For the longest time now Kylie has been leaning forward on her hands and placing her head on the floor in the starting position for a somersault, and Tiffany or myself, or anyone else who happened to be near, would roll her over to do a somersault. Kylie really seems to enjoy doing this, as she will always laugh and smile and get up to do it again. Lately she has been showing signs of trying to do it on her own. She will get into the starting position and try to rock forward over her head but the furthest she has come is to just push up on to her toes. Today however, she finally made it over into a somersault all on her own. She started out the same, with her head and hands down and trying to roll forward, and then she actually did it! Well she kind of rolled more over to the side, but it was more of a forward somersault than just falling to the side and then rolling to her back. I am very excited about this and am looking forward to seeing her do one myself the next time I am home.
Category Archives: Family
Back in Minnesota
Tonight I returned to Minnesota after my extended stay back in Michigan. It is getting harder and harder to say good-bye to Kylie when I have to come back here. Being out here wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have to be so far away from her. I just have to remind myself that being away from her will hopefully allow me to provide a better future for her.
I have had a lot more exposure to other people within the company out here than I ever would have had back in Ann Arbor, and I know that other people that I have not personally met have taken note of the fact that I am here. I have learned a lot of things in my time out here and though I enjoy my job here more than my previous position back in Ann Arbor, I hope that these next three months go as quickly as the last three seemed to.
In the mean time I will just have to look forward to my next trip back home. At this time I am not sure when that will be and I am sure it will not be as long as this one was, but any time spent with my daughter is precious. So I will just take it day by day, and try to learn and do all that I can to try and provide that better life.
Cheeeese
Over the last few days Kylie has had a lot of pictures taken, with it being the holidays and all. As such a lot of people have been telling her to say “Cheese” before taking a picture. Today Kylie picked up Tiffany’s camera held it up to her face, pointed it at Tiffany and said “cheese”, so Tiffany replied by saying “cheese.” Tiffany then said “click” and Kylie repeated it and then said “cheeeese.” Tiffany said that Kylie even had the camera pointing in the right direction and apparently got a really big kick out of taking a picture. She picks up on things so quickly now, the more I think of it I know there are things that she has learned and picked up on that have never been mentioned here. For instance over this last week while watching a Pistons game I got Kylie to almost fully say “Detroit Basketball”, and that was with her only hearing it twice. She really is like a little sponge, absorbing new information and acquiring new skills all the time. I regret that I cannot be around more due to my current assignment in Eagan, but hopefully it will pay off in the long run and allow me to provide a better life for her.
Milk Adventures
So today Tiffany was changing Kylie on the floor and while Kylie was laying on the floor she got a hold of her milk and took a drink. Tiffany didn’t think anything about it until she realized that Kylie had not swallowed it. Just as she realized this Kylie opened her moth…and gargled her milk. Tiffany thought it was both humorous and disgusting at the same time. Personally I find it very amusing, but that may be because I wasn’t there.
Signs
For Christmas Kylie received a DVD from Uncle Chris and Aunt Tracey that is supposed to help her communicate with sign language. We have been teaching Kylie sign language ever since she was little so that she would better be able to communicate with her, and as such we were really happy with this new video. Today Kylie and Tiffany were watching the video and Kylie was signing some of the signs and repeating some of the words along with the video. Tiffany said it was really cute to watch her learning along with the video, and we are both really happy with how quickly she picks up on new words.
Delaney’s Party
Today was Delaney’s First Birthday party, and it was a very nice event, it was held at Chris and Tracey’s new apartment. Delaney seemed to have a good time as well, opening presents and eating cake. After the party we stayed for a while and spent some time with them. It was nice to see Kylie and Delaney playing together again, for first cousins they don’t get to see each other all that often. All in all it was a very nice day, and I am glad that I was able to be home for this event. Thank you to Chris and Tracey for scheduling Delaney’s party for a time while I was home.
ABCs and 123s
Today Kylie said her ABCs, well sort of. She gets the tune down but instead of saying “A, B, C, D, etc.” she sings “A, B, B, B, etc.”, but she does manage to get the tune right and it is really cute to hear her do it.
In addition to this she has been slowly perfecting her counting as well. Her Grammie has a grandfather clock that chimes every hour and then chimes the number of hours. At every hour that Kylie is awake whoever is with her counts the hour off on their fingers, and Kylie has been counting with them. She can count to three along with the chimes, but after that she tends to lose it. She also tries to hold up her fingers with the counting and watching her do this is very cute.
Time to go
In a few minutes I will be leaving to head to the Minneapolis St. Paul airport to return home for the holidays. Thanks to our successful contract negotiations Rick and I will be able to be back in Michigan from today straight through the New Year. In addition we won’t have to feel any sort of financial strain, as we negotiated in payment that will not effect our vacation. This is probably the best outcome of our previous negotiations, and I am very much looking forward to being home for almost two entire weeks. I plan on spending as much time with Kylie as I can, and in fact she will be spending the night with me tonight. In addition to the Holidays, Chris and Tracey were nice enough to schedule Delaney’s birthday party for the 30th, so that I could be home to attend it, so I am looking forward to that as well. This will be a well deserved vacation, and I am looking forward to it very much.
A special day
Today is a special day within my family and as such I would like to take this moment to wish a very Happy First Birthday to my beautiful niece Delaney.
I am looking forward to coming home and seeing her and Kylie playing together. They are exactly six months apart in age and when they are together it is great to see the differences in their personalities and behaviors.
In addition I would also like to wish Tracey, Delaney’s Mother, a very Happy Birthday as well. I hope that people do not forgot that it is her birthday as well as her lovely daughter’s.
Eighteen month checkup
Kylie had her eighteen month checkup today, and we are happy to announce that she is doing excellent! The doctor said that he is very pleased with her speech and cognitive development. He actually said that she was “perfect” and that he can not say that about many children. Her weight is now 24 lbs and 13 ounces, and she is 32 and 3/4 inches tall (2 feet 8 and 3/4 inches). Below are some charts of her growth up to this point:
Click here for a larger version for easier reading.
Click here for a larger version for easier reading.