Big Milestone

I realized this week that a large reason why I keep this blog is as a sort of digital scrapbook of sorts.  So I can remember the milestones and the memories and look back on my kids little lives.  So we are still decided on getting rid of cable right now, but either way, no more TV during the day for me, back to blogging, learning to sew, photography, etc.  I'm looking forward to spring.

Anyways, back on track.  Kayla has hit a pretty big milestone I think.  I'm not sure if this is early or late and frankly I don't really care because I love that she can do this so much.

She can officially write her name.  On her own.  Without any help.  On Tuesday, at school, they have a sheet where the kids can "sign in" themselves by writing their names in little boxes.  She was so excited to show me when I picked her up on Tuesday.  Now she wants to write her name in everyone's little box.  I didn't get a photo at school, but I took some photos of her writing at home.

She also loves to write Daddy, Papa, Lolo and Brody.  She sometimes writes Mommy or Meme, but I think she's still working on M's.  She always asks me to write all family members names so she can trace them and try to write them herself.  I'm so proud.  She even writes things backwards, which I'm sure might be sort of normal, but I think it's awesome and hilarious.  Wasn't there a famous person who wrote from right to left? Oh yes, Leonardo da Vinci.  She's my own little da Vinci.

Clapping

Does anyone else completely LOVE babies clapping?  It's like the cutest thing.  They use their whole arms and body to do it and the get this big smile because they can make such a cool sound on their own.  Or maybe that's just Brody.  Either way, watching someone discover the world around them is an amazing thing.

Brody learned to clap right after he turned 9 months old, and I finally got a video.  Enjoy!

I'm loading/editing photos today so hopefully more posts coming soon!

Verbalization

So, remember after Kayla's one year doctor's appointment and I told you I had been a little worried that she wasn't really saying anything that was the form of a word at all?  She was babbling a lot, but nothing in the form or shape of an actual word.

Well, Kayla must have ESP or something because she started "talking" about a week later.  I think a couple of her first words were "off" and "hot," if I remember correctly.  But after a week or two, Justin and I discovered that she would try to mimic our words whatever we said.  I started with feeding her apples for breakfast and she was just saying "apple, apple, apple," now it is one of her favorite words.  She also tried to mimic "purple" at first.

Here is a list of the words she frequently uses now and what they actually sound like:

• "Buh Buhy" = Bye, Bye (always accompanied by a cute little wave)
• "Aaaaahhh-ple" = Apple I tried to get this one of video because is HILARIOUS how to draws out the word, I'll keep trying. 
• "Buy-ber" = Diaper (a new favorite, she walks around repeating this one over and over)
• "Ha" = Hi 
• "Haaaaat" = Hot (don't think she quite understands what this one means yet but it's close)
• "Dada" = Dada obviously, the other morning she walked into the bathroom with me while Justin was showering and said "Ha DaDa."
• "HaDa" = Hot dog
• "Dak" = Duck (in the tub mostly)
• "Ah Da" = All done (I'm thankful for this one because I was afraid she would never actually say any of the words she can sign.)
• "Poop" = poop clearly.  Usually sounds a little quiet and more like pup.

Those are the main ones I can think of right now.  This age is so much fun.  She understands so much more and I feel like we can really communicate so much better now!  Here's a video of her saying "apple" tonight at dinner.  (You can probably just listen to the first half, I think the second half is useless. ;) )

Kayla's Baptism

We had Kayla baptized in the Catholic church the Sunday after Thanksgiving so her Hales grandparents could be there.  I think I already briefly talked about why we wanted to have her baptized so I'll just recap the baptism for you.  It all started out fine and dandy...

We found out right away that the Deacon was the father of someone I went to high school with so that was a pretty great start!  He was very nice.  There were 2 other babies there: 1 little boy probably half the age but twice the size of Kayla (slight exaggeration) and 1 little girl, and I mean little girl, probably like a month or so.  First thing that happened was the blessing on the baby's chest.  We were still sitting in the pew, so this part was ok, but I could tell Kayla was a little weary of Deacon John.  

Then we got up to go to the baptismal font with Kayla's godparents (Aunt Megan and Uncle Brendan). This also started out ok...

And then she understood what was going to happen.  

And Deacon John told me that this was a good job for the Godmother.  Heck yes!  Hand her over, she can cry for you Aunt Megan and then reach for me for comforting.  Perfect plan...

After that torture, we got her pacifier from the crowd, and went to take our place in front of the alter, where Aunt Lauren was able to snap a few photos of the 5 of us.  This was the best one...

Megan and I passed Kayla back and forth a little bit while Deacon John talked.

Next up, the oil on the forehead.  Kayla spent the whole time trying to turn away from Deacon John into my shoulder, so this was a bit of a struggle. 

In my defense, I'm laughing because look at her face here...

She spent the whole time with an eye on Deacon John.  Every time he got near her, she turned into my shoulder and cried.  If he wasn't looking at her or near her, she turned to the rest of the families in the pews and waved!  Seriously.  Cry...Wave...Cry...Wave.  You have to admit that's pretty funny.

Then it was the Godfather's turn to take part in the ceremony with the candle (after we got little vests for the babies.)

A blessing for the mother...

And the father...

And it's over!  Quick and painful painless.  :)

She is so glad it's over....

Just look at how glad she is that it's over...

Side-note:  Her teeth came in in the weirdest order.  Yes her left incisor came in first in the top row of four and they came in left to right in about 3 or 4 days.

Needless to say, I'm thinking baptizing early is better.  She knew too much about what was going on and she is so mobile all she wanted to do was get down and run away from Deacon John.  :)  He did say it was a good thing afterwards that she is weary about boys.  He has a good point.

Thanks for taking pictures Aunt Lauren.  :)

Toddle-r

So Kayla has been perfecting her walking for over a month now.  Yesterday I kept saying to my patients how I'm now understanding why everyone says early walkers are hard.  She gets into EVERYTHING now.  And today, I was thinking about the word "toddler" and when exactly your baby changes to a toddler...so I thought:

Well, you know that rule in the English language where you add -r/-er to the root verb to make a noun that means "one who does said verb?"  So I looked up "toddle" in the dictionary.  No, I'm not joking. :)

To toddle: 1. to walk with short, unsteady steps 2. to walk leisurely; stroll

So a toddler is one who walks with short, unsteady steps (or walks leisurely/strolls).  Well, I guess I've had a toddler for a while now.  Now gonna lie, I'm a little sad my baby is gone.  But...

Today, I'm thankful for my little walker.  Because there is absolutely nothing better than coming home from work, Kayla seeing me and when I squat down to her level and put my arms out for a hug, she toddles across the room, opens her arms and gives me the biggest hug, along with a smile (and a HUGE smile at that.)  

By the way, did you see how I used the word toddle...yeah I'm THAT good. :)

Enjoy:

Mother Nature

Mother nature seems to have blessed us with her awesome presence this week.

This week, Kayla has survived a 5.8(ish) earthquake, during which mommy ran around like a chicken with her head cut off.  I was scared.  I had literally NO idea what was going on.  I thought the house might collapse, but I wasn't sure what to do.  I wanted to run up and grab Kayla from her crib, but she was peacefully sleeping.  So I stood outside her door for a few minutes until it was over.  She slept through it.  Since then, we've had I think 5 after shocks, and last night at 1:08 am one that was a 4.2 (I think.)  Kayla had been sleeping like an angel up until this point (with a small waking at around 11 when she put herself back to sleep) and after that, she was up like 3 or 4 more times.  Rough night.

And this week, we are supposed to get hit by hurricane Irene.  I have a sort of sick obsession with the names of the hurricanes and the projected paths etc.  This started when I moved to Virginia for college and it actually mattered to me. :)  I remember my first big hurricane in college.  My parents were in town to visit and we were supposed to go to the football game on a Thursday night.  They were playing Texas A&M.  My football player friend was letting me use his seats...mid field maybe 6 or 7 rows up.  Well it was pouring due to hurricane Isabel, and I had a big weekend of volleyball games, but I wanted to go with my parents at least for a little bit.  Well, my dad doesn't leave football games early, even during hurricanes.  I was freezing and hardly remember the game, but I'll never forget that night with my parents!  (Hokie football rocks.)

I wanted Kayla to remember the name of her first hurricane (and Lord knows I'll forget) so I wanted to write the post to mark this milestone.

So this week, Kayla will (most likely) have experience her first earthquake and hurricane.  Crazy mother nature.

This post is dedicated to Aunt Megan, who said yesterday if she has to listen to one more person mention they can't believe we are going to have an earthquake and a hurricane all in the same week...(insert idle threat here.)


Where's Kayla?

New favorite activity

Last week, I quickly snapped some photos of Kayla's new favorite activity:

Pulling herself up to stand next to the coffee table, then proceeding to slap the table with her open palm while yelling out.

Step 1:  Pull up to stand

 Step 2: Yell at mommy (note my 2 baby teeth)

 Step 3:  Make my new favorite "scrunchy nose" face at Mommy

 Step 4: Slap the table with my hand

 Step 5: More yelling and laughing

 Step 6:  Watch myself hit the table some more.

 Step 6: Yawn

 Step 8: "Mommy, aren't I funny?"

Side note:  Can anyone tell me why the photos look so blurry in blogger?  They aren't super crisp but if you click on them, they are significantly LESS blurry.  I save them from photoshop as high quality jpegs...hm...

Squats

So, if you read my blog regularly, you know I've been struggling with my body image and working out (as well as sleeping!)  Well...

At least someone in the house is getting a good workout in...

This might be my last post for the weekend.  If I can get one in I will try, but we are heading to the middle of nowhere PA to spend time with some of Justin's family.  Until next time! :)

Fourth of July Midwest Road Trip Leg 2

Where:  Evanston, IL

How long: 2 days

Activities:  Walks (the theme of our trip really, Kayla got spoiled)
                
                  Hanging out with Gigi

                  Gigi feeding me my cereal and putting me to bed (to give Mommy a break)

                  Reading Glamour

                  Practicing my sitting skills

                 A lot of practicing

                 Oh, and I finally found my toes!  (This isn't entirely true. She found her toes a long time ago but hasn't really cared about them until now.  Now she's constantly grabbing them - laying, sitting, diaper changes, constantly.

Evantson wasn't as eventful as Glen Ellyn, but that's why I (Mommy) love visiting Papa and Gigi - because I get to relax a bit and we just get to be together.

Thursday morning (7/7/11) we headed up to Milwaukee for our final leg...

NMM 6/27/11

This week's episode of New Mom Mondays:

When all else fails.  Breathe.

I can't even tell you how many times in the first 3-4 months of Kayla's life I had to put her down and take a few deep breaths.  A lot of times crying helped me, but I had a lot more going on as well!  I promise it gets better, and soon you will find that you no longer have to stop and take a few breaths because the frustrating times are few and far between the extremely joyous times!  You will soon miss those days when your son or daughter was a newborn...

Speaking of babies growing up to fast...here are a few short videos I took on Kayla's five month birthday when she decided she wanted to learn how to crawl...up on all fours and rocking like a mad woman...

Meeting Uncle Brendan!

Some of these photos are blurry because I was trying to figure out camera/lens

So I embarked on my first flight with an infant to head to Evanston, IL to visit with my parents and little brother.  Kayla had not yet met Uncle Brendan, she only "saw" him on Skype when she was like 1 month old.  I actually flew into Milwaukee because it was $100 cheaper and Aunt Lauren picked us up and Papa (my dad) dropped us off.

Waiting to board my first airplane!

My parents had literally bought almost everything we needed except for clothes and my pump.  They borrowed a car seat, bought a pack n play, an activity mat, a stroller, bibs, towels, washcloths, burp rags (as you know I usually need a bunch of these), bowls, spoons and all the toiletries Kayla needed.  All I had to bring was clothes for her and me, my toiletries, my pump and her medicine.  This sounds glorious (and it was) however, I am possibly the worst over packer ever and I had like 3x as many clothes as either of us would need.  I guess I figured I had the extra room...

I slept during my first takeoff.

The flight to MKE wasn't too bad.  Justin dropped us off very early (before Kayla's normal wake up time) at the airport.  He helped me carry bags and check in.  The hardest part by far was getting through security.  Not to self (and any other new moms): don't bother packing a carry on for yourself with things to do or things you think you "need" to bring...you don't.  Literally, all I really needed on the plane was diapers, wipes, a change of clothes in case and my "hooter hider" so I could feed Kayla.  Oh and her binky since sucking is supposed to help equalize pressure in their little ears.  Along with these items, I also had: my camera bag (huge and heavy), my computer (huge and heavy but I wanted to play with my new Photoshop CS5 my mom got for me), books (mine and Kayla's...pointless) and toys.  The toys do turn out to be a bit helpful.

Don't worry, I spent the rest of the flight flashing my pearly whites...err...gums at other riders :)

The flight was a bit bumpy.  Anyone that knows me knows I'm not a great flyer.  I really dislike it and I get a lot of anxiety.  I had been up since 2 am even though Kayla wasn't for fear of flying and flying with an infant.  Kayla was great.  She slept for about 1/3 of the time and the rest of the time was so interested in everything going on around her and was way to busy smiling and hamming it up for the people around me to even bother thinking about crying.  We landed and Aunt Lauren helped us get our things in the car and it was off to Evanston.

I love being the center of attention

"Are you talking about me?"

The weekend ended up being a lot more eventful than I expected.  I hadn't told any extended family we were going to be there (not intentionally, just didn't), however, my parents did.  My Nanny and Gramps came by Saturday afternoon after we arrived.  Nanny was going to sleep over for a couple nights to spend some time with us.  Then Sunday morning, my Grammy, Papa and Aunt MEM came down to visit for a bit from Milwaukee, followed Sunday afternoon by my Aunt Lindy and cousin Kelsey (who were sleeping over).  So we had a busy weekend of family fun.

After the first weekend, everything was kinda like normal for me and Kayla, just with a few other people to entertain us: my brother, my mom for half the time, and my dad when he wasn't at work.  We took a lot of walks (when it wasn't either hot as **** or raining it's *** off), which ended up being about 3 days worth of walks.  My mom and I went shopping with Kayla where she totally spoiled her! :)  I tried to learn Photoshop while Kayla napped and her Gigi, Papa and Uncle Brendan played with her.  We played cards (a usual O'Neil family activity), laughed, lounged and generally had a great time.

On a walk to Lake Michigan

Notables:

• Sleep: Kayla started out sleeping like normal- two long naps and one shorter one and sleeping until 4 or 5 am with a dream feed at 10-11 pm.  Her wake up time was quite a bit earlier (5 am) which was HORRIBLE for me but what can you do.  And after a couple days, I decided I didn't want to do the dream feed anymore because I didn't want to teach her to wake up at 10 every night.  After that, along with teething, seriously learning to scoot, thrush, and just being too excited about everything around her, sleeping went downhill.  The last couple days there, she wouldn't nap longer than about 1 hr 15 min and sleeping overnight was terrible.  She would wake up at around 10 and I would soothe her back to sleep then up again around 1 or 2 to eat and after that, she would wake up on the hour, ever hour until morning.  This was by far the worst and most tired I have felt since she was born.  Luckily, since we've returned home, she is doing a little bit more like normal (although the middle of the day nap seems to be shortening...not sure why).
• Eating:  Kayla still wouldn't take ready made formula.  My mom thought it was funny how she gagged it up.  No one believed me but she seriously gags.  So by the end of the week, I gave her a bottle with 25% ready made formula and 75% breast milk.  I basically had to force her to take it but she did.  Since then, we've increased the ratio of formula:breastmilk and she seems to actually like it now.  I even mixed a small amount of formula with the rice cereal last night and she didn't seem to mind (although her poop today is quite a bit more solid...TMI but I'm not sure why.)
• Milestones:  Kayla seriously scooted ALL over my parents living room all week.  She's not quite as active here (maybe it's the floor, who knows, or maybe Mommy is boring). It's like in a day or two she went from struggling with rolling to scooting all over the place...including off the bed!)  Also, Kayla had her first time on a swing.  She LOVED every second of it and I got a great video I will post when I get around to it.
• Teething:  She is definitely getting a tooth.  I didn't know when I would know this, but I can see it and feel it in her gums and she's super fussy recently so I'm trying to go with the flow and comfort her while she's upset.  I have to admit, I really loved the rarely experienced cuddling time with my little girl on the plane rides and a couple times in the morning when I wanted her to go back to sleep for an hour or so.  I miss that cuddly baby!! :)

My first time in a swing

I like this gum massager

The flight back was a lot more eventful.  My dad and I got to the airport with about an hour and half to my flight time.  There was a long, long, long line at AirTran and not enough people working.  My dad was kinda irritated and tried to ask someone about it and to make a long story short...Kayla started to get angry (she needed a diaper change and doesn't like standing still) so I just figured, screw it, and walked myself right up to the kiosk to check myself in.  My checked bag was 56# but there was absolutely no way that lady was making us pay after my dad made a stink and my daughter was screaming in her face!  After that, everything was fine.  The flight was much smoother, but there were a lot of babies and they were all crying and talking and screaming, however, Kayla was pretty calm.  She cried a couple times for a few seconds because she was really tired (it was bedtime), but she slept for about 30 minutes and again was a ham for everyone around her.  The lady across from me with an 11 month old boy said, she's so calm, I'm jealous...since her son screamed for much of the flight.  I felt bad because he just wanted to crawl around.  Poor little boy's mommy couldn't make him stop, but she tried her darnedest.  

It's nice to be home and I'm definitely not afraid of flying with Kayla anymore, although still afraid of flying in general! :)

I love these last two photos!  Her faces kill me, and her little lips...sigh.  All photos are pre photoshop editing.  I'll make a post with before and afters when I figure it all out!