Kristen is learning and growing constantly. She is able to roll over from her front to her back without any difficulty...though she started doing that at five weeks. I never encouraged her until she was about five months old. She doesn’t want to roll back to her stomach yet, but I am sure that will come. At her six-month well child check up, Kristen weighed in at just under 18 pounds (about the 75th percentile). She is around 28 inches in length which is off the chart. Her hair continues to grow as well, I would say about a ½ an inch every month. It is well over four inches long on top. She rubbed a lot of it off in the back so that has some catching up to do, but I don’t imagine it will take long. I can put in pony tails on the top or two little pig tails which are pretty darling.
Still she will have nothing to do with drinking out of a bottle. We have tried numerous times, but she just chews on the nipple. A bit of liquid dribbles in to her mouth from that, but she doesn’t seem to care for the taste of formula all that much. Fortunately, she has been eating baby foods for the past month. Her favorites, of course, are the fruits, but she does like squash and sweet potatoes a lot. Beans and peas are pretty low on her popularity list. She usually will eat rice cereal in the morning mixed with yogurt and then a vegetable and fruit in the evening.
I took all three girls with me to the doctor’s office when I went for Kristen’s check up. After the visit, I was feeding Kristen in the car while the other two played on the grass. Misha and Amy ran over to me saying that Misha’s ear was bleeding. The day previous, Amy was playing doctor or something with her and poked a Q-tip into her ear causing quite a lot of pain for Misha. Misha didn’t complain about it much that night so I didn’t think much more of it. So I finished feeding Kristen and marched us all back into the doctor’s office. They submitted a request for us to see the doctor on short-notice. We had to wait for some time before we were able to get back in, AND I got to pay another $20 copay.
When Dr. Moffatt looked in Misha’s ear, the one ear that was bleeding was pretty red and inflamed indicating that Misha had an ear infection also. Aaaaghh what are the odds? She checked the other two girls just to be sure. She should have checked me as well, because I got sick a couple of days later. Misha got on antibiotics (more money), but she didn’t get sick. Lucky me!
Kristen has been sick since Sunday, so her schedule is quite off. I feel so badly for her. Misha had the same thing a week ago and had a really sore throat. She was rather froggy for about four days and had a fever and body aches. You know Misha doesn’t feel well when you can’t find her and you go into her room and find her fast asleep on her bed. With Misha being sick though, she could tell me what was wrong, so I know from that that Kristen must not be feeling great at all.
My brother, Brad, came for a visit last Saturday and stayed until Tuesday afternoon. When I realized on Sunday that Kristen was getting sick as well, I asked Chris and Brad if they would give both Misha and Kristen blessings. I always hope that my babies will wake up healthy in the morning, which they don’t usually, and wonder if it is some lack of faith on my part. Amy even asked me today why Kristen didn’t get better since daddy gave her a blessing. I didn’t have an answer.
Great Grandma Andrews came to visit three weeks ago. Grandpa Kline also came for a short visit. The girls love to have Grandma Andrews come. Their favorite memory now, which is also something Chris did with her when he was a little boy, is making chocolate-covered bananas. They think it is wonderful and love to eat them as well. Grandma Andrews flew in on Thursday afternoon with Larry coming in around the same time from Phoenix. Chris took Amy and Misha to go pick them up and even took them into the airport with him. They thought that was great fun. I guess traffic wasn’t so great because they didn’t get home until after 7 pm. Shortly after that, Chris had to head off to the church for a planning meeting with the bishop and other auxiliary leaders.
Amy had school Friday morning, but once she was finished, we headed into Longmont for lunch. Larry had to be back at the shuttle at 2ish so we weren’t able to spend much time in town, but Grandma did buy Misha a cowboy hat at Target and Amy a skirt and sweater. We dropped Grandpa Kline off at the shuttle pick up and ran a bunch of errands out in Firestone. We decided to get pizza from Papa Murphy’s and stay in and watch movies. Grandma was fine with that. She’s not up for much activity these days, especially since she is almost 82.
Saturday morning, I headed off to the church for Super Saturday. It is the first one that I have ever attended and there were some fun crafts that I was able to make. Chris stayed home with the girls and even came to pick up Kristen since she was fussing so much. He did pick up a wheel chair for grandma, so once I got home, we grabbed a quick lunch and then headed over to Flat Iron Crossing for an afternoon of shopping. Grandma bought a red hat for the lady’s group she belongs to and some wall art for her living room.
We were going to go to Olive Garden for dinner, but the wait was too long and we were all hungry. We ended up going down the street a ways to On The Border. I love this restaurant, but the food does not sit well with Kristen, and she is usually upset from it for two to three days after. I even ordered something different than normal, but it still upset her tummy. Oh well, I’ll have to wait awhile before I can go back there again.
Grandma’s flight was Sunday morning around 11:45. Chris stayed for about a half hour of church and then headed home to take her to the airport. The girls, of course, were sad to see her go.
Amy is still loving and doing well at school. Chris and I went to Parent Teacher Conference last week. Mrs. Stephen says that Amy is a great student. She doesn’t talk a lot, she does what she is asked, and she gets her work done. Her challenge will be to let others answer questions because she always knows the answers and to not be an overachiever. She is doing well in all areas. I am so proud that she is such a great student.
My paperwork for receiving my green card is still in process. We had to submit some new information because the INS office seems to have lost it (what a surprise!), but I received a letter last month saying that everything is in process however they can’t give any kind of time line for when I should receive my card. On the other hand, I applied for citizenship in July. I have my interview on November 21st. I am not sure if I will be sworn in then or at another time, but I was surprised that my application would be processed so quickly. I’ll be a citizen before I ever get my green card, but by then it won’t really matter.
We pulled a nasty surprise on the girls. Kaiser Permanente was having a flu shot clinic last Saturday. We didn’t tell them that they were going to get a shot until we actually walked into the room full of nurses. When I told Amy, she started to cry right away and Misha was none too happy either. They both clung to me and I had to push them ahead of me as we walked over to the nurses who worked with pediatrics. I hope that it will help us stay healthier this winter season. Sadly, Misha was already sick with a sore and froggy throat and fever. She was sad to miss trunk or treat at the church on Saturday night, but not so sad about missing church.
Brad gladly stayed home with Misha and many people asked where Misha was since both Chris and I were at church. Kristen was pretty docile during church-she even slept twice. Once I got home, I realized that she too was getting what Misha had.
Last week the girls were driving me crazy. Amy was teasing Misha and Misha was whining and whining and whining. Finally I got so tired of listening to them, I made them write lines. Amy had to write ten times, “I will not tease Misha.” She was pretty methodical about it. She wrote ten I’s then the next word ten times down the page until she completed the task. That was around two or three in the afternoon. Misha still hadn’t finished her lines of “I will not whine” by eight pm. She complained and whined and did some more. Chris added extra lines but that didn’t inspire her to finish even when she was threatened with even more lines. Chris told her she would have to go to bed at 7:30 and Misha jumped at the chance. I told him that she had to stay up and finish what she was given because going to bed was simply another way to get out of the task. She finally finished at 9 pm with Chris’ supervision. Such different personalities.
