Clothes

Kaitlyn's clothing situation is starting to drive me nuts. I can buy her very little that will actually fit. It seems most knit dresses are A-line which doesn't work well with a spica cast. If I do happen to breakdown and buy an A-line dress I get it in 4t hoping the two sizes bigger will help it flow over her cast better; it works, but isn't the best choice. Since being in the cast I made her a t-shirt dress (see the "Pulling Up" post for a bad picture of the dress) and recently a skirt with Sew Sensible's Twirl Skort pattern. Of course I still can't get Kaitlyn's legs into anything because her knees are to far apart so I left the pantaloons off the skirt. Also, instead of the ruffle, I capped the bottom of the skirt. Because of Kaitlyn's big cast of a waist the normally full skirt doesn't look so full. I'm about to make another skirt only this time I plan to add a few more inches to the width so it will flow over her cast better.

And now one of my bigger frustrations with her clothing issue... stains. I've never had such a hard time getting Kaitlyn's clothes clean before. She can't sit up and eat like normal so more stuff falls on her clothes. Because of the possibility of stains I never let her eat a banana on her own before, but now she does and there are stains to prove it. I swear this stuff is stronger then Spray and Wash or Shout. I don't like the idea of making her something then having her immediately staining it. She actually has gotten stains on clothes the first time she wears it since having her cast on. I have 3-4 things that have come out of the washer several times sitting around with Shout on it waiting for one more try in the washer.

Okay, enough complaining, I still have two books to read, two skirts and a dress to make, and my “Make-It-Up-As-You-Go-Along-Quilt!” to finish.

Four Week Check Up

Kaitlyn just had her four week check up and everything still looks good. She will have surgery on March 4th to the pins removed from her hip. The doctor told me they will take her cast off, give her a bath (yippee), remove the pins, then give her a new, smaller spica cast. Her new cast will go to the knees on both legs. I'm assuming within a week or two of being in the new cast she will start walking or at least giving it a good go at it. Currently she pulls up and has even climbed on occasion. For the most part she crawls everywhere she wants to go. Saturday we were at the mall and let her play in the play area. She was crawling all over the place.

Speaking of Saturday... Neal flew in for the weekend. Him and I went to the mall with Kaitlyn on Saturday. They rode the carousel together and we went to Build-A-Bear where Kaitlyn brought Pippin to life. Every night I lay Kaitlyn in bed then pull out Pippin's PJs and dress her too. In case you are wondering Pippin is a fuzzy dog with a voice box in one paw that makes her bark and pant.

On Sunday we went to the Houston zoo. Kaitlyn really liked seeing the giraffes. They have a tunnel going through one of their fish tanks. Kaitlyn loved seeing the fish up close. The one problem was other children were using the tunnel just as a tunnel, not another way to see fish. Kaitlyn kept saying, "fish! fish!" I had to crawl into the other side and pull her out.

Pulling Up!

I have to share what just happened not even 30 minutes ago. Kaitlyn pulled up for the first time post surgery. It's only been a year and a half since I last mentioned Kaitlyn pulling up. Here's the picture mom snapped once she got up. I only grabbed her after she stood up. She actually had her cast in the air once she got up to this point.

"Making-this-up-as-I-go-along-quilt" part 2

Because of many diversities like mom only have a size 16 ball point needle for her sewing machine and one bobbin which was full of white thread, my "quilt" has been put off. Just a reminder I say "quilt" because I'm actually going to make a bath mat out of it. Neal is always getting water all over the floor after his shower. He says our bathroom rug is for catching all his water... my mistake, I thought that is why I supply him with towels. I know that isn't why I bought the rug thought. I wanted something that would look nice and keep us from slipping when we get out of the shower. I would rather anyone using my shower to completely dry their body, wipe one foot then put it out of the tub/shower, then wipe the other foot and bring it out of the shower. Now how nice is it to step out on a dry rug? Oh, it's great isn't it! It's even better when you are wearing socks and walk into the bathroom in the morning and DON'T get your socks wet. Oh to the day...

Anyway, my quilt top... Now that Kaitlyn is done with her surgery and moving on to the ornery stage of recover (or is that terrible twos?) I've decided to move on with the quilt. I bought and washed the fabric before her surgery.

This week I ironed and cut it into 3" squares. I was going to try 2.5" squares, but I lost my nerve and went for 3".

I drew a line across all my squares and sewed 1/4" on both sides of it. I was actually doing this step again today because I needed more then twice as many as I currently have done.

Here's all my squares pressed and laid out. I still need to sew them all together.

And for a bit of randomness... Here's Kaitlyn last night laying in her bed.

She had to sleep with her Little People prince and the wand. I kept picturing her waking up with it under her back. Thankfully that didn't happen.

The Children's Museum of Houston

Saturday I met a friend of mine, Julie, from Fertilichat at The Children's Museum of Houston. The kids had a lot of fun. I want to take Kaitlyn back when she is out of the cast. She was very limited on what she could do. I kept seeing things I thought she would really love to do if she only could. Instead I had to do a lot of lifting to get her where she could see to drop a ball, splash in water, look at baby chicks and so forth. On March 14th they are opening two new sections at the museum so it will be much bigger then. Maybe sometime this summer, if she is walking by then, we can go back and let her play.

The telephone man at the museum. I didn't see him until we were about to walk out of the room.

Here's Kaitlyn and Juliette (Julie's youngest) checking each other out while we waited on Julie.
Jenevieve got a kick out of her sister "milking" a cow.

Kaitlyn would have loved to be under the cow too, but she had to settle for sitting on mommy's knee while holding onto the cow. By the way, Kaitlyn's new thing is, "A cow says meow, meow". It doesn't matter how many time I tell her a cat says "meow" and a cow says "moo" she still says it her way.
And here we all are (minus Julies husband who is taking the picture). From left to right we have Kaitlyn, me, Jillian (standing up), Juliette, Julie, and Jenevieve. Notice Kaitlyn and Jenevieve have the same look on their face. They were tuckered out.

The picture in the previous post with Kaitlyn playing with different balls was shot at the Children's Museum too. I would have taken a lot more if she were able to do more or Neal were with me to snap some pictures.

Some of Kaitlyn's Favorite Things

Kaitlyn loves Little People. She plays with this castle from Uncle Jeremy daily. One day she will get back her whole Little People village (it's in Guam) and she won't know what to do with herself. Okay, it really isn't a village, but it feels that way sometimes.
She loves balls. It doesn't seem to matter how big, pointy, knot of rubber loops it may be she loves it. Some of the balls in the picture above made a noise when they were thrown. I almost bought her one in the gift shop, but they were almost $11. Yikes, it's just a ball!

Kaitlyn loves sunglasses. I was back at The Children's Place today where we picked up this pair and I considered getting her a couple more. They are only 2 for $5. As things would turn out she should have this pair here in the house somewhere, but I have no idea where they are. She keeps asking for them. My next mission will be to go get the second pair, green with polka dots, out of the car.

Doctor's Appointment

All is well with us. I'm finally over my five day long tummy bug; thank God!!! Today was Kaitlyn's follow up appointment. Everything looked well in the x-ray. The doctor asked if she is crawling yet. I didn't know I should be encouraging it. She actually has started crawling. Sunday was her first time. I sat on the floor of my parents church nursery and watched her struggle to Army crawl to a toy. She made it to her toy. =) In her crawling she tore the gortex lining on the left leg of the cast. I taped her up yesterday. She now has tape on every "raw" edge of her cast. After seeing the doctor we were sent to casting. I have no idea how Dr Brock or his nurse thought the cast was to be fixed. The guy checked Kaitlyn out and asked what exactly was he supposed to do. I told him how she had torn the gortex and I had taped it up. I told him I thought it would last until the cast was to be replaced in four week. He agreed and said I did a great job taping it up. He said if he were to fix it, it would basically look the same.

Did you all know Duck tape comes in all the colors of a cast? The day we brought Kaitlyn home I picked up some waterproof medical tape from the drug store. After putting some on her cast I realized it doesn't stick well. I remebered a website I read where the parents of a girl in a spica cast said they bought pink tape for it. So I rushed off to Walmart for some pink tape. It actually matches it really well. While checking out Walmart's tape I noticed they had several colors all good matches for a cast.
Here she is Sunday, laying in a Target basket. If you look closely you may notice the pink Duck tape around the toes of her right foot.
Mom took this picture of Kaitlyn today while we were on our way home from the doctor's office. Right before she pulled the camera out Kaitlyn had stickers all over her face.