Kadin's Journey Continues

I honestly can not believe that I have not continued in my blogging about our little miracle man. He is so awesome, so loving, so fun, so BUSSSSSY!!! Maybe that’s why I haven’t had time to blog. It really does take a little time to sit down and collect my thoughts about what I want to convey here. For so long, there was not enough room in my brain for everything that happened, and it seemed as soon as it happened I was channeling it out my fingertips so that I would not lose any of it.

Yesterday, a sweet friend of mine that I met in the hospital when Kadin was in the NICU began her vision for a foundation in her son’s honor that will help others by supporting them emotionally through their preemie roller-coasters. She requested that I share a little bit of Kadin’s story on her page so that other’s may be inspired. So, I did. And all day long after that, it’s all I could think about. I also was able to share his story with about 3 other people throughout the day yesterday. It makes me so proud, yet extremely humbled, to be able to tell others “Look what the Lord has done!!!”

Moving to FW included a vision for establishing the Kadin Isaiah Kirkpatrick Foundation for Micro-Preemies and Preemies. Unfortunately, that has not been completely established at this time. Life has taken a few different turns than were originally planned, but the vision had not died and if it’s the last thing I do in my son’s honor, I will do it. I have met a few people who are helping me on the right path, I just have to follow through now.

So with all that being said, you now know that I will continue writing about my awesome son’s life, where he is in his development, his attitude, his spiritual life, etc. I truly want to help others know they can make it through anything. I believe with all that I have and am that each one of us will get out of life exactly what we put into it. I haven’t always sown to the positive side of life and maybe that is why I had to go through such rough times in this journey with Kadin, but I can tell you that God heard my cries and saw fit to extend His Mighty Hand to grab mine as I reached for Him and cried out for Him to carry me through this. I don’t recall a time at all after that that His presence was not made known to me!

I pray someone’s life is touched and changed for the better by knowing Kadin, if only through this blog….

Happy Thursday, people! Smile at someone today, for no reason at all, except to hopefully see them smile back! 

Leslie

Happy 2nd Birthday, Kadin!!

I am having the typical response today to the realization that my miracle baby is already 2 - where has the time gone? What have we spent the last 2 years doing?? The first 4 and a half months of his life seem like a dream to me. I know God carried us thru that time in his life because most of it seems like a blur while other times are extremely vivid to me. After coming home, I know we spent the next year going to Dr. visits in the metroplex. We are so blessed that Kadin was released from regular check ups with his Dr., but we really miss taking those trips to see the people that had such a miraculous hand in allowing us to keep him!  He keeps me so very busy. It is so amazing where he has come from in his short little life. This birthday snuck up on us. We didn't have a big party for him when he turned one because we had sooooo much going on in our lives. I think at that time we were still going to the Dr.'s in FW about twice a month. We will be having some kind of party for him in about a week and a half, because again, we have soooo much going on. I wanted to do it this Saturday, but we have Harvest Ball that day and no free time that day when the whole family can get together.

For being 2 already, my little man is still tiny. He might weigh about 19 pounds and is wearing 12 month clothes (some 2T and under fit him, just depends on what they are!) He talks non-stop but it's pretty much Kadin-Language. He can definitely say "Hook Em" and "Wreck Em" and many many other words that you would recognize, but as far as putting sentences together, we aren't there just yet. I am not able to work with him as much as I desire and as he needs because I am still working from home, but that is hopefully going to change very soon. He isn't in therapy anymore as I wrote about a few months back, but we may have him evaluated this month just "to see" how things are going. He seems so very normal to me. He is quite stubborn and likes to wear his sissy's fake pearls. He likes to sing in my microphone and sit in my lap while I work. He can't wait til Daddy gets home so they can "fick it" and take out the trash! Even though he doesn't see his big brother JT often, he hasn't forgotten him and runs to him every time we see him. The other kids are like air to him. It's so awesome to witness...

I realize I will be 56 when Kadin graduates high school, but living for God and my children is all that I desire, so bring it on.... lol  :)

Happy Birthday, Kadin-Poo!!  We love you soooo much baby boy!!!

Your Emails

If you are interested in Kadin's Journey and continuing to read about how he is doing, please submit me your email address so that I can send you an invite to this blog.  Soon, it will not be public anymore and I want to make sure those that sincerely care about him and my family can continue to read and follow him.  


I will give it a few days ... Thank you very much for your consideration!!!


Leslie

ECI

Well, today marked another "milestone" in Kadin's Journey.  His therapist Marnie and our program coordinator Cindy came to visit him today to evaluate him.  Although he is still considered "delayed" somewhat, we have opted to discontinue our ECI monthly visits.  They will come see us quarterly for the remainder of the year.

Kadin has come such a long way and it is so nice to be able to sit across from someone STILL who knows how small he was, how he had difficulties doing "this" or "that" and can see what a remarkable journey he has taken.  He is such an awesome little boy ... I still call him my "baby", as he is still small like one.

We are so very excited at his progress and how he continues to improve every single day.  I know I don't blog enough about how things are, but for the most part, we have been cleared with all of our specialists and we just grow now.  We still have appointments throughout the year, but they aren't monthly like we experienced for the first year of his life.

Kadin is 15 months old today and we couldn't be more proud of him.  Our whole world revolves around him ... he is the world to most of those in our family.  I look forward to his continuing growth and achievements to come .....

Thank you for continuing to follow us ... it's been quite a ride!

Long Overdue!

Well, I tried to post this once earlier in the holidays but it didn't post, not sure what the issue is/was, but I'm trying again...

Kadin has come a long ways in the past few months.  It seems that he just started doing everything at once.  Once he learned to army crawl, the "normal" crawling was upon us before we knew it ... and though his therapists kept saying that he needed to be sitting up before he crawled, he did both within a few weeks of each other (crawling first) and it didn't seem to make much difference in him.  HE IS DETERMINED!  He began crawling and then sitting himself up on his side, then he was finally strong enough to sit all the way up and now, today, he is pulling himself up onto everything and cruizing along furniture, walls, doors, ANYTHING he can hold onto, he is GONE! lol  He is so precious!

Kadin was sick for a couple of months and we were really concerned.  I was having to give him breathing treatments two and three times a day, he rattled, he coughed, he threw up ... it was not easy and definitely not pretty, but we managed our way thru it and today he is just fine ... guess it was mostly allergies because no one has really been sick.  We went to the doctor once every week for a couple of months so they could monitor his sats and even had some xrays to check for pneumonia and any other infection that was keeping him stirred up ... glad all of that is over now.

Our little man is even clapping now.  He claps when he is happy or when he likes something, especially if you ask him if he wants a bottle and his answer is to clap, that means YES!  He also throws his hands and arms up in the air when we say YAY! ha ha  It's so precious.  He laughs uncontrollably when you growl, and he even growls when he wants something (like food) and needs to get your attention!

I can not believe how much this baby is eating.  I have to feed him about six or seven times a day.  He eats big people food and really turns his nose up at baby food ... but he just barely has 2 teeth showing so he can't eat much other than soft mushy things.  It's still awesome to see him enjoy all of our meals with us.  If you are evern chewing anything, even GUM ... he knows it and wants whatever you have. 

He has become so strong willed lately, but I actually think this is a characteristic that was present in him from day one, it is part of the reason that his fiesty little self made it thru all he has been thru, with little to no problems now, but for instance, he wanted my daughter's laptop tonight and had a throw-yourself-backwards-type of fit when she wouldn't let him have it!  I missed it, but I heard about it when I got home, and I can so envision it anyway that I'm almost glad that it was Daddy who got to deal with that one and not me!  He is very demanding, he requires a lot of attention, loves to be held, and is slowly but surely learning to cuddle with us.  Cuddling is not something that he has ever done.  I attribute that to him being used to not being held once he was outside of the womb ... yes he was held in the NICU, but for 10 weeks he was on the ventilator and if I got to hold him it was for an hour at a time and not every day, depended on his strength and issues present at the time....

So I guess we move on continuing to see our pediatrician and specialists as the appointments come up and work with him every day as he continues to grow ..... and just love him.  He is the greatest blessing I think we have ever had.  No matter what he does, he brings tears to my eyes (especially when he tries to rip my lips off, lol) and a smile to my heart.  He is so loved and adored with everything that is within us .... THANK GOD for our little SPOILED miracle baby!

Thank you all for your continued prayers, and if you would like to see Kadin dancing to the tunes of my 8 year old playing Rockband, go to www.youtube.com/redlady88 and you can get a good belly laugh!  There's a little air guitar in there too, just watch....

Blessings.....

Leslie