On a non medical related note; Kylie is progressing along very well. She now pulls herself around on the floor in an “army crawl” fashion, or at least that is how Tiffany describes it. She will roll onto her belly and then pull herself forward with her arms; she does this in combination with rolling and tends to move around the living room floor a lot. She also seems to move in my general direction when I am home alone watching her.

For instance, I will lay her on the floor on her play mat and then go around the love seat to work on the computer and in a few seconds Kylie will have turned herself around so she is facing in my direction on her stomach, and will have moved towards the love seat. If I then proceed to come back into the living room and sit on the couch, she will hold herself up on her arms and watch me, and then proceed to angle herself towards the couch.

She also has a habit of looking for me when she hears my voice, no matter what is going on; she could be being changed, or even fed, but when she hears my voice she looks for me. Then when she finally sees me she is all smiles. It makes me feel really good to know this is a sign of love from my daughter, and I hope that she will always be all smiles when she sees me.

Last Tuesday (Nov. 29th) Kylie had an impromptu doctor’s appointment. This was due to her right eye. For the last few weeks her eye has been producing a lot of mucus, you now the stuff that we all find crusted in our eye when we wake up in the morning. Well the doctor had given us some drops to place in her eye and we had been doing that, however, it does not seem to be helping it as much as it should. So Tiffany took her back to the doctor to have it look at again, because around the outside of Kylie’s eye is all red due to the mucus and the constant wiping (as can be seen in some of her pictures). The doctor gave us another prescription for more of the drops but told us that we will have to make an appointment to take Kylie to a pediatric ophthalmologist (eye doctor) because it seems like she has a blocked tear duct. This is evidently something that happens very rarely, because the doctor told Tiffany that in 25 years of performing pediatric medicine she has only had 3 cases of it, but that it is not something serious or anything major to worry about. So now we get to take Kylie to the pediatric ophthalmologist on December 27 for an exam and to see what they say. In other news Kylie is doing very well and is quite healthy. She now measures 27 inches long and weighs in at 17.03 pounds and her head is no 17 inches in circumference.

So today was Kylie’s first Thanksgiving. It was a good night for her, as she got to try some new food. Well a new food at any rate. Tonight, in honor of Thanksgiving, we gave her some Sweet Potatoes. She seems to like them, and so that officially begins her introduction to “jar food”. Before this all she has had is milk and rice cereal. She still loves the rice cereal so we now have two things that she can switch to instead of having milk all the time. I have some really nice pictures of her eating the sweet potatoes in her Babee Tenda feeding table, and as soon as I can get caught up on getting pictures into the gallery they will be there. Some of the pictures are of me feeding her and some are of Tiffany feeding her. At any rate I hope to be caught up with the pictures by the end of the month.

Kylie is 5 months old today! It has been an exciting month as we have watched her develop even more. As I had mentioned in a previous post she has started to talk, and unlike the previous post, we know now that she has some knowledge of what she is saying, as opposed to just mimicking sounds. She now says “Da-da” almost every time she sees me, thus re-enforcing the idea that she actually knows what she is saying. She also seems to like the sound of my voice as she will almost always look around for me when she hears my voice, which makes me very happy. In addition to the talking she is now eating rice cereal. It took a few tries to find the right consistency and preparation method for her, but we have it pretty much figured out now. There is no real science to it, she seems to like it to be a little on the thicker side, almost like chunky apple sauce, preferably made with water and then warmed in the microwave for 10 seconds. Not only does she seem to like this, but she literally grabs for the spoon and brings it to her mouth on her own. On another note, earlier today Tiffany told me that Kylie pulled herself to a standing position while playing with one of her toys at Grammy Bev’s house, so this appears to be the early stages of her standing on her own as well. As far as locomotion goes, she is not quite crawling yet, but she has become rather adept at slowly pulling herself across the floor to get to where she wants to be. Sometimes she gets her knees under her though and shows great potential for crawling. I see no reason why she wouldn’t be crawling by Christmas if not sooner, then the real fun begins, or so I am told. All in all she is doing very well and is still a very happy baby. Her next doctors appointment is scheduled for early January, so we will have height and weight updates then.

The following is taken from an email that Tiffany gets every week from a place called Baby Center:

Want a foolproof way to make your baby laugh? Mimic his facial expressions and sounds. Not only will he be tickled pink, but he’ll also learn something about communication, since imitation and repetition are key ingredients in early brain development. If he hears you say the same words often enough, he may even begin to make some almost recognizable noises, including ones that sound suspiciously like “Ma-ma” and “Da-da.”

That being said…Thursday 11-3-2005 Kylie said her first word. She said “Ma-ma” while sitting on her Uncle Chris’s (K) lap while he, Aunt Tracey and Tiffany were all sitting around talking. I am not certain if she actually understands the meaning behind the word and knew what she was saying or not, but it is still rather exciting. Not to mention that Tiffany is thrilled that she said “Ma-ma” as her first word.

Well today Kylie had her first fall. “How can this be?” you are wondering considering she hasn’t even started to crawl yet, let alone walk. Well allow me to answer as it is really very simple…she fell off the couch. Yep, that’s right, she fell off the couch. “How did that happen” you ask? Good question, but I am not really certain I can answer that in complete certainty because I was not in the room when it happened, which of course is why it happened. See I had placed her in her boppy on the couch, as I have done many times before, and then went into the kitchen to prepare her bottle. It was during this time that I heard a little thump. My first thought was “Oh God, please don’t let that be what I think it was” and then I looked out of the kitchen and into the living room. Well low-and-behold there was my little girl laying on the floor on her back partly under the coffee table just kind of looking around. Well my heart jumped and I walked over to her, and went to pick her up and hold her, well I took one step and she saw me…and then proceeded to cry. So I picked her up and held her and made sure she was ok and then proceeded to finish making her a bottle. She is fine of course and this is only the first of many more falls to come. But I have now learned a valuable lesson, and that lesson is that she is now to the point where it is not safe to place her on the couch in her boppy without being right there, as she can roll and or fidget out and away from it. “We fall so we can learn to pick ourselves back up.”

[EDIT: 11-01-05]
It turns out that she does have a slight bump on her head and maybe a slight bruise but all in all she is no worse for wear and is doing just fine.