1st Trip to Minnesota

In early October Kinley made her first road trip to Minnesota. (Don’t worry, Kathy and I were with her to make sure she drove safely.) This road trip was around 11 hours long (not including stops) so we decided to drive through the night again, like Colorado. But to avoid the same incidents from our Colorado trip we scheduled a stop in Des Moines, to feed Kinley and visit some good friends. One of my good buddies, Brock from KSU baseball, lives in Urbandale with his wife, Liz, and their baby boy Hudson, a possible future boyfriend for Kinley. We planned the drive from KC to Des Moines to coincide with Kinley’s afternoon nap, but she didn’t sleep a single minute of the drive. The reason for her unwillingness to sleep during the drive is because Kathy and I had to turn her car seat to forward facing right before we left. Originally we worried that Kinley’s lack of sleep during the drive would make her fussy while visiting our friends. Fortunately, for everyone, she was not. Kinley ate as soon as we arrived in Urbandale and then spent the evening playing with Hudson. After Kinley’s “bedtime” feeding we loaded up the car and continued our drive. Thank you Brock, Liz and Hudson for allowing us to visit and use your home to feed Kinley. It really made our entire trip a lot easier.

Kinley’s new forward facing position continued to be an issue for her. She did sleep until around 1 am, but woke up when we stopped for gas and remained awake until we arrived at our destination at 5 am. We immediately broke out her pack & play and set it up in the guest room to try and let her get some sleep.

The main reason for this trip was to allow Kinley to meet her Minnesotan relatives, before it got too cold and too far into cold and flu season. Both sides of Kathy’s family live in Minnesota. We arrived early Friday morning (Kathy’s parents were already there), and soon after the house was full of family. In total: the three of us, Kathy’s parents, three of Kathy’s aunts, two of Kathy’s uncles and three of her cousins (all Kathy’s mom’s side of the family). Plus two dogs and one cat, we did bring Kobi. Kinley did great with the house full of people and pets. She wasn’t bothered by the crowd like she has been in the past. She was happy, played with everyone and even let family hold her.

The only rough spot of the entire trip was that Kinley had some MAJOR constipation. It was so bad we had to go out and buy her some suppositories and Miralax. Normally not a huge deal to buy, but we were in the cute, small town of Outing, Minnesota on a Friday night. The only store still open was a little grocery store that didn’t carry what we needed. We ended up driving to Brainerd, about an hour away to the nearest Walgreens to get what Kinley needed. Other than the constipation, Kinley had an absolute blast with everyone.

One of the highlights of the trip is that it snowed while we were there. That is not supposed to happen in early October, even in Minnesota.

For our drive home we were able to plan a similar driving schedule as the one we used coming up. Kathy’s aunt and uncle (on her dad’s side) live near the Twin Cities and we dropped by to say hello and also feed Kinley her bedtime meal. While Kinley was eating , Kathy’s uncle helped us find a Caribou Coffee that was still open. (We always make sure to get Caribou Coffee whenever we are in Minnesota.) Before hitting the road again, Kathy’s aunt and uncle packed us a bag of frozen venison and salmon. Kathy’s uncle is a big hunter and we LOVE venison. Kinley slept much more on the way home than on the way up. Luckily she stayed asleep when we stopped for gas. I also think that she was getting more comfortable with the forward facing position and she was probably worn out after meeting so many new people, discovering new places and traveling like a pro.

No More Medical Bills

As of November 10th, 2009 we are officially done paying medical bills for Kinley's stay at Children's Mercy! It took just about 18 months, but we finally got everything settled with insurance and the billing department at Children's Mercy. Yeah!! (sigh of relief)

The whole process actually went better than I expected considering how long Kinley was at Children's Mercy and how high her medical expenses were. I am not sure what the final total was for all her medical expenses, but I am sure it was over $1 million. The largest bill that we ever got was for $541,767.46. After multiple calls to the billing department, the insurance company, and the pediatrician's office, 18 months later it has all been taken care of and we ended up only paying the co-pays that our insurance plan requires. It it so nice to have that all behind us now.

Here are a couple pics of Kinley showing how she feels about the situation.

Those were the best pics I could get of her smiling. It is super hard to get pics of Kinley now because she is constantly on the move. And yes, that is Kinley playing in Kobi's bed in the second picture. Kobi is a great role model for Kinley because she is really good at sharing.

I also tried to get a video of Kinley's football cheer and was fairly successful with that. If you watch closely, towards the middle of the video Kinley claps once and then puts her hands in the air signaling "touchdown".

Better Late Than Never

Way back, on September 27th, Kinley was finally baptized! At 16 months old, a traditional baptismal gown would not work. We had to get a dress that would fit her as well as allow her to walk. Ever since she took her first steps she hasn't really stopped walking. She is constantly on the go! Anyway, we found a cute little white dress that was meant to be a little flower girl's dress and it worked out perfectly. We also drove all around town trying to find the perfect shoes to complete the outfit and finally found a really cute pair of white tennis shoes with pink rhinestones. They were the perfect combination for walking and dressing up, or so we thought.

Kinley's baptism was at the beginning of the service, so that worked out really well. She did great and even let the pastor hold her during the ceremony. Kevin and I were shocked. I think Kinley was just overwhelmed and didn't really know what to make of the situation. She was startled by the water, but still didn't cry. We were so proud of her! She did great and was so cute.



Shortly after her ceremony, Kinley started to get a little fussy and tired of sitting still. At first Kevin tried to distract her (picture below). Unfortunately it didn’t last so I took her out of the sanctuary to walk around and play for the rest of the service. Kinley walked/ran around for a long time and then got tired of that and started trying to crawl, but it was too hard to crawl in her dress. By this time she was getting very fussy. When the service was finished we quickly took her home and changed her into something she was more comfortable playing in. We were in such a hurry to change her that we didn't realize we hardly got any formal pics of her in her dress. What a disappointment. We really wanted some pics of Kinley with her Grandparents, and her new Godparents (Jess and Kim Adams).

Kinley texting on dad's phone

Once she was changed she had a good time playing with everyone at the little celebration we had for her at our house afterwards. She ate a little pizza, had some cake and mingled. I think all the festivities finally got to her though, because she ended up getting fussy again and called it an early night.

Oh, and just an FYI to any parents out there-once your child starts walking make sure to break in their new shoes. Since Kinley had just started walking I didn't even think about having to break in shoes for her, but all that walking she did after her ceremony in her new shoes totally gave her blisters. I am sure that is part of the reason she was so fussy. We felt so bad.

Little By Little

Well, little by little we are getting caught back up on the blog, and little by little Kinley is making progress as far as language development goes.

At one of Kinley's Infant and Toddler therapy sessions back at the beginning of October we decided that it would be beneficial for Kinley to be seen by Debbie, the Early Childhood Development/Speech Language Pathologist on a weekly basis. Prior to this all her therapy sessions had been every other week. I guess Kinley got the clue because she started to make more progress since she has been getting weekly sessions with Debbie.

Kinley is now just over 17 months and has recently started to point (on occasion) to items that she wants, she has also started to wave hello & goodbye, she can clap her hands when we say "yeah, Kinley", she can give a high five, give a hug, and on a couple of occasions she has used the sign for "more" correctly. This is a huge improvement from where we started out just a few months ago when we were concerned that she may have hearing issues because her language skills were taking a little longer than expected to develop. Debbie had said she thought Kinley was focused on gross motor skills and that as soon as she started walking, language development would be next and that seems to be the case for Kinley.

In addition to all the hand signs that were mentioned already, Kinley is also starting to babble a little more and there have been a few occasions where it looks like she is really trying hard to communicate with us, but of course all we hear is babbling, a good sign none the less. Kinley's new favorite thing to say is ba-ba. This works out great and she fools a lot of people because she will play with her ball, baby and bottle and everybody just thinks she is saying the object that she is playing with. She will also say ba-ba when waving and it sounds like she is saying bye-bye. Finally, she has been playing with her lamb a lot recently and we will say, "Kinley, what does your lamb say?" ba-ba (ie bah-bah). It is pretty cute even if she doesn't totally understand what she is saying.

Kinley is also getting a better attention span. Just recently we have been able to read books to her and she will sit and listen/turn pages for a whole book at a time. Previously we had been able to get a couple of pages out of a book and that was about all. Kinley also recently got a new craft table and she can sit and color for several minutes at a time. She actually has just as much fun coloring with the cap on her marker as she does with it off. I think she likes the sound it makes on her table. She played with play-dough for an extended period of time when her friend from Parents as Teachers came by for a visit. Kinley really liked the play-dough when it was rolled up into balls and she had a blast putting it in a little container and then dumping all the balls of play-dough out. Kinley did not like the play-dough when it was in the shape of a snake. Go figure. At least she know what she likes. Speaking of knowing what she likes, Kinley has also started to shake her head "no". We don't think she knows what it means yet because she will shake her head and have a huge smile on her face, but once she figures out how to communicate "no" we will be in trouble.

Other new developments for Kinley are that she can feed her baby a bottle, walk just about everywhere including outside on hills and up and down stairs (with some hand holding assistance from mommy and daddy of course), she has even tried to run on a couple of occasions and does pretty well with that. She will walk backwards when she has her little toy stroller to pull and she is trying more and more new foods each day. She has several toys that make noise and if she hears a song she likes she will start to dance. Unfortunately for Kinley, we think she inherited her mommy and daddy's dancing skills. It is still really cute to watch her move to sound and know that she is having fun.

Kinley is getting more comfortable around others which has made traveling with her easier. It is also a lot nicer for grandmas and grandpas, as well as aunts, and all Kinley's other relatives who want to spend time with her. It was also really great on Halloween. We didn't take Kinley out trick-or-treating, but Kinley had just as much fun watching all the dressed up kids in the neighborhood come to her door.

We really can't believe how Kinley is transforming into a little girl so quickly and is no longer our fragile little baby. Each day she amazes us and it is so much fun to watch her develop into our little girl.

In addition to strengthening Kinley's new developing skills, Debbie (and mommy and daddy) are working with Kinley to learn body parts, especially nose, mouth and eyes. We are also working on the sign for "all done".