presents
Making Christmas cookies at home
Mom helping Kaitlyn decorate cookies at our neighborhood Winterfest
Egg Nog, Yumm! No, wait, that's a cup full of vomit! Ok, to end on a "special" note, this vomit was from yesterday. It was SOOO huge I had to weigh it, 7 ounces! Oh lord, when will it end. All that work to get the food in and...so frustrating!

Happy Holidays 2007!

Happy Holidays to you and your family! Wow, 2007 certainly flew by! And what a year it’s been.

Update on Kaitlyn:

Kaitlyn turned 2 on October 4th this year, although, technically she really won’t be 2 until January 4 which was her due date. (Developmentally, she is still being tracked according to her due date.) We feel so touched and blessed to have our little miracle in our lives.

It’s hard to believe that our miracle daughter who weighed 1 pound, 10 ounces at birth is now almost 24 pounds and 33 inches tall. She’s doing amazingly well for how sick she was. She is walking (and running) all over the place. It’s very cute when she tries to jump, but can’t get off her tippy toes.

She’s incredibly good-natured, and is starting to smile a lot more. She has the sweetest personality. She rarely gets upset, unless mom leaves. Sadly, dad isn’t very happy about that, but we think it’s a good thing that Kaitlyn finally bonded, as if you remember, her first year she never once smiled and avoided looking at us. (It’s helped that she got glasses in the beginning of the year and loves them!)

Kaitlyn also has been talking now for a number of months. Her voice is either very quiet/sweet sounding or raspy, as her left vocal chord is paralyzed (permanently). We were so ecstatic once we finally heard her sweet voice. And it is very sweet! In addition to saying “bye-bye X to everything” She’s just started putting some small sentences together too, like: “dark outside”, “yellow lamp,” “Mama car”, "Papa car", "help peeze." She has a huge vocabulary, I’m always amazed that she knows some of the things she does, and she knows a lot of words in Spanish too! Even more amazing, Kaitlyn has learned the entire alphabet by sight and sound. You can point to a letter and she’ll say the letter as well as say the phonetic sound. She’s even starting to know the letters in order. She’s one smart little lady!

Unfortunately, Kaitlyn does still have some issues, primarily around eating, lungs and her sensory system. Kaitlyn still vomits a lot. We were able to successfully transition her to a Blenderized Diet (real food in a super-duper blender) that we “push” manually through her feeding tube. She still didn’t eat anything orally, but this decreased her vomiting a lot.
Starting in July Liz researched and located a very specialized feeding therapist who does an intensive feeding therapy program based out of the home. After an intense battle with our insurance company we were able to get this expensive therapy approved and after the first week Kaitlyn started eating 80% orally!

This was huge! Kaitlyn can only “eat” purées, and unfortunately we have a ways to go for her to get the concept of “chewing” without gagging and retching. Her 4-5 daily feeding sessions require a lot of work on our part and often times all our work is in vain as she continues to vomit (for unknown reasons). We still feed her throughout the night with her feeding tube manually to get the extra calories in her. It’s a constant struggle. Her weight growth is hard-won.

Lungs. Kaitlyn does have Chronic Lung Disease, so we are still hyper-diligent about her catching colds, but we are not under “hibernation” orders this winter which is glorious! I can actually take her to the store – what a concept! Whenever she gets sick, her oral intake of food drops to 0 and her vomiting increases horribly. She typically looses over a pound. We are currently on our 4th cold of the winter already. We have to give her round-the-clock breathing treatments and we hope/pray that it doesn't go into pneumonia. She is still getting winter monthly ($2.5K each mo) injections of a drug to help ward of a life-threatening virus called RSV. Thankfully, knowing how sick her lungs were at birth, we’ve been very, very lucky. Kaitlyn has never once been re-hospitalized, which is a huge accomplishment.

She in fact has been sick the last week and has lost 1.5 pounds! So much for finally reaching 24 pounds, now she's back under 23 pounds again. It's so frustrating. She's on antibiotics for an ear infection. She coughed for 30 minutes straight (without stopping) that I thought we were going to be on our way the ER, but thankfully the breathing treatment did it's job. I thought I was going to have to pull out the oxygen.

Developmentally. Kaitlyn is doing extremely well. She is a bit behind on her motor skills (from her adjusted age), but she is doing so well in this area that we are dropping her Physical Therapist. Her primary issue at this point is that Kaitlyn has some mild Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD - in a way it’s on the autism spectrum). Kids with SPD either seek out or avoid sensory input. Kaitlyn is a “seeker”. Her system needs much more “sensory” input than a regular person. She is constantly on the go, has a very hard time sitting in one place, rubs up against things, even sometimes lightly bangs her head and spins. She is starting a new weekly therapy after the first of the year to address this.

Kaitlyn keeps us very busy. This year, Kaitlyn had approximately 200 therapy appointments and 20 Doctor Appointments. (She has therapy 4x a week, plus the intensive feeding therapy) Not to mention the vomit and feeding sessions. Oh, and the fact that she’s an active toddler!
Thankfully we found an amazing helper, our nanny Julia has been our live-saver! I can’t say enough how much she has helped keep my sanity.

Brian still loves being a fireman. He will be transferring to Station 1 (downtown SF) after January, he’ll be on the truck and will get very little sleep (as it’s the busiest station in the city). He’s also been hard at work building a “rock-crawler” project that is currently housed at his friend’s house up in Tahoe.

Starting in the fall Brian began a back-yard excavation project where we doubled the size of our back-yard. He has put in one concrete retaining wall, with a 2nd still to come. It’s been a LOT of hard work and much more $ than had hoped.

Liz continues to love being a Real Estate Broker and even with the market-downturn, had a great year and making a lot new client/friends in the process. Liz constantly researches out therapies and solutions for Kaitlyn as well as manages Kaitlyn’s busy schedule. Liz serves on a board as VP of Membership for the Women Council of Realtors in Marin. The micro-preemie support group she started last year now has almost 200 members, globally. She is in a feeding tube support group and is involved with fund-raising the March of Dimes in prevention of prematurity.

As a family, we went on our first trip via plane over the summer, we traveled to Chautauqua (Western NY) and spent 10 fabulous summer days with the McCarthy’s.

Love & Peace: Liz, Brian, Kaitlyn and her much-missed angel sister ^Corinne^.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

A rare picture of my mom and dad together, with their grand-daughter. Taken in LA over Thanksgiving weekend. And rare because Kaitlyn is smiling!
Grandma Corinne and smiling Kaitlyn!Grandpa Poppy and once again, a smiling Katilyn. I think this is the most smiles we've had captured on film in a long time! Guess she needs to be around her grandparents more! :)
Grandpa Poppy helping Kaitlyn on the piano

Our little one reading on the potty (taking after her father). we've had a few more peepees in the potty, but still have a ways to go to being toilet trained!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Here’s a quick run-down of recent events with the McCarthys:

I went to Las Vegas for a work trip for 5 days in mid-December (Kaitlyn was NOT very happy to have mom gone).

Upon returning, I worked 2 days straight with an out of town home buyer, then left the day after that for Los Angeles for Thanksgiving. (Just Kaitlyn and I, as Brian had to work on Thanksgiving). We drove to LA from SF. Quite a feat. Kaitlyn had just caught a cold too, so lots of vomiting, no eating, made for a really fun (and LONG) drive.

Sadly, on Thanksgiving evening, my Step-Grandfather George passed away. He was 98 and had been very sick for the last 6 months, but it was very hard on everyone. My mother was so torn, as she rarely gets to see Kaitlyn, but there were so many things to do to support my step-father, Rich. It was a very sad time for all of us.

I decided to drive home late on Sunday to try to avoid the Holiday traffic, so I left LA at 7:30pm and made it home at 2:30 in the morning. Much easier driving with a toddler while she is sleeping.

The next day my nanny was working elsewhere and I was a stress case as on Tuesday I had to give a presentation to 65 people which I haven’t even started yet! Our nanny was able to come at about 1:00. So I started work on my presentation. At about 5:30 pm, she came to my office in tears. She was in terrible, terrible pain. (I felt horrible that she was watching Kaitlyn and I hadn’t even realized she was sick). She ended up having to go to the Emergency room, and was admitted with gallstones and an enlarged pancreas. She stayed for 3 nights.

Brian had to work on Tuesday, the day of my presentation, and now I found myself without childcare. What in the world was I going to do? Thankfully, my wonderful friend Lucy helped me out, and I brought Kaitlyn to her house and said, if she can eat a bite or two of yogurt that’s fine with me.

The day finally ended and can I tell you I was exhausted! I don’t think I’ve slept in 3 weeks.

Our nanny wasn’t able to work for a week which meant not much work for mom getting done.

She’s sort of part-time now, while she’s still dealing with a lot of medical issues.

It’s made me realize a few things:

I don’t know how working mom’s do it? Without help, I’m a complete basket case. By the 5th feed of the day I’m so frustrated, cleaning up vomit. Taking her to her multiple therapies each week and then using my one hour of nap time to try to get something done….

I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful care-giver. Now that I’ve gone without her again, I am so much more appreciative of her help and love for Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn now no longer likes me to leave her side. I think it was due to my going out of town for 5 days. She’s a basket-case if I’m away from her, but this is typical toddler behavior, which is a great thing if you know Kaitlyn’s history of not-bonding.

Kaitlyn is no where closer to understanding how to chew. She’s continue to gag and vomit and/or swallows food whole. She is still eating purees like a champ however, but we get terrible refusal behavior if we don’t have her DVD to watch. I cant’ wait until we can get rid of that distraction! I feel like a HORRIBLE mother when I have to feed her in public and I whip out the DVD. Oh, if they only knew that just a few months ago she ate nothing at all!

Well, that’s about it for now. I know you’ve all been anxious for some news.

We have peepee in the potty!

Today was a momentous occasion- Kaitlyn peepeed in the potty! Boy, it's amazing what I find exciting! Welcome to motherhood! I guess I still am a first time mom who finds peepee thrilling! Just one time this morning, but it's a start!

Wow, my little former 1.5 pound baby is growing up!

Halloween 2007. My friend Lisa and I spoke before Halloween and discovered that all of our kiddos were going to be ducks for Halloween. She decide to bring her "gaggle" (not sure what a group of ducks is called) to our house. Lisa has 2 sets of twins! Yes, count them - 4 little duckees! I met Lisa due to one of her Duckies severe feeding issues.
Mom, Dad and our little duck!

As promised Kaitlyn's ABC's!

We have a genius!

OK, is this freakish? (I've heard it's very early to learn), but Kaitlyn knows almost all of the letters of the alphabet!

I captured a video of it today, will try to post over the weekend. It's too cute!

She knows almost all of the letters and that's at age 22 months adjusted. (not even 2 years old yet)

Liz