Promotion!

There has been a promotion in our house....and it isn't Brett or me. Kellan has been promoted to BIG Brother!! We are so very excited to be expecting our second baby, due June 28th, 2014.

 

2013 Christmas Card

Baby K #2 at 10 weeks!

Which means we have about 6 months to get Kellan over his fear of babies. I often envision the day the new baby is born, Kellan comes up to the hospital to visit us....pretty sure it won't be a picture perfect moment. And it will get progressively worse when he realizes the baby is coming home with us. Lots of playing "house" will be happening the next few months.

 

Kellan continues to learn, grow and amaze us each and every day. I was trying to count the number of signs he knows now and I couldn't come up with a number. He pulls new ones out all the time. It is very fun to be able to communicate with him considering his only word so far is still "YA" and he says that very selectively. By far, his favorite signs are 'hat' and 'phone.' Since my Dad, "Poppy" is always wearing a hat, Kellan has so lovingly nicknamed him 'hat' which is the sign he does instantly when he sees Poppy.

 

The fake phone is much more fun if he can have the real phone at the same time.

Most times, his signs are used in regards to something with Elmo....i.e. signs "on" and then points to the t.v. He loves singing and especially loves songs that have signs or hand motions to go along with them. Hickory Dickory Dock, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Wheels on the Bus and Twinkle Twinkle are some of his favorite.

In November, we took Kellan to the Kalahari in the Dells for a night. He absolutely loved it. The combination of Brett taking him down slides and him watching the other kids run and splash around meant pure heaven for Kellan. The weekend after that, Brett and I spent a weekend away in Door County to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary. It was a very relaxing weekend. I was very early in the pregnancy, so constant nauseouness and extreme tiredness were the main parts of my day. Brett enjoyed drinking alone while I slept next to him...it was perfect and just what we needed! We ate breakfast at the White Gull Inn, simply amazing. Visited a place we both went to when we were kids, Pebble Beach, rented a movie and went out to dinner for awesome bbq. Perfect little weekend away.

We took Kellan to see Sesame Street live in the beginning of December. To say he loved it would be a huge understatement. He sat perfectly on our laps and I'm fairly certain he didn't even know we were there the entire show. When he gets excited, his body tenses up....he was tense for so long, he had beads of sweat on his nose. He was in heaven.

 

His love for Elmo has only intensified. We are working to ween off Elmo while eating, we know it isn't a good habit. Though, it is a great negotiating tool. Since Brett's new job, I've taken over the duty of dropping off and picking up Kellan from daycare. Kellan is not a morning person (much like his mom) so we often start talking about Elmo to make him happy in the morning. He knows my van has a dvd player in it, so I usually let him watch Elmo on the way to daycare. Yep, I totally used to judge moms having their kids watching tv in the mornings....now I'm one of them. So worth having him be happy for the 10 minute drive. Speaking of daycare duty, I don't like the job at all. Kellan is in a phase of becoming very sad when I set him down to leave. The biggest pouty lip you can imagine accompanied by clinging to my legs asking to come up. Heartbreaking.

Brett is loving his new job so far. The company is called Stafford-Smith out of Elkhorn and he is selling kitchen equipment to restaurants, hotels, resorts, and universities to name a few. The company has done kitchen equipment for Miller Park, Lambeau Field, and Potowatomi! Brett's main travel area will be Madison and Milwaukee. Hoping this is his "dream" career!

We are going to come up a little short of Kellan walking by his 2nd birthday, but we are so absolutely happy with his progress. No doubt he will be walking soon. Other progress we are happy with, he's been sleeping like a rockstar. Most nights all the way through! Simply amazing. He must sense that his mama really needs extra sleep these days!

We've had a slow few months with appointments outside of his 3 therapies a week. Based on recommendations from his current therapists, we are going to have Kellan evaluated for vision therapy. His PT feels with the strides he is making with signing and motor skills that he should be more advanced when it comes to playing with toys. He definitely can see better when things aren't real close to him. He rarely makes eye contact when he is close to you. His OT noticed that when food is on his tray, he more so feels around for it versus looks down and sees it. I'm hoping it is one of those appointments where we go to it and they say he is just fine. I say "one of those appointments", but when I think back, not sure we've had too many of those!

We got to visit Santa at his therapy clinic this week. Wasn't sure how he was going to react to Santa, but he did quite well. Unfortunately I forgot my camera chip, so the first few pictures that I took were the best, but those were not captured. Humph. Here is one that the staff took for us.

 

After visiting Santa, all the kids sat in a circle and sang songs. Kellan didn't want to sit in the circle, but he absolutely loved being an outsider watching all the kids sing. We then got to have a therapy session at the clinic later in the week which was very nice. Here's a picture of him playing with shaving cream in therapy. I was pretty impressed with him. Definitely a texture he wasn't sure about at first but got better as we played with it.

 

The Kleczewski family has a lot to be thankful for, can't believe that we are on the cusp of 2014. It should be a very exciting year for us. Starting the year celebrating our little bug's 2nd Birthday complete with Elmo everything followed by finding out if Kellan will have a new baby brother or sister! See you in 2014!