6 years ago
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
I'm a bad blogger
There. I said it. Not only have I not posted an update in nearly 2 months, the last one I posted was actually back-dated so that it would appear as if it was posted in a timely manner, when in fact it was not. And that's not the only time I've done it, either. I'm on a mission to get back on top of things, but don't be surprised if the next couple of updates have screwy dates as well. And who am I kidding here? I'm probably making my big confession to a big ol' empty room, since I'm 99% sure all of this sorry excuse for a blog's once-readers have long since given up on me. I'd say I promise to be better in the future, but...yeah. Lets just say I'll try my best and leave it at that!
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Kyveli is 9 months old!
It's official - Kyva has now been an outside baby for as long as she spent as an inside baby! Kailen suggested throwing an "inside-outside" party to mark this important milestone, where all of the attendees would be required to wear their clothes inside out. Somehow the time got away from us and it didn't end up happening. Great idea though! Here are our favorite photos from your 9 month pics:
Soooo sleepy:
Dear Kyveli,
Welcome to your 9th month! We had a wonderful week-long visit with your Grandma Renee and Aunt Madylan this month. They came to spend your first Thanksgiving with us. Grandma Renee was afraid that you'd be timid with her since you hadn't seen her since August and are at prime stranger anxiety age, but after a couple of days you were total BFFs. Somehow I neglected to take any pictures during their visit with our camera (including Thanksgiving dinner), but we did do a fun photo session at Ortega Park with our good friends Shuka and Jojo, and Prabha and Sahana. Jojo was born one day before you and Sahana is a couple of months ahead of you, turning one in mid-January. Shuka's friend Yuki Yamashita was planning to spend the day with her, and wanted to gain some photography experience. The results came out so cute!
(L-R: Sahana, Jojo, Kyva)
This last picture, besides capturing a really sweet moment between the four of us, shows you doing one of your latest tricks: giving hugs. If you're feeling tired or are just in the mood for a snuggle you'll lay your head down on our shoulders for a bit. I love that you are now able to genuinely show affection and I hope you'll always be a snuggly kid.
We had a nice Thanksgiving at Sage and Pete's house. We got to see Mireille, our wonderful doula who happens to be the mother of Pete's youngest son, Sequoia, and a good friend of Sage's. We hadn't seen her since you were only a couple of months old and she couldn't believe how big you are now. She's expecting her third baby, and she's due a week after your first birthday! I mentioned to her that next Thanksgiving she'd have a baby as big as you are and she started welling up with happy tears at the thought. It feels very special to see her just like I looked at the same time last year, six months along in her pregnancy. We are all very thankful for you this year, our very own little butterball turkey!
Earlier in November we had our belated Bradley reunion at Harmony. Two other sessions joined us and it was really fun seeing all of the babies, including Kassandra, our instructor Kimberly's daughter who was born in September. Kimberly announced her pregnancy during our session, which was really neat! The other two families who made up our session were both able to attend, as well as a few other families that we have met through Harmony since then. Here are the babies who made it to the end of the reunion when we finally remembered to take a picture of all of them together. You're on the far left. Right next to you is Charlotte, whose parents Chrissy and Tim were in our Bradley group. Chrissy and I both attended the new mom's support group at Good Sam Hospital (even though you weren't actually born there), but we hadn't seen them in a few months. On the far right are Suman and Simran, twin daughters to Pallavi and Jay from our group. This was our first time meeting the twins!
You are really into pictures of babies right now. I picked up a couple of picture books of babies for you to flip through and you absolutely love them. . Each time you turn the page and see another cute baby, you get so excited that you squeal with delight! Here is a video of you with your favorite picture book (just turn your head to the side and pretend the video is right-side-up while we iron out our technical difficulties):
This video also shows how you can now imitate some of the sounds we make. You were saying "mama" earlier this month, but now it's "dada" all the way. Well, that and something between "lala" and "yaya". Sometimes a "ga" comes out too. Daddy even got you to make kissing noises one day, but those have since gone the way of "mama". It's kind of funny, whenever we try to get you to say "mama", try as you might, "dada" is what comes out. Either that or it's your own way of making a little joke. Perhaps Daddy has been brainwashing you while I wasn't looking? Oh well, I can be patient. It's all still babbling at this point, but soon enough you'll assign meaning to these sounds through all of the reinforcement you get. I wonder what your first word will be? As much as I'd love it to be "mama", I'd also settle for "cat" since you're completely obsessed with Pitsie and Nunu.
Though you're still refusing to be fed from a spoon 90% of the time, we have made some major progress in the finger foods department! You really seem to enjoy feeding yourself, and I continue to rack my brain to come up with new and interesting things to offer you. Some of your recent favorites include little cubes of marinated and baked tofu, pears, bananas, shredded cheese, sweet potato fries (baked, not actually fried), thawed frozen peas and mixed veggies, quartered grapes, blueberries, and as always, puffs. All with a sippy cup of water on the side - you take after your mama in the water guzzling department. We limit your water intake to 3 ounces or so per meal so that you don't overhydrate yourself, but if we didn't I'm confident that you'd be happy to drink water all day and night!
Another recent favorite are Baby Mum Mums. These ingenious little rice cereal bars dissolve easily in your mouth, and when broken into pieces, are the perfect size for holding in your little hands. You shove the whole piece into your mouth and then take the tiniest, daintiest little bite! You've also started holding out your little arm and offering your food to us, which is ridiculously cute. You explode into giggles when we pretend to take a bite and then dramatically thank you for your generosity and good sharing. Your ability to feed yourself has given us a new freedom during mealtimes, since we don't have to sit there with you the entire time trying to convince you to let the spoon come anywhere near your mouth. Now I can unload the dishwasher or *GASP* make myself a sandwich and actually eat it while you happily shovel food into your face. You do still allow us to feed you sometimes, so now I am wondering when to stop offering it. We'll keep going for now in the hope that it's just a really long phase.
We've also made major progress on the sleep front, which was frustrating us so much last month. I was getting to the end of my rope with the nighttime wakeups, which were beginning to average 3-5 per night. Out of desperation, we decided to let you cry it out for one night. This is something I intended not to do (I have nothing against other parents who choose the CIO approach, it just wasn't for us since we try to follow the Attachment Parenting style), but it's amazing what you're willing to try when you haven't had more than 3 hours of solid sleep in 3/4 of a year. The first night, after our normal bedtime routine of jammies, stories in bed with mommy and daddy, lights out, nursing and then humming you couple of lullabies, I set you down in your crib, quietly told you I loved you and would come back in a few minutes to check on you. To our utter amazement, you were asleep before 5 minutes had passed and never even escalated into full-on crying! You just fussed for a few minutes while you got yourself all comfy on your tummy with your knees tucked under you and your booty in the air, and went to sleep all on your own. It turned out that we probably had been distracting you from falling asleep by lying there with you every time. Then when you woke up at night, I only nursed you at every other waking, letting you fuss a bit and going to your crib to check on you every few minutes the other times you awoke. By the third night you were down to only 2 night wakings, and a few times since then you've only woken up once! We are all feeling the life drain back into us and seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel that you might actually sleep through the night at some point.
Since she wasn't using it and thought you might enjoy it, Sahana very generously lent you her doorway jumper. Lets just say you're a fan! You knew exactly what to do the very first time we put you in it and just jump, jump, jump! Here's video of you and daddy having way too much fun:
Well my sweet girl, thank you for another fun month. Now on to the next one!
Love, Mommy
Soooo sleepy:
Dear Kyveli,
Welcome to your 9th month! We had a wonderful week-long visit with your Grandma Renee and Aunt Madylan this month. They came to spend your first Thanksgiving with us. Grandma Renee was afraid that you'd be timid with her since you hadn't seen her since August and are at prime stranger anxiety age, but after a couple of days you were total BFFs. Somehow I neglected to take any pictures during their visit with our camera (including Thanksgiving dinner), but we did do a fun photo session at Ortega Park with our good friends Shuka and Jojo, and Prabha and Sahana. Jojo was born one day before you and Sahana is a couple of months ahead of you, turning one in mid-January. Shuka's friend Yuki Yamashita was planning to spend the day with her, and wanted to gain some photography experience. The results came out so cute!
(L-R: Sahana, Jojo, Kyva)
This last picture, besides capturing a really sweet moment between the four of us, shows you doing one of your latest tricks: giving hugs. If you're feeling tired or are just in the mood for a snuggle you'll lay your head down on our shoulders for a bit. I love that you are now able to genuinely show affection and I hope you'll always be a snuggly kid.
We had a nice Thanksgiving at Sage and Pete's house. We got to see Mireille, our wonderful doula who happens to be the mother of Pete's youngest son, Sequoia, and a good friend of Sage's. We hadn't seen her since you were only a couple of months old and she couldn't believe how big you are now. She's expecting her third baby, and she's due a week after your first birthday! I mentioned to her that next Thanksgiving she'd have a baby as big as you are and she started welling up with happy tears at the thought. It feels very special to see her just like I looked at the same time last year, six months along in her pregnancy. We are all very thankful for you this year, our very own little butterball turkey!
Earlier in November we had our belated Bradley reunion at Harmony. Two other sessions joined us and it was really fun seeing all of the babies, including Kassandra, our instructor Kimberly's daughter who was born in September. Kimberly announced her pregnancy during our session, which was really neat! The other two families who made up our session were both able to attend, as well as a few other families that we have met through Harmony since then. Here are the babies who made it to the end of the reunion when we finally remembered to take a picture of all of them together. You're on the far left. Right next to you is Charlotte, whose parents Chrissy and Tim were in our Bradley group. Chrissy and I both attended the new mom's support group at Good Sam Hospital (even though you weren't actually born there), but we hadn't seen them in a few months. On the far right are Suman and Simran, twin daughters to Pallavi and Jay from our group. This was our first time meeting the twins!
You are really into pictures of babies right now. I picked up a couple of picture books of babies for you to flip through and you absolutely love them. . Each time you turn the page and see another cute baby, you get so excited that you squeal with delight! Here is a video of you with your favorite picture book (just turn your head to the side and pretend the video is right-side-up while we iron out our technical difficulties):
This video also shows how you can now imitate some of the sounds we make. You were saying "mama" earlier this month, but now it's "dada" all the way. Well, that and something between "lala" and "yaya". Sometimes a "ga" comes out too. Daddy even got you to make kissing noises one day, but those have since gone the way of "mama". It's kind of funny, whenever we try to get you to say "mama", try as you might, "dada" is what comes out. Either that or it's your own way of making a little joke. Perhaps Daddy has been brainwashing you while I wasn't looking? Oh well, I can be patient. It's all still babbling at this point, but soon enough you'll assign meaning to these sounds through all of the reinforcement you get. I wonder what your first word will be? As much as I'd love it to be "mama", I'd also settle for "cat" since you're completely obsessed with Pitsie and Nunu.
Though you're still refusing to be fed from a spoon 90% of the time, we have made some major progress in the finger foods department! You really seem to enjoy feeding yourself, and I continue to rack my brain to come up with new and interesting things to offer you. Some of your recent favorites include little cubes of marinated and baked tofu, pears, bananas, shredded cheese, sweet potato fries (baked, not actually fried), thawed frozen peas and mixed veggies, quartered grapes, blueberries, and as always, puffs. All with a sippy cup of water on the side - you take after your mama in the water guzzling department. We limit your water intake to 3 ounces or so per meal so that you don't overhydrate yourself, but if we didn't I'm confident that you'd be happy to drink water all day and night!
Another recent favorite are Baby Mum Mums. These ingenious little rice cereal bars dissolve easily in your mouth, and when broken into pieces, are the perfect size for holding in your little hands. You shove the whole piece into your mouth and then take the tiniest, daintiest little bite! You've also started holding out your little arm and offering your food to us, which is ridiculously cute. You explode into giggles when we pretend to take a bite and then dramatically thank you for your generosity and good sharing. Your ability to feed yourself has given us a new freedom during mealtimes, since we don't have to sit there with you the entire time trying to convince you to let the spoon come anywhere near your mouth. Now I can unload the dishwasher or *GASP* make myself a sandwich and actually eat it while you happily shovel food into your face. You do still allow us to feed you sometimes, so now I am wondering when to stop offering it. We'll keep going for now in the hope that it's just a really long phase.
We've also made major progress on the sleep front, which was frustrating us so much last month. I was getting to the end of my rope with the nighttime wakeups, which were beginning to average 3-5 per night. Out of desperation, we decided to let you cry it out for one night. This is something I intended not to do (I have nothing against other parents who choose the CIO approach, it just wasn't for us since we try to follow the Attachment Parenting style), but it's amazing what you're willing to try when you haven't had more than 3 hours of solid sleep in 3/4 of a year. The first night, after our normal bedtime routine of jammies, stories in bed with mommy and daddy, lights out, nursing and then humming you couple of lullabies, I set you down in your crib, quietly told you I loved you and would come back in a few minutes to check on you. To our utter amazement, you were asleep before 5 minutes had passed and never even escalated into full-on crying! You just fussed for a few minutes while you got yourself all comfy on your tummy with your knees tucked under you and your booty in the air, and went to sleep all on your own. It turned out that we probably had been distracting you from falling asleep by lying there with you every time. Then when you woke up at night, I only nursed you at every other waking, letting you fuss a bit and going to your crib to check on you every few minutes the other times you awoke. By the third night you were down to only 2 night wakings, and a few times since then you've only woken up once! We are all feeling the life drain back into us and seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel that you might actually sleep through the night at some point.
Since she wasn't using it and thought you might enjoy it, Sahana very generously lent you her doorway jumper. Lets just say you're a fan! You knew exactly what to do the very first time we put you in it and just jump, jump, jump! Here's video of you and daddy having way too much fun:
Well my sweet girl, thank you for another fun month. Now on to the next one!
Love, Mommy
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