The Crawford Family: Are we REALLY living in Atlanta, GA??

It is freezing here in Atlanta, G.A.! We have seen lows this past week that I've never seen before! Our windchill has gotten down to 0* = unbelievable in my book! While Kelly has been at work, Kaitlynn & I have spent the majority of our time at home, away from the cold.

Friday 1-9-09

Kaitlynn's First Snow Day!!

This week has been interesting, exhausting, and emotional. This past Tuesday - Kaitlynn took 5oz. of formula all day long for the first time ever! Kelly and I were so excited that she had decided to increase the amount she was eating. However, it didn't last. As the week progressed, her feedings dropped & her naps lessened. She also started waking up not only once at night, but two-three times! It's kind of normal for Kaitlynn to wake up about once in the night right now, but when it hit two-three times, we started thinking something was off. It didn't hit us that something was going on until Friday 1-8-09. This day marks one of the hardest, most miserable days we've had with our daughter. While Kelly was working, I was at home trying to get Kaitlynn to eat or sleep! However, neither was happening. Every time I tried to lay her down, she would scream - "bloody murder." As I was trying to put her down for a nap, she cried for a solid hour.

I ended up calling Kaitlynn's PED searching for help & some answers. I explained that she had just gotten over an ear infection, and bronchiolitis. The doctor told me to try and make her as comfortable as possible with tylenol, and to bring her in the next morning on Saturday. Thank goodness our PED has Saturday morning office hours! Kelly and I made the decision Friday evening to take her in to get checked around 8:30am when the office opened. Thankfully, we were also finally able to get her to sleep around 6:45pm and she stayed asleep for 5 hours! She woke up a few times - Kelly got up each time to let me rest! Even after a nights rest for our daughter, we still decided to take her into the PED office to get checked out. We didn't want to take any chances in case she was experiencing another ear infection.

We headed into the PED office around 9:00am on Saturday morning. Turns out that Kaitlynn did not have an ear infection. Thankfully they actually looked perfect!! However she did have a sore throat! :( They did a Strep Test which came back negative but were planning on sending it out over night for a culture check just to be on the safe side. Kaitlynn has her first sore throat..... We don't enjoy experiencing these kind of firsts with our daughter. We headed home and spent the afternoon relaxing & resting! Since there was no sign of an ear infection, we kept our previous plans with Chris & Angi and met them at Jock's & Jills for dinner! It's always nice getting out of the house for a little while.

Since Kaitlynn ended up having a sore throat, we stayed home from church on Sunday morning. They don't want anyone bringing a sick baby into the nursery, which we totally understand and agree with! We ended up watching one of Pastor Bryant Wright's sermons online. Kaitlynn seemed to be feeling much better - she took 5oz. at all four feedings (6:00am, 10:00am, 2:00pm, & 6:00pm). We're so excited that she has spread out her feedings from every three hours to every four hours! She also took three great naps today! Two one-hour naps, and one two-hour nap!

OUr afternoon took an interesting turn when we got a phone call from a realtor wanting to show our home within the hour! We had no intentions of cleaning our home this past week because of our scheduled cleaning service on the 11th. Plans changed, we cleaned up a bit to get our home ready for the showing! It turned out to be later than expected - the realtor called about 30 minutes after we had gotten Kaitlynn down for her third (last) nap of the day. Kelly took Willa Grace for a walk, and I stayed at the house to let the young ladies in while Kaitlynn slept. Luckily she woke up right before they got to our home, however we ended up staying inside anyways while they looked at everything! In my opinion - the showing went extremely well, especially since I was at home while the girls came through the house!

VIDEO: Kaitlynn's conversation with her Daddy!

Monday was a lot more interesting than we had expected. First of all, we had Aquastar Cleaning Service come and deep clean our home which was wonderful. We also experienced the ceiling fan in the nursery falling, my dad stopping by on his way home and spending at least an hour with Kelly trying to put it back up. Turns out that there were several important pieces missing - whoever put it up before we were owners forgot a few items! Lastly, Kelly ended up getting really sick on Monday evening...... I was up with him until 1:00am, went to sleep in the nursery, got up with Kaitlynn at 3:30am, and 6:30am = pretty tired wife & mommy on Tuesday! Kelly spent all morning & afternoon sleeping. Thankfully it was just a 24-hour bug! Regardless of the situation faced on Tuesday with Kelly at home sick, Kaitlynn had a fantastic day taking 5oz. bottles, and taking a total of 4.5 hours in naps! I actually had to wake her from each nap so she didn't sleep too much during the day -

Nap 1: 8:00-10:30am

Nap 2: 12:30-1:30pm

Nap 3: 3:30-4:30pm

I usually never wake Kaitlynn up from a nap or bedtime sleep, but 4-5 hours of rest during the day is plenty!

We headed to our 1st music class at Kindermusik on Wednesday morning from 10:30-11:15am. Our session lasts 8 weeks, however this week was a free day so we have 9 weeks total! Kaitlynn loves music and moving around, so when I signed us up for it, I thought it was a pretty good choice! Her 1st class went great - it was the free Demo Session - we both thoroughly enjoyed it :) The weather finally decided to warm up into the 40's so we headed outside for a much needed walk for about 30 minutes! It was the perfect way to finish out our afternoon.

A new outfit from mommy & daddy!! "My daddy loves me!"

Heading home after our first music class!

Outside enjoying the warmer weather!!

Pictures were taken 6 days AFTER the snow/ice day!

A few updates on Kaitlynn:

She has become extremely vocal not only during the waking hours, but as Kelly and I are putting her down for naps or bedtime. We have chosen to rock our daughter to sleep - it only takes us about 10 minutes so we haven't really changed how we put her down to sleep. During the 10-15 minutes of time together before we put her in the crib, at least 5-10 minutes she's talking or attempting to sing to us! It's quite hard not to laugh during her performances before naps & bedtime.

She is still very interested in her feet - she loves to grab onto them and attempt to put them in her mouth. She loves our faces - she always grabs onto our noses, mouths, my long hair - OUCH, and our ears!

She also enjoys looking at herself in a mirror! Anytime she's starting to get tired and it's not quite time for a nap or bedtime, we put her in front of our mirror in the bathroom and she starts laughing and smiling :)

Just before Kaitlynn's 3rd nap today!

Her laugh seems to get more adorable each day, and her smile is too precious. She likes to run in place - constantly uses her legs. Maybe she'll be a runner like Kelly and I?!?! She has finally started enjoying her bumbo seat. Her back & neck control are growing tremendously each day. She is doing a great job at sitting and holding up her head with support. She is still not a huge fan of tummy time, but we have found that if we lay on our back and put her in the air on our legs, she will do tummy time much easier and for a longer period of time!!

Another favorite these days for our daughter is a few minutes here and there of Sesame Street, Clifford the Big Red Dog, or Curious George! We usually will let Kaitlynn sit in her bouncer and watch one of those shows for about 10 minutes or so a few times a day. She doesn't care to watch much more than that, but when she does pay attention all we hear is pure laughter! It's pretty funny :)

Looking back and and being completely amazed at how much our daughter has truly grown and changed in the past 5 months! She has such a neat personality these days and is so much fun to be around.