We had some family pictures done by Bohle Images a week after Locklyn was born- Kynlie kind of stole the show hamming it up with her best friend Sterling. We got some great pictures out of the session.
Monday night we headed to Bismarck after Neil got off work for two days full of doctor appointments.
The trip went south when Kynlie got woke up by the toilet flushing after she had been asleep for a couple of hours already. Turns out that a couple of hours of sleep are enough to keep a two year old running until after 4:30 am;) Needless to say we were all, minus Locklyn (that kid will sleep through anything) exhausted on Tuesday!
The first appointment we had was with Dr. Samson, the optometrist. He said that Kynlie is doing very well with using both eyes, she easily switches back and forth between using either eye. We were concerned last visit as she was having a hard time switching to using her left eye, the one that turns in. She has gotten a lot better about letting us put her "pretty" (patch) on her eye, then she hates to take them off, so they get left on for hours. He still doesn't want to put her in glasses for her nearsightedness, but he said that she will eventually need them. He was very impressed with how Kynlie's vision is doing.
After our appointment with Dr. Samson, we had to go to the other eye clinic to see Dr. Litchfield. He said that he had to look very close to even see the scaring that is in Kynlie's eyes from the surgery she had for the ROP. He said as far as the retina, everything looks perfect. He did say that sometime before she is 5, she will need to have surgery to straighten out her eyes. He said that ther is no reason to wait but there is no hurry to get it done. He said that if we did it sooner, the only benefits are we wouldn't have to patch and cosmetically it looks better. We decided we would just get the scheduling going for that as it can take 6-8 weeks to get in for the surgery. He does want to refer us to a surgeon that does more of that kind of surgery on kids though, and he said that Rapid City has one tha the has used a lot so it looks like that's where we'll be headed in the near future.
Tuesday afternoon, we went to Medcenter One for Kynlie's appointment with Dr. Ocejo. It is always great to see him again! Kynlie weighed 26 lbs and was 34" long, which are all in the 10th percentile. He said he wasn't concerned about her being small, she's already done a lot of catching up and she will probably be tall like Neil and I! He had a lot of fun playing with her and they both giggled a lot! He said she looked great, keep doing what we are doing and see him again in a year. He said we could start to try weaning her off her reflux medicine so we are going to do that. He also gave us some good pointers on discipline and helping Kynlie adjust to having the new baby around.
After Kynlie's appointment, we went up to the NICU to see her nurses. We got to see quite a few of them that took care of Kynlie a lot so it was great catching up. One of them even came running out of the NICU to see us when she heard we were there! That place sure brings back a lot of memories!
They were also having their well baby clinic so we went and got Locklyn weighed and measured. She weighed 9 lb 5 oz- she likes her milk!
Wednesday morning, Neil had an eye appointment with Kynlie's eye doctor to talk about getting Lasik surgery done on his eyes. He thinks it's a go as he is getting to the point that he needs to wear his glasses all the time and he doesn't like that at all!
Wednesday afternoon, Kynlie had her last NICU follow up for PT and OT. They both discharged her from the program and said that they were very impressed with all the progress Kynlie has made in the last 6 months. She is doing a lot of things that aren't expected for quite a few more months so that was great to hear. They want us to work with her on jumping and trying to get her to determine her dominant hand. I know I am a proud mom, but I have to say that I am SO impressed with the fact that statistically, Kynlie shouldn't be with us, and she is almost completley caught up to her actual age for size and developmentally!
On the way home, I called Kynlie's speech therapist to see if she had any openings she could squeeze us into and there luckily was one at the exact time we were going through Dickinson. I absolutely LOVE watching her appointments because Kynlie tries SOOOooo hard to do exactly what Valerie is asking her and it is adorable. She is making huge progress, she will repeat every consonant sound you ask, she is repeating some words and she is getting so much better at getting her vowel sounds right. I'm sure in a month or two I'll ask myself "What was I thinking wanting her to talk?" The girl is already a jabber mouth, I can only imagine what she'll say when she's got real words!
