If you're happy and you know it...

don't mind the singing =)

Recap of the last week

Kamalee is just all over anymore! For not being able to crawl or walk, she sure moves. Sometimes I step out of the room briefly, come back and she has gone MIA! Here are a couple of her stuck moments in the past week that she has gotten herself into. Sorry the pictures are so bad, they are from my phone. She was trying to sit. The table was in her way so she went under it. Trapped, she yelled. When I came she sat up and just bulldozed the table away!

Again trying to sit. She doesn't car what's behind her, when she is ready to sit...she sits.

Last Wednesday, we made another trip to SF for a doc appt. for Kammers. She was supposed to go for feeding clinic. It was a mess of a visit with 3 hours there and her dr. not being there as he was sick. To spare you the unhappiness of my trip I will move forward to yesterday. I called and talked to the doc's nurse to see if he was able to view the video swallow we did. GOOD NEWS! He said he thinks she is ready to try thinned liquids (just regular liquids with no thickener in it) from her bottle!!!!! We had been trying to transition to a sippie but she didn't do as well with that so for now we are quitting that. He said she is still pretty young to even know how to do that. But we are going to try a sippie and straw sippie when we go back in 3 months. Yesterday, her first bottle with no thickener she did ok but had a few times where it went to the wrong pipe. So we are experimenting with 1 package of thickener for double the liquid as normal. She does great with this so I think we just need to ease her into and she will do great. This was exciting news!!!! If she gets all of the thickener away, she will not have an 'unusual' things that she needs to do. This will make it much easier for us to leave her with sitters and family :)

Last weekend we had a fun filled time with birthday parties, swimming, eating and another trip to SF. (I don't know why we don't live there :o) We were able to see Kathy again and she is doing great!!! Rehab is going well and she is becoming very coherent and easy to understand. She still has a hard time remembering things from the past, but it will come. We are so very fortunate that she is here! They are estimating that she may get to go home in 3-4 weeks!

This is Kamalee on the way home. She was becoming restless so I removed her socks to find the best toys ever!

Fun Story

Last week I received a call from a lady in St. Louis, Mo. She said she had come across my website and was wondering my location from Sioux Falls. Confused on why she wanted to know, I answered. In which she responded by telling me her story:

This couple was adopting a boy born with DS and he was currently in the SF NICU. She came across my website when searching for someone to take pictures of a special needs child and discovered that Kam had DS. Long story short...I was blessed with the opportunity to take photos of the this baby with his birth mother, maternal grandmother and his adoptive parents. What a neat story. The adoptive parents have 8 other children; however, I don't know if they are all adopted or not. I do know that they are not all special needs children but they do have at least 1 more. They also had their 4 year old there who had DS as well. Oh CUTE! She was fun. She absolutely loved the baby. BABY! BABY! BABY! My baby?!?!? :o) It was fun to be a part of. Here are a few of the shots we did....

Some new videos of our little munchkin. She is getting to have a little attitude and getting naughty! :) Not yet crawling, she some how figures out how to get into everything that she is NOT supposed to! She is quickly learning the word NO and understanding if we slap (well tap) her hand that it is not a good thing...which she immediately makes us feel bad about by sobbing her way out of trouble. I think my day now consists of pulling her away from momma's pretties sitting down to work and having to do it again.

In other news...2 weekends ago when we visited Justin's sister, we heard some sad news. They thought that Kathy was going to be considered 'not hospital material' and would eventually have to be placed in a nursing home for at least 6 months. Well, our prayers continued to be answered and Kathy blessed! This last Saturday, she made HUGE strides. She joined therapy, walked, ate, spoke and went the the bathroom! The doctors were amazed and said she progressed 3 weeks in 1 day! What a true miracle!!!!! She is now in her own room in the Rehab area of the hospital. Best news of all...she has nothing hooked to her anymore. Her feeding tube, catheder and monitors are all gone. She is getting back to Kathy. Our visit this past weekend was so exciting. We were able to talk to her, laugh and joke. AND she knew us right away. Truly amazing. We are so blessed and truly believe that God is working through her!!!!

Passing OT

A few weeks ago, we checked Kamalee's OT skills with her age during a session. She was right on expect for one skill. She wasn't into 'releasing'. Meaning she didn't want to give up her toys :) Well just a few days after that she started giving me her toys. As she has proven in the past she doesn't like to be told what she can and can't do. She does awesome at putting her blocks in the box and taking them out! Which puts her at a normal 14 month skill level for OT. GO KAM!

Blowing Kisses

Kamalee's newest learned talent! It is so cute. She does this when we ask her to blow kisses or when we are saying goodbye.

Kathy Ann

We went to the hospital yesterday to visit Justin's sister and I just wanted to give a little update on her progress. When we first arrived there was people in there so the nurse told her "your brother is here." which she responded with a smile! She was happy to have familiar faces and she squeezed one of our hands the entire visit. It is going to be a long road of therapy and re-learning all of her skills but she is strong and on her way. She is very active and constantly trying to get out of bed. Justin scolder her telling her to stay in bed and she had a very Kathy like response...she stuck her tongue out! SO funny. She looks so much like herself again. We are glad to see that. She also responded to some of our questions by nodding her head and waved and blew kisses to Kamalee when Kamalee did the same. She tried talking to us but she has a treck in so wasn't able to. We asked if she was trying to talk and she nodded yes so we explained she couldn't right now, but soon. They have her in CCU but she doesn't need to be. They are waiting for a room to open up in the new department she is to go to. Hopefully monday she will have a bigger room and be out of the CCU. Hooray for that!