New Milestones

First, my apologies for the delayed posting.  Between going out of town for the weekend, running around in Dallas all day Monday, dealing with food poisoning Tuesday and Wednesday, and recovering today, things have been a bit crazy around here.  Thank you to Oma for coming to my rescue Wednesday afternoon once Keller went to work!  My energy was no where close to where it needed to be to take very good care of McKamy.

However, all that has hardly stopped Kamy from learning new things and getting smarter by the day.  She continues to amaze me at how quickly she’s growing up.  She’s not so little any more!

McKamy is seven weeks old!  I cannot believe that she’s been in our lives for nearly two months already.  Time really is flying by.  She weighs 10.3 pounds now.  We’ve got our 8 week doctor appointment coming up soon, so I am looking forward to seeing where she is on the growth charts and review her progress so far with our doctor.

Many of you know that McKamy had an ultrasound last week to check her hips.  Because she was breech for so long in utero, she had a relatively high chance of having a condition called pediatric hip dysplasia.  It basically means that the hip joint hasn’t fully formed the correct ball and socket joint.  Baby girls who were breech have a 1 in 10 chance of having some degree of the condition.  It’s treatable, but early detection is critical in how simple it is to fix.  McKamy hadn’t shown any signs of the condition, but our pediatrician Dr. Benzick recommended we get an ultrasound to make certain.  Fortunately we got the news in on Tuesday — everything is normal!  I have to admit that I am definitely relieved, though I had prepared myself mentally for the challenge if the results had come back differently.  BUT, that’s no longer a concern.  Hooray!

Here’s a quick rundown of what Kamy’s up to lately:

• Flexing her hands.  She spends more time with her hands open now, instead of always locked in a fist.  This means she is also starting to hold on to things that manage to make it into her hands — though she’s not specifically grabbing for them yet.
• Finding her thumb.  In conjunction with flexing her hands, she is now freeing up her thumb to find its way into her mouth.  She usually has her fingers wrapped over her thumb in each fist, so when she puts her hand up to her mouth, she is sucking on the entire thing.  Too bad it’s too big to fit into her mouth!  She sure tries to get it in there.  She’s found her thumb a few times already and I have a feeling it’ll be a big day when she figures out how to get it consistently.

  Folding her thumb in and then sucking on her entire hand:

• Holding up her head.  Kamy’s gotten really good at holding up her head and looking around at the world.  She can hold it up with greater strength and control now and routinely will hold it up for more than a minute at a time.  It seems like just yesterday she was starting to develop some of that control!

• Supporting her weight.  We do little exercises on the play mat daily to work on her muscle development and control.  Lately this has included working on sitting up under our own power (with just my hands for balance) and starting to stand on our feet as well.  It’s amazing!  We’re definitely still working on the whole body balance thing, but she’s getting the hang of it now.

I’m so proud of our little girl.  We love you Kamy!