Kyveli is 3 months old!

I had the goal of taking at least one photo each day of Kyveli during the month of May to post here, but we left our camera at the family homestead when we went to visit Aunt Heather, Grandma Marge, and the rest of the family over Mother's Day weekend. So much for that goal! It should be considered a crime not to have a camera constantly available when you have a new baby, since they change so quickly. Heather was kind enough to send it back to us, so here are some of my favorites from Kyva's 3-month photos:








The rest can be found here, at Kyveli's online photo gallery.

Dear Kyva,

This has been another busy month for you, my sweet girl. You had your 2-month checkup a few weeks ago and our suspicion was true...you really are growing like a weed! You weighed 11lbs, 4oz and measured 23 inches long at your checkup, which means that you have grown 4 whole inches and 4 whole pounds since you were born! I think you may even be a pound or two heavier now, since I find new rolls of cute baby chub every time I go looking. You did great at your appointment despite having to get 3 shots. That part was no fun for any of us, but I was able to hold you while you received them and nurse you right afterwards and that seemed to help you forget about your troubles. You were very fussy and one of your legs was red and swollen later that day but we gave you baby Tylenol and some extra snuggles and you were back to your happy self the next morning. Your mommy and daddy are not looking forward to your next installment of shots at your 4-month checkup since we hate the idea of anyone hurting you, but we know how important it is for you to be healthy. We also now know to give you the Tylenol before your appointment, so hopefully we can avoid the post-shot fussies altogether.

Your little personality is emerging more and more each day, and it's a beautiful thing to watch. You spend much of your awake time playing on your activity mat, which you now show us how much you love by squealing with delight! You can grasp the hanging toys with your hands and pull them into your mouth now too. Your newest talents are "talking" and "standing". You and I have had some great conversations over the past few weeks now that you can gurgle, coo and squeal. And you seem to love getting a big kid's eye view of things when we hold you up to stand on your strong little legs. Last week at our new mom's group I held you up so that you could be eye to eye with some of your baby friends, and you really seemed to enjoy that. You are becoming quite the little social butterfly!

In my last letter to you I mentioned how nice it would be if you started sleeping in longer stretches at night, and you must have read that part while I wasn't looking because you have begun to sleep through the night! It's not happening consistently yet - only about 50% of the time - but you're on your way. Now if only *I* could stop waking up at 4am out of habit on those nights, we'd both be set! For now you still sleep right next to our bed in a co-sleeper, but once you sleep through the night consistently we'll move you across the room to your crib.

Every night when we've gotten you to sleep and all is quiet, I feel like we've accomplished a small miracle just by getting through the day successfully. Having and caring for a baby - even one as cute and sweet as you - is no easy task. But we are all 3 months in now, and it seems like we've found our groove. Could it be that you have completed the 4th trimester, as Dr. Harvey Karp calls a baby's first 3 months? If so, that makes me both happy and sad since I know that you will only become more independent from now on. But I am looking forward to watching you grow and change every day, on your journey to becoming who you will be. And I will always love you, no matter who that is.

Love,
Mommy

What a difference 2 months makes

On our first night home from the hospital with Kyveli, I walked into the bedroom about to collapse with exhaustion, saw this, and my heart just about burst:



Fast forward to two nights ago, almost exactly two months from the night that photo was taken. Kyva fell asleep again with Kailen, who just happened to be wearing the same flannel shirt:



Amazing! This of course prompted me to look through all of the photos we took during her first two weeks. She was such a little peanut back then! I just can't believe how fast our little girl is growing.

Kyveli is 2 months old!

Here are some of the highlights from her 2-month shoot:




I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but yet again I can't believe how quickly the time is passing. How can it possibly be two months since Kyva joined us? At this rate she'll be off to college, to say nothing of preschool, before we know it. Here is my second monthly letter to her:

Dear Kyva,

You have been a very busy baby since you turned one month old! In addition to holding your head up, you can now keep it much steadier and turn it to look at things. You love bath time and diaper changes, ADORE your play mat, and you're even getting better at riding in the car. We discovered that you like Soothie pacifiers, even though you didn't like them when you were new. The pacifier has been the magic solution to the carseat dilemma, unless of course you are just too tired. If that's the case there's nothing that will help, so we try to avoid that situation. When you were really little we had to wait until you were sound asleep before we could try to go anywhere, but that doesn't work anymore since you seem to be a lighter sleeper now. Now we need to make sure you are awake, fed, and happy and then you usually tolerate the carseat with the help of your pacifier.

You laughed in your sleep a few weeks ago, which was very entertaining! We are really looking forward to your first awake laugh and I doubt we will have to wait for it much longer. Another very exciting development happened just a few days ago: you discovered your hands! I've been waving them in front of your face and showing you how to put them in your mouth, and this past Wednesday you did it yourself. You don't quite have the coordination yet to keep them there, but it's a start! You've also started grabbing and batting at the hanging toys on your play mat, which is very cute to watch.

We also took you on your first overnight trip away from home, to visit your Grandma Marge, Auntie Heather, Uncle Brian and cousins Shasta and Jevria for Mother's Day. We had a lot of fun and your cousins were excited to see you for the second time. Jevria really liked holding your little hand and talking to you to try to get you to smile at her! Grandma Marge gave us her bed so that we could be more comfortable, which was so very sweet of her. We brought along your snuggle nest and all slept together in the bed, just like old times...only now you barely fit in it! What a big girl you've become!

Just how big you are we're not quite sure, although you were almost 11 pounds the last time I weighed you a few weeks ago. Your 2-month checkup was scheduled for May 8th, but we had to reschedule it for the 29th. We're looking forward to finding out exactly how much you've grown, but most definitely not looking forward to the three vaccinations you will be receiving. I'm sure it's going to be harder on us than it will be for you...at least I am hoping that will be the case. We're big, we can handle it. You're just little and it breaks my heart to think of anyone hurting you! We've chosen a delayed vaccination schedule so that at least you won't have to get quite as many pokes when you're so new.

Not that I'm complaining at all, but I am really looking forward to when you start sleeping through the night, or at least longer than 3 hours at a stretch. You've shown us that you want your bedtime to be between 6:30 and 8:00 by getting really fussy if we accidentally make you stay up later than that, so we try to honor your wishes! Then we'll do a dreamfeed right before mommy and daddy's bedtime so that you can keep on sleeping for a few more hours. You consistently wake up to eat again at 3:30am, and then go back to sleep until around 6:30 when you decide it's time to get up for the day. I'll let you in on a little secret: your mommy has never been an early riser, so this has been a little tough on me, but I'll survive! Who knows, maybe you'll turn me into an early bird after all. You are quite possibly the only person in the world who I would do that for...because I'd do just about anything for you, my sweet girl!

Love,
Mommy

Here are a couple of final photos of our girl, just because I love them (we didn't use any special effects - she really is that beautiful!):

Kyveli's Newborn Photo Shoot

When Kyveli was 2 weeks old, we arranged for Kelly M (who also shot our maternity photos) to shoot her newborn photos. Toward the end of the slideshow below, there are several photos which were taken on a Persian rug. My dad brought this rug back for us from the Middle East as a gift, and it is very special to us. It's the same rug that we stood on during our wedding ceremony, and it has hung above the head of our bed ever since as a reminder of the vows we took that day. We were also really happy that my mom and two of my three sisters were able to be there the day of the photo shoot. We love these photos and hope you do too!

Kyveli is 1 month old!

(More photos - and an example of just how many photos we take of her - are here)

Actually, she's already 6 weeks old but I'm lagging behind a bit. I hope you'll forgive me! What can I tell you about our little girl? Well, she's awesome, amazing, sweet, happy, and lots of other nice adjectives. I'd like to start writing her a letter each month and posting it here. I've seen some friends do this for their babies, and I always enjoy reading these letters. This will be the first one:

Dear Kyva,

Thank you for choosing us as your parents! It is an honor and a privilege to call myself your mommy! Out of all the people in the whole world, you arrived into our arms. Before you, we were two people who loved eachother very much and decided to get married. But you have made us into a real family, and I thank you for that from the bottom of my heart. It was a wonderful experience to be pregnant with you, and to give birth to you. We made a good team then and we still do now that you are here.

You have gained over 2 pounds from your birth weight, and over 3 pounds from your lowest weight, since you lost almost a whole pound before you began gaining weight again. That means you are eating like a champ! And it shows...you've packed on lots of cute baby pudge and rolls have begun to appear where before you had a skinny little newborn body. You practically have a triple chin now! You have grown out of the newborn size clothing, and are solidly in the 0-3 month size now. When you were brand new, we had to buy a few preemie size outfits because you were too little even for the newborn size. But now you are large and in charge!

Speaking of being in charge, you really are in charge of what goes on around here from day to day. You hate your carseat and cry when we try to go anywhere, so that leaves us spending a lot of time at home. I'm not able to get as much done around the house as I'd like during the day because so much of my time is spent caring for you, but that's fine by me and just as it should be. I'm learning to lower my expectations of productivity (sadly, they were already pretty low). Sometimes I'm so sick of being inside that we go out despite your crying, although it breaks my heart to hear you crying in the backseat while I'm driving us somewhere. You've gotten a little better lately and possibly realized that the carseat is not some sort of medieval torture device for babies. We've started going to a couple of new mom's groups on Wednesdays, and it has been nice to get to know some other nice mommies with new little ones. You and I are both making some great new friends! Since you don't like the carseat, the Moby wrap has been our savior. Thank you to Sarah for giving it to us, and to Teri and Sage for showing us how to use it! When we're out and about you just hang out in the wrap all snuggled up against me and you seem to love it. I think you still like hearing the sounds you heard constantly when you were inside me, like my heartbeat, and that you enjoy the warmth that my body provides. Actually, I think I enjoy it just as much as you do. There's no better feeling in the world than a warm baby sleeping on your chest (in fact, you are sleeping on my chest right now while I type this letter to you).

You were holding your head up practically from the moment you were born. Now that you're bigger and stronger, you're learning to keep it steady and you don't flop around nearly as much. You started giving us real smiles a couple of weeks ago, which has been the most wonderful thing! You are happy when you wake up from your naps, which you show us with big gummy grins. You've also started to stare at your mobile during your diaper changes, and you obviously love it since you talk to it and smile at it too. We got you an activity mat to play on during the day, but you haven't had a chance to try it out since since it was missing a major piece and we need to exchange it. I think you're going to love it!

The last several weeks have been filled with a lot of trial and error, but we are figuring things out. I can now tell immediately when you are crying because you are tired, and we've gotten good at soothing you to sleep. Your other cries are still a guessing game, but when you're not tired you're usually hungry, and if you don't want to eat then you usually have to burp. And it's pretty obvious when you need your diaper changed! I hope you'll forgive us for the times that it takes us awhile to figure out what you want. You're experiencing everything for the very first time, and every first for you is also a first for us. Amazingly enough we're all still here and still smiling, six whole weeks later!

We love you very much, our precious little girl. Thank you for being you, and for being ours!

Love,
Mommy

New and improved belly cast

Remember the cast that my sister Sage made of my big ol' 38 week baby belly?

Well, she painted it for me! I basically told her a rough idea of what I had in mind - tree on the belly, sun on one boob, moon on the other boob, maybe the Pisces constellation near the moon, and maybe a heart in the middle - and a few days later she brought me this:




Isn't it beautiful? Sage is an amazing artist. This will be the perfect thing to hang above Kyva's changing table. Every time she looks at it, she can be reminded of where she came from, and how much her Auntie Sage loves her!

Active Sleep, AKA the many faces of Miss Kyva

This next video is not only quite entertaining, it's also educational! It's an example of Active Sleep in the newborn...who knew?



There are 2 states of newborn sleep - quiet sleep, and active sleep. According to the cool new book I'm reading, Your Amazing Newborn, by Marshall Klaus and Phyllis Klaus:

During the newborn period, an infant sleeps most of the time - about 90 percent of the day or night - and will often fall asleep at the breast. Half of this time is spent in quiet sleep, the other half in active sleep. These two states alternate about every thirty minutes during sleep.

In quiet sleep, the baby's face is relaxed and the eyelids are closed and still. There are no body movements except rare startles and extremely fine mouth movements. In this state, babies are at full rest; breathing is very regular because they are taking in the same amount of air with each breath. However, in all states, babies take a deep sigh every several minutes which allows the lungs to be properly filled with just the right amount of air.

In active sleep, an infant's eyes are usually closed, but occasionally they will flutter from closed to open. One can often see the eyes move under the lids. Eye motion or stillness accompanying these two sleep states has even been observed in the fetus by means of ultrasound. The term rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep refers to the eye movements observed during this type of restless sleep.

In active sleep, occasional body activity ranges from movement of the arms and legs to stirring of the entire body. Breathing is not regular and can be slightly faster than it is in quiet sleep. While they remain asleep, infants in the active sleep state often make funny faces - grimaces, smiles, frowns - and may display chewing movements or bursts of sucking. When babies wake, they usually have been in active sleep rather than quiet sleep. Adults dream while in REM sleep; no one knows whether infants also dream in this particular sleep state.