Today we took Kylie to the doctor for her 5 year and pre-kindergarten check up. As of today she is 43.5 inches (3 feet 6 inches) tall and in the 50th percentile for height, she grew 2 inches from last year; she currently weighs 48 lbs and is in the 90th percentile for weight. Today they also checked her blood pressure and that was 92/50, which they told us was good. She received 2 shots today as well, her last MMR and last chickenpox, which are required for kindergarten. Overall everything checks out perfectly normal, however they did suggest that we take her in to an optometrist to have her eyes checked as it appears she is having some issues. Mommy has had a suspension that she may need to have them looked at because Kylie appears to have trouble reading her sheet music for her violin. We will get that looked at as soon as possible and hope everything is fine.
Category Archives: Family
Last Day of Summer Ballet
Today was the last day of Kylie’s summer ballet class, and continuing with the schools policy, we were allowed to come into the room a few minutes before the end of class and see what they have learned so far. During this session of her class they learned fifth position and how to tie it in with all of the rest of the moves they have already learned in previous sessions. I am really looking forward to see her next recital in the spring. I am sure they are going to learn something new in the next session of her class and seeing everything come together is amazing. Some pictures of her and her class can be seen here, additionally a video of the end of class can be seen on the video page.
First Violin Lesson
Kylie had her first violin lesson today, and it went very well. She is taking lessons at Marshall Music in Allen Park, her teacher’s name is Ariel. Once a week (Monday’s) she has a half hour long private lesson; for the first 20 minutes Kylie and Ariel practice what they have already learned in the previous week and add something new to the lesson that builds upon it, and then for the last 10 minutes we can come in to see what she’s learned.
At the end of today’s lesson Ariel came out to get Mommy to bring her back to listen and said Kylie did fantastic and that she was already ahead of where other kids her age typically are. Ariel normally doesn’t teach the bow until about the second month because the child learns about the strings, the parts of the violin and how to hold it and looking at music before they throw the bow into the mix, however this is not the case with Kylie. She said she can really tell that Mommy has been working with Kylie, because she was able to use the bow today and her hold is just about perfect. Kylie is able to use the bow properly for the most part and she will get better with practice. So today Kylie learned what a 1/4 rest was and what the repeat bar looks like; she also learned how to pizzicato (to pluck the string). We also got a book for Kylie to use and practice with both at home and during lessons. Ariel is excited that Mommy can help to reinforce the lessons at home because she also plays the violin; Ariel said that Kylie will learn faster that way and she really looks forward to watching her grow musically.
Much Needed Ride
So far this summer I feel like I haven’t really had the opportunity to ride the Motorcycle as much as I would like to, either due to unfavorable weather or general life conflicts. Today though we got to take a nice ride out to Melissa’s parents’ house. Round trip it’s about 115 miles, which I know is not really a lot but it is better than nothing. This trip is always a nice one to take on the motorcycle because we ride along a lot of back country roads, so there is typically light traffic and some really nice scenery. My ultimate hope though is to one year be able to go on one of the extended motorcycle trips that my friend Chuck goes on. This year i might have tried to join him if not for work not allowing me the option to join, he will be riding around Lake Michigan with a few other guys, camping along the way. He estimated this trip to be about 1200 miles. That would be one hell of an experience!
Emergentcare Follow Up
Today we had our follow up with Kylie’s normal doctor to check on the status of her strep and to find out if they think it might be time to potentially have a tonsillectomy. After they reviewed what the urgent care doctors had seen and done (the urgent care had faxed over their records to Kylie’s primary care’s office) they decided to run a check to see where Kylie’s strep was at. This time the test came back negative, Kylie has been on antibiotics for two days now they think that this might be the reason; she is still to finish the rest of the dose just to be sure. We asked if they thought it might be time for her to have a tonsillectomy and after they reviewed her history they said it is not time yet, however, if Kylie gets another case of strep before November it would then be a serious possibility that we may need to see a specialist and have them removed. At this point we are just keeping our fingers crossed that she doesn’t get strep again before then, but with her starting kindergarten in September (WOW! that came a lot faster than we anticipated!) there is a high probability that she will come down with strep again. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed.
Emergentcare Visit
Yesterday Kylie was running a slight fever all day and was complaining that her throat and her ear were bothering her, which is unusual as Kylie rarely complains about anything. So Mommy kept an eye on her and gave her some children’s Tylenol to help reduce the fever and provide some relief to her pain. For the most part for the rest of the day Kylie seemed to be fine considering how she was feeling; she was cuddly and laid back for the day which is normal when she is not feeling well. What was not normal, however, was that Kylie did not want to eat anything for dinner and said she wanted to go to bed at 7pm! So this morning when Mommy got up she called to see if the doctor’s office was open, but due to the holiday they weren’t, so off to the emergent care they went. The doctor at the emergent care examined Kylie and said she has a bad case of strep and suggested that we take her to a ear nose and throat specialist to see about having her tonsils and adenoids removed. Mommy and Daddy have both had their tonsils removed so we are not surprised that it might be recommended for Kylie as well, however we will speak with Kylie’s normal doctor in the next day or so and see what they recommend. They did provide her with some antibiotics to start her along the path to feeling better though.
Yearly Portraits
Toy Story 3
Took Kylie and Melissa to see Toy Story 3 today over at the Quality 16 off of Jackson Ave in Ann Arbor, and boy was that a great idea! We have all seen the first two (in fact Daddy owns them on DVD, he’s a sucker for the Disney cartoons) and we were all looking forward to seeing the new addition to the series. I think it is safe to say that the movie was everything we expected. Kylie loved and Daddy and Melissa really enjoyed it too. The continued story of Woody and the gang was great, rarely does a third movie in a set hold up as well as this one did. This is the first time that Daddy has taken Kylie to the movies, and it was great and I can’t wait for another movie to come out that I can take her too again. Apparently while we were inside enjoying the movie, outside tornado warnings were going on. By the time the movie had ended and we went to go outside and Daddy turned his phone back on he had a number of messages from Mommy asking if we were all OK. It was definitely another fun and eventful day.
Busy Fun Day
Today was a rather busy day for Kylie, Melissa and I, much busier than we thought it was going to be when we woke up, but in a good way. We started out just by simply relaxing and having a calm day. But then around lunch time we decided to head to the pool and swim for a bit, Kylie really seemed to have a good time playing in the water. Additionally she is getting much better at swimming; kicking and using her arms and she is also getting much more comfortable with putting her head underwater. After swimming for a bit we decided to lay out in the sun and dry off and relax, and relaxing it was. After we went home and changed we had some dinner and decided to head down into Depot Town to look in on the areas first ever Ton-Up Motorcycle festival. They had all sorts of motorcycles on display, live music, food vendors, local accessory dealers and even a wrestling show. Seeing all the older vintage bikes (which was a focus for Ton-Up) was really cool, but Kylie really seemed to enjoy watching the wrestling match, which was rather surprising to Daddy; and of course she liked listening to the live band (Rattlebox was playing while we were there). Hopefully next year we will head to the festival a little earlier in the day because by the time we arrived a lot of the vendors had packed up and left. As an added bonus and surprise ending to the day Daddy decided that after looking at what was left of the festival that we would take a walk over to Cafe Luwak in downtown Depot Town and have some ice cream, this decision, of course, was an overwhelmingly good idea. Today was a really great day and I look forward to many more like it.
Soccer Party
Today was Kylie’s soccer party for the completion of the six week season. It was downriver in Trenton in the church parking lot and Kylie had a lot of fun. I was really impressed with all the things they had there for the kids to participate in. To start they had pizza, cookies, cotton candy, and Capri Sun juice pouches to drink; all of which were very enjoyable. For activities they had a number of large inflatable games for the kids to play on including a large bounce/jump house, an obstacle course, and a big slide. These are the three main ones that Kylie seemed to like, but I think I would have to lean towards the obstacle course as being here overall favorite; she must have ran through that one four or five times in a row and even more than that in total! On the video page there are three videos, one of each of the three activities she seemed to like best. After the party was over we decided to head back to Ypsi and swing in on the Crossroads Music festival. However, seeing as everyone had already had a long day and we all seemed to be pretty tired, we did not stay as long as we typically do and instead came home and called it a night. I was just happy to see Kylie have so much fun, that makes it all worth it to me.